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Seuss. That was how it started.
It’s pretty much a gateway drug. A little Cat in the Hat and Green Eggs and Ham, and before you know it, you’re hitting up the library at all hours for the hard stuff. Like Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
That was how it happened for me, anyway. I remember being in bed around age five or six, Dr. Seuss’s Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are? propped up on my knees as I willed myself to read it one more time until late into the night. Well, until a reasonable hour as designated by my parents.
I’ve never been big on thwarting authority.
I was really just biding my time until fourth grade. My mom and I were out buying a last minute birthday gift for a friend, and she saw a display of books on an end cap at K-Mart. I remembered my friend talking about the series before, so I picked out a set for her. My mom got a set for me too. Three “Super Specials” from the Baby-sitter’s Club series. AN OBSESSION WAS BORN.
If you didn’t read these books, all you need to know is they focused on a group of seven girls who worked as babysitters. They were 11-13 years old, but they had the autonomy of ADULTS. (Seriously, can you imagine leaving MALLORY alone with your children? Or Claudia? That girl was inSANE.) The books were trite and pretty much defined formulaic, but I ate up the entire 50+ book series.
There’s a rumor going around that I still have one of those Super Specials on my bookshelf. For NOSTALGIA. It’s not like I’ve read it in the past four or five years.
It’s starting to feel suspiciously like list time up in here.
- Anything by Roald Dahl. Specifically Matilda and James and the Giant Peach.
- Everything my 3rd/5th grade teacher read our classes. I wish I’d written about her for the teachers post a few weeks back, because she was brilliant. Her name was Kathy Mullins, and she was always reading to us from a chapter book. That was how I met Beezus and Ramona and The Indian in the Cupboard. She read us Old Yeller, The Pink Motel, and Bunnicula. When I was in middle school (and my brother was in her class), she passed away from leukemia. I still think about her when I get really excited about a book. TISSUES, PLEASE.
- Seriously. I need some tissues.
- The Little House series. One summer my aunt cleaned out my cousins’ old room, and the end result was a very large box of books with my name on it. The Little House books were in there, and I was instantly enamored. I can’t wait to share them with my girls. The box also held
- A whole lotta Judy Blume. I have to admit, I was a little surprised (GRATEFULLY SO) when I found out maxi pads no longer required a BELT.
- The Anastasia Krupnik series, by Lois Lowry. Hilarious. Lowry wrote a ton of books that I loved in childhood (A Summer to Die is probably still the saddest book I have ever read, but it is a beautiful story) and more that I didn’t discover until I was in graduate school writing papers on YA lit. If you haven’t read The Giver, you are really missing out.
- Pippi Longstocking, by Astrid Lindgren. I’m still a little bit bitter my husband wouldn’t let me name our second daughter Annika, so much was my love of this book.
- Bag Shel Silverstein, Jack Prelutsky’s silly poetry was SO much better.
- Sweet Valley ____. Kids, Twins, High. I read them all. They looked exactly alike, but they were so different! GROUND-BREAKING, I tell you.
- Anything by Christopher Pike. He was a little bit horror (Monster), a little bit urban fantasy (The Last Vampire series), and a little bit depressing (The Midnight Club.) These were the books that defined my middle school years.
- Lemony Snicket’s Series of Unfortunate Events. I obviously didn’t read these until I was in college, but what an incredible set of books it is.
Enough from me and my still-checks-out-books-from-the-children’s-section-under-the-guise-of-them-being-for-my-children self. What are some of your favorite children’s books?
I was born in to a home that was under construction. My parents had purchased a very old farm house and were renovating it. I think I learned to crawl around planks of wood laying around on the floor. Our next home didn’t need work but my parents, given the crafty people they are, gutted the kitchen, family room and several other rooms down to the 2x4s and started over. They are always improving their homes.
As for us, well we’re handy. We can do minor and quasi-major repairs. We’ve had a couple disasters that could have ended badly but didn’t (thankfully). And we’ve totally screwed up.
