And on the pro side of reading . . .

Before you jump in, here's a little thought for you about reading and literacy in general.

Here's how it works:

The Big Read says that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they've printed.

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

2) Italicize those you intend to read.

3) Make the ones you loved obnoxiously larger than life

4) Reprint this list so we can try and track down these people who've read only 6 or less and make them read.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And now..... THE BIG READ TOP 100

1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien

3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte

4. The 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

15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier

16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien

17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks

18. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger

19. The Time Traveller'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 Hitchhiker'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

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

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 (I like Angels and Demons better though)

43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - 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 .

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 Nabokov

63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt

64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold

65. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas

66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac

67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy

68. Bridget Jones' 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

99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl (I liked James and the Giant Peach better)

100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

 

Read : 44

Want to read: 27

I don't know how they finalized this list, but there are some pretty good ones here. I think I'm going to go start a new one!

Hmmm . . .

In the last few months, there have been some major changes in my life. For example, I have a California drivers license. I have a full-time job. I have a husband. And I now have a Mac. All these things are a step up from where I was, to be sure, (mental image: the circa 1990-something Taco Bell commercial about all the grande stuff: Taco. Taco Grande.) but now and again I feel like there's still something missing. Today, I figured out what it was. I miss the right-click function. That's all. 

Schedule me in for next Thursday . . .

Me: Good morning, Mr. M., it's time to get up for the stroke education class.

Mr. M: Oh, I don't think I need to go to that. I didn't plan to have my stroke. I just went in for a routine check-up and I'll be going home soon. Since I wasn't planning on this, I don't think it applies to me.

Me: Mr. M, no one plans to have a stroke (it's really called a cerebral vascular accident - unplanned by definition). This class is just to inform you about the changes to your mind and body since your stroke and will give you ideas about how to prepare for home. 

Mr. M: Ah, well, I guess it can't hurt. I'll go see what this is about. 

I've giggled about that all day. "Oh, I didn't plan this . . . " Some days, I love my job.

What we've been up to . . .

We're baaaack. Look - more than one post in a month. I told you I'd get better!

We went to Huntington Beach for the 4th of July. There we enjoyed spending time with Brent's family, playing in the waves, eating Chronic Tacos, and visiting the Newport Beach Temple. A jam-packed weekend of fun. 

When I was at BYU, I had roommates who used to laugh at me because I could always run into a cousin (which often met meeting new ones). Apparently the knack has followed me to California. Here we are standing on the beach with my cousin, Brig. I had no idea he'd be there. It was fun to finally introduce him to my husband. Yea for cousins!

Out to breakfast. Yum!

My beloved husband has known since we met that I have a terrible weakness for John Mayer. It's not something I can readily explain. He's easily one of my favorite musicians of all time. I love his voice, the voice of his guitar, his lyrics, the way his music is deep and easy to relate to for all kinds of people in all stages of life. It's like a good friend I come back to again and again. The same song can give me comfort in a myriad of situations. Pretty much, I'm hooked.

Anyway, Brent surprised me with tickets to the John Mayer concert in July that was in San Jose. We agreed that the roadside fruitstand we found would have been worth the trip on its own. Next time we won't try driving home in the middle of the night. 

The best part about this concert was that, while Brent bought the tickets to appease my sensibilities, he learned that he had a taste for John Mayer as well. It's now a love we can share. I love finding a new fan!

Then we took a camping trip in Arizona! I love camping and I love Arizona and I love camping in Arizona with my family. The makings of a wonderful trip. It was a pretty interesting drive - neither Brent nor I had ever taken Highway 58 and 40 straight west like that.

On our weekend camping trip, we went canoeing at Lake Mary. Brent wanted to try his hand at fishing there, but there wasn't a lot biting, and we didn't have as much time to sit and fish as we wanted. We did see an incredible osprey in flight right above us. He was washing himself off after a kill and a feast and we got a little to close and startled him. I've never seen a bird do this, but about halfway over the lake, he decided to fluff his feathers. He plumeted toward the water, but spread his wings and caught some lift at the last minute. It was beautiful - one of those moments when I'm struck by the magnificence of God's creatures and I'm so glad I took a minute to enjoy it and let go of the burdens of my life. 

Cousins at the camp.

Turns out Brent and my dad get along pretty well. Phew!

The man and his dwelling. (Granted, I helped. Just a bit.)

Do you see, my friends, what I see? That's right. There's water on these leaves. While we were camping, it rained in the middle of the night. I was engulfed in my favorite sound and favorite smell. I had honestly forgotten what rain smelled like. I love being wrapped up snug in your blankets while listening to rain beat against your tent. Mmmm. 

Pines and quaking aspens. Can life get better? I submit that it cannot!

We didn't eat the mushrooms.

