SPRING !!!!

. . . I am sooooo excited for spring to come!! This nice wheather is wonderful and its getting me ready to wear shorts and tank tops and flip flops! And its also only about one month until spring break. Can you believe it ! Well . . . I'm still reading the Glass Castle and its really good so far, but nothing to blog about.

Glass Castle 2 . . .

. . . As I was reading in the glass castle this week, I came across a quote that I thought was pretty interesting. The protagonist, who's name I still don't know, is talking to her mom about this plant near their house known as the joshua tree. It grows at the base of a mountain in the desert of Nevada and constantly has the wind blowing it in one direction. Because of this it grew to look like the wind was constantly blowing on it. The protagonist wants to take it home and re-plant it so it could grow straight and tall. But her mother tells her " You'd be destroying what makes it special... Its the Joshua tree's struggle that gives it its beauty." ( walls p. 38 ) I liked this quote because i thought it really summed up the walls' parenting philosophy and idea of life in general . They never really baby their kids at all and, quite often, this puts their kids in danger. Although I am definitely not advocating this type of parenting, I'm starting to see that their motive for doing so is to help their kids build character. They think that making them face these impossible struggles will make them stronger people. And in most cases, they're right. At this point, it seems like their unorthodox parenting ideas are paying off in helping their kids gain confidence and resilience in every day life. But living so far removed from society has its price, and I think it will soon catch up with the Walls family . . . but I'll just have to read and find out.

Glass Castle 1 . . .

. . . I love this book! After just reading the preface I can tell that I am really going to enjoy the Glass Castle. The basic premise of the book is based around a middle aged successful woman from New York reflecting upon her . . . unique childhood. The book begins with her earliest memory of lighting herself on fire while making hotdogs- at the age of three. While at the hospital, the nurses seem to express distinctive distain upon the way this young girls' parents are raising her. But this social outcasting doesn't stop at the ER. Instead, it seems to follow her throughout her entire life as she grows up with her extremely eccentric, and often dangerously different, parents. Her father is exuberant, inventive, and almost childlike in a way. But when he drinks, he becomes someone no one with any sense of self preservation wants to be around. Her mother is also adventerous and excitable and tries, even against reason, to teach her children to be self sufficient and imaginative. But the Walls children can't help but learn how to survive on their own as they are often left to fend for themselves when their parents are gone. But they learn to depend on eachother as they are constantly doing the "skeedattle" ( as Mr. Walls calls it ) to run from the FBI (tax collectors ) or Mafia ( the most recent casino Mr. Walls has cheated ), never allowing the kids to lay permanent roots. And this is all in the first few chapters! I can't wait to read the rest of the book with its endeering story of a family that chose to go against the grain in about as many ways possible.