According to Andrea it is College colors day. We didn't even know about it officially, and yet we participated.

Goooooooooooo Dawgs! Sic 'Em! Woof Woof Woof Woof Woof!

Favorite Things Friday!

It's time for another installment of My favorite things- on a completely different scale from Oprah. I LOVE these diced tomatoes.

I add them to everything... salsa, guacamole, spaghetti sauce, omlettes, toss with pasta. Everything!!! It adds such a great fire roasted flavor to all of my other favorite things. And, added bonus is that they are organic. I would eat them anyway, but that always helps. And, when Kroger has them on sale, and you use this coupon, you can stock up for $0.50 a can.

Tell me about one of your favorite things...

Look at What I Made

I know that you all would be way too excited to see the block that I made in Betty Sue's quilting class today (yawn). But instead, check out what I made...

It's a shiv! I made the world's first quilting shiv. Stay out of my way. You never know when that might come in handy!

I closed my van door and hear subsequent cracking plastic at which point it was too late to do anything about my ruler hanging out of the door.

Oh well...

Booklist

Here is the booklist that Andrea posted based on the National Endowment for the Arts suggestions that we all should read. Join her by posting this list for yourself, and bolding the books that you have read, and italicizing the books you would like to read.
While we are here, I also need to plug one of my favorite websites- Goodreads. This is a fabulous little place on the web where you can keep a running list of books that you have read, books that you would like to read, and books that you friends are reading. You can even make recommendations for books that you think your friends would enjoy (my favorite part of the website because Nikki and Andrea both make the best recommendations).

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling (LOVE them!)
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell

9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman (I never plan to based on Nikki’s review!)
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
(many, many times)
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller

14 Complete Works of Shakespeare (I’ve read a lot of them…)
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier

16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien

17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks

18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot (maybe?)
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald

23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy (yeah, not happening.)
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens

33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis

34 Emma - Jane Austen

35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis (Why is this on here if the Chronicles are also on here?)-(Ditto, Andrea, but at least I get credit twice)
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres

39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden

40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell

42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown

43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving

45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
 (also many many times)
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood

49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert

53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen

55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth

56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens

58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon

60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov

63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas

66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy

68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding

69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie

70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens

72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett

74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson

75 Ulysses - James Joyce

76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome

78 Germinal - Emile Zola

79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens

82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell

83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker

84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro

85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert

86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry

87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White

88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom

89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

90 The Faraway Tree Collection
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad

92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery

93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks

94 Watership Down - Richard Adams

95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute

97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas

98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare

99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl

100 Les Miserables-Victor Hugo

So there is my list. It looks a little shabby. I thought I was doing so well with the first 10. 70% is not bad, but I ended up at about 40%, and I am ashamed to admit that there were a few on the list that I had never even heard of. I guess I am read, but not well read.
Head on over to The Braun Family Circus, and post your own list.

It's a good thing I straightened my hair this morning, huh? We don't even know how to act with rain in Atlanta. Thank you, Fay!!! Maybe I shouldn't stand at the bus stop without an umbrella.

Back to School Haiku

Shannon over at Rocks in My Dryer is hosting a haiku contest. Here is mine. Head on over and post your back to school haiku.


Kindergarten Rocks
quiet! I'm too excited
but miss him too much


I have to tell you that I feel a little guilty about how much I am enjoying my quiet days and how clean my house stays until 3pm. Oh, the bliss!

Sew Close, and Yet Sew Far Away

Well, I made it to the end of my second quilt block. I was so proud that I didn't have to remove any stitches. I even measured my block and it measured to a perfect 12 1/2 in. square. I was so excited that I needed to take a photo to share. Then I noticed that something wasn't quite right? Do you see it? Ahhhhhhh.So, I had to remove that entire seam, turn it ans try again. If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Wow, am I good at that one!
Finally!

Favorite Things Friday

***We interrupt this blog post to let you know that it is officially Saturday***

Crazy has landed in my life and I now bring you the blog post that I started Thursday evening to post yesterday, and I just now returning to the computer. Work with me here, people.

***Now back to the regularly scheduled post**

I have to admit something here to all three of you who read my blog (I know you can tell this will be a life-changing confession)...
I TiVo Oprah every day.
Crazy, I know. I don't even like Oprah, and I don't watch her show. At this point, you may be asking yourself, much like The Man asks me every time he notices the list of episodes, "Why, then, does she record the show daily?"

That is a great question. I absolutely LOVE Oprah's Favorite Things episodes. I record daily to make sure that I catch her favorite things. How fun is it to see gadgets that I have never heard of and never knew that I needed, and now realize that I can't live without them? That is a good time.

I am going to host my own version here for ALL of us. And I would love to hear about your favorite things as well.

One of my newest and greatest favorite things is this wonderful Satsuma body set from The Body Shop.

