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Thursday, December 13, 2012

Stranded! (and a PSA)

Last night was probably going to be one my last late nights out in New York City before baby Stormageddon makes her arrival in February.  Now I can say it was DEFINITELY my last late night in New York City.

It started off SO well.  My husband was already in the city for work, so I took the bus into Port Authority with one of our friends.  We met Glen at Veselka for some delicious Ukranian food.  I got a variety of pierogies, which were delicious despite the fact that they had run out of the pumpkin pierogies I was so looking forward to!  The place was all decked out for Christmas and it was very cozy.

After dinner, we had some time to kill before Glen's show at the Upright Citizense Brigade Theatre, so we found a bar to hang out in for a bit, where I drank the biggest Shirley Temple ever.  (Seriously, I think I've spent more time in bars since I got pregnant than I did before!)  Glen's show went really well, but by the time it let out, it was about 12:30am.

Here's where the PSA comes in.  I hadn't been to New York City since before Hurricane Sandy.  Glen has only been in weekdays during the day.  None of us had a clue that the PATH trains are currently shut down between the hours of 10:00pm and 5:00am.  Our plan had been to take the PATH back to Jersey City where Glen had parked, because we'd done it a million times before. 

After trying the 33rd St., 23rd. St. AND 14th St. stations to no avail (and a lot of walking!), we finally bit the bullet and took a very expensive cab ride to get to the parking garage near Journal Square.  When all was said and done, Glen and I didn't get back to our house until 4:00 this morning.

I had originally planned on taking the morning off from my day job, since I knew it would be a late night, but I think I made the right decision in calling off for the whole day instead.  And since I spent that entire ordeal paranoid about the possibility of going into preterm labor and with no way of getting home, I think it goes without saying that I will be staying a bit closer to home for the next 7 1/2 weeks!

By the way, I DO have 31 week belly pictures, but they haven't made it from the camera to the computer just yet.  I'll post them soon, I promise!

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Craft Shows and Birthdays and Baby Showers!

It's been an eventful couple of weeks since I last posted.

I wrapped up the craft show season the weekend before Thanksgiving:


But when that was over, I also made a couple of sales on Etsy.  Hopefully there will be more this month, but the inventory in my shop is a bit thin and I haven't had time to take more pictures.

I also had a fabulous 30th birthday at the end of the month!  I took a half day at work, and then had to go for an ultrasound during the afternoon.  My doctor was a bit concerned that the baby might be measuring small, so he wanted to have a growth scan done, and it turns out everything is perfect, and she's not actually small.  She's measuring in the 48th percentile, and we were able to double check and make sure she's definitely a girl.  I know mistakes are rare, but people apparently just LOVE to tell pregnant ladies about someone they knew who was told the wrong sex. ;-)

After a successful ultrasound, my husband and I met up with my parents, his parents, and his youngest brother (who shares a birthday with me) for some hibachi and sushi.  I like California rolls and all, but after I have this baby I am going to eat soooo many salmon rolls and spicy tuna rolls!

When dinner was over, Glen and I met up with some friends at The Bookstore for dessert and drinks:


They were able to make me some super tasty non-alcoholic drinks, and the creme brulee was delicious.  So much fun. :-)

The day after my birthday was the baby shower.  The date wasn't a surprise, since given the schedule I keep there is a good chance I'd have missed it if I didn't know to keep the date clear, but I wasn't clued in on any of the details.  My mom, mother-in-law, best friend, and sister-in-law all did an amazing job, and I had such a great time!

Of course, now Stormageddon's nursery is a bit of a disaster area:




Oh, and for the record: those pictures were taken AFTER my mom helped me "organize" things.  I definitely have my work cut out for me.  But I won't complain, I am just so grateful that this baby already has so many people who care about her and want to get her off to a good start!

One of my friends helped get us stocked up on cloth diapers - she bought us a bunch of prefolds and covers, and turned them into "diaper babies" complete with googly eyes.  How adorable are they?!


