The other day Lily came home from Rumbi proudly accompanied by a huge pink milkshake/slushee thingy

Lily: "Here Mommy, this is to make you feel better."

Me: "Because I've been so stressed? Aw. Thank you."

Lily: "No, no. Because of your chin."

Me: "My chin?"

Lily: "Yes, this will help you feel better about your chin."

Me: "Is there something wrong with my chin?"

Lily: "Yes." [sympathetic nod followed by eyebrow crinkling.] "You know."

Then she pointed to a spot on my chin. Low and behold: a zit. I hadn't even really noticed it.

But Lily had. (And was apparently quite disturbed by it, too.)

Sam always sleeps with his sword.

in case of, you know, aliens.

On the wall at Lily's preschool there are rows and rows of photos with beaming three year olds with super cheesy grins.

and then there's a picture of Lily

This book

was worse than Sea Shadow. And now I Feel. So. Ghetto.

guest book report from David.

in the battle between me and this book

the book won.

(which means david has to read it now. heh.)

guest book report from zina.

Do you have books you won't be able to read?

1) No worries. I'm already so amazed/grateful/awed at how much y'all have done that I don't think I'm capable of getting upset at any of y'all ever again.

2) Could you let me know which ones, though? I've got some yappy research assistants here who are whining about needing more to do.

Guest Book Report!

from Barb.

this booksharply contrasted the boy's thoughts (sex, f-word, i'm gonna punch that guy out) and the girl's thoughts (i'm unsure of myself, that girl is prettier than me, i want to kiss that boy) which kind of ruined it for me.

Guest Book Report!

from my mom.

This bookwas absolutely charming. It is going in my permanent library.

Guest Book Report!

from David.

this book
totally made fun of organized religion, Harry Potter, and Wal-mart. Which means I loved it. A whole friggin' lot.

I think I'm going to have to buy some Glornak the Destroyer stickers now

http://www.sheldoncomics.com/archive/070923.html

(thanks for the link, Jason!)

Guest Book Report!

from David.

this book

would have been freaking amazing historical ficiton, except that it wanted to talk about Jesus more. And that made it suck.

Today at church

we talked about

1) the Golf War

2) Guilding people into doing things.

Or maybe I misunderstood something cuz of the Utah accent thing...

This book

just was.


guest book report from my mom.

But really, what I mean to say is

y'all are totally awesome. We have about 150 submitted book forms! I'm in awe.

What? I'm Scattered? What do you mean?

Hey y'all! a bunch of you came to my house and took some books to read, but because I'm SO SMART, I didn't write down who had which book. if you took one of the books below could you tell me? (these and the ones on the sidebar are the absolute last books we need to read and as soon as I get these read I'll be done!)(also, if you know you're not going to be able to read your book, no worries just tell me so I can sic a research assistant on it. thanks so much, y'all!)

The Making of Dr. Truelove

Lady J (Drama High)

The Melting Season

Demonkeeper

Lobsterland

Maggie's Story

The Death Collector

Goal! The Dream Begins

The Challenger (Phantom Stallion #1)

Goal II: Living the Dream

AutumnQuest

Football Hero

Football Genius

(ps: if you did read one of these, don't forget to fill out the form. it's worth cupcakes, but it's also totally important for my research! xok)

Favorite Academic Journal Article Title of the Day:

"How Jesus Resembles Terminator," published in the Times Higher Education Supplement. (I'm SO going to quote it.)

Don't be fooled by the title

this bookis about love and pool... together.

guest book report from Katrina

Our resident book maven (10 books in 10 days!) has something to say

Dear Editors:

Of the last 10 books that I have read I have found typos in 9 (and it was really late when I read the other, so who knows what I might have missed). Now, I don't claim to be perfect, but your job is to edit. Please do so more thoroughly. If you are afraid you might have missed something, please send the book my way. I'll check it out for you before you send it to the general public with a glaring mistake that would disrupt the reading enjoyment for them.

Thanks,
Katrina

Okay, okay. I can be positive *without* bashing Twilight

this booktotally slays.

Maybe we're getting tired of books?

We've had a few downer book reports, so I thought I'd break into my trove of books I read BEFORE I started giving reports and tell you one I loved.

this book:
was what Twilight should have been.

(all,heck. now the Twilight people are going to yell at me, aren't they.)

