Woohoo!

Both our new couch and chair have been delivered! The couch got here last week and the chair was delivered yesterday. Mark moved the old furniture out to the garage and put the new furniture in place. It looks really good! I'll have to take a pic of the family room, but this is the set that we purchased (leather couch and matching chair).

I picked up the brand new Nicholas Sparks book from the library yesterday evening! I'm so excited to read it. I have yet to be disappointed by one of his novels.

Last night, Mark went to play poker and I watched the new Pride and Prejudice (the one with Keira Knightly). It was okay. I don't know if it was better, or worse than the version with Collin Firth, but I expect it was better because it was shorter. The movie was okay. I still don't find the story to be that extraordinary, but I'm going to be giving Jane Austen another try. I have Mansfield Park just waiting to be read. We'll see.

On another note, I can. not. believe! that it's October already! Boot season has officially begun for me - I am excited about this - and I have an urge to make a big pot of soup! I promised Mark that I would kick the soup season off with a new loaded baked potato soup recipe that I've been wanting to try. I guess it's time to break out that dutch oven that we got for the wedding!

Finished Reading Pride and Prejudice...

Finally!

Was that ever a chore.

Overall, I still have no idea why this book is so great according to so many people.

I admire Elizabeth's (the main character) personality in an otherwise too proper (in my opinion) time period.

And, I disagree with those who don't believe that the work lacks any present day relevance. I think that the themes are clearly timeless - social expectations, first impressions, interpersonal relationships, ever changing dynamics, and love are all relevant contemporary themes.

I also respect the work for it's importance as it was penned by a woman at a time when women writers were nearly nonexistent. I appreciate the bird's eye view into the private world of parlors and relationships of the time period.

However, I overall found the characters to lack depth, and the entire novel to be very flat. The story was "okay", but nothing special in my opinion and I still don't understand why this novel is looked at as such a great work.

Perhaps I had built my expectations so high that the work just couldn't compete, or maybe I'm just much more into the classics of the Romantic period. I don't know, but I will not stop here with Jane Austen. I'll at least give her one last try.

My next Austen work has yet to be determined, but hopefully it will be better than Pride and Prejudice.

Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice

*Sigh*

Okay, here's the deal... I'm supposed to read this for a book club. It is our second selection and is the favorite book of one of the girls in the group. I was super excited to read it, I love classics, I love great stories, but now that I'm about 1/3 of the way through the story I'm wondering what all of the hype is about.

In my opinion, the story is boring and unengaging, the characters are flat, underdeveloped, and the only character traits that I'm picking up on are frivolity and pretentiousness, which is probably why as a reader, I'm finding it hard to get invested in the characters at all. To be honest, I'm very disappointed in this novel. The only thing that I'm even moderately enjoying is the peek into genteel country life from a women's perspective during the time period in question.

I've talked it over with some friends and they say that I should press on, that I'm on the cusp of reaching and realizing the true greatness of the novel. I was tempted to just put it down and not finish, which is highly rare for me, but now I think I'll press on. I want to like this book, I really do, hopefully the second half will be more impressive than the first one thus far.

Reading Catch-up.

I finished a few books last week, but I'm just now getting the chance to update my blog with them, so here it goes...

From Booklist: Lakshmi, 13, knows nothing about the world beyond her village shack in the Himalayas of Nepal, and when her family loses the little it has in a monsoon, she grabs a chance to work as a maid in the city so she can send money back home. What she doesn't know is that her stepfather has sold her into prostitution. She ends up in a brothel far across the border in the slums of Calcutta, locked up, beaten, starved, drugged, raped, "torn and bleeding," until she submits. In beautiful clear prose and free verse that remains true to the child's viewpoint, first-person, present-tense vignettes fill in Lakshmi's story. The brutality and cruelty are ever present ("I have been beaten here, / locked away, / violated a hundred times / and a hundred timesmore"), but not sensationalized. An unexpected act of kindness is heartbreaking ("I do not know a word / big enough to hold my sadness"). One haunting chapter brings home the truth of "Two Worlds": the workers love watching The Bold and the Beautifulon TV though in the real world, the world they know, a desperate prostitute may be approached to sell her own child. An unforgettable account of sexual slavery as it exists now.


