A Friend I Adore

#30DaysHathNovember

I have several friends I adore and could never pick just one.

Jennifer S. here in California is my oldest friend. We started out as neighbors walking our kids to preschool and now we're raising our teens. And Jennifer started all over by having a baby a couple months ago, lol. She's the closest thing to family that I have here in California.

Dana in Virginia is a fellow recruiting duty survivor, mother of teens, and mother of a special needs child. Without her support, I wouldn't have made it through recruiting duty. Bottom line. No ifs, ands, or buts about it.

Vanessa in Japan is also a fellow recruiting duty survivor. Her sense of humor is out of this world. The Mister and I still laugh over the story of her taking a hammer to her husband's PlayStation and then throwing it down the stairs. She's also my blog's number one fan.

I have other friends through the years that are as equally special and important, but I'll stop here. I'm getting misty and nostalgic. I miss all of my friends who are scattered across the U.S. and beyond. I pick the very best people as friends.

Writing prompt from 30 Days Hath November.

Trying to Connect…Or Not

We’ve been in San Diego over a month now and still haven’t settled in. I don’t know why. I suppose there’s lots of reasons at the top of the list being, laziness.

Our garage is so jam packed full of boxes, both packed and unpacked, both full of packing paper and broken down flat, that you can’t get into it. If you open the door from the house, you can’t step into it. If you open the main, big door to the driveway, you can’t walk into it. It’s spilling into the laundry room which makes it darned difficult to do laundry. It’s terrible.

Another reason is that we’ve been real busy. We’ve been keeping our weekends full of activities. There’s so much that we’ve been wanting to do for the past six years, that it’s hard not to go out and do it all at once, lol.

This past weekend we went to the LA Times Festival of Books at UCLA. I’m sorry I didn’t get pictures. My phone died on the way there and  my car charger was in the other car. :( It was soooo busy that it was hard to walk around and see things. I went into the mystery books tent and once I had my purchases in hand, couldn’t figure out how to get to the checkout because it was wall to wall people, lol. Karen Slaughter was there. I almost had her sign a book but changed my mind. What did I get?

Well, I bought two Skippyjon Jones books by Judy Schachner. Everybody in my house is too old for these books but we find them hilarious and read them anyway, heheh. If you haven’t read one, do. I also got a SIGNED copy of Neil Gaiman’s A Game of You  from his The Sandman graphic novel series. I’m a big fan of his novels but have never read one of his graphic novels. The girl in the booth recommended I start with this one. I couldn’t be more thrilled that it’s a signed copy. And that’s it. Honestly, with two kids and my social anxiety, I had a hard time with the crowds and was ready to leave pretty quick. Oh. And the UCLA campus is pretty great. The buildings have some great architectural elements.

Afterwards, we hit Tito’s Tacos for lunch/dinner. It was just as good as I remembered it being when Jennifer and I went there two years ago. If you haven’t been and find yourself in the Los Angeles area, go.

So, tonight is a Twitter event for San Diego moms. I’m sure others can attend (it’s Twitter. Who could stop you??) but it’s geared towards moms and it’s to promote Kids Fest that’s happening here in San Diego this weekend. I don’t think we’re going because we’re trying to do NOTHING this weekend, but Twitter parties are usually fun and I’m trying to connect with other real life people. I think. I always have reservations about making new friends for lots of reasons. Mostly, I get tired of them or me moving away. It blows. Secondly, I’m a pretty terrible judge of people and some of the people I have tried to be friends with in the past ended up being not so nice people. That’s life I suppose.

Anyway, if you want to join in, the hash tag for the party is #KidsFestSDMoms. If you don’t know how to use hash tags with Twitter, let me know and I’ll help you out. They are having pretty neat giveaways to include family 4 packs to Legoland and Sea World as well as other stuff but you have to attend the party to be entered to win.

Thanks for reading to the end! I know I was longwinded.

Fun Times in Georgia

We had a really good, albeit short, time in Georgia.