And since I've fallen behind on belly pictures (we missed week 30, but week 31 is a pineapple, so it's all good because pineapples are delicious!!), here's the one picture I actually have from the shower so far, of my belly with diaper baby googly eyes on it:


What's the verdict on that picture: cute or creepy?? ;-)

Monday, November 19, 2012

Maternity Monday: 28 Week Belly Photos & Baby Bookcases


I'm not sure how it's possible that baby Stormageddon will likely be here in 2 1/2 months.  Crazy!

We actually didn't get to the 28 week pictures until 28 weeks, 6 days - so really these are technically more like 29 week pictures, but close enough. ;-)


Finally wore an actual maternity shirt!
Is it me, or does this eggplant look smaller than the cabbage??
The view from the front!
...This one's a little blurry, but I was making ridiculous faces in the others. :-P

Now I'm really feeling the pressure to get the office-to-nursery conversion moving.  I did finally manage to get the crib put together (you can catch a glimpse of it in right-hand side of some of the pictures above) and the old bookcase moved to the storage closet, so that's a step in the right direction, at least.

Now I just need to get rid of my old desk so we can pick up a baby-friendly bookcase for the nursery.  We're probably going to use the ClosetMaid Cubeicals 6 Cube Organizer:


We'll put a couple of baskets (probably these purple ones) in there for toy storage, along with her already-growing library of picture books. ;-)

I've been awful about visiting/commenting on blogs lately.  Last week was kind of absurd.  Glen was barely around because he was commuting to New York City every day for his new job.  In addition to working my regular day job, I had extra library hours, played in a concert at a nursing home, went to Glen's comedy competition in Staten Island, sold my jewelry at a craft show, and drove up to Connecticut for a party with some friends from college.  I didn't have much free time to sit in front of computer, and when I *did* have the time, I picked my husband over my laptop.  Hopefully I'll have a bit more time to make the rounds this week!

Monday, November 12, 2012

Perfect Timing

I'm generally not the "I don't believe in coincidences" type, but the past couple of weeks is making me rethink that point of view.

About a two and a half weeks ago, we found out Glen's old car would need a new transmission.  Since Glen's old car was a '99 Kia Sephia worth less than the cost of a new transmission, we decided to search for a new-ish car.  The same week we were car-searching, Glen also applied for a job as an associate editor for Geekosystem.com.

Well, a week and a half ago, we were able to find a car that looked like it would work for us - an '09 Chevy Aveo hatchback.  We'd have preferred a Honda Fit or a Nissan Versa, but unfortunately our search was restricted to dealerships that were actually open after the storm, which meant our pool of potential cars was a bit on the small side, made smaller by the fact that we wanted to keep the purchase price on the lower side since we now have two (ugh!) car loans.  Luckily, we got a really good interest rate on both loans, so the payments are manageable for us.

...Made more manageable by the fact that Glen got the job!!  Apparently he beat out hundreds of applicants for the position, and now Dan Abrams is his boss.  So, yanno, that's pretty cool.  And it turns out it's actually a good thing Glen's car decided to die when it did, because Glen will be commuting to New York a couple of times a week, and I don't think the Kia would have put up with the 130-mile round trip commute for very long. ;-)

Oh, and since this post is pretty light on photos, I thought I'd share this picture I just took of Elvis.  This is what I was contending with while attempting to type this post:


Made it a little difficult to type, but I can't be mad at the guy for being so obsessed with snuggling his baby sister already. ;-)

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Maternity...Tuesday(?): This Produce Thing Is Getting Weird

Yesterday was crazy busy, but I have belly pictures AND recipe pictures to share.  The strange part is that the two are actually related.

Yesterday was the start of 27 weeks (third trimester, when did that happen?!?!), and last week we took 26 week belly pictures.  Technically, baby is the size of a head of lettuce, but we decided to substitute with a head of cabbage instead:

I think Stormageddon had a growth spurt these past couple of weeks! :-)

...Buuuut most of my maternity clothes are still too big.  Still usually wearing my regular clothes with a belly band. ;-)

Cabbage patch kid??

Here's where the produce thing gets weird though:

See, it seems wasteful to buy produce for the sole purpose of taking pictures, so every other week we end up eating our "baby."  It somehow seemed less odd when baby was avocado sized and we'd just buy a few of them, take a picture, return it to the produce basket and not know whether the avocado we'd just eaten was our "baby" from the pictures.

