Tuesday tidbits

• First I have to say that I love my title to this post, because I find alliteration absolutely appealing and awesome although asinine^*. Also, I like the word TIDBITS. I'm not sure why, since it sounds like cat food. Anyway, it just popped into my head, which means that I am probably inadvertently stealing it from someone else. So to that person, I apologize. Don't sue me, as you would be sorely disappointed in your winnings in such a lawsuit.
  
  
• My kids painted Easter eggs this past weekend. What, you want pictures? All right *grumble,grumble*, I'll go get the camera and upload them if that'll make you happy. Just wait here a minute... {elevator music version of something by Bon Jovi} OK. Here we go. Sorry that took so long; Meg had (once again) stolen my USB SD card reader thingy and I had to go track it down. OK, TECHNICALLY it's not mine, it's my husband's, but come on people, you KNOW that makes it MINE. Voila (yes I'm too lazy to go copy and paste the accented letter):
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Meg is missing from the photos because she elected to abstain from the activity. She was playing the teenage martyr because she was pissed that I hadn't yet made strawberries magically appear in the fridge. Apparently when she wants strawberries to make a smoothie, she means the very next time you leave the house, who cares if it's just to get the mail from the mailbox, SURELY there's a damn grocery store close enough by to take a little detour. For any of you who have little ones, prepare yourselves for teenage martyrdom, it is a COMMON occurrence.
  
  
• Today is grandparent's day at Beth's kindergarten, which means that my MIL's sister (who pinch hits for my MIL in these situations, since she is 20 minutes away and my MIL is 2 hours away) is coming over. I should be cleaning, but I am typing this instead. It's because of my procrastination illness. I can't help it.
  
  
• Beth has a boyfriend. She kissed him on the bus. Well, on the lips while they were on the bus. I had to tell her that kissing is not appropriate school-type behavior. She is SIX. I'm going next week to pick out my grave plot, since I'm sure I will be needing it in 7-10 years.
  
  
• Back on this post, I said I was going to be giving away a used, dust-jacketless book that I picked up for $1 at a library sale. SURPRISINGLY (ha!), there didn't seem to be much interest in said giveaway item. With only FOUR comments on that post, the odds of winning are TWENTY-FIVE PERCENT!!! Lucky(?) entrants! Random.org awards the book to... Jess! I'm sorry Jess, but you commented and thus will be cursed with THE BOOK THAT NO ONE WANTED. Luckily, I already have your address (assuming I can find it in my email again), so you can't get out of it by not providing your address. *evil cackle*
  
  
• And FINALLY... I recently came across this guy. You should check him out. Interesting guy, interesting family, the most ADORABLE little boy named Diego, for whom Amy would fall head over heels because COME ON... DIEGO? Her favorite babysitters characters in the world are Dora and Diego. She would be smitten. The PROBLEM is this: I left a comment on his blog and he came over here and checked me out. He left a comment on one of my posts that said he could tell I'm a really funny one. GAH! Now I'm afraid I'm going to disappoint him. (Though I guess I can only do that if he comes back.) Those of you who read here know I can only pull the funny out ON OCCASION, and even then it's not always that good. Or funny. Or entertaining AT ALL. WHY do you guys even read this? Are you GLUTTONS FOR PUNISHMENT? Gluttony is a sin, you know, one of the seven deadlies, last I checked (which OK, isn't very often). Wait, I seem to be getting off track here... what was I talking about... oh yes, Jason and his possibly, PROBABLY, unrealistic expectations of me. Jason. Dude. Please don't be disappointed. I want you to like me, I really do. Because from the pictures on your blog, you have a GORGEOUS home, one that would be SO MUCH NICER than a hotel should I ever find myself in California. You know? Just sayin'.
  

*Technically not alliteration, since APPARENTLY alliteration is "the repetition of usually initial CONSONANT sounds in two or more neighboring words or syllables". *I* say it IS alliteration, because I don't believe in discrimination of any sort, even vowel discrimination.

Another book giveaway and a poll

I know that I said that each time I read a book I would then let you vote on the next book I should read. Unfortunately, it seems that I read faster than I can find time to look up links and post, so the result has been that, while I HAVE been faithful in reading the books that won the elections, I have also read several books for which you did not have the opportunity to vote. To try to remedy that, today I am listing SEVEN potential next-reads for your voting enjoyment. Also, I am asking that you select TWO novels from the list. The top THREE selections will be my next three reads. I hope that by increasing the number of books you choose for me each poll, I can find the time for another poll before I am done reading the books on which you voted, so I will NEVER HAVE TO SELECT MY OWN BOOKS AGAIN!!! The poll will be open until 8:00am Friday, March 27th (Hopefully EDT, but who knows, really?). Your choices this time are:

The Year of Fog by Michelle Richmond,

High Five by Janet Evanovich,

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury,

Fatal Flaw by William Lashner,

The Stingray Shuffle by Tim Dorsey,

Pandora by Anne Rice and

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson.

