That's a Wreading Wrap, Folks!

or - Hell Froze Over because I actually FINISHED A SERIES!!!!  ((As I finish writing this post on Friday... oops. I should know to start writing a Wednesday series post on MONDAY...))

I guess some of the series I started don't technically ever end and can still be considered a success (Foodie Friday? Makin' Things Monday? - good grief when did I last post in either of those?!)
Maybe during my pre-baby maternity leave I'll work some more on Tour Tuesdays...


No, you guys - as of October 1st, I have read a book for all 50 categories in the 2015 Reading Challenge! 

Here's a reminder of the challenge, which I started in January!

check out the full size list/image here!

And if you want a recap of how it progressed throughout the year, be sure to check out each update:
     January 7, 2015 (Book #1 : category35)
     January 14, 2015 (Book #2 : category16)
     February 4, 2015 (Book #3 : category38)
     February 14, 2015 #1 (Book #4 : category41)
     February 14, 2015 #2 (Books #5, 6, 7 : categories10,3,14)
     June 1, 2015 (Books #8-21 : categories26,13,22,34,24,9,8,37,44,35,5,27,1)
     June 17, 2015 (Books #22-26 : categories49,15,7,11,17)
     July 1, 2015 (Books #27-32 : categories4,40,25,36,23,29)
    August 5, 2015 (Books #33-41 : categories28,46,39,33,43,12,30,31,6)
    August 19, 2015 (Books #42-45 : categories19,45,20,32)
    September 9, 2015 (Books #46-50 : categories42,47,21,48,50)

((HAHAHA - so I'm looking through the lists, wondering - how did I read 50 books but still supposedly have two categories left at the last check in?!
well - it's because I double read (and counted) books for category 22 and category 35, and forgot to account for that during my blogging... LOL so 52 books read, for 50 categories...))

With that note, here is the final entry for the 2015 Reading Challenge!!!!!

A grand total of challenge and non-challenge books read: 76 books total, 52 challenge books! (That's an average of one book every 3.89 days!!)


#67. Crash by David Wright & Sean Platt    N/A Category      (fin 9/14/15)
A unique story (again by the guys that wrote the series Yesterday's Gone) about a guy who survived a car crash that killed his little girl... TWIST ending, which somehow made the book about a topic that E and I were very "all about" last fall, if you remember...  with the surprise ending, a great read! (I will tag it with a TRIGGER WARNING!)


#68. When Mockingbirds Sing by Billy Coffey     N/A Category    (fin 9/15/15)
"What marks the boundary between a miracle of God and the imagination of a child?" (from GoodReads) A little girl, who has moved to a new town, has an "imaginary friend."  Is it God/a Higher Power? Is it just coincidence that old Mr. Smith won the lottery after seeing numbers in a painting the little girl could never have painted herself?? A pretty good read...
 
#69. Never Never by Colleen Hoover    N/A Category     (fin 9/16)
Two highschool sweethearts, apparently together for years - but woke up one morning and neither can remember ANYTHING... annoying because of the cliff-hanger ending (which, you'll see, I read #2 in the series immediately, but #3 isn't released yet! WAAAAAH!)

#70. Never Never #2 by Colleen Hoover    N/A Category   (fin 9/16)
(see above)

#71. The Graduate by Charles Webb    #2/50: A Classic Romance     (fin 9/19)
So I'd started reading a different (relatively unknown) book for this category, got bored with it - and how "classic" can it be if it's unknown?! So out came this book... I'd seen parts of the movie, and of course the "spin-off/tie-in" movie Rumor Has It (cute movie!) so I was excited to read the book... kind of dryly written, and the ending... I can't believe the author left it like that!! Overall, kind of a bizarre read...


#72. Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake     N/A Category     (fin 9/20)
A fun ghost-story read about a guy whose a ghost-hunter by legacy... until he faces one that doesn't want to kill him back...

#73. Promise Not to Tell by Jennifer McMahon      N/A Category     (fin 9/29)
Another sci-fi/ghost-story type of book... a woman returns to her childhood home (where her young best friend had been murdered 30 years before) only to have another young girl be murdered in an eerily similar way...

#74. Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides     #18/50: A Pulitzer-Prize-winning book     (fin 10/1/15)
AND THIS BOOK CLOSED OUT THE CHALLENGE!
(ugh ok so I was a little bit of a cheat - I'd actually read this book a number of years ago, and liked it - except now I couldn't remember a lot of it, so I decided to completely re-read it... it totally still counts though!!)
The main character, a person stuck between sexes, tracks back through his/her roots to ultimately the beginning of his/her story, with grandparents in Turkey/Greece years before he/she was even conceived...the story follows three generations, as the "genetic mutation" travels along the family tree...(I know, really prosey and poetic, right? lol)
(one part I found funny, was the TTC logistics when Hubby wants to conceive a girl and so fills his wife in on the best time to have sex, and "here - you use this thermometer" and a temp-shift would confirm ovulation, etc.  Except - when two characters were "synchronized in their menstrual cycles [and conceived on the same night] - that night was day 14."
yea? both gals were on CD14, and they BOTH ovulated "on time?!"
HA.


Anyways, a really good book (one I'm willing to re-read!) and highly recommended...



And because I will never be done reading in life, I've decided to maybe keep a reading series going, just sans Challenge!  Maybe an annual tally of the number of books read...

So to carry on for the rest of 2015:

#75. Hopeless by Colleen Hoover     (fin 10/6)
Obviously was liking this author for awhile... a lightly written story (with a heavier storyline): a highschool girl meets (and develops unprecedented feelings for) a guy who seems to know her from another life... He finally helps her uncover/remember a deep secret she's had repressed and will change her life as she once knew it...

#76. Murder Under Construction by Maddie Cochere     (fin 10/13)
a light read (a free download while at lunch and wanting to read) about a woman who fell on a murder victim, knife still in her chest while dirt-biking at a construction site.  Apparently it's a thing of hers, as this is the third body she's come upon in the last year! What ensues is (supposed to be) a comic who-dunnit... eh not bad, for a free book...


And now I'm currently reading (slowly since I've lost the time to do it at work) the second book Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy, Girl Who Played With Fire.

And that, folks, is the end of the 2015 Reading Challenge - but the beginning of a regular series, What's Been Read!

she's ALIVE!

Ok - we're reaching the point where it's been so long since I blogged that there's so much to write about that it becomes daunting and I put it off for another day (or ten...)

so it's TIME TO JUST WRITE!

