Books | M. Suzanne Terry

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How to Be a Perfect Christian – a guide from The Babylon Bee

Posted in Books, Church on March 14, 2018| Leave a Comment »

perfect

I expected to either love or hate this book. I like good satire, but it is an art. It’s hard to land in that sweet spot between utterly unfunny and abrasively condescending. And when the book is billed as being reminiscent of The Onion, my skepticism kicks in. I’ll be the judge of that, book.

So I was surprised when my general response to The Babylon Bee’s How To Be a Perfect Christian was, “Heh. That was kinda funny.” I expected a more extreme reaction.

Throughout the book, the authors give updates on how you are doing on your journey to become the perfect (tongue-firmly-in-cheek) Christian. It was mildly humorous. I get that continuity is the bedrock of good storytelling, but unless you have somewhere new to go with a joke at every turn, it’s really only funny the first time.

There were a few snarky sucker punches that, in the context of their chapters, were well timed. Of course, I lol-ed at this one:

“The church cafe is like an inferior version of Starbucks, which is already an inferior version of real coffee shops.”

And how many of us who have attended a charismatic missions conference have not at least once thought something like this (if you have been to such a conference and swear this never crossed your mind, I direct you to Revelation 21:8):

“Is the backup singer speaking in tongues or is she just improvising absolute gibberish? That’s between her and Jesus.”

My favorite section was the part on deciphering Christianese:

“I’m just waiting on the Lord right now,” is code for “I am still living with my parents.”
“I really feel like this is God’s will for my life,” means “I’m sick of people pointing out the glaringly obvious flaws in my life plan, so I’ll just slap the handy ‘God’s will’ label on it to silence the wisdom of my critics.”
And my personal favorite – “We just invite your presence into this place now, Father God,” as a subtle message to the congregation: “None of you heathens were clapping during that last song. Get it together, people.”

Overall, this was an enjoyable read for someone whose experience in the Christian church has been mostly not terrible. If you know (and more importantly, have been hurt by) too many people who proselytize the works-based righteousness satirized within, I recommend passing this book by. It’s probably too soon for this to be funny to you now (or maybe ever). I also do not recommend it for those who equate praying with talking to an imaginary friend, because (spoiler alert) the wrap-up at the end might be too Christian-y for you.

Disclosure: I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review from Blogging for Books.

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Happy

Posted in Beauty, Books, Core, Dance, Feast, Lists, Writing on February 10, 2018| 3 Comments »

Coffee with friends = ❤

It seems like cheating to list happiness as a core value, so I’m not going to do that. While I’m sure that there are some people who don’t value happiness, I think most people probably list “happy” as something they’d like to be or as something they enjoy being. It also seems to be what a large corner of the self-help market tries to help us achieve. I don’t know how good most of us are at getting there without work.

I just finished Gabrielle Union’s audio version of We’re Going to Need More Wine, and a line stood out to me. “When you’re in a place where you don’t know what makes you happy, it’s really easy to be an asshole.” That makes a lot of sense to me. The times it’s easiest to be mean are the times when I’m in a fog or a funk and can’t find a way to get myself out of it. So for those times, I’m just going to leave this list of things that make me happy.

Having dinner with people I love. Whether I’m having friends over or being invited over as a guest or eating with family, I love sharing meals with people. I like cooking for people and seeing them enjoy it. I also like not having to cook. Feeding people and being fed may be one of my love languages.
Reading. That is, most reading. Occasionally, I will trudge my way through a book that tries to eat my soul, but most of the reading I do is relaxing. Even if it’s challenging or outside my typical comfort zone, those challenges energize me.
Fresh, ripe peaches. They save the day during my least favorite season. All the oppressive heat of summer is worth it when I see peaches at the farmers’ market.
Doing laundry. I know it’s weird. But I find it so soothing. I think it’s the sound of the dryer. Sometimes I wait to pop the last load in the dryer until I go to bed, just so I can go to sleep to the sound. I also enjoy that the ratio of effect to effort is larger with laundry than with other chores.
Seeing something beautiful when I walk into my apartment. Whether it is a vase of flowers on the table, the Christmas tree lit up, or just an uncharacteristically neat living room, it immediately puts me at peace.
A wide, open sky. Wine and sunset, coffee and sunrise, country drive or road trip, rain or shine. The sky is my favorite part of nature.
My dad telling stories about his dogs. It’s Dad at his most animated. I think it makes him happy, too.

