Happy Birthday to Meeeee!

Yes, you read that right. I'm saying happy birthday to myself. I turn 29 today, and this morning Chuck asked if I feel old, to which I replied, "Nope, just snotty." I have my normal birthday cold, I have to work late, and I have to wait until about 9:00 tonight for presents.

Am I bummed though? Heck no! It's a good day (aside from the cold I have), and I brought my newest book acquisition, David Sedaris's Holidays on Ice to work with me.

If you hear me wheezing with laughter in the back corner of the classroom or conference room, just ignore it.

I'll check in later. Back to work! I hope y'all have a great day.

Pre-Birthday Madness!

So my birthday is coming up on November 10th. The big 2-9. Since the actual birthday is on a Tuesday, Chuck decided to take me out for a celebratory lunch today, and we did a bit of running around. I think we're also planning a birthday get together next weekend, but I'll report on the later.

We started our day at the Clay Pit in Addison. It's one of my favorite Indian restaurants, and they have a sizeable buffet on Saturday and Sunday. Chuck wasn't too fond of it since the spicy food isn't really his bag, but to this native Texan, Indian food is almost as good as Tex-Mex. *wink wink*

A pre-birthday weekend always requires books, and we happened to stumble upon the Addison Bookworm Bash. It's a charity book sale that benefits the Addison Senior Adult Services. Of course, I found a few goodies:

• Deception, by Philip Roth - I collect all of Roth's books, and I rarely see a used copy of this one lying around. Hardcover, too. Woot!
• The Kitchen God's Wife, by Amy Tan - I have so many other copies of Amy Tan's stuff, so I figured why not add one more!
• The Optimist's Daughter, by Eudora Welty - I've never read Welty, but I want to. This one seemed a good place to start.
• A Natural History of the Senses, by Diane Ackerman - I'm all about the non-fiction, and this one sounds great. Can't wait to find out if I'm right.

We also took a little trip to the local Barnes & Noble to check out the new Nook e-reader, but they won't have any available to play with until November 30th. Boo! Chuck wants to buy me an e-reader for Christmas and we've been looking at both the Nook and Kindle. I've played with the Kindle plenty of times, but it looks like the Nook has some good stuff going for it, too.

I've been eyeing a copy of The World Without Us, by Alan Weisman for ages. I even started reading it at Borders when I was out and about one day. I finally decided to spring for a copy since my library doesn't have it, and I gifted it to myself for my birthday.

What are you reading? Do I need to add it to my stacks?

Whoa! The Woes are Better.

I've endured a lifestyle overhaul in the last three days! I've cut out all the sodium I possibly can, I've been drinking water like it's going out of style, and I've been watching my blood sugar just for the hell of it.

I went back to the doc this morning, and my blood pressure was high at the office, but it was normal when I've taken it at home. Since I cut out salt three days ago, I've lost NINE POUNDS. I am not even kidding. I mean I know sodium makes us retain crazy amounts of water, but NINE POUNDS in THREE DAYS. That's just insanity. My blood sugar is awesome and the babe is great. All is right in my world, thankyouverymuch!

Now I can stop stressing about stressing. And I fully intend to keep pampering myself because it's working. I read more, I lounge more, I exercise and get myself away from my obligations, and to hell with the laundry (or teenage room organization) when I'm too tired to do it.

Coming up...a return to books. I'll be reviewing some past due Read-a-Thon books and I'll check in with my opinions on The Thirteenth Tale.

Pregnancy Woes

Welp, it may be a bit quiet over here for a bit. We'll see. I went in for my monthly visit to the OB yesterday, and my blood pressure was higher than normal and I had protein in my urine. Basically, they're worried that I'm having these problems this early (16 weeks), and I've been instructed to de-stress, cut out salt, drink more water, meditate. Calm the hell down, basically. Things have been a bit stressful 'round my house and work, and I suspect that would be the culprit along with a few other things. I'm monitoring my blood pressure at home (and work...plenty of medical assisting students around), and I go back early on Thursday for my doc to check up on me again.

In my defense, I was REALLY upset when I went to the doc's office yesterday because of a blow up with a certain family member (not Chuck) that happened half an hour before I had my appointment. Now let's just hope everything comes down and stays down, because as of this morning it was still high.