But it's not like we can just buy a bunch of cabbages and eat one as a snack.  So our cabbage baby got cooked into two delicious meals after those pictures were taken.

I used the first half of the cabbage to make creamy Thai sweet potatoes and lentils for dinner on Sunday night:


If you haven't tried it, I highly recommend you follow the link above and make it.  SO yummy!

Tonight I used the remainder of the cabbage in a halupki casserole:


The casserole is my mom's recipe, so I don't have a link (I tried to find an identical recipe online, but no luck, and I don't know offhand whether she got this recipe online or elsewhere), but if you want to give it a try, feel free to send me an email and I'd be more than happy to share the recipe!

UPDATE:  My mom saw this post and forwarded the link for the halupki casserole to me!  Our slow cooker is too small to fit the whole recipe, so I usually make it in the oven - 30 minutes at 375 degrees usually does the trick.

Thursday, November 1, 2012

Hey Sandy

I can't decide whether the title for this blog post was painfully obvious, or if what it's referencing is a bit too obscure for it to be ubiquitous/cliche.  (Also, that's my second blog post title in a row that references Pete and Pete.  Seriously, my love for that show knows no bounds.)  But either way, Glen's use of #HeySandy on Twitter seems to have resulted in him gaining Mark Mulcahy (lead singer of Polaris and Miracle Legion!!) as follower.  So that's pretty awesome.

Anyway, by some miracle, we managed to survive the storm without so much as losing electricity.  The extent of the damage was a few branches in the yard and some shingles blowing off the roof of our already-falling-apart shed.  Our dog even handled the storm like a champ.  He spent most of it napping on the recliner, occasionally lifting his head to look around when a particularly strong gust of wind blew by.

In light of all the damage that occurred south and east of us, we are feeling incredibly grateful that all we have to deal with now is minimal driving in order to conserve gas, since the gas stations in our area are insane at the moment, and we'd likely waste as much gas as we'd be able to buy just by waiting in line.

Despite the fact that my area wasn't hit nearly as hard as the coast, there are still a lot of places without electricity.  My main employer has been closed since 2:00 on Monday and will be closed again tomorrow, so I've just been working at the library in the evenings.  Since I only live about a mile away, I've been able to cover additional shifts, which is a win-win for everyone.  The library has enough staff to stay open, and I get extra shifts, which means extra money, which is great since as I mentioned in Sunday's post, Glen needs a new car, and sooner rather than later.  (A venture that has been further complicated by the storm, since not a lot of dealerships are even open, and the one we were originally looking at was in one of the harder-hit areas of NJ.  We think we found one nearby though.  Keep your fingers crossed for us!)

And what have I been doing with my free days?  You'd think I'd be working on getting ready for my craft shows on November 10 and 17, or perhaps working on further converting my office into the baby's room, right?  But alas, I've been a lazy lump and have spent most of the past 3 days sitting on the couch and watching TV.  Tomorrow, I become productive again.  I'm putting it out here on my blog so I have no excuse to have yet another lazy day: I'm going to record my sales from last week's show and prep for my upcoming shows, move the rest of the things on my old desk to my new desk, and clear out my office closet to make room for baby things.  No excuses. ;-)

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Halloweenie

Halloween has long been one of my favorite holidays.  Getting dressed up and wandering the streets in search of free candy?  It really doesn't get any better than that!

But somehow, as the years passed and I outgrew trick-or-treating, my Halloween/autumn decorations have become more and more minimal.  This year it's probably just as well, since I doubt whether trick-or-treat will be happening in my town, given the current weather situation. ;-)

Next year I want to carve actual pumpkins, plant mums in front of the porch, put up lights and cobwebs, and have one of my friends make an autumn-appropriate wreath for the front door. 

In the meantime, this is what I'm working with:

A fake jack-o-lantern and a cauldron (full of Hershey Kisses!) on top of my new desk.
Autumn-themed dish towels I won at a tricky tray a couple of years ago.
This cute little thing is on top of the toilet, because the bathroom needs to be a little festive, too!
My beloved skeleton lights, which I've had since middle school, now adorn the bar.
Our bar, all lit up!  Even if all I can do for the time being is sit back and admire it. ;-)

If any of you folks have posts with photos of your Halloween/autumn decor, share the link below - I need some inspiration/motivation for next year! ;-)


P.S.  This is a scheduled post, so by the time it's up, it's entirely possible that Hurricane Sandy will have plunged us into darkness. Good thing I have a decent supply of candles and books!!

