Goodbye

This is so sad. It is sad that on ending this project, I am not sad. I thought it would be bittersweet and that when it was over I would walk away knowing I tried my best. Instead I am closing this book knowing that once again I did not finish something I set out to do. Oddly, I am not down on myself for that. On the contrary, I feel empowered because I chose not to continue with this when I realized that it was no longer beneficial to me.

Pressuring myself to read a quantity of books was really silly. Books are not like that. I may still have book challenges in my future, for instance maybe I will read all of Proust. But putting a time limit on a quantity of books isn't paying respect to the work, the author or yourself.

It has been a year since the invention of this challenge; the purpose was to see that I could accomplish something. I did. I dealt with the tragedy of my dog's heart condition, I gave money to charity and it felt amazing, I survived another Christmas in Miami, I bought a car, I poached my first egg, I went to Boston and strolled through Harvard, I started recycling, I got 2 internships, I got a year closer to graduating, and the greatest things I did this year is I learned that I am fine. I am not what I do or a product of my failures or successes. I guess that is it right there, this book challenge taught me that if I don't finish something, nothing changes. I am no better, I am no worse, I am only who I am, and that is enough.

Almost over

I have read a dozen books and not even recorded them, yikes! I am taking it as a good sign though; like maybe I have lost and then found my love of reading this year. I have been so busy. I can't believe there was a time that I had enough free time to even consider reading 100 books.

62, 63, 64

Wow, I have been reading and not even sharing it with you, that pretty much signals then end, yes?

62. Heart of Darkness
63. Things Fall Apart
64. The Stranger

I am sorry, little project, I am a fickle lass, but we had a good couple of months.

One month from now it will be a year, can you believe it? I whole year already!

61. The Fever-Wallace Stone

OUCH! I hate being faced with things that make me re-think my whole way of life! Since reading this book I have not been able to make one single decision without thinking about every ramification of that decision. Do I eat cheaply, healthfully or organically? Grocery shopping brings about a existential panic attack. Every decision I make seems wrong, for the wrong reasons. I don't know what to do with myself, I rue the day I met my Cultural Imperialism teacher, how dare he remove my blinders.

The Fever

60. Coming Home-Rosamund Pilcher

Almost 1000 pages of World War II, English Cottages, and Cornish towns, yum! I throughly enjoyed this book and if felt like a good cleanse from rushing through so many others.

I am back in school this semester, and on top of my insane school, work, internship schedule, I am taking a 7 week course on Cultural Imperialism, with this course the required reading in in the realm of 50-150 a night. So I have been reading, a lot, and fast, just not for this project. that makes me a little sad, but let's face it, we all know my heart hasn't been into it since January.

Book Project Guilt and Acceptance

I do feel super duper guilty about neglecting my little project, however, it was a bit of a calculated neglect, so I have come to terms with everything.

I am reading a big fat Rosamund Pilcher book and various others. I just got back from Boston and all the used book stores were just divine. They inspired me, but the opposite direction from my 100, they helped me remember the importance of that one good book.

59. Ernest Hemingway: Rediscovered and 60. A New Earth

This book was mostly photographs of Papa looking macho with his leather vest and rifle on knee or at the helm of his boat practicing his own brand of politics. I can't help myself, I love this guy. I am glad he isn't a law maker or in charge of governing the world, but I sure am glad he existed.

I haven't completely abandoned my 100 book quest, but I have been very sluggish about my discipline for finishing up anything. I did read A New Earth again, but it just wasn't the same, I was hoping that every time I picked up this book I would be overcome with the urge to clean, like I was the first time. It was not so. Either way, it counts.

I am still lumbering through 5 or so books. We will see what happens.

I am trying to study, really I am...

How can I focus on creating audit trails for medical records with this looping in my head?

Finals

Hello. I can't believe it is time for finals already, this semester just flew by! That means that July 4th is right around the corner and I am screwed. C'est la vie.

My current reading situation hasn't changed all that much.

Dreams from my father- Barak Obama: I am about half way through, and though, I am very ADD when it comes to my presidential candidates right now, I do really enjoy his writing.

Spring Snow- Mishima: I am over half way through with this book, and the story doesn't really seem that incredible, but the prose is so rich and just different from any other that I read it really slow to savor it all.

Book about Hemingway: I am almost done, and I know, Hemingway is an overpraised misogynist blah blah blah. I tell you, I don't care. I adore him. I like his raw, un-flowery style, his silly machismo and his leather vests.

