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 Year of Yes – 155
I really enjoy going to different climbing gyms so that I can climb different walls and different routes. I like the newness of it because I come to it open and don’t get in my head about what’s possible. I guess it’s a bit of a beginner’s mind attitude. I wish I could do that at other aspects of my life too. Yes to beginner’s mind. #yearofyes #karenikayearofyes  Year of Yes – 154
My goal for May was to get real ids and to figure out what to do about painting the house. We went to the DMV today and hopefully the real ids are on the way. And I signed a contract for painters who will start mid-July. My goal for June is to set myself no new goals. I need a break so I am taking one. Let’s see if I can manage to pull it off. Yes to getting things done and yes to not setting new goals. #yearofyes #karenikayearofyes  Year of Yes – 153
Little boy was bored this weekend and created a project for himself. He thought of the project, researched it, built prototypes and then executed on it. It was pretty awesome to see. It also reminded me that it’s fun to get lost in a new project for a while. Fun to jump with both feet in. Yes to fun, yes to creative ideas, yes to jumping in! #yearofyes #karenikayearofyes  Year of Yes – 152 So much of life is the stories we tell ourselves. There are so few “facts” and we spend all our time weaving stories out of those facts, trying to make them make sense. Except that none of the stories are true. Because by definition they are stories. We rarely even know why we did something we did let alone why someone else did or didn’t do something. So once you put it all together, there’s more story than facts in the picture. All this is to say if I’m writing stories anyway, I might as well write stories that make me happy. Stories that empower me and make me the best version of myself. Because whatever you think, you’re right. Yes to making up more positive stories. Yes to looking for the good. #yearofyes #karenikayearofyes
““The reason they’re morons is they spend years, decades, hell, their whole lives regretting or apologizing for things nobody else even remembers. They carry those things around like bags of sand that keep them from going to all the places they could’ve gone and would’ve gone if they hadn’t been so busy thinking about the goddamn sand.” This is a unique book. The blurb mentions “Silver Linings Playbook” and “The Breakfast Club” and in fairness, I do see elements of both of them though thinking about either of them too much might take away from enjoying this book itself. I read the whole book in a single sitting. I loved the way it was diary entries mixed with dialogue and narration. “Soldier didn’t need to show me all the time that he loved me. He knew it and I knew it and that’s that. What he was doing was giving me a safe place to put my own love. It’s like he was saying, I’m never going to leave you. I’ll wait for you. I want you to know that I’ll always wait for you, that it’s safe to love me, that you have a place to put all the feelings you can’t give to anybody else because it’s too dangerous, because you’re worried they won’t understand, and they won’t wait for you. I’m here. I love you. And I will wait for you. I’m not going anywhere.” I loved each of the characters and I loved their unique perspective of life and why they had decided to be where they were and what they were grappling with. I loved that most of them seemed real to me and I loved how they were thrown together and the one thing they had in common was enough to bind them. “And if you’re wondering why no always trumps yes, it’s because when you’re married it takes two to say yes but only one to say no. Besides, there’s no risk in saying no. No means everything stays the same, you’re in control, and you don’t feel like you’ve lost out on anything.” This is a great story with some profound insight about life, how painful it can be and what it means to respect each others’ choices and what it means to love each other (and ourselves) just the way we are, with pain and all. with gratitude to netgalley and Gallery Books for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review
3.5 stars This book was an unexpected surprise. It starts out as a light, funny read and then evolves into something touching and lovely. It’s about Wren who finds out that her childhood (and still) best friend has died. She is asked to clean his apartment and has to deal with all the people who are circling his friend’s belongings. She’s finding out all the things she didn’t know about her friend and finding out some things about herself in the process.
This is a real and touching story about a well-loved Shakespeare teacher a Columbia who gets early onset Alzheimers. It’s also a story about a complicated family with ex-wives and step-children and abandonment and love and belonging. It’s also a love letter to New York City and its people. I’ve lived in New York for all of my twenties and the characters in this story jump off the paper and are real and textured. They try, they fail, and they try again. They let each other down, they love each other fiercely. They take care of each other. They stand by each other. They show up for each other. Each character in this book is unique and familiar and it’s not possible not to fall in love with them. with gratitude to netgalley and Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.
This is definitely not Weiner’s typical type of book. It’s not light and a beach read. Which is totally fine but I do wish they would change the covers so it doesn’t look like it’s a light and breezy book. I wasn’t expecting the plot to be what it was and while I did like the book, I would have liked to know what I was getting into.
3.5 stars. Somehow this book ended up being different than what I thought it was going to be. It was a lot longer than I thought it needed to be and it was serious with a lot of serious subject matter and yet a romance, sort of, maybe in between genres? I did like it but I somehow didn’t love it. I sort of knew where it was going and lost patience in the middle when it took way too long to get there.
I loved this book. It reminded me of “Plainsong” which was my favorite read from two years ago. I was quiet and sad and also beautiful. Even though it was a “mystery” there wasn’t much mystery to most of the story. It was character driven and each of the characters was textured and layered and i loved them each a little bit. 
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