Sunday, October 28, 2012

What Calm Before the Storm?

This weekend has been an absolute whirlwind of a weekend, some good, some not so good.
Things started out on a pretty sour note, when we found out that Glen's car is in need of a new transmission.  In light of the fact that he drives a '99 Kia Sephia, that's not an investment we're willing to make, so now we're on the hunt for a new car for him.  Not happy about having to spend the money, but excited that we will hopefully have not one, but two, relatively new, reliable cars.

We actually got the bad news about Glen's car in between his cousin's wedding ceremony and reception.  I spent the cocktail hour commiserating with my sister-in-law, because as you will see if you hop on over to her blog, October has not been a good month for the Tickle boys' cars.  Despite being bummed about the car situation, the reception was a good time, as evidenced by one of Glen's tweets from that night:


Gotta love swing dancing with my father-in-law!

I was up bright and early Saturday morning for my first craft show of the season:


I was pleasantly surprised by sales for the day.  October shows are usually a bit slower, since people aren't necessarily thinking of Christmas shopping yet, but I made a decent number of sales, and things usually pick up a bit more for the November shows.  I originally hadn't planned anything for December, but I'm debating trying to find a show on December 8.  Maybe my big 7-months-pregnant belly at that point will give sales a nice little bump. ;-)

After getting home from the craft show, we had to run some errands to make sure we were ready for the upcoming storm, making sure we were stocked up on dog food and degu food, as well as non-perishables that can be cooked on our gas range, should we lose electricity.  Lots of canned soups and Chef Boyardee, as well as pasta and oatmeal, and fresh fruit.  

Once errands we done, we took a drive down to Philadelphia for our friend Eric's 30th birthday party.  We haven't seen him since December, which is way too long, especially compared to the days when we all went to the same college and he and Glen were roommates.

Here's Glen with the birthday boy:

Don't be fooled by that casual pose.  They spent a disproportionately large portion of the evening hugging one another. ;-)

Glen and I spent a good chunk of the night hanging out in Eric's back yard, which was all brick and greenery and twinkly lights.  The weather was gorgeous, and even my chronically-cold self was comfortable without a sweater for the earlier part of the party.  Here's an cute photo Eric took last night and sent to me this morning:

We didn't get home until nearly 3:30 this morning, but it was totally worth the lack of sleep!

Now I'm just relaxing at home, recovering from the busy weekend and trying to figure out the odds that I'll be going into work the next couple of days, seeing as the governors of both NJ and PA have declared states of emergency due to the havoc Hurricane Sandy is expected to wreak.

I hope all my fellow northeasterners stay safe these next few days!  Is anyone out there hosting or attending a hurricane party?? ;-)

Monday, October 22, 2012

Maternity Monday: 24 Week Belly Pictures and Finished Curtains!

I'm finally not running multiple weeks behind on belly pictures!

As of today I'm 25 weeks, and these pictures were taken about midway through week 24:

 I'm pretty sure the papaya from week 22 was bigger than this cantaloupe...

...But my belly is way bigger than it was 2 weeks ago!!

 Sharing a shot from the front this week to illustrate how different I look from this angle.  
This is why most of my maternity clothes are still too big. ;-)


In nursery decor-related news, the curtains are done! 


Glen and I spent Saturday afternoon weeding through and organizing the storage spaces in the house so we can start to make more progress in the office-to-nursery conversion, and I've started gradually moving my jewelry stuff into the bottom section of the secretary desk.

I'm amazed by how much of my supplies fit in there!  Once I finish moving the rest of my supplies into the desk, I might have to do a post about how to fit an entire small business into a single desk, because aside the display supplies I use for shows (table, risers, tent, and a Rubbermaid container of tablecloths and jewelry stands), all of my office supplies and raw materials should all find homes!

