Books

I love books. I've always loved books. Even before I could read, having books read to me was my favorite activity. My mom said I would sit and listen for hours, which now that I'm a mom and have kids who have trouble sitting for more than two books in a row, I find amazing. Growing up my mom cursed me with the mom curse, "I hope one day you have kids just like you.", because I would read to the exclusion of all else. Chores, playing, eating, even occasionally sleeping all were second to reading a good book. Other kids might have daydreamed about living at an amusement park, or traveling with the circus, or, like this favorite children's book, living in a museum, but not me. I daydreamed about living in a library. Yep, I really am that nerdy. I had it all planned out, I'd collect change that fell from people's pockets and use it to buy food from the vending machines and sleep on the comfortable arm chairs each night. Ah, yes, it was a well thought out plan *sarcasm*.

Anyway, most people think this is odd, but I like to reread books, a lot. There is a reason for this though. The more I like a book, the faster I will read it, but if I read a book quickly I don't remember it very well. So, anywhere between a month to a year after reading something quickly I can read it again with almost the same enjoyment as the first time. And, after thinking about it I just have a really bad memory, because even after reading a book slowly or even several times if I then wait 5-10 years I will only have a vague idea of the plot and so I can enjoyably read it yet again. There is a series of books that I bought, read, then sold to half price books sure that I would not want to read it yet again and I think I've done that three times now for this same series. Yes, that is crazy.

I love being drawn into a book, being able to experience things I will never be exposed to in real life, learning about characters and their motivations, exploring new lands and worlds. I find it all fascinating. My favorite type of fiction is fantasy, but I like it all. Here are some of my favorites or at least the ones I can think of right now:

Regular Fiction

1.Welcome To The Monkey House by Kurt Vonnegut is a collection of his short stories. I'm not a fan of short stories, but I'm a fan of his short stories. I also love Cat's Cradle and most of his other books too.

2.Catch-22, one of those "school" books that I read on my own and loved. Joseph Heller is a master of irony. One of the only war books I've ever liked.

3. Jane Austen, any of her books. I think my favorite is Persuasion, but Pride and Prejudice is a very close second.


Fantasy

1. The Belgariad series by David Eddings. I can't even tell you how many times I've read these books. They are my comfort food of books, when things aren't going right in my life I read these books.

2. Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series. Only read these if you like to read A LOT. Every book is thick and there will be 14 books when it done. Jordan really knows his craft, he has the most fully realized fantasy world with likable characters I've ever read. I am currently rereading it for the 4th? time. I read it first when I was a young teenager and then I kept rereading them as new books in the series came out because the plot was so complex I had to remind myself what was happening to follow all the tiny details. Then I got really tired of him taking so long to write new books so I took an eight year break. Now, the end is truly in site. The last book will come out October 2011 and rereading them makes me remember why I liked them so much in the first place. The fourth book is when the series really gets good, I mean really really good.

3.Ok, this is embarrassing, but I'll fess up to it I am a closet Stephanie Myers fan. I am blushing in embarrassment right now. I do NOT like the movies, but I do like the twilight books. I don't really like the characters even, although I like Edward more now that I read Edward's version of the story in the unfinished book Midnight Sun. Anyway, it's not the characters that draw me and the story is only good, not great, but the books are just so,... so, gosh darn readable. I can't put them down and then I want to read them again, it's crazy. I liked The Host too. I did like the main character in that one and thought the story was better too. I'm not as embarrassed about liking The Host.

Nonfiction Finance

1. One of my favorite finance authors is David Bach. He has a book for everyone but they seriously overlap in advice so don't expect totally new information if you read more than one. I like Smart Couples Finish Rich and The Automatic Millionaire best.

2. I love The Millionaire Next Door and The Millionaire Mind. They are just SUCH interesting books. They really make you understand the difference between living rich and being rich.

3. I recommend every couple read The Two Income Trap. It is a great book that explains why EVERYONE should have their fixed costs based on one income.

Cookbooks

1.The Joy of Cooking, apparently I need to get this new version. I have the 1997 version and still like it. I read it straight through when I was 17 and learned a TON about food in general along with how to cook it.

2. When I was a senior in high school I worked at a bookstore (shocking I know) and was in charge of special orders. That is where I was first introduced to Pam Anderson because someone ordered her cookbook, The Perfect Recipe. It was amazing, she goes through each recipe and tells you what she tried to make it perfect, what went wrong, what went right and how she ended up with the final recipe. So much information, so interesting, so AWESOME. I also have her How to Cook Without a Book and use it for all my stir fry and stir fry sauces, but it has lots of other great recipes too.

3. My interest in knowing WHY a recipe was good lead me to a love of the PBS cooking show America's Test Kitchen. They have a book of ALL their recipes and information about why they make them that way. I have yet to have a recipe from this book turn out bad.

I'd list other nonfiction, but I don't really read other nonfiction.

Kids Books

1. I'm a huge Dr. Seuss. I love The Cat in the Hat and Green Eggs and Ham and The Sneetches. The rhyming is just so addicting.

2. The Monster at the End of This Book has got to be one of the funnest read aloud books ever. If you like a little drama you will love this book.

3. The Very Hungary Caterpillar is a classic I love. My favorite part has always been turning the little pages of food that he eats.

I love lots of other books too, but this post is WAY to long already. I'm sure I will talk about books again.

Being Sick

Growing up I was a sickly kid. I was always out of school for some sickness, in elementary school I had constant strep throat till they took my tonsils out, then I had appendicitis and in between I had stuff mostly relating to asthma, allergies or some complication of them. Me and my sisters got some really weird stuff too just to make things interesting. I went to doctors' offices so often that I tested out of high school health with only one day of studying. All my prior studying of the many charts and models that the doctors always had in the examination rooms really paid off.

Anyway, most of the time I wasn't contagious, sometimes I didn't even have symptoms, I just "felt bad". My mom did what she thought was best and let me stay home from school and rest. I did not have the best school career socially speaking and often took advantage of that and acted worse than I felt just to avoid school. In high school, after my freshman year, I decided that I was missing out on life due to being so sick. I decided that being sick was not a good way to avoid things I'd rather not deal with, so I said I would not miss another day of school unless I was showing signs of contagion; throwing up, fever, green snot, that kind of stuff. And overall I stuck to that for the rest of high school.

In fact, I've tried to stick to that as a general rule, life shouldn't stop even if you are sick, unless you are contagious and then you should stay away from people for their own protection. It has been a hard thing to follow this past year since we've moved. As a family, we have been sicker this year than any other year. I don't know if it is the stress of moving, perhaps the house, since it wasn't new already had allergens, or maybe it was the crazy winter, most likely it's a combination of them all. I don't think we've gone more than a month since last July without someone being contagiously sick at our house and last month we all took turns every week. This week it is apparently my turn with a cough and sore throat. I am just plain tired of it. I want to live my life as a healthy person with healthy children and a healthy husband. There is nothing I can think of to do to help it though short of shutting us in a bubble. Of course that isn't exactly practical. I hate telling my kids I can't do something because I feel bad. It's even worse when the kids feel bad. It's just so, so...IRRITATING being sick all the time. I try to keep to our usual routine and believe me, I know how fortunate I am that no one is debilitating sick or truly chronically sick, I grew up with that. But I just wish that we'd get over all this and stay well for a few months together. Ok, gripe over.

**EDITED**

Just so you don't think I'm some sort of super lady (I'm far from it) who can do everything even when I'm sick, I only aspire to not putting my life on hold when sickness happens. My house is a MESS right now, my kids watch embarrassing amounts of tv every day and we've eaten fast food too many times to count this month. I'm really tired of that too.