I really have no idea how this happened. One night I’m reading before bed like normal. The next thing I know, I can’t think of anything except reading. I don’t want to eat, I don’t want to sleep, I want to be left alone to read read read.

I’m a very causal reader. Most of the time, I have a book at my bedside. A lot of nights, I’ll hop in bed and read through a chapter of whatever the current crime fiction novel is I’m reading at the time. If I’m lucky, it’s a Rain novel by Berry Eisler or maybe even a Lucas Davenport or Virgil Flowers novel by John Sandford.  Those are easily my favorite characters to read about. Or were, anyway.

Let me tell you what I don’t do. I don’t jump on literary band wagons. I’ve never read through an entire Harry Potter book. I had 2 of them in my posession at one time, but when it was clear I would never actually read them, I sent them off to goodwill. I even had the audio book for the Gobblet of Fire and started it. Never got through it. I did read through Lord of the Rings a while ago before that was the cool thing to do just because the first movie was coming out.

I’m big on the series format. I love following a character through his or her many adventures.

And then there was Twilight. I’d heard about these books, but not until the release of Breaking Dawn. Blogs were buzzing about this book and to be honest, I had no idea what the heck they were even talking about. Then one day my oldest child came home with a thick book in her hand. I looked at her baffled because she hates to read, and the fact that she was holding a book that was 498 pages long, and she intended to read the whole thing had me totally confused.

Then there was the movie. “OMG, MOM! I HAVE TO GO!!!” She plotted and schemed with her friends, asking us to get the movie tickets early so she’s be certain she had her. I collected her friend and we headed off to the theater where she’d be meeting some girlfriends and a very brave parent. You could feel the electricity in the car, the building excitement. I didn’t get it.

I had never intended to read Twilight. It feel under one of those bandwagon things to me. Everyone was talking about the series like raving lunatics. I just didn’t get it. Then one day my dear friend Kelly asked if I wanted to read it. I was just finishing up a book and said, sure bring it over. I guess I’ll give it a go. It started casually, like the rest of my books. A chapter here, a chapter there a few nights later. And then something happened. I didn’t want to wait until that night to read. I read whenever I had a free minute to spare. This story that is aimed at teen girls had me completey entralled. I couldn’t put it down. As I was nearing the end, I realized I HAD to get the next book. But that wouldn’t do, there was more and I knew I’d have to read that too. I got New Moon, Eclipse and Breaking Dawn all on the same day. There was no way I was going to finish one without having the others at the ready.

I’ve never read through so many pages in such an incredibly short time. I feel like I was in some kind of haze and I couldn’t do anything besides read. When I wasn’t reading, I was anxious. I needed to be reading! It was like this weird fog I was living in and not much else mattered to me but getting to the end of Breaking Dawn.

I finished it last night and of course the ending was the way it was supposed to be, and for that I’m glad. It was satisfying. And as I closed the cover, the air cleared and I felt as if the fog lifted. I’ve never in my life been so obsessed with a book(s) ever. It was weird. I’m so glad that’s the end of it too. If I had another book to go, I might go completely nuts.

I do plan to read through Twilight one more time. But this time there’s no urgency. I know what’s going to happen. I don’t need to rush through. I just want to go full circle. From beginning to end to beginning again. To see how far the characters have come. But this time, I have no doubt it’ll be like I usually do. A chapter or two before I to sleep.  No rush, no urgency, no fog.

This has gone around the internet a few times and I thought I’d put Photo Booth to work and see what happens.

Jen

And Jess. Hilarious.

In all fairness, I did this last night, but we left before I had a chance to post it. And yes, those are glasses. Little $1 readers (+1.25) from the Target dollar bin, and so so necessary. *sigh* I’m getting old.

If you want to play along…

1. Take a picture of yourself right now
2. Don’t change clothes and don’t fix your hair, just take the picture
3. Post that picture with no editing
4. Post the instructions and tag people, or not. I choose not.

So the lovely Cj has tagged me with a meme. I’m supposed to share 7 things about me. And after reading her post I’ve gathered I’m supposed to share things about me not related to my career. Since my family is my career, I guess I’m not supposed to talk about them. We’ll see how well this goes.