Speaking of the jewelry business, my first show is this Saturday!  Eek!  It's going to be a busy week, but *slightly* less busy than expected, since my band rehearsal for tomorrow evening got cancelled.  I still need to fill in some gaps in my finished inventory - I desperately need to have more earrings on hand, and I still have an entirely new style of necklaces that I'd like to have available in a few different colors by that time.  If I have time, I also want to try out a new idea for added my logo to the gift boxes as well.

On top of that, I have a childbirth class at the hospital Tuesday night, an appointment with my OB after work on Wednesday followed immediately by a movie night at a friend's house (I will be bringing jewelry making supplies to the latter!), my usual Thursday night library shift, and a wedding on Friday.  And of course, putting in my 40-hour week at my day job.  Needless to say, I'll be spending most of Sunday napping!

Thursday, October 18, 2012

Window Shopping

This is the time of year I'd normally go buy a few new pieces of clothing for the fall/winter.

Doesn't make much sense to do it this year, since I have pretty much all the maternity clothes I need, and it doesn't really seem practical to attempt to buy non-maternity clothes at the moment. 

It doesn't stop me from looking though!

During my shift at the library tonight, I didn't have any special projects to work on.  This meant I've been browsing ModCloth for things I might like to buy this spring.

I long ago decided that one of my first post-pregnancy dress purchases would be one of their Coach Tour Dresses, although I can't decide what color to get!

Tonight I was browsing the blouses, and my top three picks are:






Which one gets your vote??

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Wedding Shenanigans

On October 6, one of my very best friends (who was the maid of honor in MY wedding!) got married.  It was a beautiful wedding, and I'm so happy for her!

I just had to take a minute share this picture that Glen took during the reception.  I feel like it sums up the dynamic of our marriage pretty well.  It started out as a nice self-portrait of the two of us, but at the last second he made a ridiculous face and I started laughing:


This is what happens when you marry someone you've know since middle school.  ;-)

Monday, October 15, 2012

Maternity Monday: 22 Week Belly and Curtain Prototype

How was everyone's weekend?  Mine was busy, but fun.  Glen and I went to my cousin's 30th birthday party on Friday night, then went on a sushi date (I stuck with a California roll and eel roll, but was stuck admiring his spicy salmon roll from afar) and attempted to finish up our baby registry.  Yesterday afternoon, Elvis had a play date with his cousin Magoo, who is a 118 lb American bulldog.  Magoo definitely falls under the category of "gentle giant" but the two of them had a fantastic time chasing each other around the back yard and wrestling.  I wish I'd taken pictures, but I dropped the ball on that...

However, I DO have belly pictures!

These were taken about a week and a half ago, about midway through week 22:

Baby was the size of a papaya that week.

Unrelated, but that was the week I stopped wearing my hair curly.  I had just dyed it and the weather's been less humid lately, so it stopped curling on its own, and straightening it is the path of least resistance again.  I am lazy. ;-)

Contemplating how it's possible something papaya-sized fits in my belly!  And probably worrying about watermelon week.

Although my belly has grown quite a bit, I'm still not filling out much of the maternity clothes I got, so I'm still mostly in my regular clothing for the time being, fitting into my jeans and dress pants with the help of Target's BeBand.  Seriously, best $16.99 I've ever spent!

And I just have to share this photo of Elvis hugging my belly.  It's a bit blurry, since I took it on my iPhone in the dark at an awkward angle, but it's too cute not to show you guys:


In other exciting baby-related news, my mom pinned together a prototype of the curtains for the nursery.  She stopped by over the weekend to check the length and width:


Please excuse the blue curtains that we lazily pushed to the side.  It just didn't seem worth it to take them down all the way until the new curtains are done!

Anyway, the print on the fabric was quite a bit larger than I'd expected, but now that I've seen it in curtain form and in the room, I actually think I like it better than if it was too much smaller.  An unexpected bonus of the print being so big is that we will be able to do a custom-made mobile by cutting out some of the birds from the excess fabric.  This works out well, because after searching high and low, I couldn't find a single mobile that I liked!

Next weekend's project: clean out the laundry room and hall closet so I can finally start clearing the non-nursery things out of the room!

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

New Office Space

I explained in a previous post that I need to relocate my office, since little Stormageddon will be taking over that room is less than four months (!!!).

