Thanksgiving is in a week...

and I have no idea what we're doing.  We don't have plans, we'll just have to see what happens or what invites come our way.  I'm sure we'll have a wonderful day no matter what :)  I just wanted to take a minute to think about things I'm thankful for.

• First, for my wonderful husband.  He works so hard and I am so blessed to be able to stay at home with our child(ren).  Sometimes he drives me crazy, but my annoyances are truly minor and all in all he's just a really awesome guy.
• For my healthy, uncomplicated pregnancy.  As uncomfortable as I am and as much as I whine, I have had a relatively uneventful pregnancy this time around.  Yes, my ribs are on fire the majority of the time and some days I can barely walk (from time to time I'm trapped on the couch, even) because my pelvis is all out of whack and crazy, but I've had no bleeding, no bed rest, no cause for concern.  Little Miss is measuring perfectly on track at every prenatal appointment and has a good, strong heartbeat.  My "issues" are just my own discomfort, no health concerns or anything "wrong" with either of us, which is a huge blessing.  Here's a bump pic, 33 weeks and 3 days along: 

• For my sweet, amazing, crazy, exhausting, super awesome toddler.  C is seriously so great.  Sometimes I want to pull my hair out or just sit and cry (those are the days when he doesn't nap, lol), but most of the time he is so much fun.  He cracks me up on a daily basis and is such a ham!  This is what happens when he sees himself on the screen of my phone:

• Quiet time.  I don't get much quiet time, but I cherish it when it rolls around.  While I *should* use it to clean or be productive,  most of the time I'm either sleeping next to C or zoning out in front of the tv or computer to give my brain a break.  Sometimes I just sit and stare at my boy while he sleeps because I just can't get my head around the fact that I made something so amazing.  I mean, look at this sweetness:

• I'm thankful for chocolate.  Chocolate is sometimes the only thing holding me together at the end of a long, frustrating day.  Tonight I made these amazing cookies that I stumbled across on the blog Made.  Holy cow, these are soooo delicious!    I'll be whipping up a bigger batch for a cookie exchange party I'm going to on Saturday, tonight was just a test run.  I'm really glad I tested :D

What are you thankful for?

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A book review: Unwind

You may not know this about me, but I am a bibliophile and always have been.  My mom taught me to read very young because I was bugging everyone in my family to read to me multiple times a day.  When it was past my bedtime my mom would tell me to put my book down, turn on my tv, and go to sleep.  During the summer, my mom would have to make me stop reading and go outside and play with my friends.  I've always had a love for books and reading, and connect to characters and stories in a way that my moods, feelings, and perceptions change along with the book I'm reading.

In recent years, my pleasure reading has slowed.  Life has gotten in the way and there are just so many distractions, but I'm trying to change that.  I'm part of a book club with an awesome group of ladies, and we have different tastes in books, so I've been broadening my horizons and reading (and enjoying!) books that normally I wouldn't pick up.  This book, however, I was excited to read from the start.  It's right up my alley; young adult, future utilitarian society, suspense, rebellion, and something I can read quickly.

The book is Unwind by Neil Shusterman (title is a link to the Amazon page).  **No Spoilers below**

It's set in the future, where in order to resolve a civil war over abortion, lawmakers came up with the concept of "unwinding" as a compromise between the pro-life and pro-choice parties.  Under the new law, abortion was illegal, but you could send your teenager (starting at 13, ending at 18 when they were a legal adult) to be unwound.  Technically they aren't dying because every piece of their body is being used through donation.  All of them is alive, just split up among different people.

Medical science has advanced to the point where transplants for literally everything in your body are the most common way to heal.  Bad heart?  You get a new one.  Blind?  You get new eyes.  Brain injury?  They replace the injured part of your brain with bits and pieces of someone else's.  Instead of trying to fix or heal something that was broken, it was just replaced.  

While most of society saw this as a blessing and an easy fix, nobody really stops to consider that these parts have to come from somewhere.  From someone.  Unwinds, as they are called, are seen as troublemakers or criminals, people who had their chance and deserved their fate, so it was easy to dismiss the idea that they had to lose their life for another person to continue with theirs.  Further solace was found in the fact that technically, they weren't dead, they were just serving a greater purpose.

The book follows three teens who are destined to be unwound.  One is a troublemaker whose parents can't handle him anymore and sign the order, the second is a ward of the state who has fallen victim to budget cuts, and the third is a tithe; a sacrifice made to society by his parents, who are following the strict rules of their religion.  

It's a quick, easy read (I finished it in one day) but the characters are easy to relate to and easy to care about and the plot really makes you think.  It was an amazing story that kept me turning pages (well, clicking forward on my Kindle) and I was enthralled from the very beginning to the very end.  Read it.  Then come back and talk to me about it :)

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Ramblings on discipline and spanking.

I stumbled across this article today, and it got me thinking. Many people are firmly in the "never EVER spank" camp, many are in the "spanking is necessary for obedience" camp, but I think most of us are floating in between, not 100% sure how we feel about the subject. Here are my feelings on the subject as of right now, as a parent of a 1 1/2 year old boy.