I like this novel, the way the story is told is very unique. I felt that it didn't delve quite as far into the main character's story as I would have liked, but overall it is a very interesting read.



From Publisher's Weekly: Between running her Manhattan yarn shop, Walker & Daughter, and raising her 12-year-old biracial daughter, Dakota, Georgia Walker has plenty on her plate in Jacobs's debut novel. But when Dakota's father reappears and a former friend contacts Georgia, Georgia's orderly existence begins to unravel. Her support system is her staff and the knitting club that meets at her store every Friday night, though each person has dramas of her own brewing. Jacobs surveys the knitters' histories, and the novel's pace crawls as the novel lurches between past and present, the latter largely occupied by munching on baked goods, sipping coffee and watching the knitters size each other up. Club members' troubles don't intersect so much as build on common themes of domestic woes and betrayal. It takes a while, but when Jacobs, who worked at Redbook and Working Woman, hits her storytelling stride, poignant twists propel the plot and help the pacing find a pleasant rhythm.


I didn't enjoy this novel as much as I thought it would. I wanted to read it a while back soon after it first came out after hearing all of the hype, but never did pick it up. I heard more great things about it recently, so I finally decided to read it, and I must say it was a little disappointing. I love the parallels between life and knitting, I love that there is such a focus on history in this novel, but overall, I found the plot a little lacking. It was just 'okay' in my opinion.





This novel is the sequel to Life As We Knew It which I REALLY enjoyed.


From Publisher's Weekly: As riveting as Life as We Knew It and even grittier, this companion novel returns to the premise of that previous book to show how New York City responds to the global disasters that ensue when an asteroid knocks the moon out of orbit. . . . Once again Pfeffer creates tension not only through her protagonist''s day-to-day struggles but also through chilling moral dilemmas: whether to rob the dead, who to save during a food riot, how long to preserve the hope that his parents might return. . . . The powerful images and wrenching tragedies will haunt readers.


I really liked this book because it was essentially a rehashing of Life as We Knew It. I did not like this book because it was essentially a rehashing of Life as We Knew It. What I mean by this is that it was essentially the same story, retold from another's point of view. At times I really liked it, at times I liked the original better.

Overall, I feel that the original novel was much better, which is usually the case with sequels anyway, but looking at the novel on it's own, I do really like it. The conditions that the characters in this book are experiencing are much harsher than that of the characters in the preceeding novel. It was nice to get a different perspective.


I don't know what Pfeffer's plans for continuing this storyline are, but I would definitely read another of her novels, especially if she chooses to write more on this topic. The stories are very unique and extremely thought provoking. I finished reading this in a day, and I felt as though I was living the story along with the characters. I feel that it is a characteristic of a great writer to make the reader feel as though they are actually living the story. Crazy stuff!

Life As We Knew It.

I just finished this novel yesterday evening, and WOW! Is it wonderful! This novel is classified as Young-adult Fiction, but it's definitely a thought provoker for readers of all ages!

Told through the journal entries of a 16 year old girl's diary, Susan Beth Pfeffer's Life As We Knew It is about the girl and her family's struggle to survive after a nearly apocalyptic event. As the world watches, a denser than expected asteroid strikes the Moon knocking it nearer to the Earth's surface and wreaking havoc on the weather systems. Preliminary reports are heard of tidal waves that completely decimate the coastal states and sink entire countries, hundreds of thousands Americans dead, even more across the world, tornadoes striking, volcanoes never known to exist continuously erupting, and mass panic everywhere.

The family moves quickly and stockpiles food, clothing, batteries and First Aid necessities while stores are still open, but once the electricity never comes on again, the phone lines are down, and there is no gas to be had, the family is alone from May through the winter where they struggle hard for survival. They don't know who from their extended family and friends are alive, but they must stick together and save themselves.

This book is very intense. I was about 50-75 pages in, when I got so scared by the panic that I had to stop reading for a few minutes. When I explained to my hubby that I was scared he just kind of rolled his eyes and told me to quit reading. I couldn't just stop! The story is told so vividly, and the situation is so believable that it really did scare me for a bit. This is a wonderful read!

