Book Review: The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss

So I've been meaning to start doing some book reviews for a while, just as a hobby for myself. With POTS, brain fog and memory troubles are common and I am definitely one who suffers from them (worse as the years go on). I keep track of the books I read and rate them, but often have trouble remembering exact details when a sequel comes out, or when I go to talk about it with a friend or as a recommendation. It's not even that I don't read well enough to remember the details - I do - in the long-term. I don't know all the science behind it, but I did take a university class on learning and memory and the basics say that some people remember details better long-term than short term. My brain has a hard time connecting the storage links between my long term memory and short term memory, so I may not be able to tell you what show was on 6 minutes ago, but in 6 months I'll recall what show it was, what scene it was, and what was said. It sounds odd and backwards - but that is just how POTS has affected my memory personally. In other words, doing some book reviews are meant to try and help jog my memory and keep it fresh while also giving other readers insight into books they may want to read! Double win.

So here goes.

The Name of the Wind

Patrick Rothfuss

I want to start off by saying that I love fantasy and sci-fi; but there are certain sub-genres that really really just repel me for no particular reason. Many of them have covers that remind me of dime-store (I guess, dollar-store now) paperbacks that have fluff-filled pages that lonely women and men read because they themselves are as flat and fluff-filled as the books. Even if the subject of the book and the excerpts on the covers make me want to read it; a bad dime-store cover will make me put it back on the shelf. No kidding. So when my best friend told me about this book they were reading, it sounded interesting and I looked it up. The picture happened to be something that reminded me of a dime-store romance novel, and immediately I was put off. I hesitated buying it myself because again, instantly I was afraid of what could be behind the cover if that's what it looked like.

For my birthday my other best friend ended up buying it for me anyways, in paperback with the cover shown above. I started reading it a few days after my birthday last July because I needed somewhere to escape and I had nothing to lose by reading it then. I instantly fell in love with the book, and ate it up. In August I set it down after my husband had a heart attack with about 150 pages left out of 722. So close to the end, but other things took precedence and then I was just definitely not in a good place to be delving into anything. I picked it back up a few days ago, feeling ready to get excited and invested again.

Patrick Rothfuss has talent. Truly, he has a way with words. The writing style and flow is perfect; it has just enough detail that the reader has a fully-formed picture in their head but enough of it is left up to the reader to fill in the blanks that each reader definitely will have a different picture in their head. And that's important, isn't it? That each reader gets to fill in the blanks for themselves with just enough guideline that the picture of the story is unique for each reader? The story weaves and reads so easily and thoroughly that you are pausing to think on concepts and themes you almost didn't notice except as an afterthought; leaving you in a place of contemplation and reflection.

Rothfuss dives right into the life of Kote, a man now known as the innkeeper out in the middle of nowhere; with his assistant Bast. Something is very wrong about the picture though, and as a newcomer stops into his inn; it starts to unravel. Many stories have been told and re-told about the legendary man Kvothe, and Kote decides to set the record straight about who Kvothe really was and divulge the truth about each and every tale of Kvothe Kingkiller. Between the stories Kote tells of Kvothe's youth and the events occurring in the present at his inn, you get sucked not only into where the present events might lead but to the life story of a man-legend who somewhere along the line, got lost in the tales and myths of his own making.

I find myself still reeling about Kvothe and his love interest, Denna, and about how such a poor young man will make his way up to such a legend. I can easily picture all of the places of the story and walk through as if I've been there. Such a fully-formed world makes it so easy for you to wonder about what stories aren't being told; and wildly exasperate you on what solutions and events will arise around Kote and Bast. Most of all, I am not able to instantly jump and guess at the sequence of events that will occur next - as this is no re-told re-told fantasy tale of Prince Galahad or some snuffy kid pulling magic out of nowhere and becoming instantly important and three-dimensional and wise.

I do have to note as an after-thought that if you buy this book, I recommend buying it in Hardcover. I take excellent, excellent care of my books and this one is so large that the binding is crinkled and worn just from one read-through and the covers are frayed at the corners and scratched elsewhere for very literally, no particular reason. I love this book so much that I will definitely invest in a hardcover later, and will be buying all the the sequels in hardcover when I buy them on my dime. But for now, I will begin the continuation of Kvothe's tales in ebook form through my library.