You see the second “little” hole next to the drop down attic stairs we installed recently? Yeah that hole wasn’t supposed to be there. It’s patched now, but, um… whoops.
But I’ve come to realize what every home owner comes to realize at some point or another – you learn as you go. And everyone has to start somewhere.
We do have a list a mile long of projects and improvements to be made around here.
Next up on our list is to remove the three-sided fireplace that sort of floats between the kitchen table and the family room. It’s not connected to any gas line. It doesn’t have a chimney. It just is this gigantic eyesore that serves two purposes: A place for me to put my autographed Tim Tebow football (I’ll get a nice shelf once it’s gone) and a spot for my kids to sit and tie their shoes. We’re having someone come in and do this project. I think it’d be a disaster if we attempted it.
After that we’ll install in-ceiling surround sound in our family room and eventually put in a built-in bookcase in this little cubby area too.
After that? I have no idea what will be next. We need to re prioritize. But the list (I have to have bullets for Dashoff!) includes:
- Installing new kitchen cabinets and countertops
- New shelving in the laundry room (honey if that’s not on the list, it needs to be!)
- Adding a Pergola to our back patio so we can have some shade if we want to hang some sail cloths.
- Tiling the screened in back porch
- Installing solar panels on the house
- Replacing the HVAC
- Getting more insulation blown in to the attic
- Replacing the roof
- Creating serenity in our garage (bwhahahaaaa)
- Flooring out the attic
Since we’ve moved in (almost four years ago) we’ve added gutters, replaced the fence, installed a sprinkler system in the backyard (because the original owners only installed one in the front and that makes so much sense), re-sodding the entire back yard and half of the front yard, installing the drop down attic stairs, stripping wallpaper, painting, painting, painting and a host of other little things.
OH! And we had the murder shack removed too!! I forgot about that one. There was this creeeeepy looking doll house yard shed in the back yard that was snake and bee infested. We named it the murder shack because it was just so bizarre. The people who owned the house had a yard service business and stored their tools in it. But, why build it to look like that? It was so weird.
 
So I went looking on Craiglist and found someone who wanted free scrap lumber to build a shed. I emailed him and said “You want a shed? Come get this one. You do the work to remove it, you have the whole thing.” And you know what? He did it! Then all we had to do was break up the concrete walkway and we removed about 5 feet of the patio slab also so we could give our kids more grass area to play on.
Well that’s what’s on our list. What’s on yours?!
Do you make time to read? What are your favourite novels?
I love to read. I think it’s one of the most important things you can do if you want to be a writer, and I do. It’s gotten a little harder to make time for it lately — or, more accurately, I’m not prioritizing it the way I used to. I mean, at the beginning of every month I settle down with my new issue of “Today’s Parent” and “Every Day With Rachael Ray” and fight to read the pages before my toddler flips and/or crinkles them. I read a lot of blogs, some of them creative fiction. And I do enjoy settling down at the end of the night with a novel, but I’m usually doing something else — working on a site, blogging, tweeting (okay, mostly that last one) — and end up crawling into bed too exhausted to have thought about reading.
I’m a big fantasy fiction geek and I won’t even pick up a novel from another genre if I have the choice of sticking with fantasy (although I’m not totally closed-minded and will go out of my genre for the right story). When I first had my daughter and she nursed 75% of her waking hours, I filled that time with reading — her cradled against my chest, my hands full with a hardcover book. I reread the entire Wheel of Time series and, despite the obviously weak spots (books 7-10), really enjoyed it. I started trying to read The Sword of Truth series, and despite finding it to be basically a redux of WoT, got through the first four books before I had to set it aside. The third and especially fourth novels were so unapologetically bad as to be embarrassing.
I’m a huge fan of Jacqueline Carey’s Kushiel’s Dart trilogy. It’s sexy, poetic, and engaging; it’s also pretty light in the fantasy genre, more like an alternative history with a touch of magic. Definitely worth picking up if you have the time to read — in fact, it’s so good that it might just make you make time.
