Favorite Books of 2014

2014 was a good year for reading books.  I read 55 books for the year (or here is the librarything version which I like better because it lets you give half stars) and was part of two book clubs, one of which was a new one and I have met some really awesome ladies and I really love it.

So here are my best books of the year (*all links are affiliate links to Amazon)

		These were the life changing books of the year, so much so that I have became a bit obsessed with learning all I can about Katy's work and paradigm. Her work is  nuanced, but at the same time extremely simple and I have had such significant improvements in my health that it is mind-boggling.
	I really love Brandon Sanderson, but was a little bit disappointed with the first book in this series (it didn't have a very satisfying end), but this book completely made up for it. Typically I am a fast, impatient reader, but even though this book is over 1000 pages I found myself slowing down and not wanting it to end.
	This was a book I read for both my book clubs. It takes place in Seattle and I loved being taken back to what the Pacific Northwest was like in the 1930's. The sports parts of story are excellent. Even though you know the outcome of most of the races, they are still suspenseful. Finally the discussion of Hitler's propaganda is interesting and adds an interesting third layer to the story.
	This is a plug for a friend's book. It also takes place in Seattle. It is a murder mystery about a woman with a stalker, with a fantasy twist.
	This was another book club book about a mysterious fictional author. While I was reading the book I was expecting some sort of surprising plot twist, and I was not disappointed.
	I spent a lot of time re-reading books this year. Dave Duncan is my favorite author and this is the first book of one his best series. The neat thing about the Blade books is that each book is a standalone novel, but the first three all tie into each other for a larger plot. Thus you should not read the first two books without reading the third. I think I actually read this particular book in 2013, but finished the other books in the series in 2014.  (Lord of the Fire Lands, Sky of Swords)
	This was another set of series re-reads. Robin Hobb has 4 finished trilogies that take place in this world, and then released the first book of a 5th series. I reread the two series starring Fitz.  I had put off re-reading these two series which are favorites because I remember how much I cried the first time I read them. The second time wasn't different. Robin Hobb is kind of a brutal author in that she really puts her characters through the wringer. The newest book is intriguing, but she has hinted that it is going to involve even more tears. :(

Honarable Mentions

Past book lists

2014 In Review

2014 was a good year.  It started off with the Seahawks winning the Super Bowl, which was amazing. :)  

We went to California over spring break and stayed with my brother and his family.  The cousins had an awesome time playing, and we got to do Disneyland as well.  On the way back we stopped in Monterey and stayed with a college friend, and all the kids had fun.

Floyd did his annual trip to Vegas, and played in various poker tournaments including the WSOP Main Event and made it to day 2. Unfortunately Vegas was not lucrative this year. I joined him for a few days and enjoyed relaxing by the pool and eating delicious food (I highly recommend the Bellagio Buffet).  

We had nice weather this year with a unusually warm and dry spring, and a long summer.  We did lots of hikes,visits to the park, and played a bit of golf.  The girls are developing an entrepreneurial spirit and did lemonade stands, face painting stands, a garage sale and even had a booth selling bean bags at the farmer's market.  

In August we went to Cannon Beach with my parents, sister, grandmother, and my brother's family.  

In the fall the girls went to a new school.  This was probably the biggest change/event of the year. Selena transferred schools, and Allie started kindergarten at a public co-op school in the district. I knew before we started that I was going to dislike the drive (we walked to the old school), and I do. I had wanted to send my kids to this school since before Selena started, but Floyd wasn't interested. Then Selena had tested into the highly capable program and we considered that, but I thought we should reconsider the co-op. I was concerned that the highly capable program would be too much homework and the co-op seemed to offer more variety of classroom activities due to the parental involvement, so we decided to do that.

The activities have been great -- in Selena's class I am teaching computer programming. They also do chess, cooking, maps, economics, sign language, etc.  They have small group exploration projects five times a year, as well as numerous field trips.  The community has been wonderful, and welcoming. Making friends has happened faster because we see everyone more often, and have everyone's contact information. The people we have met are all very cool, not pretentious, and tend to be like minded. It is very nice.

But besides the driving (12 - 15 min drive there and back 3 times a day when not carpooling), the downside has been that the new school has a more punitive school wide "citizenship program" (ie discipline policy) than our old school, and even though my kids do not get into trouble, they speak negatively about their classmates and/or teacher almost daily, which tends to get me down, and negate some of the good feelings towards the new school. 