Happy reading! 

How We Save Money

So many people have asked me in my day-to-day how we save money. With a small income despite both of us bringing in money, we have more in savings than most people in our situation (though I never divulge money talk, I do talk about us being able to buy a house in a year or two and trying to keep it all together, of course). I mean, I get the whole, "How are you guys affording three kids on your income?!" and the truth is we struggle. We struggle with the balance of trying to keep our living affordable and splurge enough that we have things that we want. It's not easy for us either.

The other truth is; it has to do with mindset. As Pagans, we live pretty simply. I don't have a lot of decorations around my house because in my opinion, it would be a waste. We don't own this apartment and it would be clutter that we'll eventually have to pay to move to our permanent home (when we buy it). We have little furniture, just enough that all of our needs are met (and honestly, it is almost too much for our apartment anyways!) It's not even that we're disinterested in having decorations and furniture, I would love to hang a bunch of pictures and paintings and have decorative pieces that make our place more homey. It's just not practical for us right now in terms of space and storage. Not to mention we're about to have three littles to babyproof for. The other piece is; we don't smoke and Daddy J only drinks a bit of beer now and again. We don't have expensive hobbies because we know that we can enjoy ourselves with it costing us ridiculously; and we always discuss and rationalize with one another: Does it serve a need? Does it serve a want? If it is a want, can we justify the expense? If we can't; does it still serve an irreplaceable service? Sometimes we have the be the voice of reason to one another and remind ourselves of our long-term goals.

So the big question is: How do we do it?

Well, when we're sitting in more comfortable times we don't watch our spending as closely. This has come to bite us in the butt. It's not even that we have ever gotten ourselves into a pinch; it's just that we saw our bank account suffer and knew that if something hugely dreadful happened (such as to our car; which is nearly 17 years old) that we would take a big hit and then have to scrape and scramble to get by especially since my job is part-time so hours vary widely (I've had anywhere from 15-40 hours per week) due to departmental production which determines the hours available to divide up between employees and individual production which determines what percent of that you can be given. I would love to discuss how ridiculous this is in my field but I also like making money and not being fired. Wink wink.

As we've cinched our belts up I've come up with some really great ways to save money but it's really nothing new to most people. Couponing and rebates. I swear. Now, I'm no expert and far from a master. As Pagans also trying to live responsibly and as natural as possible; there are also a lot of products we just don't buy that are from the main coupon categories. So we have to keep it to mainly food items or household items we really need even if it's not our preferred brand (sacrifices, sacrifices). We don't really use Groupon or other things that still cost money like to go out to dinner or those type things.

So, we shop usually at our local Winn-Dixie and Aldi's which has some of the best prices in our area (besides Walmart, but not by enough). I get the ads weekly and make a list of what we need; then price compare from each store. Aldi's doesn't take coupons, so I have to keep that in mind when I price compare. I may be able to get similarly priced items for much cheaper at Winn-Dixie if I have coupons and/or rebates. With Winn-Dixie we're also part of the baby club so they send us a monthly coupon sheet on things like diapers ($3 off any), wipes ($1 off any), juice, chips or crackers, etc. I can use those on top of any manufacturer's coupons so it's a double whammy, but only once a month.

So once I have my list of price-compared items, I go to my two go-to rebate apps on my iPod, Ibotta and Shopkick. Ibotta is #1 in terms of breadth of items, the amount of rebates, and stores (ie. you can get rebates for going out to eat anywhere and purchasing any kind of chicken strips or buying alcohol anywhere). So I brand-compare at that point (ie. if a specific brand of snack is on rebate vs. a brand we usually get) and then check against the ads and prices, tallying the rebates into the prices. Once I have that done, I check my Winn-Dixie app on coupons and then print manufacturer's coupons (if any available) and check my Catalina coupons (the ones that print on the registers at the grocery store) and tally in that price. Now, I know that Winn-Dixie also takes competitor's coupons, so I sometimes also combine competitor's coupons with my manufacturer's, store, and rebates.

