books 25 - 32

Here’s a list of what I’ve read since posting last with a yes, no, or meh (good for the beach, but nothing very satisfying) rating:

Lord John & The Brotherhood of the Blade – Diana Gabaldon: Yes
Lord John & The Hand of Devils – Diana Gabaldon: Yes
Lord John & The Private Matter – Diana Gabaldon: Yes

Keep A Little Secret – Dorothy Garlock: Meh

Solomon’s Oak – JoAnn Mapson: YES (more emphatic when I use all CAPS, right?)
Blue Rodeo – JoAnn Mapson: Yes
The Wilder Sisters – JoAnn Mapson: Yes

The Poisonwood Bible – Barbara Kingsolver: YES YES

I realize I’m probably the last person on earth who hadn’t read The Poisonwood Bible.  I have no idea why I resisted for so long!  It was a phenomenal book.  Hey, did I ever tell you guys that once my in-laws were in the Unclaimed Baggage store in Alabama (where all lost/unclaimed/misplaced airline baggage and freight goes to die), and in their book area, they found a copy of The Poisonwood Bible right up there on the rack with all the other Bibles for sale?  That story will always make me laugh, just like this comic I saw recently:

And these quotations from my children may amuse you, too:

Timon: Why don’t you go do one of your puzzles?
Henry: No, I have greater plans.

Maria (after draining her cup): Now, I want some more water and I said the magic word already.

books 18-24

Um, hi.  I am still here.  And I’m still reading a lot, which might explain why I don’t think about getting a post done.  Whoops.  Ok, are you ready?

1. Hank & Chloe, by Jo-Ann Mapson.  I’d never heard of this book or this author before – one of the sweet ladies who helps care for Maria while I work gave me a sack of books and this one was in it.  I really liked it!  Chloe is a horse trainer, riding teacher, and café waitress and Hank is an adjunct college professor.  They’re both messed up, and neither of them knows how to be in a relationship – but they’re in one together.  This is a great book.

2. The Owl & Moon Café, by Jo-Ann Mapson.  When I end up enjoying one book by an author I hunt the library for the rest of their stuff.  I liked this one as well – it’s the story of 4 generations of women and how they seem to make the same mistakes and learn the same lessons the hard way.  Man, who can’t relate to that?

3. The Year My Son and I Were Born: A Story of Down Syndrome, Motherhood, and Self-Discovery, by Kathryn Lynard Soper.  Oh, this was gorgeous.  This is a memoir by an accomplished mother of 5 whose sixth child is unexpectedly born with Down Syndrome.  It’s so, so real, so raw, and really, truly beautiful.  I wept over and over while reading this, and I can only slightly attribute that to the hormonal fluctuations accompanying my first natural cycle in many months.  (TMI?  Sorry.)

4. Pictures of You, by Caroline Leavitt.  Two women traveling on the same foggy road have a horrific accident, resulting in one woman’s death.  The mystery of why each of them were on that road to begin with is revealed in this book, and the intertwining of the survivor with the dead woman’s family gets pretty interesting.  I loved this book.

5. Winter Garden, by Kristin Hannah.  I’ve read a few of her other books and have liked them all.  Despite the surprising and totally improbable ending, I enjoyed reading this story of a mother and daughters, trying to connect for the first time in their lives.  The mother is a Russian immigrant who married an American soldier at the end of WWII, and she has never expressed any warmth to their two daughters at all.  Her husband’s dying wish is that she finishes telling the girls a fairy tale she used to tell them as children.  Turns out the fairy tale is actually the story of the mother’s tragic early life in Leningrad, and all the strange behaviors over the years start to make sense.  This is an excellent book.

6. Rush Home Road, by Lori Lansens.  Addy Shadd is a woman who was raised in a Canadian town founded by runaway U.S. slaves.  She leaves there as a teenager after becoming pregnant after a rape and being shamed by her family and friends.  As an adult she lives in a small trailer and agrees to take in a 6 year old girl abandoned by her mother.  Told in both present-time and flashback, we learn why Addy Shadd is who she is, and why she’d want to take in a stranger’s child.  This wasn’t my favorite of Lansens’ books, but I’m still glad I read it.

