Mother's Day

I'd love to be one of those people who are all eh about holidays, but I'm not. I love them all - birthdays, Valentine's, Christmas, Mother's Day. We had a terrific Mother's Day at my house yesterday, hopefully you did at yours?

We started with lunch out on Saturday, in order to beat the crowds. The Pirate was perfectly behaved and almost stayed in his seat the entire meal! The Bug had to be moved from a booster to a high chair with a seat belt due to an apparently overwhelming desire to climb out. We followed that up with a trip to The Children's Place to try to buy these adorable shoes, but our local store did not carry them. The Bug throught racing through the mall was fun, so we did not stay long. Buggy and I went home while Mike and the Pirate went grocery shopping, where the Pirate was similarly well behaved. They brought home a giant bouquet of flowers.

Sunday morning the boys (all three of them) were awake by 6am. This is not unusual, but I had hoped to sleep in a bit. Mike rounded them up about 6:30 and they went to Starbucks, in their pajamas!, to get mommy a nice fancy coffee for Mother's Day. Buggy carefully carried it back to me and was very excited to give it to me, "Mama! Coffee!"  Mike made breakfast (leftover shish kabobs- steak, zuchinni, onion, peppers, potatoes, and mushrooms cooked into eggs) and we lazed around. Mike smoked some ribs for lunch and we ate them with corn on the cob and pretended that summer was here.

In the afternoon I bailed on what I should be doing (sewing!) in favor of reading and actually read two entire books! In one day! Had to stay up until 11 to do so, but I can't remember the last time I did that. First I read When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead and then followed up with Silver Borne (Mercy Thompson, Book 5) by Patricia Briggs. Both good with nice pacing that kept me from wanting to put the books down.  Full reviews to come, I hope, along with my reviews of  Cast Member Confidential: A Disneyfied Memoir by Chris Mitchell, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, and Savor the Moment (The Bride Quartet, Book 3) by Nora Roberts. It's already been so long for poor Henrietta that I'm sure my review won't do it justice.

It was a terrific day and I couldn't bring myself to get online and blog about it, for fear it'd just feel like an ordinary day. I hope your Mother's Day was just as lovely.


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Monday monday

How was your weekend? I had a very nice weekend, very productive in many ways. First, I finished two books, one of them huge. The first book was Nightingale's Lament by Simon R. Green. This is the third book in the Nightside series. This series is a lot of fun, the books are non-stop action of incredible imagination. I was hesitant after book one, but am hooked now. This is from Amazon.com:

John Taylor has just solved the mystery of two friends' deaths when he is called
to another case. Charles Chabron wants Taylor to contact his daughter, Rossignol
(French for nightingale), a young singer who has fallen under the sway of the
ruthless Cavendishes, a husband-and-wife management team. Rossignol used to sing
upbeat, happy songs, but now her set is so melancholy that people leave her show
and commit suicide. After visiting Rossignol at the Goth club Caliban's Cavern,
where she performs nightly, Taylor knows something is wrong. When he goes to the
Cavendishes' management company, a pair of somnambulists beat him mercilessly,
leaving him near death and with no one to turn to but Pew, an old enemy. With
the help of Dead Boy, a deceased mugging victim who now fights criminals, Taylor
tries to locate the Cavendishes' former protege, Sylvia Sin, and find a way to
rescue Rossignol from the couple's clutches.

I'd say more, but really the plots are indescribable. The books are a lot of fun, and I'm glad I have the next one on hand.

The other book that I finished is The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. I stayed up way past my usual bedtime last night to finish, and it was so worth it. This book is as excellent as everyone says. In fact, it is so excellent that I'm going to write up a separate review for it later today.

In other news, Grandpa bought this for my monkey's birthday this weekend (the birthday was last month) and we worked on it for hours yesterday. My shoulders are crispy from the 90 degree heat. We have completed just enough that he can climb up and slide, but the swings, chalkboard, cafe table, window... all of that remains.

For Mother's Day I DID get to sleep in- until 7:30! Then we had biscuits and gravy, my request, for breakfast. I got a totally sweet card from my husband, and a Backyardigans card from his monkeyness. I also got a comfy reclining chair for the deck. Then later someone brought me a Vanilla Iced Nirvana from Dunn Brothers. It was a great day all around.

For Monday's math- 62 in, 26 read, 36 net books since January. Holding steady since last week, but expecting an influx from paperbackswap this week so don't expect that to stay constant this week.

EDITED TO ADD: Not sure what happened to the formatting here, but I can't seem to fix it. Sorry for the lack of paragraphs!