That would be my brother. He makes me smile. A lot.

Lake Mary. It's a little hazy because there were clouds. Those are those fluffy white and gray things that hang in the sky and occasionally drop water on you. In the perpetual brownish-blue haze I live in, I had forgotten how much I LOVE clouds. 

Cousins! I can't even begin to say how much I love these two girls!

Lockett Meadow. Truly, this place is Eden for me. It's a place my family camped a lot when I was younger, so it holds a wonderful sense of nostalgia for me as well.

The Meadow at sunset.

We discovered these on Highway 40. Unfortunately, they are NOT boosts to make your car go faster. What a disappointment. 

A Hitch In Our Git-Along

I know, I know. You've missed me. I've missed you too! I'm a bit ashamed that it has been almost 3 months since my last post. In my defense, things have been a little busy. And, it's one of those things where you want to post, but it's been so long and you have so much to catch up on that you don't know where to start. But I promise to be better. I'm just going to have you up on the most recent events and hope to have a chance to fill in the holes in due time.

So, last Friday (08.08.08) after the amazing opening ceremonies, Brent and I decided to go see a movie with our friends, Quin and Natalie. We had a great time and enjoyed our company and then drove homeward. A date night like any other date night. We were driving home with the windows down because it was a surprisingly pleasant night. About halfway home, we were coming up on an unidentified object lying in the road. Unfortunately, there was median to our left and an indecisive TransAm to our right. We were coming up on the looming object fast, but we had no room to swerve. Brent decided to take it straight on. I didn't hear anything under the front tires, but then I felt the car lurch. 

We craned our ears, but we weren't sure what we heard. It sounded like there could be some rushing air, but the sprinklers were at work in the median so we weren't sure if that air noise was our tire or just in our heads. We drove a few more yards and then Brent decided we should pull over. You guessed it, we had a flat. Of course, we were on one of the darkest portions of the street - no streetlights to illuminate our dire plight. We quickly called our friends and Brent got to work loosening the lugnuts. As Quin and Natalie got there to shed some light on our dire plight, a police officer offered his assistance too. Since we weren't under a streetlight, we were glad that he moved in behind us with his lights going because we'd almost been hit by someone who didn't see that we'd stopped and nearly smashed us. 

Once Brent got the tire off, Quin and Natalie started looking for the hole. They didn't find anything in the tread, and we were hoping maybe we'd just popped the bead. As Quin set the tire in the trunk, I noticed a small gouge in the rim. That was when we saw it - an inch and a half gash in the wall of the tire. So much for that tire!

Once the police drove off, we all drove back around to see what could inflict such damage to our tire. We parked in a vacant parking lot and ran out to the middle of the street to find the offending object. I got there first, and what did I see lying unassumingly in the middle of the street? A trailer hitch. The whole hitch. No wonder we had a gash in our tire! When Brent took in the car to fix the tire, he made a $5 profit on the hitch. I guess it wasn't such a bad misadventure after all. 

For the edification of all

I love when people use their talents to glorify God. This link will take you to photographs from an exhibit at the Mesa Arizona Temple Visitor's Center right now. The slideshow alone is a moving experience. I recommend checking out the real thing.

A trip to Utah

So, in April, Brent and I got to journey to Utah for my graduation. While there we spent treasured time with family and friends. Thanks to all who took time to see us and visit and share your love. It was a great trip!!!

Me and the Jills. I love these girls!

I love this girl! She was my roommate my freshman year and has been a continual light to me over the years. Congrats, K! You made it!

Here's me and Brent with a favorite hometeacher and his lovely wife. They're off to do great things!Family and friends and delicious food!
Brothers. I love them!

Look, mom, I'm graduating!

Me with Elder L. Tom Perry and his wife. I love these people!This stud spoke at our graduation. He's been a great friend and example to me! Thanks for all you do and all you are! Ecuador, here you come!
Me & Dr. McPherson. I am indebted to this man.

This is one of my favoritest people in the whole wide world! Thanks for coming! I love your guts (and the rest of you too)!

Kathy! This lovely woman put me up for most of my interim time in Utah! I am forever in your debt. I couldn't have finished my thesis without you!

Stephen and Holly got a new bed! They had been sleeping on an old waterbed . . . not too full of water so they were practically on boards. Then, to be frugal, they slept on a couple of mattresses that they rescued from the demolition of DT. Congrats on graduating to a real bed.

Knead I say more?

Welcome home, Sister Peterson! You were a breath of fresh air (and beautiful as always)!

Thai food and good friends.

What happened to the party idea?

A joyous reunion. It felt like coming home!

The next week, the BYU Singers came to B-town. I love these guys! I had the incredible opportunity to sing with each of them at one point in time or another. And then to have them share in my BYU experience. . . life is so sweet sometimes, you know?