But I know I'll be a law someday...at least I hope and pray that I will....

I bought this DVD today:


Now I can't wait to get home. Suburban Chicago has gotten old quickly this time around...

The Big Read...

Stolen from Unmitigated.

There are many books on here that I haven’t heard of. For many, that’s the only reason they aren’t italicized. I’ll read pretty much anything, to be honest. It’s what I do.

"The Big Read is a USA National Endowment for the Arts program designed to encourage community reading initiatives and of their top 100 books, they estimate the average adult has read only six.

1. Look at the list and bold those you have read.

2. Italicize those you intend to read.

3. Underline (or color) the books you LOVE .

Share this list in your blog, too, if you like."

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

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

10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott

12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy

13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller

14 Complete Works of Shakespeare (I half bolded cause I’ve read quite a lot. Unfortunately. Pretty tall order for all, I think. Especially as I find them mind-numbingly boring)

15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier

16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien

17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks

18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger

19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger

20 Middlemarch - George Eliot

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

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 (? I think I did)

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 (Umm..this is part of the Narnia Chronicles)

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

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 (Loved Saturday, hated the movie of this one)

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 (actually just bought this, and forgot to throw it in my bag to bring here like I meant to)

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 - Enid Blyton

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 (Another double-mention)

99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl (en Francais!)

100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Five best

Grabbed this idea from the always lovely Sal over at Already Pretty

In the interest of acknowledgment and gratitude, try thinking of the five things your body does best. Five things you are proud that you can physically accomplish, five things that make you feel present in your own lovely, womanly bod.

1 - My hands are one of my favorite features - even with countless scars and arthritic everything - each part of them tells a story. They have strength to give great back rubs, and softness to comfort a friend, a child, a stranger. I love the motions of my muscles moving on the backs of my hands - I think it's beautiful. They have memory - these hands will never forget how to hold a camera and adjust the aperture, how to spool film and develop it, how to burn and dodge in parts of prints that would otherwise remain a mystery.

2 - I have ridiculously strong legs. If it wasn't so hard on my knees, I would be able to leg press the max at the gym I was going to, so instead I go with half the weight and twice the reps. They have the endurance to carry me through a 5K in winter, in snow and ice, up and down hills, which is not easily accomplished when you have Rheumatoid Arthritis.

3 - My stride is long. Whether relaxed and enjoying a walk in the autumn, or hurrying at work, I always feel like my walk is confident and says that I know what I'm doing and where I'm going (even when that's not necessarily true).

4 - Curves and softness that make me undeniably feminine. It took years but I'm finally embracing that, and feeling more and more comfortable in my own skin. This makes me feel more secure in any kind of situation.

5 - An extremely expressive face - sometimes it seems made of elastic. A raised eyebrow, a smirk, or god's gift to the world, a smile....every part of those is definitely me.


We all spend so much time picking apart our bodies and faces - so what makes you happy or proud about yours? I'm tagging EVERYONE.

Go ahead - ask me anything...

Missed me lately?

Work's been busy, and I've been tired. However, this week I will be in the suburban Chicago area for work, and should have some free time....so if you all of a sudden start seeing many many posts per day, it's because I'm bored and not motivated enough to change out of my pajamas and go to the fitness center in my hotel.

So, as a precaution against me running out of rants, ramblings, and weird random stories that could really only happen to me (Magnum-XLs, I'm talking to you), I am inviting all of you, my lovely readers, to ask me any kind of question you desire. I will do my best to answer all things truthfully, bearing in mind that my mother reads this and I don't want to shock her too much....(Who am I kidding, I am totally her daughter...she's probably already done it all. Twice.)


With that, I'm off to bed, in preparation for waking up early and getting ready, and hopefully not putting my clothes on backwards (you'd be shocked how many times this has happened....). As long as I can fumble my way to some coffee, I should be able to make it through the drive...

It's like crack to me....

More Bloons

I am officially addicted.

My own little corner of the world..

Since I spend so much time at work, and I'm sure will soon be blogging more about it, I figured I would give you all a tour of my cubicle...

