A Super Mushy Post About the Love of My Life

Warning: this is going to be a pretty mushy post.

I am so overwhelmed by the love I have for my husband. I don't know if I could possibly love him anymore than I do, but my love for him keeps growing and I find myself loving him more and more every day. The past few nights I've gone to bed a little later than John and I get so excited just to sleep next to him. I get in bed, lie next to him, and I feel so lucky that I'm the one God chose to be his. I was lying in bed last night thinking that sleeping next to him is one of my favorite things- the security, love, and warmth that I feel is a feeling I hope everyone experiences with their spouse.

My husband is such a hard worker. He volunteers to work 60 hour weeks to help provide for us and our future baby. But even though he's exhausted and beat up at the end of the day, he makes sure to spend time with me and Duke every night. He's completely supportive in everything that I do and all the decisions I make whether they are personal decisions or professional. He loves his family so much and it's apparent how family-centered he is to everyone who knows him. Not only that, but he's the best friend anyone could ask for. Which explains why he has so many people that label him (and who he labels) as a "best friend".

There really are hundreds of reasons why I love him and most of them are small things that he probably doesn't even know that he does. Some of those reasons are also the same things that drive me bonkers, but even with those in mind I wouldn't change a thing about him. I love everything about who he is and what makes him tick.

I feel lucky to be so in love. In a couple months we'll have been together for 8 years and when I think back over what all has happened in those 8 years, the best things that have happened have happened because of John. My life is what it is because of him.

I warned you this was going to be mushy :) but sometimes I just can't contain it :)

Family Secrets

I love ancestry stuff. Like, I lose hours looking up my ancestry and studying ancestry....it's kind of a weird hobby I have. And tonight this got sparked again by a conversation with my mom.

There are so many dark secrets once you start looking into family histories. I don't get very far with my own because of them. I mean, we're talking hundreds of years with affairs, pregnancies out of wedlock, people being exiled, others being murdered, some coming to Ellis Island, others completely denying their heritage (yes, all of these are a part of my family history at some point along the way)....family acestry is dirty stuff. I love it. But it gets hard to track a family line when there are so many sidetracks.

I love figuring out who I am, where I come from, why I look the way I do, why I have certain characteristics that I do and who I get them from....I'm seriously fascinated.

I can't remember how the conversation with my mom started exactly, but I found out some information that I didn't know before. I don't get far in my searches, but I never really even tried looking into my mom's father's side of the family. I never knew him, and no one has much to say about him, so I never really thought I'd get anywhere if I tried to look. But tonight I was told names of my great grandparents on my mom's dad's side (well, I got my mom's grandpa's name and the maiden name of her grandma)....names get you somewhere in the ancestry search, I learned that pretty fast. You don't get much info if you don't even know a name. Tonight I got a name, and she told me his parent's came from Holland to Ellis Island (how cool is that? My great grandparents are listed in the Ellis Island records). I knew it was a long shot but I took to Google, went to the passenger search of Ellis Island, and guess what....I found him. He came here on July 1, 1922 from Bussum, Holland.

I always make jokes of how I'm part Mexican (yes, I actually am but you'd never guess...hence the jokes), and even though I knew I was Dutch I never really looked into that part of who I am. I was telling my mom earlier that I wanted to know more about her family because: one it's a part of me that I know nothing about, and two because I don't look like anyone in the family. According to my mom my looks come from that side of the family. Now I'm really fascinated to find out more about this side of me.  Maybe I'm much more like the VanZyl's than I ever knew?


Another thing I learned tonight from talking to my mom was there was a murder in our family. I don't know details yet, my uncle just found a newspaper article about it (I'll be getting the article soon) but I'm sooo curious about the story! All I know is this: my great, great, great, great (?) grandparents who lived in the south were really wealthy, like....really wealthy apparently, and one night some people broke into their house intending to rob them but my great, great, great,great (?) grandma refused to tell them where they hid their money. So the intruders almost beat her to death, murdered her husband, and something with a baby....

I'm tellin ya....family histories are dirty, scandalous stuff.

Is anyone else as intrigued about ancestry as I am?
Does anyone have any "search" tips for me?

I have no idea how to do immigration ancestry searches....

*Update: I got the newspaper article clip from my mom. Let's just say the past hour FLEW by while I searched both the husband and wife's names like a madman.