The body polish has bits of loofa crushed into it to exfoliate the skin, and body wash and body butter smell scrumptious and makes my skin shiny and beautiful. I'm not normally one for "foodie" type smells, but this smell makes me very happy. I'm sorry to any of you who are unfortunate enough to live close to me and who have had to endure me sticking my arm into your faces to experience how wonderful I smell.

So there it is. My first favorite thing. What is one of your favorite things?

Which Austen Heroine are you?

Take the Quiz here!

Don't Let Me Die

We have spent so much time at the pool this summer that it is no surprise that the boys ears are a little sore. We decided to put a few drops of peroxide in their ears last night to hopefully help ward off any infections that might creep in.

The Boy screamed bloody murder and kicked and thrashed like we were beating him. And, then, maybe we did, and maybe we didn't. It is really cool to watch it bubble up out of the ear though. I know that we are sick. This also comes from the mom who excitedly watched the plastic surgeon sew all 36 stitches into her son's face.

As we finished, and he had to lay there to let the drops drain, he exclaimed in his very pitiful voice, "Don't let me die." Poor kid thought that something was growing out of his ear because we kept talking (and laughing) about the bubbles coming out.

He is now in the market for more sympathetic parents. Any takers?

For those of you who don't get a chance to read Shannon's blog, Rocks in My Dryer, you need to read this post this morning. She actually pulled it out of the archives, but it is definitely worth a visit! I love all of you mommys (stay at home or work 2 jobs). You all are a blessing, and you make a difference!
Great Things

Scary!

My friend Andrea found NCAA poptarts. How scary is that? She decided to share the UGA one, and she dropped it off in our mailbox. How fun is it to find a poptart in your mailbox? And, again, scary?A pop tart is even better when shared with a friend!

I'm still mad about Kelli, and I can't believe that they kept "tanning bed boy."

Identity Crisis

Andrea and I started our quilting class today. I'm not making fun of us or anything, but the name of the shop that we go to is Betty Sue's Quilt Shop. It just sounds like a place for blue hairs to flock. I'm still not sure if I am smart enough or detailed enough to quilt, but I am giving it a go. Here is my first quasi-block. It is not fully stitched together yet, and nevermind the fact that Betty Sue did all of the cutting and piecing together.

BUT, just to make me feel better, when we went out to dinner tonight for book club, I got carded. Of course I was all too happy to pull my ID out for the cute little young waitress to show her that I was 29 years old. :) Everyone needs a little balance in their life.

First Day of School

Although it is only the middle of August, school started back today in Gwinnett County. Jonah started Kindergarten and Daniel started Pre-K.

Jonah rode the big boy bus...

...and Daniel cried when he got on.Then we waited for Daniel's bus... ...and he cried again when he got on his bus.

He did great though and had a fabulous first day!

Chris took the day off to spend with me. Here is our self portrait while we waited on the buses to get back home. Aren't we cute?And here is Daniel waiting for Jonah's bus to arrive. Finally everyone was home...
...and apparently, it was a "thumbs up" day.

Last Day of Summer

Yesterday was the last official day of summer vacation. Chris took the day off of work to hang with the boys, and we started the celebration with a trip to "The Donut House" as Daniel has dubbed it. Most Americans call it Krispy Kreme. Mmmmmm.Then we went to Lake Lanier Islands Water Park. The boys had a blast. Chris printed copies of the map that both of them studied all the way to the park. Jonah rode EVERY ride in he park except for the one that he was too short to ride. He even rode a ride called the Intimidator.
Then Jonah went to spend the night with Grant, Chris took Daniel to "The Mouse House," otherwise known as Chucky Cheese, and I went to a Middle School Girl's sleepover in Hamilton Mill. The girls kept me up until 4:30, and I had to leave by 8 to get home. Fun times. Oh those lazy hazy days of summer.
Duncan Creek here we come!!!!!!!

I'm sorry

I apologize for this photo in advance this morning, but I had to share. Jonah had karate last night. Can you tell?

Sharon's Baptism

I have to share this photo and brag on the Lord a little bit. Chris and I (and a host of other people) have been praying for his sister, Sharon's, salvation for many years now. When she called us a few weeks ago to tell us that she had prayed to receive Christ, we could not have been more thrilled. She was baptized this weekend in a friend's pool. Go God!!!

My Project Runway

My Project Runway obsession is fed by the various widgets and games available. These are my current picks based on what I've seen so far. For some reason, TiVo erased last week's episode. So sad.

Summertime Fun!

Summertime 2008

Since SOME of you have been getting on to me for not posting, I decided to tide you over with a summer video montage. We have pooled, vacationed, lazed around in pjs, picked strawberries and museumed with the best. School starts back in a week, so it is time to get back in the groove. It's been a superwondermous summer. I can't wait for school to start!!!!!