The Giver (Movie)

I have finally watched The Giver. I was skeptical and scared at first. I had read things about it that made me think they had done the book some disservice but it was beautiful in my opinion.

I love the way they did the coloring in the movie. To have it start out in black and white and slowly transition to color made my heart happy. I especially loved it when Jonas left the Community and we saw it in black and white again until they received his memories.

I had the same emotions towards Gabe that I had in the book. The fear that something bad would happen to him was almost overwhelming at times. The scene where Jonas' father "releases" the smaller twin was heartbreaking.

Brenton Thwaites (Jonas) was brilliant in it. I was impressed with his acting since I hadn't heard of him before. Seeing his joy, sadness, outrage, and love was very well done. I loved it when he was trying to figure out the words for things. The look on his face after he says "snow" was adorable.

I'd watch it again for sure. It was rather enjoyable and complimented the book nicely. It also didn't end with me wondering as to their fate, I have yet to read past Gathering Blue so I wasn't aware of the goings ons of their lives after the end of The Giver. I'm glad I have closure from an ambiguous ending that had been on my mind for something.


Have you seen The Giver? What was your favorite part and why?

A Novel Idea

I used to read a lot in my teen years and for some reason YA fiction is still to this day my favorite genre. I started reading again at the beginning of this year, I'm not sure why I had taken such a long break. Maybe it's the fact that I had children or other interests that had developed but it had literally been close to 10 years that I had read in great quantity. I read about 30 books from January to May and got incredibly burnt out. It was consuming me. I devoured entire series like they were cake and it was my birthday.... or cookie dough and any day of the year really.

I kept a running list in my journal of what books I had read and I plan to give mini reviews of them on here as well as shows and movies. I'm still watching Revolution, albeit I got distracted reading on "The Tribe" while watching tonight.

I used to LOVE watching The Tribe when I was in High School. Seriously, that show was awful and I freaking loved it. The actors were sub-par and the script/plot was just downright cheesy but it owned my soul. I knew it was bad though and I didn't care. It was honestly the first thing that got me into Dystopia's. I never finished watching it though for some reason or another and so I HAD to find out what happened to all these terrible characters and then proceeded to look up almost all the actors to see if my memory was correct in what they looked like. This happens a lot. Wikipedia is the devil.

Back to the topic at hand though, books. I'm not really sure where to start. I think I will start chronologically and I'll probably end up going back and reading them all again because this is just going to make me miss those worlds quite a bit. To kick things off we will start with The Giver.

(Sidenote: I am downright awful at remembering specifics a lot of time. I do not for the life of me remember his or any other characters name. I also am very bad at remembering what happens in individual episodes of shows years after I have watched. I have watched every single Grey's Anatomy episode and all but the current season at least 3 times, but I could not tell you watch happens in each episode. I know seasons, when George dies, when Denny is around, etc. but specifics? Nope.)

I first read it a few years after I'd graduated high school so I was obviously no longer the target audience. I think I was pregnant with my oldest and while it's a short read it made me think quite a bit about society. I hadn't had children yet so when I went back and read it again earlier this year I was a little surprised that my thoughts on the book had changed. I had a hard time with the ending since it is pretty ambiguous and it involves a baby. The baby in general makes the book a hard read for me. The thought of the baby dying the whole time was distracting. The way they treat death so casually and callously was worrisome. The way it is written is spectacular, when he first experiences color it made me look at red differently. I have red hair myself so it was an interesting fit. When he experiences pain, it's beautiful. The feeling of snow, sun, all of it was remarkable.

When I read it again this year I saw how much they were protecting their children from most things. Heartbreak is horrible for anyone, parents feel their children's heartbreaks too. We see them become withdrawn and sad when someone is mean to them, we see them shy away from a new person. In that world those things didn't happen, people weren't different really and their emotions were subdued so they didn't feel pain, sadness, anger, loneliness even. Part of me thinks it's not necessarily a bad thing. But that is the point of a Utopia, it seems to be the perfect thing but there's always something that makes it a Dystopia. In the case of The Giver, it is death. The way they, literally, murder people after they've reached a certain age, babies who fail to meet developmental milestones on time, etc. I've had 3 children, they've all reached milestones at different times. Both of my boys would have probably been killed in their society. They are both small, one has minor health problems and the other had trouble speaking for a long time. My oldest met most milestones on time so she'd be okay (heck, she'd probably thrive since she wouldn't be able to be a sassy brat all the time). Not to mention the birth mothers of the babies and how they're taken from them and only allowed to have a certain number of children. It's heartbreaking as a mother to think about having any of my babies taken away from me.

It is incredibly late and I have to get up early to get her ready for school in the morning.

If you lived in The Giver's world and started to figure out how things worked, started to feel, see violet and yellow; would you pretend you were the same as others, try to convince other people of what you were experiencing, tell someone and risk punishment and possible death, or run away?

Walking Dead Season 5

We finally watched Walking Dead, it was so good.

There was a boatload of gore and I love it when they have herds so much.

As a mother of 3 I have an incredibly hard time with children getting hurt, especially babies. I almost stopped watching Game of Thrones a few times because of their shenanigans with the babies. Now I just have a friend watch it first and he lets me know if anything baby related happens.

I thought it was interesting the cannibal aspect, I knew it was coming at some point because I've read a lot of the comics and I totally called it at the end of last season when they were all in the train car. While they have deviated from the comics quite a bit, there's still some things that they've kept intact and for that I'm thankful. I'm also thankful they kept Judith around. Seriously, I am so so glad she's still on the show.

