Friday, February 20, 2009

Have YOU read them?

Apparently the BBC reckons most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here.

Instructions:
1) Look at the list and put an 'x' after those you have read.
2) Add a '+' to the ones you LOVE.
3) Star (*) those you plan on reading. (Let's just say everything I haven't read is *ed) :)
4) Tally your total.Then, post your total read at the bottom.

1. [x ] Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen
2. [+] The Lord of the Rings JRR Tolkien
3. [ x] Jane Eyre Charlotte Bronte
4. [+ ] Harry Potter series JK Rowling
5. [x] To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee
6. [ X] The Bible
7. [x] Wuthering Heights Emily Bronte
8. [ x] Nineteen Eighty Four George Orwell
9. [ x] His Dark Materials Philip Pullman
10. [ *] Great Expectations Charles Dickens
11. [+ ] Little Women Louisa M Alcott
12. [ *] Tess of the D'Urbervilles Thomas Hardy
13. [ x] Catch 22 Joseph Heller
14. [ ] Complete Works of Shakespeare
15. [ X] Rebecca Daphne Du Maurier
16. [+] The Hobbit JRR Tolken
17. [ ] Birdsong Sebastian Faulks
18. [] Catcher in the Rye JD Salinger
19. [ ] The Time Traveller's Wife Audrey Niffenegger
20. [ ] Middlemarch George Eliot
21. [+ ] Gone With The Wind Margaret Mitchell
22. [X ] The Great Gatsby F Scott Fitzgerald
23. [ ] Bleak House Charles Dickens
24. [ ] War and Peace Leo Tolstoy
25. [ *] The Hitch Hiker.s Guide to the Galaxy Douglas Adams
26. [ ] Brideshead Revisited Evelyn Waugh
27. [] Crime and Punishment Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. [X ] Grapes of Wrath John Steinbeck
29. [+] Alice in Wonderland Lewis Carroll (AND Through the Looking Glass...twas brilig and the slithy toves....)
30. [ x] The Wind in the Willows Kenneth Grahame
31. [ x] Anna Karenina Leo Tolstoy
32. [ *] David Copperfield Charles Dickens
33. [+] Chronicles of Narnia CS Lewis
34. [ *] Emma Jane Austen
35. [* ] Persuasion Jane Austen
36. [+] The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe CS Lewis
37. [* ] The Kite Runner Khaled Hosseini
38. [ ] Captain Corelli's Mandolin Louis De Bernieres
39. [] Memoirs of a Geisha Arthur Golden
40. [ X] Winnie the Pooh AA Milne
41. [ x] Animal Farm George Orwell
42. [X] The Da Vinci Code Dan Brown
43. [ ] One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. [ ] A Prayer for Owen Meaney John Irving
45. [ ] The Woman in White Wilkie Collins
46. [ X] Anne of Green Gables LM Montgomery
47. [ x] Far From The Madding Crowd Thomas Hardy
48. [ ] The Handmaid's Tale Margaret Atwood
49. [X] Lord of the Flies William Golding
50. [ ] Atonement Ian McEwan
51. [ ] Life of Pi Yann Martel
52. [ ] Dune Frank Herbert
53. [ ] Cold Comfort Farm Stella Gibbons
54. [ X] Sense and Sensibility Jane Austen
55. [ ] A Suitable Boy Vikram Seth
56. [ ] The Shadow of the Wind Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. [X] A Tale Of Two Cities Charles Dickens
58. [ x] Brave New World Aldous Huxley
59. [ ] The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time Mark Haddon
60. [ ] Love In The Time Of Cholera Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. [X] Of Mice and Men John Steinbeck
62. [ ] Lolita Vladimir Nabokov
63. [ ] The Secret History Donna Tartt
64. [] The Lovely Bones Alice Sebold
65. [x] Count of Monte Cristo Alexandre Dumas
66. [ *] On The Road Jack Kerouac
67. [ ] Jude the Obscure Thomas Hardy
68. [ ] Bridget Jones's Diary Helen Fielding
69. [ ] Midnight's Children Salman Rushdie
70. [ x] Moby Dick Herman Melville
71. [ X] Oliver Twist Charles Dickens
72. [* ] Dracula Bram Stoker
73. [X] The Secret Garden Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. [ ] Notes From A Small Island Bill Bryson
75. [ ] Ulysses James Joyce
76. [ ] The Bell Jar Sylvia Plath
77. [ ] Swallows and Amazons Arthur Ransome
78. [ ] Germinal Emile Zola
79. [x] Vanity Fair William Makepeace Thackeray
80. [ ] Possession AS Byatt
81. [X] A Christmas Carol Charles Dickens
82. [ ] Cloud Atlas David Mitchell
83. [ ] The Color Purple Alice Walker
84. [ ] The Remains of the Day Kazuo Ishiguro
85. [ ] Madame Bovary Gustave Flaubert
86. [ ] A Fine Balance Rohinton Mistry
87. [X] Charlotte's Web EB White
88. [ ] The Five People You Meet In Heaven Mitch Alborn
89. [ x] Adventures of Sherlock Holmes Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Again, Tyson has read this one)
90. [ ] The Faraway Tree Collection Enid Blyton
91. [X ] Heart of Darkness Joseph Conrad
92. [x] The Little Prince Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93. [ ] The Wasp Factory Iain Banks
94. [X ] Watership Down Richard Adams (Freaky rabid bunnies!)
95. [ ] A Confederacy of Dunces John Kennedy Toole
96. [ ] A Town Like Alice Nevil Shute
97. [*] The Three Musketeers Alexandre Dumas (have them, Tyson has read them)
98. [X ] Hamlet William Shakespeare
99. [X] Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
100. [*] Les Miserables Victor Hugo

