I work from home. When we moved into our bigger apartment, I knew I needed an office because it’s hard to motivate yourself to work when your office is your bed. We moved into a three bedroom apartment, and I monopolized the smallest of the three bedrooms for my office because I liked the bay window. At the time, my bookshelves took up one wall; otherwise, it was empty.
The first thing I bought was a desk so I didn’t have to sit on the ground. The criteria: no drawers. Drawers are distracting junk collectors. Next, was a big calendar white board for me to plan my non-existent social life and all my work projects.
My office is my favorite room in the house. I spend more time in my office than I spend literally anywhere else. I wake up, take the dog out, make a pot of tea, and start reading in my office for an hour before I start working. There are days, like today, I spend more than fifteen hours working in my office. It needs to be homey, comfy, and a reflection of me from the look, to the smell, to the feel, to the comfort. I want to walk in and be happy. My office isn’t perfect yet, but it’s damn close. There are a few more things on my list to make my office perfect. The biggest and most expensive purchase was the latest.
I have had a papasan since my 22 birthday. I love it, but it’s not conducive to work or reading with a 60 pound Beau in my lap. I’ve been wanting an oversized armchair for awhile, but they’re not cheap, and I had a very specific thing in mind. I had been eyeing an oversized chair recently that wasn’t exactly what I wanted, but it was as close as I’m likely to get on my budget. Two weeks ago, we bought it.
I bought the chair for me, but Beau has monopolized it. The moment it was set up in my office, Beau started dogging it up. She has a memory foam dog bed next to my desk. Now as I type away at my desk, she stares at me from my chair. She loves it so much, she hangs out in it while she’s home alone. I like to think it’s a testament to how cozy and me-like my office is. It’s probably just the chair. We can easily sit side by side in it or curled up together.
I didn’t think my office could get any better, but I guess it can. The chair has made me very happy and even more productive. Maybe more importantly, it has made Beau’s life happier. She has less anxiety when we leave her home alone, and she’s as happy as happy can be curled up while I work.
bisous und обьятий, RaeAnna
Shop the Post
[show_shopthepost_widget id=”3809809″]
Worth A Read Meh Length 289 Quick Review The Barbizon is now condos but used to house hundreds of girls looking to make it in NYC. What happens when the lives of a long-time resident and new resident collide?
The Barbizon really did exist as a women’s only residence in New York City. In 2005, the building was converted into condominiums. Fiona Davis creates a world where the two identities of the Barbizon meet in her novel The Dollhouse. A mystery with a touch of love and a lot of independent women searching for belonging.
Rose, a journalist, lives in the Barbizon with her boyfriend in 2016. Her boyfriend decides to go back to his ex-wife, Rose is left with a lot of time on her hands and a curiosity about the women who have been in her building for decades. Darby, an elderly tenant, never leaves her apartment without a veil, and the mystery piques Roses interest. Models, night clubs, drug raids, friendship, and more. Rose is on a journalist’s hunt with a personal investment.
Davis crafts the plot of The Dollhouse well. The chapters alternate between following Rose in 2016 and Darby in 1952. There is restraint in the story telling and tries to add some good twists, but I found the plot fairly predictable.
Overall The Dollhouse maintains a nice pace throughout the story and avoids clichés until the last five pages when she throws a good book in the toilet. I actually did not mind this one at all, but the last bit just ruined it for me. Davis does a good job maintaining a consistent and interesting pace, but the ending comes quickly and suddenly. It’s as if her editor asked her to wrap everything up with a nice bow and throw the love story completely out of proportion with the rest of the story. It was saccharine and a little vomit inducing how spoonfed it was. What was an interesting story about finding oneself and relationships between women ended up being a deflated mess of an ooey-gooey love story.
If I could erase the last five pages, I would like The Dollhouse much better. I’m trying not to let the ending overpower the other nice 200 or so pages, but I can’t.
Memorable Quotes “His eyes, which were the color of seawater, had a laserlike intensity that made politics the obvious career choice. That or terrorist interrogator.” “Not scared of change, like Darby was, but scared of staying put, staying unchanged.”
Read Yes Length 256 Quick Review Stephen Hawking isn’t an anti-social genius. He’s brilliant, no doubt. He’s also witty, sarcastic, charming, and completely relatable in his book Brief Answers for the Big Questions, published posthumously.
I had a wonderful time reading Brief Answers for the Big Questionsby Stephen Hawking. This is the first book I’ve read by Hawking. I read it on airplanes on Thanksgiving day, so the only break I took was walking between terminals. It’s a book that pulls you in and keeps you even if science isn’t your thing.