On Oct 5th I had my 28week check-up (weight was good, BP was good, all's good!) as well as my 1-hour GTT, and was all psyched because the doc had said four weeks prior that I'd get to schedule BabyGirl's eviction date! (her RCS)

So the 1hr GTT went well (as in I didn't have to fast, but did anyways after failing Button's 1hr GTT 2 years ago... chugged the glucose syrup stuff like a champ... didn't get nauseous, and only had ONE blood draw at the end of hte hour!)

And then I was all pumped (and ready to plead for a RCS earlier than 39w which is Monday 12/21) when the nurse was like, "ok and the scheduler now does scheduling on the phone/computer so she'll be in touch!"

um, ok...

AND THEN I got a voicemail from Scheduler Susan later in the day, saying she'd gotten me down for 7:45am on DECEMBER 23RD (which would be 39w3d...)

and I was all, "NO! NONONONONO!!!" and pouted in my car on the way home (where I listed to the voicemail) that we'd totally be in the hospital through Christmas (Eve and Day) and then put my big girl panties on and realized, Christmas this year is gonna be CRAY CRAY to begin with, what having JUST ARRIVED HOME with a new born... what's the difference if it's in the hospital?
(as I type that, I'm cringing, picturing Christmas morning stuck alone with baby girl in the hospital until family gets there after their cheery cozy PJ-clad Christmas breakfast by the fireplace... WAAAAAAAH!!!!)

And no, they couldn't schedule any earlier (after conversations with Scheduler Susan) because:
1. The hospital, due to insurance reasons, WILL NOT schedule an ERCS before 39weeks
2. 12/21 (exactly 39w1d) none of the surgeons/OBs from my office are scheduled in the OR
3. 12/22 (39w2d) there were no openings between the surgeons/OB and OR...
(It also doesn't help - the OB has my official EDD as 12/28, which makes 12/21 the absolute earliest possible scheduled date at exactly 39w, whereas O date and one of many early measuring U/S made me go with a 12/27 EDD (and not want to budge. lol))

so, unless I go into labor earlier (like I did with Button) we'll be having our BabyGirl on december 23rd! (so, yes - I'm hoping for early labor!!! not only because I don't want to be in the hospital on Christmas, but because I want to give BG just a little more time between her birthday and Christmas! oiy!)


And about the whole 1hr GTT - it was a repeat of Button's pregnancy:  failed the 1hr (blood sugar was 144) and had to take the 3hr GTT a few days later... and it was a bit worse than I remember...
I got nauseous and then hot/cold while out in the waiting room... (BUT - in the 3hours there, I did get 90% of a hat made for BabyGirl! and finished it a few nights later:)

(they called less than 24-hours after I finished the 3hr GTT to say I passed with flying colors... If/when there's a next pregnancy, I'm gonna tell them just to skip the 1hr, save me the time and hassle, just give me the 3hr from the start!)



Button's started to report back from daycare on his own (without us reading his daily sheet and prompting, "Did you make Owls for "O" today?")
Case in point: one night during bedtime routines, he tells me "[Button] got in trouble at pe-school ta-day..."
I asked why and he got to his knees and said, "do dis to Ms. Cohtney" (whatever the being-on-his-knees was... we discovered at a "Back to School Night" that he wouldn't lay down during nap time and Ms. Courtney got mad... lol)

At this same Back-to-School night, another mom from the daycare (totally different class/age group) had brought in a bag full of baby girl clothes! (Her youngest is now 4 months old, and "as she grows out of her clothes, [mom] will keep bringing bags in!"

She didn't know me, but had asked the director if she knew anyone having a girl, and director replied, "yes! [Button's] mom!" and so she bagged up her baby girl's clothes for "[Button's] Mom" and brought them in for me, so sweet!!!
(aw, remembering going through hand-me downs for Button 2.5 years ago as well!!)

(I also recently nested went through Button's old newborn/3M clothes for any usable clothing - found a crap ton of (stained) white onesies! score!)



In other big news, Button's first 2-yr molar errupted sometime in the last few weeks (I've written it, of course, in his baby book... poor Girl may not have the first 14 of her teeth written down, I'm sorry ahead of time!)




Um, also - My 2015 Reading Challenge is DONE AND COMPLETE as of last Friday some previous Friday night (The date I finished my final book is noted in my nerdy spreadsheet, and I'll have a final update for you hopefully this Wednesday!)
(of course I'm still constantly reading - but just totally not at work anymore, as the next big news item is:


We hired the gal who will cover my maternity leave! She's also a permanent addition, and will take over A/R and Collections (today is the start of her third week and I've already noticed a relief of collections duties!!)  But - so the last two weeks solid have been training, and familiarizing her with our systems, etc so no more reading at work (I've just now caught up on blog reading from the last few weeks!)


and with that - yesterday I hit 30 weeks...

30 WEEKS, PEOPLE!

Which means that, given a RCS event, there's single digit weeks left! (9 to be exact!) ACK!

((And you'll notice she's still "BabyGirl" - that's not because I'm being secretive with a name or anything, it means she still has no name!!!! I can't decide! PLEASE HELP! Suggestions welcome!!))

(30week post to follow (as well as a fall photo dump!) as I think this one's gotten unexpectedly lengthy...)

a First Time for Everything....

...and that Everything includes a first ever yeast-infection (YUGH I dislike that phrase as much as I dislike the word discharge (lots during pregnancy. fun stuff...)

so I guess I could look at the bright side that this is my first ever (in my memory) as opposed to focusing on the yuckiness of the overnight lotion/cream/whatever that gets shoved up your hoo-ha... (started the OTC generic cream last night...) and the doc's nurse finally returned my call today, confirming the culture (TAKEN A WEEK AGO!) was yes, positive for Y.I.  And the doctor is going to review it (I guess the type of yeast?!) and may want to prescribe a cream, should she call it in to Pharmacy XYZ? But "don't worry, I [nurse] will call you back if that's the case!"

Okie dokie...

(Thankfully symptoms are very mild, and are sometimes nearly non-existent... and a funny story - I somehow accidentally "loaded" the wrong end of the plunger/doo-hickey with the cream last night, and it got all over. lmao - good thing E was out at a hockey game...)



Also, during this Wednesday's Reading Challenge update, you'll notice I *GASP* gave up on a book part-way through for the first time... (ok not for the first time ever, but for the first time in this challenge...)

And can I just say - I only have TWO categories/books left to read until this challenge is DONE!

Which makes the all-time total (challenge and non challenge books) 66 books read!
(Also - for the question, "Where the hell do you find time to read?!"
Mostly at work - lunch time, and when I've spent too long staring at an excel file and need a break
and at home after Button goes to bed - on the couch til I'm falling asleep, and then some more once I wake up and move to bed... 