7. The Wives of Henry Oades, by Johanna Moran.  I just finished this when I woke up too early this morning.  What a great book!  Of all these I’m reviewing today, it’s my favorite.  A British accountant is sent overseas with his wife and children to New Zealand on assignment.  After a year and a half there, the wife and children are abducted by the indigenous Maori and eventually are presumed dead.  Henry tries to make a go of it and search for them, but soon the grief is too much so he moves to California, where after a couple of years he meets and marries a young widow with a baby.  Well, lo and behold, wife #1 and 3 of the 4 children are alive and escape the Maori, survive smallpox and the long journey by boat to the US to get to their husband and father.  Soon bigamy charges are brought against them and a new family dynamic must be worked out.  It’s a great book, I highly recommend it!

For my own sake, I hope I post again soon.  Remembering what to write about so many books is too much.

books 14-17

Well, I certainly did not mean to go so long in between posts.  I had to go back to my online library reading history to double check what I had read!  Once a book is finished, unless it was a truly amazing one, it flies right out of my head.  I cannot tell you how many times I’ve picked up a book at the library, thought it sounded interesting and brought it home, only to discover about 5 pages in that I’ve already read it.  Whoops.

1. The Girls, by Lori Lansens.  This book was phenomenal!  It’s the story of conjoined twins, attached at the side of the head.  They each have a voice in the book (represented by different fonts, although she made them sound so individual it wouldn’t have taken long to know who was speaking even without the font changes), and it chronicles their short 30 year life.  And it’s a pretty thorough life, at that.  Definitely read this one!

2. The Girl Who Fell From The Sky, by Heidi Durrow.  This was a pretty forgettable book.  Meh.

3. Thank You For All Things, by Sandra Kring.  I just finished this one two days ago and it was really, really good.  It’s the story of a girl and her twin brother and their single mother who return to live with the mother’s divorced parents as the father (who had been seriously abusive) is nearing the end of his life.  Lucy (the young girl) is the narrator of the book and as she discovers family secrets through her mother’s journal entries, she figures herself out a little bit too.  I loved this book and was just WEEPING with Lucy.

4. A Special Relationship, by Douglas Kennedy.  Ay yi yi, I should have known.  I truly should have known that this book would raise my blood pressure and make me want to throw it across the room.  This author also wrote The Pursuit Of Happyness and while I haven’t read the book, I saw the movie and LORD, HAVE MERCY, was it depressing.  I don’t necessarily mind the parts of this man’s life that involved deep despair and suffering, just DON’T force us to watch this little boy suffer too.  Anyway… In A Special Relationship an American female journalist meets a dashing male journalist on assignment in Egypt, quickly fall in love (or so it seems), she gets pregnant, they get married and settle in London.  She has a difficult pregnancy and birth and then suffers with a terrible case of Post-partum psychosis.  Her seemingly loyal husband then betrays her in the worst way.  And I can’t write any more about it – I feel my heart rate going up and my anxiety level on her behalf is probably more than what’s appropriate.  Only read this if you can take this kind of thing and not internalize it, like I do.  I will say, there is a happy ending if you’re able to make it that far.

I really do have a couple of posts I want to do – one on the kids and their recent antics, and one on my views of a future pregnancy, people who boycott Planned Parenthood, and the Save-A-Lot cashier.  Intriguing, no?

[who am I kidding, no one reads this blog anymore!]

books 12 and 13

Hey all!  After a few days off from reading (for pleasure at least – it seems I read quite a bit for work) I gobbled up a couple of books over the past few days.  First up was Meridon, the final book in the Wideacre trilogy by Philippa Gregory.  You may remember that the first book received a rating of “meh” and the second was much better.  Boy, am I glad I didn’t give up after the first one – Meridon was excellent and now I can recommend the series fully.  (To be fair, I think Wideacre was her very first published novel, and she’s a gazillionaire today.)  Last night and this afternoon I read Reproduction Is The Flaw Of Love by Lauren Grodstein.  Earlier this year I read another book by the same author.  This book was good and very real.  It also cemented my opinion that most couples should not live together before marriage.