I was under the illusions Stephen Hawking was a one of those scientific geniuses who I’d be unable to have a conversation with because he’s that much smarter than me. Except that’s exactly what feels so wonderful about Brief Answers for the Big Questionsthe intimacy of it. It’s a conversation between Hawking and the reader. He doesn’t shove science and math down your throat; instead he is warm, funny, charming, and absolutely relatable.
His sense of humor is evident from the very beginning. The forward is by Eddie Redmayne, who played Hawking in the movie The Theory of Everything. Hawking is funny, blunt, and very self-deprecating “Eddie Redmayne plays a particularly handsome version of me…” It makes him even more admirable in his humility. The word “surprised” was used far too often when Hawking discusses his successes. Even though he was brilliant and earned everything he had, he seems completely shocked looking back at the things he accomplished.
There are very few things non-sciency people will need to look up because Hawking does not drown the reader in things they probably are unfamiliar with or equations. He wants Brief Answers to the Big Questionsto be accessible to all. He talks about theories and equations with a sense of humor because he’s talking to people not scientists. M-theory – I did look that up- and Einstein and quantum mechanics and The Big Crunch “In Britain, people don’t seem too worried about a possible end twenty billion years in the future. You can do quite a lot of eating, drinking and being merry before that.” are all there but understandable. It’s not just science, though. He constantly references everything from history, science, philosophy, literature, and pop culture ie: Jurassic Park, Star Trek, etc.
Has funny little Q&A’s throughout the chapters. They usually sum up in a sentence or two his personal feelings about the overarching question being asked in the chapter. My favorite being the Q&A on page 141 when he mentions throwing a party in 2009 for legitimate time travelers. It culminated in him sitting alone in the college hall because he sent out invitations after the party was over to ensure there would be no phonies
I learned that Non-Euclidean geometry exists. Had I known this before, I could have been a total smart ass in formal geometry in high school. I found out triangles do not have to add up to 180° in flat three-dimensional space, but space would be curved and therefore non-euclidean. New information!
I highly enjoyed the small little jabs he made throughout including, “If there are beings alive on Alpha Centauri today, they remain blissfully ignorant of the rise of Donald Trump.” I don’t have to wonder too hard how he felt about the election.
Brief Answers to the Big Questions is highly entertaining. Hawking answers the questions, but really he’s just posing more. He is FULL of huge ideas. It’s absolutely amazing all the things he accomplished in spite of the obstacles he overcame. One of my favorite quotes is in the last pages of the book, “Opening up the thrill and wonder of scientific discovery, creating innovative and accessible ways to reach out to the widest young audiences possible, greatly increases the chances of finding and inspiring the new Einstein. Wherever she might be.” I love his inclusivity and call to action while simultaneously empowering the young women and men of today.The last two paragraphs are inspiring and a call to action and empowering.
Lucy Hawking, his daughter, summed up the sentiment of who he seemed to be through his own words in her own afterword, “He was a surprisingly modest man who, while adoring the limelight, seemed baffled by his own fame.” Reading Brief Answers to the Big Questionswas an absolute pleasure. Professor Hawking will be greatly missed for generations to come.
Memorable Quotes “Although, if there were such a God, I would like to ask however did he think of anything as complicated as M-theory in eleven dimensions.” “We don’t expect the universe to end in a brick wall, although there’s no logical reason why it couldn’t.” “This is a pity because, if they had, I would have got a Nobel Prize.” “The producers of Star Trek even persuaded me to take part, not that it was difficult.” Particle Accelerators: “They would have to be larger than the solar system and they are not likely to be approved in the present financial climate.”
Read Yes Length 288 Quick Review A novel about the desire to understand people and situations. The desire is rarely satisfied, but you don’t have to understand to connect and care.
The Caregiver by Samuel Park was published posthumously. He passed away from stomach cancer at the age of 41. It is hard to read this novel without seeing it as being written out of a place of hope and sadness.
Mara Alencar is a young woman living in the United States sans documents after a childhood watching atrocities in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She is the caretaker to a woman dying from cancer. She reminisces about her childhood home and her mother, Ana. Mara is both caretaker and child to her mother. Like most children there is a duality to her. She understands more than the adults around her realize, but she also is only able to accept the world as it appears to her without perceiving the nuance, complexity, and difficulty that is being human.
The writing style is very beautiful. Park allows Mara to witness situations as a child she cannot understand, but the reader, with adult experiences, sees what she cannot. Lacing the present with the past, brings a fullness to Mara’s adulthood that would otherwise result in a flat character. Park uses lexical foreshadowing to create emotional space between characters without giving away any events to come. The use of Portuguese words brings the reader closer to Mara’s cultural heritage.
