I know, I know. It's a New Year.

Welcome to 2015. Enjoy your stay!

Last year, I made a list of resolutions to keep for 2014. Do you want to know how I did?

1. Finish at least half of my TBR pile. (The whole pile is numbering close to fifty, now.) 
2. Paint my room over. (It's my little sister's old room, and the most atrocious yellow color. Also, she left a few foul-mouthed messages written across them.)
3. Get my driver's license. (I've only got my learner's permit right now.)
4. Turn 18 years old in April. (That one should be easy to keep.)
5. Graduate in June. (Also easy. I'm pretty much guaranteed it at this point, as long as I keep showing up to school.) 
6. Work on my knitting. (As in, at least every week. Right now, it's looking pretty sad.)
7. Work on clay. (Something I've always wanted to do, but now that I have clay and space to work with it, I find myself reluctant to start.)
8. Put up some puzzles. (I have half a dozen of them sitting around my room.)

#1 -- No. My TBR list grew, if anything. Sadly, my local B&N has closed, as of a few days ago, and now my source of books has become mainly libraries. Happily, there is a library in the small town not too far away from my college, and they have an agreement with my college library -- so I don't even have to leave school grounds to turn in/pick up books!
#2 -- No. It is still yellow. But now that room is my mom's office, and so it is her problem now.
#3 -- No. I still have my learner's permit. Perhaps I shall always have it.
#4 -- Yes. I did manage to turn 18, at least.
#5 -- Yes. I did manage to graduate, It was great, somewhat.
#6 -- No. They even have a knitting group at my college, and I never remember to go. I keep thinking, maybe next week.
#7 -- No-ish. I worked on it once. This past December. And it never came to anything, because my parents are too busy to dig out the kiln and help me fire it.
#8 -- No. They are still here, waiting to be put up. Maybe I'll get around to it this week. Maybe not.

So there you have it. 2/8 of my resolutions last year. Aren't I wonderful at keeping promises. So, what's new this year? My resolutions? They are not quite new, I suppose, they are the same things I have been resolving to do for a long time. Namely:

1. Exercise more. (Say, more than once a month.)
2. Go back to college, study more. (Incur even more debts in the process...)
3. Blog more often. (It's been awhile -- where did December go?)
4. Eat healthier. (Not too hard at college, but near impossible in my own home.)
5. Get out of my (dorm) room more often. (There are plenty of concerts and such like at college.)
6. Play more video games. (Which does not usually feature on people's resolutions, I gather.)
7. Make some jewelry. (I have plenty of pendants, not enough chains, wire, or pliers.)
8. Keep my living spaces cleaner. (Everything I come into contact with becomes cluttered.)

I have a nice schedule next semester, so I'm looking forward to it. Only 13 credit hours, instead of the 16.5 I had last semester. (12 is the lowest required number of credit hours to be considered a full-time student.)

What else? My blogging, I hope, will flourish under a lesser school load. It doesn't seem likely, though, since as you can see, video games is another one of my resolutions. I think I might be able to keep more of them this year. My college is pretty big, land-wise (over 3,000 acres), though there aren't many people (the Class of 2018, my class, is less than 150 people). That means it takes exercise to get anywhere -- it takes about a 5 minute walk to get up to the library, for example, but it's quite hilly and there are a great number of steps in the way. (Did I mention those 3,000 acres are nestled a penny's throw from the mountains?)

The one I think I will have the most trouble with is the last one. I can never summon up enough energy to clean things, unless I am feeling sick. It's odd, I know, but if I am nauseous I will feel this urge to get up and clean the bathroom, or organize my desk, or do my laundry. Luckily, by the end of fall semester I found a new study place that I love -- the laundry room in the basement of my dorm building. It isn't usually busy, and the sound of the laundry machines is soothing. There isn't much in the way of desks or chairs, of course, but there is a nice table under which I can sit and go unnoticed (for the most part).

2014... is over. I am glad. I am scared, too, because I do not know what the new year will bring -- for the first time, I dreaded the new year coming, because can it really be better? The unthinkable has already happened, but is this one of those things where it has to get even worse before it gets better? I hope not. I hope I am allowed a break, to have a happy and healing year. Or if not happy, then at least the latter. The new year will bring what it may, but I hope for a few pauses in which to simmer and boil and have my grief come from an unfinished state to something whole. A part of me, rather than a piercing thorn in my heart.