The trip down was uneventful. North Carolina to Georgia is VERY boring. The highlight of the drive was driving through Spivey’s Corner, NC. Yes. Spivey’s Corner. We laughed and laughed at the name. There’s nothing there either. It’s hard to tell it was an actual town. Anywho, we left our house around 5:15’ish and arrived at the hotel at midnight. I will never forget Jennifer bounding out of the hotel, very reminiscent of Tigger, in her too cute pajamas and slippers to greet us.

Saturday we got up as early as we could, grabbed breakfast at the Cracker Barrel, Jennifer’s first time, and then drove to a nearby outlet mall that we had seen on our drive down. That was way too much fun. We bought some clothes at the Gap and the Tommy Hilfiger store. Then we bought some new running shoes at the Nike store. I finally have good running shoes!!

After the outlet mall, we drove the rest of the way to Savannah. Savannah is a great city. So much history! The azaleas are in full bloom so there was amazing color everywhere you looked. We decided to take a trolley tour so that we wouldn’t constantly have to find parking and so that we would know what we were looking at. We got off at several of the stops for tours and pictures. We have never taken a formal tour of a city before but it was neat, informative, and something that I would do again.

After the tour was over, we grabbed our car and drove down to River Street for more shopping and dinner. At Pam’s recommendation, we stopped in one of the candy shops and tried the pralines. Oh. My. Gosh!! They were so good. Jennifer and I both bought some to take home. I also bought some caramel chocolate gophers which were also very yummy.We grabbed dinner at a seafood place that had the most excellent crab legs I’ve ever had. They were so juicy that Jennifer and the Mister ended up with butter down the front of them and I sprayed some poor guy as he walked by our table when I cracked a leg open, lol. Dinner was to celebrate Jennifer’s birthday. Her birthday was yesterday but we couldn’t stay through the week so we took her out while we were there. I did the same thing last year in San Diego, heheh.

Sunday, we were up and off to the Shoney’s for breakfast and then we had to head home. :( The visit was too short but worth every minute. On the drive home we took a detour to Parris Island. I hadn’t been there since 1997 when the Mister graduated from boot camp. Parris Island has changed a lot but some things never change like recruits marching everywhere and drill instructors yelling at them along the way, lol. We didn’t stay long because the oldest child decided to pick herself up a bug while we were in Georgia. She was running a fever and right after we drove through the gate to the base, we had to pull over so she could be sick alongside the road. It was so not a fun ride home for her. She’s still home sick with a fever today.

So, that was our trip. I have pictures but I’ll have to post them later. My camera is still in the glove compartment of my car and I don’t feel like running out to get it at the moment. Stay tuned…

Georgia, Here We Come!

I’ve been going nonstop since 6 am but I think I finally have us ready to leave. The car is loaded and I dropped the dogs off at the pet spa about an hour ago. :( It was really hard to leave them, lol. I feel silly about it, but I miss them already. I know they’ll be fine. The people at the spa and the vet’s love them. When the woman took the dogs to the back, they went with her without even looking back and they didn’t even give me a chance to say goodbye. They probably won’t even notice we’re not there. Oh well.

As for the trip, we’re leaving tonight when the Mister and the girls get home which should put us at the hotel around midnight. It sucks, but I wanted to have the entire day there Saturday and the Mister couldn’t finagle any time off of work. It’s going to be a whirlwind trip since we’re leaving to come home Sunday but I don’t care. It’ll be fun and totally worth it.

I have no idea what we’re going to do while we’re there. I hope Jennifer has some ideas, lol. I’ve been so busy all week that I haven’t had a chance to do any research. If anyone has any suggestions of “must see” sights in Savannah, leave a comment!!

We’re not taking a computer with us so I won’t be able to post anything over the weekend but I’ll have pictures and stuff Monday. Tuesday at the latest.

I hope everyone has a fabulous weekend!! I’ll see ya’ll when I get back.

Being Awarded

I recently had two awards bestowed upon me by Bridget at Mama Belly Blog. What a sweetheart! The first one is

."These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers. Deliver this award to eight bloggers who must choose eight more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award."

