Not going to fail this soon

Ha! Thought I forgot all about blogging today, didn't you. Well, OK, I did, for a while. But I am here now, a good three hours before midnight. Not that I have anything particularly interesting or illuminating to say today, so this is a little stream of consciousness. I've been awfully busy so far, for a weekend in which I said I was going to do nothing. When you have a three-day weekend, everyone always asks if you have any big plans. I do it to other people, they do it to me. I usually say no - because I hate doing "big things" at the same time that everyone else in the area is doing the same "big thing." I mean, I love camping, but I would never voluntarily go camping on Labor Day or Memorial Day (umm, although that is exactly what we did this past Memorial Day...but the river we camped by was packed, so it proves my point a little). Too many people also taking that opportunity to get back to nature. I might be willing to go to a museum or something, if there was an exhibit I was interested in. Generally though, I prefer to stay home and relax on a three-day weekend.

But there isn't anything like that this weekend, and I planned to not be busy. But I spent most of the day out, at a tennis lesson, running errands. Good thing I have an extra day, although, we are thinking of going for a hike, if it isn't raining. Hike, I said, not camping. So I am not really breaking my own rule.

Time to go relax for a little bit before bedtime. Tomorrow I have to wash a cat, so I will need my rest!

Book Report: The Reading Promise

Since I promised to write every day this month, it seems appropriate to start the month off with a book about a promise: The Reading Promise by Alice Ozma. You may have heard of this book when it came out earlier this year - Alice and her father started reading together when she was in elementary school, and continued, every day, until she left for college. This book is about The Streak, as they called it, but it is also about the importance of reading and books and family.

Overall, I give the book 3 1/2 stars out of 5. I love the topic and the idea of a reading streak. Both my parents read to me while I was growing up, but not every single night for years, and at some point, I started reading aloud to my mother while she was driving me to and from my music lessons and orchestra rehearsals and on road trips. Then I started reading to Benjamin while we were dating, and we still read together. So, obviously I approve. I enjoyed the way Alice Ozma (yes, both names from books, yes, bother actually her names - the middle ones. And she said she liked them together, so I will go ahead and refer to her that way) used the days of The Streak as markers for important events in her life. But...I sort of wished she said more about the books themselves, about what they were reading, about how she felt about those books. She admits that they didn't even really keep track of everything that they read (augh! How could you not do that?!) That isn't what this book is, but that is sort of what I hoped for from the subtitle. More my problem than the books though.

One problem I had, apart from that, was the dialog. I simply couldn't find it believable at times that a child would speak the way Alice Ozma records herself as speaking, and I can't believe that she remembered conversations that clearly. I know that recreating conversations is not unusual in memoirs, so my problem isn't with that, exactly; it is more that the 10 year old Alice Ozma at the beginning of the book sounds an awful lot like the 20 year old Alice Ozma at the end of the book, or like dialog written by an adult who doesn't know any children. Yes, she read a lot and had a big vocabulary. So did I, and I certainly don't think I ever sounded like that. It is just a bit too precocious and precious.

Overall though, I enjoyed the book. It was an easy read, and it is a great testament to reading aloud together. I think teachers, librarians, and parents would enjoy it. If you are interested in more information about the book or Alice Ozma and the Reading Promise that is in the back of the book, you can visit her website: Make a Reading Promise.

30 Days Hath September

First off, can I just say Wahoo! We have survived August, and are blessed with September. I learned yesterday that while astronomers use the equinoxes as the markers for seasons, most meteorologists use months. So summer is June, July, and August, and autumn is September, October and November. Makes tons of sense to me. That is what most people do too, I would imagine. Being a stickler, I tend to go with the astronomer's version, but only because it is canon. If someone else uses a different scale, I can "allow" myself to as well. Yes, I am that strange.

Clouds, somewhere over Arkansas or Texas

As a reward for reaching September mostly unscathed from the summer, I am setting myself the task of blogging every day this month, even the weekends. I'll try to have something interesting to say at least 80% of the time, and pictures too. I have a few more cloud pictures from the Hawaii trip, and now that cooler weather is a possibility (not necessarily a reality, but a girl can at least hope in September) there might even be hiking and the attendant pictures.

A quick reading update: I have read 96 books so far this year. At this pace, I will blow by my goal of 110 by the beginning of October. I might have to count pages next year though, because my count is a leeetle inflated by some of the manga and short graphic novels I have been reading lately. But page counts might be edging just a tad into obsessive, maybe...