Does anyone but me ever make themselves sound a little better than they are? No? Just me then.

I go to a local coffeehouse Saturday mornings (because my husband is awesomely sweet and helpful) and there is an older (70-ish) gentleman that is there every Saturday at the same time I am. He has spoken to me a few times and finds my reading project interesting, and this week I claimed to have an international audience for my writing…so thanks to the three or four of you from around the world, I sounded super-cool. Thank you.

Of course, then he went on to ask me if I had a sister because he was looking for a woman. Umm…40 year age difference may not creep him out but it sure did me! I actually told him that none of my three sisters were that old! I’m not sure he was pleased. I don’t really care.

I started Tom Sawyer and was incredibly refreshed! The best books have an comfort to them. They challenge (well, not Tom) and soothe and satisfy. I’m happy. I love reading and only have 25 books left in my list! Yay for me!

“The Asses found themselves once so intolerably oppressed with cruel masters and heavy burdens, that they sent their ambassadors to Jupiter, with a petition for redress. Jupiter found the request unreasonable, and so gave them this answer, that humane society could not be preserved without carrying burdens some way of other: so that if they would but join and piss up a river, that the burdens which they now carried by land might be carried by water, they should be eased of that grievance. This set them all a pissing immediately, and humour is kept up to this very day, that whenever one ass pisses, the rest piss for company.”

Ummm…not reading that to my kids…

Aesop is over and I’m not sorry. I must confess to my first “skimming” of the year though. I didn’t fully read the “Reflections” following each fable. They were so dull, so often illogical and so long, that I just couldn’t take it after about page 150. Forgive me.

Of course Sunday was a busy day as it usually is. This week I did all my weekly baking Sunday afternoon. This meant zucchini bread, amish friendship bread and a pot of minestrone soup, not to mention dinner, all going at once. That means that Monday will be fairly laid back but because of the time change I’ll be up at six instead of seven (children don’t adjust so easily) so I guess that’s more hours to fill instead of more hours to relax. I’m already tired out.

Unusually enough Jared asked for some time to himself this weekend. I ask for time almost every day but somehow he is almost always doing fine. He is definitley not one of those guys that needs a “man cave” or any other cheesy metaphor for personal space and I deeply appreciate this. It is probably partly because he has a job that he enjoys so much and that is so fulfilling and also because it means long stretches of time when he is working by himself, but I know that it is mostly because he is so giving and so kind and so generous with his energy. I really appreciate this about him since it makes him really easy to live with and makes my life so much less draining than it could be. So, I guess what I’m saying is I’m grateful for the dynamic of our marriage.

Hallmark moment over…

I didn’t read very much yesterday. I guess knowing that I am caught up is bad for my motivation. When you run a race it is always good to have a little extra energy at the end so you can “kick” and pass anyone you find in front of you. So I’ve got to find some kick soon so I can pass Thomas Mann (I so don’t want to pick up The Magic Mountain again!) and Toni Morrison (I’m sick, sick, sick, of Beloved) and the any other dragging books still waiting for me. Thanks to Richard, I’m now really looking forward to the Rabbit books instead of being scared of it. Didion isn’t done yet but now I’m getting to my living memory. It is arranged chronologically and now she is writing about nineties politics so even though I’m not interested per se, I’m at least familiar with the subject matter.

I thought today would be a good chance to review my remaining list. I have 37 titles left for a total of 12,187 pages. This means I only have to read an average of 203 pages per day to make it! My original average was supposed to be 220 or so which means that somehow I’ve caught up. I find this vaguely unbelievable. And somewhat exhilarating. I was quite a bit behind at one point (it’s all kinda fuzzy though) and am still a bit concerned about finishing. I still have to read more than half a book every day and there are some impressively long ones left! Like all 1500-plus pages of Rabbit Angstrom or all 900 pages of The Collected Works of Kahlil Gibran. I’m happy though because I’m sure that between the holidays and the rest of life, I’ll still have to concentrate to make it, but hooray anyway!

I did read all of The Analects today and chipped away a bit more at Joan Didion. Onward!

We had a great little party. It was not very Halloween-esque but quite fun. Good friends and good conversation. One note, if you invite young men who are neither living at home nor married, I highly recommend having nutritious, filling food on hand. Shepherd’s Pie works well. They will be hungry and you earn a surprising amount of gratitude just by satisfying that.

Joan Didion continues apace. Miami in the eighties doesn’t sound like a fun place but her reportage is clear and interesting. At around eleven though, I find the information just starting to blur together. I got my copy of The Analects and think I’ll start it today too. I love taking a big stack of books with me to a coffee house and having people stare at me like I’m a freak. Nerd joy.

