Books Read 2010

2010 Books:

1. The End (Series of Unfortunate Events #13) by Lemony Snicket
2. I Am The Messenger by Markus Zusak
3. Comfort Me with Apples by Ruth Reichl
4. Toddlers Gone Wild! Rants from a Mommy Brain by Rebecca Eckler
5. Shanghai Girls by Lisa See
6. Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay
7. The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein
8. Switchcraft by Mary Castillo
9. Saving CeeCee Honeycutt by Beth Hoffman
10. Girl with The Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
11. The Gift by Cecelia Ahern
12. Restoring Grace by Katie Fforde
13. The Importance of Being Married by Gemma Townley
14. My Life in France by Julia Child

#13 and 14 were good books, The Importance of Being Married was so fun to read, just a light chick-lit book. Julia Child was really cool to read because I saw how much work she did on her book. It did make me feel a little bad that I feel I cook yet I do a ton of short cuts. I guess if I had the time I could cook everything from scratch...

Book #15 currently reading: A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolick

Blogging Challenge #10

Did you build forts as a child?

I was very fortunate as a child in that I lived on 5 acres, we had woods and a pond, a barn, a pool etc. I also had several boy cousins and tomboy girl cousins, perhaps what you get when you live in the country. So needless to say we did a ton of building. Whether it was a raft in the pond or a fort in the woods. We were outside daily, rain or shine, warm or cold. I remember one fort we built, more like a teepee and I believe it may still be up today.

Another impressive structure was built at my grandmother's house (she lived on a farm which is still in our family today), we were giving free reign of the land and we built a 3 story tree-house (well, not full tree house) but we did have an elevator which was basically 2 paint buckets a rope and pulley. The farm had a junk yard where old tractor and car parts, wood, etc was thrown and we'd scavenge that for goods for our fort. It was glorious. I am so thankful that my grandmother allowed us kids to bring all that stuff into her front yard. Yes, the fort was in her front yard, lol. And she even allowed it to be up for a few years till we were over it before asking us to take it down.

I can't wait till my kids are in true fort building age, it was so much fun to do.

Books 2010

2010 Books:
1. The End (Series of Unfortunate Events #13) by Lemony Snicket
2. I Am The Messenger by Markus Zusak
3. Comfort Me with Apples by Ruth Reichl
4. Toddlers Gone Wild! Rants from a Mommy Brain by Rebecca Eckler
5. Shanghai Girls by Lisa See
6. Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay
7. The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein
8. Switchcraft by Mary Castillo
9. Saving CeeCee Honeycutt by Beth Hoffman
10. Girl with The Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
11. The Gift by Cecelia Ahern
12. Restoring Grace by Katie Fforde

Currently reading books 13 and 14.
I can't really assign which one will be which. I started reading "My Life in France" by Julia Child but it's a bit slow so in the meantime I began reading "The Importance of Being Married" by Gemma Townley. I believe The Importance of Being Married will be my 13th book because I am farther along in that one.
I have several more in my cue, but sitting waiting in the wings are:
Jodie Picoult's new book: House Rules
and book club choice: The Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick
and sequal to The Importance of Being Married: The Wild Affair.

Guess I gotta get reading...

Race in 3 days!

My race is in 3 days. I feel pretty prepared for it. I ran a 12 miler last weekend in under 2 hours. I'm hoping I PR this race, ideally I come in under 2 hours for a half marathon, but we'll see. My biggest worry is that because this is a small race they won't time it like they do in the bigger races. That means my PR (if I do) will not be recorded. I guess I'll have my Garmin GPS watch as proof, I'll take a picture if that's the case. Fingers crossed that they have some accurate timing system, and fingers crossed that it won't rain this Sunday as it is forcasted.

Blogging Challenge #9

What's an Easter memory from your childhood? How is/will be your child's Easter celebration different or the same?

My Easter's were celebrated with my grandma and family. I really miss how she would dye easter eggs with each of the grandchildren's names on them and hide them around her house. As each family showed up, us kids would look for our egg. The last families to show up would have all of us watching the kids hunting giving them hints as to where the egg was or wasn't. This year when we dyed eggs, I wrote both kiddos name on an egg each for them.

Blog Writing Challenge #8

What's a movie you can't not watch if you come across it on TV?
Hmm, this is a difficult one to answer nowadays. Being that my tv watching is either a) to catch up on tv shows on my DVR or b) to watch a Netflix movie that has been sitting on our entertainment center for several days, possibly weeks, I don't get much re-watching done. But that said if I did run across a romantic comedy I would have to watch a snipet of it. Some of my fav's are the romantic comedies with Julia Roberts (ie: Runaway Bride, Notting Hill), I really love Love Actually, Princess Bride, 13 Going on 30, etc. Now I want to go to my DVD's and dig some out and have a girly movie fest. I can't wait till my daughter gets to an age where we can have girly movie days. :)

Advertising

I was at the gym running at lunch today and noticed that in the first 15 minutes of my run the tv had shown 3 ads all for chocolate. First ad was for Dove Silky Smooth Chocolate, second ad was for York Peppermint Patties and final ad was for Hershey's Bliss Chocolate. What was funny was on the other tv next to it there was an ad that they want to reduce the amount of sugary beverages at school by putting in low cal options instead. Funny what commercials are playing on tv during the noontime hour.

Body Glide

You know where you didn't apply body glide as soon as you hop into a shower after a long run. Ouch!
This weekend I went out for a solo 11 mile run and I impressed myself, it took me two days to get the motivation to run. I skipped Saturday and went for Sunday. And the best part, for the first 6.65 miles I averaged 10 min miles, at 6.65 I saw my average go to 10:01. So sad, but impressive how far I've come. At this rate I'm up for a 2:14 half marathon. Next week I have a 12 mile run and then the race the weekend after. I'm trying for a PR (under 2:08), hopefully a sub-2 hour, and my idea is to build up the mileage so that come race day I'll be prepared for the endurance of it. I'm also hoping adrenaline will help me on race day get a little more speed. I have been doing one sorta speed workout a week. I've taken it easy because I don't want to hurt my knee like last time. So instead, each week on the treadmill I raise my speed up 0.1 MPH. I'm up to 6.6 miles per hour.

Book #11 and 12

11. The Gift by Cecelia Ahern-What an awesome book, I flew through this one. I loved the story.

Currently reading #12:
Restoring Grace by Katie Fforde

9 books so far this year

I guess I should keep track of my 50 books I want to read this year. I do use Goodreads to keep track and review books.

2010 Books:
1. The End (Series of Unfortunate Events #13) by Lemony Snicket
2. I Am The Messenger by Markus Zusak
3. Comfort Me with Apples by Ruth Reichl
4. Toddlers Gone Wild! Rants from a Mommy Brain by Rebecca Eckler
5. Shanghai Girls by Lisa See
6. Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay
7. The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein
8. Switchcraft by Mary Castillo
9. Saving CeeCee Honeycutt by Beth Hoffman

The two books in bold are my favorites this year. I highly recommend checking those out.

Currently reading #10: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by: Stieg Larsson