Obviously, I'm stressed that I'm stressed. Does that make sense? New mom syndrome dictates that we worry (slightly) about everything anyway, but this issue just bumped things up a notch. So, if you pray, send those. If you do good thoughts, send those, too. Virtual hugs are always appreciated.

I'll keep y'all posted.

The Sunday Salon - A Backlog of Reviews

I haven't been Sunday Salonning in a very long time thanks to more RIP'ish things going on, but today I'm back, and for once in my life (this NEVER happens), I have a backlog of books I need to review. A big thanks to the 24 Hour Read-a-Thon for that. I usually don't read four books a month these days, nevermind four in a day! I'm going to bask in this feeling for a moment. Just wait....

...still basking...

OK, thanks for that. Now on to some mini-reviews.

This time every year (actually, several weeks ago), Harper Collins sends me a delicious box of Halloweeny books. This year the box included some of my seasonal faves: Pretty Dead, by Francesca Lia Block, and the collection of short short stories I enjoyed, Half-Minute Horrors.

My favorite part is always the picture books they include, and I was a little sad to only receive two this year. Though, honestly, I can't complain too much because they were both fun.

The first was Dear Vampa, by Ross Collins. Every year I seem to find a new favorite illustrator in the Halloween books, and this year's trophy goes to Collins. The cover is a great representation of the book at large. It's about a vampire family--the Pires--horrified when their new neighbors, the Wolfsons, move in. The book starts with the youngest Pire writing a letter to his grandfather at:

The Ruined Abbey

Lugosi Lane

Transylvania

Dear Vampa,

Sorry for not writing for so long, but we've been having some trouble with our new neighbors.

The Wolfsons spend time out in the sunlight, lock their windows at night, and even complain when mother Pire has a chorus of friends over for a midnight sing-a-long! How dare they! When the Pires come to the end of their rope and move back to Transylvania, the Wolfsons--a family of werewolves--stand at their window and lament the loss of their good neighbors.

Cute book! The best part: the pictures! The Pires are all drawn in black, white, and red pen and ink while the Wolfsons are drawn in full, bright colors. The style is great and makes for a really fun read.

The next picture book is Mystery Vine, by Cathryn Falwell. It's about a family who cares for a garden all year and watches a "mystery" vine grow up slowly after all the other plants have died off. As it turns out, it's a pumpkin vine! This is not so much a Halloween book as a fall book that could easily carry over to Thanksgiving. It even has recipes in the back for things like toasted pumpkin seeds and Pumpkin Apple Bread. It also contains a section of gardening tips for kids. While the illustrations were pretty lackluster, the book was cute, and it's interactive thanks to the end material.

On that note, I should mention that I fulfilled my goal for this years RIP IV Challenge! I hadn't expected to read YA and children's titles almost exclusively, but as it turns out, they were a ton of fun, and I couldn't be happier with my RIP reads:

• The Hunt for the Seventh, by Christine Morton-Shaw
• Pretty Dead, by Francesca Lia Block
• Half-Minute Horrors
• Life Sucks, by Jessica Abel

**All reviews linked on my sidebar.

I also undertook to read and blog about RIP short stories every Sunday. While I got waylaid doing that, I still read enough that it could've been a story for every week! I still need to polish off Joe Hill's book, 20th Century Ghosts and I'll let y'all know when I manage to do that. *waving at my hulking library pile*

Thanks again to Carl for always hosting an awesome challenge! He is the master in my opinion.

Have a great Sunday, everyone! I'll be back tomorrow with short reviews of The Magical Life of Long Tack Sam and Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader.

Oh, and if I get to read any more today after all the work I need to finish, it will be The Thirteenth Tale, most likely. I also started Paul Auster's Oracle Night which has me rapt. It's about time something grabbed me by the hair!

Halloween: The Morning After

Whew! What a couple of days it's been. Halloween in our house was a flood of activity, and I woke up this morning realizing that I have a LOT of work to do for online classes, bills to pay, and all sorts of other things. How could I not blog first, though? That's what my Sunday mornings are all about. Well, blogging AND Twittering.

Yesterday I woke up bright and early, though the family stayed in bed 'til almost noon. That's just the way we roll around here. They spent the hours just after waking up getting Rocketgirl's zombie costume all ready to go. Chuck ripped some holes in an old pair of jeans and a white tee, they spattered them with corn syrup blood, we ran over them with the car a few times (no, really!), and we left them hanging on the patio to dry why we ran errands. We grabbed some late lunch at our favorite little diner in our neighborhood, the Southern Recipes Cafe, and dropped the kids off at the library for a zombie afternoon. They got to do crafts, got zombie makeup done, and learned the "Thriller" dance. There were about 20 teens there for the program, and their video of the Thriller dance will be on YouTube soon.

