Weekend snapshots
A few snapshots from my trip to Iowa this weekend for our youngest nephews’ birthday party!
Reading Update (2024 #85, 2025 #1-3)
[85] Behind Every Good Man by Sara Goodman Confino
Fiction / Historical, can’t remember why I downloaded this!, Audio
Synopsis: Beverly Diamond finds her husband cheating on her with his secretary. With no degree or financial support, Beverly throws herself into helping an underdog senatorial candidate, Michael Landau, run a modern, women-focused campaign against her husband’s candidate. I should note – this is set in 1962.
Review: I was so confused by this book at first – like what’s with the old-timey names, and why can’t this woman just get a job? Then something revealed that the story was set in the 1960s, and suddenly everything clicked. At that point, I was barely tolerating reading it though, mostly because of all the barriers Beverly faced and her fraught relationship with her mother. But surprisingly, I got into it and really wanted Beverly to succeed. She turned out to be incredibly smart and likeable – someone you can’t help but root for. What can I say? It was a RIDE.
Recommend? Sure! Be warned if you listen to it – the way the narrator does the children’s voices is extremely grating
[1] Mullane’s Guide to Learning to Fly: Deep Dives into Select Topics for Today’s Student Pilot by Patrick Mullane
Non-fiction, saw on this 24 books for pilots to read in 2024 list, Kindle
Synopsis: Through anecdotes from his own personal pilot training, Mullane tackles topics every aspiring pilot needs to know with a straightforward and humorous approach.
Review: I really enjoyed this book, even though parts of it left my brain feeling fried! Combining real-life situations with straightforward language and humor is a great way for me to understand and remember a concept – especially when I can compare it to what I’ve seen and heard in my passenger flying experience. Mullane’s snarky takes on things I’ve also wondered WhY iS iT sTiLl DoNe ThIs WaY added to the fun.
This is a fantastic tool and helped me immensely, though I wonder if it would have made any sense to me a year ago or earlier, before Steven shared a lot of these concepts with me and I was riding along with him. Random – I also enjoyed the historical tidbits and explanations, like why planes in the U.S. have an N on their tail number or even why a bikini is called a bikini.
Recommend? Yes, if you are interested in a glimpse of what it takes to get your private pilot license, this is a great place to start!
[2] A Novel Love Story by Ashley Poston
Fiction / Romance / Paranormal, saw in a book store, Kindle
Synopsis: Eileen Merriweather escapes into romance novels to avoid real-life, but when her car breaks on the way to a book club retreat, she finds herself in Eloraton – the magical town from her favorite romance series. Trapped in the late author’s unfinished story, Eileen believes she’s meant to complete the town’s happy ending. Complicating matters is a grumpy, alluring bookstore owner who doesn’t want her meddling. As Eileen navigates fictional and real-life emotions, she starts to wonder if Eloraton’s happily-ever-after is tied to her own.
Review: I saw this in a bookstore and put it on Libby, having no idea what it was about. That’s my preferred approach to books – I hate blurbs that give away too much of the plot and would rather go in knowing nothing. But had I looked this up and seen the “paranormal” genre or any hints of magical realism, I would bolted. Those aren’t my genres.
So, I do want to say the premise was wonderfully creative, bravo! But the fictional novels and their characters, which were so important to Eileen, were painfully boring to me. I struggled to keep the characters straight and found it hard to connect with the town’s happenings. I skimmed this book more than I have any other. All because I wanted to see it resolved, but… (spoiler in next paragraph!)
The magical realism was never explained, which left me unsatisfied, and the love story felt rushed and oddly restrained. It seemingly leaned on the sunshine/grumpy trope, but Eileen only really felt like “sunshine” once she reached the fictional town. While the concept was unique, the “book-within-a-book” approach ultimately didn’t work for me.
Recommend? No
[3] Same As It Ever Was by Claire Lombardo
Fiction / Family Life, rec from Val, Audio
Synopsis: At 57, Julia Ames feels like she finally has a handle on life. But a few surprises and a reemergence of her past upend her sense of control. As old patterns threaten to resurface, Julia navigates maternal ambivalence, intergenerational friendship, and the unpredictable twists of life. I know, not very descriptive but I don’t want to spoil what little of a plot there is in this character-driven novel. And that is not a dig!
