Okay. I know I know. I haven't posted. I am suppose to be keeping this thing up right? Well I have a perfectly good excuse why I'm slacking and it all has to do with books! Mainly the R.I.P. challenge and The Moonstone.

 

I finished it Saturday and I must say I was not expecting to enjoy this book so much. Unfortunately I liked it so much that I read it at work when I should have been working, I read it in bed when I should have been cleaning/cooking, I have even read it in traffic jams on the way home from work. I was so addicted to this book that it has been basically attached to my hand for the better part of last week. I recommend this book to anyone that loves mystery. I laughed, I yelled, I sighed and when I was finished I missed the characters, especially Mr. Betteredge who held my hand for the first part of the book and sadly let it go suddenly. Miss Clack was the next character that took up my hand but by that time I was so prejudiced towards Mr. Betteredge that this Miss Clack, this lunatic religious fanatical evangelist really didn't stand a chance. Can you tell she was my least favorite?

 

I came away from this book with the basic knowledge that circumstantial evidence will do you in if you do not have strong conviction of  your character. Not only that but I can sum it up also as "if you have something to say to someone, SAY IT! Don't beat around the bush!"

 

I may not be making much sense but I'm not very good on book reviews. I'm working on that though.

 

We went to Books-A-Million this weekend and I must say if you have to get out in bad weather, it's nothing like a trip to the bookstore on a rainy day. People were mingling, sipping coffee/lattes/cappucinos, reading, laughing while the weather outside got worse and worse. I almost forgot I was in the deep south and began to feel like I was in some quaint New England town full of literary folks. The bookstore has stocked up on a lot of the classics and I think that after this challenge I will dive deep into them and spend the better part of the winter reading classics. I'm an autumn lover, so BYE BYE horrid Louisiana summer, bring on the cool weather.

I've been challenged! You've been challenged! We've all been challenged. So I'm taking up this book challenge. I'm excited about this and nervous as well. Most of the time I read before I go to bed and I'm a very spook-sensitive person. Here's to many nights wide awake with a racing pulse because I think I hear something supernatural in my living room. My spooky list is located right under my photo album. Take part in the challenge too. You can find it at R.I.P 2006 Autumn Challnge. It's being hosted by Stainless Steel Droppings, a great blog I stumbled upon one day.

I have finally finished the book Memoirs of a Muse. And I must say how happy I am to finish it. Sadly it was a waste of my time but my determination to not give up on anything that I start (including this blog that has no comments) made me trudge through it regardless of the headaches I endured trying to understand and connect with this character Tanya. Some parts of the book peeked my interest like her neighbors who I really wanted to hear more about because I honestly began to wish the book was about them and not about the main character Tanya. More details on the book later.

I would love to sit down and read Memoirs of a Muse in one setting because so far I am intrigued. But.I.Have.Children. Demanding little beings that don't care if I am an intellectually challenged individual or not because they want cereal. So my progress here has been slow moving. Although I haven't made much progress (which worries me because there's other books that are sitting on my nightstand and they are all due back by September 26th) there is one line in the book that I keep thinking about over and over again. It's during a scene where Tanya has first arrived in America from Russia and her uncle and his family host a celebration/welcome dinner for her.  She describes her cousin Dena's husband and sums up their relationship in almost one line "Dena  sat across the table from her husband, Igor, who had grown a bald patch, a potbelly, and a weird habit of stroking Dena's neck all the time as if she were a dog and would've bitten him if he had stopped stroking."

 

It's such a loaded sentence. Is Dena happy? Obviously her husband has changed from what Tanya remembers of him. Is there abuse? Is it a loving gesture that Tanya is not use to? Is this a culture clash such as, maybe in Russia a man does not often touch his wife and vice versa? I have so many questions that I'm hoping will be answered later in the book.

So the newspaper is looking for freelance writers. I'm terrified but I'm going to do it. I just have to come up with 3 writing samples! Nothing I've written in the past seems appropriate. What on earth am I going to do?

So I've been into this blogging thing for little  under a year. I had a blog on Yahoo 360 but the politics and the sheer lunacy of that place scared me. I never kept up with it and my life seemed too busy to actually make a real go at it to blog every day. The idea of keeping a journal has always appealed to me. I've kept a journal since I was 13. I became so addicted to the actual journals and not the actual writing. I spent an unreal amount of some of the most gorgeous journals one could ever come across. The blank pages and the promise they held made my heart race. I would get all excited about writing in it. I figured the sheer beauty of it would inspire me to write beautiful entries full of inspiration and ephiphanies. Ah Ah, didn't happen. I would feel so guilty about buying a new journal without actually filling up the current one that I was using. The older I got, the harder it would become to find the time to write down my innermost thoughts. Especially being that my mind races 100 miles per minute and I very well couldn't walk around with a journal in my hands, stopping every couple of minutes to write down some amazing and deep thought I had. Don't get me wrong there are many I did actually fill up, it's just that I was buying so many of them that I am sure I will pass them down to my daughters, especially my oldest girl who nags nags nagsssssssss me to have one. I've given her one, she's lost, it as well as lost interest on top of losing it. So she's not yet ready to keep up with a journal.

 

I love to write. When I get going on something that I absolutely love and feel passionately about I ramble on and on and on. I know I shouldn't be so hard on myself as to call it rambling but it's honestly hard for me to sit down and post a coherent blog in a form that the reader can understand. Because as I'm typing it I"m thinking if someone does actually stop by and read this post they are going to be like "This woman is a raving lunatic." And I get a lump in my throat because I sooooooooo want to be understood. Don't we all?

 

Anyway that brings me to the admiration and awe I feel when I do read blogs that are coherent, and witty, and funny and ever so uber-intelligent. I absolutely loved Zeldafitz. When she stopped blogging I felt panicked. I immediately began reading all of her archives and was so heart broken that I apparently got the the party late! I still haunt her blog searching for little tiny signs that she may come back. But sadly, it appears that her purpose in life is greater than feeding my noseyness.

 

Mocha Momma is another of my favorites. I came across her blog on MSN Spaces and followed her like a love sick puppy to her new spot.

 

Now you may not know by my description of myself but I'm usually the one that does get to the party late. Due to this vice in my personality, imagine my surprise when I realized that one of my favorite bloggers is apparently some kind of rock-star in the blogsphere! I have been reading Dooce for a couple of months now and am now hooked on her life! Little did I know, she's one of THE most popular bloggers around. I had no idea until I was digging in her archives (which is you can't tell now is a pattern with me once I find a blog that I'm hooked on) and ran across a post detailing an interview that the Washington Post did on her. That struck me as strange so I decided to google her name and when 10 pages popped up I was like what the hell?????? The more I read the more I realized that I had yet again arrived to the party after people had already started hanging from the chandeliers and the police had just left!

 

Anyway, I have vowed to keep my blog updated. If some of my favorite bloggers become curious about who this silent creepy geeky woman is that's haunting their websites I don't want them to stop by and see cobwebs hanging from the corners!

Dear Pink,

I love you sweetie.  You are mommy’s biggest joy in life. And I have always tried to be straight forward and open and honest with you about life and all its glory. But when you looked down my shirt this morning and in front of the entire staff at your day car proclaimed “I like your boobies Mommy!” I was mortified. And when you put the icing on the cake by marching in a circle and in a sing-song voice declared “ I like mommy boobies, I like mommy boobies” I honestly thought about just riding right past your daycare without picking you up on the way home.

 

Love ,

Your Disguise Wearing Mommy