Trip to London and Barcelona

The best part of a vacation to a new place...  The photography.  But also the most homework.  (Well, coordinating travel plans seems to be a bigger and bigger challenge...)

Here's the whole album.

Birthday Party Season...

Easter Weekend

I still have the same sorry excuse that I'm not doing anything noteworthy to post...  But that's not to say I'm not doing anything.

This weekend we played at three different parks, had a Rise of the Guardians movie night, made strawberry pancakes, went to ballet class, had amazing corndogs at Mustard's Last Stand, blew bubbles and drew with sidewalk chalk, went swimming together at the pool, had steak and shish kabobs, played with Easter basket toys, went to the neighbor's house for an egg hunt, took baths and baked banana bread.

I'm starting to measure how good a mom I am by how tired I am, and by that measure, it was a good weekend.

Recent Pics

Sorry for the long delay, I've been feeling over the last few weeks like I just don't have too much to say.  But here are some pics from the weekend that I thought were pretty cute...

2012 Books, Part 3

As I said, an outstanding year of fun books...  Here's my remaining list of recommendations!

• Gone Girl - a great suspenseful mystery of a woman mysteriously missing.
• Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? - a comic memoir and series of essays by Mindy Kaling.
• The Night Circus - Richly written story of a touring circus, with magicians not to be trifled with.
• Maphead - A non-fiction exploration of why a lot of us nerds like maps and geography.  Written charmingly by Ken Jennings, the Jeopardy champ.
• Inside Scientology - A really interesting expose.
• Drift: The Unmooring of the American Military - Smart non-fiction about what's going on with the size and scope of our military.
• Matched - Young adult fiction about a futuristic society where couples are assigned to each other.
• On the Island - An imaginative novel about a tutor and student who get stranded together, for years, and learn to survive together.
• Home Game: An Accidental Guide to Fatherhood - A charming and funny memoir about family by Michael Lewis, of Moneyball fame.
• Sherlock Holmes, Complete Collection I - When you want to get some bang for your buck, try this book.  The stories are fun and clever, and the book just goes on forever.  In a good way.
• I Suck At Girls - Another memoir by the author of my recent favorite, Shit My Dad Says.
• The Secret Race - A fascinating expose about pro cycling, during the time of Lance Armstrong's reign.  Could hardly put it down.
• Let's Pretend This Never Happened - And yet another memoir, about growing up in rural Texas, in a shockingly odd family.  Every day I read this at lunch, I was laughing, out loud to myself as I read.  I probably caught a couple looks, but they were oh so worth it.

2012 Books, Part 2

I came across two series this year that I thought were utterly absorbing, fun reads.  The first was a series called Wool (that transitions into a second series called Silo).  These seven installments total up about 1,050 pages, which I handily devoured and counted as two books on my list.

Interestingly, I get the impression that these books were written by an unpublished author who uploaded his writing to Amazon, and they took off through word of mouth, and insanely cheap pricing.  Now the movie rights have been purchased by Ridley Scott.  The future of books?  Crazy.  I read another great book this year with a similar beginning, called On The Island.

Wool is a science fiction series set a couple hundred years into the future, when the outside world has been poisoned and all the humans are living in immense underground silos, in a world that has been meticulously and perhaps maliciously designed.  One of the things I loved best about these books was that it seemed every half hour of reading yielded a mind-bending twist, a delicious, "wait, WHAT?"

I seem to be the last person in the universe to discover the Jack Reacher mystery series, by Lee Child.  But if not, I hearby recommend them to you.  I'm not a big fan of series in general, because I find that they just re-tread the same territory over and over.  But I haven't tired of these after the first seven books.  They are wicked page turners.

Jack Reacher is a former military police investigator, and has skills in investigation, weapons and combat that make the stories, ah, lively.  I'm not sure I like one more than another, so start with the first one, Killing Floor.  (And incidentally, I'm skeptical of the new movie Jack Reacher, I like Tom Cruise, and it's getting good reviews, but it all looks a little slick for my taste.)

More to come...

2012 Books, Part 1

I have had a GREAT year of reading, just outstanding, I feel more addicted to it than ever.  Part of the reason for this might be that I've gravitated to books that were fun and compelling, versus ambitious and intellectual.  So I've spent a lot of nights in bed, fighting to keep my eyes open for just one more page.  I feel lucky to have a hobby I care about that much.

I am on my fortieth book of the year right now, and even though I didn't manage any Tolstoy exactly, I still congratulate myself on a pretty impressive variety.

My favorite book this year - easily - was The Fault In Our Stars, by John Green.  It's a sharp-witted account of a relationship between two teenagers who are coping with cancer.  It's getting 5 stars on Amazon and has made just about every top 10 list there is, so I'm not breaking a whole lot of new ground here.  But trust me, read it.

I have more to mention, stay tuned...