Laying Low

Jack and I are under the weather. So I will post our Labor Day pics tomorrow.

Here is a quick list of things we've been thinking about lately:

Right now I am reading Mockingjay, The Red Queen (probably another Phillipa Gregory disappointment, but I keep going back for more), and The Dead Travel Fast in honor of the upcoming scary season. It's not as quite as delicious as her Lady Julia Grey books, but I am still a fan of Deanna Raybourn. Just not the new covers Mira designed. They are like a gunne sax fashion nightmare dressed up as a bodice ripper. A shame, because the books are so good. They went from this to this.

Emma is reading Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. She is just about to start the Gregor the Overlander series. Laura is reading Judy Moody and the Arthur books, which makes me want to take a trip to the Boston Children's Museum to see the Arthur exhibit. They have also pulled out the Halloween/Fall book box and are having fun with scary stories. Jack likes Baby Is Tired, The Runaway Bunny, and The Big Red Barn.

My kids are IN LOVE with this tv show: Unnatural History on Cartoon Network. I like it because for once it's a show where the kids are intelligent and the show is quick and funny. I am pretty picky about what they watch...I don't even let them watch iCarly or Hannah Montana. So finally there is something I can get on board with.

I am watching pretty much nothing. I want to be watching Modern Family, which everyone has raved about, but it's not at the library, we don't have a video rental store anymore, and you can't watch it online so, so far I'm out of luck. On abc.com it SAYS you can watch it online for free, but this is a LIE as they only show two-minute clips. And I want to watch it from the beginning since I just think that's the way it should be. I did just get the first season of Arrested Development from a friend, so that's good. Other than that, it's just Wiggles around the clock since it makes Jack happy. He dances and yells NUMMY NUMMY when they sing "yummy yummy." And while we're talking about it, I hate the new guy that replaced Greg. When you watch A LOT of the wiggles, it really gives you a chance to analyze and obsess. I've decided that when Greg sang to the kids, he was sincere. Sam is like a musical theater performer, just putting on a show. He does not deserve to wear the yellow shirt.

Moving on. I really like Downeast Basics, and I really love the prices. They have cute stuff for girls, too. I have my eye on the Best Friends dress for the girls. I am waiting for it to go on sale.

As far as the food in my life goes, I just checked out my first Jamie Oliver cookbook from the library. I really love the library.

Okay, have I bored you enough? Alright, then. I am going to eat and go to bed. I don't feel so good.

The Book I Am Not Reading Right Now

and I am full of bitterness about it. I have absolutely devoured this series, and been in some serious anticipation of this latest book. I pre-ordered the book from Amazon, and waited. And waited. Then found out they screwed up my order and shipped it late, then found out that if you don't order Amazon Prime you are punished by having your book take the slow boat to China before it comes to your house. So EVERYONE I know is reading this book, I am walking by it in the stores and using every ounce of self-discipline I have accumulated in this life of mine to not open it up. Meanwhile, the shipping/tracking link says it should be here by the thirtieth. Do you feel the least bit sorry for me yet? WHY NOT?!

Now that I have whined and wallowed, I need to go to bed. This first week of school is killing me. I am so tired. Go ahead and tell me you loved the book; but don't tell me anything about it!!! And if you haven't read it yet, what are you waiting for?! Go! Go get it! Right now!

belated birthday post

So our little Emma is now big Emma...she is ten. For her birthday she decided she wanted to get her ears pierced. The only holdout was Daddy. He just felt like it symbolized her growing up and was not dealing well with it. So I reminded him that we promised her that she could make the choice when she was old enough to handle taking care of her ears and choose for herself. He reluctantly agreed. But we did not get out the door without a serious Daddy/Daughter talk. He talked to her about how this was her first choice she was making when it came to her body and how to treat it. He gave her good advice about always thinking first and being responsible and making wise choices. I think I might have even seen a tear in his eye. Maybe.


Big hugs (aren't good fathers a powerful and wonderful thing?).

So Emma and I set off on her birthday for Mommy/Daughter day--just us. First stop was the ear piercing. She got a little nervous. I told her she could do it if she wanted to, or not do it if she didn't. It was okay to back out.



In THE CHAIR.

They give you a teddy bear to hold. I almost ruined the moment by wondering aloud how many germs were on it. I managed to keep my trap shut, though.


I insisted we go when there could be two workers to do both ears at the same time. By the way, it's much less scary than when I had it done decades ago.

Here it is! My baby has big girl earrings!

We had a lovely afternoon shopping and talking and she was so excited to eat lunch with me at Starbucks. We shared a calorific drink (non-coffee, what kind of mom do you think I am??)

