The Best of 2009 Blog Challenge: III & IV

December 3rd--Article.
Well, I really don't read articles. I mean, I run across a few but they don't tend to stick with me and I don't feel like writing about one. I think I'll make this, instead, a post about the article I write, even if it's very insignificant, is very badly done, and hardly counts as an article.
Every month my friend, Scott picks a person, couple, or family from our church (all by himself! except when he is feeling lazy and asks for suggestions :P ) and calls them and asks if they would be willing to undergo extreme torture (I.E. be interviewed) and if they say yes then he and they pick a date and a time and so forth. Scott is quite good at it and very handy to keep around. (Hey, anyone with a Mustang is handy to keep around! :P ) After he does that he tells Kelsey and I the date and time that had been settled on and we show up and hopefully they show up and if all goes well an interview is birthed and it makes it into the church's monthly newsletter.
We had an excellent 2009 with a new record--no months missed! Woooooot! We did all kinds of marvelous feats of awesomeness, such as, getting an interview in between the time we learned we were going to New York (Wednesday) and left for New York (Saturday).
Then our amazing 2009 failed when all of my awesomeness ran dry (gasp!) and I flunked it horribly and didn't get the interview to the printer on time. Poor November had a very empty newsletter. It was a sad, sad day.
December 4th--Book.
This year I have read somewhere between twenty-five and fifty books. I'm not sure, exactly, so I say that, but as far as I can figure it is about forty books. :) Some of them were excellent and some of them were not so excellent. Like Austenland was pretty un-excellent, The Mayor of Casterbridge: The Life and Death of a Man of Character just got on my nerves (that mayor was not a man of character!), and Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell was still good the second time 'round.
I think my Book of the Year is tied between To Kill a Mockingbird and Anna Karenina (Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell is out because I didn't read it this year, I reread it).
I read To Kill a Mockingbird this spring and enjoyed very, very much. The ending was unstereotypical, which I liked. It seems like most books would have had Boo Radley come out and lead a happy, joyous life as a changed man, I liked what the author did better, I think. In general I just thought it was very well written and I like how it was narrated in first person by Scout (it was Scout, right? I can't remember if that was her name or not). I'm not coming up with anything wonderful and insightful to say about this. Sorry, folks!
Then, ahhhhh. Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina. I guess even a book with a title you can never remember how to pronounce can be good. :P This was eight hundred pages of pure awesomeness. I read it in June, in the week and a half that I had chicken pox.
The authorship of this book is so excellent it leaves me in awe. It is so perfectly written, the characters are well developed, and the plot is excellently played out on the page.
Anna Karenina (and the first half of Tolstoy's War and Peace) both have relationships has a rather large theme.
Sadly, I cannot remember any of the characters names. The book starts when Female #1 finds out her husband, Dude #1, has been having an affair with one of their female servants. One of their relations (Anna Karenina) comes for a visit when she hears about this and patches things over. Sadly, hearts are broke and feelings are hurt so Dude #1 and Female #1's marriage is never the same again and they live out there life has two very sad people.
Anna Karenina is married with a son, on her way home to them she meets Volonsky (that was his name, right? I know it started with a V) and everything goes downhill from there. She basically leaves her husband for this dude, she does it in secret for a long time until eventually she goes and lives with Volonsky and somehow they manage to be very rich. Or, I think.
But the main point is, they were not a happy couple. Anna Karenina ends up being a depressed and tempermental woman who lies to herself continually She drugs herself so that she can sleep at night. The "love" between herself and her boyfriend quickly disappears.
Her husband is a angry, hurt, and unforgiving man. Her son misses his mother and is afraid of his father (poor kid!).
While that is happening, another man is proposing to a girl, she excepts, they get married, and they live happily ever after. Of course, they don't have a perfect marriage but if I remember correctly it was a very happy one.
Of course, I may be remembering most, if not all, those facts wrong. Also, the book did have a great many other things in it, like that freaky disgusting guy who died.
The main feeling I came away from Anna Karenina with was actually a scared feeling. Everything you do matters. Everything counts. Nothing you do should be taken lightly. Your heart can lie so don't trust it; don't follow it to destruction, either. I feel like I should quote a Bible verse after all these deep and insightful thoughts (yeah right) but the one I want is perched on the tip of my tongue and I can't seem to get it out.
Don't ask me how I went from Anna Karenina to that. Or, at least, wait until I come up with an answer before you do.
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