If anyone who stumbles upon this happens to know more about Hannah Reeves Grinder Baker (or Willem VanZyl)- let's chat!

Reading Challenge

I never liked the Gilmore girls, but I saw the photo on Pinterest and was intrigued. I'm always up for a challenge, especially a reading challenge. Here's a list of 340 "must reads" according to Rory (apparently. Like I said, I never liked the show). Here we go :o)

1. 1984 George Orwell
2. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
3. Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
4. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
5. An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
6. Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt
7. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
8. Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
9. Archidamian War by Donald Kagan
10. The Art of Fiction by Henry James
11. The Art of War by Sun Tzu
12. As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
13. Atonement by Ian McEwan
14. Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy
15. The Awakening Kate Chopin
16. Babe by Dick King-Smith
17. Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women by Susan Faludi
18. Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie
19. Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
20. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
21. Beloved by Toni Morrison
22. Beowulf: A New Verse Translation by Seamus Heaney
23. The Bhagava Gita
24. The Bielski Brothers: The True Story of Three Men Who Defied the Nazis, Built a Village in the Forest, and Saved 1,200 Jews by Peter Duffy
25. Bitch in Praise of Difficult Women by Elizabeth Wurtzel
26. A Bolt from the Blue and Other Essays by Mary McCarthy
27. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
28. Brick Lane by Monica Ali
29. Bridgadoon by Alan Jay Lerner
30. Candide by Voltaire
31. The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer
32. Carrie by Stephen King
33. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
34. Catcher in the Rye J.D. Salinger
35. Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White
36. The Children’s Hour by Lillian Hellman
37. Christine by Stephen King
38. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
39. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
40. The Code of the Woosters by P.G. Wodehouse
41. The Collected Short Stories by Eudora Welty
42. The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty by Eudora Welty
43. A Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare
44. Complete Novels by Dawn Powell
45. The Complete Poems by Anne Sexton
46. Complete Stories by Dorothy Parker
47. A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
48. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas père
49. Cousin Bette by Honor’e de Balzac
50. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
51. The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber
52. The Crucible by Arthur Miller
53. Cujo by Stephen King
54. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
55. Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende
56. David and Lisa by Dr Theodore Issac Rubin M.D
57. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
58. The Da Vinci Code Dan Brown
59. Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol
60. Demons by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
61. Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
62. Deenie Judy Blume
63. The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson
64. The Dirt: Confessions of the World’s Most Notorious Rock Band by Tommy Lee, Vince Neil, Mick Mars and Nikki Sixx
65. The Divine Comedy by Dante
66. The Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood Rebecca Wells
67. Don Quijote by Cervantes
68. Driving Miss Daisy by Alfred Uhrv
69. Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
70. Edgar Allan Poe: Complete Tales & Poems by Edgar Allan Poe
71. Eleanor Roosevelt by Blanche Wiesen Cook
72. The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe
73. Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters by Mark Dunn
74. Eloise by Kay Thompson
75. Emily the Strange by Roger Reger
76. Emma by Jane Austen
77. Empire Falls by Richard Russo
78. Encyclopedia Brown: Boy Detective by Donald J. Sobol
79. Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
80. Ethics by Spinoza
81. Europe through the Back Door, 2003 by Rick Steves
82. Eva Luna by Isabel Allende
83. Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer
84. Extravagance by Gary Krist
85. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
86. Fahrenheit 9/11 by Michael Moore
87. The Fall of the Athenian Empire by Donald Kagan
88. Fat Land: How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World by Greg Critser
89. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson
90. The Fellowship of the Ring: Book 1 of The Lord of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien
91. Fiddler on the Roof by Joseph Stein
92. The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom
93. Finnegan’s Wake by James Joyce
94. Fletch by Gregory McDonald
95. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keys
96. The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem
97. The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
98. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
99. Franny and Zooey by J. D. Salinger
100. Freaky Friday by Mary Rodgers
101. Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut
102. Gender Trouble by Judith Butler
103. George W. Bushism: The Slate Book of the Accidental Wit and Wisdom of our 43rd President by Jacob Weisberg
104. Gidget by Fredrick Kohner
105. Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen
106. The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels
107. The Godfather: Book 1 by Mario Puzo
108. The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
109. Goldilocks and the Three Bears by Alvin Granowsky
110. Gone with the Wind by Mararet Mitchell
111. The Good Soldier by Ford Maddox Ford
112. The Gospel According to Judy Bloom
113. The Graduate by Charles Webb
114. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
115. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
116. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
     