Review: This is a book where very little happens plot-wise, but it dives deeply into Julia’s character. I’ll be honest – Julia is NOT very likeable. She’s cynical, sarcastic, only really cares for her immediate family, and feels the need to hide her true self around most people. Her strained relationship with her mother and feelings of being unloved in her youth are palpable and shape who she is.
That might sound horrible, like why would I read this?!, but the writing was so beautiful and richly detailed that I was completely hooked, eager to understand why Julia is the way she is. Bonus points for being set in Chicago, which I loved! I do wish there had been more exploration of her husband feeling like his family didn’t understand him or find him interesting, but he wasn’t the focus of the story. Overall, a very compelling and intricately written character study with concepts I’ll be thinking about for some time.
Recommend? Yes!
A hidden gift
Surprise! You all received a little gift from me this Wednesday – without even knowing it! That’s right. After coming home from the dentist, fuming because they wouldn’t clean my teeth due to poor communication with my anticoagulation team, I channeled my frustration into a long, ranty blog post. And published it privately.
You’re welcome. 😆
Seriously, though, any time I keep a rant to myself* instead of blasting it across every channel imaginable, I feel so proud. I know it’s just a minor inconvenience, that I need time to cool off, and that airing it out will only fan the flames and leave me feeling even grumpier.
But on a work day that looked like this:
I really wish they hadn’t wasted my time.
*Well, obviously, except for poor Steven, who was actually getting his teeth cleaned while I waited for him in the lobby, then had to deal with me venting as soon as we got into the parking lot
Random Thoughts Thursday 482
- This year, I’m participating in my work’s mentoring program for the first time as a mentee. Yesterday we got our mentor assignments and mine is LITERALLY the top person of my organization! I feel like I won a prize. With so much uncertainty at work right now (I work for the federal government), the anxious energy around me feels overwhelming. I can already see myself relying on this connection to help navigate any upcoming changes.
- Instead of understanding things like basic math, science, meteorology, my brain is holding onto facts like this – what the first animated movie to be nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars was (Beauty and the Beast). I found a trivia section on our Roku and we played a bit of it Tuesday night. I surprisingly knew a lot just from random things I’ve read online and listened to on The Popcast. That was how I knew this fact – The Popcast just mentioned it in an episode! Good work, brain!(???)
- I totally jinxed myself last Thursday ranting about my bank sending me a new credit card, because that Friday morning I woke up and my other credit card had fraudulent charges. Thankfully the charges were small but the process to request a new card was pretty painful. I blame myself though. I got a text (and later I saw, an email) about it, and I never trust a text so I always call the number on the back of the card. Before I could request my new card I had to go through a bunch of steps, including declining an offer, being called back at the phone number on my account, going through the charges, etc. It seemed like if I would have just responded to the text with “NO” (that the charges aren’t mine) that would have sufficed. Lesson learned?
- You all know I love a funny butt shirt for the gym. My gym drops new designs a few times a year, and as soon as I saw this one, I knew I had to get it!
- The other week a friend asked me about painted rock commissions. I haven’t been doing them for a few years now for several reasons – high on the list being it sucks all the joy out of painting and that I’m very protective of my free time. All that being said I felt bad saying no to them, but proud of myself at the same time. Because I did consider it for a minute.
The Terminal
On Monday night after we finished The Departed (we’re reviewing it in work movie club tomorrow), we were looking for something else to watch. We came across The Terminal. I was like “I remember we both didn’t like this movie when it came out, but do you remember why?”
Steven said, “Yeah, we both thought it was super boring.”
Thinking perhaps we’ve changed and matured and might like it now (just kidding, I was sick of scrolling) I suggested “Maybe we should try it again! What year did this come out anyway?”
Queue me looking that up and seeing 2004 then HOLY SHIT THIS MOVIE IS 21 YEARS OLD! HOW LONG HAVE WE BEEN TOGETHER?! (Answer: over 22 years.)
22+ years of so many movies viewed together. Aww.
By the way, this movie is still… not for us. It’s so disjointed we’re wondering if we even finished it the first time.
No related photo but here’s the cats chilling with us on the couch!
