Book Review: The Boleyn Inheritance

Here's a fact about me- I love Tudor history. When I was younger I was all about 'The Royal Diaries: Elizabeth I' which gave me my first perception of Henry VIII. A supposed overly obese, sullen old man who sometimes didn't like his daughter. Then I happened on 'The Other Boleyn Girl' which gave me a look at young Henry VIII who was supposedly super charismatic and attractive. That spark my curiosity enough that I've read a couple of small biographers on Henry and the time. I'm really interested in Alison Weir's books which all seem to be about Tudor England.
Anyway...the review
The Boleyn Inheritance follows three women- Anne of Cleaves, Henry's fourth wife, Jane Boleyn, Anne Boleyn's sister-in-law whose testimony put Anne and her brother to death and Katherine Howard, Anne of Cleaves maid in waiting and Henry's fifth wife.
The book starts from Jane's perspective and I didn't like how it opened. It seemed at the time Gregory was making Jane out to be a misunderstood heroine when in The Other Boleyn Girl she made the character out to be a total creep, no joke. However, as the story progressed Gregory showed that Jane painted that picture of herself and that no one else really believed it.
The story overall was well done. She used Anne of Cleaves perspective to show what Henry was doing to the church and the burnings and hangings that happened from his paranoia. In the author's note Gregory stated that she wanted to dispel the myths of Anne of Cleaves being ugly and Katherine Howard being stupid. She painted Katherine as a young girl (she was 15 when she married the king) who only wanted pretty things and to have a romance.

(source)

Anne of Cleave portrait sort of dispels the myth of her being ugly and Gregory's reasoning for that rumor was the king didn't like her because she rejected him when he first met her disguised and a homeless man.

I admire Philippa Gregory as a historical fiction writer because the truth is, we won't really know why things happened in the past; and she does a commendable job making the pieces all fit together in an engaging way

Simply Saturday

1 & 2. The cats enjoying the semi open window in my office going crazy of the bird calls. =)
3. Ben in our garage finishing painting our t.v. stand that's supposed to be the same color as the stool behind him. I don't think it's quite that color, but it's still pretty. Our neighbor keeps telling him he needs to refinish furniture for a living like the amish? Ben keeps telling him he only likes it as a hobby.
4. Sugar. My plan is to give it up for one week starting Monday. A friend of my did this the first week of the year and says it helped greatly deplete her sugar cravings. Since I have fiendish sugar cravings especially at night I need to do this type a cleanse for sure. (photo source)

    Tonight I work my last shift at Target. It's a 7-hour cashier shift which I would rather not do, but I'm a strong advocate of finishing things on a good note, so in I go to ring up people's purchases while they watch me. I've never noticed that until I started cashiering, but people really do watch you as though they were waiting for you to mess up or something. Now that I'm conscious of it I hope I never do that to another cashier haha.
    Monday, I start at the hospital full time so I have to get myself on a real schedule again. I'm finally excited about the hospital; up till today I've just mostly been afraid of giving up my steady income and finally my fear has subsided. I know this is where I'm meant to be and I know that God takes care of me, so I'm leaving the rest up to him and being freaked out about it isn't going to change a thing. Saying that and believing it are two different things of course but I think I can do both now. Ben and I have spent our Saturday cleaning and finishing up a couple of things we've wanted to do. We also started watching 'Psycho' since we want to see the movie 'Hitchcock' we figured it would be nice to actually know what movie this movie is talking about. We didn't finish it today the warm weather has made us restless.
And! I hope by the beginning of the week to have a new book review up!

Has everyone else had a good Saturday?

Morning snapshots

1. My daily coffee. In the winter I could not make it through the day without it, and I have a giant bottle of peppermint mocha creamer which makes it all the better.

2. Big Boy, the last of the kittens that we found in September. His as big as his mother already and I know Ben and I both would love to keep him, but 4 cats is too many cats even for this lady.

3.Alfalfa sprouts! Ben and I really enjoy sprouts so we got our own grower. Tuna and sprout sandwich? Yes, please!

4.I've finished organizing my new "office" space and I love hanging out in here and so does everyone else! 

Just some happy things

 To go along with my resolution to be happy I've decided to share some of my favorite images that I've been hoarding on my laptop.

This looks like the coziest place in the whole world and I love it.

This!

I used to hate the beach, but since going last June when we went I miss it and it's become my new happy place.

I've never thought of it that way but it's true!

This is adorable and I love it.

I hope I've made your day a little happier! I'm working an eight hour shift today so I'll probably need to come home and dwell on this post! Happy Thursday!

A Resolution

I know I'm two days late, but it's been a busy two days. January 1st I turned in my two week's notice at Target and today I finalized things at the hospital and will start work on the 11th. So so far it's been a good year!

I've done resolutions for the past two year on my other blog and actually carried them out. In 2011 I resolved to quit my job at Starbucks which I did that March and in 2012 I wanted to grow my massage business which I've now done with the hospital.

In 2013 I want to learn to be happy regardless of my circumstance.

New Year's Eve was one of the lowest days for me. I wasn't feeling well and Ben got called into work which is what happened the year before so I spent another NYE alone. I let it get to me and I spent the whole evening in a low, low place. That's when I decided I'm going to work on taking whatever circumstance I've been given and to be happy in it and not get upset over the fact that I can't change it.

The next couple of months will be interesting with this new job which I genuinely hope will be something. I'm a worrier though and I know I'm going to be worried about things like the cars and rent especially since I don't have guaranteed income and I need to learn to have faith that we're walking down the right path.

What are your new year's resolutions? Are you good at sticking with them?

A complaint

This is my life right now. Sigh, only 3 more shifts until I'm done with coffee!

I have to close again tonight and just thinking about it makes me tired. I'm grateful to have a job and I know I need to just suck it up, but I'll be so glad to done with this stage in my life.

What I've been reading lately

With all that's been going on lately I haven't had time to read much of anything. Well, yesterday we had a "blizzard" which was about two inches of snow with an inch of slush/ice. I've had three wrecks related to slush ice and was having major anxiety about driving to work. I normally wouldn't let it bother me and just drive slow, but I knew that the roads were bad because Ben told me when he got to work. I was supposed to get off late last night and after battling with the ice covering my car I decided it was best to stay home. It was pretty wonderful, I won't lie. I started organizing my office, put up Christmas decoration and cooked some dreadful asian food. It was just what I needed and I was able to catch up on my reading. I've sort of abandoned DC's 52 for now. Wonder Woman's story is interesting but I'm starting feel like it's dragging on... and Batman's story is well, I know tons of people love Batman and all but the whole Batman/Joker story is just getting a little old. Now, I say this but I haven't been reading Batman all that long just story arcs here and there and I was happy to see Batman up against the court of Owls and I knew that Joker had to come back and I'm sure A Death in the Family is an epic story arc, but it's so expensive to follow multiple series story arcs. 

Anyway, my twitter has been blowing up about the series 'Saga' so I bought the first volume. It's written by Brian K. Vaughan who also wrote 'Y: the Last Man' which I haven't read but Ben did and told me how fantastic it is. Saga is wonderful the art is fantastic if not a little squeamish at times. (There's a woman who is a spider. Squeamish.) The story is a new twist on star-crossed lovers who just had a child and the universe is a war. It's too neat I've been harassing Ben to read it, but he doesn't take to well to digital comics yet.

I also totally impulse bought 'The Wedding of Cyclops and Phoenix' which so far has been mostly about the Legacy virus and hasn't had much of Cyclops or Jean, but I did learn about Psylocke's past which is still hard to wrap my head around. (She's two people in two bodies one of them's English and another the spirit of a Korean assassin...)