Chuck and I ran errands looking at baby stuff and picked the kids up, drove out to my mom's for trick-or-treating evening, dropped some business cards off with a client, and finally came back to Dallas around midnight. I was tooootally exhausted, but Chuck and the kiddos headed off toward downtown Dallas to the Scaregrounds for some haunted house goodness. They finally rolled back in around 2am, just as the clock flipped back to 1am. Sadly, I was not asleep. I wasn't thrilled with them being out with all the Halloween drunks, so I stayed up watching Celebrity Ghost Stories on the Biography Channel and reading The Thirteenth Tale.

It was a great Halloween. The kids had a good time, and so did the grown-ups. A few pics:

Chuck and I dressed as "vampires," which for me meant ho-ey makeup and nicer clothes than I usually wear on the weekend. Oh, and prosthetic vampire fangs--really comfy ones that fit. Chuck had the teeth and intended to latex some prosthetic horns to his forehead, but by the time we got done with kid makeup it was time to drive the hour out to my mom's house.

Obviously, Rocketgirl is the tall, lanky zombie. Chuck decked her out with latex makeup with wrinkly toilet paper and oatmeal underneath for scabbiness. Rocketboy originally wanted to be a vampire, but once he saw this old mask of Chuck's, he switched over to some sort of evil gnomey thing.

The kids were really happy with their costumes. Especially Rocketgirl in all her supreme scariness. One of my mom's neighbors said, "Wow, that costume would scare God himself." There is no higher compliment for a zombie teenager.

How was your Halloween? Anything exciting?

Coming up: RIP IV Wrap-Up, The Sunday Salon, and some late reviews!

An Iffy Reading Year?

Usually at this point in the year, I can look back over my reading list and there are some clear winners that jump out at me. This year things are a little different. While there have definitely been high points:

Reading Lyddie early in the year for a library class.More recently, my reading of Pretty Dead and Elsewhere were pretty darn good.

But I can't say, looking back over my list, that there are any knock-me-over fantastic books. Maybe with the exception of The Hunger Games. It knocked me over a bit. Overall, the quality of my reading seems to have dwindled this year. It kinda makes me sad, but then again I can only account for this by thinking of all the dramatic (and wonderful) changes in my life.

Obviously, I started seeing Chuck, we quickly moved in together, and we have a full-grown (and expanding) family. I've been working my tail off, and I have this wonderful new full-time gig to show for it. I've morphed into the Pregonator.

All of these changes have left me with far less downtime and far more responsibility. I haven't managed to find a dependable reading routine this year, and I often pick short, easy reads instead of the more involved and inspired reading I used to do. For example, I read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle last year, and I found it to be one of the most inspiring, life changing, delightful, informative reads EVER.

None of those aha! moments this year, I'm afraid. Not in my reading anyway. My personal life, though, is full of them.

So I suppose I'm just finding myself on new and shaky reading ground. It's weird not being bowled over by my reading, and I miss that feeling immensely. I can only hope I get my reading bravery back one of these days and maybe my former instincts for picking books that will thrill and delight me.

Any suggestions for thrilling and delightful books?

Life Sucks, by Jessica Abel

Before you run screaming from the vampire fiction, STOP! This is not your usual vampire book. Jessica Abel is quite a storytelling talent, and this is an off-kilter vampire graphic novel. A quick blurb:

Dave is a convenience store clerk, and he just so happens to be a vampire. His Master, a hard-ass from the old country, makes him a vampire so he'll have a dependable night shift worker. Dave is skinny, nerdy, and has a crappy job and a crappy love life. He's a vegetarian--subsisting on bagged plasma and Blood Brew (blood beer). The graphic novel really kicks off when his crush, Rosa--a gothic hottie--starts to show some mild interest in him. Dave ends up having to face off against a bigger, richer, hotter vampire for Rosa's love, but that's not the only complication.

I loved this graphic novel for subverting my expectations of vampires. In general they're not rich or terribly mysterious. They're just normal people in all their dorkiness and with all the same old idiosyncrasies that any human would have.