Should I already know this?!
I used to track my headaches to try to figure out what was causing them, in the hopes I could avoid them in the future. And from that exercise I learned how many things were in my control – food consumption, caffeine, dehydration, lighting/noise/fragrance levels (at home) – and what wasn’t – stress, sleep, hormonal changes, muscle tension, and barometric pressure aka atmospheric pressure.
And folks, that is what we are here to talk about today – the weight of the air.
When I was tracking headaches, I would go to our handy dandy weather app and click on the pressure icon. Sure enough, on headache days, I often saw a huge change in pressure from previous days.
“A ha!” I’d think, “I definitely have a pressure headache.” And I actually added that to something I tried to get more into my control – basically by pregaming for big pressure changes with lots of water and maybe some Tylenol the night before or morning of predicted pressure change.
But all that time, I did NOT really understand what atmospheric pressure was. I knew the ups and downs could be triggers, but didn’t understand what the ups and downs meant, or why it was going up and down at all. I surmised I got the headaches from the variation of pressure on my body but, again, WhAt Is ThIs?
Should I already know this? Did everyone learn this in school? Seriously. Is this common knowledge?
For all my unknowing, I was never curious enough to look it up and understand it and save it to memory.
Until recently.
Because guess what has a huge effect on flying? Atmospheric pressure. (Duh, right?)
I won’t bore you with the details! Promise!
It’s just that it’s all coming together, and I wanted to share that.
I understood it was important to have the altimeter (altitude of an aircraft above sea level) set to the most current reading (shared by the tower or a weather report) so we don’t hit other pilots or terrain. I understood density altitude (the pressure altitude based on the current air temperature) greatly affects the performance of the plane.
But I didn’t have a grasp on the basics. Cold air heavier. Warm air lighter. Because science. Changes all the time due to uneven heating of earth. Just like the super freaking basics people probably learn in what, GRADE SCHOOL?
Steven and I sometimes talk about the subjects we’d retake if we were going through school again. Like the K-12 stuff. History would be much more interesting. Ooo, geography too! Physics would be more applicable. Things don’t stick for me until I have a personal reference point, and apparently headaches weren’t enough.
Next up to tackle: gyroscopic forces.
Repetitive dreams
I won’t bore you with the details, but I’ve been having so many dreams about trying to get somewhere and I can’t, and/or trying to do something, but I can’t.
WhAt DoEs It MeAn?!
Well, the AI overview from Google is not promising!
Dreaming about trying to get somewhere, but not being able to reach your destination, often signifies feelings of being stuck, having unclear goals, or facing obstacles in your waking life that are preventing you from achieving your desired outcome; it can represent anxiety about not making progress towards a goal or feeling lost in your direction.
Google AI Overview
Dreaming about trying to do something but being unable to often signifies feelings of anxiety, inadequacy, or a sense of being overwhelmed in a particular area of your waking life, where you might feel powerless to achieve a goal or overcome an obstacle; the specific action in the dream can provide clues about what aspect of your life is causing this stress.
Google AI Overview
Apparently, I’m anxious. Tell me something I don’t know, internet.
To the AI Overview’s credit, it did provide an action plan!
Will I be following it? No.
Do you ever google to see what your dreams might mean? I normally wouldn’t but that I keep having so many made me do it!
No related photo, but here is a picture of how I woke up from my last nap:
I’m hearing what you’re saying here…
Aren’t we all just meandering life looking to connect with people who have similar interests to us, so we can share our passions?
Maybe?
I just say that intro because I am going to talk about flying – but don’t leave yet! – I am going to make it broad. I promise. No flying details! Don’t go!
Let’s see how short we can make this story – during the pandemic I did a presentation at work on the garage we were building (we refer to it as Dragonstone). The presentation was open to the entire region and people were so freaking bored that many attended.
I ended the call on a high*, feeling very cool and proud of all we had done to build it (we did it all ourselves except concrete, brickwork, gutters, and floor sealant).
TO THIS DAY, many people still associate me with building a garage. That’s how they approach me conversationally – they ask if we finished it, for an update, etc. (It’s virtually finished – we just need to insulate it before we can set up the radiant floor heating.)