More Didion made for dense, slow reading! Despite a concentrated effort I only managed to get about 200 pages in. The only thing is, this book is actually a collection of seven books! Slouching Towards Bethlehem, The White Album, Salvador, Miami, After Henry, Political Fictions and Where I Was From. UnfortunatelyI didn’t know that it was seven books, I counted it as one on my list. I feel used.

No apples today. I didn’t even look at them. Yay.

Instead I decided to remodel…okay, not really. I just took the cupboard doors off of the upper cabinets in the kitchen. Today I well be repainting the face frames and not replacing the doors. I’ll post pictures if Jared brings the camera home. What do you think of pinky-purple?

I started Joan Didion’s We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live and so far so good. A lot of the pieces are about sex, drugs and rock and roll but then so were the sixties… Her writing is clear and thoughtful but now I’m venturing in to some of the more introspective essays and they aren’t quite as interesting. Still, I’m impressed so far with her reportage and her analysis.

I’m appled out. I’ve decided that I need to expend the energy currently being consumed by applesauce, cider etc… on reading, writing and other projects. If you want free apples, come see me. I’ve got a couple of bushels to give away.

Speaking of reading, staying up reading until eleven has been working fairly well. I’ve been reading a bit extra almost every day and along with one or two more concentrated weekends of effort this should get me caught up before December 31st. Should. We’ll see.

I have no recent pictures of the boys (Jared has been hogging the camera for work projects) but they are getting more amazing by the day. Luc is almost walking. His current record is four steps. He and Alex now play together for extended periods of time. They are so cute! Alex pushes Luc over, Luc giggles. Luc eats dirt and Alex wipes his face. Alex runs in circles and Luc laughs. Imagine, one day they will be fathers, wise young men debating philosophy and religion. One day they will be teaching me things, showing greater understanding or skill than than I. And I’ll remember that they used to eat dirt and be reminded to be humble…right before I start losing my mind…

Robinson Crusoe was great fun. A quick and relaxing read that reminded me of a friend who used to ask “desert island” questions. Like would you rather have a knife or a rope if you were stranded on a desert island? If you’re stranded with a member of the opposite sex, how long before you decide to get “married”? I would rather be stranded with a crate of books than a gun since I can imagine scrambling for food but I can’t imagine going without reading…

So if you had one book on the island…what would it be?

Sixty-five days and thirty-nine books. Scary…

I am working on staying up later to get more reading in. Now I drink a pot of coffee every morning and half a pot every night. So far it has meant an extra few hundred pages.

I finished Sons and Lovers and I just want to say thank you Pam for not being an obsessive unhappy freak who lives through her sons. It makes my life easier and is giving me a good example for when I’ll have to let go of mine. Sheesh! Literature can be downright disturbing. The novel is about a woman who had an unhappy marriage and so clings to her sons, poisoning their relationships with women and sucking the life out of them at home. Her husband was kind of a jerk but she was a self-righteous shrew. Lawrence is good enough to make you feel sympathetic and pitying to each character in turn but they were not a very admirable lot.

I’ve accepted advice and started Robinson Crusoe. So far he sounds just like Sinbad the Sailor but next to Paul and and the rest of the Morels he’s downright jolly even if he doesn’t understand the concept of risk… Hopefully by tonight we’ll be down to 38.

Umm…so yeah…I’ve been a bit absent from my “daily” blog. I’m busy (of course) and have felt burned out by the end of the day. So this is what I’ve been up to for the two days I was missing…

I finished Raymond Chandler’s Collected Stories. Yay! Hurray! Celebrate! OK…it really wasn’t all that bad but I am glad to be finished. There is something slightly soul-sucking about reading crime stories. Especially hard-boiled ones with corpses on nearly every page. Now I’m reading Sons and Lovers by D.H. Lawrence so I’m not exactly in candyland but things are definitely better.

Saturday was highly productive with four pies, three gallons of applesauce, a gallon of apple cider, two gallons of apple juice, a batch of dried apples and dinner all being produced. Thank you Megan, Quinn and Rachel. I think I figured out what payment I wanted Anemone…a book

This morning we had breakfast for fourteen at our house and still managed to scamper out the door in time for church. Then lunch with Doug and Pam and a nap and finally cleaning out the shed for the winter rounded out the afternoon/evening. I have another absurdly busy day facing me tomorrow with three errands, four loads of laundry, more apples, a pantry to clean out and, oh yeah, books to read…pray for me!