Usually by the end I have two very clear-cut lists of what I'm buying at one store vs. the other and have all of the coupons ready. If I go to Winn-Dixie, I also know that they mark certain items down with in-store coupons if they are close to expiration or overstocked. I have seen $5-8 off of meat in-store leaving steaks to be just $3-5 before coupons (if you have any) although I don't buy their meat just because of our local reasons. So now I'm up to five ways to save in coupons: I have manufacturer's/Catalina coupons, store coupons, in-store coupons, competitor's coupons, and rebates.

The hard part is you always have to make sure that the coupons match up with each other, ie. quantity. If you have a store coupon that says $0.75 one juice and a manufacturer's that says $1.00 off of two; you can still redeem both offers but you would have to buy 2 juices to get the manufacturer's coupon (and then the $0.75 will apply to just one juice of the two.) However if you're buying something like vitamins; and a competitor's add says buy one, get one free at say 50-100 count, that means that only the bottles with 50-100 vitamins in them will count. So if you have a manufacturer's coupon that says you can have $1.50 off of 2 bottles of vitamins 200 count, you can't use both. In my opinion, it's easiest to forget to check the count or quantity on things so always double check when you plan to combine deals.

Now I shop! At Winn-Dixie I always double-check produce, dairy, and bakery for items with in-store coupons. If I can get $1 off a one gallon jug of orange juice, I can combine that with the store coupon for an additional $0.50-0.75 off which is still a good deal; and sometimes I can get $1 off a name brand juice (or two, if another coupon specifies) and still get to use the manufacturer's, competitor's, and rebates.

Let's just pretend that Simply Made is on sale at Winn-Dixie for $3 each, and you have a manufacturer's coupon that says $0.75 off of two Simply Made juices; and then you have a store coupon that says $0.75 off of one juice, but you also have a competitor coupon where their deal is buy one, get one free. Now imagine that each bottle of Simply Made is 5 days before expiration so there's a $1 in-store coupon on both. So, let's combine. Buy one, get one. So you're just paying $3 for the one. Take off the $1 coupon on each, so you're paying just $1 already. Now use your manufacturer's coupon for $0.75 on two, and now you're down to paying $0.25 on two juices. You still have your store coupon, so that's another $0.75 off. You've now made $0.50 but Winn-Dixie doesn't give cash-back because of coupons, so your juices would just be free. So you have 2 Simply Made juices for free. But it gets sweeter. You still haven't redeemed your rebate. On Ibotta, they have a $0.75 rebate on any Simply Made product. At home, scan the barcode on one of your juices (you can only redeem one item rebate per transaction) and upload your receipt to the app's standards. Within 24 hours, you now have made $0.75 on your juices.

Now, it is VERY rare for a deal like that to work out so profitably. But it happened to me this week (not exact circumstances, though). Most of the time you will just get your items for extremely cheap. Extreme couponing like on tv is very rare and an unrealistic bar to set for yourself if you coupon. Know that you will not always get the best deal and that you will sometimes still have to pay full-price if there are no coupons out on any brand of item that you need. I usually can get at least $0.75 off of most items. This week for example, Winn-Dixie had a great deal on Yoplait! 20 for $10 (or $0.50 each) which each yogurt costing usually $0.75 each. There is a Yoplait manufacturer's coupon for $0.50 off of 5 Yoplait. Since Winn-Dixie limits 5 like coupons, and you're buying 20; you only need 4 of those coupons anyways. So I was able to get $2 of the sale already ($8 for 20 yogurts now). Then I actually got to the store and they had a whole row of yogurts 4 days off of expiration that were an additional $0.25 off (in-store markdown). Now, I can't eat 10 yogurts in 4 days... the idea is to have a lot of yogurt on hand that I can eat for say, two weeks or something before shopping again because I know that this deal won't come around for a few more weeks if at all. Anyways, I bought 5 yogurts that were close to expiration so I got another $1.25 off of these yogurts, bringing it down to $6.25 for all 20 yogurts. So not even close to free, but I saved $8.75 on yogurt!

