Have you ever felt pressured to read something because ‘everyone else’ was reading it? Have you ever given in and read the book(s) in question or do you resist? If you are a reviewer, etc, do you feel it’s your duty to keep up on current trends?

No. I’ve never liked to read what “everyone else” reads, and I am way too busy to start now. These days all the books in my TBR pile are personal recommendations OR mothering/wif-ing/teaching, and I am sooo far behind, it isn’t even funny. I could use a year on a deserted island to catch up. Seriously. Ok, maybe six months if it is truly deserted.

I do review books, but I get to pick which ones, and I do them as they come in. Crafts and cooking, ya’ll, all over here.

Okay, here’s the deal. I am so very frustrated I could cry. My scales and I are continuing to have the same old argument. I say “got to 145″ and it does not obey. It continues to bypass 145 on it’s way to 150. Now, when I was eating 1200 calories or less, I lost weight. That’s how I got from 160 to 150. But I thought I could slip in another 300 calories or so and still lose a bit, even if my loss slowed. It didn’t slow. It stopped. And I have been in denial about that for quite a while, because I do not like to be hungry. I do not like to feel deprived. I want what I want and I want to eat 1600 calories a day AND lose weight. That is not happening.

So! back to the basics. 1200 calories a day, and walking three times a week. And if I veer from that plan before I leave for Orlando on September 11th, please send a great big man with an even bigger paddle over here to spank me, ok?

Somedays, I just seem to spend most of he day banging my head repeatedly agaist a rough brick wall. Today was one such day. I had planned to talk about Proverbs 11: 16 and 22 here today. Instead, I am going to watch tv with my family and knit. After that, I will read my blog feeds while I drink wine and maybe talk to Ang. some more. Maybe tomorrow will be slightly less …. today-ish.

If you could take more control of one aspect of your life, what would it be?
If you were to name the difference between the male soul and the female soul, what would it be?
If you had to admit the most selfish thing you do on a regular basis, what would you say it is?

These are some tough questions.

1)Money. And surprisingly enough, I don’t want a ton of it. I’m more like the guy in Proverbs. I want enough that I don’t have to fret, but not so much that I forget where it comes from.

2)I don’t think the souls are different. I think the physical and emotional sides are different. But the soul, it is spirit, like God, neither male nor female.

3) I can’t say that here. My mama reads this blog. I talk about Jesus here. But it’s free.

… What is your earliest memory of a library? Who took you? Do you have you any funny/odd memories of the library?

Aside from school libraries, I remember first the library here in my home town. When I was a teen, it was located in a building beside the old middle school. It was called the old middle school to distinguish it from the new middle school that opened the year I went into sixth grade. But I don’t remember going there then. I don’t remember going to the library until I was in my teens, because I rode my bicycle. And yet, I must have gone before that, because I remember being there, just not getting there. I remember the green carpet and the sun through the windows, and the smell of old books. It was just one room, this library.

Amazingly enough, almost three decades later, the library has relocated. Now we have two whole rooms. And the next county over charges 20 bucks a year for a card if you don’t live there, which I refuse to pay. Needless to say, I buy most of the books I read.

Wow. Just wow. I spent the weekend with my family. Yep, that side that I thought I didn’t mention that much but realized I did when I searched the blog. I guess that … lack … bothered me more than I was willing to admit. I guess admitting it would have hurt more than pretending I was okay with how things were. Or were not, in this case.

It was a transformational weekend. It was … a happiness to just be there with them. For the first ever, there was no tension. We were all just there together, with each other, enjoying that good feeling, and it was as if we had done it this way all my life, except that I could breathe, and I was not afraid.

One of my kids told me I was weird while we were there, and she was just joking around. I was headed out the door to go talk with my cousins who were in the yard, and I poked my head back in and said, “No, here I am just one of us.”

Will you trust me when I tell you that my words are inadequate to express my feelings? Ok, so here I am, with my Aunt and my cousin’s daughter and my Drama. And we are family. Finally.

Ok, so I woke up this morning, after dreaming my husband wanted a divorce, which left me kind of unsettled, and got on about my morning routine. And I started sneezing. And my lip swelled. And now the finger underneath the rings I just put back on yesterday is itching. And also my palms. I have not come in contact with a dog, but something in this living room has set me off.

I’m thinking it’s time to start taking those allergy meds every day. Because, yay me, I am condemned to live in this hell all day! My husband has to go to work, and that means I need to be alert. The good news is that I just asked him, and no, he doesn’t want a divorce.

Last year, when I went to the eye doctor, he wrote me out a prescription, and I picked out cute frames, and I asked if I needed to wear them all the time, and he said, “No, you’ll know when you need to put them on”, and I said ok, and went biddy-bopping down the street feeling saucy with cute pink frames that I only has to wear once in a while.

Well, now. Pink is a good color on me, and I like pink, but sometimes, I want to wear red, and then the pink glasses, they look a little odd. And that would not be a problem, except that lately I have been getting headaches that are strangely relieved by putting on my glasses. Not that I need to wear the glasses more. It’s just that I greatly prefer to not have headaches. I just want to be clear!

So, it might be time to consider new eyeglasses that aren’t quite so…colorific. A little more majestic mature ok, plain. Because, occasionally, plain can be good, and really, Tylenol should not be a regular food group for me. And Zenni Optical has good prices (like, starting at $8, seriously!!) and their customer service and quality was even talked about on clarkhoward.com.

So whaddya think? This one

or this one?

Yeah, I know I don’t do plain very well. It’s a failing.