1) I don’t know why this is so, and I can’t explain it either. The shared dumpster stresses me the hell out. Seriously. I become completely neurotic over the stupid thing. I get frustrated when people down break down boxes. It irritates me when someone throws something perfectly usable away. I just about lose my cool when people pile up their trash until it’s fallin onto the ground rather than walk an extra 4 feet to lift the lid of the dumpster next to it and toss it in a nearly empty can. You can’t even begin to imagine what Christmas day is like for me when I’m trying to throw out the trash. This year I took to playing Trashcan Tetris wherein I would take small items and stuff it into open spaces. Don’t even get me started on people tossing large items NEXT to the can rather than into them. Sharing the dumpsters with all these other people makes me insane.

2) I am 34 years old, a wife and a mother of 3. I have no idea how to manage money properly. Budget? Sure, we’ve tried that but failed miserably. We’re always playing catch up and never ahead of the game. If I actually made resolutions, I’d resolve to create a budget and stick to it. It’s faitly pathetic actually.

3) Some day when I join the workforce again, I hope to get a job at a library. I’d also prefer if the library wasn’t in California. Maybe someplace much more rainy than here. Which actually brings me in a weird way to…

4) I’m crazy for a fictional character, just like a huge population of other women who have all read Twilight. Holy cow, can I just tell you Edward is delish? Because he is. I haven’t seen the movie and I haven’t seen many images of Robert Pattinson. And the pictures I have seen don’t do the character description justice. He’s so much more. So yes, I have a massive crush on Edward Cullen, like so many others that have read Twilight. Speaking of that, I really hadn’t intended to read the book. It just kind of fell into my lap. (Thanks Kelly)

5) We don’t do much local shopping, and the local shopping we do is usually at a chain store. We’ve talked about this over and over wracking our brains over what local businesses we shop at. The first one that comes to mind is Lascari’s Restaurant. It started as a little hole in the wall place and has since expanded to first, a larger location, and then they’ve opened a quick serve deli and another restaurant location. I did buy something from The Wishing Well for Christmas. But I hardly go there a lot. But most recently Jason and Jessalyn have been supporting our local movie theater. This place is really great. They have stadium seating and first run movies for CHEAP. $4 before noon, $6 from 12-6 and $8 from 6 p.m. on. And they have a coupon on their site for a free popcorn with drink purchase. It’s crazy awesome.

6) I will never own another Windows machine again. Ever. E.V.E.R!

7) There are more people that I interact with online and actually know are real friends, than I have in “real life.” Most of the people I’m talking about I’ve been in a real live room with, so yes, we’ve actually met. But quite a few of them I think the world of, and wish we didn’t all live so far apart. (I’m looking at the ATL area and the PHX area and a few more, you know who you are.) I have a small group of friends within a reasonable driving distance who mean the world to me. But I also love the people I interact with online pretty much daily.

So there ya go, 7 things about me. I’m not going to tag anyone. If you think this sounds liek a fun thing to do, then consider yourself tagged. If not, move along,nothing to see here.

Another Christmas has come and gone, and I’m left with toys, boxes and random stuff with no home. This has to be the hardest part of getting gifts. Finding a place for everything isn’t so easy when you live in a relatively small place. I’ve been making some good headway over the past 6 days though. Yes six. Our official Christmas gift exchange began on December 23rd and I’ve been putting stuff away ever since.

There were some fantastic gifts and some that, as I mentioned would probably happen, missed the mark.

The Good

My wonderful husband fulfilled my biggest wish, a wish I’ve had for the past seven years. A brand new KitchenAid mixer, in red. *swoon* Today I’m going to put that baby to work and attempt my first homemade bread. Garlic pull-apart bread to be specific.

My mom also got us a printer/scanner/copier along with paper and ink.

The Bad

My stocking stuffers. Honestly, I have no one to blame but myself. I’m in charge of that task, so when my stocking lacks fun stuff, it’s because I didn’t get myself anything fun.

You’re not actually expecting me to mention anything else are  you? Because I’m not going to.

The Ugly

The piles and piles of trash that gets left behind. I like to call it Glee Debris. And there’s the inevitable trip or 5 to the Goodwill to drop off all the old stuff I had to get rid of in order to make room for the new stuff. And the piles of dishes left over from Christmas breakfast and the general cup/utencil/plate/bowl usage and lack of getting to the dishes because I’m too busy trying to put away stacks of other stuff.

Anyhow, it was a lovely Christmas spent with the people that are important to us. I’m pleased with how it all went, and I’m looking forward to the new year with new memories to be made. Keep in mind though, Christmas 2009 will be here before you know it. Don’t believe me? Just think back a year. How quickly did that time fly by? For me, it seems that every year speeds by at an impossible rate. The years are just flying by. It’s like the old addage goes; The days are long, but the years are short. How true that is.