98 books

Well, I'm making progress on the book The Story of Edgar Sawtelle. I haven't had too many opportunities to read the last two days but I am trying. I thought my daughters were getting better so we planned a fun-filled adventure to Amazement Square (a childrens museum) in Lynchburg for Tuesday with friends. On our playdate, I discovered lymph nodes as big as golf balls on S's neck and M couldn't hold her head up straight by the end of the day. I thought maybe she just slept on it wrong, but when they weren't doing any better this morning, we took both girls to the doctor. I tend to think the worst so I had visions of meningitis and the mumps as their diagnoses. Of course, that wasn't it. S has strep and M has a double ear infection. So antibiotics for both. Yay! Hopefully, they will be good as new in a few days. I feel so much better already just having a diagnosis that is treatable and isn't life threatening. So, anyway, we are back on the couch watching more cartoons. Probably the same episodes of Phineas and Ferb as Monday. S keeps making a plug for High School Musical 3 and M keeps whining "No."

To take a break from the arguing over TV shows, I ventured back into the basement to count and make a list of the books I discovered last week. Are you ready? Because even though I could see all the books in front of me, I was surprised by the total. 96 books. I wrote down the titles and authors of all 96 in a little black composition book leftover from my teaching days that I found in the basement too. As I wrote the titles, I reread the reviews and synopses of each one and put a little star next to the ones that I want to get to first. There are quite a few classics that I have never gotten around to reading yet like The Great Gatsby and The Count of Monte Cristo. (I also decided that I want to read all of Jane Austin's novels, I think there are 6 of them. In the last month or so, I have watched Becoming Jane and The Jane Austin book club. I read Pride and Prejudice in high school and absolutely loved it! But since I don't already have them in my house, they will have to wait till I finish this list.) There are a few child development books that I still want to read like The Five Love Languages of Children and Raising Confident Girls. There were more Oprah book picks than I remembered, which is a shame because I have been disappointed quite a bit with her selections. But out of the 70 or so Oprah has picked, there has to be something I would like, right? So I'll keep trying. There are a few books I don't even think I want to read. Why keep them on the list, you might ask? Good question. I haven't decided yet what to do about them. Because I have this really weird rule that once I start a book, no matter how horrible it is, I must finish it. Because you never know and it could be so very good in the end. It usually isn't, of course, but you only know one way or the other if you finish it. I know, I have issues! Something else about me, I do not like romance/smut novels - no graphic sex scenes and weird euphemisms for anatomy for me. I think there may be on or two of those kinds of books on my list. Someone must have passed them off to me, saying "this was pretty good, you'll like it". And maybe I will or maybe I won't, but it isn't the type of book I usually pick and are therefore way at the bottom of my list. I reserve the right to take books off my list at any time. That 96 number also does not include all the young adult books in the girlies closet; and as far as I'm concerned, they don't really count anyway. Even after I read those books, they will stay in the house for several more years, until the girls have outgrown them.

So my challenge began with Book #98 An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination and now I am reading #97 The Story of Edgar Sawtelle. I think I will try and count down backwards, like a version of 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall.

98 books from the basement to read
98 books from the basement
Read one book and pass it around
97 books from the basement to read

If you would like the book passed on to you, leave me a comment.
Maybe we can arrange something, if it isn't a book I borrowed:)