And here we go with where we last left off:

#59. Remember When #3 by T. Torrest   N/A Category    (fin 8/20/15)
I had last read Remember When #2, and had to just chug on through to the third (spoiler alert) where they finally have their happy ending! The trilogy, overall, is a very light read, but with some great (and frequent) ((and realistic!)) sex scenes - a must for summer-reading!

#60. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood    #42/50 : A book you own but have never read   (fin 8/21/15)
Given the fact that I have downsized my paperback library, in fact downsized mostly to favorite books that I'd read again and again (ahem Twilight!) I reached into e-books that I'd downloaded over the past few years that I hadn't read yet... enter Atwood's novel! A very interesting book, in sometime-future, where women are treated as, basically, surrogates or vessels - but they are assigned to couples, to try to get pregnant from the husband, and once they fulfill their need (carry a child) they are moved to another home/couple for another child to be conceived... definitely very interesting, as the main character (The Handmaid!) flashes back to her Life Before, with a family and child of her own... I made notes as I read, because I really liked how the author frequently used word-play in the prose:
" and had nothing to do with the man you loved, at least in daylight. With
that man you wanted it to work, to work out. Working out was also
something you did to keep your body in shape, for the man. If you worked
out enough, maybe the man would too. Maybe you would be able to work it
out together, as if the two of you were a puzzle that could be solved; otherwise, one of you, most likely the man, would go wandering off on a trajectory of his own, taking his addictive body with him and leaving you with bad withdrawal, which you could
counteract by exercise. If you didn’t work it out it was because one of
you had the wrong attitude. Everything that went on in your life was
thought to be due to some positive or negative power emanating from
inside your head."
(A really unique ending, too!)

#61. Ghostly Liaison by Stacy McKitrick    N/A Category   (fin 8/24/15)
(A book I downloaded on my phone while bored at lunch...) The main character sees ghosts... mix in some good romance and a murder mystery to be solved (Mr. Dreamy's sister, what they thought was a suicide!) pretty decent for a free B&N book!

#62. Doubt: A Parable by  John Patrick Shanley   #47/50 : A play    (fin 8/26/15)
I had seen this movie first (and still only recently, in the last year, considering it came out in 2008) This play is exactly what was in the movie, no more and no less - and it was different, reading a play - but one that I could very easily envision the setting and emotions, thanks to the movie... a highly recommended movie and play!

#63. Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett     #21/50 : A book your mom loves    (fin 9/3/15)
This category was somewhat tough, I'm usually the one recommending books to my mom! There weren't many that she had read that I haven't yet... so she dug deep (and into recommendations passed on from her dad...) This is an epic novel, at over 800 pages (you can tell, there's a week between when I finished the last book and when I finished this one!) and it spanned the decades (and numerous characters) centered around building a grand cathedral in Kingsbridge (England) - but I love Ken Follett (first read his Night Over Water years ago...) and this was very well written - never dragged or felt tedious in reading. In fact, kept me from chapter to chapter, frequently saying, "just one more!"  There is a mini-series made in the last few years that I want to watch now (first few episodes I know are on youtube!) as well as a "sequel" (said to be able to stand-alone as a novel) that is set two centuries later, still in Kingsbridge, that will be added to my "Must Read" list!

#64.  Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure by John Cleland    #48/50 : A banned book    (GAVE UP 9/4/15)
This novel was the last novel ever banned in the U.S. It's basically soft-core smut, written at the turn of the century (so tedious!) and around page 70 of 127 (of the same stuff, different players, looooooong-ass prose) I gave up... there was no story line... but all the same, I'm considering it read, category fulfilled...

#65. Escape(#1): A New Life by David Antocci    N/A Category     (fin 9/4/15)
Another quick read I downloaded on my phone during lunches... a woman wakes up on a tropical island, with no memory how she got there - but she gets caught up in a fight for her life! Actually, a pretty unique story twist... (no spoilers here!) it was free on B&N, go check it out!

#66. Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson     #50/50 : A book you started but never finished   (fin 9/8/15)
Ok so they don't limit the reasons why you never finished the book the first go-round... This one, I downloaded a bad version a few years ago and couldn't read past the first 10 pages or so.  So I recently found a good copy to download, and started to read again... YAY so glad I did! The novel follows a disgraced Swedish journalist and a socially-rejected young woman as they investigate a decades old murder... I loved this book, and cannot wait to find the movie showing on TV to be DVR'd! (Also, it's a(nother) trilogy and I've refrained from my usual jumping straight into the second book, Girl Who Played with Fire, especially because it was such a cliff-hanger/unsatisfactory ending to the first book - each series I've read straight through, I've lost where each book ended/began... so we'll try for a little separation with this series!


And that's where I'm at!

Currently reading When Mockingbirds Sing (A lunchtime download that fulfills no category) and the synopsis has me intrigued... now that I'm only reading that one book (ha!) hopefully I can dedicate my attention to it and do it justice in reading!

Humpitty Bumpitty...

Happy HumpDayBumpDay!

Also- since it's Wednesday, let's do a Reading Challenge update!

Last total book count: 49 books read, 39 books from the Challenge List
New total book count: 58 books read, 43 books from the Challenge List

(Holy moly - only 7 books left to read!!)

Jumping right to where we left off:

#50. Finders Keepers by Sean Costello     N/A category    (fin 8/6/15)
One of those books I was sitting at lunch, bored, and began reading via my phone app - and actually pretty good! It chases a lottery ticket ($10million winner!) around and around as murder and mayhem are committed by those wanting the ticket for themselves... a light read, but well written!

#51. Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer    #19/50: A book based on a true story    (fin 8/6/15)
This is a movie I actually saw first, starring Emile Hirsch.  An article was first written for Outside Magazine by Krakauer shortly after the body of Christopher McCandless was discovered in a bus in the Alaskan wilderness, and the article developed into this book.  It leads us all into the wilderness with McCandless, as he traveled through the U.S. on his journey, meeting a number of people along the way (interviews with them are included in the book!)  A great read!

#52. The Christmas Train by David Baldacci    #45/50: A book set during Christmas     (fin 8/10/15)
I've read David Baldacci before and liked his style of writing, so this book won out over guaranteed-to-be-cheesy Debbie Macomber and other Christmas books... A man, after a lifetime of dangerous combat-zone reporting, is set to take The Capital Limited from D.C. to Chicago, followed by The Southview Chief on into L.A. (He had recently been banned from airline travel for two years after an interesting altercation with security at LaGuardia Airport!)
It set up like a Woody Allen comedy, but there was still romance, and mystery (a thief on board!) and danger (record-breaking snow-storm to be traveled through)
I enjoyed reading!