The second one is

Honest Scrap award:A) First list 10 honest things about yourself - and make it interesting, even if you have to dig deep!B) Pass the award on to 7 bloggers that you feel embody the spirit of the Honest Scrap.

 

And here are my ten honest things:

1. I’m a girl gamer and a nerd at heart. I enjoy MMORPG games, watching shows like Battlestar Galactica on television, and learning about SEO, social networking, and website development.
2. Along the same lines as being a nerd, I get addicted to my gadgets. My new iPod goes with me everywhere including but not limited to restaurants, the car, and my bed.
3. Sometimes I tell my kids that I’m working even when I’m not just to get some peace and quiet in my office.
4. I get tired of defending why I was first a sahm and now why I’m a wahm. If I worked outside of the house, I’d probably have to defend why I neglect my kids, home, and husband. It’s really a no win kinda thing.
5. I got my hair cut and colored the other day and I’m really not sure I like the color.
6. I have chosen some truly lovely people to call friends. My only wish is that they lived in the same town or even state as me. (((Hugs)))
7. I get insomnia and migraines when I’m stressed out.
8. I honestly think that some of my online blogger friends and I would hit it off great in real life.
9. No matter how much I clean it, my desk is always a mess and I have no one to blame but myself which sucks, lol.
10. This was harder than I though it would be.

Now I must choose blogs to award. This is hard but not because I can’t think of anyone deserving but because I try not to pick the same people every time which  I will inevitably do anyway, lol.

• Lady Banana
• This and That
• Musings of a Bookish Kitty
• Tropical Fruit
• What Happened to My House
• 30 Something
• Books Love Me!
• Love to Read

There ya go. If any of you have gotten these awards before, you must’ve really deserved them. ;)

Our Weekend Version 1 Gazillion

I had an awesome Friday night. I attended my first ever virtual wine tasting. How’d it work? Well, at Twitter Moms, there’s a group of Twitter Wine Moms. A variety of wine was chosen for the group and a time to meet up on Twitter. We bought the bottle (or some of us bought whatever we could find. Luckily, I was able to find the suggested bottle.) and then we chatted about the nose, color, taste, etc. on Twitter. At first, I was looking forward to it. Then when the time came, Friday night at 8 pm for me, I was just tired and didn’t care. But once we got started, it was so much fun! It was only supposed to go from 8 to 10 eastern time, but when I signed off after 11, the chat was still going on. As the time progressed and wine was consumed, we totally got off topic and talk of boobs and such started up, heheh, but I still learned a little about wine and I made some new virtual friends. Welcome to Trisha’s Nerdville. I know.

Saturday, the Mister ran in his 10k. This was his second official race and both times he got rained on, lol. Despite being prepared, his right nipple didn’t fare so well, lmao. I wonder if women runners have this same problem since they wear bras? He ran a pretty decent time though and was happy with the results. It boosted his confidence a little as he’s starting to worry about the OBX Marathon in November.

Sunday the oldest child had her first volleyball practice. She had a good time and said that she did pretty good at the skills they were introduced to except for serving. Sometimes, and this is one of those times, I have to wonder how she ended up being my daughter. I hated, and still do, sports and joining in on stuff. She’s a social butterfly. I’m glad she’s not like me in this way. The rest of our Sunday was pretty much affected by my next paragraph.

We got bad news Saturday evening. A friend of ours from Ohio died Friday. It still shocks me to say it. I’ve known Ben since I was ten years old. More than half my life. He was only 36 years old and the cause is still unknown. Almost all my memories of Ben are funny. He told the best stories and could make you laugh no matter what kind of mood you were in. The summer I spent with my brother here in N.C. when I was 16, Ben was there too as he was originally a friend of my brother’s and his wife. We all went to dinner at this Chinese place in Jacksonville called Mai Tai’s. It was amazing that we didn’t get kicked out because Ben was doing this voice and telling these jokes (yeah, they were off-color but what the hell) and we were all laughing so hard that we were totally being obnoxious. I’ll never forget that. He also did a favor for me that summer for which I will always be grateful. The Mister knew Ben before he knew me. They worked together at Donato’s Pizza in Marion and they became friends too. The Mister has lots of his own memories of Ben making him laugh as well. Marion is a weird little town like that where someone knows someone who knows someone else and then they end up related or some weird thing like that. The last time we saw Ben was this time last year in Ohio at our brother-in-law’s funeral. They were also good friends and despite Ben’s profound sadness, he still managed to make us laugh. That was Ben. I’m really going to miss him.