Park captures the experience of trying to understand a situation from the outside. There is a yearning for understanding in Mara, which comes to fruition through her connecting with those around her.
Title: The Caregiver Author: Samuel Park Publisher: Simon & Schuster Copyright: 2018 ISBN: 9781501182426
I was very sad because I thought I had missed the Hot Air Balloon Rodeo. With the help of Google, I did a little researching to find out I had, in fact, not missed it because it was being held on both Saturday and Sunday. I guarantee you this is one of two reasons I will get excited about getting up at 4:30 in the morning. Hot air balloons or travel. In this case, I was getting up for both, technically.
I set my alarm for 4:30 on a Sunday morning. Somehow, I managed to get out of bed, put my hair in a messy bun, throw clothes on my body, wake up my Partner-in-Crime, and convince him to get out of bed. I did it. We, in various degrees of sleepy-grumpiness, found our way down the mountain to the shuttle. Everyone was shuttled to the launch site on Steamboat Springs’ buses. They were all very lovely and almost too chipper for a Sunday morning at the butt-crack of dawn. It was a five-ish minute bus ride to the lake, where the hot air balloons would be launched.
I can’t really describe how amazing the view was. At the bottom of a mountain is the lake. On one side of the lake, all the balloons and vendor tents were set up. It was cold. Well, not cold. It was chilly for a mid-July morning. I was in jeans and flannel. I found coffee and donuts because I needed sustenance and something to keep my hands warm. The grass was wet. My feet were a bit numb after a whole thirty seconds.
We trudged around to the far side of the lake. It was less crowded, and I could watch the balloons from a distance. The lake was so perfectly still. The sky, clouds, mountains, and balloons reflected off the lake’s surface. It was absolutely amazing. I took so many pictures. Well over a thousand. I can’t really describe how amazing it truly is.
The Hot Air Balloon Rodeo is an annual tradition in Steamboat. People come from all over to participate and watch the spectacle. The hot air balloons launch between 6:00 and 9:00 in the morning. If you get there early, you can chat with the captains, pilots, I don’t know what they’re called. One of the local organizations sets up a stand with donuts, coffee, and breakfast burritos. When the balloons launch, they try to dip their baskets into the water. It’s fun and, I’m sure, harder than it looks. Unfortunately, it creates ripples in the water causing the reflections to be less crisp. Oh well. There are tons and tons of balloons of all colors and sizes. There’s a “tiny” balloon, and the pilot(?) doesn’t even have a basket; he just straps himself into a chair dangling from the balloon. I love the colorful ones. Remax had a balloon present. There were even some balloons with murals including clowns, creepy, and a western motif.
I love balloons. As a little girl visiting my grandparents’ condo in Colorado, the balloons would come over the mountains sometimes. They were incredible. I have always, always loved them. I get giddy about balloons. This was an absolute wonderful experience. I would love to keep going back for it.
I love independent bookstores. I try to shop at and support them as much as I possibly can. When I travel to new places, I’m trying to visit as many local bookstores as I can. I think they’re a unique look into the towns they inhabit. Off the Beaten Path is Steamboat Springs’ local bookshop, which has been open since 1990. I have been stopping in every time I’m in town my whole life.
Walking into Off the Beaten Path is a fun experience. There are huge windows letting tons of natural light into the store, which would be very dark otherwise due to the wood. There is nature inspired art everywhere. Large multi-colored leaves hang from the ceiling. A New Release room is at the front of the store with other sections scattered throughout the store. An upstairs area has new and used books with extra seating for reading, working, or people watching. They have cute items too. I almost bought a fox shaped mug. I did buy a small bag with the words goal digger written on the front.
They have a beautiful selection of books ranging from best sellers, to indie, to children’s, and more. I always love seeing what local bookstores choose to include in their inventory, and Off the Beaten Path does not disappoint. I could have bought more than I did, but I have a huge stack waiting for me at home.
I have several books I absolutely adore. I love finding different editions. Off the Beaten Path had some hard to find versions of the classics. I caved and bought a leather bound edition of Edith Wharton’s Age of Innocence because it’s one of my favorites.
In the middle of the store, there is seating around a full cafe supplying baked goods and quirky drink options. They have great Seven Layer Bars. Their coffees are named after famous books and iconic characters. I tried several, and they were all yummy. The baristas were really lovely and competent. They do serve alcoholic beverages, but I’m sober.
I have a hard time working places outside my own home environment. I was so comfortable in Off the Beaten Path I was actually able to sit down and get work done not once but twice.