That night we met up with our family and went out to eat. She chose the restaurant--Carrabba's. For some reason, she thinks this is a super fancy and grown-up place to eat.


Here they are singing to her.


I was very upset because they were out of their chocolate dessert. Seriously, what the crap?


Emma and her spoils.
She got a bookstore gift card, so we headed over there with Aunt Jennifer. Daddy and Jack went home.

We each looked at books we were interested in. Emma chose Ella Enchanted, The Lightning Thief, and The Meanest Doll in the World.


I chose a book with a naked guy on the front, of course. He will make all my dreams come true and take away all my sadness. "The Cat," me-ow.


My sister is already swooning.



Happy Birthday, Emma!
And she is still taking good care of her ears!

the remains of the day

It is 10:37 pm.
I am wrapping up my day.
My hair is everywhere, my makeup sweat off long ago. I am tired.
We went to the playground/water-play area in Sarasota. It was a lovely day, and we had a great time. Jack went up and down and up and down and up and down the stairs. What is it about stairs that is so fascinating to the toddler set?

I can hear Gary in his office, typing away, getting ready for the next day.

I am thinking I need to remember to write in my journal funny things about Jack, before he moves on and we forget. No matter how much you think you will remember, you will forget.
I want to write how he yells, "I TUMMING" whenever I tell him to come here or come on. How he will stop what he is doing to toddle over and kiss me or lay his head in my lap. How he looks at me with adoration in his eyes, sometimes before he smears messy hands on my face. I need to remember how he arches his back and screams if you DARE to cut his food. I'm serious, he feels he is a big boy. If I am going to cut his toast or chicken I have to do it before he comes in the room or he is personally offended. I remember how we played monster tonight and I followed him around on my hands and knees and Oh My Goodness my 36-year-old wrists and knees DID NOT appreciate the game like Jack did. I really love this age of his. He is just so full of love and joy. Unless you try to cut his food.

Today I was thinking I need to be a better mother, and then Emma wrapped her arms around me and said, "Oh Mommy, you are the best mommy ever. I just love you." And I think, what did I do to deserve that kind of love? I guess I will take it now because in three years she will be horror-of-all-horrors a teenager.

Laura did not kiss or wrap her arms around me because she is going through a stage. A stage is a very nice PC way of saying she is being a pain lately. It's not really that bad, but she is feeling her boundaries a bit. We'll just leave it at that.

Now I will head to the kitchen and do my last of the day tidy. Get the dishes in the machine, think about food for tomorrow, and pick up the family room floor. I have this phobia that the fire dept will come in the middle of the night and think, "Wow this place is a mess" and we can't have that.

Then I will crawl into bed, read a few minutes of "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall," and then I will turn out the lights, stare out the window and wish it was a full moon. I will hope I did the best I could today, and try to do better tomorrow.

Good night.

Jane Austen's Fight Club

I know I'm not doing a very good job of posting...but it's SUMMER for pete's sake.
Enjoy this in the meantime...it's awesome.

(p.s. forgive me for moderating comments, but I'm currently ravingly popular with the Asian porn linkers)

2009 favorites--books

I read a lot of books this year. A lot. Reading is what helps to de-stress me. Anyway, since we DVRed the new episode of Lost (Yippee!!), I am going to devote my free time tonight to the two-hour premiere. Instead of thinking of something deep and meaningful to post here (and what's different about that, you're asking), I'm going to slap up a few of my favorite books from 2009.

Before this book, I didn't even realize that one of the small outlying British islands was held captive by the Germans in ww2. Lovely storyline and great history.
This is a YA novel from Neil Gaiman. He creates the most amazing worlds.

The amazing sequel to "The Hunger Games." A hard read, but a good one. I can't recommend this series enough. My review is here.

Yes, the cover art is truly awful. It's like a Gunne Sax/bodice-ripping nightmare. Don't let that deter you from the novel. It is the third mystery in a series, set in Victorian England. Loved it.

The Help was, in my opinion, a great novel that caused many, including myself, to ask hard questions about our family history. Again, often not an easy read, but worthwhile. I missed the characters when the book was finished.
My review.

This has become one of my favorites. A book that follows a tough young woman in frontier Arizona at the turn of the last century. If you can get through the heartbreaking first chapters, you'll be hard-pressed to put it down.


As always, you can friend me on Goodreads, where you will find all my books and reviews.