What would be on your list?

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What I’m Into – January 2018

Posted in Books, Getting It Together, Resolutions, What I'm Into, Writing on February 1, 2018| 2 Comments »

What im into

What I’m always into

I’ve had a productive January. Even by my typical January standards. What I’m mostly into this month is how well my point system I set up to help me meet goals is working (perhaps more on that later this month – I’m pretty nerdily excited about it). I set my resolutions, and they’ve been going well so far:

Reading – I’ve read 9 books toward my 100-book goal. I may be imagining it, but Goodreads seems shocked that I’m one book ahead of schedule. My month did include my second round of participation in the 24in48 Readathon, but I would have been on schedule even without it. My favorite two were The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas and Dear Fahrenheit 451 by Annie Spence. I now need to read every book in this list.
Reading long books – I am starting Don Quixote again this weekend. I’m going to try to finish a long book every four months this year. I may have to rewatch The Newsroom while I read this one.
Finishing Fishbowl manuscript – My Fishbowl draft is trudging along, somewhat aimlessly at this point but at least steadily. I am consistently moving in random directions, which I suppose is pretty fitting, given its narrator.
Editing Epic Meal Planning – I have added a few pins to my Epic Meal Planning board, and this month, I am testing some of the recipes on the board. Next month (March), I want to start testing my own recipes on friends.
Learning Spanish – I have tired of Duolingo (perhaps I just need a break), and I have started going through my old Spanish textbooks. I find taking the old route to work through exercises methodically helpful.
Taking a solitary writing retreat – I have looked into rental beach cottages and train trips. Vaguely. I will be more excited about it once I have enough saved up to take the trip. Or if I find a really good deal. Or if I just decide I’m going to hole up in a hotel room and write for a weekend.
Visiting coffee shops/wine bars – Oddly enough, this is the one that got away from me this month. Double down in February? I think so.
Building up emergency fund and paying off debt – I’m ahead of schedule here, too. I like the momentum. If I keep up this rate, I may get to add another goal before year’s end.
Improving my health (specifically, my gym attendance) – I have teamed up with a friend to go to the gym 3 times a week. Consequently, I have been to the gym more times this month than I went last year altogether.
Trying new recipes – I made jambalaya from scratch for the first time this month. If I had known how easy it was and how much better it is than anything I’ve made from a box, I would have done this years ago.

Aside from resolutions, the thing I’ve been into most is saving time.

My friend Michelle introduced me to Instacart, and it’s fantastic. Basically, someone does your grocery shopping for you at your local store and brings it to your house. If you want to try it, I think my code for $10 off and free delivery with your first order is still good – click here or use code STERRY1EB1CF.
I also am loving Grove. I set up delivery of home products, and they come to my door. What I appreciate is that it gives me a heads-up email so that there are no surprises when I inevitably forget it’s time, and I can skip delivery any time. If you want to try it and also want $10 off your first order, click here.
Speaking of home products (my apartment is so dusty and I’m over that – can you tell?), I am super excited to receive my first Norwex order. I had a party, and I scored quite a bit of free loot, even though my orders only reached the lowest level. I think I’m most excited about the Envirowand. Beware, dust! My friend Brenda is a consultant, and she loves doing online parties. You can peruse the catalog here – contact her if you have questions!

I’m linking up with Leigh Kramer – come share what you’re into!

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Readathon Wrap-Up – What I learned from this #24in48

Posted in 24in48, Books on January 29, 2018| Leave a Comment »

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The clock has stopped. A glass of wine has been poured. My laptop is making a weird frog-like noise (probably because it’s been on idle for most of the day) that’s oddly soothing. Unless it crashes. (Please don’t crash.)

I’m 10 hours shy of my goal, but looking back at the weekend, that’s not at all surprising. I left home too often. Then when I returned, it took me a while to get back into my reading rhythm. The fourteen hours I spent reading, though? Still bliss. So I’m happy.

