tgif...seriously

this week seems to have taken forever to end.  i don't know why it seemed longer than usual.  maybe i'm still adjusting to Michael's new schedule.  he now alternates between a one day weekend, and a three day weekend, so last saturday he worked and i was home alone all day with three kids.  or it could be because the week started off pretty crappy ~ i got Eleanor's midterm report card, and apparently she's brilliant but won't listen (which, of course, i already knew), and then found out that my dad was a turd to my mom (they're divorced, but have still been communicating on a regular basis).  and then there's the fact that i've worked my tail off this week trying to get new isometric drawings to the customer (that's part of my job, it's not very exciting if you're not into electrical engineering or autocad).

i don't know; but i do know that i'm tired exhausted completely freakin' wiped out today.  and i don't get a break this weekend, because JW's baptism is tomorrow, and we have an appointment on sunday to get the kids' picture taken.

all i really want to do is go home, curl up on the couch, and read a book for hours until i finish it.  i'm currently reading Last Sacrifice, by Richelle Mead.  my "adopted" sister Sandy gave me the six books in the Vampire Academy series for Christmas, and i've read the first five already and am just about halfway through with the last one.  they're good, and i've enjoyed reading them.

i'll be sad when i finish the sixth book, but there's a spinoff series with three books in it so far, so i'll have something to ease the pain.  at least for as long as it takes me to read those three books.  which shouldn't take very long, except that the place i read most often is the bathroom. 

don't judge me; it's the only place i can sit for a few minutes where the kids won't bother me.  okay, so they will bother me if they know i'm in there, which is why i sneak off to the back bathroom when they're not paying attention.  it doesn't last long, but i can usually get a few pages read that way.

sooooo.....

in case you can't tell, or just don't know me, i'm a HUGE reader.  i love, love, love to read.  my tastes have varied over the years, and i've kind of migrated from lighter fantasy (think Piers Anthony or Anne McCaffrey) to what was then called urban fantasy, which they know call either horror or paranormal romance.  i HATE having to go to a section called paranormal romance to get my new books.  they're NOT romance novels, and should NOT be in the same area of the bookstore.  these books are about vampires and werewolves and witches and fae, with adventures and danger and sometimes a little love thrown in, not some sex-filled sexcapade story with a half-naked couple dangling on each other on the cover.  grrrrr.

some of my current favs are Patricia Briggs (her Mercy Thompson series is awesome! so is the spinoff Alpha and Omega series), Jocelynn Drake (her Dark Days series is a little heavier fare), Kelley Armstrong (i have read every one of her Otherworld books, and highly recommend them), and Kim Harrison (Rachel Morgan is one of my favorite fantasy heroines).  i also enjoyed Cassandra Clare's Mortal Instruments series, which isn't entirely finished yet.

my biggest problem is that i prefer series books, as opposed to one-off stories.  so i find a series i like, read everything that's been published so far, and then have to WAIT PATIENTLY for the next book to come out.  i don't wait patiently.  so i look around for another series to read.  then i'm half-way through that new series, and a new book comes out in the series i already read, so i have to stop mid-series and read the new book, then come back to the second series.  then i finish that series and have to move on to a new series while i wait for new books to come out in the first and second series.  which inevitably happens when i'm about half-way through series #3.  it's a vicious cycle.  and it causes my book shelves to look like this:

please ignore my dusty shelves!  we can't keep the dust out, no matter what we try...and yes, we have tried dusting, thanks for being a smart-ass

This is Michael, I rarely dust and you have never dusted since we met.

sorry about the picture quality.  my cell phone camera couldn't decide what it was going to focus on.  and this is just the top half of the book shelf.  the bottom half is equally full, but has even more random crap sitting in front of the books.  and don't worry, that's a black-powder pistol on the shelf, so it isn't loaded or usable in its current condition. 

and yes, those books on the top three rows are double-layered.  i don't have room for another book shelf at the moment, and i don't get rid of books.  like, ever.  i can give away or throw away clothes, shoes, toys, children (just kidding), but never, ever books.  once a book enters my house, it's mine forever.  and i've read most of the books on my shelf at least a second time.

luckily, my love of books seems to have been passed on to my children.  one of their number one requests is that we read them books, which the hubs and i are trying to agree to more often.  here's daddy reading Alice and Wonderland to Eleanor (this is her current favorite).

Me again. Look how romantic I am. I am wearing a shirt from the place we worked when we met.
i won't show you the kids' bookshelves, because they're currently a disaster.  i have a plan for better organization, and if i pull it off, i'll show you.  but not until then, because it's a little embarassing.  okay, it's a lot embarassing, especially for someone who's as careful with their books as i am.

hopefully i'll have something to show you soon in that department, but until then...

TTFN