My Reading List

One of my goals for this year was to start reading more and I think I did fairly well on that. That was the reason I kept a list on my blog of all the books I read this year. I will take the whole list off and start a new one for 2010. I was able to read 45 books, granted 15 of those were audio books, but I still think that counts. I also wanted to read more classics...but that has such a broad meaning now. I would say about 7 of my books were classics, so I consider the year to be a success.

I just finished Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult, which was pretty good. I like her books and while this one wasn't written in the same style as My Sisters Keeper or Handle With Care, it was still pretty good. EZ and I listened to a book called The Rule of Four on the drive up to NY, and it was pretty good too. This was like a DaVinci Code type book except with some college students and another ancient document. It kept our attention for the drive which was nice. Recently I listened to A New Earth, which had gotten rave reviews by Oprah. Maybe it wasn't my time for "awakening", but I found the book rather boring and dull, and the reading of it would practically put me to sleep. There were some good ideas in the book that I liked but the overall feeling for me was that I just couldn't get into it.

I just started Animal Vegetable Miracle, and it is good so far. In my attempt to eat more and more local, this should give me some more ideas.

Happy Reading!

Merry Christmas

It has been a fun and relaxing few days so far. EZ and I headed up to Buffalo starting last Wed and arrived in NY on Thursday around noon. We did plan a stop at the Original Pancake House for my Apple Pancake for my birthday on Thursday morning...but it was closed Christmas Eve! I was so disappointed. But we manage to go instead on Saturday morning in Buffalo so all was not lost.

We were able to spend some time with EZ's family and lots of Aunts and Uncles and cousins which was nice to see everyone. We played some cards and bananagrams and a very intense game of Monopoly. There was no snow on the ground which was strange and it rained for two days. I have been eating a lot of food and cookies and not doing a bit of exercise. But it is alright for a week or so to just pack on the calories right??? :)

I made it to my parents and am hanging out here for a couple days with Amelia, which is cuter than ever until EZ flys back up here for our second round of Christmas with my family. Fun fun fun. We will head back together to NC on Sunday.

Wishing you all wonderful times spent with family and friends!

Holiday

Oh how wonderful to be off for a couple weeks. This semester seemed to be a really tough one. I never seemed to have a break and worked a lot more on the weekends and evenings then I normally do. Not sure what was different but I am glad for the break. I needed it both mentally and physically.

We got some snow on Friday (about 2 inches) and it has stay nice and pretty and white. It wasn't warm enough yesterday to melt a lot of it, but I think in a couple days it will all be gone. Both EZ and I spent the entire day yesterday in or pajamas which was one of the nicest things possible. Having absolutely nothing that had to get done and we didn't need to leave the house.

I will probably spend the next few days cleaning and wrapping presents and stuff. We have a whole pile (meaning all) of gifts that we haven't wrapped yet and there is laundry to be done and packing and just errands to run, but no work!

I finally finished The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. It was pretty good, and I like the way the book was written but it didn't really grab my attention all that well. I haven't decided what to read next but I might read Three Cups of Tea or Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, or The Lost Symbol. All of these I hope to read over my break.

For those on the east, hope the snow is as beautiful as it is here!

Changing the Way We Eat

I think I am pretty conscience about what we eat, what we buy at the store and stuff. I mean, I joined a CSA this summer and then this fall and am part of our Co-op in Burlington, so that when it opens (hopefully next fall) we will have a local store selling local foods close by. I even had started looking into joining a meat CSA too, so we could get all our veggies and meat from local farms.

After watching Food Inc last night, I think I finally have convinced Eric of a lot of my reasonings behind wanting to do all this. It is really quite amazing what goes on behind the scenes of the food industry and just where all our food comes from. If you have read The Omnivore's Dilemma then a lot of what Pollen talks about in the book is in the movie but there is a lot more. I was just in shock of the politics behind both the meat industry and the soybean industry. I even told EZ this morning that I might even want to give up my soymilk and see if I my digestive system can handle drinking locally produced regular milk. Even though I do drink "organic soymilk", the whole idea that my soybeans are most likely coming from genetically modified beans from a corporation that has a monopoly on the soybean industry makes me mad. I might have to look into my soymilk that I do drink to see if I can figure out where the beans are grown.

EZ told me he would stop by the local market in Carborro and start buying all our meat from Weaver Street so at least I know it is coming from local farms, and we will just have to start investigating a farm to buy all our meat from. The CSA I joined this summer wasn't the best, so I signed up for a different one for next year and hopefully that will go well. I am currently with a second CSA that is better than the first but still not exactly what I am looking for. I will find the right one eventually!

Go out and watch Food Inc (if you have netflix it is available to watch instantly!) and hopefully we can all start changing the way we view food.

Countdown

Oh...so many things to count down...

4 more finals to give (and grade)

5 days left of this semester

10 days until I have to start saying my age begins with a 3

12 days until Christmas and hopefully a a Dutch Apple Pancake from The Original Pancake house up in Buffalo (I think I have persuaded EZ to take me there for my bday gift)

14 days until I see my parents

17 days until I see my sister and E and my cute adorable little niece

19 days until 2010!

EZ's Dreams

At 1 am last night...

EZ: "Laurie"

(me nothing)

EZ: "Laurie?!"

me: "What?" (as I sleepily wake up I notice he is propped up on his elbow in bed leaning over me)

EZ: "Oh, OK"

me: "What??? Why did you wake me up?"

EZ: "I thought you had dirt on your face"

me: "What are you talking about"

EZ: silence....

This morning when the alarm went off, I asked him if he remembered waking me up and what he said to me. He told me he kind of remembered waking me up but didn't have a clue what he had said to me. When I told him, we both started laughing.

What a fun way to start the morning! :)

A Honest Student

For all of my classes I utilize a web application called blackboard. This basically allows me to post any information I want to the site for each of my classes. I use this to post notes from class, review sheets, homework, etc.

Well my two Calculus 1 classes got on different schedules due to a power outage one day. So one of my classes took a test on Friday and one of them will be taking their test tomorrow. I had written my test and saved in on my computer in a folder where I saved the review sheet, calling one CalcTest3 and one CalcTest3Review. Who would have thought that Friday afternoon when I went to upload my Review sheet for my second class, I uploaded the actual test!

I just received an email from a student telling me that I had posted the test online and not the review sheet. I have absolutely no idea how many of my students have seen it, but it looks like I will be writing another test for tomorrow and I am extremely grateful that the student was honest and told me in the first place!