SAHM's ROCK!

I just finished reading Dr. Laura's new book, In Praise of Stay-at-Home Moms, and it is awesome!!  James and I made the decision before we got married that once we had kids, I would stay home, and we have been blessed to be able to do that.  But it's not always easy (as I'm sure you all know), and it's great to hear other people sing the praises of an often put-down way of life. 

I love being able to experience Maiby's life first-hand, and not have a day care worker, family member, or friend tell me the cute things she did that day.  On Saturday, we were hanging out at home and just enjoying spending time together.  James and I were on the couch talking and Maiby was playing with her toys.  One of her new favorite things is her 'list' - a small, 25-cent spiral notebook.  She is always drawing in it.  While we sat on the couch, Maiby came up and asked James if he wanted some soup (also a game she really enjoys, but that's another story), and when he said yes, she make a mark on her list.  She kept asking if he wanted something else and would make a mark each time he said yes.  Then she turned to me and started taking my order. 

If that food had been truly ordered at a restaurant, we would've ended up with some interesting combinations - soup, cornbread, chowder, sandwiches, cookies, and more (unfortunately, I was told that milkshakes were not an option).  It was so great, and without experiencing that first-hand, I don't think I would have enjoyed it as much as I do.

Read this book - if I could afford it, I would buy one for all the wonderful women in my life, but as it is, I got mine from the library, and the book is still terrific.

Classic Books in 2009

I forgot about updating my book list on here, and I hunted it down this morning so I could post all the ones I read from it last year. It's mainly for my brother who gave me the list.

Mansfield Park -- Jane Austen
Northanger Abbey -- Jane Austen
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall -- Anne Bronte
Wuthering Heights -- Emily Bronte
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland -- Lewis Carroll
Through the Looking Glass & What Alice Found There -- Lewis Carroll
The Professor's House -- Willa Cather
Frankenstein -- Mary Shelley
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn -- Mark Twain
The Island of Dr Moreau -- H G Wells
A Christmas Carol -- Charles Dickens
Madame Bovary -- Gustave Flaubert
The Wind in the Willows -- Kenneth Grahame
The Scarlett Letter -- Nathaniel Hawthorne

and I attempted Finnegan's Wake by James Joyce, but it was TOUGH going, so I gave it up...it's written in a strange style and I had no idea what was going on after 30 pages. I will try it again someday.

Basic Western Canon

This summer, my brother sent several people an email containing the Basic Western Canon and highlighted all of the books he has read throughout his life. He asked anyone interested to highlight the ones we have read and send him a copy back. I did, and it has been great going through the list and picking out more to read. There are many books there that I have wanted to read or heard about and sound good, and others that are just considered very important. Anyway, as the year was ending, I decided to update the list and send it back to him and figured why not post it here - not the list, just the ones I've read (the original list to choose from has more than 500 books).

Aesop's Fables, by Aesop
** Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott
** Emma, by Jane Austen
** Persuasion, by Jane Austen
Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen
** Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen
** Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte
** My Antonia, by Willa Cather
** O Pioneers!, by Willa Cather
The Great Gatsby, by F Scott Fitzgerald
The Diary of Anne Frank, by Anne Frank
The Gift of the Magi, by O Henry
The Call of the Wild, by Jack London
Gone With the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell
Macbeth, by Shakespeare
Romeo and Juliet, by Shakespeare
The Merchant of Venice, by Shakespeare
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, by Mark Twain
The Time Machine, by H G Wells

** the starred books are the ones I have read off the list this year, and the rest are the ones I highlighted as soon as he sent it....BUT some of the other books I read this year that I really enjoyed were: Dracula (not as scary as I had anticipated), Les Miserables (learned more than I ever wanted to know about French history & most of it was pretty interesting....you don't even know a sewer system until you read that), The Historian (another vampire book, more exciting than Dracula), and of course the novels that I love by my favorite authors: Ann B Ross, Mary Higgins Clark, Jan Karon, and Joanne Fluke. Is anyone looking for clean and entertaining novels? I would recommend these 4 authors to anyone.