Life Sucks has a very B-movie feel to it. As I was reading, some of the angst reminded me a great deal of Daniel Clowes' graphic novel, Ghost World. It was weird and pretty cool in is weirdness. I was sad to see it end, but I'll certainly keep an eye out for more of Jessica Abel's work. This was also a perfect choice for the Read-a-Thon since it was a quick read, involving, and very easy on the eyes.

This is my final selection for the RIP IV Challenge.

Read-a-Thon Wrap Up!

I admit it, I bowed out of my own volition at around 3:30 this morning. The family wanted to go to an air show this afternoon, and I had some work to do in my online classes, so I called it a night and rose around 11:30 this morning ready to roll out.

I want to thank everyone who left comments along the way and kept Rocketgirl and I reading late into the night. We appreciated every one. My own cheerleading was not as sucessful as I'd hoped because my computer starting rebelling against the Mister Linky. Boo!

I finished a grand total of four books--less than I'd hoped--but they were good reads so I can't complain. You can expect reviews of Life Sucks, by Jessica Abel; Ex Libris, by Anne Fadiman; The Magical Life of Long Tack Sam, by Anne Marie Fleming; and Elsewhere, by Gabrielle Zevin. I also polished off about half of Epileptic, by David B and Assassination Vacation, by Sarah Vowell. I'm looking forward to returning to both of them in the next couple of days.

I also finished off the RIP IV challenge with the completion of Life Sucks. Whee!

I'm not sure what Rocketgirl's final list looked like, but I'll report soon. In the meantime, we'll be donating about $55 we raised (from Chuck) to a children's cancer research foundation.

I can't wait for the next Read-a-Thon, and I hope to see you all there!

Hour 21 in Progress....

I polished off my fourth book, Elsewhere, and it was great! This is one I can't wait to review after the read-a-thon.

I expect I'm probably starting my final selection of the night if I hope to be at all productive tomorrow. I have to post new work for online classes and do a few preparations for Monday's 7 and 9am classes. Yadda yadda. We'll see if I can polish off Hall of Best Knowledge, by Ray Fenwick...before I pass out again...for good!

**Note: Hall of Best Knowledge is not looking terribly promising. Hmmphf.

Hour 19 So Far....

Soooo, I fell asleep. I blame it on being pregnant (guilty face). I took a nap for a couple of hours, but I'm back up and back into Gabrielle Zevin's woooonderful novel, Elsewhere. This is possibly the most gripping novel I've picked up for the Read-a-Thon yet, so it's perfect timing.

Incidentally, Rocketgirl fell asleep at almost exactly the same time I did. She's back in the living room, but she's just barely with it, I think. We'll see if she lasts. :) She's tried her best and done GREAT today.

My computer is being putzy having a hard time opening the links from the Mr. Linky when I try to cheerlead, so I'm not making nearly as much progress in that department as I'd hoped. I'm trying, though!

Hour 15 Winding Down!

I missed the mid-event survey, so I'm going to hop on the train and do it now. I made dinner for the kiddos...my very healthy cheese dip along with a small portion of chicken fingers, southwestern chicken eggrolls, and mozzarella sticks. Horrible but yummy, and we've been good all day long. I intended to take pictures but suddenly I realized we'd plowed through the food. There was a large bowl of cheese dip left and four mozzarella sticks. Oops!

Mid-Event Survey:

1. What are you reading right now? I'm about halfway through Gabrielle Zevin's young adult novel, Elsewhere. I think Rocketgirl is working on a Sweet Valley High novel at the moment. We've scattered to the far reaches of the condo to escape the TV noise.

2. How many books have you read so far? I'm working on my fourth. I did a good bit of waffling this afternoon or I'd be further along. I think Rocketgirl is on number six.

3. What book are you most looking forward to for the second half of the Read-a-thon? I would really like to read the graphic novel, Little Nothings by Lewis Trondheim and Hall of Best Knowledge, by Ray Fenwick.

4. Did you have to make any special arrangements to free up your whole day? I insisted that Chuck leave me alone! He went to play pool with some buddies tonight, which is probably far more fun than watching me read.

5. Have you had many interruptions? How did you deal with those? Chuck's mother talks incessantly, so I generally run screaming from whatever room she's in.

6. What surprises you most about the Read-a-thon, so far? How much slower I'm reading this time around, but I was all alone last year which makes a big difference. It's great reading along with Rocketgirl. I'm excited that she's excited.