We’ll thankfully be getting a new clothes dryer soon – ours has been out of commission for months now and the lint, THE LINT is out of control around here.  The tax refund has been deposited and will help out with that purchase.  However, I believe I’ve become addicted to having my bedsheets dried outside.  That smell is worth the work.  (And to be fair, Timon does most of the clothesline hanging all by himself.  Love that man.)

book 11

I’ve been looking on different book list recommendations for new finds I can get at our library.  Don’t by any means think that I’ve actually PURCHASED all these books I’m reading.  Only one of the eleven do I own, and that was on the $4 table at Borders.  Our library system is phenomenal and they have just about anything a voracious reader could want or need.  ANYHOO… One book recommended by Amazon.com was The Wife’s Tale by Lori Lansens.  This was an excellent book!  It’s the story of a woman waiting at home for her husband to arrive after work on the eve of their 25th wedding anniversary.  Needless to say, he doesn’t get there, and the novel explores the wife’s actions afterwards.  It was a fast and interesting read.  I’ve got two more of her novels to tackle soon.

I won’t have much reading time for the next several days.  Timon and I (and two other adults) are taking the youth group on a retreat about 2 hours away this weekend.  We leave tomorrow at 5:30pm.  The kids are staying the weekend with their surrogate grandparents and couldn’t care less where we are or when we’ll be back.  We are so blessed to have these lovely people in our lives.

Henry did something last night that just threw me.  We were reading an assigned book for school about Electricity, and in a photograph there was a boy who obviously (to me, anyway) had Down Syndrome using a light switch.  Henry paused in his reading, looked at the boy closer and then said, “Uh, Mom?”  pause pause pause (meanwhile I’m thinking he is going to ask why that boy looks different or strange to him, and preparing to explain Down Syndrome to him) “That boy has reddish hair, just like mine!”  *sigh*  Of course he only sees what’s the same about that boy.  Once again, the kid teaches the parent something.

books 7-10

Hey all.  It’s been a while since I’ve had a chance to update my books, but rest assured, I have several to tell you about now.  But I think I’ll save you the time and quickly tell you if you should bother reading these or not.

7. Wideacre, by Philippa Gregory.  Meh.  Not as good as her other books.  Plus it’s got kind of a smutty element, more so than her other books.  However, you might want to read it in order to better understand book 10 below.

8. A Reliable Wife, by Robert Goolrick.  Awesome.  Dark and intense.  Read it.

9. The Help, by Kathryn Stockett.  Very, very good.  Read it.

10. The Favored Child, by Philippa Gregory.  This is book 2 in the Wideacre trilogy, and it’s much better than the first book.  I really liked this and finished it this afternoon. 

It’s Saturday night and Maria just went to bed.  Henry’s reading on our bed, with no tv for the night because he had a hard time listening this afternoon.  My man is (NO LIE) watching Lawrence Welk and I’m wishing I could eat what we had for dinner every night.  [Chicken coated in french-fried onions, roasted carrots, wild rice]  I had rehearsal this morning, and then played with the kids and read and napped with Timon.  We are expert nappers.  Church tomorrow, then more relaxing.  Next weekend Timon and I head out with the youth group on a retreat and the kids will spend the weekend with their surrogate grandparents.  For now I’m just soaking up and relishing this time with the kids and with Timon.

book 6

Earlier this week I finished the novel Everything by Kevin Canty.  The story revolves mainly around two people, RL and June, friends who are grieving the loss of Taylor, June’s husband and RL’s best friend.  It takes place in Montana and the scenery is gorgeous in its descriptions.  This book was kind of “meh.”  It definitely rambles all over the place. And, Canty doesn’t use quotation marks to set off speech, a practice which drives me totally bonkers.  There are only a few books I’ve started and not completed (coughDombey&Soncough), but that’s exactly what led me not to finish Cold Mountain.  I really enjoyed the movie and had heard that the book was just phenomenal.  I couldn’t get past the first few chapters due to the lack of quotation marks.  I know, it’s a style choice, but BLEH.