#53. Pretty Baby by Mary Kubrica    #20/50: A book at the bottom of your to-read list   (fin 8/11/15)
I went literal with this category (I had first interpreted it as a book you totally didn't want to read, which didn't really make sense) so I instead pulled the most recently added book from my to-read list (at the literal bottom!)
(This was also a book I read a review for on this blog and literally the same day began reading it!)
I will put out a *TriggerWarning* as the main character, a woman who takes in a homeless girl and her infant, is still basically suffering from PTSD from an abortion she had years prior after a cervical/uterine cancer diagnosis, in order to save her own life... A very interesting read, if you're able to handle the trigger - I'd definitely recommend!

(#54 - 57) The Last Survivor Series by Susan Beth Pfeffer   #32/50: A trilogy
      #54. Life As We Knew It   (fin 8/13/15)
          Book Number One (in a four-part series - so not a trilogy, but close... lol) follows a teenage girl, diary-style, as the world undergoes radical natural changes: an asteroid strikes the moon, knocking it closer to the earth and setting off changes in the tidal cycle that wreak havoc on the world (tsunamis, flooding, volcanic eruptions, ash clouds, temperature changes)
     #55. The Dead and Gone   (fin 8/14/15)
          Book Number Two finds the readers going through the asteroid strike and whole world-ending thing again, but this time from the perspective of a highschool junior boy living in N.Y.C. We get to see a bit more of the global impacts and happenings, as he navigates the new world with his two younger sisters.
     #56. This World We Live In   (fin 8/16/15)
          Book Number Three catches up with the teenage girl from Book One, but approximately one year after The Event, as she (and family members) have adjusted (somewhat) to the new normal in their PA neighborhood.
     #57. Shade of the Moon   (fin 8/17/15)
          Book Number Four follows all of the characters, as they are now four years past The Event, and are living in a new "enclave" - a secure caste-based community rigidly monitored and maintained.
As you can see, I read through these books pretty quickly - not because they were quick reads, but because I couldn't put them down (I did not get as much work done as I should those days, instead choosing to read lol)
I think it's a really interesting post-apocalyptic story because it's a story not quite hit on yet - we've all (hopefully!) seen Armageddon, or we jump to The Hunger Games and see what the world's like decades after whatever happened.  This is a refreshing non-zombie/plague/virus-related tale! Highly recommended!

#58. Remember When #2 by T. Torrest    N/A category   (fin 8/15/15)
This series was one I loved when I read the first book (reviewed here) and became sad when I couldn't find the (ahem free) book anywhere to download... I finally bit the bullet and paid for the 2nd book (another day I was probably dying to read something and only had my phone on me)
A fun read, great steamy sex scenes (that aren't actually cheesy at all...) (and now I'm in the middle of reading the final Remember When #3!)



I'm also currently reading (when not at my desk for Remember When #3) a book called The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood - I'll have to be careful, I began it when very distracted last night and it's a book that needs full attention (but seems very good so far!)

T-minus 3... 2...

Tuesday (T-minus 3)
After getting to Kmart (with Button) Monday night to get organization bins for nursery closet, I decided to stop nesting for the night - I'll have nothing left to nest with if I clean out the nursery closet, organize my shoes, and unpack all the girlie-girl clothes now!!

Except - then I decided to do just all that Tuesday night...

Button helped me (he's so task oriented, it's great!) move shoe boxes into the master bedroom, and I sorted through and put them away in my new shelf in the crawl space after he'd gone to  bed...

I then went through just one bin of the three (the one with newborn - 12month clothes... and not really all that much newborn, or even 0-3m, clothing...) and just nested a little bit.

But I won't lie - there's little drawers at the top of the nursery closet now with pink, purple and ruffles showing through!!

Wednesday (T-minus 2!!!)
Today I've been struggling against a lack of motivation for work (which I am trying to keep balanced with reading a book (via .pdf file) here and there between actual work...)
Spent some time pinning all kinds of Baby Girl things... crochet patterns, cute photo ideas, fashion inspiration... CANNOT WAIT for December!!!!

A quick Wardrobe Wednesday (when was the last time I did one?!)


I'm lazy today... at least they all match...



maxi skirt from Burlington Coat
tank top is a hand-me-down from (I think) SIL
and my staple grey cardigan













And a Reading Challenge Update (dude - if I don't do these weekly, I end up with like, 10 books to review!)
Last check in (on 7/2/15) had the totals at:
30 books read
20 books left

The new count:

New non-challenge and challenge totals went from 36 total books read to a new total of 49 books read!
We left off as I was in the midst of reading number 37...

#37. Melting Into You by Tracey Alvarez    N/A category    (fin 7/2/15)
This was the second book in the Due South Series - a light read which just switched characters from the first book (In Too Deep) for a similarly-sexy love story

#38. The Watcher by Platt & Wright    N/A category     (fin 7/2/15)
A short story by the guys who wrote Yesterday's Gone about a guy who takes it upon himself to be the unofficial - and creepy - neighborhood watchman! pretty cool, crazy ending!

 #39. Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty    #28/50: A book with antonyms in the title    (fin 7/4/15)
A great book - started out seemingly shallow, with three moms from different economic backgrounds with children at the same elite preschool... digs much deeper in with domestic violence and parenting, overall a great read, especially as a parent to a toddler!
(*I have a number of other books by this author on my general "To-Read" list!)

#40. Blindsighted by Karin Slaughter    #46/50: A book written by an author with your same initials   (fin 7/6/15)
well.   obviously we can all guess what my initials are then... lol
as I just read an amazon review to refresh myself on which book this was, I got a jolting reminder - a murder mystery that opens with a blind woman who was raped and stabbed in a handicap stall after being lured to a diner restroom.  And the review that jolted me was about the very graphic description of rape & tortue performed by the killer... if you're into this - a great book to check out, but I remember finishing it while on vacation in CO and being left a little bit disturbed at the level of depravity attributed to this killer...

#41. The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey    #39/40: A book with magic    (fin 7/11/15)
After reading this, I wouldn't quite describe it as magic, as things and events in the book eventually receive an every-day explanation, but it definitely started as magical: based on an old russian fairytale (Russian, I think) an older couple, never able to bear children, create a snow child one night with special mittens, scarf and hat.  The next morning, the snow child is gone and they start to encounter a magical girl that lives in the wilderness (in ALASKA!  hence the "magic" expected!)
It reminded me a bit of the movie The Odd Life of Timothy Green - which was interesting, just as interesting as this book...

#42. Sideways Stories from Wayside School by Luis Sachar   #33/50: A book from your childhood   (fin 7/16/15)
(need I go on about this one?? classic!)

