The 2009 To Be Read Challenge

I just stumbled across this challenge today, and thought it might be interesting to join it. We're talking about just 12 books in 12 months, which is a meager amount of reading for someone who writes for a living .... but since I began writing for a living, finding time to read is always a challenge. Don't ask me why. I can't figure it out myself, and I've been trying for 15 years or more. I have hundreds of books on my TBR list, so I'm just going to randomly pick a few that I've been meaning to read for a while and haven't yet gotten to. The rules for this challenge are: * to read 12 TBR books in 12 months -- you can read those all in one month if you want, or one a month, or however you wanna do it. * you need to have a list posted somewhere for others to see (even if it's in a comment on the official blog site) * you CANNOT change your list after January 1st, 2009!!! * you can create an Alternates list of MAXIMUM 12 books, if you want, in order to have options to choose from (you can read these in place of books on your original list). * audiobooks and e-books ARE allowed * re-reads are NOT allowed, as they aren't TRUE "TBRs" * you CAN overlap with other challenges * OPTIONAL: you can join the Yahoo! Group created for participants of the TBR Challenge, if you want to have a place to keep your list, or just to share with others about how you're doing! :) Okay! The countdown is on!!! Get your list(s) ready, and make sure you post the link to it here ;) My List:

1. DEAD MAN'S ISLAND by Carolyn Hart
2. ANGRY HOUSEWIVES EATING BON BONS by Lorna Landvik
3. ABIGAIL ADAMS, A BIOGRAPHY by Phyllis Lee Levin
4. THE LAND OF MANGO SUNSETS by Dorothea Benton Frank
5. BLESSINGS by Anna Quindlen
6. NO ONE HEARD HER SCREAM by Jordan Dane
7. BACK WHEN WE WERE GROWNUPS by Anne Tyler
8. SWEETWATER CREEK by Anne Rivers Siddons
9. SEA SWEPT by Nora Roberts
10. HER MAN FRIDAY by Elizabeth Bevarly
11. SUNSET EXPRESS by Robert Crais
12. IN THE MIDNIGHT RAIN by Ruth Wind

Alternates:

1. KISS RIVER by Diane Chamberlain
2. THE SUICIDE CLUB by Gayle Wilson
3. THE LEOPARD PRINCE by Elizabeth Hoyt
4. THE MAGIC HOUR by Kristin Hannah
5. LOVE, LIES AND A DOUBLE SHOT OF DECEPTION by Lois Winston
6. SISTER'S CHOICE by Emilie Richards
7. COLD TEA ON A HOT DAY by Curtiss Ann Matlock
8. HEAT WAVE by Jill Marie Landis
9. THE SECRET BETWEEN US by Barbara Delinsky
10. A DOSE OF MURDER by Lori Avocato
11. SUMMER IN TUSCANY by Elizabeth Adler
12. A LITTLE BIT WICKED by Victoria Alexander

Are You a Jackie or a Marilyn? Or Someone Else?

My daughter sent me a note to visit her blog this morning to see the results of a quiz she'd just taken. For years, she's felt a kind of connection to Marilyn Monroe and the results of her quiz came back saying that she is a Marilyn type. The bullet points were amazingly on target when it came to describing her personality, so I decided to take the test myself to see who I am :)

Your result for Are You a Jackie or a Marilyn? Or Someone Else? Mad Men-era Female Icon Quiz...

You Are an Ingrid!

You are an Ingrid -- "I am unique"

Ingrids have sensitive feelings and are warm and perceptive.

How to Get Along with Me

• * Give me plenty of compliments. They mean a lot to me.
• * Be a supportive friend or partner. Help me to learn to love and value myself.
• * Respect me for my special gifts of intuition and vision.
• * Though I don't always want to be cheered up when I'm feeling melancholy, I sometimes like to have someone lighten me up a little.
• * Don't tell me I'm too sensitive or that I'm overreacting!