Figure Out Your Own Title

We had a full day yesterday. We had to start our Sunday way earlier than we usually do because we had an hour drive to Jacksonville for the birthday party. We got to see the Camp Lejeune base theater for the first time, lol. Camp Lejeune is my favorite base of any that I've ever been on. You feel like you're on a military base when you're there. We passed a huge convoy and there was another one forming up in the theater parking lot. You just don't get that kind of thing on an air base which is all the Mister would ever be stationed on. Lots of aircraft taking off and landing, but no tank crossings, grenade launching areas, or ammo dumps. I've been coming and going on that base since 1991 and it still doesn't get old for me. They also have a nice exchange which we took advantage of while the girls were watching the movie. We bought ourselves a snazzy flat screen HDTV for our bedroom. It's an inch smaller than our old tv but the screen seems bigger. Maybe it's because it's not surrounded by the huge box our old one was in.

After the party, base exploring, and shopping, we headed over to our friends' house to hang for a bit and to say goodbye. They'll be moving to Texas shortly for a transfer. Hopefully, we'll get to see them this summer but who knows. We have plans to tour Texas but you know what they say about the best laid plans. After ten years, I am heartily tired of saying goodbye to good friends. I have more friends out of state than I do in and they're literally scattered coast to coast.

Anyway, we got home last night around 5'ish, ate a light dinner, and I explored the variety of Twitter spinoffs before hitting the couch to watch The Next Food Network Star. It was good. From the looks of it, someone cries on every episode, lol. Get a grip people. I'm really interested to see how far Shane gets because he's only 19. Wow! At 19 my specialty was a rotisserie chicken from the grocery story and a box of Velveeta shells and cheese, lol.

So, I'm really tired this Monday morning and feel really scattered. I hope at least some of this post makes sense. I'm off for some Cranergy and a coffee bar.

Long Night

Sorry. No BTT today. Not in the mood.


I had so much going on yesterday. That's weird for me, lol. We went out to dinner with a friend and her parents and my friend PICKED UP THE TAB!! How nice, right? I didn't have to cook and we didn't have to pay for dinner. Also, it was good company. I really enjoyed meeting her parents.

I had a really late night last night. I went to bed at 11, tossed and turned until 1:30, got up and checked my e-mail, went back to bed at 2, and finally fell asleep around 2:30 or so. I did the same thing the two nights before that too. I don't understand it because I'm tired all day because I didn't get any sleep the night before, but as soon as my head hits the pillow my mind starts to race and I can't relax. It's a bit frustrating.

I also used Twitter to my advantage last night. I have a little something in the works that I would completely and totally appreciate crossed fingers, good thoughts, and whatever other positive vibes you want to send my way.


My Monday funk lasted through yesterday and I got to take it out on some idiot woman, heheh. She totally ran a stop sign and if I hadn't been looking, I would have been ran over. I yelled some obscenities and she had her window down so she heard everything. What is with some people??


I forgot to mention another product that I recently tried out. I think it's new too since this was the first I had ever seen it on the shelf. It's Febreze Laundry Odor Eliminator.
I have musty towels and they're not even that old. I think it's because my bathroom doesn't have a vent in it and you can't really open the window in the middle of winter to vent out shower steam. So, I tried this in hopes that it would help the situation and it didn't. Maybe musty towel smell is a permanent problem because I've tried other methods of cleaning my towels and they haven't worked either. If anyone has suggestions other than using them in the dog crate, I'd appreciate a heads up.