#43. Defending Jacob by William Landay    #43/50: A book that takes place in your hometown   (fin 7/16/15)
(So the hometown aspect of this was hard because
1:  I've moved from NJ(Town#1) to TX(Town#1) to TX(Town#2) to MA(Town#1) to MA(Town#2) to TX(Town#3) to NJ(Town#2) and yea well - not really a "hometown"
and 2. even any of the towns I lived in were pretty small time... so we went with the next best thing: a general Massachusetts suburban town (they're all pretty much the same!)
This book follows the father (a prosecuting attorney) of a boy who is eventually accusing of murdering a classmate...
It delves deep into a nuture vs. nature debate regarding killers - are they born? or raised? - and has a great surprise ending!! (which also definitely threw me, and seemed a bit abrupt ) but a great overall read!!

#44. The Tenth of December by George Saunders   #12/50: A book of short stores   (fin 7/19/15)
Overall a well-written collection of short stories - I never loved short stories because just as I get into one, and really deep into what happens next, it ends!!!

#45. The Cider House Rules by John Irving   #30/50: A book that came out the year you were born   (fin 7/26/15)
So considering we all now know I'm turning 30 (in a few days!!!) we can (hopefully!) calculate that I was born in 1985, the year this book was written - despite a movie being made from it more recently (1999).  I faintly remembered the movie as being great, and after reading the book (even better!) I'm really interested in re-watching the movie!
About an orphan who is never adopted from an orphanage/hospital, he apprentices with the physician learning abortions and procedures, without having ever stepped foot in medical school...
TRIGGER WARNING:  graphic descriptions of abortive procedures and numerous women who die from attempted procedures...

#46. Entwined, Entangled & Enthralled by Colette Gale   #31/50: A book with bad reviews   (fin 7/27/15)
So it's hard, on B&N book lists, to find books with bad reviews - you'll mostly find books with a 4-5 star rating, but only based on ONE review... until I found this sucker with just 2.5 stars...
it's even smuttier than 50 shades (though never as debased as pulling tampons out... oh, spoiler alert?)
with each pair of characters hooking up to bang it out; and it was easy, at the end of this book when they left you all cliff-hangy and wondering what happens to the heroine, to close it and not get the next installment, even being another free book...
looking for light reading to get you in the mood for FW? This is the book for you!

#47. Maine by J. Courtney Sullivan   #6/50: A book by someone under 30   (fin 7/30/15)
A great book following three women - the matriarch, her daughter, and her granddaughter, as they eventually end up at the Maine summer home the matriarch owns.  It's a good read, nothing phenomenal, but a good read...

#48. Stowaway Bride by Adrianne Wood   N/A category   (fin 8/2/15)
(So you'll frequently see very close "finish" dates, and it's because I almost always have two books going - I enjoy reading at lunch time, and so if I'm unable to access the one book I'm reading via my phone, I'll download another light read from B&N on my phone's Nook app...)
This would be one of those times I was at lunch and needed something to read... A light romance about a girl in the pioneer days hiding aboard a rail car, thinking her mother was on the private Pullman, and instead meets a railroad entrepreneur cowboy! (And of course, love ensues...)


#49. Bound by Melody Anne   N/A category   (fin 8/4/15)
(Another book when I was at lunch with nothing to read...)
Basically a 50Shades wanna-be where a woman joins an escort service for lack of better income to rescue her little brother who is in foster care, and mysterious Blake comes by and is enamored with her (even though she's "not ready" to service customers) and after a set amount of time (1 week) of hot and heavy sex, they've fallen in love - but neither are ready to admit it! (stupid authors - give you the first book for free, and then really leave you on a BAD cliff hanger - he drops her back off at the escort center - and then charges you $2.99 for the next book!)

Moar Books left on The Reading Challenge... moving on...


And now I'm currently reading (both) Finders Keepers (not on the list of categories) and Into the Wild... (the first is the one I read while at home and lunch - available on my nook and phone app, while I read the .pdf of Into the Wild while at my desk at work.... ssshhh!!)

the Colorado Re-Cap!

A quick (somewhat) summary of our fabulous week in Colorado (you've probably already gotten a sneak peak at The Crazies of infamous SIL!)

This was also the first trip I can recall that we had a great travel schedule... we usually try to max out our time off, so we'll say - fly to Texas on a Thursday night after work (or ass-early Friday morning) and then fly back Monday afternoon and be at work Tuesday (E always remembers to request off the next day - I never do!)

enjoying take off as we unexpectedly got an open row of three seats!

This time, we flew out to CO on a Sunday morning-ish (after a 3-day July 4th weekend to boot!) and arrived at 11am local time (GMT).  We flew into Denver airport, and the house my family rented was about 1.5 hours south, in Colorado Springs.  (We had decided a week or so prior that the easiest thing to do was to fly with Button's carseat, and rent a car when we got there... of course E was like a kid in a candy shop and upgraded us - at cost to his side-business - to a Jeep Wrangler, red at Button's request... and of course, the kind that the doors and roof panels all come off!)

 Also the first time Button forward-faced!! He loved it!

The house wasn't actually open to us until later Sunday afternoon, so we were all kind of trickling in from various entrances into the state of CO...\
Bro and SIL had flown in the night prior, and after staying at a hotel(friends' house?) in the Denver area, had decided to grab lunch before driving down to COS (CO Springs).  The second great idea they had was to invite us to meet them at the restaraunt on our way down to COS - perfect!

Well - ultimately, we pulled up and they were all, "yea we already ate - and we actually have to leave now, [niece] is tired and needs a nap and we have to stop back [at hotel? friend's house?] to get her [almond] milk from the fridge..."

So we ended up sitting and eating by ourselves (at that point, Button needed to eat before he slept for his nap on the drive down to COS) while my parents and my sister (and family) were all enjoying a bar in COS, asking where we were...

 (Button needing a nap...)

Anyways - we eventually all got to a park in town to wait the last hour or so until it was time to head to the house...

 Button decided he was DONE posing for pictures! A playground needed playing on!

The crew split, and while the girls got everyone settled in the house, the boys went grocery shopping.

Domino's pizza the first night (at the suggestion of frugal SIL - she'd found a coupon for $6 mediums! - but yeck: domino's pizza for a NJ Italian palette??) and we were all ready to call it a night after a long day of travel...

Day 2 (Monday)
My dad had wanted to meet a cousin's daughter the night before for dinner (which quickly got veto'd by the travel-weary group) so instead we headed over to Monument, CO (20-25 minutes) for lunch - sans Jeep roof panels! which made it quite interesting when it started to sprinkle with 10 minutes left in the drive... (somehow, physics and all - we did not get a single drop in the Jeep until we stopped moving at cousin's house!)

 enjoying a (windy!) roofless Jeep!

