Catching up

Boy, it's been a heck of a month.  Practically no posts this month -- it reflects my ability to stay awake at the computer at night.  I've kept up with reading, but I have many partially finished reviews.  I'm very glad to say I'm on vacation for one week, and I'm planning to use this time to its fullest!

Goals for my vacation:

1. Spend time with kids! ... including reading to them.  I hardly ever do this during the week because I just see them before bed, other than a bedtime story.  I'd like to ramp this up and do more reading.
2. Read!  I have several books I've put off reading, and I want to get caught up.  This means at least 2 books per day over break.  Yikes!
3. Review!  I want to finish all the reviews I've been putting off, and also review all the books I read this week.  I won't deluge you with reviews, but I'll save them over the next month and release one or two a day.
4. Read blogs!  My blog reading has seriously deteriorated, and I miss it.  I've spent some time culling my email down to professional-only (LM-NET and child-lit, mostly, with a few organizational lists) and now it's manageable.  I have to check out Google Reader on my iPhone to see if it's doable.  That could help me keep caught up.  Otherwise, I will have to plan a block or two of blog-reading time each day.  
5. Do my (our) taxes.
6. Plan my next 5 weeks of classes, and outline the remainder of the year.
7. Spend 1/2 day at work cleaning and sorting my office.
8. Do odd jobs around the house, like hang pictures and sort papers.  
9. Enjoy my birthday (Friday) and get lots of free things at restaurants.  =)

This is doable, but I will need to figure out priorities tomorrow morning while doing laundry.  

Here's a participation question: what do you do first when you go on vacation?  Clean your house?  Sleep in?  Tackle those big projects or do nothing?  Plan or go spontaneous?  

Summer reading catchup

If you hadn't noticed, my daughter Ivy and I took the summer off to enjoy being outside.  That doesn't mean we stopped reading, however!  Before I return them all to the library, let me post a Wordle of some of the books we read this summer.

And, for those of you who like things more orderly, here's the same in list form.  I put a star by those we read more than once.

*Mouse Was Mad by Linda Urban

"I Have A Little Problem," said the bear by Heinz Janisch

Hook by Ed Young

*The Story Tree: Tales to Read Aloud retold by Hugh Lupton

*The Robot and the Bluebird by David Lucas

*A is for Art: An Abstract Alphabet by Stephen T. Johnson

Roawr! by Barbara Joosse

*Mermaid Queen by Shana Corey

*Peter and the Wolf by Chris Raschka

*I Ain't Gonna Paint No More! by Karen Beaumont

Yes Day! by Amy Krouse Rosenthal & Tom Lichtenheld

The Nine Lives of Rotten Ralph by Jack Gantos

Stanley at Sea by Linda Bailey

*A Birthday for Cow! by Jan Thomas

*The Doghouse by Jan Thomas

*What Will Fat Cat Sit On? by Jan Thomas

Bippety Bop Barbershop by Natasha Anastasia Tarpley

*Edwina, the Dinosaur who Didn't Know She Was Extinct by Mo Willems

*Listen to the Wind: The Story of Dr. Greg and the Three Cups of Tea by Mortensen & Roth

*When Louis Armstrong Taught Me Scat by Muriel Harris Weinstein

Duck! Rabbit! by Amy Krouse Rosenthal

Spoon by Amy Krouse Rosenthal

Little Oink by Amy Krouse Rosenthal

Little Hoot by Amy Krouse Rosenthal

The OK Book by Amy Krouse Rosenthal

Bring Me Some Apples and I'll Make You A Pie: A Story About Edna Lewis by Robbin Gourley

*Higher! Higher! by Leslie Patricelli

Hello, Baby! by Mem Fox

*Bertie at Bedtime by Marcus Pfister

*Little Beauty by Anthony Browne

*A Book by Mordecai Gerstein

*There's Nothing to Do on Mars by Chris Gall

Tsunami! by Kimiko Kajikawa

Crinkleroot's 25 More Animals Every Child Should Know by Jim Arnosky

*Walt Disney's Cinderella retold by Cynthia Rylant

*The Way We Work by David Macaulay

I didn't read nearly so much on my own.  Mostly I re-read old favorites (the rest of the Vorkosigan Saga by Bujold, the entire Liaden series by Lee & Miller, and Sunshine by McKinley), a book for my neighborhood book club, The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield, and a book for my professional book club, Reading Is Our Business by Sharon Grimes.   I'll post my review of The Problem With the Puddles by Feiffer, which I started at the beginning of the summer and finished yesterday.

I hope everyone had a great summer!  I look forward to being back here more often this fall.