Operation: Kitchen Remodel update:

We went shopping for counters yesterday evening and it's hard! I know that I want something neutral and light, but not TOO light, but definitely not something dark. The hard part is that they have counter tops in every shade of color imaginable! It makes my head spin and it's very hard to pick out something so important, or at least, that's how I feel! Oh well, we are planning to start stripping the cabinets this evening, we'll see how this long process goes.

The Secret Life of CeeCee Wilkes.

This book was wonderful! I was completely engrossed after the first few pages. The story sucked me in right away and kept me interested through the very last page.

Diane Chamberlain's The Secret Life of CeeCee Wilkes opens with the introduction of the title character. She is 16, naive, and alone in the world, left behind by her mother who passed away of cancer when CeeCee was only 12 years old. CeeCee's path crosses with a graduate student in the diner that she works at near campus. This graduate student plays on her naivety, her loving spirit, and her need for love to talk her into doing his bidding on a kidnapping which he claims will exonerate his sister who is on death row for a crime she did not commit. CeeCee reluctantly agrees and her adventure quickly begins.

This story is exciting, and intense. The characters are richly developed and there is an underlying commentary on the love of a mother for her child and what it means to be a family. This is definitely a must read!

Whistling in the Dark.

Lesley Kagen's debut novel Whistling in the Dark is a coming-of-age thriller told from the point of view of a 10 year old girl named Sally. The novel is set in Milwaukee during the summer of 1959 and follows Sally and her younger sister. A lot has changed in Sally's life recently beginning with a promise that she made to her father before he died that she would take care of her younger sister Troo who is 9.

Shortly after the death of their father, the girl's mother remarrys a not so nice man, becomes ill and ends up in the hospital for an extended period of time. The young girls are pretty much left to fend for themselves for the summer when there is a child molester and murderer on the loose. Over imaginative Sally believes that she will be the next victim and she might not be imagining it after all.

This novel is so wonderful because it is told through the naive and innocent eyes of a 10 year old. The frankness with which she describes topics such as the "fast" girl in the neighborhood "getting some sex" and the confusion of how baseball relates to what the older kids do in the backseats of cars is at times very funny. The characters in her neighborhood are richly developed and it makes the reader want to sit down with the women, have a cup of tea, and gossip with them about what's going on in the house next door behind closed blinds.

This novel is charming, full of heart, and suspenseful all at the same time. It really takes the reader back to a time of innocence and draws you into the story until you are with the neighborhood children running the streets and trying to solve a mystery.

The Secret Between Us.

Barbara Delinksky is an author that I have recently discovered. My first experience was with her novel Family Tree, which is also a good read. She really focuses on family dynamics when confronted with a dramatic experience. I would compare her to Jodi Picoult, which is one of my favs!

In The Secret Between Us the protagonist's teenage daughter is driving them home on a rainy night when she suddenly strikes a runner. The victim turns out to be one of the daughter's teachers and because she is so upset, and the man is still alive, the mother sends her daughter home and she stays behind to deal with the police.

The police automatically assume that the mother was actually the one driving the car, and she does not correct them willing to bear the repercussions of the accident for their daughter, but when the vicitim unexpectedly dies, what follows is a full fledged investigation and a lot of drama.

The protagonist's relationship with her daughter begins to suffer greatly from the lie that she told about driving the car the night of the accident and interesting family dynamics and interpersonal relationships begin to surface.

This is a fast, easy, yet interesting read. It explores how one's life can completely change in a minute and the repercussions that follow.

Big Reads, Big Books Quiz

Stolen from emilyreads

According to The Big Read, the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books on this list.

The instructions: Look at the list and:

Bold those you have read.
Italicize those you intend to read.
Underline the books you LOVE. (I seem to be having trouble underlining, so I'll turn them pink!)