7. Do you have any suggestions for how to improve the Read-a-thon next year? Nope! The organizers blow me away with their wonderfulness every time!

8. What would you do differently, as a Reader or a Cheerleader, if you were to do this again next year? I'm not sure. I don't feel like I'm cheerleading enough, but then again I've saved it more for the sleepy hours, too. Being online it's easier to stay awake than reading.

9. Are you getting tired yet? God, yes. I usually sack out (whether I mean to or not) around 10:00 these days thanks to work and the baby'ness. We'll see how late I can make it. I may take a nap around 2ish if I can hold out that long and then kick it in the rest of the way.

10. Do you have any tips for other Readers or Cheerleaders, something you think is working well for you that others may not have discovered? Get away from the computer if you have to! I like to sink into a book for a few hours and then come back.

Hour 11 Ending....12 begins!

Blarrrg! I read 117 pages this past hour and Rocketgirl did 43. We're getting back into our groove. I had a shower and feel tooootally refreshed, and we have oodles of snacks on the way (pics to come). I'm almost done with a graphic novel biography of Chinese magician, Long Tack Sam, and Rocketgirl is finishing up Ghost Beach.

We've been eating healthy for most of the day: cereal, apples and peanut butter, etc. Now we're taking a nosedive into the junk food with hot cheese dip with sausage in it, and Chuck apparently has a basketload of other goodies headed our way. We'll see what he comes up with for our appetizer dinner.

Nymeth's Web Comics Mini-Challenge

Thanks to the wonderful Nymeth for hosting this hour's mini-challenge dealing with web comics. I like web comics a lot, especially one called PhD or Piled Higher and Deeper. I used to read this one all the time as a graduate student, and I can certainly appreciate it from this side of the professorly desk, too. Here' my favorite one of the ones I spent time reading today. Click to enlarge.

And while you're at it, why not read some web comics of your own and enter Nymeth's challenge! You'll be glad you did!

Hour 10 Approaches

Hour 10, right? Yeah. And I seem to have hit a wall. Oh no!!!

The house is awake now, so there are far more distractions to contend with, though Chuck and Rocketboy just left to go wander while we're here buried in our reading. I hit a wall reading Epileptic as it seemed to be moving veryyyy slowly. I've now started Sarah Vowell's Assassination Vacation. It's not as compelling as The Partly Cloudy Patriot was, though, so I'm not sure if I'll stick with these two titles or move on to something else. I suspect I might try to whip through something quick to keep my morale up. I think I'm also going to spend some time cheerleading to break up the monotony and take a quick shower to wake myself up!

Rocketgirl has been book hopping as well. She finished up Monster's vs. Aliens, went on to re-read a little bit of Stephanie Meyer's Eclipse, but now she's switched over to a quick Goosebumps book, Ghost Beach.

There's a brisket cooking, I see a huge pot of cheese dip in my future this evening, and I think I'm getting over the hump. Let's have some cheers in the meantime! I need the encouragement to get past the afternoon nap urge! lol

Hour Six Begins!

Whew! Still going strong over here and trying to avoid interruption. I finally finished Ex Libris and it seemed to take a ridiculously long time to read that book in relation to its size. More on that later, though, when I do a full review post-read-a-thon. I started Jennifer's Body, the novelization of the Diablo Cody film, but I was so thoroughly turned off by the overuse of teenage lingo that I tossed it. Now I'm on to David B. Epileptic, a chunky graphic novel.

Rocketgirl finished Chunky Rice, Coraline (graphic novel), and she's on to a Monsters vs. Alien book. Not to mention the first one she put away, George's Marvelous Medicine. She's rockin' and rollin'!

We'll be back in a bit with another update. We had cereal (me) and waffles (her) for breakfast, and I snacked on some sliced Macintosh apples. But, the grumble in my tummy says it's time to look for something more filling. I'm having a wicked craving for egg rolls. Maybe someone will be nice enough to go pick some up.

Checking In: End of Hour Three

So how's it going for everyone??? We're off to a good start. Rocketgirl is kicking my heiney at this point, but I have been cheerleading and Twittering on and off all morning, so I comfort myself with that. ;)

So far I've finished Jessica Abel's graphic novel, Life Sucks (98 pages read) and almost polished off Anne Fadiman's book of bookish essays, Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader (71 pages read). Both books were fantastic!