A New Earth- Yeah, I am reading it again, and I will count it again, so shut up.

Brave New World-Aldous Huxley: I barely started it, so far, I am not into it, yet.

Coming Home-Rosamund Pilcher: It is springtime, I need my fix of my special lady. She is the opposite of Hemingway, flowery flowery flowery.

58. Booked to Die-John Dunning

This book has been on my reading list a long time because it is about a tough, gritty detective that is also a collector of antique books. The book selling parts of the book were interesting and it was cool reading about the competitive cut-throat book scouting world, but some of the dialog and phrases were appalling. I may read the second book in the series-Bookman's Wake, but only because I bought it and I feel a certain obligation.

Speaking of certain obligations, that is also why I am still keeping track of what I finish here. But make no mistake, I have all but accepted failure in regards to the 100 books. I feel great about it though; no more guilt when I peruse my favorite magazines or, heaven forbid, just want to play a video game or watch a movie.

I can linger over one sentence for an hour and even make the decision to just stop reading a book if I don't like it. When I was so concerned with the numbers, I would beat myself up for not finishing a book if I already had committed 50 pages; after all, those pages could count...

So today, I am going to enjoying cleaning up my apartment, test my hand at Risotto, go to the market and buy veggies for the week, and IF I feel inspired I will do a little lounging and slowly read a big, fat, wordy novel.

57. Entre Nous, something something inner french girl

I read this book a long time ago, and there was a recipe I was trying to find, so I just re-read the whole thing. And that my friends, is why this "challenge is a total bust" I will do pretty much anything to just rack up a number. I have a huge stack of neglected magazines just rotting away, and I have even tried to devise a way to make them add up to a book somehow. Surely, my J. Peterman stack counts for at least 2 books.

I wanted to measure a year in books, and I still think that that is a wonderful idea. I remember my 11th year perfectly because my best friend Rhonda and I read the first 3 Dragonlance books. I have no idea how long it took to read them, but I remember laying on my couch in our dingy apartment above a store, pretending it was a tree house and that any minute I would set off for some big adventure. As a teenager, I read all of De Sade, The Decameron and Geek Love by Katherine Dunn all in the same year, a year that I was determined to seek after the seedier elements of my tiny southern town. At 21, I discovered my love of all things WASPY with The Secret History by Donna Tartt and Franny and Zooey by Salinger. My mid-twenties were consumed by Proust, Baudelaire, Rimbaud and Against the Grain by Huysmans.

I was crazy to think that a year could be measure in the amount of books I read instead of the content of the books I read. When I look back on this time, I will remember that I read a few good books, Middlesex...I cant really think of any others of hand, but I know I read a few good ones in a row.

Everything but books

I have been reading my mother's hand me down Woman's Day magazines, my favorite blogs: Peterman's Eye and Pink of Perfection , I have been re-reading some old books here and there, and I have been watching many a subtitled film lately. That being said, I am in the middle of seven books and I am not really enjoying any of them, I am re-reading 2 that I will absolutely count towards my 100 IF i finish them, this doesn't bode well. I have reading ADD. If I could harness this voracious reading in one direction, I could actually finish a book or two more, but, alas, I can not be tamed.

56. Chocolat-Joanne Harris

This book was very similar to the movie, sweeping scenes of grinding spices and folksy French people hanging out with the gypsies. I love it, I watch that movie over and over, it makes me want to go buy a billowy red trench coat and traipse though the hills.

54 & 55

54. Cradle and All-James Patterson: this book was another quickie. I really don't have much to say about it either. It wasn't bad, but again, it has already begun to fade from my memory.

55. Wear More Cashmere-Jennifer "Gin" Sanders: I am such a sucker for these types of books. This one was great with helpful tips on where to search for antique monogrammed linen
and how to make your undies minty (tea packets). There were also the usual lame tips on how to keep a dream journal and a perfumy bath , but my favorite tips were the awful ones, like: get a glamour shot and building a throne room.

Wear More Cashmere did give me plenty of ideas for decorating and reminded me of my old obsession with other people's initials on my stuff. There is just something about mix-matched silver with dozens of different monograms, it makes me feel like I am descended from silver thieves, a feeling I cherish.

53- The Body Farm-Patricia Cornwell

I read this book in a day, so that felt pretty satisfying, but there is nothing memorable about it at all. In fact, it is already blurred with other killer books I have read, but it was nice while I was doing it, that's what she said.

