Cat Pollock Writes

The attitude you start your day with is the attitude that will guide your actions (and reactions) for the rest of your day. Sounds like a really cool quote from someone famous who would know a thing or two about such things, doesn't it? Well, if someone said it, I haven't read it yet. I have, however, recently become to believe it to be true. Why? Well, there is a silly little thing I posted on Twitter on Friday... It wasn't the best start to a day. While I posted it with the tongue-in-cheek #not happening, it happened anyway. Frustration settled in and all the little things I would normally be able to let go of with a smile kept piling on. By the time my sister got in from training, I was ready to snap. And when I say snap, what I mean is burst into tears, because that is what I do when I get frustrated. I cry like a baby. Drives my family crazy. But that's not the point. The point is that I let the word frustration and my initial feelings of ...

I'm the public speaker you never want to listen to. No, seriously. I um and uh and am responsible for long and awkward pauses while I try to find my words. At least, this is the case when I am asked to speak on the spot. I'm sure I've blogged before about how my family loves to tease me about it, too. They do, and I laugh with them because I know it's true. There is a brain inside my head that works well enough to string words together on a piece of paper - or computer screen - in ways that make sense after I've had a decent amount of time to figure out what to say. For some reason, standing up and talking is a slower, bug-ridden process for that same brain. Speaking with my mouth is just hard. Without a prewritten speech (or detailed outline), I am completely unsure of what to say or how to say it, and it shows. And anyone who has been subjected to my lack of eloquence - I'm so sorry for having put you through that torture in the past. For real. No guar...

From weaponry to mutiny, friends. Welcome to week 28. Manners & Mutiny (Finishing School #4) Gail Carriger, 2015, Little, Brown and Company Summary : Manners & Mutiny is the final installment in the Finishing School series, following Sophronia Temminnick's four years in a finishing and espionage training school. In Sophronia's final year, all of her training is put to the test when the full scale of the Picklemen's plotting with mechanicals is revealed. Why I Read It: It is the last book in the series, and was a fabulous gift to receive from my sisters for my birthday last year. Side note: Now that we are out of borrowed territory, I feel like maybe this section can be eliminated? Let me know. Opinion: It was a series end fit for the Parasol Protectorate universe, that is for sure. The twists and turns made this one difficult to put down for even a few seconds before the afterword. If Sophronia was coming into her own in Waist...