Rocketgirl polished off Roald Dahl's George's Marvelous Medicine this morning--a re-read for her--(89 pages read) and she read Craig Thompson's graphic novel, Good-Bye Chunky Rice (125 pages read). Now she's working her way through the graphic novel adaptation of Neil Gaiman's Coraline!

It's a reading frenzy in our house! And there isn't a single soul up--besides us--to witness it. Even Daisy is passed out. I'm off to do a bit of cheerleading, and I'll probably have to run out for some dog food for Miss Daisy, but I'll check back in after a few more hours!

Hour One Nears!

Hey folks! I'm up! Bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, and I'm ready to read. The plan:

• Check in to blog my progress every 2-3 hours.
• Cheerlead like a maniac!
• Stay awake!
• Tweet more than I blog, so come on and follow me if you aren't already!

Rocketgirl (13, awesome reader) was really easy to wake up for this event since she went to bed early last night. Her pile is shaping up nicely with the following books included at this point:

• Holes, by Louis Sacchar
• Blood and Chocolate, by Annette Curtis Klause
• On My Own (Sweet Valley High Senior Year #15), by whoever writes those!
• Planning the Impossible, by Mavis Jukes
• George's Marvelous Medicine, by Roald Dahl
• Stardust, by Neil Gaiman
• Coraline (graphic novel), by Neil Gaiman
• Good-bye, Chunky Rice, by Craig Thompson

We also have about a zillion other children's and teen novels in the house. She's thinking she might zip through a few Goosebumps books later to pass the time. She can polish them off in about half an hour, so they're perfect...especially for the late night.

Good luck everyone, and have SO MUCH FUN it's ridiculous! I'll be back in a few hours.

Dewey's 24 Hour Read-a-Thon! The Pre-Post...

The Dewey's 24 Hour Read-a-Thon is drawing near, and I just can't stop adding to my pile! I got off of work at 3:30 today, so Chuck and I picked up Rocketgirl, ran some errands, and ended up at the library. Rocketgirl has decided to participate in the Read-a-Thon with me, so we both added to our piles at the library. I'll be posting about her pile in the morning.

To your left, you'll see that Chuck got pretty excited when I asked him to photograph my reading stack. He took some goodies from around the house and tarted it up with some Halloween flavor. I left the file pretty large, so you can click to see a bigger version.

The stack of books I mentioned in an earlier post is still there, and today's library stack focuses mostly on graphic novels and essay collections with a little YA thrown in for good measure. Today I added...

Graphic Novels:

• Epileptic, by David B.
• Little Nothings, by Lewis Trondheim
• George Sprott, by Seth
• Hall of Best Knowledge, by Ray Fenwick
• Britten and Brulightly, by Hannah Berry (not pictured)

Collections:

• Assassination Vacation, by Sarah Vowell
• Take the Cannoli, by Sarah Vowell
• Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader, by Anne Fadiman
• Slouching Toward Bethlehem, by Joan Didion
• Nocturnes, by Kazuo Ishiguro (short stories)

Young Adult:

• Elsewhere, by Gabrielle Zevin

In other words, I have way more book than I could possibly finish tomorrow, but I have such a heaping stack of reading adventures that I am SO EXCITED about, I don't even care! I'll dip into the ones that snatch me by the nosehairs, and I'll read the others after the Read-a-Thon is over. I'm falling back on some favorite authors from last October's Read-a-Thon like Sarah Vowell and Gabrielle Zevin because they kept me awake and alert during the late hours. I hope they can do it again!

I want to take a minute to remember Dewey before all the craziness of the day really kicks in. She started this Read-a-Thon business, and the blogosphere has embraced her community building to a degree that she probably never imagined. She was truly an avid reader and a wonderful person. She opened my eyes to all kinds of new titles, and she sent me pictures from her life, and we had wonderful conversations, and I miss her. I really do. It's an honor to read for 24 hours not only in celebration of books, but in celebration of her life as well.

I'll see you all in the morning. Sleep well...while you can!

Personally: Pregnancy Spoiledness

**Note: the pic to the left are bon-bons...for effect only.

Being pregnant is weird. Really weird. In mostly good but some not-so-pleasant ways. On the unpleasant side there's always the constant poking and prodding, the weird physical side effects (I'm not going to say constipation), and well, gas. Not to mention waking up to "pay the water bill" several times a night. I know, I know! It gets worse! It's just weird. Weird weird weird. The baby bump is the coolest awesome weird thing, though. There will probably be a whole post about that.

