• So I think I cut the back of my throat or something when eating an artichoke. It doesn’t really hurt it’s just really irritating :sigh:
• I’ve been having this issue with my palms itching a lot and can’t figure out what it was. At first I thought it was the cats, since they’ve been outside but the irritation comes on at weird times. I’ll pick something, anything, up and my hands will turn read and get itchy and kind of a burning feeling. I wonder if it’s the really fancy detergent we have right now but Erik wonders if it’s a nerve thing since it gets spotty. Like it will get really bad suddenly between my thumb and finger, in the same place on both hands and then it will suddenly be the bottom of my palm I do know that it’s driving me absolutely crazy
• Leaving to pick up MIL today, I should have a lot of stories with her visit. I’m just glad she never reads my blog, not that anything I say here I wouldn’t say to her it would just cause a lot of drama probably.
• Oh and I got the article done, with a lot of help from the other reporter. I’m going to ask the committee if I can bring a tape recorder next time otherwise I don’t know what I’ll do.
• Oh and did I mention it is going to rain ALL weekend!  Yep…so much for my beautiful party! :sob:

Eva didn’t want to have children or at least it was the one thing she was most afraid of. From practically the moment she became pregnant with Kevin everything was turned upside down.

I’ve heard this novel described as “parenting gone wrong” and I think that is by far the easiest way to explain this story. A mother gives birth to a child she has no maternal instincts towards and grows to intensely dislike.

Kevin is told through letters Eva is writing to her estranged husband as she tells the truth of what happened and how she felt about it. A large part of the book centers around how she felt she was a bad mother and that she is the one to blame.

The reason she decidedly unraveling this story is because one day her not quite 16 year old son decided to murder a bunch of students at school, a teacher and a cafeteria worker as well. Newspapers, television and other parents all seemed to question her parenting skills and whether she was behind what went so very wrong with her son.

Reading Kevin was exhilarating and terrifying at times as well. I found myself in awe of the honesty and brutal reality Eva diverged to the readers. Just when you think you are prepared for where the story is taking you it switches gears and you need to hold on for that sharp turn.

Personally, I found the husband, Franklin, the most infuriating character. Maybe it’s wrong, or maybe I just took sides, but I felt his rose colored glasses towards his son was what was the constant problem. If the father stepped back and was willing to see what was happening with his son, instead of blaming everyone else, just maybe the tides could have changed.

In the end I was left wondering if Kevin was really that disturbed or if that was just how she envisioned him in her mind? Could he sense how much she didn’t want him and was it all just a need for the love that was unavailable? Was there anything anyone could have done to change the outcome?

This book is about a lot and leaves a lot of questions; questions most of us are afraid to answer.

Eccentricity is not, as dull people would have us believe, a form of madness. It is often a kind of innocent pride, and the man of genius and the aristocrat are frequently regarded as eccentrics because genius and aristocrat are entirely unafraid of and uninfluenced by the opinions and vagaries of the crowd.

– Edith Sitwell

• It’s a busy week and I need to do things bullet style for a moment, hope you don’t mind. Get ready for an update…here we go!
• The guestroom is basically ready, although I would have liked to have a small carpet in there. We are having our first over night guest on Thursday night but I hope there is enough room.
• The guest I speak of is none other than MIL, Erik’s mother. The only woman in this world that I can seem to love as much as I at times dislike her (I can’t say hate, I could never hate her). We’ll just say she can drive me crazy but she drives everyone crazy and she knows it.
• MIL always travels heavy, meaning she brings 20 bags and takes over our house. Our guestroom is small so I have no idea where we’ll put all her stuff.
• Since neither of her sons can pick her up I will be picking her up, but that’s ok given that she hasn’t pissed me off in a long time
• The hardwood flooring is coming along nicely. I tried to help but as usual Erik wasn’t satisfied with how I did it (like painting) so I left it in his hands. I’ll try to post a picture soon because it looks so NICE or at least better than the crap linoleum floor.
• Aurora apparently attacking a little bird the other day and scared it off. Erik said she jumped at it and feathers actually flew off as it flew away. I thought the feathers thing only happened in cartoons right after the cat ate the bird and you look in the cage and all that’s left is a few feathers floating in the air.
• Our first party (the housewarming party) is this weekend, I suck at hosting parties so I have no idea what I was thinking.
• Money is TIGHT and it figures just when the mortgage is due and we’re going to have a party :kickcan:

Punctuality is the virtue of the bored.

– Evelyn Waugh

I’ve known this for a while and I keep putting myself into these positions where I blatantly realize I’m just not assertive enough to be a journalist. I realize if I keep pushing myself I might get more assertive but I’m not sure I’m willing to go this route.

I went to the meeting on Monday with my pad of paper, pen and little tape recorder. I was nervous but I figured I had a couple days to piece together my notes and whatever I had on the tape.

The meeting was two hours and I could barely hear most of what they were saying due to the fact they were talking quietly and the air conditioning was on. As I listened to them discuss town issues and such I realized how out of my league I really was. Given that I had almost no idea what they were talking about I kept reminding myself I had a tape recording.

After two hours of the meeting I got in my car to go home, a little shaken but I knew I could make it work one way or another. As I was driving down the road I decided to listen to what I’d taped and I was beyond devastated to find out that I couldn’t hear anything. You could hear vague voices in the background but even when I turned up the volume you still couldn’t make out anything :vent:

So I informed the head of the newspaper and he gave me the number to call of one of the other journalists that were at the meeting and thankfully she couldn’t have been more nice. She said she could help me and I tried to get across to her how little I knew about any of this. In college I never took meeting notes, I wrote articles on movies and the occasional editorial.

She told me to never act like I don’t know what I’m doing and to be more confident. She reminded me how important these characteristics are in a journalist.

Part of me doesn’t want to give up yet and part of me thinks I’m just going down the wrong road for myself. If you saw the pathetic notes I took you’d laugh, I can’t even figure out what most of it is about.

So, this journey may be coming to an end before it even began but we’ll see. Right now I’m just trying to get an article for this done and then decide if I want to throw in the towel.