Henry had a random stomach virus which woke us up at 2:30am Tuesday.  That was fun.  Fortunately he kept that gift to himself.  He had no school Monday from the holiday, and has no school tomorrow for teacher in-service, so he only went 2 days this week.  It was the easiest green week he ever had.  Tonight at dinner he stated (with great force) “I need a DRINK!”  Son, after that night of sick, you don’t even know how many times I thought that in my own head.

Now Maria’s got a nice head cold.  I wrote on FB earlier today about how I defied the AAP’s restrictions on giving cold/cough medicines to children under age 6.  I think the claim that they are not effective is doubtful, considering she went from completely lethargic, feverish, and mopey with no appetite back to nearly her normal self within an hour of getting 1/2 tsp of Robitussin and 1 tsp of ibuprofen.  See, parents can be trusted use their judgment and to give their children an appropriate dose.  No need to take the products off the shelves in hysteria, AAP.

book 5

Here we are on a gorgeous Sunday afternoon – the sun is shining, the windows are open (although I am cuddled up under a fuzzy blanket) and the kids ARE BOTH ASLEEP.  *sigh*

Yesterday I finished The Scarlet Contessa: A Novel Of The Italian Renaissance, by Jeanne Kalogridis.  It was all right, and if you like Philippa Gregory’s English historical novels (such as The Other Boleyn Girl), you would like this one, too.  It’s the mostly true story of Caterina Sforza.  I have to confess to skimming rapidly through some of the more boring parts.  So, if you read it and are bored to death, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

I was able to finish this book yesterday because I was able to laze about most of the day.  Timon got up and made pancakes with Maria for us all, and she was so cute as she “helped.”  After a while Timon said that she decided to cut out the middleman (the pancake) and just eat the blueberries.  When he flipped them she would exclaim “Wow!  Awesome!”  In the afternoon Timon and Henry played the LEGO Star Wars video game.  During one section, Henry paused the game during one rough firefight with the stormtroopers and told Timon “WE HAVE TO KILL THE BAD GUYS, DAD!” in an extremely serious tone.  Well, then.

book 3 (ok, and 4, too)

Ok, I know.  It’s the 11th of January and I’ve already read 3 (ok, 4) books.  How does a busy wife and mother of two who works full-time outside the home do such a thing?  Well, you should know that I read exceptionally fast, and that I read for a couple of hours each night, typically.  For reference, I read each of the last three Harry Potter books (896, 652, and 784 pages) in one full day (about 11 hours), given that I literally relinquished all duties, parenting and otherwise, for the day.  (Thanks again, Timon!) 

ANYWAY.  I finished Let The Great World Spin, by Colum McCann.  I LOVED this book.  It’s one of those novels that intertwines a bunch of different stories – at first it’s difficult to see how they are connected but in the end it all comes together.  The main connection revolves around the (totally real) story of Phillippe Petit’s 1974 high-wire walk between the Twin Towers.  This book is really, really, good.  (Side-note and additional recommendation: See the documentary about Petit called Man On Wire.  We enjoyed it a lot.  You won’t believe what this dude did to make it across that distance 1000 feet in the air.  The movie is like a love letter to the towers, and when the kids are old enough I can’t wait to show it to them to better understand why they were chosen as targets on 9/11.)

I also finished A Friend Of The Family, by Lauren Grodstein.  This book was very highly recommended by a cousin of mine (she’s a publisher and editor, so she reads A LOT, probably more than me).  I wasn’t blown away by it – the story was interesting and it had a good premise.  A father of an only child wants to protect his son and attempts to do so at all costs, and he ends up paying for his impulses.  My problem with the book was that it was at nearly the very very end that the point was made, and I felt like I was strung along a little, like it was stretched out unnecessarily.  One thing that may have affected this for me was that it was REALLY late last night and I had about 30 pages left, and I was rushing through to the end so I wouldn’t have to wait until tonight to finish it.  Maybe one day I’ll read it a bit with a bit more leisure and I’ll enjoy it more.