So, here is a toast to the old year -- a picture of Odin and Mary Shelley. If you scroll through my old posts, you will see a couple pictures of them. They died November 2014 -- just a couple months ago. My older sister -- a wonderful, eccentric person -- was heading to her apartment in Lynchburg when she -- well, they said she must have dozed at the wheel; it was late at night -- she hit a tree. She and her two cats all died. It's been tough, these past few months. But it is the start of a new year, and I don't think Chelsea would have been pleased to have me mope about, doing nothing -- she always used to complain about that. I set a list of things I think would be simple enough to put into practice, and I lowered my credit hours to 13... and I can only hope that with this simplifying of my life, I can find the time to do my life well.

Have a blessed day, and have a happy new year.

Odin.

Mary Shelley. 

Princess Ben by Catherine Gilbert Murdock*

*Being a Wholly Truthful Account of her Various Discoveries and Misadventures, Recounted to the Best of Her Recollection, in Four Parts
Benevolence is not your typical princess -- and Princess Ben is certainly not your typical fairy tale.
With her parents lost to assassins, Princess Ben ends up under the thumb of conniving Queen Sophia. Starved and miserable, locked in the highest tower, Ben stumbles upon a mysterious enchanted room. So begins her secret education in the magical arts: mastering an obstinate flying broomstick, furtively emptying the castle pantries, setting her hair on fire... But Ben's private adventures are soon overwhelmed by a mortal threat to her kingdom. Can Ben save the country and herself from foul tyranny?

~Print copy (library), 344 pages
Published: 2008 by Houghton Mifflin Company

[I'm back on my normal blogging schedule, for those who care to know. Because, well... I care to know!]

Is it just me who looks at that title and thinks this is going to be about a transgendered princess? Because I certainly think that would make for some awesome, dramatic-and-tense fantasy.

But, alas, it is not. Ben is short for Benevolence. Not to say that this book isn't awesome in its own right, for Ben, it should be said bluntly, is fat. Interesting factoid: in medieval times (you know, where monarchy, as you apply it to fantasy, actually existed?), being fat was a sign of how rich you were. Skinny meant you couldn't afford to be fat, and fat meant you could afford to eat rich food often enough to get fat.

This book sort of looks down on her gluttony, but I think it's pleasing to come across a book out there with fat princesses. Because, you know, that would've actually paralleled real life; princesses, with all that rich food at banquets every week, really would've been fat.

So, that was definitely a good start. So, too, was the parallels to fairy tales: locked in a tower, parents killed by assassins and now under the rule of an evil "stepmother" -- though, really, she's not too evil. She's more of a woman under duress, and a lot more believable a villain. Which leads to another good thing: antagonists who are less cut cardboard and more real-life.

And the writing... THIS is good writing. It sounds sophisticated. Queen-like, because this is sort of Queen Ben's memoir of her past as a princess. Which is really good format for this novel because it reads lovely, has an explanation for reading lovely, and tells the story in a coherent way.

In fact, the whole first two parts were really quite interesting. It's the second two parts that left me a bit troubled.

First off, because there wasn't a slightest hint of romance in the first half, I kind of assumed it would be that -- non-romantic. Actually, she mentions several times that she never wants to get married. My kind of heroine! It's only in the second half that it becomes relevant, and I really don't appreciate it sprung on me. (Here's my opinion on romance.)

While the last parts did amuse me, and leave me at the edge of my seat in places, that romance, truth be told, kind of spoiled it. I realize in my mind that queens do have to get married, as do all monarchs, in order to procure a hereditary heir to the throne. But I did not want to indulge in that voice of reason, because I wanted to indulge in that disbelief that you have while reading. I mean, she mentioned she didn't want to get married! I didn't think she would consent to being married! But, spoiler alert -- as in all fairy tales, he gets the princess. (I won't mention who.)

The tales of the dragon in the nearby mountain, the evil country bent on dominating their smaller but more fertile kingdom, the Queen-who's-more-of-a-general... I loved those parts. The romance was disappointing.

And there's the small matter of setting. With the magic and the tales of a dragon, I'd believed this to be a made-up land. In the second half, though, the author drops hints of France and such in the matter, and suddenly I can't tell where this novel is located. Are these made-up warring kingdoms? Made-up kingdoms set in real life? Or real-life kingdoms I've never heard of? I still don't know, though I sort of suspect option #2.

So, overall, I thought it was lovely in some parts -- the writing, the fairy tale parallels, finding an actual fat princess -- and in others, not so much (mainly, setting and romance). I'm not really sure what I give it -- a 3.25 stars, really. I'd recommend it to people who like fairy tales, but who aren't so quirky as to suspend the whole romantic notion of fairy tales, like I do.