Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Crow's feet
I came home from a concert last night after seeing my husband talk to a sexily clad woman he knows from work-- I inspected myself in the mirror and discovered crow's feet. Nice, huh.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
In case you were wondering...
If you are married to a Reynolds boy you know two things:
1) They can't (or won't) peel oranges. You are the official orange-peeler of the relationship. They will forego the orange before they will peel it themselves. Trust me.
2) They always ask kids funny questions. Case in point:
Robert (to E & J): What's the true meaning of Halloween?
Ella (with a "DUH" look on her face): Heavenly Father!
Jackson (standing up on his chair and excitedly waving his arms): And that BABY!
We are either doing a great job teaching our kids or a really crappy one.
Friday, October 17, 2008
Stealing
I am blatantly stealing this post from my friend Amy (at least, I hope we are still friends). Thanks for the idea. I love to read and so I must copy, steal and support this idea! Plus, I haven't posted for a while and this is a lot easier than downloading all the photos off my camera, organizing them in iphoto and thinking of something interesting to say about them. Give me a break, I've been sick this week. Just be glad I'm not blogging all the gory details.
Anyway, The Big Read is a National Endowment for the Arts program to encourage community reading initiatives. This is a list of their top 100 books. They estimate the average adult has read only six.
Bold those that you have read. Italicize those you intend to read and *star the books you LOVE.
- Pride and Prejudice-Jane Austen***(seriously deserves that many stars, along with all the other Austen books.)
- The Lord of the Rings-JRR Tolkien
- Jane Eyre-Charlotte Bronte**
- Harry Potter Series-JK Rowling
- To Kill a Mockingbird-Harper Lee*
- The Bible
- Wuthering Heights-Emily Bronte***
- 1984-George Orwell
- His Dark Materials-Philip Pullman
- Great Expectations-Charles Dickens
- Little Women-Louisa M. Alcott**
- Tess of the D'Urbervilles-Thomas Hardy
- Catch 22-Joseph Heller
- Complete Works of Shakespeare(Sure enough to bold but I may have missed something!)
- Rebecca-Daphne Du Maurier*
- The Hobbit-JRR Tolkien
- Bird Song- Sebastian Faulks
- Catcher in the Rye--JD Salinger*
- The Time Traveler's Wife-Audrey Niffenegger*
- Middlemarch-George Eliot
- Gone With The Wind-Margaret Mitchell*
- The Great Gatsby--F Scott Fitzgerald*
- Bleak House-Charles Dickens
- War and Peace-Leo Tolstoy
- The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy--Douglas Adams
- Brideshead Revisted-Evelyn Waugh
- Crime and Punishment-Fydor Dostoyevsky
- Grapes of Wrath-John Steinbeck
- Alice in Wonderland-Lewis Carroll
- The wind in the Willows-Kenneth Grahame
- Anna Karenina-Leo Tolstoy*(One of my all time FAVORITES!)
- David Copperfield-Charles Dickens
- Chronicles of Narnia-CS Lewis
- Emma-Jane Austen*
- Persuasion-Jane Austen*
- The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe-CS Lewis*
- The Kite Runner-Khaled Hosseini*
- Captain Corelli's Mandolin-Louis De Bernieres
- Memoirs of a Geisha-Arthur Golden*
- Winnie the Pooh-AA Milne*
- Animal Farm -George Orwell
- The Da Vinci Code-Dan Brown*
- One Hundred Years of Solitude-Gabriel Garcia Marquez ( I feel like I should get some stars after reading this book. Read it and you'll see what I mean!)
- A Prayer for Owen Meaney-John Irving
- The Woman in White--Wilkie Collins
- Anne of Green Gables-LM Montgomery***********
- Far From the Madding Crowd-Thomas Hardy
- The Handmaid's Tale-Margaret Atwood
- Lord of the Flies-William Golding
- Atonement-Ian McEwan
- Life of Pi-Yann Martel* (Super good!)
- Dune-Frank Herbert
- Cold Comfort Farm-Stella Gibbons
- Sense and Sensibility-Jane Austen*
- A Suitable Boy-Vikram Seth
- The Shadow of the Wind-Carlos Ruiz Zafon
- A Tale of Two Cities-Charles Dickens
- Brave New World-Aldous Huxley (Yawner!)