There weren't any rebates on the yogurt; but the thing I love about Ibotta is it offers you flexibility with essentials most people buy. They have rebates for any bread, any eggs, any milk, any orange juice, but also on bananas, onions, and tomatoes in any quantity. If you split up your transactions for multiples (say, you need two loaves of bread then split them up into two transactions) then you'll get the redemption for both breads even if you buy them 2 minutes apart. As soon as the first rebate clears, you can redeem the second loaf. It's all about following the rules and thinking of your transactions like savings tetris.

That is exactly how we save the most money and where we save it! It's all about the Tetris art.

Clarity

So here I go again - I've had a few really amazing ideas! Like truly, I'm excited to have had them. I have been praying for clarity on finding a new job that will allow me to work from home - even if that means going further lengths to stay at home (taking low pay, for example). Last night I finally had some of my best ideas in a long time. The problem is - I'd be going into a market that is already bubbling and brimming with similar ideas and all; and I'd be footing the cost of the prototype myself (though honestly, it wouldn't be that expensive!) On the other hand, I don't want to just develop a prototype when I don't know how much interest it would generate in the market and I don't want someone else to steal my idea (and if I crowdsource before a copyright or other safety measure, then I'm basically giving my idea away for free). So today and tomorrow I'll definitely be thinking about fleshing this idea out and how to safely ask the market what they think. I now have three amazing ideas cooking in my brain that I'll be working towards!!

In less happy news, my mother called this week to let me know my cousin has stage 1 breast cancer. The biopsy showed that it was in the earliest stages and she'll be undergoing surgery this coming week and then beginning radiation after her best friend's wedding in May. They tested and found that it was not hereditary - but for me this is one of my worst fears. Leaving my children without me. I have no problem speaking frankly that unless something really unexpected and tragic happens, I will outlive my husband who is years my senior. I don't want to leave them with no one. On the other hand, I'm reassured that breastfeeding has lowered my risk significantly (she did not breastfeed for very long) and that I do my best to reduce my risks as it is. I'm sad for her and hopeful that it turns out to be just a blip on this timeline of her life, especially with two young daughters to also take care of.

Maire has really had a hard time with behavior for almost a year. We've tried everything but have honestly not tried anything with enough structure to help her, I think. The many tactics and methods we've tried with her simply haven't worked. I know I have spirited children so though it hasn't surprised us, it has frustrated us. It's not even that she's an exceptionally bad child, or misbehaves in any worrying or extreme way. It's that she lacks maturity, responsibility, and self-control that kids her age are supposed to be developing. She is very stubborn, will refuse to use manners and instead make demands, and otherwise just be rude, disruptive, or messy with things she knows better about.

We've tried taking her tablet, taking away the ability to have special snacks (a few cookies, a small Hershey's chocolate, or scoop of ice cream), not being able to go to the park (and more!), and those were last resorts after natural consequences. I tried a loose "marble" system (1 marble for good behavior, -1 for bad) with a reward if she fills up a very small glass with them (think half a Talenti container... my pregnant mind is now on ice cream!) And....nothing. She still treats us like the house butlers and misbehaves and refuses to use manners. So I've implemented a much more strict marble system & natural consequence pairing for her. I'm starting with it today. I will update once every week or two on how it's working or if it hasn't helped at all, so that I can share it on the chance it could help someone else!

As an end note, I am finally going to be a Tula owner! I've been hoping for a Tula since before I was pregnant with Lili, so three years ago. We could never justify the expense until I started working, and we had a million other things that needed to come first as well so it got put off. This pregnancy it was going to be my only "gift wish" so I knew I would get one, but I figured I was going to have to talk J into it and cajole until he agreed we could afford the expense (which we can, a few times over; but we are trying our best to make all expenses necessary in the hopes of buying a house in the next year or two...so saving is our main goal.) We ordered a Tide Pool and J said it was his favorite print; and doesn't even mind the purple with the print! I am so very excited. I hope it would be here by the baby shower, but I am definitely not in a rush since I still have 10 weeks left or more!

Anyways, as always, Blessed Be! It's finally nice to be able to see the sunshine.