52. Marvel 1602-Neil Gaiman

I am pretty sick of several of the books I am reading, so I keep getting half way through one book(Mishima). Then I pick up another(Obama)and I get about half way again, and decided to pick up yet another. All the books I am half way through are good, Mishima is fantastic, but I don't want to be distracted while I read it, so I put it down until I am completely focused, but I never seem to be completely focused. So I need to slip in easy reads sporadically.

Last night I picked up The Body farm-Patricia Cornwell. I have never read any of her books, I read 80 pages before bed, I like that immediate gratification right now.

Spring Break!

I love free time! I have been cooking and taking pictures. I cleaned my apartment until it sparkles and today one of my good friends is coming to town for sushi and girl talk.

In light of all this excitement, I haven't finished even one book. Whoopsey-daisies. But I am almost done with the Marvel book, so that is something.

Here is my to-do shelf

Guess what?

I got a camera! I am so excited about taking pictures to accompany my mesmerizing stories. Sadly, I have no stories to tell at this moment. But here is a really ugly picture of my dog.

Midterm Hell

It is Midterm season around these parts so instead of spending my days lounging in the lovely breezes I am drilling my brain with details that will be quickly forgotten the moment I turn in the exam. I have an exam in 2 hours and I am bored to tears with the subject matter. I can't wait until it is over!

I have been reading bits and pieces of Chocolat, Spring Snow and another book about making friends. I am all over the place these days!

51. The Secret-Byrne

I am on a bit of an Oprah book kick, oh well. I thought part of this book were super hokey. I wouldn't say mumbo jumbo because I think that it is always a great thing to remind someone that they can still be whoever they want when they grow up. If you are like me, and can enjoy a self-help vook for what it is, then it is good. I thought it was just fine.

My spring break is coming, it is the last big push before my home stretch (not really, but I always thought that spring break could turn things around if I got hell bend on reading my 100) I am into it again, like I said I might be. I am visualizing myself finishing my 100the book on July 3rd at 11:59 pm......

50. Deceptively Delicious- Jessica Seinfeld

I read every word of this books, so hell yes it counts. If you read my other blog at all you will know that I have a habit of consuming 30+ muffins and other baked goods a month. I am a junky. So I think it is high time that I start making all my own by scratch and even fix them up with some squash and carrot purees to help my peepers and all my precious body parts.

This is marketed for women with kids, but if you eat tons of crap food and have a boyfriend that turns his nose up at anything remotely healthy, it can still be a great addition to your kitchen repertoire.

49. A New Earth- Eckhart Tolle

This is me on a bandwagon. I thought this book was incredible. I don't have a ton to say about it though, it is a remarkably personal experience and I am not really sure what I would say about it, but I do know that I can't stop cleaning my house. It is true, since the moment I started reading it my apartment has become spotless. At 8 this morning, I mopped. I have never mopped.

I have been trying to get through some other books as well, but things are very slow going. I feel like doing everything else in the world BUT reading.

I picked up Chocolat by Joanne Harris today, I loved the movie, so if that is any indication, it will be very sweet.

48. The Reader- Bernhard Schlink

Just when I made peace with not reading books for speed, I read one in a few hours. C'est la vie. I couldn't put this book down. I had been in the mood for a classic or some old Goethe or Hesse, so this was perfect. It was sensual, erotic, philosophical and just a bit awkward, just like I like'im.

No I am going to go watch a bunch of foreign films because I am in the mood.

47. Under the Tuscan Sun

Almost to 50, though I have to say that the numbers are becoming less and less important to me. I actually feel silly for counting. What a silly little thing to do, count your readings as though it matters. Then again, that is today, tomorrow could look different to me.

I really liked Under the Tuscan Sun. I was surprised of how different the people were in the book than in the movie. It really was like 2 different stories about buying a villa in Italy. I think I enjoyed the story of the movie better, but liked reading the book because you get the inside look into the recipes and choices of Frances Mayes. I love reading about houses and starting over and cooking, so this was my type of book for sure.

I am reading bits here and there of several books. I am not sure what I am focusing on next. I am reading A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle. I know how most of my friends feel about the Oprah. But I picked up this book and was surprised at how un-fluffy it was. I drew me in and I am totally going to take the online class with the big O herself. Judge away, when I am enlightened and walking around on my bliss cloud, who will be laughing then? Not me, because that would be ego, but someone will find it funny.

Me and Floyd

So this guy, Floyd, did the 100 books in 365 days challenge to himself and we have chatted about the highs and the lows and this was our most recent discussion:

Floyd: How are you doing?