After much debate over whether to hold out for the perfect antique or go ahead and buy something new, I decided to go with the latter, mostly because it would be easier to find and would give me more room to transform the old office. 

Ultimately I decided to go with the same desk I mentioned in this post, except in black:


As much as I would have LOVED to have find a cool antique desk, this one was the perfect color and style for the decor in the rest of the living room.  It was on sale.  I couldn't resist.

I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the desk, it's definitely quite solid.  (Come to think of it, we've bought at least 3 other pieces of furniture from Target, all of which turned out to be surprisingly nice!)

Here's what our living room looked like pre-desk:


I feel kind of bad about this, but the recliner (which is officially Elvis's chair at this point) had to make way for the desk:


I'm not 100% sure what I'm going to do about a chair yet, but for the time being I will probably just stash a folding chair between the desk and the fireplace or between the desk and the wall, then take it out as needed.  Once I come up with a more permanent solution, I'm sure I'll be sure to share.  Perhaps THAT will be the antique element in the room!

Monday, October 8, 2012

Maternity Monday: Diapering Decisions

First and foremost: Glen and I DID take 22-week belly pictures last week.  They are still on his camera, because I kept forgetting to put them on my computer.  I will have them next week, I promise!

So, in the meantime, I'm going to talk about one of the first childrearing decisions Glen and I ever made, long before we seriously started considering having a baby.

We've been a bit on the crunchy side, even since we first got married (which, incidentally, was on Earth Day in 2006, but we didn't choose the date for that reason, we chose it because it was the week after Easter and we wouldn't have to buy flowers for the church!).  But increasingly so as the years have gone by.  It started with simply using canvas bags at the grocery store, and now we grow some of our own food, buy a large portion of what we don't grow at the farmers' market.  We buy our eggs and meat directly from a local farm, where we can be assured that the animals were treated humanely and not pumped full of unnecessary antibiotics and hormones.

The crunchy streak continues with our decision to use cloth diapers.  There are three main reasons for this decision:

Cost - Disposable diapers are expensive.  According to this website, assuming Stormageddon is out of diapers by the time she's 2 1/2, we'd have spent about $2500 on disposable diapers.  This seems on par with estimates I've seen elsewhere.  I've done the math, and using a combination of prefolds (the cheapest option, and probably our primary diaper style) and pockets (for when the grandparents watch her, since they are most similar to disposables), cloth diapers will probably run us around $500-600.  Bonus: If we have a second baby and keep the cloth diapers, diapering baby #2 will cost next to nothing!

We're Treehuggers - Disposable diapers are made using chemicals and non-renewable resources, and they take up a TON of room in landfills.  Cloth diapers are typically made of natural materials, like cotton (no chemicals, AND it's renewable).  Yes, they do use water (also a renewable resource) and detergent, but there isn't quite the same environmental impact as with disposables.  You don't throw them away, you keep using the same ones.  Even on future children.  Or you can sell them or give them away.  Heck, I've even heard that people will continue to use them as dust rags after their last child is potty trained (obviously after giving them a very good wash!). 

They're ADORABLE! - Seriously.  Have you seen them?  Just search Amazon and you'll see what I mean.  Here are some of my favorites, from Assunta Store:




Sure, it takes a bit more time, since it means 2-3 more loads of laundry each week, but when the cheapest option is also the most environmentally-friendly AND the most fashion-forward?  It's kind of a no-brainer for us!

As of right now, we've decided to start out using some bumGenius one-size 4.0 pocket diapers, along with prefolds from Green Mountain Diapers, and a selection of adorable, adorable covers from Assunta Store.  As odd as it sounds, I'm actually incredibly excited about using cloth diapers!  My husband doesn't quite get my enthusiasm.  He said he feels good about our decision for reasons 1 and 2, listed above.  I think the gap in our enthusiasm is mostly because I'm a stereotypical girl and can't wait for a daughter to make a fashion statement with her diapers, but Glen just can't get that excited about something that is, as its primary function, a poop receptacle.  ;-)

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Do You Read Banned Books?

Ok, folks.  Time for me to be a librarian. 

Here we are, right smack in the middle of Banned Books Week.