Yay for aweseome animal videos!

http://getupandplay.blogspot.com/2009/05/allergies.html

I read a few paragraphs of this book

and when you said someone else had read it, I was just so relieved.

guest book report from Miss Provo.

This book

overreached.

guest book report from my mom.

This book

was just as painful as I thought it was going to be.

guest book report from: Kathryn the research assistant. (as opposed to Kathryn my sister and Kathryn my cousin and Catherine my sister in law.)

This morning one of my research assistants said to me, "Wow... you look like a zombie."

To which I replied yes, but a zombie who feeds on the pain of research assistants.

And to prove it, I made him spend the day writing a bibliography for 200 books using the newly revised MLA format.

this book

tried way too hard to be historical fiction.

guest book report from David.

Okay, this fail was awesome

http://failblog.org/2009/05/20/attempted-murder-fail/

This Book

is probably exactly what would happen if I tried writing a book:
cheesy, forced, and causes readers to roll their eyes throughout. Oh,
except my high school kids wouldn't be having that much sex.

guest book report from Nicole.

I don't want to talk about this book

This Book

would have stressed me out a whole lot less if I could have been sure that the end of the book wouldn't be all anti-feminist by having her give up her powers for a friggin man (a goat-herder, at that).

This Book

was colorful.

This Book's

inherent coolness is only amplified by the fact that there is a sequel (which I'm totally reading)

guest book report from David.

The Oedipus Chronicles: Evening Conversation

Sam: "Hey, Mommy, did you know that when I grow up we're going to get married?"

Steve: "Haha. NO. You can't marry mommy because I already married her."

Sam: [shrugs, not seeing the problem.] "But, Daddy, by the time I'm YOUR age, you'll be so old that you'll be dead."

My favorite part: Even with Steve that old, I'm apparently still young/desirable enough to get married.

This book

Sucked so bad there is no oxygen left for life on earth. (but no worries cuz I'm tough enough to take Jesus on the beach.)

guest book report from Zina.

Oh, geez, I can't believe I'm going to post this

this bookmade me feel kinda lusty.

(SUPER disturbing, because I think the only sex in the book is rape, but ONE the protagonist was really hot (and not the one doing the whole raping thing) and TWO I'm a warped puritanical American, so I blame my culture.)(and, yeah, yeah, BFF. I know you're going to say you blame the patriarchy.)

this book

was great, but it was middle grade, not YA, so I had to toss it out of the sample. :(

this book

has a horse. And a girl. And a badly-written tsunami. And that's ALL

guest book report from David.

this book

was the one of the cutest, nerdiest books I have ever read.

guest book report from Jamie.

For a book where almost nothing happens

this book
was remarkably confusing.

guest book report from Jamie.

This book

was a lot better once the author ditched the Shakespearean stuff.

guest book report from Barb.

This book

is a new kind of shallow. Nerd shallow. But it's not so bad a read,
just not too redeeming, either.

guest book report from Steve.

Can you read a book before June 1?

If so, then whoooopee! There are still PLENTY of books left to read. (See the sidebar.)

(And for those of you wondering, June 1 is the deadline I'm looking at. Two weeks! 40+ books! We can do it, people!)

xo's to all of you.

Just in case you're like me and you can't friggin fall asleep because your friggin brain won't stop obsessing about how exactly the needle in your

sewing machine manages to connect with the thread in the bobbin.

the animated diagrams on this site will help you

Morning Conversation

Sam: "Mommy, why do you call me your baby?"

me: "Because mommies always think their kids are their babies."

Sam: "But I'm not really a baby, so you shouldn't call me that."

me: "Oh."

Sam: "See, I'm practically a *man.*"

me: "practically."

Sam: "So, not a baby. Okay?"

me: "k."

13 reasons why NOT

guest book report from my mom.

Oh, no! I secretly have a (half) brother and he's a movie star!

This book

will make you try to talk to dead people. (until your husband catches you. then you'll just lie and say the TV was on.)(BTW: no one will talk back.)