So I’m at the holiday party in December. At the portion of the party where we’ve moved to a bar. A coworker approaches me and asks about the garage.
I tell him the spiel above – virtually complete! – but that we spend a lot of our free time flying now, that Steven got his private pilot license.
You would NOT believe how excited he was to hear this. Turns out he did his private pilot training all the way up until he was about to solo, then stopped.
So we talked for a bit, sharing stories, and he was incredibly enthusiastic, our voices raising to hear each other over the noise of the bar.
Then at some point he said “Kim, I’m hearing what you’re saying here” and pointed to his head, “but I’m feeling what you’re saying here” then held his hand over his heart.
Now, if that isn’t the nicest compliment I’ve had in a long time. I believed him. I could tell by how he was acting that he was really did feel that way.
Was he three sheets to the wind**? I mean… yes, 100% definitely, but you can’t fake that enthusiasm and connection, no matter what is fueling it.
So! I hope you all find your people that you can connect that enthusiastically about the things you are passionate about! It feels so good when you do.
*That high immediately became a low low when I ended it and saw I had a message from a higher-up telling me to call them – I found out then I didn’t advance in promotion I thought was made for me (it was truly a blessing in disguise – I am not meant for supervisory work).
**I was not drinking that night but had a headache that made me feel lightheaded and drunk. Yay…
New year firsts
Stephany gave me a One Line a Day five-year memory book in December 2023, and I spent last year filling it out. Now, as I add entries for this year, I get to compare them to last year’s and reflect on how things compare. It’s been fun! This is one of my all-time fave gifts and I love it so much I bought a couple of them to gift this year (and plan to do more in the future!).
So far this year is off to a better start. I wasn’t sick on January 1 like last year and the January 9 work problem I said “better be f*cking resolved next year” is (but it took until last summer! eek!)!
Mostly, I am noticing I started last year with a lot of “first xyz of the year” entries:
- First El Famous visit of the year (on Jan 2 last year… and this year)
- First WWM class of the year (on Jan 3 last year… and this year)
- First INR visit of the year
- First in-office work day
- And so on
Have you done anything this year that made you stop and think, “This is my first time doing that this year”? What was it?
Random Thoughts Thursday 481
- I’m just finished Mullane’s Guide to Learning to Fly: Deep Dives into Select Topics for Today’s Student Pilot and really enjoyed it. It helped me grasp some tricky concepts and gave me a much broader perspective on general aviation (GA). But WHOA my brain was mellllllting while reading it (and still?)! And it isn’t even a textbook – it’s anecdotal and conversational – but it’s packed with so much information. If this little book was melting my brain, I can’t even imagine what Steven went through with actual aviation textbooks. Damn. The more I learn about GA the more impressed I am with Steven’s understanding of it!
- So. I’m reading that book and it gets into magnetic headings. I won’t bore you with all that but I was talking to Steven about this and DID YOU KNOW that the magnetic north and south poles can swap locations?! It’s called a magnetic reversal. Apparently the last one was 42,000 years ago and it took place over 1,000 years. This information blew my mind but maybe it’s common knowledge.
- Our fortune cookies have really been trying to get us to reconnect with old friends! First Steven, now me:
- I am going to count that ^ as my current mani pic too. All my nails are that glitter.
- I received a package from Katja in Germany last night and this was legit my face when I saw my very own vegan Santa! How did I forget about all the amazing vegan chocolate in Germany?! What a great surprise!
- My bank sent me a credit card with an entirely new number and what a pita it’s been to change my billing info for subscriptions. One place didn’t have the option to change it at all, and two had the option to change it but it doesn’t work. So odd. Do you want my money… or no?
- That small town magazine that ran my photo without credit corrected it online and is running a correction in the next issue. Woo hoo!
Hi! I’m Kim, a 40-something-year-old living in northeastern Illinois with my husband Steven, and our cats, Khaleesi, Apollo, Starbuck, and Eddard aka Ned. My current main hobbies are running, painting rocks, flying, reading, and eating. I follow a vegan lifestyle and work in an account management role. I write about a variety of topics and consider this a “life” blog – a place I can share anything that’s on my mind. Please visit the “About” page to get a better idea of who I am! 🙂
