Looking at the my week I realized that nothing worth blogging about had happened. So I had decided to write about the books I am reading.

To get it out of the way, first let me tell you, as I am finishing up John Case's "The first horseman", I am finding myself not eager to know what will happen next at all. It was quite predictable and a bit boring. More and more often I find "bestselling" books failing me in one way or another. Last week I was reading "The girl with the dragon tattoo" and for a change it was very interesting, but at some point the disgusting stuff came out and I sometimes feel very sorry I've read it. I really don't like violence, this why I also I can't watch horror movies. My imagination translates it into the realty so fast I can't enjoy any of it. So I am still contemplating if I should read the next book from "The girl" series or not. Well this is it with my "entertainment" reads.

The other two books are really a pleasure to read. "The Happiness Project" by Gretchen Rubin has everything that I like. But let me step out a little bit. I have never been a big fan of self-help books, not because I think they are useless, it is just so I always found that so many of them talk a lot about how to set up goals or very interesting theories but there is not too much about how to achieve those goals or the examples that would work in a real world. And as they state the statistics it is hard to say where it came from.
So with Gretchens book I don't have any of those problems. She is very clear where she gets her ideas, what worked and what didn't, she did her research, and she likes to read so as a bonus I got quite a few ideas for my reading list.

Next book is "Raising Boys" by Steve Biddulph. It's a parenting book which I also enjoy. It's hard to pin point why I like it, other than it is easy to read and I find information quite useful. Although I wish they would find another way to include parents experiences, sometimes those blocks are really placed in the middle of the paragraph so you need to leaf through to continue and then to come back, or you need to disrupt your reading and then remember where you got destructed.

Tomorrow is going to be the day for me to search for a new book for my "entertainment list", and I think I might pick up something that I know and like, because I really didn't care about the last few books so I am starting to lose my faith a bit.

It's so funny to observe the child as he is growing. My son right now is at a stage when he repeats everything after anybody. So somebody said "How are you doing today? and for a 15 minutes we were listening to a perfect imitation of Joey Tribbiani's "How u doinnn?" Since both of us like "Friends" a lot, it was really hilarious to hear it from two years old.

It's being longer than I promised to myself since I wrote anything here. But now I know something about myself for sure, to follow through I need to set up a reminder. These days I just simply forget things.

For example I wanted to read a great book on raising boys, and I have read it for a few days, until I put it in a drawer couple weeks ago, and just found it yesterday, until the moment I saw the book it didn't come up in my mind once. My life is so full of events that I have no capacity to remember everything even such a simple thing as this.

As for the blog. I even had quite a few ideas to write about, but..., well... I didn't.

Today I had a wonderful moment with my son. As we were doing our "before bed" routine, we put some music on. The children's song from my childhood was playing. I looked at my boy who was listening to the song very intently. It was so clear to me how different our childhoods have been. And it is going to be so hard for us to relate to each other expirences. At least I will have a chance to tag along with him in a journey of becoming a young adult in America. He won't have opportunity like that. The country where I was born even doesn't exist anymore. We were holding hands, and I hope we will keep doing that through many years to come.

I was wondering if in a few years as he will go to the school and embrace a different culture, he is still going to be able to enjoy the song by crocodile Gena and his friend "Cheburashka" about the blue train. I think I am ready for any outcome, but I really hope that as my child grows up he won't push away the knowledge about his roots and will be able to accept it as a part of his life.

I love curtains. Finally after almost three months after we moved here I can sleep without waking up. Of course my son still was yelling:"Mommy, Mommy" at 7.45 but until then I didn't wake up once. And it wasn't my turn to wake up with him anyway so I blissfully went back to sleep.

I like lazy mornings. When I don't need to rush, I can slowly open my eyes lie a little and if I want to close them again. Think about what I am going to do today, read something and then slowly get up.

So plan for today sounds like this. First go for a walk, I hope its not going rain too badly, then take a shower drink some tea, and then clean a little and unpack one box.

Friends are coming over in the evening and my husband decided to cook something with mushrooms, as he excitedly describes it sounds delicious.

It is promising to be a nice and relaxing day.

Overheard:

"...so I have a friend who was dating a guy for a few years and recently announced to her family that they decided to get married. She told them that she picked the date and the place. And then a few days later, her cousin announces that she also wants to get married to her boyfriend of a few weeks, and goes and books the same place on the date the girl announced..."

Damn, I really thought that people only do that on the reality TV Shows.

This morning as I was walking in a crowd transferring from train to train, the young guy (in his twenties) was walking in front of me in a knee length shorts. You could see his calves and on each of them he had a tattoo of the heart and inside of the one it said "Friends" and in the other one it said "Family." Although it looked a bit weird, red hearts on the pale hairy flesh, I thought I understood what he was trying to communicate. Those two things are really important for the individual. These people help you walk through the life. As I am getting older I realize more and more the importance of the family. Back then when I was in my 20s I thought that my friends are my family. As time progresses I more often see that friends come and go and your family is still there for you.

Just couple of O'Keeffe's images from art.com

Ye, obviously, my "one post a week" commitment got screwed up. Last Monday as I was lying in bed sick I even had the beginning for the post: "Two days in bed, two books, and..." well I had never figured out how to write it without leaving the bed so no post last week. Actually I almost didn't write it today too. Since I tried to draw a little and then started to experiment and in a little bit discovered that it is time to go to bed.

Drawing felt good.

I haven't felt this kind of urge in quite sometime, I would say in years. When you just want to grab a pencil and start something and you don't know what will come out of it. Today it was a bird. I have no idea why, but I drew a first line, then a second one and then I saw a bird. This is how it usually comes to me. I very rarely, have subject in my head before I start. Because if I try to think about what I want to depict, I always imagine flowers, but if someone would look through my works they all mostly abstract shapes and silhouettes.

A long time ago I thought that flowers is a lame subject for art. Then I saw Georgia O'Keeffe and it changed my perspective to many things, among them my view of the art. On her paintings flowers have souls and it is always interested me how she was able to find those souls and depict them. Those flowers aren't that simple and there is a quite controversy around them, but when I first saw her paintings I didn't know anything about her, I just was very simply impressed. I think after this encounter my horizons expanded a little bit more, and I started to think that if the art stopped you and made you think its work is done.

How many people are saying that they don't understand abstract art and it shouldn't be called art at all, since probably a child could do it. This always amuses me. Because we are sitting and talking about it, and we are not discussing another beautiful landscape that they saw, but the abstract or bizarre art that they couldn't understand. Ok I am simplifying a bit, but I do want to go to bed soon, and try not to go into the depths here.

Anyway it was very nice to feel the pencil in my hand again. Hopefully since I dug up my art supplies it will happen more often, and I might even draw or paint a flower or two. :)

Good night.

When we want something we would like people to care about us and help us but when we got it and made it to the other side we don't want to wait for the others.

http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_gilbert_asks_why_are_we_happy.html
- there is always a difference between what we think about ourselves and what we really are.