Even more awesomeness: I am feeling far more spoiled than I've ever felt in my life. Admittedly, I'm not good at being spoiled. I'm a do-it-yourself kind of girl. I broke my ankles several times (yes, both of them) growing up when I was playing sports and doing other silly physical things like that. Whenever I was stuck in a cast or hobbling around on crutches, I was horrible at asking someone to grab a glass of water for me or bring a meal to my perch. Horrible. I hated it.

Now I have all this unsolicited help that's weirding me out. And I don't mean to sound ungrateful, because IT'S FANTASTIC, but it's still weird. I'm just not used to it. Case in point:

Students do weird, nice things for me that are completely unexpected. There are always *some* students that do nice things all the time because they're just naturally nice people. Then there are students who would rather not move or speak unless they're directly ordered to. Since I've become a vessel for human life, the lines between these distinctive groups of students are blurring.

Before I left "way out there part-time" junior college to teach for "really close to home college full-time" I had one particular student that was a nut. He was former military, loud, somewhat obnoxious at times, but generally a good kid. He had my class in the Spring, before Baby Miller, and he came back for another class this Fall. While he's always been a crack up and a cutup and something of a smartass, he actually started being really sweet. Every day he would ask, "So, how's Baby Miss Miller today?" It weirded me out the first time, then I got used to it, and it was really nice.

I warned all my students last term at the new college where I teach full-time that I am pregnant. The warning went something like this: "If I unexpectedly bolt from this classroom it is wholly for your own good and your physical safety. I'm having a baby, and there's no need for you to experience my morning sickness with me. Stay seated, talk amongst yourselves (Linda Richmond/Mike Meyers/SNL/Cawfee Tawk-style voice), and I'll be right back."

Now my students are jumping in front of buses and leaping tall buildings to help me do things. OK, that's a little overdone, but they're still doing me a lot of favors. The other day a dry erase marker rolled off the desk where I'd put it, and one of my students (very reserved, that one) dove out of her chair, grabbed the marker, and said, "Don't want want you to step on that and hurt yourself or the baby!"

Finally, the atmosphere at home is different. Chuck is a great cook. He was a chef for 10 years, and his skills are STILL IN THE BUILDING. Thank God. He's taken a much more active role around the house. He's always been an equal opportunity helper kind of guy, but now it's just so cute. He's cooked TWO fabulous meals this week alone, and I could probably live off of the leftovers for another week. Wednesday night it was turkey meatloaf with a side of new potatoes and green beans in some sort of magical, buttery, white wine sauce. Last night it was stuffed pork loin with apple chili sauce and a veggie concoction of squash, zucchini, red onions, and sweet potatoes that almost made me cry. OHHHHH, and how could I forget?? Monday night he made New York strip steak, baked yams, and some other side that was delicious, but my pregnant braion has erased from my memory. Let me tell ya, on New York strip night, you've never seen an anemic woman put away steak like I did.

Funny story: And this has nothing to do with my being pregnant, really. Last night Chuck was making the apple chili sauce to go on the chops, and he put a boatload of boiling hot liquid in the blender. He knows better than to do this and plug the top of the blender, but he had a brain fart and did it anyway. When he turned the blender on, it exploded into a cloud of apple chili sauce that coated him, me, the walls, everything on the bar area, and Daisy--who was sniffing around the kitchen floor for crumbs. Of course, I helped him clean up the eruption, and I even mopped the kitchen while he was taking a shower and getting ready for class, but he snatched up Miss Daisy and took her to shower with him so I wouldn't have to endanger myself by sliding around with her or sleep with a sticky, apple-chili-coated dog. Awww!

So, yeah. Being pregnant and uber-spoiled is weird and wonderful. I haven't even told you about all the baby furniture (carriers, swings, playpens, more carriers, and swings, bouncy seats) that has appeared on my mother's porch over the last couple of months. Relatives are talking about bringing boxes of clothing out of storage. A master carpenter friend of ours told us to "show me the crib you want and I'll make it for you."

Everyone warned me about this. "Everyone loves a pregnant woman," they said. I just didn't realize! I'm loving it, and I'm soaking it all up while I can.