And because it is still a public school in the same district it has the same recess/lunch schedules as the rest of the schools, which really get me upset.  No recess for half day kindergartners, and a 20 minute lunch and 2 recesses for a total of 30 minutes for the rest of the kids and unfortunately significant portions of the lunch and recess time are spent standing in line.  My entire educational/parenting philosophy since they were born has been centered around physical activity and child directed learning. Thus it really bothers me to know that I am sending them to a place I know to be physically and psychologically unhealthy because they are sedentary for 92 percent of the day, and have virtually no autonomy. But the sad truth is even if I were to home-school I am not confident that I could live up to my own expectations. In the summer it is easier, but when it is cold and rainy and playmates are harder to round up I'm not sure if I could do it.

As for other news for the year. I continued to update my OFC app, and released an iPhone/iPad version of my Learn to Read app, but didn't manage to release any new apps, partly because I was also doing contract work for my dad's consulting business. This year I will be working almost part time for him, which will be great for our bank account, but will make it very difficult for being able to do anything for my apps. Which is probably for the best, because developing apps was only marginally lucrative before, but seems to become even less so, as the novelty of smart phones is wearing off. Though I really want to create some picture book apps, not because I think they will make money, but just because I want to. We will see if I am able to pull it off.

I continue to run, but not race.  I also have been playing a bit of indoor soccer which I alternate between enjoying and not enjoying (tendency for injury and mean opponents).  Haven't got to sew much, especially for myself. I think this year I made a soft structured baby carrier for my cousin, a Halloween costume for Selena, a tank top for myself (that was too small), a pair of fleece pants for Allie, and helped Selena make herself a sleeping bag.  

Selena and Allie did gymnastics, swimming, art classes, and soccer this year. It was a lot of fun to see them learn new skills. Swimming was the most amazing. They went from being unwilling to put their heads underwater to little fish. Allie was a goal scoring machine in soccer, and Selena is the toughest kid I know. She gets hit and just brushes it off and gets right up.  

Floyd continues playing poker, and running off and on throughout the year.  

That is about it!  Looking forward to 2015. :)

Hour Of Code

This last week has been Computer Science Education week and a lot of kids have been doing some computer programming at school, and a lot of my friends have been asking me for resources.

I have been intermittently working on an Introduction to Computer Programming series of videos and have posted on my business website the first four of those videos as well as a list of some resources that I like and have been using.  Please share and if you have any feedback that would be welcome too. :)

http://www.corvidapps.com/2014/12/hour-of-code-is-underway.html

Learn to Read App Ported to iPhone/iPad

A couple years ago I released my first app, a simple interactive early reader book. I released it on Android devices and it has had some success. The free, lite version has over 200,000 downloads and I have made some money from it. I wasn't sure if it was worth porting it to iOS, but at some point I did 75% of the work, but then switched gears to due the Open Face Chinese Poker app. But I had a potential customer email me the other day, telling me that a friend had recommended the app to her, but she only had Apple devices. That motivated me to finish the port and I released the Apple version a few weeks ago. So if anyone is looking for an early reader app for their iPad please take a look at it. If you do download it, a rating and/or review would be extremely appreciated. Ratings and reviews drive rankings, which increase visibility, and make it so that I actually get paid at least something for the work I did. For more info you can check out my business website. Thank you!

Summer Recap - Hiking

I did quite a bit of hiking this summer.  We did Bridal Veil Falls, Wallace Falls, Barclay Lake, Lake 22, and Bear Lake with the kids.  Cynthia and I did Wallace Lake, and Floyd and I did Mount Dickerman.

Quick Recap:
Bridal Veil Falls- Cool water fall, fairly flat trail till the last bit.

Wallace Falls - Popular hike not too far away.

Barclay Lake -  Nice flat hike to a beautiful lake, but farther away than I remembered it being.  You have to go quite a ways on a forest road to get to the trail head.

Wallace Lake - Longer hike that avoids some of the crowds heading to Wallace Falls.  Parts of the trail are logging roads and not a ton of elevation gain.

Mount Dickerman - This is a tough hike and one that I did before when it was covered in snow.  This time we did it Labor Day weekend and there were wild blueberries on the trail that were ripe and very tasty. Unfortunately it was cloudy so we didn't get to enjoy a view.

Lake 22 - This is out on the Mountain Loop Highway.  The hike has very well maintained trails, but the terrain is still pretty rough.  There is some water on the trail, you go through a rock slide so there is a part with a lot of shale, but the kids did great.  It is 5.5 miles and the scenery is gorgous.  Tons of large old growth cedars and douglas firs and lots of moss and skunk cabbage.  There is a fancy boardwalk around a significant portion of the lake and there are some places with beach area to wade. I was excited when we did this because I spotted a random geocache. :)

Bear Lake - Pinnacle Lake is the main destination for this trail head, but despite its short length the trip reports say it is fairly hard.  You have to take a long forest road (7 miles) to get to the trail head, so we ended up parking a mile away from the trail head and then just doing the short Bear Lake trail. It was very quiet and peaceful, with really large old growth cedars.