Said cousin's house was A MCMANSION, no joke: the basement was comprised of an in-home theater complete with an entire row of leather reclining MOVIE CHAIRS, an in-home gym complete with every piece of equipment you'd need, a full-size ARCADE game (offering every game your 1980's heart would desire) a pool table, office, etc.  The place was INSANE!
We picked up our jaws in time for lunch - where SIL (I'm sure) was all - "IS SHE EATING COLDCUTS!? OOOOOOOOOO!" because, yes - I had a turkey sandwich.

It was delicious.
I should have said, "If you are worried about listeria from these deli meats, you sure as hell better not let your husband or daughter eat them! seriously! PUT THE BOLOGNA DOWN!!!"

We enjoyed some fabulous homemade brownies, this preggo packed a plate of them to go, and we headed back to the house (roof ON the Jeep) for the kiddos to nap.  As soon as they woke up, we headed to Reunion HQ (the nearby hotel where a lot of the family was staying, and where they had rented a conference room for the entire week) to check in and see some cousins we hadn't seen in years! (Last reunion E and I made it to was 2009!!)
Dinner planning hit a snag, as we had been told dinner "was included" for the reunion at the hotel - well, dinner was just a cold buffet that was open to all guests: cheese, crackers, snack mix, soup and salad.  While it sat fine with a few of us, the boys demanded more sustenance, and so we headed off (as I checked my watch and worried about Button getting to bed at a decent hour - local AND home time) to discover the restaurants would all have 30+ minute waits... off to Trader Joe's we went for dinner foods to make at home (the grocery shopping earlier was only for breakfasts, lunches and snacks).
And so ended Day 2...

Day 3 (Tuesday)
We got a little bit of a later start on Tuesday - the kiddos were actually ready for a nap pretty early, travel and excitement having gotten to them on a bit of a delay... After their naps, we headed back to the hotel expecting to touch base and get the 4-1-1 on the reunion activities for the day (We even wore the shirts my mom surprised us all with - she made them in TX before the trip!!)

Well, we ended up being the only ones at the hotel... (well, ok not the only ones - but the only people in the common area/conference room from our family... lol)
So we headed off to one of our loosely scheduled activities/desires for the week: The Garden of the Gods, a registered natural landmark in COS:

We first checked out the free Visitor Center/Museum where the kids loved playing on the buffalo:

And then headed out into the park - we drove through most of it, and got out towards the end to hike a bit:

Strong kids!!

(Of course, I would have straightened my (dirty) hair that morning, thinking -  it's CO, even when it rains it's still really dry air and my hair shouldn't frizz and kink! and where did we end up but actually out in the rain when it started to rain. #curlygirlproblems)

After our fun (E slipped down a teeny slope while holding Button's  hand, and Button got upset at (I'm pretty sure) Daddy possibly getting hurt... it was cute...) we headed back again to the hotel for our "light" dinner, which turned out pretty good - Caprese sandwiches (no deli meat!) and minestrone soup and caesar salad.

We forayed up to the conference room where they had some great crafts/activities going on: we planted our hand prints and family names on the large banner and checked out the HUMONGOUS family* tree:

*so the Reunion began with my great-grandfather, and his 9 children (and all of their off-spring.)  My grandmother was #3 or 4 of the 9, and on her branch alone were (counts to self) somewhere along the lines of 3 kids (my dad's generation), 12 grandkids (our generation), and 20 or so great-grandkids (Button's generation).  That's JUST ONE KID of the 9 on that family tree... so incredible, I LOVE that they have these great reunions every two years...

There was a reunion staple that night - The Talent Show, where it's a mix of the older women cousins singing silly songs with silly props, and the wee young ones whispering their misspoken ABCs - it's a blast! Of course, we baby-mommas had to leave early when it got close to bedtime, and again (a running theme all week) hadn't left enough time for dinner so we dashed into Panera, and dashed home - quickly fed Button, quickly bathed him, and got him to bed, oh around 9pm... which was 11pm home time.  =\


I usually ended up hitting the hay around 10pm since the drinking was off limits, and the hot tub was off limits.  So I ate the fresh baked cookies the homeowner had left, and tucked in with a good book... (oh more on that next Wednesday for the Reading Challenge update!)
 
And somehow, our week was already half over! 

whoa nellie - lots of books!

So the last Reading Challenge check in (two weeks ago I think) had the totals at:
     24 books read
     26 books left to read

The new current count!

(with an "extra" / uncategorized 4 books read!)

I had tried to keep a running total tally count of all books read (I think the last update ended at #29) but I'm not sure that's correct - 24 "categorized" and 3 "extra" read at the last check-in only run 27...

**Ok I found one extra book (#7 in the total list of 29) that I both never blogged about and never logged, not sure what book it was, and another extra book that was double-counted as a categorized book...**

SO the new total count is 36 books read, 30 Challenge books.

Here we go:

#30. Can't Always Get What You Want by Chelsey Krause    #4/50: A book published this year   (fin 6/19/15)

This was a book I just wanted to read, and lo and behold, it was published January 13, 2015! =) 

A cute romance with some hot sex scenes- good, light summer vaca reading!

#31. The Billionaire and the Virgin by Jessica Clare    n/a   (fin 6/20/15)

another book I just wanted to read, based on its free-ness and it was interesting - another light summer read, but the male lead is a brass, curse-like-a-sailor bad boy that I never did develop the "awwww he so deserves love!" feeling towards...

#32. Yesterday's Gone by Sean Platt    #40/50: A graphic novel    (fin 6/24/15)

ooooookay so this isn't technically a graphic novel, as in - there's no pictures... but it IS written in episodes and seasons! (I only finished Season One so far!) 

It's great though - a post-apocalyptic story similar to Left Behind where a number of people have vanished - the people left behind are trying to figure out who these SCARY-ASS creatures are coming after them! And why a few of them have dreamt of the others before ever meeting... Can't wait to dig into Seasons 2-5! (Must. Not. Distract. from Challenge!)

#33.  To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee    #25/50: A book you were supposed to read in school but didn't   (fin 6/26/15)

Alot of my coworkers were surprised when I told them I had been reading this book due to never reading it in school. And to be honest, it wasn't the phenom I expected... interesting ending...

#34. Remember When by T. Torrest    #36/50: A book set in highschool   (fin 6/28/15)

This was a great book - a "throwback" to growing up in the early 90's complete with grunge fashion and scrunchees.  It's actually a trilogy and I'm excited to read #2 - set in 2000 with the two main love interests all "grownup" and in their mid-20s! (And #3 I am going to assume is more present-day, to cover their 30's!)