Books that will fill you with self-loathing and/or pure loathing that might make you want to blow your brains out

Like this one:
reason you will feel self loathing: because once you wrote a sentence that bad in a draft of one of your books and just the fact that you might have something in common with this book is enough to make you dry heave.

page you will feel this self loathing kick in: somewhere between 2 and 4 (or maybe when you read the flap copy. it depends how you feel about passive voice.)

or this one:

reason: seriously. that premise? go read about it on Amazon. you'll feel morally bereft just by knowing what the book is about. but the worst part? (and the source of the self-loathing) the book is so damn well-written that you'll laugh the whole damn way through. you'll look forward to reading it. it'll get you all interested. and then you'll think, "waaaiiit. if this book has no morals and I like it... what does that SAY about me?!" and you'll want to make an appointment with your bishop to discuss your lack of a soul.

page number loathing kicks in: around 120. i.e. the first time you have to get up to pee and then you realize that you're desperate to get back to reading the book.

Oh, geez. Cuz she NEEDED a bigger head

Miss Provo is apparently going to be in some magazine.

Katrina Saxton!

I finally checked my voicemail! I'd love you to read. Choose any book from the list on the sidebar! (And now that I've outed you for reading my blog, you can leave comments and officially not be a blog stalker!)

xokx

Guest Book Report!

from nicole.

This book

made me want to travel through Europe and kiss boys on top of the Eiffel tower and ride in a gondola and eat all of the yummy food. It makes miss high school crushes and first kisses and makes me happy I didn't "go to Vegas" in high school.

PS I'm sure I'm tempting fate here, but both of my books were awesome. Hopefully my next few will be just as good.

It's a rave, people!

Chalk this one up to books that I misjudged by their cover. I loved it. Loved Maggie Quinn. She was like I was in high school, only WAY MORE awesome.

One peeve: why do librarians classify books like these in "horror?" It was more like Buffy the Vampire Slayer than Freddy or someone with a chainsaw. I had the same problem with the Wicked Dead books. They weren't really what I'd call "horror" and I think people who don't want to read about serial killing chainsaw blood/guts stuff are missing out on some rocking books!

This book

had a plot.

This book

didn't.

If you want to read a book but your library is too slow with your inter-library loan

(and this has happened to a lot of the watchers! which is a bummer!)

I made a long list of books that still need to be read on the side-bar. If you want to abandon waiting for your book to come, feel free to choose one of the books on the side that your library *does* have. Then once you have it, let me know and I'll take it off the list!

Thanks, y'all.

PS: it's not too late to read a book and get some cupcakes! I've got about three more weeks I can play with. You could read enough for a lot of cupcakes in three weeks!

Steve and I spent all day here:

aka: my old high school. the one I dropped out of. (yes: I have no high school diploma. I do have graduate degree(s). long story.)

it turns out that the school (the whole district, I guess!) is on George Bushie's NCLB "Bad" list. which is hilarious to me. not sure why. but it does explain a few things about my odd high school memories...

anyway. we were gathering data. on cover-likability. and a few things were amazing:

1) how much facial hair some of the kids have
2) also pimples. steve wants me to mention the pimples, but honestly, I didn't really notice them. maybe because I had a bleeder on my own forehead and I was self-conscious.
3) how everyone looked like they were the same age as me and yet, they all somehow seemed to know without even asking that I was very, very old.
4) how hard teaching five periods in a row is! Geez, y'all high school teachers work like CRAZY!
5) did I mention about how I felt so old? very, very old?

Glad I'm out of high school.

Afternoon Conversation: lunch with my mom

my mom: [gets out of the car] "You have to ask them to seat us because you're cuter than me and they'll give us a better seat."

me: "Oh, geez. Whatever."

my mom: "It's true! I've been fat and I've been skinny and people are nicer when you're skinny."

me: "You've always said that, but I've been fat and skinny and people treat me exactly the same. Even horny middle aged men don't treat me any nicer."

my mom: "Well, that's just because of the way you dress."

me: "What's wrong with the way I dress?"

my mom: "Nothing. But no one will hit on you if you dress like that. You should dress like Miss Provo."

me: "But Miss Provo dresses all slutty!"

my mom: "ExACTLy!"

[pause]

my mom: "See, you dress like you're a mean feminist. It gives off this whole vibe that says, 'Touch me and I'll BREAK YOUR ARM."

me: "What are you TALKING about?!"

my mom: [flinches] "Please don't break my arm."

You know how sometimes you finish a book and you realize that you sorta enjoyed the last half and you even smiled once (and felt a bit warm) and then

you're filled with all this shame and self-loathing and you wonder WTH happened to your literary values?



that.

Swine funny. [with swear words...]

http://editorialass.blogspot.com/2009/05/more-swine-flu-humor.html