How I Spent My February: Hibernation & the Mockingjay dilemma.

Tomorrow will be the first of March. And the high will be 80 degrees.

It's a little confusing to a be a tree in Oklahoma currently. They actually started blooming about two weeks ago (I have photographic proof, but they're on my phone whose {who's? whose?} battery is dead.) So you can imagine that by now they're in full bud stage - the Bradford Pears are particularly all almost completely white.

I'm excited, mind you. I haven't missed winter one iota this year. The last two years were especially grueling in the cold and snow department, so I'm all for a mild winter. The only problem is the lack of moisture - there has been some rain, but not enough to ease our drought situation and my biggest concern is summer fire danger.

Grandma has also pointed out that if its 80 this early in March (and we were hitting high 70's this week as well), how hot will this summer get?

Still, I'm not complaining. For the first time this winter has actually been bearable at work.

February's been an odd month this year (outside of the before mentioned weather.) With the exception of this past week, I have visited almost no one. Sure, Valentine's Day stole about a week and a half, but barring that it's been curiously quiet. I've spent most of my days at home, and usually curled up quiet in my room. (Oo, that's been nice.)  Surprisingly, other friends and familia have started mentioning the same phenomena occurring to them as well. Where did everyone go this month? Hey, where have you been? Why have I seen no one? etc. Curious. Anyone else felt that way? I think I pretty much hunkered down and hid the whole month for no real reason.

But the weather is glorious and, despite all the high temperatures, spring itself is actually nearing now.  People seem to be waking back up and coming out of hibernation. I'm thrilled to see the grass greening up again and the flowers starting to come around.

I did spend February reading - that's partially why I stole myself away. I blitzed through Catching Fire and Mockingjay which are the final two of the Hunger Games trilogy. I highly, highly recommend reading the first two books - but I don't know if I can recommend Mockingjay! It's a shame because Book 2 gives you no other option but continuing on. Who knows, you may really enjoy the third one (if you like books that make you blindingly angry and incredibly depressed, cough). After finally calming down, I do see some solid arguments for it and I may reluctantly even agree with some of them. But mostly my review of Mockingjay comes down to very irrational "hush, I don't care." :)

Sadly, I can't really say more than that without breaching spoiler issues. And since this book is so popular right now - not to mention the upcoming movie - that I'm being super careful. If you liked Mockingjay - especially that last third of the book - I would genuinely like to hear from you. I'm still trying to piece out whether I think its critically a good book or not. Unfortunately with this one, I can't separate out my initial blast of emotions from the overall piece. (Obviously.) And I recognize that. So I'd like help in sorting out any thoughts.

I have now started Hitchhikers for the first time. A coworker sweetly loaned me her Complete version with all five books. That is enjoyable, but admittedly going more slowly. (I'm only about five chapters in.) If nothing else, Hunger Games made for some gripping reading and it did have me on the edge of my seat. I devoured each in three days. They were also the first set of books in a long time where the images just flickered across my mind. That was how reading used to be and I miss it. It was a pleasure to have that happen that again. 

Coming up in March: getting to see SLT's Hairspray, the tour of Screwtape Letters and - if you can believe it - the Phantom sequel Love Never Dies on screen (bwahahaha! March 7th, if anyone wants to come with! in OKC.)  Excitement.