#35. The Beckoning Fair One by Oliver Onions    #23/50:  A book more than 100 years old   (fin 6/30/15)

I originally had a different (free) book for this category to be read, but it was so freaking dry... (the issue with books written 100 years ago!) this book (published in 1911) was actually a "short story" (at 57 pages) and was a horror story! While it was a slow going for a bit, the ending was a cool curve-ball!

#36. In Too Deep by Tracey Alvarez    #29/50: A book set somewhere you've always wanted to visit   (fin 6/30/15)

(I obviously read this one a bit simultaneously as the scary old book (#35))

This one was pretty good - set in Australia, with a main female character who is a police forensic diver! Interesting characters - hot sex scenes (blushes) great summer read!  (And also part of the Due South Series, so if you choose to, you can read along as all the other main characters fall in love in their own steamy sagas!)

(currently reading Melting Into You (no-category) which is the second book in the Due South Series - I'll cut it off after this one so I can be sure to get on with the Challenge List!)

So there you go - only 20 books left with half the year left!! (And a flight to CO in a few days to read! - yes, Button is still a Daddy's boy when we travel, which lets me read!!)

the Fun of Telling (& Stupid Questions)

(oh and also a "Weading" Wednesday)

First thing's first - Button wore his "I'm Going to be a Big Brother!" shirt to daycare yesterday...

Owner #1 didn't seem to notice it as I walked past her in the lobby, and owner #2 was actually walking out of Button's room and so had a full-frontal view, and she started squealing and screaming! (such a great reaction... I loved it!)

And then Owner #1 (actually owner #2's mother) came around the corner and Owner #2 was like, "DIDN'T YOU SEE [Button's] SHIRT?!"
And then there was more screaming and squealing and hugs - and even more squealing when we walked into Button's room and the first teacher saw (and read) his shirt...

and then someone finally remembered Button - he was about to cry! pouty-lip-face and all!

He must have gotten scared with all the screaming, so we had to stop and calm Button down and explain how everyone was just SO EXCITED!

poor guy - but it was such a great experience to have everyone get so excited!! (You'd think I was the first parent there to get pregnant again! lol)

((And another reason why I'm still putting off telling administrator at work - her reaction in comparison to that will be like a wet mop... ))

And then at work this morning - a nurse practitioner (who used to work here full-time, I haven't seen in awhile) came in with a patient question, and was all, "how's your little one? holy cow, almost two years old?!"

And when I started to laugh about how we "cut down" from the big 1st birthday party last year (50 adults) to this year (43 adults. 11 kids. HA) he laughed, and then blurted out, "You're not pregnant again, are you?"

Ummm..... so because there was someone else (a regular employee here) in the office, I felt I had no other option but to blurt out a No... (sorry gummi bear!! Mommy can't WAIT to keep spreading the news!!)
(I guess I'll give this guy the benefit of the doubt - men don't usually realize that there's a large span of time during a pregnancy where the woman MAY NOT WANT TO TELL PEOPLE YET!!!!)

And now a quick Reading Update (I devoured books for awhile after last update, and then got stuck on my current book for the last 4-5 days.... blugh)

And in addition to the 24 books read for the challenge, I've read three other books outside of the challenge (couldn't find a damn category to cram them in.)

(we left off on total Book Number 23: Gone with the Wind, for which the sequel will be downloaded and read for my happy ending! And it won't count towards my challenge. DAMMIT!)

24. Feels Like Home by Evelyn Adams     n/a for Challenge List   (finished 6/2/15)
   Just a cute book I got for free (or cheap - less than a $dollar) during lunch one day at work (I love to read while at lunch... so if I don't have my current book/nook with me, I download another cheap/easy read! hence, so many books not on the challenge list!)

25. Sweet Valley High: #1 Double Love by Francine Pascal     #49/50: A book based on, or turned into a TV show    (finished 6/3/15)
This series became a TV show from 1994-1998 - basically my tween-into-teen years, and perfect reading for me then - a really light read I did in about 2 hours (when I was supposed to be working. SSH!)

26. Irish Thoroughbreds by Norah Roberts     #15/50: A popular author's first book    (finished 6/5/15)
Can you really get any more popular than Norah Roberts? (Longevity speaking here too... JK Rowling and Suzanne Collins and Stephanie Meyer aside...) This was just a light love-story, and you can actually tell it's her first novel... more poorly written then some of the free romances I get from B&N...

27. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro     #7/50: A book with nonhuman characters     (finished 6/7/15)
So the non-human characters in this (somewhat spoiler alert, the narrator lets you in on this secret pretty much in the first chapter) are basically, well - 95% of the characters.  They are "copies" created based on real humans, and they are created solely for organ donation... *I didn't realize, until I started reading this book, that I had already seen the movie (starring Kiera Knightly, Carey Mulligan, and Andrew Garfield).  Good movie, great book!

28. Room by Emma Donaghue     #11/50: A book with a one word title     (finished 6/9/15)
Oh this book... a novel written from the POV of a 5-year-old little boy, born into captivity - his prison? a one-room shed, hidden from the public by a man who kidnapped his mother 6 years ago...
So incredible a book, I was so so so so excited to find out its movie is supposedly in post-production status!!!!! I can't wait for this to come out!!! Highly Recommended Read!!

29. Hollow City: The Second Novel of Miss Peregrin's Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs   #17/50: A book a friend recommended   (finished 6/10/15)
So this is more of a sequel to a book a friend originally recommended, but I decided it fit enough into this category... The first novel was pretty cool, and the second novel definitely met expectations (I in in fact, and for once, let lots of time pass between reading the first book and reading the sequel, but I did pretty well throughout the first chapter or so, to go, "oh yea! oh YEA! Now I remember what happened (mostly) in the first book!"


And I am currently days into reading Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird and it's dragging only because I'm deciding at night to crochet a cowl instead of read...

2015 Reading Challenge Update (WAY SO OVERDUE!)

(So I originally had this scheduled for Wednesday, to go with "Weading Wednesdays" (ha!) but I decided screw it, it's my blog and my rules to break... so here, instead of Making Things Monday, is a huge update on the Weading Wednesdays!

When we last visited the Reading Challenge (ahem um...in FEBRUARY...) I said I had read 7 books so far of the 50 (but had only posted about the first 6...)