Things I learned this go around:

Hey, self – if you actually want to read 24 hours in two days, maybe don’t go do other things. Stay home. And don’t plan extra things to do at home, either (like taking extra SEO assignments when I actively planned – meaning, wrote “Don’t take SEO assignments” in bold, serious letters in my planner – not to). Except…
a. If I just want to read a lot one weekend and also do other things, that’s okay, too.
b. I’m not mad about the $35 I earned this afternoon, either.
c. I made it to the gym and actually used the weight machines in a non-haphazard fashion (i.e., actually paid attention and worked out every major muscle group). So *pats self on back*
While cozy romance mysteries are not my usual cup of tea, they are a delicious treat every once in a while.
My hands smell like faux basil. I need to never buy this hand soap again. This doesn’t have much to do with reading, except I washed my hands to get the oil from the popcorn off before switching from audio book to tangible book. And now, an hour and a half later, the odor is still so strong it’s distracting me. Hey, does anyone local want some basil hand soap (now that I’ve talked it up so nicely)?
I love decorating books so much. They make me want to clean and rearrange everything and also go to yard sales. Not on reading weekends, though. *whispers* I totally would have hit a yard sale or two yesterday morning if I had started with The Nesting Place.
Gabrielle Union is delightful. And I am glad that the audio book allowed me to get some laundry and dishes done.
AUDIO BOOKS TAKE SO MUCH TIME TO GET THROUGH.
When you are making beef stew, don’t get so engrossed in the audio book you are listening to that you use chicken stock instead of beef stock. They are not interchangeable. The result is still perfectly edible but odd. I do not recommend it.

I hope your weekend was lovely, regardless of what it entailed.

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First and Last – #24in48

Posted in 24in48, Books on January 28, 2018| Leave a Comment »

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Prompt: “For this challenge, we want to see the first book on your shelves, and the last book on your shelves.”

My shelves are arranged in a mostly logical fashion. My first couple of bookshelves hold fiction, which is organized by the author’s last name. Watership Down, therefore, is the first book on my fiction shelves.

After fiction, the next bookcase houses collections. It includes some fiction – short story collections, plays, and fiction series. It also includes poetry, essay collections, and letters.

The nonfiction case is organized by general topic. It’s not Dewey Decimal specific, but it’s pretty close. It’s also outgrowing its allotted area, so it may be time to start shopping for more bookshelves (YAY).

The last bookcase holds food books. Their arrangement is probably the most practical of the categories. On the top shelves are foodie fiction and memoir. In order to land on these shelves and not on the fiction or nonfiction shelves, they must contain at least one recipe, because this bookcase is right outside my kitchen. Until I move again, there will probably come a time when the top two shelves have to move to the library, as there’s only room for the one bookcase on that wall.

The bottom shelves hold cookbooks, organized somewhat by category, but mostly just by size. Smaller tomes go on higher shelves and larger ones (like the giant collection from Gourmet pictured above) go on the bottom. Because physics. And, to a lesser degree, because it just looks better.

What’s first and last on your bookshelves? How do you arrange them?

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And We’re Off! #24in48

Posted in 24in48, Books, Resolutions on January 27, 2018| 2 Comments »

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The goal for this weekend is fun reading. I’m going to tuck into some romance/mysteries, read a couple of memoirs, a little bit of poetry (I’m going to try to read the side in Spanish first, a baby step toward my resolution), and decorating books, which I love almost as much as cookbooks.

Not pictured in the stack – one of my Audible selections when I get tired of sitting and maybe a little trip down memory lane with the Boxcar Children.

Are you participating in the Readathon? It’s not too late to join. You can still win prizes even if you don’t finish the whole 24 hours.

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Chronicle of a Last Summer – A Review

Posted in Books on January 19, 2018| Leave a Comment »

Chronicle

“…if he were still alive and I told him now that I wish I could preserve the older memories, erase what they have been replaced by, he would tell me that to be a witness to history is a burden for the chosen.” Yasmine El Rashidi‘s novel, Chronicle of a Last Summer, is a different sort of coming of age novel. It’s less the coming of age of the narrator and more the coming of age of a country. El Rashidi takes us through three different summers – 1984, 1998, and 2014 – of the narrator’s life growing up in Cairo.