117. The Group by Mary McCarthy
118. Hamlet by William Shakespeare
119. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling
120. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling
121. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
122. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
123. Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders by Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry
124. Henry IV, part I by William Shakespeare
125. Henry IV, part II by William Shakespeare
126. Henry V by William Shakespeare
127. High Fidelity by Nick Hornby
128. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon
129. Holidays on Ice: Stories by David Sedaris
130. The Holy Barbarians by Lawrence Lipton
131. House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III (Lpr)
132. The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende
133. How to Breathe Underwater by Julie Orringer
134. How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss
135. How the Light Gets in by M. J. Hyland
136. Howl by Allen Gingsburg
137. The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo
138. The Iliad by Homer
139. I’m with the Band by Pamela des Barres
140. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
141. Inferno by Dante
142. Inherit the Wind by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee
143. Iron Weed by William J. Kennedy
144. It Takes a Village by Hillary Clinton
145. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
146. The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
147. Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare
148. The Jumping Frog by Mark Twain
149. The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
150. Just a Couple of Days by Tony Vigorito
151. The Kitchen Boy: A Novel of the Last Tsar by Robert Alexander
152. Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain
153. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
154. Lady Chatterleys’ Lover by D. H. Lawrence
155. The Last Empire: Essays 1992-2000 by Gore Vidal
156. Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
157. The Legend of Bagger Vance by Steven Pressfield
158. Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis
159. Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke
160. Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them by Al Franken
161. Life of Pi by Yann Martel
162. Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens
163. The Little Locksmith by Katharine Butler Hathaway
164. The Little Match Girl by Hans Christian Andersen
165. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
166. Living History by Hillary Rodham Clinton
167. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
168. The Lottery: And Other Stories by Shirley Jackson
169. The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
170. The Love Story by Erich Segal
171. Macbeth by William Whakespeare
172. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
173. The Manticore by Robertson Davies
174. Marathon Man by William Goldman
175. The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
176. Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter by Simone de Beauvoir
177. Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman by William Tecumseh Sherman
178. Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
179. The Meaning of Consuelo by Judith Ortiz Cofer
180. Mencken’s Chrestomathy by H. R. Mencken
181. The Merry Wives of Windsro by William Shakespeare
182. The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
183. Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
184. The Miracle Worker by William Gibson
185. Moby Dick by Herman Melville
186. The Mojo Collection: The Ultimate Music Companion by Jim Irvin
187. Moliere: A Biography by Hobart Chatfield Taylor
188. A Monetary History of the United States by Milton Friedman
189. Monsieur Proust by Celeste Albaret
190. A Month Of Sundays: Searching For The Spirit And My Sister by Julie Mars
191. A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway
192. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
193. Mutiny on the Bounty by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall
194. My Lai 4: A Report on the Massacre and It’s Aftermath by Seymour M. Hersh
195. My Life as Author and Editor by H. R. Mencken
196. My Life in Orange: Growing Up with the Guru by Tim Guest
197. Myra Waldo’s Travel and Motoring Guide to Europe, 1978 by Myra Waldo
198. My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult
199. The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer
200. The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
201. The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
202. The Nanny Diaries by Emma McLaughlin
203. Nervous System: Or, Losing My Mind in Literature by Jan Lars Jensen
204. New Poems of Emily Dickinson by Emily Dickinson
205. The New Way Things Work by David Macaulay
206. Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich
207. Night by Elie Wiesel
208. Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
209. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism by William E. Cain, Laurie A. Finke, Barbara E. Johnson, John P. McGowan
210. Novels 1930-1942: Dance Night/Come Back to Sorrento, Turn, Magic Wheel/Angels on Toast/A Time to be Born by Dawn Powell
211. Notes of a Dirty Old Man by Charles Bukowski
212. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
213. Old School by Tobias Wolff
214. On the Road by Jack Kerouac
215. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
216. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
217. The Opposite of Fate: Memories of a Writing Life by Amy Tan
218. Oracle Night by Paul Auster
219. Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
220. Othello by Shakespeare
221. Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens
222. The Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War by Donald Kagan
223. Out of Africa by Isac Dineson
224. The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton
225. A Passage to India by E.M. Forster
226. The Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian Expedition by Donald Kagan
227. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