- The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time-Mark Haddon
- Love in the Time of Cholera-Gabriel Garcia Marquez
- Of Mice and Men-John Steinbeck
- Lolita-Vladimir Nabokov
- The Secret History-Donna Tartt
- The Lovely Bones-Alice Sebold*
- Count of Monte Cristo-Alexandre Dumas
- On the Road-Jack Kerouac
- Jude the Obscure-Thomas Hardy
- Bridget Jones's Diary-Helen Fielding(Are you freaking serious?)
- Midnight's Children-Salman Rushdie
- Moby Dick-Herman Melville
- Oliver Twist-Charles Dickens
- Dracula-Bram Stoker
- The Secret Garden-Frances Hodgson Burnett*
- Notes From A Small Island-Bill Bryson
- Ulysses-James Joyce
- The Bell Jar-Sylvia Plath
- Swallows and Amazons-Arthur Ransome
- Germinal-Emile Zola
- Vanity Fair-William Makepeace Thackeray*
- Possession-AS Byatt
- A Christmas Carol-Charles Dickens(Would star but so SICK of the story that I just can't do it! Even Barbie has a version now. Can we say all together "OVER DONE!" Just leave the story alone, people. Please.)
- Cloud Atlas-David Mitchell
- The Color Purple-Alice Walker (I'm curious if Oprah will come after me with her secret network of spies. Still, no star. Why? Well, because I'm feeling a little mad about her blatant financial support of a certain presidential candidate that has representatives call my house nightly and fill my mail box with junk and interrupt my favorite TV programs! So there! Take that!)
- The Remains of the Day-Kazuo Ishiguro*
- Madame Bovary-Gustave Flaubert
- A Fine Balance- Rohinton Mistry
- Charlotte's Web-EB White*
- The Five People You Meet in Heaven-Mitch Albom*
- Adventures of Sherlock Holmes-Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
- The Faraway Tree Collection-Enid Blyton
- Heart of Darkness-Joseph Conrad (This is a caca book. Only read if you are feeling like being depressed or you have to write an English paper.)
- The Little Prince-Antoine De Saint-Exupery
- The Wasp Factory-Iain Banks
- Watership Down-Richard Adams
- A Confederacy of Dunces-John Kennedy Toole(I only bolded half because I read half of the book and then got bored and seduced by another more interesting book. I never came back. Sorry, I'm just like that.)
- A Town like Alice-Nevil Shute
- The Three musketeers-Alexandre Dumas
- Hamlet-William Shakespeare
- Charlie and the Chocolate Factory-Roald Dahl
- Les Miserables-Victor Hugo* (Really good book. Especially if you skip the 100 pages on the description of the town...or was it something else?)
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
135 MacDougal St. #3A
When I first walked in, I sat down on one of the double beds provided for married students attending NYU and cried. I couldn't decide what to cry about more: the shit-brown walls(pardon my language, but that really was the color!), the 480 square feet, the tiny closet, the big cockroach in the bathtub, the elf size stove and refrigerator, the three floors I had just walked up, the glaring lack of any appliance that washes, or maybe the fact that I had overpacked just a wee bit.
(Entertaining friends)
And yes, that is the whole apartment! Robert grew to love the place, but I never did.
When we went back to NYC a few weeks ago, we walked by our old apartment on MacDougal. I was elated to see that I was proven correct--the building was about ready to fall down--it was boarded up and everything. I felt vindicated! And I got to tell Robert that I was right about our old hell-hole of an apartment. I felt giddy! That is, until I read the sign. Well, I'm off to google asbestos poisoning...
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Apology
Dearest Max,
I know you are not happy with me today. I can tell by your pouty lip, complaints and watery eyes. I can see that if you could speak, you would form the words, "Mean Mom!" I know that I am a Mean Mom and I am sorry. I have tried to support you in your obsession with toilet water but I find that I am wholly unable to get behind this activity. I know you are mad about the gate and toilet lid locks. I am sorry. I hope to be able to be more supportive of your future activities. I realize that we have had a few disagreements about your culinary tastes. I must stand firm in my belief that fuzz off our rug and dust bunnies from the corner are not food groups. I hope that we can come to some sort of an understanding on this point. Perhaps, if I added a new food to your diet?
We do have some common ground. We both enjoy your naps. May I respectfully suggest that you add a few more minutes to your afternoon snooze? I really think that this may help us get a long a little better.
As always,
Mom
P.S. I apologize in advance for the new locks I am about to install on the doors. I know this will keep you from exploring our front yard, street and garage--some of your favorite places. I hope that you can overlook these infractions on your freedom and remember how many times I have changed your not so fragrant diapers.
Saturday, September 20, 2008
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