1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen (This is on my reading list for the next month or so : ) )
2. The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter series - J.K. Rowling
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6. The Bible
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8. 1984 - George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12. Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare (most, but not ALL)
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier (I read this when I was younger, I'd like to read it again)
16. The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkien
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye - J.D. 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
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 (tried; failed; maybe I'll try again...eventually)
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia - C.S. Lewis
34. Emma - Jane Austen
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - C.S. Lewis
37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres (maybe)
39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh - A.A. Milne

41. Animal Farm - George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving (LOVED it!)
45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables - L.M. Montgomery (Again, read when I was younger, would like to read again.)
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 (Tried; failed; I don't get what what's so great about this book. Anyone?)

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 (tried; failed; didn't love)

61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
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' Diary - Helen Fielding
69. Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville (This is probably the only novel that I've ever hated; TERRIBLE)

71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
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 - A.S. Byatt

81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
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 - E.B. White (One of my all time favs!)
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton

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

Looks like I've got some work to do!

Time Traveler's Wife.

Yesterday evening I finished reading Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveler's Wife.

One of the main characters that the story follows is Henry. Henry is a time traveler. In the novel, he is the first human to be diagnosed with a strange genetic disorder in which he travels randomly through time without being able to control it. He shows up at places that he has once been, or has yet to be, and at times even encounters himself at various points during his life while traveling. He also exists in "the present".

Henry meets his wife when she is 6 years old, but he is traveling to her from the future where they are already living together as husband and wife. He is in his late 30s at the time.

What follows is a unique love story, richly developed characters, and a seamless yet non-chonological plot. The novel is narrated at times by Clare (the female in the story) throughout the years, and also by Henry. Their lives together, strangely, inexplicably intertwined, unfold before the reader.

It took me a while to get into this book, much longer than it usually does. Before I reached 140-150 pages, my mind was having trouble comprehending a story about a nearly-40 year old time traveler meeting his wife, and getting to know her when she is a young girl and into her adolesence. However, once I got to about page 140, I became very interested in the story, and by about halfway though I couldn't put it down!

I would recommend this book. There are a few discrepancies and questions that arise, but overall, it's a really wonderful read and it's different than the traditional love stories that we are used to.

Certain Girls, Jennifer Weiner.

Jennifer Weiner is one of my favorite authors. I always get on the waitlist for her novels as soon as possible. She has a witty, sharp humored writing style that I really enjoy, and all of her characters are filled with personality.

Certain Girls is a flash-forward 13 years sequel of one of her first novels (maybe her very first? I don't remember) Good in Bed.

13 years later, Cannie's daughter is on the eve of her Bat Mitzvah and is going through a lot of changes in her 12, nearly 13 year old life. Not necessarily life changes per se, but more like changes in awareness about herself, her family, and her life in general. Cannie's daughter is rebelling against her "overbearing, smothering" mother and the novel is told from both the mother and daughter's viewpoints. This is a very unique oppurtunity for the reader to see both sides of a situation, experience both character's feelings, etc. It makes for a very well rounded novel.

I really enjoyed the story, the characters, and everything about this novel. I have not yet read a book from Jennifer Weiner that I did not enjoy, and this was another great read.

And Kitteh's Official Name Will Be.... ::drumroll::

Delilah.

We decided to go with the original name that I picked out. It seems to fit her well. Thank you for all of your suggestions and help. Naming a kitteh is harder than I would have originally thought.

In other news...

Well, there really isn't any other news. It's been a fairly uneventuful week to be honest.

I got my car back on Tuesday. It has been out at my parent's house since Friday the 4th because it was slowly leaking something from the rear driver's side tire, which is never good. It has also squeaked a little bit since I first got it back - Note to those who are unaware - I got in an accident in December, on what happenend to be the first snowy day, and the roads were very bad. I slid on some ice while entering the the freeway from the on-ramp, whipped completely around facing the wrong way AND slid my entire driver's side into the guardrail while I was saying, "oh no, please don't hit the guardrail, oh no!". Yeah... I just purchased the car last Spring. I was not a happy camper. Anyhoo, I started driving my car again AFTER winter ended because I didn't need to play slip n' slide anymore. Then it started leaking, which brings us up to now - So, my Dad very nicely fixed the leak for me. Apparently, it had something to do with the shock.

