I.Love.Books.

I love to read. I've always loved to read. In fact there are some fairly embarrassing pictures of me (somewhere in my mom's house)  reading in the bathtub when I was little. (No, I don't want to talk about it). In general, when I was younger, the books I read were usually bigger than I was.

Fast forward 16 years and some days I hardly have time to pee, much less enjoy a novel.

Well, track out is a beautiful thing people. I've spent some time getting reacquainted with the public library. Now, I have a Kindle (although the screen is slightly warped after a minor incident involving a clothes hamper) and there is so much to be said for this little invention...especially when traveling! BUT there is just something about holding a book (paperback is my preference) and snuggling down in the bed or on the couch with a cup of coffee. Or sitting outside on the porch. Or floating on a floatie in the pool. Or waiting in a Dr.'s office. You get the point.

The genius of the matter is I live in between two libraries. One is very small- I love that the librarians already know my face. The other is HUGE- I love that I can find ANYTHING. So, depending on if I am feeling more Mayberry or Big City I can choose my destination.

It also helps that libraries offer free services. And, except for about a week and a half at the beginning of the month...I.Am.Always.Watching.Pennies.

Anyhow, because I am also slightly obsessive (just ask Crystal), I found a website where I can track my new reads. My goal is to read three books every track out (that's one a week). And in an effort to seem technologically savvy, I added my online bookshelf to my blog. (this is an electronic TA-DA.)

So, I said all this to say this...

No 1. If you went to a women's college (ahem...Meredith friends) read the book Commencement. It is very likely that you will find yourself reading about friends- or at least recognize some traits of your friends. It also highlights the public perception of a women's college steeped in tradition (tea parties, father daughter dances, etc) with changes and subcultures (feminism and homosexuality) all with a resounding focus on the relationships that are built, broken down, and recreated from the ashes. AH-MAZE-ING.


No 2. I've loved Jodi Piccoult since way before she sold her soul to Lifetime and started making crappy movies based on her books. But I was really excited to read her newest book, House Rules. It is about  a boy with Asperger's Syndrome - which fascinates me to the core. Piccoult always writes her novels from multiple points of view, so I was intrigued to see how she would represent a person with Asperger's. She drew her inspiration from a young lady with the diagnosis. The parts of the book from that perspective were my favorite- they were funny, they were infuriating, they were to the point. They represented the spectrum disorder with honesty and respect. BUT, overall, the book was a little underwhelming. I'm sure it will make a fascinating (yawn) sappy (ick) Lifetime movie one day.

So there you are, my professional report on books you probably never wanted to hear about. Hey, I was feeling literary today. I just found out that my sweet babies at school raised their average reading words per minute by over 30 words since the fall.

Who's the reading master now!?

I'm BAAACKK.

Ok...so let's talk IRONY for a sec. When you have nothing going on in your life (and therefore lots of time to sit and type away at a computer) you have nothing to write about. Yet, when you have a lot of things going on in life, you can't find the time or energy to get it all written down.

That was my long winded way of saying, holy crap, I've been busy and BLOG has been low man on totem pole. I have, however, faithfully stalked my favorites.

Right now my life schedule consists of school, camp, gym, eat, sleep. Shower, rinse, repeat.

Except for when I am cooing over my new favorite person in the world.

I'm absolutely afraid to reproduce now because I'm 99% sure that no baby can be cuter than this one. I'm just sayin.


In other news, school rules my life when I'm tracked in. Four more weeks until I can be me again for a while. :)

Sometime, when it's not 1 AM, i'll tell you all about my amazingfabulousrocksmyface after school job. :)