Still not a whole lot going on here – Henry got his first yellow (!) today at school and that was quite a shock to all of us.  He entered the house in tears, fearful of my reaction.  We thankfully all stayed calm and he’s restricted from TV and video games until the weekend.  Maria was NOT pleased when I sent her to bed tonight, and could be heard grumbling about how dreadfully she’s been treated (“Mommy NOT NICE”) – for about 2 minutes before passing out for the night.  Adorable.

Tonight I’ve been writing this post, watching L&O: SVU, listening to Timon snore on the couch, and resolving to NOT begin any new books until Thursday.  Nighty-night.

book 2

I just finished Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman, by Jon Krakauer.  Oh my stars, was that a difficult book to read.  If you don’t recall, Pat Tillman was a player in the NFL who joined the army after 9/11.  His story was hijacked by the media and portrayed him as someone he was not, and then he got killed in Afghanistan (apparently accidentally) by a member of his own unit.   Then the Army and the U.S. government attempted a cover-up.  This book has made me worried for America.  Consider this:

“[We are] eliminating the alpha males from our midst, and at a dizzyingly accelerating rate.  But in Muslim countries, the alpha male is still alive and well.  While we in America are drugging our alpha males with Ritalin, the Muslims are doing everything in their power to encourage their alpha boys to be tough, aggressive, and ruthless… We are proud if our sons get into a good college; they are proud if their sons die as martyrs.
To rid your society of high-testosterone alpha males may bring peace and quiet, but if you have an enemy that is building up an army of alpha boys to hate you fanatically and who have vowed to destroy you, you will be committing suicide…”

I’m not saying I agree completely with the above quote – just that it has me thinking.  Even though I was left sickened and saddened after finishing it, I highly recommend this book. 

Ooooookay.  Not much new going on in La Casa Marrón, other than Henry explaining to us what the Federal Reserve is and Maria spontaneously bringing an empty plastic bottle to the recycling bin unprompted.  With citizens like these, there may be hope for America yet.

book 1

Ok, so I just figured out what will get me to post here more often.  Every time I finish reading a book, I’ll write about it here, along with a family update.  Sound good?

I know, it’s only Jan. 2, and I’ve finished a book already?  Don’t worry, it was a v. quick and easy read.  Happens Every Day by Isabel Gillies (she plays Det. Stabler’s wife on L&O: SVU) is the memoir of her marriage’s dissolve, due to her husband’s affair with a colleague.  It was pretty good but seriously depressing for the most part.  It made me grateful for Timon, for my only guess at his reaction if a co-worker tried to entice him would be that he would be extremely embarrassed and speechless.  (Not to mention that this would be also highly, highly unlikely, since he has mostly straight male co-workers.)

Today we went to the zoo for the first time in a very long time – it was wonderful!  The baby siamang gibbon has turned into the most adorable toddler of all time.  Maria really liked the budgies (Australian birds) and nearly had one in her hot little hand before it flew away.  Henry’s favorite of the day was the white tiger.  I love our zoo – and I especially love having a membership (thanks, Mimi & Papa!!!) because we don’t feel like we have to spend a very long time there to justify the ticket price.  And next week, they’re no longer going to charge for the rides, which is SO nice.  Maria can ride the carousel and Henry can go on the flying bananas to their hearts’ content.

xii

I have an addendum to the 2010 Book Recommendations.  I just read Room by Emma Donoghue and am simply floored.  It is so heartbreaking and original.  It’s the story of a boy and his Ma, in the 5 year old boy’s voice, who’ve been held captive for seven years in a shed.  The boy was fathered by Ma’s kidnapper and rapist.  I know this sounds like a real happy story right off the bat, doesn’t it?  I’m telling you though that it is one of the sweetest stories I have ever read.  I have never read anything like it and I recommend it very highly.  This might be the best book I’ve read in a few years.

v

I just counted how many books I’ve checked out of the library in 2010 (so far).  Would you believe I’ve read over 60 books this year?  I honestly do not know when I’ve had the time.  Looking back at the list, I can recommend these for you:
All of the Outlander series, by Diana Gabaldon

This historical/time travel/romance series is so, so, so good.  I am going to have a very, very hard time waiting for the next book, predicted to come out in 2012.

Before Green Gables, by Budge Wilson

This prequel to the Anne Of Green Gables series was so cute and clever.  Anne Shirley’s life was so pitiful, but so sweet.  I loved this book.