*All pictures from Amazon.com

still catching up

I feel like I am just constantly playing catch up. Soooo much to do. So much I haven't done. I just took library books back late and paid a big ol' fat fine. Laura's Flat Daisy (for girl scouts) is due in February and I haven't even sent it out yet. Tuesday night I ran Emma up and down the street to sell girl scout cookies. My very organized neighbor asked me, "Aren't these due tonight?" Me: "Yes," as we quickly push the stroller down the sidewalk to another house. I am not usually like this. I usually have nice lists where I cross off each item I need to do. Lately, I can't even figure out where I put the list nor find a pen that even works. And Gary is working a lot. A lot. He is gone in the evenings and on Saturdays. Can't be helped, so I try not to get upset, and he hates it. Tonight, two of my girlfriends called and said they were picking me up in ten minutes. I passed Jack to Gary and rushed out the door. All we did was go to a couple craft stores, and I really don't have much of a craft aptitude, but it was so nice to get out. I felt a little more refreshed when I came back home. Which is good, because Gary works tomorrow for most of the day. I am going to try and work on some long-neglected projects. And read. Read, read, read. And send out Flat Daisy.

Quickly.

Favorites--books

So, I keep forgetting to write on this blog as this week is a wee bit crazy. Sorry about that. Anyway, I'm trying to frantically read before book club next week, so it inspired me to list some favorites this week. Or whenever I can post. Anyway...

If you know anything about me, you know I have always loved to read. Thank goodness for the library. I have many memories of scouring libraries for the perfect book, from elementary on up. I had this gifted class in middle school where we read, "The Last of the Mohicans," "Through the Tunnel," "Fahrenheit 451," and I loved it.

Here are some of my favorite books I read around middle school time. I have a lot of happy times associated with these books. I'm a nerd. And I hope Amazon will forgive me for ripping off their pictures.

1. Little Women This was my first "big" novel. I read my Great-Grandmother's 1912 copy curled up in her big wingback chair in the corner of her living room. I reread it every year when we visited her for Thanksgiving. When I turned fourteen, my Great-Aunt (her daughter), gave me the most beautiful leather copy with gold-leaf pages for Christmas. I still treasure it, and think of her everytime I open it. I can't wait for Emma to read it.

2. The "Wrinkle in Time" series by Madeleine L'Engle

I love this series. I was swept up in her novels, and as a struggling, dorky pre-teen I could really identify with Meg.
3. The Blue Castle by LM Montgomery

I enjoyed the LM Montgomery books, but especially her later books. I realize now as I type this, that Valancy was another ugly duckling. Hmmm, I'm sensing a pattern here.

4. Up A Road Slowly, by Irene Hunt
This is a great story of a girl's journey from childhood to adulthood. After her mother's death, Julie goes to live with Aunt Cordelia, a spinster schoolteacher, where she experiences many emotions and changes as she grows from seven to eighteen.

5. "The Witch of Blackbird Pond" by Elizabeth George Speare


I just reread this for the first time in years. I felt like I could really imagine what it was like to live in the 1600s in an oppressive Puritan society.

6. The Lois Duncan books.

I have always loved ghost stories. I began checking them out in elementary school, so it makes me laugh when I see Emma and her friends doing the same. Lois Duncan has some of the scariest novels for this age hands down. A couple have been made into movies.

7. The Ghost Belonged to Me by Richard Peck.

Here is another great series that has a ghostly theme. Set at the turn of the last century, it follows a girl from the wrong side of the tracks, who partners in ghost hunts with a boy from an extremely proper upbringing. Blossom Culp is such a fantastic, feisty heroine. Her mother is a fortune-teller who finds their dinner in trash cans, she is persecuted by the popular girls in the "Sunny Thoughts and Busy Fingers Sisterhood," and through her discovery of her sixth sense, finds herself on the Titanic as it is going down. The book is hilarious, scary, and touching at the same time.

8. Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell

Just bought this for Emma.

Catching Fire

Finished "Catching Fire" by Suzanne Collins this afternoon (forgoing my Sunday nap...you know it must be good for me to skip that) after flying through it the last two days. This is the much-anticipated sequel to "The Hunger Games," one of the best books I've ever read. I thought it was fabulous. I was a little nervous to begin...I was afraid it wouldn't live up to the first book, that we who waited a year for this would be disappointed.

It was phenomenal. The amazing thing about these books is you never know where it is heading. As with "The Hunger Games," it is a serious, weighty book for a YA novel. Death, fear, hunger are not easy subjects. Yet she manages to write about these things without ever becoming gimmicky or over the top.

The core of the book is about young adults having to stand up for what's right in the face of unimaginable consequences, of death and fear. Really, why can't I write like that?

Now I just have to wait another year for the last book.