Summer Recap - Racing

The girls did quite a few races this year.  There was a 5k fundraiser for Selena's school in May.  Every year we do the Swedish SummerRun for Ovarian Cancer research and we did that again this year. Selena was running around 33 minutes for most of her 5k's.  Pretty fast!  Allie isn't quite up for running a 5k but she did do a combo of running and walking.

The girls did the Mill Creek Kids Fun Run.  Allie did both the 1 lap and the 1k.  She initially wanted to do the 1 lap, but then it didn't quite seem long enough so she did the 1k too.  The combo seemed a bit too long though.   Selena did the 2k and looked good.

Selena also got really excited about doing a triathalon.  She had just learned to swim so she was super excited to do the kids tri.  It was at McCollum park.  It was a 25 yard swim, 1/2 mile bike ride, and 1/8 mile run.  The swim was the biggest challenge.  She can swim, but isn't quite able to do a consistent crawl stroke. She can do a crawl stroke, and flip to her back, then flip to a crawl, etc.  The race day came and she had had a fever the night before so I wasn't sure if she should do it.  I was worried if she did, she might get really sick.  She decided to at least go and watch and if she felt okay then she would do it.  She ended up doing it, but decided to just stick with a straight back float for the swim and did great on the other two legs--and she rested the rest of the day, and didn't get really sick.

The girls also did a community run hosted by my cousin's high school cross country team.  Selena did the 5k and Allie did the 1k.  I wasn't there, but heard that they did good.

Unfortunately we didn't make it to any of the all-comers track meets this summer.  We will have to remember to fit that in next year.

Summer Recap - Canon Beach

We went to Canon Beach with my family during the first week of August.  My parents rented a house just south of Canon Beach and my brother and his family drove up from California.  My grandma came from Texas, and my sister was there too.

We went to the Tillamook Cheese factory and I discovered cheddar cheese curds.  Yummm! Apparently Beecher's makes them too and sells them in the grocery stores.

We were a bit south of Canon Beach which was nice because there were less crowds, but there was a weird mico-climate that made it foggier and windier than it was in town.  But we made lots of sand castles, explored the tide pools and went on plenty of runs on the beach.

There was very little light pollution at night, and a hot tub on the deck, so we could sit at night and look at the stars.  I think that was my favorite part.

I know we took some group photos, but they must have been on someone else's camera.

I Want to Learn How to Draw

Art class was something I missed out in school.  I did band from 6th grade til my sophmore year of high school, and band took the place of any required art credits.  I did take one drawing class in college, but other than that I missed out on formal drawing lessons throughout my schooling--which is a bummer.

Lately I've been trying to improve my skills in hopes that I can illustrate my own apps more skillfully.  I've picked up some art books at the library, but one that has intrigued me the most has been Carla Sonheim's work.  She has a few book (affiliate links to the right) filled with art lessons and she has online classes as well.  At the beginning of this summer I signed up for her imaginary creatures class.  Her style is intriguing and interesting and learning her techniques have been fun.

Here are some various things I have drawn, some from both the lessons in her books, some from her class, and some on my own.  I really want to do her year long fairy tale class, but the $200 tag plus supplies is a bit much for me right now.  I'll just keep hoping a large fortune comes my way before the end of the year. :)

Healthy Teeth and Sun Protection for Your Skin

*I am not a medical professional and supplements can have unintended consequences.  Please do your own research and consult a health professional for advice.

When Selena was five years old I noticed a big black hole in her tooth.  I took her into the dentist and she had 10 cavities.  $2000 dollars later she had had a lot of work done in her poor little mouth.

I stumbled across some people who swore that Vitamin K2 is the go to vitamin for dental health.  It is a vitamin that is not found in many foods.  The foods with the highest amounts are butter made from the milk of grass fed cows, and fermented soy beans.  The claim is that this vitamin is essential to the remineralization of your teeth.  That just like bones are constantly regenerating and growing, your teeth are doing the same, assuming they have the necessary supplies.  I did not know yhis was possible, but a hygenist friend said it was. There is some limited research that K2 helps with bone regrowth, but overall it isn't a well studied vitamin. Most of the evidence for teeth health is anecdotal.