The bad part is, when he was fixing the car he noticed that the poo-heads who aligned my tires - Ahem, TIRE KINGDOM! - didn't do a very good job of aligning the front tires, which means I've been driving on very poorly aligned tires - that I paid $60 to get aligned! - for the last few months, which means that my front tires are now worn out on the inside. Again, this does not please me. I may have to replace the tires now, but first I'm going to have to call up Tire Kingdom and give them a piece of my unhappy mind. I don't understand why a place that sells and puts on tires couldn't handle aligning the tires that were already attached to my car. Only I would encounter this situation.

We got our professional pictures back from the wedding in the mail on Wednesday. We *LOVE* them! I'm so excited that we have them now. If you would like to see a few you can go here.

What else... *thinking*

Oh, I finished a book last night and I really, really liked it! The novel is Ami McKay's The Birth House. At first, I wasn't sure how much I would actually get into the book, but I ended up very pleased. The novel is set in Nova Scotia predominately taking place during the first World War. The story centers around a young girl who has the practices of midwifiry passed down to her from the old local midwife. Although the locals of the village are heavily reliant on midwives for maternity needs, and also any other ailments, they are weary of their skills and "tricks" and often believe that they are witches.

The drama begins to unfold when a doctor, and outsider to the small village, sets up a practice in a nearby town. He builds a birthing center and feels that women should not be allowed to home birth, but should instead pay for the newest technology and travel to the center when their time comes. What follows really revolves around a woman's right to have control over matters related to her health. The women of the village would rather give birth in the comfort of their homes, with someone they feel comfortable with, than make the risky trip to the neighboring town, be drugged with Ether, and have their infant forcibly removed.

The novel is written in a very unique "scrapbook style", and includes not only writing in the first person, but also local newspaper clippings, advertisements, letters back and forth between the village ladies, and important conversations from local ladies gatherings to help the story unfold in a direct and frank manner. This novel really is a very worthwhile read, and gives a unique perspective to the struggle for women to have control of their health and wellbeing. I very much enjoyed the story.

Also, as my darling husband just pointed out, I initially forgot to mention that HE is the one who suggested this book to me. We were standing in the book section of Target and he decided that the cover looked like something that I would want to read. I suppose it worked out, but I don't see it. Thanks for the suggestion!

I Don't Like Bedding.

*sigh*

So, you would think that when you want to buy new bedding, you just go to whatever store sells bedding, choose the one you like, bring it home, and that's it. End of story. Well, not so much if you're me.

We have had the same duvet set since we moved into our house nearly two years ago. It's a light tan color, with a white outline on the top of the bed. The set is okay, but it's not something that I love, and I think by switching it out, it will spruce up our bedroom some. So, we started looking around for a new bedding set.

About 2 weeks ago, we brought home a chocolate comforter that we thought would look nice. Turns out, being that our bedroom walls are a plum color, the brown looked too dark in my opinion. We returned that and ended up purchasing another duvet and a quilt yesterday. The duvet is solid khaki, and the quilt is about the same color as our walls. My theory was that we could use the quilt to break up the plainness of the khaki spread. Again, not so much, it's too plain in my opinion. Still don't like it, so now both the duvet set and the quilt will be returned.

Ugh, I'm so annoyed that I can't just find what I want. I have literally not seen anything that I love. I'm just not sure what the heck to put in our bedroom!

Any ideas?

This is what we currently have, the walls are a deep plum color, they look more purple in this pic than they actually are:

On another topic, yesterday, I finished reading Sarah Strohmeyer's, The Sleeping Beauty Proposal. This novel was total chick lit, but it was nice and upbeat, as well as an easy read. It was kind of a far fetched story about a woman in her early thirties who fakes her own engagement after her butthead of a boyfriend proposes to someone else on national TV after 4 years with her. Instead of explaining to everyone that the proposal wasn't actually meant for her, she rolls with it and starts accepting congratulations, gifts, and other things that happen to come her way now that "her life is just beginning".