Book Review

My friend and I were talking about addictions, and how many of us have addictive personalities/addictions lurking in our dna. I have always been grateful that because of the whole "mormon thing," I've always chosen not to drink. With our family history this is probably a good thing for me. I could very well see me as the mom sneaking a drink or two in between laundry loads. Just being honest. Anyway, I was thinking later that everyone has a way of esc

\]A[=\ <--- (sorry that was jack...back to the post...)

escaping and I can tell you, mine is reading. When it's time to pick up one of my books on hold, I get positively giddy about hearing the sound of the library doors swoosh open and smelling the new carpet smell...heaven. When I have a moment to spare at home, I grab my book and scan as many pages as I can before getting back to life.

So on that note, the book I want you to read as soon as you can is "The Help" by Kathryn Stockett. Fabulous. Here is my Goodreads review:

Fabulous. I cannot recommend this book enough. It has stayed with me for days since reading, and caused me to ask many questions about my family's history in the south. A must read. There were a couple points in the story when it dragged just a bit, but still well worth it. The book is set in 1960, in Jackson, Mississippi. The civil rights movement is in full swing, tension everywhere in all walks of life is constant. The book centers on three of the most unlikely to affect things in such a major way: two black maids, and one smothered white woman from a priviledged family. They are fed up in their own ways, and end up taking a path that could be disastrous for them all.

A short review, I know, but I don't want to give too much away. I spoke with my mom afterwards and asked her about her memories of civil rights in the south. I also remembered, that among the pictures from Great-grandmother's house, was one of my great-aunt and uncle, snuggled up with an African-American woman under the big oak tree in the backyard. I did not recognize this person, and could not recall who it might be. In my naivite at such a young age, the thought of the person being part of the "help" did not cross my mind. I thought maybe it was a friend. The picture is set in the early forties. There are a couple others with this woman in it, but she is always hovering in the background, not really in the shot on purpose.

I had to get my courage to ask my mom about it, because for awhile I wasn't sure I wanted to know. Knowing how your dear relatives might have treated African-Americans is the kind of thing that can completely alter how you view them. I mean, yes, I get that times were different and there were accepted lines you didn't cross, etc. etc. But one can still hope that their ancestor was one of the kind ones.

All my mom could remember was that she did have a maid for a long time, and her name was Eva. She said she remembered that once a an African-American came to the front door and she made them go around to the back because that's the way it was. But she did say that Grandmother paid for Eva's social-security so that she would have that in the future, and that was something you most definitely did not have to do at the time, so I guess that was a good thing.

In the end we can't change what our predecessors did or did not do. The thing about family is you are related to people no matter what. You get the good, bad, and the ugly as well. All we can do is learn from the past and teach our children good and kind principles.

This book was wonderful, and really brought the civil rights issues in a very real and honest way. Great writing; beautiful, full characters. I felt like the characters were written so fully and so perfectly that I could pick up the phone and call one of them. That sounds really lame, but hopefully you know what I mean.

Happy Reading!

The Book I Read This Week

I read A LOT of books. I mean A LOT. When I remember, I will try to post reviews here as we are all looking for good book recommendations. The book I just pried out of my hands is "One Second After" by William R. Forstchen. Here's my review as I posted on my GoodReads account:

"I have read serial killer books, grisly murder books, but this was hands down the scariest book I have ever read. A book that caused me to lose sleep and kept me thinking long after I was finished reading.

The book follows what happens to an American community after and EMP attack is visited on our country. EMP occurs when a nuclear bomb is detonated above the atmosphere, causing every single thing in it's range containing anything electronic to fail. Cars, planes, pacemakers, electricity, you name it, it's gone forever. The country is immediately plunged into the dark ages, the population far too large to be supported by 18th century technology. Different parts of the country fare better or worse depending on their locations to urban areas. Gangs roam the land, bringing death and destruction to any remaining survivors.

What is frightening about this book is the fact that it is a very real possibility. The government is currently studying EMP attacks, as it is probably a more real threat than the thermonuclear attack we have always been raised to fear. If you ever had a thought of having your home prepared for a disaster, you will be propelled into action after reading the horrors entailed here for anyone who does not.

The day after reading I could not help but realize how fully dependent we are on electronics and technology. I found myself cataloging each thing I did during the day. How long can you last with the food in your pantry and maybe a week's worth of water before it becomes contaminated and cholera, dysentery, and thyphoid break out? You may not have ever imagined America as a third-world country. This book will force you to.

By the way, if you have a project due or deadline, finish it before you pick this book up. It sucks you right in and you are compelled to finish it instead of doing anything else. I really came to love and care about the characters. It was hard to "watch" as the worst befell them."

So, grab this book. It is a great read, but it also makes you think. I also know well the North Carolina area that the story is based in, which helped me to imagine it all the more.