I read on another blog today of a woman and her family that only spend $250 a month on groceries and they're a family of five. Check the blog post out here: Antithete
I find that amazing. I use some of the same methods mentioned in the blog post, budgeting, having a grocery list, and having a meal plan even though my plan is for a week instead of a month, and we still spend about $400/month for a family of four on groceries. We're having grilled shrimp burgers for dinner tonight so that could explain why our grocery bill is a bit higher, lol. With gas prices driving up the cost of groceries, I really should try and be more frugal and keep the more extravagant meals, like shrimp burgers, to a minimum. I like to cook though. I like having a counter full of ingredients that need to be measured, chopped, sauteed, grated, zested, and combined. It's the nights when our menu consists of fish sticks that I would just rather not eat at all. What's an average monthly grocery bill I wonder?

Warm Fuzzies

Sometimes staying up until midnight and checking my Google Reader pays off. I found this on my most dearest of friends' blog. Isn't she wonderful? It's nice to know that my blog and I are appreciated. Thanks for handing out warm fuzzies.

My Tuesday has been much better than my Monday.

I got what I consider to be a very cool package in the mail yesterday. I got a new external hard drive and a new USB hub. Yay! The hard drive is so huge that I could back up my entire c drive onto it and maybe the Mister's too. I'm not sure how many gb his c drive is. And, now I don't have to keep switching out stuff that plugs into the USB ports on my comp. I have eight (two don't work so I really only have six) ports right now plus the hub has seven more. Yippee!

So, anyway, I didn't go to the ultrasound appointment today. It was of the variety that I didn't want to be in the room for it. However, my friend came over when she was done so I got to see the shots that were printed off by the doc and they are very cool. I've seen so many ultrasound pictures but I think they are neat every time I see new ones. After we oohed and awed over the pics, we went out for lunch. I drove us in the Scion cuz she wanted to check it out. I think I scared her cuz I tend to drive fast in it because it handles so much better than the Rav 4 does, heheh. After all that, we ran a few errands and I came home.

All in all, a busy day for Trisha. Now, I'm getting ready to cook an early dinner because we have to go to the girls' school for an ice cream social tonight. It's to raise money for the art department. I'm tired already and I'm probably not going to get to relax for another three or four hours. Aghh!

Oh. And I still haven't decided what to read next. Does anyone else ever have this problem?

I'm Home Again

I arrived home early this morning, around 2 am EDT. I had the flight from hell on the way home and on the way there, it was worse. Here's the story.

My departure flight was scheduled for 5:50 am. We got to the airport at 5:20 which was cutting it close, I know, but we didn't realize the airport was clear out in the middle of fricking nowhere. I go to the ticket counter and it's closed. The Jacksonville airport is so teeny that US Airways has one person to do everything. The person that does the ticketing also does boarding so as a result, they close the ticket counter 30 minutes prior to take off so that the airline person can do boarding. I've never seen an airport do this, so I had no idea and as a result, I missed my flight...me and five other people. Because of scheduling, I didn't leave Jacksonville until 1 something. In that time, I saw two other US Airways flights depart and they left passengers behind on both of them because of their policy.

THEN, on my return flight, I get out of LAX okay and I arrive in Charlotte 20 minutes early only to sit on the taxiway for half an hour because there was another plane at our gate that was delayed because of backups in New York. Ugh! THEN, on my flight from Charlotte to Jacksonville, we boarded the plane at 9:50 pm and we didn't take off until 11:20!!!! Our plane had indicator lights come on so we sat on the freaking hot plane for an hour and a half. And I'm sick and when I get hot, I start to have uncontrollable coughing fits. I coughed for like 20 minutes until the flight attendant finally brought out water for everyone to drink. I wanted to die.

My whole flight experience was the worst. I've flown many, many times and this was, by far, the most nightmarish and it was also the only time I've flown with US Airways. The only time because I won't be flying with them again. They also advertise their credit card in flight as well. I've never seen an airline do this before. How cheesy.

