NUMBER 155
Well, after my weekend of book splurging, it was time to rest and get back on track, especially for my full time job. There are lots of changes going on and it looks promising, but, boy, does it wear a sister out. Working two jobs (four if you consider this blog and volunteering at the library putting books back on the shelves), can truly wear one out. People are always asking me how do I find the time, money, and energy to read and work so many jobs. I got a system. A system that has worked since the beginning of time.
What is more important to you? Being Debt Free! Being Happy! Being Blessed with what you have! Is watching TV more important than reading for yourself or reading to a child? Is making a speculator dinner for you or your family important! (I made baked lemon chicken with collard greens and wheat rice (I'm trying to eat right, but that wheat rice was as dull as a piece of card board and it wasn't kicking, so I dumped the brown, very hard and dry, wheat rice and made some 100% natural Rice Pilaf, which was a whole lot better).
Is “The Law of the Garbage Truck,” more important? What is The Law of The Garbage Truck? This is a quote from “JOEL OSTEEN - EVERY DAY A FRIDAY - HOW TO BE HAPPIER 7 DAYS A WEEK - $7.99 - “Many people are like garbage trucks. They run around full of garbage, full of frustration, full of anger, and full of disappointment. As their garbage piles up, they look for a place to dump it. And if you let them, they’ll dump it on you.”
That's the system, "What's more important." Is Stupid TV (some is good), with bad news all day and every day important? It is OK for someone to “dump their garbage” on you? Or is it more important to not allow them to take your joy. That’s the system. Use your GOD given passion to do what is important to you and your family. We got 24 hours in a day and I know we can be so happy and content with who we are and what we have. It’s an old saying and you may be tired of it, but it has always, always, always, worked. "Now, don't not get me wrong," there will be days and nights where you want to hurt someone or cry your eyes out. We are only human, but we got to have faith and keep on trying.
Me, I’m forcing myself to be happy every day and finding out that it is easier than I thought. Last Saturday, for example, I volunteered at the Park Circle Film Society. It’s Charleston’s version of the Cannes Film Festival. Didn't run into Brad Pitt or Angelina Jolie. No one showed up in flowing gowns and definitely no paparazzi were taking pictures of me. This Film Society show films not shown in local theaters and to educate one about the art of filming. My job was to take tickets at the door. Afterwards, I watched the movie, Shadow Dancer, free. Single mother Collette McVeigh is a Republican living in Belfast with her mother and hardliner IRA brothers. When she is arrested for her part in an aborted IRA bomb plot in London, an MI5 officer (Mac, played by Clive Owen) offers her a choice: lose everything and go to prison for 25 years or return to Belfast to spy on her own family. With her son's life in her hands, Collette chooses to place her trust in Mac and return home, but when her brothers' secret operation is ambushed, suspicions of an informant are raised and Collette finds both herself and her family in grave danger. With Clive Owen (Inside Mann and The Bourne Identity), Andrea Risenborough and Gillian Anderson (The X-Files). I did not think I would enjoy a movie about the IRA, but I had the best time and it was very enjoyable movie. If you get a chance, go to you local library and get it. Now I want to learn a bit more about the IRA. Got to find some books on the subject.
Stay Happy and Read More books, See more movies and Enjoy life more!!!
V. BROWN - I AM HER, THE MISTRESS (G STREET CHRONICLES PRESENTS) - $4.99 - - - Meet Tyquasia “Ty” Roberts, born and raised in Miami, Florida. She lived in the Pork N Beans projects, one of the roughest neighborhoods in Miami. Contrary to what you may believe, Ty wasn’t your typical around the way girl. She was a good girl turned mistress when she finds out a sickening secret about her boyfriend of 3 years, Benzino, after he gets locked up. Benz is one of the top bosses in the drug game down south. The secret that comes to light that he’d hidden for so many years, could ruin his team's respect for him.
The revelations lead Ty to move and begin a new life in Atlanta, Georgia. There she meets the hottest party promoter/host known in the South, Nasir Cruz. The sexual attraction between the two is mutual. There’s only one little missing piece of information…Nasir is married to Lorraine Cruz, a fashion model who works so much that she’d become clueless to the problems in her marriage, but Lorraine won’t be clueless for long because Ty is about to let it all hang out. The evidence will be so direct and in her face that she’ll have no need to wonder anymore.