Me: I am not even to 50 and so the months are flying by now. I hate reading right now. I hate feeling like there is a microscope on my reading. I hate people who think the amount of books one reads means anything. I feel like an idiot for even doing this. What a dumbass measure of self-worth.

So does that tell you how I am doing? More and more I think of throwing in the towel and reading 1 book for the rest of the year, maybe the same book a few times. I think it would be better to know 1 book intimately than 100 without absorbing a thing.

But ask me tomorrow and I may read 4 stupid mysteries to feel like I did something

Floyd: Oh my god you do not know how relieved I am to hear you say that!! I mean I'm sorry you're going through those emotions, but at the same time it comforts me to know that someone else is going through those same thoughts and feelings and I'm not a freaking looney after all.

I am literally disgusted with the thought of reading at the moment. And most of the stuff I read during the challenge?? I wouldn't be able to give you a decent summary for more than half of the books I read...even the ones I really liked! Whoever thought up this challenge was a moron.

Me: Yep, I feel dumber for having read 40 books in 6 months.

I just finished Under the Tuscan Sun and I read it in 2 weeks. That felt good. Screw that 1 book every 3 days crap.

Not looking good

I read 6 books in January, alas, the snowball is growing. Not to be a glum chum, but things are not looking good when it comes to reading 100 books before July 4th. I am going to keep on keepin on, but school is so busy right now and I just don't see catching up from this distance behind. To put it in perspective. I have read 46 books since July 4th, I will have to read more than that, and I just don't see that happening.

Maybe several 500+ books weren't the best choice at the beginning. I don't feel defeated though, I still have a graphic novel, several books that I am half way through already and some skinny little classsic, so who knows maybe I will make it yet.

45. Sight Hound-Pam Houston and 46. Statistics for Dunnies

I bawled all night after I read this book. It was about an Irish Wolf Hound that has cancer and the lives he touches. The book wasn't great, but the chapters that are good are fantastic, and it is worth reading for those. My favorite chapters were the ones narrated by Dante the Wolf hound.

She wasted so much time trying to act perfectly, trying to guard against the loss, always fearful of making the mistake that would lead to it. My job was to love her in her imperfection, and I did. Even when she left me alone in the car for hours, even when she accidentally closed my neck in the automatic back seat window, even when she came home smelling like another dog. She calls me a miracle: eventually she believed that I loved her, beyond a shadow of a shadow of a doubt.-Sight Hound by Pam Houston

46. Statistics for Dummies, it counts damn it, I read it cover to cover, so shut up.

Type A

So my type A personality has been rearing its ugly head lately. I have been having heart palpitations, not sleeping very well, and my mind has been racing over things that shouldn't merit a second of my time, let alone a day or a week. It makes me angry. I want to be the kind of person that gets pissed, takes a run, drinks a cocktail then sleeps like a baby. But instead I have a tendency to let things bother me, I mean really bother me. Like gasping for air in the middle of the night and jumping six feet when someone knocks on the door. It is outrageous. I know I am nuts, but that doesn't make anything less uncomfortable.

So I am not reading a lot. I am nearing the end of Sight Hound by Pam Houston, but her main character "Rae" is so much like me that it is creepy. My boyfriend even looked to see where she was from (not NC or PA) just to make sure she hadn't stole my personality. The rest of the book is kind of weird and focuses on all her relationships with her quasi-gay boyfriends and gay colleagues, again very much like times in my life. She even had a boyfriend named Adam that tried to look like Yanni...me too! She is obsessed with her dogs, has so many mommy and daddy issues you lose count and she walked around with a dead bird in her pocket because the feathers were pretty. (yes, okay, shut it, it was a long time ago.)

44- The Murder Stone-Charles Todd

Oh my god i am not even half way frikkin done with this frikkin reading thing, JESUS! Those are my only feelings right now. Next year I will see how slowly I can read 1 book.

Crazy Old Lady

I was just on the phone with my mother, she was in the middle of making a mashed potato sandwich and watching Becker...ahhh to be 70.

43. Flu

Flu:The Story of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus that Caused it by Gina Kolata (get a load of this chick's name....if you like Gina Kolata...)

This book started off very interesting, or maybe it was just fascinating to me because I have an obsession with pandemics and pestilance in general. I always have been interested in these mysterious mass murderers, even as a child I carried around books about the plague. So I loved the telling about the droves of sick folk lining the streets of Boston. However, somewhere in the middle this book got muy muy BORING! It redeemed itself a little at the end, but it was all down hill, and guess what? No cause, no place of origin, it is coming for you one day, beware.