It’s hard for me to pick a favourite novel when I look at series, though, since they all tend to work together. The most recent book (the 12th one!) of the Wheel of Time series, The Gathering Storm breaks that trend, though. The character and plot development in it are awesome, and after the way the last few books dragged, the pacing in this one was refreshing, although it definitely wouldn’t work as a stand-alone novel. Richard Adams wrote a novel called Maia that’s a favourite, although it’s pretty hard to find these days. And yeah, it’s where I got my daughter’s name from, although I don’t want her to be like the main character (who is a glorified prostitute…). Cliver Barker’s Imajica is another amazing novel, because there’s a sense of being immersed in the fantastic as I read it.
Stepping out of the fantasy genre, I really enjoyed Anderson Cooper’s (yeah, the guy from CNN!) Dispatches from the Edge: A Memoir of War, Disasters, and Survival. It’s surprisingly beautiful, touching on how several news stories affected him personally, with a look at his (not candy-coated) past. I like novels with a wry, almost confused protagonist, like Jeffrey Moore’s Prisoner in a Red-Rose Chain, which is about a professor of Shakespeare who teaches in Montréal pursuing his own Dark Lady. And Salman Rushdie’s The Ground Beneath Her Feet is another novel I adore; I love the alterna-history, the vulnerability of the narrator, the mysticism and heart-breaking humanity of the “Her” of the title, a rock star named Vina, and how the novel spans several decades and the entire globe. And yeah, the U2 song is based off lyrics written in that novel.
Anyhow, after writing this, I really really want to make more time for reading. What are some of your favourite novels?
PS: I just signed up for Goodreads, the social network for readers. Are you there? Let’s connect!
PPS: All novels are Amazon Affiliate links. I need more MAC stuff, I’m an addict now, so if you buy any of these books I will make a little bit of money. Which is awesome.
How do you save time? Do you feel like you’re savvy with time management, or do you simply cut corners and barely skate by? I think I fall somewhere in between.
When it comes to work time and my daily routine, I’m really bad with time management. Most of my work writing requires online research. Plus I leave Tweetdeck open compulsively. I desperately need to get better at managing the hours I have available to work. (It means a lot to me to try not to work at night when my husband gets home.) Anyway I get an F at work-related time management. Moving on.
Mealtime
I plan 2-3 meals a week. The rest consist of hurriedly opening things that can be microwaved or heated in the oven in a hurry. Think popcorn shrimp, frozen pizzas. Or I do pasta.
I reserve one time-saving meal a week: scrambled eggs. It takes me about 5 minutes tops to get them on the plates. And I don’t have angst about this. Eggs are good for you!
Both boys eat a banana with breakfast every morning. Quick, easy, cheap.
Shopping
I always shop in the same order in the grocery store. I TRY to keep my list in the order that I’d go through the store. When I check out, I try to group things together the way they’ll end up in my kitchen. By cupboard, pantry, and fridge. It doesn’t always work out, but it’s surprisingly time-saving.
Laundry
I try to get one load in the wash while the kids are eating breakfast and playing before my childcare arrives. If I time it right, I can get it into the dryer and leave it while I’m working. Folding and putting the clothes away? That’s another story. Basically it doesn’t get done.
Misc
- I pay most of my bills online with automated payments when I can.
- I wear the same pair of jeans until they threaten to walk away themselves.
- I use on a spray-on leave-in conditioner in a hurry.
- My son wears Crocs — he can get them on himself. That saves like ten minutes of shenanigans.
- My mom watches my kids and straightens up and does dishes sometimes. It saves me time immensely, and I’m super grateful for it.
My biggest time-saving advice? Ask for help. If you don’t get help, demand help. We can’t do everything alone.
Growing up, I had a love-hate relationship with the academic aspects of school. I loved tests when I had a handle on the subject matter. Math tests? Science tests? Not so much. I used to have diarrhea every single morning in high school until I finally got to senior year and didn’t have to take a math class.
I loved every Literature and English class though. I loved studying poems and short stories and vocab. I even loved diagramming sentences in middle school. I loved getting the best grade. (I did. I’m such an asshole.)