Anyway, my last night in San Diego was fun. I took Jennifer to Forever Fondue because her birthday is on Sunday. The food was awesome and I had two cosmos that came in full glasses with actual alcohol in them. Fondue restaurants are fun if you've never tried one.

My entire time in California was the best. I can't think of anything that I wanted to do that we didn't do. When we went to Balboa Park in San Diego, we also went to Petco Park which was under construction when we moved, and we drove to Miramar and our old base housing which was neat. I miss our old life there sometimes. Oh. And gas was $3.46 on base whereas it was $3.61 - $3.75 out in town depending on where you are. Here, gas is sometimes one or two cents more on base than out in town which is irritating, but whatever.

All in all, it was a wonderful, fabulous time and I took home tons of great memories. Seeing Jennifer and her kids after almost seven years was the best part. How many people do you know will have you in their home and then drive you all over creation while you act like an insane tourist? We're both hoping that it won't be another 7 years before we see each other again. I'll have pictures up in the next day or two. I'm still jet lagged, not feeling well, and I need to get them uploaded and edited first.

Oh! The Drama!!

It's done. I told Jane everything. I made her cry. I felt like a total turd but it had to be done and I'm not sorry that I did it. I wasn't fair in keeping things in for so long. I know that. But, that's all I'm going to say on the subject. It's depressing and I'm trying to be psyched!! And why, you ask? Because tomorrow is the OSU v. Michigan game!! Woot!! Woot!!

I'm already wearing an OSU shirt and have another picked out for tomorrow. I put up decorations in the house. I hauled out C's buckeye hat and his Brutus. I also printed up a door-sized banner and put it on our front door. See? Nifty, eh?



The OSU, Michigan game is always fun at our house. I just have to go out and buy the food and drinks for tomorrow and we'll be set.

4 or 6 is coming. Hold your horses and keep your pants on. Certain things have to take precedence. Priorities people!

I Have a Problem

I’m not the mean person that I wish I could be. Why would anyone wish to be mean? So that I could say exactly what I’m thinking when I’m thinking it instead of worrying about hurting other people’s feelings. Some people that know me will be thinking otherwise but that’s just because they had pushed me over and beyond the limits of tolerance and they took that brunt of that.

I have this “friend”. I’ll call her Jane. I haven’t known Jane for very long but it was obvious from the beginning that we’re two very different people. Jane’s parents are well off, they have a family summer home on a lake with the Clintons (the actual Clintons. I’ve seen pictures) for neighbors, and her parents buy her things and pay her bills despite the fact that she’s married and 29 years old. I had a very middle class upbringing. The only time my parents have helped out with my bills is when we were teetering on the brink and it’s been quite a while since they have done so. Both of my parents summer in Ohio like regular people do. My neighborhood was very white bread and bologna. These are by no means our only differences but it's fundamentally why I don't think we're compatible.

Jane, from the day that I met her wasn’t shy in telling me what she thinks. I like that in people and don’t consider it a flaw. One thing she said to me was that she doesn’t normally have friends who don’t have degrees. No offense. Well, I was a bit offended but decided to let it go. Then she tells me that all enlisted wives are white trash, tattoo covered, cheat on their husbands when they’re deployed, and uneducated. But lucky me, she told me that I was the exception to that because I like to read, I’m going to school, and I don’t have any tattoos. Score one for white trash everywhere.

Jane also has managed to manipulate me and the hubby in such a way that she’s borrowing our lawnmower (We're not using it anyway, so why should she have to buy her own), my Dean Koontz book (I hate loaning out my books because I never get them back. She’s had it for 3 months now.), our rake, a spare tv we have, and her husband gets free rides to work thanks to mine. At first I thought I was just being a good friend. Now, I want my stuff back and her husband can walk. It’s only seven miles and the weather’s nice enough. ;)

Also, when she calls to talk, I always get the feeling that when it’s my turn to say something, she’s just indulging me until she can get back to what she wants to talk about.