Joe College, by Tom Perotta

About a working-class student at Yale who has to help out with the family business, this was a good (and different from my usual choices) read.

Rise and Shine, by Anna Quindlen

A novel about 2 sisters and how their lives have differed, but how they eventually come together to deal with tragic circumstances – I like all her books, but this one was especially good.

What We Have: A Memoir, by Amy Boesky

This story of a family and how they’ve dealt with hereditary breast, ovarian, and uterine cancers was so moving as the writer worked through the decision to have some pre-emptive surgery.  It’s a gorgeous story of amazing women.

Free Range Kids, by Lenore Skenazy

I’ve told everyone how much I love this book.  I think all parents should read it – even if you think she is nuts, at least you’ll be made to think about parenting choices in regards to how they are so influenced by fear.

Your Best Birth, by Ricki Lake and Abby Epstein

Here’s another must-read.  Even if you think the natural-birth philosophy is not for you, I think that each pregnant woman should be as knowledgeable as possible about the truth of the state of maternity care in this country.  This book honestly examines all the options available and helps encourage informed consent.

Well, there you go…  my book recommendations for 2010!

tenth

Yeah, I am 14 years old and read the Twilight books and saw the first movie and enjoyed them all. But this is still HILARIOUS. How adorable is Taylor Swift?

a contest for you

Okay, so I'm reading a book last night, and I stumble upon what might be, nay, IS one of my favorite quotations of all time:

"Suffice it to say that, since these pages are intended to celebrate the heroes of my life, in the interest of honesty and candor, it's incumbent on me to make clear that Barry Manilow is not remotely one of them."

If you can correctly guess the author of those words, you will receive a major award. Not really, but I will be very impressed!

doing fine, thanks *updated*

Yeah, I'm tired. But, who isn't when they're a little over 2 weeks from their baby's due date? Things are shaping up around here for Bertha's arrival - I feel like I've got a handle on work stuff and having everything ready for the volunteers who'll be working with the kids while I'm out. We've got car seats, we've got cloth diapers, we've got pink clothes, I picked up some stuff I'll need post-delivery today on 70% clearance at a grocery store that's going out of business ($45 worth of stuff for $13.50 - now that's what I'm talkin' about!)... And not that it means anything is imminent, but I lost this today (don't click if you're not interested in TMI) and that's encouraging. Of course that could be a result of the rather, um, vigorous cervical check the OB did on Monday, but I choose to believe it's because I'm making progress. We shall see...

I've been loving all the Bertha guesses - keep 'em coming!

***UPDATED***
My doula, Robyn, just called to check in with me. She seems to think differently about the labor beginning sooner rather than later. She thought if I lost the mp because of the OB visit check it would have happened sooner than today. She has a feeling it will be this weekend... can you imagine having a baby on LABOR DAY?!?!? Timon has joked all along that we're due near the most aptly named day of the year...

Also, this has NOTHING to do with my current state, but the Oprah show today has been completely brilliant. (This is hard for me to say, because I think she is so self-absorbed 90% of the time.) Bill Cosby and a psychologist have been on discussing their new book. Absolutely brilliant.

i is a gud reeeder

My gorgeous cousins A and Elena have done their part to destroy the average. I shall now do my best to not only join them, but BEAT them as well. Because everyone knows that having more books bolded means you are a better person (I even make myself groan with that bit of sarcasm). To be honest, A usually whips my tail at any kind of board game. And dang, y'all, Elena can sing for realz. So really, they're in the lead at this point.

"The Big Read reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they've printed. Well let's see.

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you LOVE.
4) Reprint this list in your blog so we can try and track down these people who've read 6 and force books upon them ;-)"

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell - Thanks to Miss McVicar, 9th grade English.
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens - SORRY, Chad, you tried to get me into Dickens once, and I failed. This is one horse I won't get back up on.
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare - a large chunk, anyway.
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy - HA! My failed resolution for 2007 has come back to haunt me!
25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis - why is this on here by itself, given #33 above? WEIRD.
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell - Thanks again, Miss McVicar.
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck - Miss McVicar strikes again!
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens - Does playing in the pit orchestra of our high school's production count? NO?
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens -Does watching "The Muppet's Christmas Carol" count? NO?!?
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

It appears I've gotten through 27 things on this list, not counting the double listing of The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe, which as everyone knows is the most well known of The Chronicles of Narnia, also on the list, and which, incidentally, is actually 7 books. So really, I've read 34. HA, Big Read list people.