I am very far behind unless I can read 8 books in the next 2 weeks.

42-Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

This book was wonderful. The story was sweet and tragic in places, but all the characters were endearing. The prose was so beautiful that I ended up reading it really slow and savoring it, but I got sucked in last night and stayed up way too late reading.

It stinks that I am behind in the project because when I read books like this, I like to let it settle in my head a little without distraction. But time is ticking on so I must keep reading.

I am a little over half way in a book about the Flue of 1918, and I am starting Dreams from my Father by Barak Obama and Spring Snow by Mishima. I think I am supposed to read 8 or nine more books this month, HA! That is a funny joke.

Sunday Sunday

Caveman Porn

I went into Valley of the Horses by Auel with excitement after enjoying Clan of the Cave Bear so much, but, alas, I am not wading through 500+ pages when I am rolling my eyes on page 75. In Clan there were few sex scenes and they were nondescript and quick, these are just too much for me. They are silly. If I wanted porn, I would read porn. I know a few of my friends swear by these books, sorry, they just aren't my cup of tea.

The lines that did it: (keep in mind that this is page 3 of the same sex scene)

When he heard her gasping in quick pants, he raised up, still kneeling so he could control his penetration, and guided the head of his engorged organ into her untried opening. He gritted his teeth for control as he pushed into the warm, damp, tight well.

There is absolutely a place in the world for a dirty story, but this project is not that place.

BK 41 The Italian Secretary

This was supposed to be book 11 way back when, but it sucked so I put it aside and read a chapter here and there when I could muster up the will. It sucked bad. It was so dull and I read it in such a gappy fashion that I have no idea what happened. What a disaster.

School is back.

Well, it is that time again and I did not make as much progress as I make have liked during my break, but who out there really cares? I mean really, am I going to be disowned if I read 88 books, or 75 or 50? I am not even sure if I will conjure up anger for myself. I mean after all, I am on the Dean's list at FSU after my hard core complaining about how tough last semester was. So I think that making the Dean's list, and reading 40 books in 5 months is fucking awesome. If I can do as well for the rest of the year who gives a crap if I don't read 100 exactly.

And that is why I do not feel the slightest bit of guilt for my newest Netflix indulgence. I am watching during the times I used to reserve for reading, I wonder how this will pan out. Tonight it is Pilsner and The Boondock Saints, yay me.

Politics

91% John Edwards
91% Barack Obama
88% Hillary Clinton
84% Chris Dodd
82% Mike Gravel
81% Joe Biden
78% Dennis Kucinich
77% Bill Richardson
48% Rudy Giuliani
35% John McCain
28% Mike Huckabee
28% Mitt Romney
27% Tom Tancredo
17% Fred Thompson
13% Ron Paul

2008 Presidential Candidate Matching Quiz

Multiple Partners

I was chatting with my very observant and astute friend about how I WAS worried about finishing this project, but how NOW things seem fine because I have all the way until July and I am already at 40 books. Lucky for me (sarcasm), my friend pointed out that that meant I HAVE to read 10 books a month now. I don't know why I was thinking my timing was going so well, originally I had planned to read 10 a month, but that put me way over 100 at 120, so as I got behind, in my head, I was still ahead. But now, of course it makes sense that at 20 behind my original schedule, that actually makes me on schedule to read 10 a month from here on out. Crap.

So this means that I have to read more than one book at a time again. It wouldn't be such a time issue if I would stick to skinny books, but alas, that does not make me feel good about myself. So yes, I may be reading 5 500+ page books all at once, but I do tend to finish more books in a timely fashion that way. And odd as it may seem, it turns out that I read more while I am in school than on break. this is all thanks to the bus system, and long breaks between classes. When I am on break I feel that catching up on my dvd's, learning how to make borscht, and finally painting that ugly bookcase much more pressing.

Middlesex is still my main book; it is beautifully written. I am so stoked that I have been reading such good books all of a sudden.

School break

I have had too much time on my hands, I feel like this:

25 degrees in FL!