 Reprinted by permission of the American Library Association
Naturally, as a librarian, this is something that is near and dear to my heart.  So in the spirit of Banned Books Week, I decided to take a look at the ALA's list of banned and challenged classics to see how many I'd read.  The list consists of the 46 of Radcliffe Publishing Course Top 100 Novels of the 20th Century that have been banned or challenged.

I'm a bit disappointed to report that I've only read 15:

1. The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
2. The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger

3. The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck
4. To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
5. The Color Purple, by Alice Walker
6. Ulysses, by James Joyce
7. Beloved, by Toni Morrison
8. The Lord of the Flies, by William Golding

9. 1984, by George Orwell
11. Lolita, by Vladmir Nabokov
12. Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck
15. Catch-22, by Joseph Heller
16. Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
17. Animal Farm, by George Orwell
18. The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway

19. As I Lay Dying, by William Faulkner
20. A Farewell to Arms, by Ernest Hemingway
23. Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston
24. Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison
25. Song of Solomon, by Toni Morrison
26. Gone with the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell
27. Native Son, by Richard Wright
28. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, by Ken Kesey
29. Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut
30. For Whom the Bell Tolls, by Ernest Hemingway
33. The Call of the Wild, by Jack London
36. Go Tell it on the Mountain, by James Baldwin
38. All the King's Men, by Robert Penn Warren
40. The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien
45. The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair
48. Lady Chatterley's Lover, by D.H. Lawrence
49. A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess
50. The Awakening, by Kate Chopin
53. In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote
55. The Satanic Verses, by Salman Rushdie
57. Sophie's Choice, by William Styron
64. Sons and Lovers, by D.H. Lawrence
66. Cat's Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut
67. A Separate Peace, by John Knowles
73. Naked Lunch, by William S. Burroughs
74. Brideshead Revisited, by Evelyn Waugh
75. Women in Love, by D.H. Lawrence
80. The Naked and the Dead, by Norman Mailer
84. Tropic of Cancer, by Henry Miller
88. An American Tragedy, by Theodore Dreiser
97. Rabbit, Run, by John Updike

The numbers on this list skip because they correspond to their number on the Radcliffe's list, just in case that threw you off. ;-)

I'm still trying to figure out how I made it through nearly 30 years without reading some of the books on this list, yet have managed to read all the D.H. Lawrence novels up there.  Guess I'd better get reading!!!

How many of these classics have you read?

Monday, October 1, 2012

Elvis's Buddy

Sorry guys, no Maternity Monday post today!  Baby-related stuff has been fairly uneventful.  No appointments or progress on the office-to-nursery conversion.  Although I guess today's post is tangentially baby-related.

Not long after we found out we were having a girl, my parents bought some cute baby girl outfits and a toy that Elvis thought was his.  To be fair, it was a doll that rattled and had that stuff that makes a crinkly noise inside it, so can you really blame him?

My mom felt so awful about buying stuff for the baby and not for Elvis that the following week she stopped by and dropped off a big, soft, squeaky bunny. 

He is a big fan of Bunny.

Lounging with Bunny on his bed
A really, really big fan.

Thank goodness for Bunny's foot.  Elvis has never been a fan of the "modesty tail." ;-)


Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Doggy Jail?

Shortly after buying our new car, we learned that Elvis can and will jump from the trunk to the back seat.  This wouldn't be *such* a big deal for the next couple of months if it wasn't for the fact that he sheds and slobbers all over the place, and no one can ride in the back of my car without being thoroughly disgusted and/or fur-covered.

We decided that since we'd need a pet barrier eventually anyway, why not get one sooner rather than later?  I wasn't sure what Elvis would think of his new spot in the car, but I was worried he'd think he was being put in doggy jail.  I decided it would be best to try out the pet barrier for a short drive from our house to the vet's office and back this past weekend.

 

He seemed a little bit confused by the barrier at first, but once he realized he was stuck back there, he went right back to his usual routine of making ridiculous noises while wagging his tail and licking the windows. 

And in case you were wondering, Elvis's annual check-up went wonderfully!


Pretty sure that last comment was because he immediately offered his paw to the veterinarian when she walked into the examine room.  He's such a charmer. ;-)

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