I'll post soon with more real-life stuff. Highlights will include: the rest of last week's OB appt details lost in the cloud of pink; the first pink clothing I bought for my (holy crap) daughter; my reflections on Ashley, and a movie review of WALL-E. I bet you just can't wait.

henry loves fergie (apparently)

SO, for my two year blogiversary (no thanks to Blogger) I thought I'd share a fantastic Henry story for you. I'm telling you, I imagine you could compare living with Henry to living with Bill Cosby or Tina Fey - the comedy simply never stops (I'm sure Em & Chad would agree about this aspect of parenthood from their experiences with Em's hilarious little person).

In preparing Henry for big brotherhood we've been talking about what to expect from a baby and we've been reading several books about being a sibling. Last night we were reading this book. Mr. Rogers was great, wasn't he? Today was his birthday, coincidentally. The book is v. 80's in appearance, but you can't beat the honesty of how it's written. Anyway, we got to the part about how babies are fed in different ways - sometimes Mommy feeds the baby milk from her body, and sometimes the baby has milk from a bottle. I told Henry that our baby would drink milk from my chest and I pointed to both sides. He seemed baffled for a moment. With a look of puzzlement, he sweetly asked, "You mean from your humps?!?"

(To my knowledge, I have never referred to my bosoms as "humps", nor has Henry been listening to Fergie's hit song about her lovely lady lumps recently. It took us at least 10 more minutes to read the next 4 pages because we couldn't stop laughing.)

Also: last night and this morning Henry was walking around with a lei and his pirate hat on with his guitar making up a song about one of the girls in his class at preschool. Where does he get this stuff?

i'm it

***reading list has been updated - on the right, underneath the links... new titles on the bottom***

I've been twice tagged by my SIL... I won't tag any of you, but if you want to do these, go on, girl! (or boy, I guess that's possible)

7 Weird things about me:

1. I like to sleep with the window open at almost any temperature below 75. I'd rather pile on the blankets and have my head freeze than be even slightly too warm.
2. I don't like my food to touch each other on the plate.
3. Wet bread makes me want to vomit.
4. I have several hobbies that I never choose to make time for.
5. I'd like to get rid of everything I own and start over.
6. I took probably 8 years of piano lessons and can only play one song, from my beginning piano book. ("Rushing to the fire in a hur-ry, hur-ry, hur-ry...")
7. Clean clothes fresh from the laundry make me almost inappropriately happy.


6 things about your child:

Henry (almost 4 years old)
1. Sometimes he happily eats all his dinner, other times we have to practically give orders for each and every bite.
2. He finds it impossible to just be quiet - singing and talking to himself or anyone else at all times, even on the potty.
3. He would rather keep playing (even by himself) at school than do artwork with the rest of the class.
4. He can write almost any letter in the alphabet.
5. He makes up stories to tell us when we ask him what he dreamed about.
6. His favorite day of the month is when they have Men's Breakfast at church - the mere possibility of eating pancakes is almost too much joy for him to contain.

Now go visit my SIL and enter her photo naming contest for a chance to win some neat scrap-booking stuff! You have until 6pm today.

I did not give up posting for Lent.

Much as it may seem, I didn't give up blogging for Lent. I'm lazy/preoccupied/boring/etc. Soon, I promise, I'll have better stories to tell. In the meantime, you can peruse my list of books that I've read (so far) in 2008. I'm trying to keep track this year to see just how many I plow through and to hopefully start remembering book titles - since I read so fast, I tend to forget it as soon as I'm done. In case you're wondering, my favorite book of all time is The Red Tent, by Anita Diamant. I'm sure I'll re-read that one sometime this year. You'll find the list on the right side of the page.