Books are Neat! And other thoughts

After literally months of coveting a chapter here and there when I could, I have done something amazing - I have FINISHED A BOOK! Finished *reading* a book, that is... I used to read constantly as a kid. I would get so into my books that I would not even hear my family asking me to help with the dishes or whatever. They'd have to take the book out of my hands to get my attention.

Then I went to college and HAD to read all day, every day. I still enjoyed it, but that's when I lost the habit of reading for fun. Got back into it after getting married - Slipshod reads every night and practically every trip to the bathroom and seeing him read all the time reminded me of how nice it was to escape into a book.

Then Sweet Pea came along, and it's been quick look-ups in parenting reference books ever since.

But some months ago Slipshod brought home a book for ME from one of his frequent stops at the bookstore, and I ate it up. The book was "Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West" by Gregory Maguire. It was a good read; full of political intrigue and all sorts of dirty secrets about the Wizard and other characters. However, I was unfortunately pretty disappointed with the conclusion. There were quite a few characters and situations set up that were just completely dropped at the end. Perhaps they are continued in the sequel, "Son of a Witch." I shall have to check it out. I've also been given or loaned two more Gregory Maguire books, "Mirror Mirror" and "Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister." My next book report will be in six months to a year. LOL!

I also recently received two cookbooks in the mail, which I ordered, and one of them had such luscious-sounding coffee cake recipes in it that I made one the day after getting the book! And the coffee cake was delicious. The book is the Stonyfield Farm Yogurt Cookbook, and the coffee cake I made was full of apples, raisins and pecans (it called for walnuts but I'm more of a pecan fan) and of course yogurt, so it was absolutely lusciously moist. YUM... For some reason Sweet Pea is not a fan of said coffee cake, but that's okay - that just means there's more for me! Bwa-ha-ha!

Cleaning is going well around here... kitchen's still (er, again?) in good shape, sink's shiny, laundry's kept up with, and today Sweet Pea and I dusted and then I vacuumed while she hid. She's always been scared of the vacuum cleaner. Hope that wears off by the time she's big enough to use it. She had a really fun time dusting, though. I got us "mommy and baby" feather dusters, we set the timer (which she also thinks is SO MUCH FUN) for 10 minutes, and we danced around the house dusting the tables, speaker tops, dressers, etc. We finished the whole house in about 7 minutes. The tough part of the job was keeping the kitties from attacking and eating the feather dusters!

Some number of weeks ago I cleaned off my computer desk in the living room (it had been a HUGE clutter magnet) and although it still collects things during the day, I've been clearing them off almost every night. Usually I am the one responsible for putting said crap on my desk, but yesterday it was Slipshod. I can't believe he left his shit there even after I went all H-Dog on his ass. That man is courting disaster.

Of the groceries I bought last Thursday, I have only used so far what was necessary for ONE of the six menu mailer meals from the Saving Dinner website. Got to get back to that tonight. Going to make a quiche-like thing. The first dinner was angel hair pasta with garlic, parsley, olive oil, sugar snap peas and tomatoes, along with a salad and garlic bread. YUM. Tonight's quiche (they're calling it a tart for some reason) has tomatoes, broccoli, romano cheese, and of course milk and eggs in it - all in a piecrust, as you might expect. sounds yummy. And we'll (well, *I'll*) have a salad as well, or maybe some baby carrots. The meals are good, but I think this is too much grocery shopping and work for me with a 2 1/2-year-old and a baby on the way. But, we'll see... at least I know it's there when/if I DO get to a point when I feel like I can handle all the shopping and cooking.