228. Peyton Place by Grace Metalious
229. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
230. Pigs at the Trough by Arianna Huffington
231. Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi
232. Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain
233. The Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby
234. The Portable Dorothy Parker by Dorothy Parker
235. The Portable Nietzche by Fredrich Nietzche
236. The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O’Neill by Ron Suskind
237. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
238. Property by Valerie Martin
239. Pushkin: A Biography by T. J. Binyon
240. Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw
241. Quattrocento by James Mckean
242. A Quiet Storm by Rachel Howzell Hall
243. Rapunzel by Grimm Brothers
244. The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe
245. The Razor’s Edge by W. Somerset Maugham
246. Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi
247. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
248. Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggin
249. The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
250. Rescuing Patty Hearst: Memories From a Decade Gone Mad by Virginia Holman
251. The Return of the King: The Lord of the Rings Book 3 by J. R. R. Tolkien
252. R Is for Ricochet by Sue Grafton
253. Rita Hayworth by Stephen King
254. Robert’s Rules of Order by Henry Robert
255. Roman Holiday by Edith Wharton
256. Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
257. A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf
258. A Room with a View by E. M. Forster
259. Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin
260. The Rough Guide to Europe, 2003 Edition
261. Sacred Time by Ursula Hegi
262. Sanctuary by William Faulkner
263. Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay by Nancy Milford
264. Say Goodbye to Daisy Miller by Henry James
265. The Scarecrow of Oz by Frank L. Baum
266. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne 
267. Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand
268. The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir
269. The Secret Life of Bees by sue Monk Kidd
270. Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette by Judith Thurman
271. Selected Hotels of Europe
272. Selected Letters of Dawn Powell: 1913-1965 by Dawn Powell
273. Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
274. A Separate Peace by John Knowles
275. Several Biographies of Winston Churchill
276. Sexus by Henry Miller
277. The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
278. Shane by Jack Shaefer
279. The Shining by Stephen King
280. Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
281. S Is for Silence by Sue Grafton
282. Slaughter-house Five by Kurt Vonnegut
283. Small Island by Andrea Levy
284. Snows of Kilimanjaro by Ernest Hemingway
285. Snow White and Rose Red by Grimm Brothers
286. Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World by Barrington Moore
287. The Song of Names by Norman Lebrecht
288. Song of the Simple Truth: The Complete Poems of Julia de Burgos by Julia de Burgos
289. The Song Reader by Lisa Tucker
290. Songbook by Nick Hornby
291. The Sonnets by William Shakespeare
292. Sonnets from the Portuegese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
293. Sophie’s Choice by William Styron
294. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
295. Speak, Memory by Vladimir Nabokov
296. Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach
297. The Story of My Life by Helen Keller
298. A Streetcar Named Desiree by Tennessee Williams
299. Stuart Little by E.B. White
300. Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
301. Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust
302. Swimming with Giants: My Encounters with Whales, Dolphins and Seals by Anne Collett
303. Sybil by Flora Rheta Schreiber
304. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
305. Tender Is The Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
306. Term of Endearment by Larry McMurtry
307. Time and Again by Jack Finney
308. The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffengger
309. To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway
310. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
311. The Tragedy of Richard III by William Shakespeare
312. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
313. The Trial by Franz Kafka
314. The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters by Elisabeth Robinson
315. Truth & Beauty: A Friendship by Ann Patchett
316. Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom
317. Ulysses by James Joyce
318. The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath 1950-1962 by Sylvia Plath
319. Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
320. Unless by Carol Shields
321. Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann
322. The Vanishing Newspaper by Philip Meyers
323. Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
324. Velvet Underground’s The Velvet Underground and Nico (Thirty Three and a Third series) by Joe Harvard
325. The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
326. Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett
327. Walden by Henry David Thoreau (the only book I've ever hated)
328. Walt Disney’s Bambi by Felix Salten
329. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
330. We Owe You Nothing – Punk Planet: The Collected Interviews edited by Daniel Sinker
331. What Color is Your Parachute? 2005 by Richard Nelson Bolles
332. What Happened to Baby Jane by Henry Farrell
333. When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka
334. Who Moved My Cheese? Spencer Johnson
335. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf by Edward Albee
336. Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire
337. The Wizard of Oz by Frank L. Baum
338. Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
339. The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
340. The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

It looks like I have a lot of reading to do :o)

 Books crossed out are books I’ve already read.