My Book List

It's 8:40 am and we have already had quite the morning. I woke up feeling pretty yucky. I could barely talk and my throat feels like its on fire. I'm sure its just a bad cold. Kellen has had a cold for a few days and her nose is raw and the skin around her eyes is just painful to look at. Because her eyes are so itchy and watery she has been rubbing them constantly. Now they are so swollen and puffy and red. It just looks awful. I decided to keep her home from school today.

The school bus has been coming 5 minutes early for the past three days. That last 5 minutes is when everything happens. Its when the shoes and coats and gloves and hats get put on, Its when Riley scrambles up on to the couch to wave goodbye and watch them go. Its when I make sure I am at least presentable to walk them out. So, when the bus comes early it is absolute chaos. I ran out one day in my crocs (yard work only!) and one came off in the snow, so there I am barefooted and crocfooted in 6 inches of snow. Can you get frostbite in less than 5 minutes?

Anyway, it came early today, but it was only Jenna going to school, so we were totally ready. I put my little girl on the bus and then went to get OJ and cereal for the other littles and to call my friend to cancel our breakfast date. Then I get a call from my neighbor that the bus had broken down on the way to school. My heart just fell. I hate the bus anyway and now my 5 year old is stuck on a broken down bus and its 17 degrees outside! Its all ok now, another bus came to get the kids and everyone is now at school. My heart rate is back to normal. I'm sure Jenna will come home excited about her little adventure!

According to the weather, we are either going to have another snow day tomorrow or we are going to be getting rain. In case of snow, I have decided to take inventory of all the books I haven't read yet. (I am a compulsive book buyer! I love going to Barnes and Noble and seeing that 30% off sticker!) I have a huge pile and I am now completely excited by all the mental excursions I will soon be going on! Here is the list:

*The Falls by Joyce Carol Oates ~ A young bride remarries after her new husband throws himself over Niagara Falls...tragedy soon takes over their lives.

*The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards ~ A story about a doctor who delivers his own twins - a healthy son and a daughter with Down's Syndrome - and what happens after he makes the decision to have his nurse take the baby girl off to an institution, but instead is raised by the nurse.

*The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo ~ This is actually Kellen's book. It's about a little girl's china rabbit who gets lost and the adventure he goes on.

*The History of Love by Nicole Krauss ~ This was a book club book that I had trouble getting in to, but I will try again. About an elderly Polish man who once wrote a book after falling in love years ago and a fourteen year old girl named after a character in that book.

*The Kindness of Strangers by Katrina Kittle ~ A young widow who has two sons becomes the foster mother of her closest friend's son after that family is torn apart by a terrible ordeal.

*Vanishing Acts by Jodi Picoult ~ About a woman who seems to have a perfect life but begins having flashbacks and then learns a secret that changes her life.

*A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini ~ Hosseini wrote one of my all time favorite books - The Kite Runner. This book is also set in Afghanistan during the time of the Soviet invasion to the post-Taliban rebuilding and is about two generations of characters brought together by the war. The Kite Runner was one of those books that I would NEVER EVER have read if it weren't for my book club, but I don't know how you can read that book and then not be forever changed. I think it should be required reading for humanity.

*The Autobiography of Henry VIII With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers by Margaret George ~ Historical fiction. I am now obsessed with Henry and his wives after reading Phillippa Gregory's books about his wives. What a fascinating time and completely tyrannical man. It makes for some good drama. This book will take awhile since it has 930 pages of very small print.

*Atonement by Ian McEwan ~ The movie is out now, but I won't see a movie if I haven't read the book, so this is now at the top of my reading list! About a young girl whose "precocious" imagination and failure to understand adult motives changes the lives of her sister and the son of a servant.

Now, bring on the snow!