The narrator is a little younger than I am, and it was interesting to see how much the state of the world, even across an ocean, tempered our worldview in very similar ways. Even as small children, we were given quite a bit of responsibility and freedom to explore while the grown ups talked about grown-up things – things we were intentionally kept from knowing. Our childhood was a swirl of independence and oblivion.

In the beginning, I wished I knew more about Egyptian history and politics. I know some of the basics, but I felt like the 6-year-old narrator, left out of the adult conversation. This was one of my favorite aspects of the novel, because it shows how well the author portrayed the mind of the child, drawing the reader into her world and cloaking what was going on around her in exactly the same way she was experiencing.

This first sections was where some of the most beautiful moments with the characters happened. As the novel progressed and the narrator grew older and more aware of what was going on around her, we lost some of the elements that one typically associates with deep characterization. Instead of moments that revealed strengths or weaknesses, personality quirks or depths, these things were replaced with caricatures of each character’s political stance (or lack thereof). This choice stripped the characters of some of their humanity but gave us such musings as “Is the silence of objectivity and being an observer, witness, the same as complicity?” and their subsequent development. While it allowed the richness and complexity of Egypt to shine through, it made it harder for me to maintain interest in the characters themselves.

Overall, I enjoyed the novel, and it has sparked my interest in hearing more of her perspective on her country, which you can hear in this reading here and also in her nonfiction work, The Battle for Egypt, which chronicles the 2011 Egyptian revolution.

I received this book from Blogging for Books in exchange for an honest review.

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Friday Five – This is How You Do It

Posted in Books, Friday Five, Getting It Together, Writing on January 12, 2018| Leave a Comment »

Friday Five3

Since our last Friday Five, I have been intrigued by people doing things right. Some of them are serious and some less so, but either way, we don’t always hear these stories, so I thought I’d share. Enjoy!

The geniuses at Girlxoxo are my heroes. Here is a master list of reading challenges for the year. Click on that, and come back. Are you back? Did you see?!?!?! I KNOW, RIGHT?!?! This is the best.
I imagine that there are several issues on which Sarah Silverman and I would disagree, but this is absolutely the nicest way I’ve ever heard of handling someone who called you something terrible.
A compilation of writing advice from 27 successful writers. I particularly enjoy James Altucher’s advice to drink coffee + read and read and read + write and John Avlon’s description of writing for the ear.
Danielle Henderson via Shondaland teaches us how to gym for non-gym people. *raises hand*
How to apologize, the master class. The podcast linked within the article is long-ish (well, not for a podcast, I guess, but I’m having attention span issues today) but worth the listen.

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2018 Resolutions

Posted in Books, Core, Epic Meal Planning, Fishbowl, Food, Lists, Resolutions, Top Ten, Writing on January 1, 2018| Leave a Comment »

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THE BEST DAY!!!

New Year’s Day is easily one of my top ten favorite days of the year. Maybe even top five. I love setting new goals or revising old ones. I love – if even for just a day – looking forward and being intentionally cheerful about what the year might bring. I looooove breaking in my new planner – saying my official goodbye and thank you to last year’s calendar with its scuffs and battle scars and breaking out the shiny new one.

My word for the year is “core.” I have a pretty strong sense of what is important to me and what traits I want to cultivate the most, but this year is devoted to saying those things out loud (or at least on the internet). I am going to talk more about this later this week, but by the end of the year, I want to see a marked improvement in how my core values shape my goals, commitments, and strength.

I have listed a lot of goals and dreams for the year in my 52 Lists journal, and I won’t bog you down with all of them. But here are the key ones:

Read 100 books. That’s just two a week with a couple of weeks off. That’s how much I read when I am reading consistently. Reading grounds and calms me. I fall out of the habit when I over-commit to other things that leave me drained and stressed, so ideally this goal will help me do more reading and less stressing this year.
Make some of these books really long ones. Specifically, I want to read Don Quixote, Infinite Jest, and Anna Karenina.
Finish the first draft of Fishbowl. My hard deadline for this is June 15, so the year’s end may even find me in revision mode. But the first step is just to finish.
Finish Epic Meal Planning edits. Possibly even publish?
Continue learning Spanish and read at least one book in Spanish (with minimal dictionary usage) by the end of the year.
Take a solitary writing retreat. Criteria: 1) outside Denton, 2) two days minimum, and 3) no Internet.
Go to a coffee shop or wine bar at least once a month. Write more about coffee shops.
Build up my emergency fund and get back in the habit of paying off credit cards fully every month. I’ve lapsed a little, and I don’t like it.
Financial/health combo goal – actually use my gym membership regularly or cancel it. Paying for something I don’t use is ridiculous. So is being sedentary.
Try at least one new recipe a month. My meal planning is in a rut. I need new ideas. Feel free to post your favorites in the comments section.