All the necessities are within arms reach...chapstick, COFFEE, pain medication. Lots of hand sanitizer, I'm kind of OCD about it. Burt's Bees lotion (!) which is wonderful and everyone should buy. My calendar is hilarious - Dumb Dares for the Office. I've done more than one of them. Fiber One bar so the excessive amounts of coffee I drink don't tear any more holes in my stomach.

I love my Wonder Woman mug - it was a Christmas present several years ago, and until recently sat on my desk at home. I decided I would get more use out of it at work. Many multi-colored Sharpies and hi-liters. Ctrl-Z (that's Undo, for the uneducated in computer frustrations and screwups) stress ball which has seen better days. The Little Miss Chatterbox is a recent addition - was given to me today by the coworker who left (see previous blog). My red fan is super powerful for the size and a good white noise to block out office sounds. And of course, a Magic 8 Ball for when I have tough decisions.

I believe you have my stapler....Any office drone should own one. Lots of post-its - I'm obsessed with office supplies. Apparently, it's a family thing.
More Sharpies. You can sort of see on the right side my vase that's full of Lifesavers. The little green and purple round cases are Icebreaker Sours, which are amazing.

My computer really gives away my personality, I think - the elephant roars. My big sis gave him to me. The little origami flower was made by a good friend of mine years ago and has somehow managed to survive. Somewhere there's a purple monkey he made as well. Pink pony, of course. Pieces of flair (!) which are again, from my big sis. I love the flower - it plays 'You Are My Sunshine'. And of course, 'Smush Bush', my favorite stress ball. His head is about to fall off. I think 01-20-09 I might rip it off in joy. Not kidding. He was also a gift from big sister. Many fortunes taped to the top of my monitor - My favorite is the one on the far right, which says 'Your ability to find the silly in the serious will take you far.' I think it fits with my personality EXTREMELY well.


Horoscope taped to the side of the CPU is very fitting, although I can't remember what it says right now. Office Space Box of Flair. Yes, that is a cootie catcher on the left - filled with such fortunes as 'Watch out for falling trees' and 'Beware a woman with green eyes'. A string of raffle tickets, although I have absolutely no idea what they are from.

Pictures of some of my favorites! Always good to have on bad days at work. One of them is blocked and it's the best one - my fam and I at a relative's wedding last November.


Yes, I basically do have my own personal coffee shop. 7 kinds of tea, spiced cider, Crystal Light to-go. I had hot chocolate but I drank it all.
Yes, that is an Initech mug. Also from big sister. She gives me many fun things.

And finally, my locker. I have more magnets than probably everyone else in the office combined. It's ridiculous, but I love them. Also, do you love the My Little Pony poster? That was a thank you gift for a job well done from a project director. Goes well with my big box of crayons.

What's in your office?

Sometimes I just have so much to say...

One of my two work BFFs has her last day tomorrow.
I'm very sad. She was the first friend I made at the job, and tied for best.
She's going to be staying home with her almost 6 month old now, and it's definitely a great thing and I'm super happy for her. But I'm gonna miss her a ton.

It's blurred, cause you all don't need to know what I wrote, but here is the card she is getting from me tomorrow...





Yes. I do tend to be a bit wordy....

With the bad comes the good, I guess - because in other news, my best friend in the world is home from California this weekend, and I am SO excited to see her!

yay for sundays!

i feel loved.

Getting a little political...

Petition to Commute Sentence of Troy Davis

I have always been opposed to the death penalty, and this is one of the cases that may end up showing why. I don't believe it's a deterrent, I don't believe it helps a victim's family move on from what happened. I don't believe the government should sanction the taking of a human life, regardless of what that life was like.

Interesting reading - John Grisham 'The Innocent Man', his forray into nonfiction. It's an excellent book, and absolutely gripping. As a novel, it would be horrific to think about, and knowing that it's a true story makes it a thousand times worse.

I could go on for hours about my thoughts on capital punishment, but I'm on my lunch break so it'll have to hold for another time. Just wanted to get this story out there, and hopefully help to save an innocent life.