What I Like About Being an Ingrid

• * my ability to find meaning in life and to experience feeling at a deep level
• * my ability to establish warm connections with people
• * admiring what is noble, truthful, and beautiful in life
• * my creativity, intuition, and sense of humor
• * being unique and being seen as unique by others
• * having aesthetic sensibilities
• * being able to easily pick up the feelings of people around me

What's Hard About Being an Ingrid

• * experiencing dark moods of emptiness and despair
• * feelings of self-hatred and shame; believing I don't deserve to be loved
• * feeling guilty when I disappoint people
• * feeling hurt or attacked when someone misundertands me
• * expecting too much from myself and life
• * fearing being abandoned
• * obsessing over resentments
• * longing for what I don't have

Ingrids as Children Often

• * have active imaginations: play creatively alone or organize playmates in original games
• * are very sensitive
• * feel that they don't fit in
• * believe they are missing something that other people have
• * attach themselves to idealized teachers, heroes, artists, etc.
• * become antiauthoritarian or rebellious when criticized or not understood
• * feel lonely or abandoned (perhaps as a result of a death or their parents' divorce)

Ingrids as Parents

• * help their children become who they really are
• * support their children's creativity and originality
• * are good at helping their children get in touch with their feelings
• * are sometimes overly critical or overly protective
• * are usually very good with children if not too self-absorbed

Take Are You a Jackie or a Marilyn? Or Someone Else? Mad Men-era Female Icon Quiz at HelloQuizzy

Thursday Thirteen #9

Thirteen Things I Like About Christmas

1. Decorations. Lights, Santas, snowmen, reindeer, trees, candles, bows, wreaths ... I love them all. The more, the merrier. 2. Christmas movies. And yes, I even like the sappy ones. I have a bunch of movies on my "must watch" list every holiday season:

• White Christmas with Bing Crosby, Rosemary Clooney, and Danny Kaye. My daughters and I can sing every song in harmony and recite most of the dialogue
• A Christmas Story, with Darren McGavin as the dad. A classic.
• The Santa Clause. I have all three of the movies in this series, but the first one is still my favorite.
• Jingle all the Way. I don't know why this one appeals to me so much, but it's just not Christmas until I've seen Arnold and Sinbad battling over an action figure and heard Arnold say "It's Tyurbo Time!"
• Noel. I discovered this movie a couple of years ago, and quickly added it to my list.
• Christmas in Connecticut, both the Barbara Stanwyck and Dyan Cannon versions.
• At least one version of A Christmas Carol. I think the George C. Scott version is my favorite, but I've been known to substitute Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck on occasion.
• New this year: Fred Claus. I laughed until I nearly wet my pants.

There are also a few Christmas movies I refuse to watch, but I won't list those. 3. Snow. But only when I don't have to get outside in it. I think it's beautiful on the ground and covering the trees, but I hate driving on the slick streets and walking on icy sidewalks and parking lots. Obviously--since I hate the sensation of sliding--I don't ski or participate in any other winter sports, so I could probably live somewhere without snow and be quite happy. 4. Christmas Songs. Okay, yeah, I get tired of them by the end of December, but for 2 or 3 weeks every year I'm perfectly content listening to 100 different versions of "Carol of the Bells" every day. 5. Christmas Shopping, especially now that I can do so much of it online. Even before online shopping became an option, though, I used to like shopping. I especially liked shopping for my kids. I love finding just the right thing for someone, whether it's something I know they want, or something I stumble across that I know is perfect. 6. Hot Cocoa. Yeah, I know it's not a Christmas-specific thing, but the Christmas season always makes me want cocoa, so it makes my list. 7. My Mother's Fudge, which she makes every year. She started out bringing a small box to my sister's house on Christmas Day, then added a smaller box for me to take home since my family got only one (or maybe two) pieces each year, while my sister's family happily snacked for days on all the fudge we didn't eat on Christmas. Then she had to expand again to make separate take home boxes for each of the grandkids as they grew up and left home. The fudgemaking operation has expanded yet again to include shipping now that most of the grandkids have moved to other parts of the country. 8. The scent of fresh pine which, unfortunately, you can only get from a real pine tree or pine branches. I have yet to smell an artificial pine scent that smells even remotely like actual pine. 9. Cinnamon Chocolate Chip Cookies. Yum! 10. Happy Tears. My family is weird. Every year it seems that someone gives a gift that touches the receiver in some deeply emotional way and brings on joyful tears. We love that gift. We love getting it, but we especially love giving it. Making someone we love weep with happiness is the ultimate Christmas experience. 11. Tradition. Of course, as families grow and change, as new people join the clan, begin their own branches of the family and move away, traditions change. That's as it should be. But some things remain the same, and that's a good thing. 12. The real meaning of Christmas. All this good will toward man, singing, eating, and showering those we care about with gifts had roots in the birth of the Christ Child. One of our family traditions is reading about the birth from the Bible. 13. Santa Claus. What's not to love about Santa? All that good will toward man, the showering of kids with gifts, the unconditional love .... That lump of coal thing? Made up by parents! Seriously! Has anyone ever actually recieved a lump of coal from Santa?