During my senior year that I had the best English class ever. My teacher had an uncanny ability to inspire fear and fun at the same time. We all wanted to do well, knew she wouldn’t let us fuck around too much, but also knew that she respected us and our individual talents.
When we studied the Canterbury Tales, she allowed students to tell their own exaggerated fables for the class. She made sure the door was locked and allowed profanity and shenanigans and we developed a true understanding of the art of storytelling. And yeah, we still had to bust our asses for the tests and the essays on it.
She didn’t let me get away with writing a poorly-researched half-assed thesis. I got a B-. But I got a 5 on the AP Lit exam because she worked my ass off all year. I took an after-school creating writing course. I listened to her stories of doing poetry readings with her daughters at her side.
She worked for a tiny, Episcopalian school but never seemed to compromise her ideals.
She showed me what teachers should be and could be and what it truly meant to have a mentor and an inspiration.
She came to my wedding, but we haven’t kept in touch and I wish we had. As an adult and a mother, I’d love to know more about her perspectives as a parent. I’d love to know what she’s reading right now. I’d love to say hey, I’m still writing stuff. Every day. And I have you to thank for that.
Oh, prom.
It seems to be about a 50/50 split when people talk about their prom. Half say prom was a magical night of glitter and dancing and sparkles and laughter. Half say it was the worst night of their life.
At the time, the fiasco that was my Senior Prom seemed like the worst thing that could have ever happened to me. Ultimately, it was the beginning of the end of many of my high school relationships – in particular, it was most definitely the beginning of the end of the friendship between my best friend and I.
In the months before prom, I was dating a younger guy. He was a sophomore, I was a senior, and I was sure I was in love. He was sweet, played guitar – just my type. I’ve always loved a man who played guitar. My friends thought it unlikely that I cared so much for a guy who had his eye on joining the military (in fact, he was a cadet in the CAP). Let me tell you, though – the regular diet of discipline and excercise made for a very hot bod. In truth, I was in lust, not love, but it felt like love. It was as close as I’d been to love thus far, and the emotions were intense.
For reasons I won’t go into here, because it involves crazy family members (his) and because it’s not my story to tell, he was suspended from school shortly before my prom. He was also banned from any extra-curricular activities – including prom. He was obviously my date, so the whole thing was off to a bad start. My best friend at the time, Sarah, promised that we would work around it. I’d go with another friend to prom (an ex-boyfriend, actually. That boy was my favorite mistake …) and we’d all meet up for Disco bowling in our prom attire afterwards. Once that was done, we’d all head back to my house for some post-prom partying until 5am, when all the seniors were going to meet at Denny’s for breakfast.
Let me say this again: the plans? They were set. I was pleased that I’d be able to meet up with Paul (boyfriend) after the prom and still have a good time with him. And he’d be at my house for the after-party, too. I had deals with a few guys to dance with me (that’s all I cared about at school dances – actual dancing. I wanted to dance my ass off). The limo was paid, the dress purchased, the reservation for bowling made and a deposit paid.
Two days before prom, the 8 other people in our limo – including my backstabbing, hypochondriac, ugly-face bestie – informed me that they’d changed the plans. Everyone was going to Sarah’s house after, there was no bowling, and Sarah’s mom didn’t want any guys at her house, so Paul wasn’t invited. Which meant I wouldn’t see my boyfriend on prom night, which to a senior in high school is the END OF THE WORLD OMG DIE DIE DIE.
I was livid. I stopped speaking to Sarah – to all of them – not because the plans had changed, though I was pissed about that – but because they had gone behind my back. They could have talked to me about wanting to change everything, but instead they went over my head. It sucked, it hurt, and I felt betrayed.
I cried getting ready for prom. I cried when I showed up at Sarah’s house for pre-prom pictures. I cried, quietly, when we got into the limo. I danced some, but cried in the girls bathroom once prom started. I felt utterly alone.