Are you kidding me? I complain to my long lost loved ones still roughing it in my native land of the Pennsylvania rust belt that I long for the cold. I passionately go on about the winter being in my blood and my desperate need to wear layers upon layers just to get the mail. I tell my friends in North Carolina that "people in Florida are so wimpy, it gets down to 60 and they pull out their faux fur and Uggs". Well my virtual friends, I think that it has happened. I am now a Floridian. I shiver in 50 degree weather, and this morning I was audibly moaning as the wind ripped through my soul when I took the dog out. My best friend lives in Boston where it is a ghastly -11 this morning, but I can't muster up the sympathy because I can no longer understand a cold THAT cold. It has to be a lie, surely humans can't survive that kind of weather.

So on to the books.

We face up to awful things because we can't go around them or forget them, or forget them. The sooner you get it over with, the sooner you say "yes, it happened and there's nothing I can do about it" The sooner you can get on with your life. You've got children to bring up. So you've got to get over it. What we have to get over, somehow we do. Even the worst things." The Shipping News- Annie Proulx

I think that The Shipping News is going into my favorite-read-over-and-over book pile. I love the harshness of it. It is cruel and cold and about as non-romantic as you can get, but it is joyful and comforting in the end. I think I am adopting Agnis Hamm as my conscience. I want her bossing me, telling me to buck up, and getting me a cup of tea with sugar and milk.

Middlesex by Jefferey Eugenides is next on the agenda. It's not much thicker than Shippinng News, but I don't think it is going to be a quick read. I snuggled in to bed with it last night and read about 25 pages and the prose was so beautiful that I was doing a great deal of lingering over each page. But as I have been saying lately, it is about the books, not the speed. that doesn't mean I won't slip in a few skinny books on the side, but it does mean I am not going to rush when I need to savor.

When I started this blog way back when, I intended to add a bunch of pictures, but my digital camera broke last summer. So sorry if this is the plainest online journal you have ever seen. I am hoping for a new camera in my future. I will try to be better, but that is not a resolution.

I am so excited. I joined Netflix yesterday!! So, of course, I am going to be watching Clan of the Cave Bear and Shipping News soon. I love the idea of people bringing me stuff. I would get all my stuff by delivery if I could. There would still be milkmen in the world and pretty boys with brown paper bags with my fresh bread. I did mention that I was diagnosed with agoraphobia, right? I am especially bad on holiday from school. Since we got back from Miami (which is always a agorophobe's nightmare) I think I have left my apartment 3 times. But, I walk my dog everyday and occasionally walk to the library, so all is not lost yet. I am getting better. We are even going to a basketball game in 2 weeks, and I am not dreading it yet.

Bk 40 The Shipping News

I am so sleepy because I was up late playing video games; I love my winter break! I just finished Shipping News, and later I will post so delicious quotations, but right now I am basking in my sleepy and stunned good book after glow.

New Years

Almost finished with the Shipping News. It is sad in the way that makes me happy. Next I am reading a book about the great flu epidemic, then Middlesex.

New Years was quiet. My boyfriend and I ran ourselves to death in December with 2 trips to Miami back-to-back, nightmare shopping trips Christmas Eve (in malls that were larger than my high school) and we were already physically and emotionally from his big deal at work and my evil final projects. So we are really looking foward to taking it easy for awhile. Though we had planned a night on the town in cosmopolitan Tallahassee, it turned out to be an evening of Yuengling and Xbox instead. Hallelujah.

I love New Year's. It is at the same time both sad and hopeful, and I always think that some kind of slate has been wiped clean. Like some kind of cosmic confession, not that the old year didn't happen, but like it is all okay. That whatever happened is done with and now it is time to keep on truckin'. Like I said, no resolutions, just pats on the back for knowing what I want in this life. I have been very blessed in the last several years and though I do acknowledge that everyday, I rarely share it with others.

A few months ago I thought that I would need Gall Bladder surgery, but I didn't and I am doing well. I almost forgot what it was like to NOT have pain, but thanks to some dietary changes and some shifts in my dealing with stress, I am feeling fantastic and haven't felt crappy in weeks. My dog has recovered from her near death experience and her new medicine is working great. I know it is ridiculous, but I honestly watch her sleeping sometimes and think I could never even love a child that much. I guess we have built in instincts to take care of that, but I really do adore that pup.

I have the most supportive boyfriend, best friend, partner in the world. He is equal parts Ward Cleaver , Andy Garcia and Adam Sandler. A sexy latin lovah with an uncompromising moral compass and the sense of humor of a 12 year old boy. Perfect. He would die if he knew I just wrote that. (that would be the Ward Cleaver part of him) I know exactly how lucky I am.

So heres to giving my life all the praise it deserves.