I decided that I might as well try it.  One recommended supplement is a High Vitamin Butter Oil/Fermented Cod Liver Oil mix.  It is pretty expensive but after spending $2000 on dentist bills and Selena had yet another black spot on her tooth--I figured it was worth a $50 shot to see if it worked as it could potentially save us a lot of money (what with us not having dental insurance).

Here is a picture of the black spot on Selena's tooth.  She had gone to a free dental cleaning that was being offered to the community and the dental assistant who cleaned her teeth said it was a cavity.  I gave her a small bit of the "chocolate" vitamin every day for a few weeks after that but before she went in for a scheduled cleaning. The spot was gone and she was deemed cavity free.  She also has a small spot on the front of one of her teeth, that gets noticeably smaller when I am consistent in giving her the supplement, but gets larger if I forget.

I too have had some spots on my teeth that I have been able to get rid of by consistently taking the supplement. One year ago some x-rays showed a cavity between the teeth. In the name of science I have refused to get them fixed because I want to see if they will go away.  If they still show up on my next x-rays, then I will have them taken care of.

The other benefit I have noticed from the Cod Liver Oil/Butter Oil supplement is that my skin doesn't burn as easily.  I have had quite a few days that I have spent 30 - 40 minutes in the midday sun and have not gotten burnt, which historically has not been possible with my fair, freckled skin. I struggle with knowing what is more risky, no sun exposure, or too much, and I have settled on trying to get as much as possible without getting burnt.  Cod liver oil contains vitamin D, which is supposed to help prevent you from getting burnt (the reasoning on why tanning helps to prevent you from getting burnt), and there are some studies that show that vitamin K2 and vitamin D have a synergistic affect that could explain the positive affects in sun protection.

Overall the supplement tastes and smells awful, which is part of the reason I sometimes forget to take it for a while.  I buy the "chocolate" flavored kind so I can tell my kids it is a chocolate vitamin, but I still serve it up in a bite of applesauce.  That way you can slurp it down without having to taste it.

The positive affects I have seen on both mine and Selena's teeth could be coincidence.  There aren't really any scientific studies on its efficacy for cavity healing and/or prevention, and most of the proponents of it are from single group of people*, but I have had enough periods of me or my kids taking it versus not taking it to make me feel like I do see a positive difference that I am willing to spend 50 or so bucks every six months to buy it.

*Weston A Price was a dentist who did some anthropological like research and determined that populations with the healthiest teeth had some sort of "X-Factor" that he seemed to think was found most often in cow's milk during the spring.  The Weston A Price Foundation thinks that Vitamin K2 is the name of the X-Factor Price discovered as it is found primarily in milk/butter of cows that eat fresh grass.  

Hacking My Health

*I am not a medical professional and supplements and exercise programs can have unintended consequences.  Please do your own research and consult a health professional for advice.

I have been writing these posts in my head for years, but the concepts are so interconnected that I find it really hard to succinctly explain all the connections and relationships, but I am going to try.

I am 33 years old, which isn't very old, but ever since having kids I started feeling old.  My joints are stiff, my back aches, and I can't physically do things that I used to be able to do, and it doesn't seem right.  If my life expectancy is 78 (or whatever) then I shouldn't start feeling old till I am 40ish, not 27ish.

When I first started this blog I did not think supplements were useful and that eating whole foods was good enough for overall health. But over the years I have adopted a new theory about the difference between surviving and thriving. You can survive on many nutritiously deficient diets, and even a nutrient dense whole foods diet can lack in some areas and supplementation can allow a person to thrive versus just survive.

One major complaint against supplements is that many do not "work" and any results are only a placebo effect.  I do not have an issue with this.  If a supplement can provide someone with a way to use the placebo effect to their own benefit then I think that is a good thing.  Most of the supplements I will use, I have had noticeable positive affects, they have a compelling scientific basis for how and why they work though may not have a double-blind placebo study to back it up, thus I do admit there is a possibility that I am simply experiencing a placebo effect.

Nutrition isn't the only health hack available.  Movement and nutrition go hand-in-hand.  The general consensus is that exercise is good for cardiovascular health, but I go a step further and think there is strong evidence that movement is integral to mental and brain health.  Recently I have been convinced even further, that the simple mechanics of how we position ourselves throughout our day has a real affect on a multitude of common ailments and degenerative diseases.

I plan on doing a series of posts sharing some of the "health hacks" I have discovered, and I am going to start with that last idea first, because it is the one that I have just discovered and the results are mindbogglingly impressive.

Hacking Your Period - Alleviating menstrual cramps, reducing the length of your period, and how heavy it is.
Healthy Teeth and Sun Protection for Your Skin
Sensitive Sense of Smell Could be a Zinc Deficiency