When Lorraine becomes fed up, she starts doing her own thing and devises a plan for some get-back, but as you know, everything doesn’t always go as planned. Friends become Foes, Benzino gets released from jail and some people aren’t who they say they are. There’s a bigger connection there than you may think. You'll be left with your mouth hanging wide open, shocked by who is who and what the original plan was from the beginning.
I Am Her, The Mistress (G Street Chronicles Presents)
MARY MONROE - LOST DAUGHTERS (MAMA RUBY) - $9.46 - - - If you are a fan of Mary Monroe - The Upper Room, Mama Ruby (Crazy, just crazy) and God Ain’t Blind, then you will love this one.
The sequel to The Upper Room -- Maureen Montgomery still can't believe she was able to break away from her dominating Mama Ruby. Her happy, secure life with her husband Mel is more than Maureen ever dared hope for. And helping her pretty teenage daughter Loretta achieve her modeling dreams helps Maureen keep her bizarre childhood and disturbing memories firmly behind her. Until Mel and Loretta run off together, claiming they're in love.
Lost Daughters (Mama Ruby)
CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE - AMERICANAH - $13.99 - - - There has been talk about this on book radio stations, NPR and TV, as well as a few written articles. I just got the book and hope to start reading it before my Book Club Groupies discuss it in September. They also claim it’s the book of the year.
As teenagers in a Lagos secondary school, Ifemelu and Obinze fall in love. Their Nigeria is under military dictatorship, and people are leaving the country if they can. Ifemelu—beautiful, self-assured—departs for America to study. She suffers defeats and triumphs, finds and loses relationships and friendships, all the while feeling the weight of something she never thought of back home: race. Obinze—the quiet, thoughtful son of a professor—had hoped to join her, but post-9/11 America will not let him in, and he plunges into a dangerous, undocumented life in London. Years later, Obinze is a wealthy man in a newly democratic Nigeria, while Ifemelu has achieved success as a writer of an eye-opening blog about race in America. But when Ifemelu returns to Nigeria, and she and Obinze reignite their shared passion—for their homeland and for each other—they will face the toughest decisions of their lives.
Fearless, gripping, at once darkly funny and tender, spanning three continents and numerous lives, Americanah is a richly told story set in today’s globalized world: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s most powerful and astonishing novel yet.
I also forgot that she wrote HALF OF A YELLOW SUN - $11.99 - - - Biafra's impassioned struggle to establish an independent republic in southeastern Nigeria during the late 1960s. We experience this tumultuous decade alongside five unforgettable characters: Ugwu, a thirteen-year-old houseboy who works for Odenigbo, a university professor full of revolutionary zeal; Olanna, the professor’s beautiful young mistress who has abandoned her life in Lagos for a dusty town and her lover’s charm; and Richard, a shy young Englishman infatuated with Olanna’s willful twin sister Kainene. Half of a Yellow Sun is a tremendously evocative novel of the promise, hope, and disappointment of the Biafran war.
Americanah
Half of a Yellow Sun
JAMES GARNER - VAN HORN - $FREE - - - Aging playboy Earl Bourgeois had devoted the majority of his adult life to marijuana, drinking and women. After decades of eluding his responsibilities, he looked up and found that he was on the verge of destitution and in desperate need of a secure atmosphere to regroup.
After his business savvy nephew Cedric extends an invitation for him to move into his guest house in the affluent Hollywood Hills, Earl eagerly accepts the offer believing that the overture would somehow lead to him fulfilling his lifelong dream of living on a boat in the marina. Shortly after settling in Earl begins wrecking a slew of relationships and finds himself packing his car and fleeing back to New Orleans.
His road trip takes an unforeseen spin when he picks up a peculiar drifter and is further derailed when he is pulled over and detained when authorities find narcotics in his dilapidated car.
After getting word from his scheming niece that his mother has planned an impending family reunion that he might not be released in time to attend, Earl reflects on his blunders and vows to change his self-indulging ways.
Will Earl make a liar out of the old saying, you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, or will he continue leading his seedy lifestyle?
ZORA NEALE HURSTON and LANGSTON HUGHES - THE MULE-BONE: A COMEDY OF NEGRO – Free - - - Two of the most powerful African American writers. There is nothing more to say, just get the book, you will not be disappointed.