The cherry on top of this disaster sundae was when I escaped into the girls bathroom for what must have been the fifth time that night, and ran into my “social butterfly best friend” – another girl named Sarah, when will I learn?! – who had been alternatively clinging to me and blowing me off for about 10 years. She was drunk, so very drunk, and she stumbled into the bathroom and hung an arm around my neck and told me, “Cat, you were the best friend I ever had. You always fixed all my problems. I don’t appreciate you enough. Let’s hang out more.” Of course, that ended the same way it always did – she never called, never got around to finding time for me despite my attempts to connect. Even worse, I didn’t figure out that I should stop trying until just recently.
So. I don’t have any pictures to show you of my prom, because my eyes were puffy and my makeup was running. My smiles were strained and my dress was wrinkled. Lucky for me, I have two little girls, so I can live vicariously through them at their proms. They’ll let me tag along, right?
Now, link up your posts, because my girls won’t have their proms for another 15 years. For now, I’ll live vicariously through yours!
ALRIGHTY FOLKS. The Participants roll over there in the right side bar has been updated. If you have ever, even one time, participated in these here shenanigans, your blog should be over there.
Now I need some favors:
If you DO see your name over there, please let me know if there are any errors. A misspelling, broken link, incorrect formatting or capitalization, OMG THAT IS NOT EVEN WHAT I CALL MY BLOG ANYMORE, etc. I tried to use what I perceived to be the title of the blog, but I think a few slipped through where I ended up using what might be a user name or a pet name or a name I picked out in my sleep. Basically, if any corrections need to be made, please email me! I will fix it posthaste.
If you do NOT see your name over there, but you believe it should be, email me! And I will fix it posthaste.
While you’re at it, click around over there and get to know one another. Make new friends!
(But keep the old. One is silver and the othe– SORRY.)
You know, assuming you consider yourself a grown-up now. Which I sort of don’t. I mean, SURE, I’ve got two kids and I’m a homeowner and I can eat chocolate cake for breakfast if I want to, but I still mostly feel like I’m that age I’ve always been. Didn’t you always think it would feel different when you were a grown-up?
It’s possible that I just never got tall enough. Or grew into my earlobes, like everyone promised I would.
Oh well.
As far as what I wanted to be? I never had a clear-cut answer for that. People would ask me, and I’d just tell them whatever sounded good. When I was in the first grade, we were supposed to come to school one day dressed as what we wanted to be when we grew up. And I fretted. I FRETTED AT THE AGE OF SIX over MAJOR CAREER DECISIONS. Finally, at the last minute, my mom put me in my favorite dress and I threw my toy microphone in my backpack and went as a “singer”. HAAA.
Another time I was asked the question, for some sort of Girl Scouts assembly, I told them I wanted to work in a pet store. My mom saw it written on the little card that was to be read in front of HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE, and was all, “Oh, honey. I think you meant you want to be a veterinarian.” But no. That was NOT what I meant at all. I wanted to work in a pet store. I really liked looking at the fish tanks. So all the other little girls marched proudly up to the stage as their chosen vocations–lawyer, doctor, mother–were read, and I steadily grew more and more embarrassed. And I didn’t even have the consolation of knowing “AT LEAST I CAN BLOG THIS LATER!”
Life before the internet was HORRIBLE, you guys. I don’t recommend it.
As a teenager, I fancied myself a writer, as all good emo-pants 15-year-olds do. My poetry was DEEP, y’all. I’d post some for you here, but it would screw my shot at getting published someday, and I’m not ready to let go of the dream.
Actually, I find it hilarious now that I ever wanted to be a writer, because I could not want to be a writer ANY LESS than I do right now. You know. As I sit here. Writing.
I even got my undergraduate degree in MATH so I wouldn’t have to write any papers. (Okay, I like math a lot, but it was a huge lure.) I figured I’d be an actuary. Or possibly a teacher? No, definitely an actuary. (SPOILER: I completed neither of those minors.)
One day in my early 20s, shortly after getting married, being a librarian suddenly occurred to me as an actual job possibility. I don’t know why it HADN’T before. I grew UP in the library!