Also, it has come to my attention that my prolific library-sale-and-bargain-table purchasing has led to my having two copies of yet another novel. This one is Lean Mean Thirteen by Janet Evanovich. It is a hardcover that I purchased for $1.00 from a library sale and it is missing its dust-jacket. Still a perfectly good read, and really, isn't a dusty dust-jacket just as big a pain-in-the-ass as a dusty book sans jacket? If you would like me to send you this novel, just leave a comment. If you are familiar with the series to which the novel belongs, tell me how you are like the heroine, Stephanie Plum. Go ahead, you can admit it here. :) I will randomly select a winner to be announced as soon as I get around to posting again after Friday morning. POSSIBLY as soon as THAT DAY, but don't hold your breath or you'll turn blue.

It's that time again

I don't like when this happens on a weekend, since so many of you only do the blog thing during the week, but there's just no help for it. I finished Third Degree by Greg Iles, so it is time for you to select what you think I should read next. Since it is the weekend, I will leave the poll up through Monday night so those of you who are solely weekday bloggers can vote and thus enter the BONUS giveaway. Yes, once again, I have more than one copy of a book.

I had to re-stack my three to-be-read towers of books, since they were about to topple, and while doing so, I discovered that I had a brand-new hardcover copy of the book I had just finished, Third Degree by Greg Iles. Sorry, you don't get that one. But you CAN win the slightly used paperback copy that I just finished. It really is like new; I'm very easy on books. So go vote over on the right for the book you think I should read next and leave me a comment if you want to be entered in the giveaway. I'll let you know the winner on Tuesday. The randomly selected books from which to choose this time are:

The Rosary Girls by Richard Montanari,

The Wish List by Eoin Colfer,

The Hunt Club by John Lescroart,

Four to Score by Janet Evanovich and

The Expected One by Kathleen McGowan.

While I am waiting for the results, I am going to read The Road by Cormac McCarthy. I know a lot of you DESPISED, HATED and LOATHED that book; Shelly's review is here. Because of that, I had pretty much decided not to bother with it. But then Shauna said she LOVED it, and because she seems to like some of the same stuff I do, I began to think that maybe I would like it too, despite the fact that Tess also likes some of the same stuff I do, and she was one of the ones who DESPISED, HATED and LOATHED it. Then when a single copy of it appeared on a shelf in front of me on sale and I flipped through it to see that it didn't look like a book that would take an eon to get through, which if it were horrible would render it unfinishable, I went ahead and bought it. So since it may never win a vote (unless it does so on the merits of misery loves company), I'll go ahead and read it over this weekend while I wait for your votes.

October overview and winners

In my effort to cover those four months or so that I disappeared, I will now give you my October overview. Really only two things happened, Amy turned 2 on the 20th



and of course Halloween.





Beth couldn't decide between the detective costume and the vampire, so she was a detective at school (easier costume to put on and take off) and a vampire for trick-or-treating. Jo went as a black cat and Amy was a bunny.

Other than that, there was some leaf pile playing,





some swing set playing





and some general goofing around.



On to other business... Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes was selected as my next read and I am in the middle of it now. I decided that although my poll was only open for 24 hours, I would allow the commenters who commented after it closed to be in on the giveaway, since really 24 hours is not that long. So after removing my own comment from the running, the random number generator gave me 6 for my first winner and 5 for my second. So... [checking]... Becky wins Step on a Crack by James Patterson and Flibberty wins Simple Genius by David Baldacci. Winners please email me your shipping info so I can get your books to you.

What should I read next AND a giveaway

First of all, thank you to my FIVE voters even though there were MORE THAN FIVE commenters (Come on, are you AFRAID I will be mad if I don't like the book you pick? Are you too CHICKEN to have an opinion and vote?)** last time. You unanimously selected The Dogs of Babel by Carolyn Parkhurst as my next read. So I am reading it. As a result of feeling too crappy to do anything other than read, blog and watch TV, I am about 15 minutes away from being done with The Dogs of Babel. So it's time to pick my next book. My random grab from my book piles resulted in the following choices:

Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes,

The Blue Zone by Andrew Gross,

Step on a Crack by James Patterson [Wait a minute, this was a choice last time. I have ANOTHER copy of this book? It seems I have once again double-purchased a book. I have a paperback AND a hardcover. Hmmm... What should I do with the extra copy? Let me ponder that a moment...]

Paint It Black by Janet Fitch AND

Simple Genius by David Baldacci [Um, I seem to be holding a paperback copy of this book while looking at the spine of a hardcover copy in my book pile... Another troublesome problem.]

OK, so go vote in the poll to the right to determine what I will read next and leave a comment telling me why you chose the book you did. I will then randomly choose two commenters. The first one chosen will win my brand-spanking-new paperback copy of Step on a Crack, and the second one chosen will win my brand-spanking-new copy of Simple Genius. So come on, people... VOTE. You have incentive this time - WIN A FREE BOOK.***

** This is trash talk. I'm not very good at it. It is SUPPOSED to provoke you into doing what I want you to do. We'll see if it works...

*** This compromises the validity of the trash-talk experiment.