Daily Archives: September 28, 2010

Fall into Reading '10: Question of the Week: What keeps you from reading?

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Fall Into Reading 2010 @ Callapidder DaysAs part of the Fall Into Reading Challenge, Katrina @ Callapidder Days has decided to post a weekly question related to the challenge.

She writes, “I thought it would be a great way to keep Fall Into Reading participants connected throughout the course of the challenge.”

I have a tendency to blog about books on Tuesday already so I thought I’d play along this week and hopefully continue to do so this fall.

Anyway, here’s the question for this week:

What do you think is the biggest obstacle to your reading? What prevents you from reading as much as you’d like?

Honestly the biggest obstacle to my reading is the fact that when I do read, I do so obsessively. If I read during the day, I might never stop! Add to that my other favorite vices: blogging, tv, occasionally paying attention to my children – and well, I decided to do everyone a favor and give myself scheduled reading time before bed each night.

And to be honest, it would be hard to lose myself in a good book with the noise that small children are never not making! At night, the apartment is quiet, I’ve hopefully exhausted all of my other thoughts and concerns, blogged my heart out, distracted myself with a few good tv shows, had time to vent and unwind with the hubby – and I’m ready to just sit down and enjoy whatever book I’m currently lost in. So it works well for me, although I do occasionally wish I had more time to read during the day.

How about you? What keeps you from reading more?

Nightstand: September 2010

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What's on Your Nightstand @ 5 Minutes for BooksWell lovies, another month has come and gone and it’s time for another What’s On Your Nightstand? post – which is a blogging carnival hosted by 5 Minutes For Books. For anyone new to this carnival, the premise is fairly simple :

Write about whatever books you are currently reading, recently read and/or plan to read next.

Pretty simple right? Last time we “nightstanded” I was in the middle of reading devouring The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows. It was the first book I read for the book club I recently joined and I just adored it! You can read my review on the book here.

I read two other books and sadly abandoned a couple as well.

Here are the other books I’ve read in the past month:

  1. Revelations by Melissa de la Cruz – Finished September 6, 2010 – I know there is no short supply of vampire fiction out there but this one actually has a remarkably original concept. I love all of the biblically historical details of this series, entwined seamlessly with current references and your typical angsty teenagers. The characters occasionally get on my nerves but the overall plot has always been enough to keep me coming back for more.
  2. The Titan’s Curse (Percy Jackson, Book 3) by Rick Riordan - Finished September 22, 2010– I’m liking this series more and more with each book. I blew threw this one quickly and I’m looking forward to the next!

And the books I opted not to finish were:

  • Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her by Melanie Rehak – abandoned September 17, 2010 – This just simply wasn’t the book I wanted it to be. I loved Eating for Beginners so much but this didn’t have that same fantastic wit that I’d grown to love in EFB and the book was much more about feminism and women’s suffrage than it was about Nancy Drew – not an uninteresting topic, just not what I’d been hoping to read and ultimately it felt more like that stodgy traditional “nonfiction” that I was forced to read in school.
  • That Old Cape Magic by Richard Russo – abandoned September 17, 2010 – There were parts of this book that I liked a lot. His descriptions of the cape and family vacations there brought back a lot of nostalgia for me and had me googling lake house vacations at 3 a.m. But there were other parts of the book (the parts dealing with divorce and unhappy marriages) that felt a lot like being stuck in a room with two people who are fighting and all the good energy just gets sucked out of the room and even though you like those two people seperately, being forced in the same room with them together makes you want to find the happiest person on earth as fast as possible. And unfortunately there were a lot more of those passages than the nostalgic ones and I just couldn’t finish the thing – too much negative energy. I may change my mind and pick this one up again as it’s for a book club also, but I’m kind of loathe to do so…

Right now I’m reading Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins so needless to say I’m reeeeallly enjoying it. I don’t feel like I’m quite as infatuated with it as others I know who’ve read it but I am liking it and really just love this series in general. I’ll be a bit sad to see it end.

When I finish Mockingjay I plan to read:

  1. The Battle of the Labyrinth by Rick Riordan : This is book four in the Percy Jackson series and since I just finished book 3 I know I’ll be wanting to read it soon – probably next.
  2. Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery : You know how sometimes you think you’ve read a book because everyone has read it and it’s famous but then you realize, no, in fact, you haven’t read it at all? I just realized a few months ago that I’ve somehow managed to go my entire life without reading this classic series so I picked up a copy (finally) to read and I’m very excited to finally crack into it.
  3. The Sweet Potato Queens’ Guide to Raising Children for Fun and Profit by Jill Conner Browne : Last but not least, to say the least! I got this at a bookstore recently for an absurdly low price and I’m looking forward to devouring it soon – in fact I already started it while on vacation last week but got distracted by the Percy Jackson book mentioned at the beginning of this post. I love the SPQ books something fierce and I’m sure this one will be great, but I’m planning to save it for when I need a good, easy, light-hearted read.

Fourteen Months (and one week).

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all right!

Wasn’t this girl just born like yesterday? Honestly these months are just flying by. From the first coo to rolling over, crawling, climbing, cruising… Now she’s more than fourteen months old and starting to take some serious steps. I can’t quite say she’s walking yet but give me five minutes. Seriously.

sweet as pie

To anyone looking in, this little girl is just sweet as pie. Always smiling and giggling and melting our heart. Of course not everyone notices the fact that she’s some kind of puppet master. She has us all by our heart strings, this girl. Spoiled rotten. I’m not exaggerating. When this little girl is not getting her way, everyone in the Midwest knows about it. She is… vocal, you could say. But really, how could you say no to this face?

happiest baby on the block

That girl is going to break some hearts. How we managed to get two blue eyed blond haired kids still baffles me (although MM’s hair is darkening with age so this may be a phase). I mean, I understand it – we have both blondes and blue eyed darlings in the family, but with two brown eyed brown haired parents, you’d think…

prettiest too

Not that I’m complaining mind you. It doesn’t suck having such beautiful children, that’s for sure. And this beautiful girl is just growing before my eyes. She is constantly surprising me as she grows older, stronger, braver. Desperate to keep up with that big brother of hers.

calling grammy

She is definitely a monkey see, monkey do baby. She’s developing her own little imagination and sense of humor. She is infatuated with my cell phone but makes do with her “pretend” phone when she must. She’s a smart cookie – a fourteen month and one week old cookie. Seriously. When did that happen?

classic cutie