Seriously. It’s where I looked up sex in the encyclopedia and played truth or dare with boys from school. (JUST KIDDING, MOM. I WAS RESEARCHING THE NUNNERY. NOTHING TO SEE HERE.)
Now, of course, I’m a mom who stays home with my two girls, figuring AT SOME POINT I’ll have to dust off one or two of these degrees and get myself a grown-up lady job. Though I’m not sure what could be more grown-up than this.
What I DO know is this: my girls are NOT allowed to visit the library alone until they’re at least 22. The end.
Oh if I had all the money in the world and could travel and see the Seven Wonders, meet people, experience different cultures… oh if only…
I think it might be easier for me to say “Where DON’T you want to travel to?” instead. So here they are – grouped by continent because I am a supreme dork about ordering things that don’t necessarily need to be ordered or categorized.
North America
I grew up in Western NY so going over to Canada was a fairly regular occurrence to me. But Niagara Falls, Canada is pretty much the same as Niagara Falls, NY. It’s just a different view of the Falls. And you can gamble.
- Canada
- Prince Edward Island (Hello has anyone else watched Anne of Green Gables eleventy-hundred times?)
- Calgary
- Vancouver
- Newfoundland (That is so much fun to say out loud.)
- Nova Scotia (Also equally fun to say out loud.)
- Quebec
- Hitting the Good Ol’ USA
I really do want to see every single state. I think there is a wealth of natural beauty in this country that hasn’t been destroyed by strip malls. Highlights of new places I’ve never been too would include walking on a glacier in Alaska, Seattle, Montana, Hawaii, San Francisco, CA, Colorado and New Mexico. I have been to every state East of the Mississippi and I’d return to many of them in a heartbeat to visit. I’d also go back to the Grand Canyon.
- Central America
- Please – Costa Rica.
- I also would love to ride a boat through the Panama Canal.
- Mayan Ruins
South America
The Southern-most tip of the continent in Argentina. I’d love to stand on that point and stare at the ocean.
Asia
- SIGN ME UP FOR JAPAN.
- Great Wall of China (Wouldn’t it be awesome to run a marathon on that wall?)
- Vietnam (To pay my respects to the birth country of the martial art I earned a black belt in.)
- Bali (We planned our honeymoon there, until some jackass bombed a tourist destination and freaked me out just a couple months beforehand. We went to Tahiti instead.)
- Nepal
- India and the Taj Mahal
Australia & New Zealand
All of it. Please and thank you.
Europe
- Ireland. (Take me home to my ancestral roots I most identify with. I can see your rolling hills of green and fences made of stone… sigh. In a heartbeat.)
- Scotland. (I mean I’ll be right next door…)
- United Kingdom (I want to ride a double decker bus and see the royal family!)
- France (Paris you are calling to me with your art and pastries!)
- Belgium
- Amsterdam
- Denmark (I just found out last year I have Danish ancestors and I was totally surprised!)
- GER.MAN.Y (Castles anyone? Yes? Oh good.)
- Austria (The Sound of Music?)
- Switzerland (Heidi?)
- Italy (Gondolas. Art. The Vatican. The architecture. Rome. Milan. SIGH.)
Africa
- Eqypt (I have to say, the pyramids completely fascinate me. I know they were built on the backs of slave labor and that is horrible, but I marvel and the construction without modern tools and engineering. Amazing. AMAZING. Of course the same thing can be said about all the castles I want to see in Europe and all the ancient architecture in Italy too!)
- Morocco
- South Africa
Clearly? I need to win the lottery. Retire. And travel. I could daydream all day about any one of these places and in a breathe be transported with my imagination.
This planet we live on is so stunningly, amazingly gorgeous. We should cherish it. See it all. Appreciate the wealth and honor the power.
Happy Earth Day! Where do you dream to travel to?
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Coffee Talk Enjoy some girl talk over coffee with photo mugs covered in pictures of your kids. Or your pets or your best friends. Or, you know, your Twitter avatar.
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