Month: April 2007

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It really does rock

I got a great phone call yesterday….from a very good friend in California who’s experiencing her first Spring Break on the teacher side of things. We have kids the same age (I think M is like 11 days older)–and it was nap time for both. I know, how does one 20 month old nap in EDT at the same time one 20 month old naps in PDT, I don’t really know. But it happened. So I was watching Oprah and eating chocolate, she was sitting on the patio drinking a martini (she has always been more hip than I) and she called and said, “I’m LOVING this spring break thing. It is SO much better than Christmas break.”

And we proceeded to take the next hour to explore the merits of such statements, amongst other things. Like a) both of our 20 month olds shit on the floor within 12 hours of each other yesterday and b) holy crap bachelorette parties and destination parties are expensive, and obviously if the bride had kids she wouldn’t be planning such lavish events, and c) string cheese, applesauce and goldfish.

Things I will do today:

I will eventually get presentable enough to leave the house, run errands with SuperStreak (who may or may not be clothed) and get some “Easter” shopping done.

I will pack for the impending Easter weekend, including clothes for all seasons, since it’s supposed to be 35 degrees Friday in Chicago, but 50 on Easter.

I will attempt to finish assorted household tasks, since we’re leaving town tomorrow.

Things I will not today

I will not read anymore negative adoption blogs. I unexpectedly stumbled onto one this morning, and it turned my stomach and sort of pissed me off. I’m not going to go into it now, but sometime in the future, I will write about my thoughts on “all that”.

I will not eat any more chocolate that’s in my house for SuperStreak’s crazy summer camp fundraiser. Yes, she’s 20 months old, but apparently Rainmbow’s “bringing camp to her” this summer (i.e.Special Programming we must pay for).

I will not spend more than two hours working on “school stuff” today, because, after all, it’s spring break, by golly.

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I found this list this morning, when I found Esther’s blog (from a comment she left nearly a month ago but I didn’t see-I’m slow like that). I don’t know who compiled the list below, but it covers everything from 8th grade English class to very modern fiction. The kind of books I like, therefore, I rock this list (doees 40% constitute rocking?). But seriously, that’s why I’m so excited for Megan’s reading in Toddlerese below. I can’t wait for her to start reading some of MY childhood favorites, like Charoloette’s Web, or the entire Little House series (which somehow didn’t make it on this list–who do I talk to about that?).

Look at the list of books below:
*Bold the ones you’ve read
*Italicize the ones you want to read
*Leave blank the ones that you aren’t interested in.
If you are reading this: tag; you’re it! Post this on your blog and link back to me.

1. The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Rowling)
17. Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rowling)
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. 1984 (Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. Bible – most, but not all
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrey Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)
81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down(Richard Adams)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)