One thing that I really liked about this novel is that the author explored expectations that society has that every woman wants to get married and that their life doesn't truely start until they are someone's wife. The heroine of the novel goes on to improve her life based on the ring on her finger. She gets in shape, purchases a house, gets a promotion at work, all because she is now going to be a married woman - or, so she thinks.

Eventually, she figures out that she doesn't need a husband to be a successful woman in her thirties. Of course her lame-o boyfriend comes back to beg her forgiveness and offer a real proposal, which she turns down, and of course she ends up with the right guy in the end, but this piece of chick lit actually makes you think a little about societal expectations.

You know you've read a good book when you turn the last page and feel a little as if you have lost a friend. ~ Paul Sweeney

I have very few hobbies that I make time for and enjoy doing in my down time. I like to cook and bake, and most importantly, I enjoy reading.

I have read just about everyday for as long as I can remember. I usually average about 1 book a week. If it's been a good week, I may finish reading 2 or 3, that gets expensive, and you run out of room quickly if you are purchasing the books, so I take advantage of one of the only free things in our society - the library. I'm very grateful that we have such a nice, well established library system where I live. I know that not all places are like that.

I read just about everything, Best Sellers, Chick Lit, Classics, Science Fiction (I've just recently ventured into this genre), basically anything that's recommended to me, or anything that I'm interested in trying because it strikes my fancy. I have favorite authors that I've read everything they've ever written - Danielle Steel and Toni Morrison, to name a couple, but often I just jump from novel to novel. I always have a book that I'm working on, it's what I do in my down time, most nights I try to read before bed, at least for a little bit, and I know that my husband enjoys my reading time because that means that he gets control of the remote and then some sporting event, or other, takes over the TV for the time being.

Anyway, that's a little bit about me.

I just finished reading James Patterson's, Sam's Letters to Jennifer yesterday. It was an easy read and a heartwarming story. Unlike other Patterson novels, this is a love story. It's a novel about a woman who returns to her Grandmother's home because her Grandmother Sam is in the hospital ill. During the weeks that she is there, she spends time reading through a stack of letters addressed to her, written by her Grandmother about an untold part of her Grandmother's life, the story of her greatest love. The story is about the importance of embracing love. It was a good read, nothing super-special, but it's nice just to read an easy story with a happy ending sometimes.

Day 5 of Operation: Socialization & Other Things

Kitteh and Belle are getting along better than they were. They still aren't BFFs yet, but they do seem to be getting into exchanging Christmas cards once a year territory, kinda friendly.

They seem to be less aware of one another - Kitteh actually seems more comfortable around the dog, than she around Kitteh - and today, Belle actually gave Kitteh some kisses. Belle likes to give everyone kisses. They were kind of rough, and not very loving, but Kitteh allowed it, and it seems to mean that Belle doesn't totally hate her, and hopefully won't try to drown her in the toilet while we are away. Hopefully we will continue to move in this positive direction. I have hope.

I finished reading The Host, the newest Stephenie Meyer novel, this morning. It took a little while to get into - she's actually my first Science Fiction author anyway - but once I got about 75 pages in, the plot really picked up from there. The book is about bodysnatchers (at least I think that's the proper Sci-Fi term) and the beginning was very technical, and really served to set up the rules for the story. All in all, I found the novel to be very worthwhile, different, but worthwhile. I'm hoping to see more adult Fiction from this author.

We spent the rest of today writing thank you notes. Mark actually wrote 99% of the thank yous for his side of the guest list, I wrote the rest. It was very nice being able to split the duty with someone and it really made the task go faster. We are planning to get them out in the mail tomorrow, and I will officially be done with all wedding related tasks - well, except for organizing all of our shower/wedding gifts that are still occupying the entire floor of the office, but we just close the door and don't talk about it. Now, I can move on to selling off all of the stuff that's taking up space in our spare room.

It's going to be a somewhat busy week, but thankfully it's only a 4-day week at work. My Mom's birthday is on Tuesday, July 1st, and Mark's and my birthday is on Friday, July 4th, which is why it's a holiday week at work - yes, we have the same birthday, it's very strange. I will be 22 and he will be 29. Next year, he has to say goodbye to his twenties. I enjoy reminding him of this.