I have read 46, an would like to read 11 more. Some I read in High school, and don't remember much about, and some I really didn't like (i.e. Of Mice and Men), but this was an interesting list!

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

1st pregnancy tag


1. WAS YOUR FIRST PREGNANCY PLANNED?
Yes and long awaited!!

2. WERE YOU MARRIED AT THE TIME?
for me-no other choice

3. WHAT WERE YOUR REACTIONS?
nervous at first as I had had a miscarriage already, then when I was sure all was well, ecstatic

4. WAS ABORTION AN OPTION FOR YOU?
NO WAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

5. HOW OLD WERE YOU?
26 1/2

6. HOW DID YOU FIND OUT YOU WERE PREGNANT?
Since I was so anxious to have a baby, I went to the doctor as soon as I suspected.

7. WHO DID YOU TELL FIRST?
Bill

8. DID YOU WANT TO FIND OUT THE SEX?
that was not an option in 1974

9. DUE DATE?
January 18th, 1974 (I had three babies due that date- but never hit it)

10. DID YOU HAVE MORNING SICKNESS?
Extreme queasiness for 4 months, but no throwing up. Smells really got me.

11. WHAT DID YOU CRAVE?
ice cream (but no pickles)

12. WHO/WHAT IRRITATED YOU THE MOST?
I don't remember anything. I was so thrilled to be pregnant that I really enjoyed the new experiences--except the nausea! My biggest irritation related to pregnancy was when one of the doctors at the army post medical center was doing a pelvic exam for something else, and said oh, it looks like you might be a month pregnant. So he had me do a test, and it came back negative. So he said well you aren't pregnant, so if your period doesn't start we'll give you something to start it. I still thought I might be pregnant and so I waited, and I was, but at 3 months I miscarried. It just irritated the crap out of me that he was so cavalier about it and assuming the test was absolutely correct. It didn't help that he was an irritating arrogant guy in the first place! The other doctor there, and his nurse were super nice.

13. WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST CHILD'S SEX?
boy

14. DID YOU WISH YOU HAD THE OPPOSITE SEX OF WHAT YOU WERE GETTING?
No.

15. HOW MANY POUNDS DID YOU GAIN THROUGHOUT THE PREGNANCY?
20 to 25 lbs. the same for all 7

16. DID YOU HAVE A BABY SHOWER?
Yes - our friends in Germany gave me one before I left. I came home when I was about 7 months--the latest I could fly, because Bill was rotating to Oklahoma in December, and we would have had to extend to come home in February if I had him there. We had been gone for two years and were ready to come home.

17. WAS IT A SURPRISE OR DID YOU KNOW?
I knew about it.

18. DID YOU HAVE ANY COMPLICATIONS DURING YOUR PREGNANCY?
No, other than doctors at the Army post in Oklahoma not being ob's, and kind of ignorant of some of the aspects of child birth. (that is another story)

19. WHERE DID YOU GIVE BIRTH?
Lawton (actually Fort Sill) Oklahoma

20. HOW MANY HOURS WERE YOU IN LABOR?
about 12, but all the rest were under 2 hours!

21. WHO DROVE YOU TO THE HOSPITAL?
Bill

22. WHO WATCHED YOU GIVE BIRTH?
Bill did. He was there for all of them, but it was just beginning to be accepted, so I had to request it

23. WAS IT NATURAL OR C-SECTION?
Natural.

24. DID YOU TAKE MEDICINE TO EASE THE PAIN?
I did have an epidural or something for that one, but not with any of the others--they came too fast,

24. HOW MUCH DID YOUR CHILD WEIGH?
7 lb. 4 oz.

25. WHEN WAS YOUR CHILD ACTUALLY BORN?
January 11, 1974

26. WHAT DID YOU NAME HIM/HER?
Thane William

27. HOW OLD IS YOUR FIRST BORN TODAY?
35 I had to think about that.

Finally some progress on the bathroom! Tevan has completed the laying of two of the walls. Hopefully he will be able to do the last wall on Thursday. Then he can cut in the bottom row and do the grout! It is exciting to see how it looks.

Monday, February 2, 2009

The main focus of my mental and monetary energy the last 3 weeks or so has been Tevan's jeep, but finally we seem to have all the issues dealt with and he is so excited to actually be able to drive it. He has done a couple of quick drives out in the dessert and he loved it. So I thought it would be appropriate to put up a couple of pictures!






He looks pretty happy, doesn't he?