What do you want your 2018 to look like?

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2017 in Review

Posted in Andilit, Books, Fishbowl, Resolutions, Run, Wild, Writing on January 1, 2018| 2 Comments »

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Wild streak

It seemed fitting to end the year of wild with a little heat in my hair.

Other than cosmetically, however, I am not sure how wild the year was. It had its moments. We road-tripped to Virginia and made no real plans for the trip there and back. I ran alone sometimes. I tried new things and spoke out a little more about things that are important to me. I also discovered I’m wilder than I suspected, which is equal parts exciting and scary.

A significant part of the year seemed to be tangled up in trying to balance the wild with safety. This post from my 31 Days series sums up that struggle nicely. Wild is not safe. But wild can be free. It just needs a little room to run. I seem to love (and by “love,” I do mean “thrive in”) the chaos of the wild. I wouldn’t have guessed that.

I’m not through unpacking all of it yet, but that’s okay. The word doesn’t have to end its influence just because the year does.

In other resolution news, I’ve managed to meet at least a little of each one.

Read 100 books. I read 63 books (or, at least, I kept up with 63. A few seem to be missing). I really loved a lot of them. The ones that stand out are Rupi Kaur’s Milk and Honey, Meagan Spooner’s Hunted, Gail Honeyman’s Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, Catherynne M. Valente’s Fairyland series, and all the Fredrik Backman books.
Learn conversational Spanish. I took a Spanish class at work. We only got to things like simple directions around campus, but it’s a start.
Continue to make my home a place that is welcoming and does not hinder the life I create. My office is a madhouse. Everything that is still unpacked is in there, and it’s a lot. I think I met this goal in a way that I didn’t intend, though. Even though there are pockets of mess all around, I still had people over more often. I meant to keep my home in a way that was not a hindrance to hospitality, but what seems to have happened is that I just decided that it wasn’t going to be a hindrance and lived my life anyway. Acceptable.
Continue to improve my health and well-being. This is another goal that morphed. My health is better. My blood pressure is staying down, and my focus has improved. Anxiety is still afoot, but it is the monster in the back of my mind instead of the one staring me down when I open my eyes, so that’s better. I haven’t lost the weight like I intended, but I haven’t gained either, which is something, considering that I didn’t pay much attention to it at all.
Finish at least one manuscript and publish a 2018 calendar. I did not finish a manuscript. But I worked on one more consistently than I did the previous year, so…progress? I didn’t publish a calendar like I meant to, but I did make my own calendar of coffee pictures (currently hanging in my kitchen, and it’s sooo cute). I think I just needed to prove to myself that the printing of the calendar was the easy part if I would just get the pictures together.
Run a 5K. Running is so much harder now than it was 20 years ago. I think I finally accepted that this year. This is a doable goal; it’s just not a quickly doable goal. I have a vague hope that I will run consistently one day, but this is not that day. And tomorrow’s not that day, either. Don’t hold your breath.
Go on a writing retreat. Yay! I did! I went to Andi’s retreat, and I have to finish my Fishbowl rough draft by the time the 2018 retreat rolls around. I may have to insert some solitary retreats in there this year to get this done.
Get paid for writing in some way. I totally did this. I make enough in writing to cover my grocery budget, and my Netflix, Hulu, and Spotify subscriptions. SEO writing is not my calling, but it’s a writing job, and I am happy to have it.
Continue/establish beloved traditions. My traditions that have stuck are my Advent/Christmas rituals and my Hemingway party, and they’re both the newest ones. It seems like each home has its own traditions. The cooking/baking weekends all happened when I had a great kitchen (and Maggie to help). But parties with lots of people and space for a full-sized Christmas tree? That I can do here. I look forward to seeing what else this space might hold for me this year.