And she interprets things how she wants to. She wants us to run in this marathon in March. This is laughable in itself. Me? In a marathon? Puhleaze. But C said that it sounded like fun. Jane takes this, calls me and says that he’s committed to running in the marathon so I have to also. He never said that. That’s just how she interpreted “sounds like fun”. She does stuff like that all the time. And no matter how many times I tell her that I have no intention of running, (Running. Lmao.) in this marathon, she won’t listen.

My post the other day about being left waiting for three hours, that was thanks to Jane. I was pretty pissed. I blew her off for another outing the next day and ignored her calls. She also wants me to do her makeup for the Marine Corps ball Friday and I was all set and ready to not be home that day. Then she called me this afternoon and I answered. I only answered because I was going to tell her that she needed to come over so I could have it out with her. The conversation didn’t go that way because she told me, before I could get in a word other than “hello”, that her renter is doing the same thing to her that mine was doing to me. How could I not feel sorry for her after the hell that we went through? She also made me late for a doctor’s appointment because she runs on Jane Time.

I could go on because there's more, but this is long enough. I don’t know what to do. I honestly don’t like her and I don’t want anything to do with her anymore but I don’t know how to say it and not be mean. Her opinions are judgmental and offensive and she’s loud, pushy, and self-absorbed. Would you be friends with this person or am I just being judgmental myself? It’s especially touchy because our husbands work together. This is why I don’t like being friends with people he works with. I feel like I'm stuck with her.

Thursday Meme

Thursday meme courtesy of Booking Through Thursday.

Buy a Friend a Book Week is October 1-7 (as well as the first weeks of January, April, and July). During this week, you’re encouraged to buy a friend a book for no good reason. Not for their birthday, not because it’s a holiday, not to cheer them up–just because it’s a book.

What book would you choose to give to a friend and why?

And, if you’re feeling generous enough–head on over to Amazon and actually send one on its way!

Hmm. This one is a head scratcher. I'd buy L Forever Odd by Dean Koontz because she's in the middle of reading Odd Thomas which she stole off of my bookshelf while she was staying with me. And if none of my other book reading friends had read them, I'd buy everyone else Odd Thomas because it's such a good series and they'd appeal to both men and women IMO.

Being a Good Friend

I had the most rude awakening this morning. I heard loud banging, loud enough it was shaking my house. I get up thinking that C had locked himself out of the house (it's happened before) but the car was already gone. After checking all the doors and windows, I can't find anything out of the ordinary. Then I hear M and I go into her room and she tells me that it was Hannah trying to get out of her room cuz she had to go outside. Sheesh!! By this point, I'm wide awake so I don't bother going back to bed.

Now, I'm dressed in my most rattiest clothes waiting for L, my ex-house (notice the "ex") guest to pick me up so that I can go to her new house and help her dig in her yard. You may or may not remember, but I hate yard work. I hate it to the point I pay someone else to care for my own yard. I had even planned on begging off since I'm tired but when she called to confirm, I didn't have the heart.

Yep. That's me. Good friend. Willing to sacrifice some much needed sleep, muscles that aren't sore, and time that could be spent catching up on my homework. Oh. And to top it off, I'm going to have to work with glass stuck in my thumb. We had a cooking incident the other night. My Pyrex baking dish exploded. I'm done cooking with anything and everything made of glass.

Gotta go. L will be here any minute.

Because I Missed It

And I liked the question. This is the Booking Through Thursday question from last week.

There was a widely bruited-about statistic reported last week, stating that 1 in 4 Americans did not read a single book last year. Clearly, we don’t fall into that category, but . . . how many of our friends do? Do you have friends/family who read as much as you do? Or are you the only person you know who has a serious reading habit?

Quite a few of my friends and family read as much as I do. I think that my friend, Dana, may even have me beat as to the volume of books read.

In the recent past, I had a "friend" who didn't like to read and never read for pleasure. We aren't friends anymore and not because she didn't read but because we were too different. Since then, I have wondered if I could truly be good friends with someone who didn't like to read because books and reading are so much a part of who I am.