A Happy Announcement.

FINALLY! I can spill. After weeks of misery and secrecy, today I finally had a doctor's appointment and got to see the cause of all the trouble- it has been confirmed that I am indeed growing a whole 'nother person! I am just over 12 weeks along, and if the visuals today are any indication, it's a little troublemaker! Flipping and dancing and swimming and carrying on in there! Due date looks to be early May, so the monkey will have just turned 3. We are both thrilled and terrified.

Recently Read

In the last three weeks or so I have actually completed two books, and read half of a third! This means the slump is over, right? Here's a couple of quick reviews of two wildly different books.

First, on October 8th my office was closed for Columbus Day. My daycare was open. At that time I was still pretty darn sick, so I opted to take the monkey to play with his friends while mommy "rested". After lunch I crawled into bed with a stack of books, and actually read one. COVER TO COVER!! Shocking. The book I chose to read was The Secret Diaries of Miss Miranda Cheever by Julia Quinn. Now, if you have browsed my LibraryThing*, you know that I used to be a big romance reader. In the last few years I've moved away from it, but I do still love a good romance. Julia Quinn is my favorite of them all. Her Bridgerton series was great, even if I do occasionally get them confused.

The Secret Diaries was not great. It might not have even been GOOD. I read it, all of it, and had a great time while doing it, but afterwards- eh. It wasn't that it was a romance and I'm out of the habit. It was just a ho-hum storyline. I'm not going to summarize the plot, in the land of romance novels there is a lot of overlap on plot, but this was not done well. It did't seem fresh. The writing wasn't great. There wasn't a great moment or plot twist to make this a great Julia Quinn novel. I later read that this was the first novel she actually wrote, but it was just recently published. I would believe this. It is not up to her standards at all. If you're gonna read JQ, skip this one. I give it a 3/5, because I DID read it in one sitting, but it's not terrific.

The other books I recently finished was A Fistful of Charms by Kim Harrison. This is the fourth book in the Rachel Morgan series. I've mentioned this book a few times in the course of this blog, and it's this book that made me realize something about my reading habits (namely, I don't like it when series characters travel out of their native areas.) It took me something like 8 or 9 months to read this one. It wasn't that I didn't like it. I would be loving what I was reading and put it down not to return for days. Or weeks. I finally finished it up last weekend, and while it is definitely (obviously) not my favorite, it does wind me up to read book five. I loved where it eventually went with Ivy and Rachel (and Kisten). I like the way the Brett storyline concluded. I missed Trent. I hated Nick, but I was supposed to. I also give this one a 3/5, because while it's not bad, it took me months to read it.

In other bookish news, a friend and I recently made a detailed spreadsheet of all the series we were both reading, or potentially both reading. It's got Jim Butcher, Laurell Hamilton, Kim Harrison, Charlaine Harris, and lots more. I think we're up to about 20 series. We tend to trade books back and forth through Paperbackswap and this makes it so much easier. We totally geeked out one afternoon and set it up on google documents and then used google chat to discuss it. In addition to the series names and authors, it tells which book each of us is at, and it would appear that she is AHEAD OF ME on EVERYTHING. Except J.D.Robb. Thank God. I think those 27 (28? 29?) books might bring me close to tied with her for sheer numbers.

*I use LibraryThing to list the books I have already read, not the books I own. The list dates from January 1993, when I was in high school. To see any given year of my life, you'd select the tag for that year (so anything tagged 2007 is something I read in 2007.)

Test Post!

I was trying to think of a way to make myself blog more, and decided to try out posting from my email.  I have no idea how this will look, so if it's all funky, I apologize in advance.

 

For content, I give you a sample of life with a 2-year-old.

 

mama, there is a bear in here, a bear in here, mama, a bear in here. See the bear in here? Mama? the bear? Scout will eat it! scouty is outside, see her? see? see her? scouty is right there? see? see? see? mama? my coat has a dinosaur. trains! on it! mana? see?

(pause to run off and get something VERY IMPORTANT. Like a tiny plastic dinosaur or a book we haven't read in months.)

NOW COME TO THE KITCHEN!!! OK!! you all better! in the kitchen mama, all better? you all better? I give you a kiss.
see, the train!?
right THERE!
there mama, there. In the kitchen. You no feel good mama?
mama tired? daddy? come to the kitchen! see the train! daddy, get up, see ? there is a bear!!

You. are. making. me. so. sad.

 

Challenge Update

Hi, remember me? I've been gone a while. Sorry about that. I'm starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel, and feeling a little better every day, so hopefully will be back with you soon. In the meantime, I feel the need to post that I am not reading anything for challenges at all. You can see my list over there to the right if you scroll down a little, and by clicking on the links you can see that I am not getting them done. This month and a half break from reading has done me in, and I have lost all motivation. Therefore, I am withdrawing myself from all of the challenges that end in 2007, leaving a little room open to the ones in 2008. I do not know if I will do them or not. I may just go back to making my own personal challenges and go from there. This feels a little bit like giving up, but mostly feels like relief. Ahhh. I can read crap for the next few months guilt free.

What about the Dystopian Challenge you ask? Yes, I am the host. Yes, I will still host. But I'm not even going to finish those books. That one wraps up in a few short weeks, and I don't stand a chance.

If the hosts of those other challenges are still reading along here, I'm sorry. It wasn't you. It was me. Can we still be friends?

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

Sense and Sensibility is my most recently completed book from Daily Lit. This is my second Jane Austen and I'm not really sure why I chose this one to be next. I admit that for the first half of the book (literally) I was not enjoying it. The dialog didn't snap like it does in Pride and Prejudice, it just seemed like so much set up for what wasn't gonna be much of a payout. I have some hairbrained idea that I want to read all of Austen though, so I persevered. At almost exactly halfway something happened that made me perk up, and from there the book got much better. The dialog never matches that of P&P, but the story redeems itself.

Sense and Sensibility is the story of two sisters, one calm and logical, one passionate. As with P&P, the sisters are trying to get married to the right men. Of course there are rules to be followed, society to contend with, social class and inheritances, all the trademarks of P&P. The ending is suitably romantic, if a bit rushed. I need to find the movie versions of both.

Next up for Daily Lit is Middlemarch. I've read the first couple of installments and it's completely different from Austen. I am kinda regretting not moving on to Persuasion to keep the momentum going, but have almost all of Middlemarch waiting for me, and have barely started getting Persuasion. I like to have most of the book on deck before starting it. Anyone here have an opinion on Middlemarch? How about Persuasion?

Charlaine Harris reviews

I haven't read a lot lately, but do have a couple of books to talk about. I managed to finish off Definitely Dead and All Together Dead by Charlaine Harris, which finishes off an entire series. I had really enjoyed the Sookie Stackhouse series to this point, but feel like these two books are significantly better than the first 5.

Definitely Dead takes place in New Orleans, where Sookie has gone to clear out her cousin Hadley's apartment. All Together Dead takes place in Illinois during the vampire convention. If you know me, you know that I generally don't like series books that stray from the characters main residence too much. In this case, I thought both of them were excellent. All Together Dead is my favorite in the series. I love Quinn. I love Barry. I did miss Sam, but was glad to see less of Bill. I like the queen a lot, she's the perfect blend of power with the illusion of caring. I can't wait to see what happens next.

I have a few more things to post about, but am going to break them up into smaller posts because they don't really go together.

Happy Anniversary!

I'm briefly breaking my blogging hiatus to say HAPPY ANNIVERSARY! to my husband. I love you.

(I would post our traditional anniversary snapshot, but it is still in the camera.)