I get that Tyreese was struggling with everything after what happened with the little girls last season but he really should have killed that guy way sooner than he did. I was having a fit when the guy grabbed Judith but I kept saying, "she'll be okay, she'll be okay."

Knowing things like that ahead of time doesn't ruin things for me. In fact, it helps me because then I'm not blindsided by it and can remain above the covers/not have my hands over my face. Yes, scary things are the one thing that I'm a "girl" about. I just don't deal well with them. If faced with it in real life though, I get over it quickly. I feel like it would be different if it's your fight for survival vs. cowering in a corner and watching your loved ones die.

I know this was jumpy but my kids are up and I can't really form coherent thoughts at the moment.

In other news, we started playing WoW again and I'm so looking forward to Warlords. I will probably end up playing my Blood Elf more since I adore the lore that's there. I know they already said that Turalyon won't be present but I'm so hoping we get to see him. I know we've seen Khadgar a lot but I totally had a massive fangirl moment when I saw him in the Blasted Lanes quest chain. I adore Khadgar. I also changed my mages face so she looks less like a meth addict now. I still have to go on my other characters and mess with them but all in good time. Right now I'm just acclimating myself to everything and getting my mage prepped for WoD. I still haven't decided if I'll be maining her or my shaman yet. I need to play my shaman in a 5 man or something to get a feel for the healing changes and then make a decision.

I'll leave you with a question!
Do you have a skill that would come in handy in a post-apocalyptic world?

Ebola

With all the Ebola Virus nonsense going on here in the USA it has made me wonder more about infectious diseases--how they spread, how quickly they spread, and especially the fear of others that it brings.

As a family with small children we've had our fair share of infectious diseases. The kids have had hand, foot, and mouth (and legs, necks, tongues, so on and so forth), stomach bugs, and just general colds. They tend to get sick in groups. Thankfully we are rarely sick with them and are just left cleaning up the vomit they somehow manage to get everywhere because honestly, is it that hard to make it land in the bowl/toilet/bathtub you're currently standing in because you just puked all over your pillow, sheets, and blankets.... not to mention yourself. Oh look, now it's in your hair because we had to pull your shirt over your head, I'm just going to start cutting their clothes off next time.

We recently got over a nasty bout of a stomach bug. By we, I mean the kids. My in-laws were taking bets on which one of us parents would get it next, thankfully we didn't succumb to the nastiness that plagued our children.

Back to the topic at hand though.

With the recent Ebola case(s?) here the media has blown it way out of proportion with the fearmongering that they're throwing around. I really don't think it's worth the hype honestly. I think that this will be our Polio moment all over again. We'll come up with a cure/vaccine and 3rd world countries will finally have it, if they can afford it of course.

I do think that it will be something similar to a virus/disease that will end up leading to our inevitable downfall though. We over medicate our children with antibiotics which can cause immune deficiency problems, we are such germaphobes that their bodies aren't getting the necessary natural immunities to things and therefore they're getting sicker more often.

Antibiotics are a touchy subject for me. I don't condone the overuse of them but I also have a toddler that has to take daily doses to prevent UTI's. He's got a somewhat common problem known as Renal Reflux. His urinary tracts are a bit wonky and he should outgrow them. But what would happen if we met our apocalypse? What about our daughter who has the rare and elusive asthma attack?

Revolution made me think of asthma since the main character's brother has it and was having an attack in a field with what I can only assume is hay flying around. It was scary to think about. The show has definitely made me think about what lengths would I go to in order to protect my family. Would I kill? I think that if it were a kill or be killed/have my kids taken by some creepy stranger, I would do it. I would give my life for them now, why not when the world is going to hell in a handbasket?

Would you kill if you had to? Really think about it.

I should learn how to shoot a bow and arrow just in case..... not just because it's badass but because you never know when it will come in handy.

A Bit About This Project

I've been dying to write a post-apocalyptic story and haven't really been able to start.
I'm hoping this will help me.
I would love to do a Utopian/Dystopian theme but I'm literally incapable of figuring out a good one that really pulls people in.
I love zombie stories. I don't know why. The idea of that actually happening makes my brain tick.
After watching The Walking Dead I kept having these recurring dreams (and day-dreams) about what my family would do if something like that ever happened.
Part of me would love to live on a farm and work for our food, take care of animals, live by candlelight, and trade for the things we don't produce ourselves.
But I also love the modern conveniences of the internet, washing machine, and cars.
I must say that we would at least be partially prepared considering we cloth diaper our small people.

In my opinion, if disaster were to strike, the people who hunt would obviously be the ones to make it since it's a skill they already have. Which a majority of hunters are pretty well off.
The poor wouldn't make it probably, not because they don't know hardship but because they (we) lack the basic skills like hunting that so many people that are well-off have.
My family might be okay since we have a few fishers and the equipment for it, so long as the lakes, streams, etc. isn't compromised as well.
I don't know how I will start this really.
I don't know if I will share it either.
I do know that I need an outlet to write and this seems like the best way for me.

Oh, I may make another blog to showcase the stories my fiance and I are creating for our daughter with her sight words.
He's the writer for that one and I'll be tracing pictures and illustrating it the best that I can (I'm no artist).

Until the first installment, I leave you with a question (if anyone is out there that is). Please answer in the comments!

If disaster struck, what would your plan be? Get out of the city, find some nice farmland? Stay in the city and loot houses?

Research will commence soon, I may end up watching every single post-apocalyptic movie/show out there.