1.  The People of Sparks, by Jeanne DuPrau   #35/50: A book set in the future
2.  Lone Wolf, by Jodi Picoult    #16/50: A book from an author you love but haven't read yet
3.  Leaving Time, by Jodi Picoult    #38/50: A book that made you cry
4.  Big Girl Small, by Rachel DeWoskin     #41/50: A book by an author you've never read
5.  Rebecca, by Daphne Du Maurier       #10/50: A mystery or thriller
6.  Still Alice, by Lisa Genova      #3/50: A book that became a movie
7.  Same Kind of Different As Me, by Ron Hall     #14/50: A nonfiction book

The updated list is now:

19 books read out of 50 - that's 38% done so far!

Which, considering we're officially 41% of the way through the year, is almost right on track!

Of course - my most recent book (over 1000 pages!!!) took me quite a bit more time than my usual novel... whew!

And there's no way I can keep up with reviewing every single book I'm reading (especially because some of them are, while pretty good, not quite worthy of a big review on here!)

(And sometimes the book is a weird fit for the category, but a few I just made fit because I totally wanted to read the book, and just found a category that would work!)  ((Also - there's some books that wouldn't fit in any category, but they're still counted below because - hey, I want credit for them!!)

So here's the additional books read so far:


  8.  The Glass Castle: A Memoir, by Jeanette Walls     #26/50: A memoir    (finished 3/10/15)

  9.  Lone Survivor, by Marcus Luttrell    #13/50: A book set in a different country  (finished 3/16/15)
           *This book - if you've seen the movie you know - was set over in the middle East (specifically Afghanistan).  After having seen the movie, it was pretty neat to read the book because I easily attached faces (although famous actor faces) to names. Such an incredible story!

 10.  The Replacement, by Brenna Yovanoff       #22/50: A book that scares you*     (finished 3/18/15)
          *An interesting book... something about babies being stolen around birth to feed some weird creature/monster and Others replacing them, and even though the town members deep down know something's off, they don't say a word because it would disturb their perfect peaceful haven...
 *I duplicated readings for this type of book, because - hellooooo see next book!
          *(11.) Rosemary's Baby, by Ira Levin      #22/50: A book that scares you   (finished 4/7/15)
              *A little bit disappointing, as it didn't really scare me much... the movie's probably a bit scarier!

12. The Coldest Girl in Coldtown, by Holly Black    #34/50: A book with a love triangle  (finished 3/24/15)
        *So this love triangle is actually between a vampire, a human, and a human who turns into a vampire (pretty kinky right?) and was so totally nothing to do with the main story line.

13. The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer, by Michelle Hodkin    #24/50: A book based entirely on its cover  (finished 3/27/15)
        *I guess you'd need to see the title to accompany this category:

     actually a pretty cool book...

 14. The Story Teller, by Jodi Picoult   #9/50: A book by a female author   (finished 4/1/2015)
           *This would be one of those categories that I read the book first and then fit it into this category in order to cross it off the list...

 15. What Alice Forgot, by Liane Moriarty    #8/50: A funny book    (finished 4/2/2015)
           *This wasn't quite purely comedy - about a women who has amnesia and doesn't remember a dead best friend, nor why her husband was leaving her - but it had funny parts, and was overall pretty good!

 16. The Black Box, by Michael Crichton    #37/50: A book with a color in the title   (finished 4/4/2015)

 17. The Shadow of the Wind, by Carlos Ruiz Zafón    #44/50: A book that was originally written in a different lanauge
        *If you couldn't tell by the author's name, this novel was originally written in Spanish (and is set in Spain.)  It was a very good read, and ran alot of parallels between the current character, who was telling/learning/discovering a story of an author who lived in the same neighborhood years before...

 18. Memory of Water, by Emmi Itäranta    #35/50: A book set in the future*   (finished 4/24/15)
        *This was another duplicate for a category I'd already ticked off the list, but the only category this book (which was pretty neat: an unspecified time in the future, where water is so precious a commodity, and the main character learns her father is a tea-master, complete with secret hidden spring) would fit in...

 19. Ten Beach Road, by Wendy Wax     #5/50: A book with a number in the title   (finished 5/2/15)
        *This book underpromised and overdelivered - three women brought together by a Bernie-Madoff-type scam, who pull together and rehab a once-gorgeous Spanish-style home in Florida... a fun read!

 20. Tin God, by Stacy Green      n/a - this book could NOT be fit into any category - but I still wanted to credit myself for a book read!   (finished 5/4/15)

 21.  One to Hold, by Tia Louise     #27/50: A book you can finish in a day   (finished 5/8/15)
      *So I don't remember what was going on that I was able to read this so quickly (it wasn't too short) but I flew through the pages (being honest here) because it was a HOT read... the first scene is a random (or so it seems!) hawt hook-up outside of a bar, in the deserts of Arizona at some retreat... a great summer read if you're needing some -ahem - warmups!

 22. She Belongs To Me, by Carmen DeSousa    n/a again - could NOT make this sucker fit into any category, but still want credit!   (finished 5/10/15)

 23. Gone With the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell   #1/50: A book with more than 500 pages  (finished 5/31/15)
     *and this would be the epic huge THOUSAND-PAGE undertaking of a novel that took me since the first day in Cancun (so two weeks!!) to read... of course, while on vacation I devoured the first 500 pages (it helped that we hung out in the room while Button napped each day... I got at least 2 hours reading done daily!) and then we got home and reading ground to a halt... 
I finally finished last night. 
And my first reaction was, SERIOUSLY?! with that ending?!
While the novel was phenomenal, and so well written, I was so dissatisfied with the abrupt ending that I even started looking up fan fiction today to see if anyone had written a more satisfying one! (not really - also, fan fiction can be VERY POORLY WRITTEN and after Mitchell's work, seem totally uncouth.) Of course, the ending as Mitchell wrote is ironic and literary genius, but so - so, UNSATISFYING for the at-heart romantics!!

But while I couldn't find any good fan fiction, you know what I did discover?

There's a sequel?!

The estate of Margaret Mitchell chose the author, Alexandra Ripley, to pen this sequel which, according to this description, sounds like it'll provide my happy ending!

       As the classic story, first told over half a century ago, moves forward, the greatest love affair in all fiction is reignited; amidst heartbreak and joy, the endless, consuming passion between Scarlett O'Hara and Rhett Butler reaches its startling culmination.

Scarlett, by Alexandra Ripley 

So that's 19 out of 50 off The Reading Challenge List, and a total of 23 books read so far this year!

And I guess I know what I'm reading next! Now, just to find the category to cram it into!! 



(also -   yes, time is flying with a toddler - I'm 10 weeks now?! Thank baby jesus the doppler gives me that quick clip-clop of a heartbeat nearly immediately each time...)