Bubba Crawled!!!

Today we attended a potluck with one of our playgroups. Most of the other moms and babies had left and a few of us were hanging out chatting when I noticed that my son, who had just moments before been in the middle of the rug, was now at the edge of the rug! I said hey look - he's moving! One of the other moms asked me when he had started to crawl. I was like, um, about thirty seconds ago?

She laughed and said I bet if we take his overalls off (gosh I'm a sucker for little kids in overalls!) he will just go. So, we peeled them off and set him back in the middle of the rug. Luckily, I am rarely found without my camera in my bag, so I was able to catch video of him trying to get over to the ball.

It's not the most stylish or coordinated crawl, but it's a crawl, dang it! Bubba is now mobile!!!

Just in Case

I finally got around to buying a case for my iPhone. It's hot pink now!

I had looked at this case a week before I got my phone, but I didn't want to buy it until I had the phone in my hand and I had checked to be sure there wasn't one I liked better out there somewhere. Originally, I had wanted a silicone cover, but as the guy at the kiosk pointed out to me, silicone has a tendency to attract dust and crumbs and get grubby with time. Yuck!

I didn't like any of the hard cases I was seeing, so I decided to go ahead and get this one. Gotta protect the investment, you know! I went to the kiosk in the mall and realized I had forgotten to ask how much it was. Duh. I overheard the salesguy talking to someone else and he said something about knocking $5 off the price. Interesting.

That guy walked away and I asked the salesguy how much the case I wanted cost. He said it was $35. I asked him if he was going to give me the five dollars off that he was offering the last guy. He said, yeah, normally that case is $40. Um, yeah right. Sure it is. There was no way in hell I was going to buy a case that cost half what the phone cost. Sorry dude.

I picked up one of the silicone sleeves and asked him what the price on that one was. He said it was $25. I thought about it, and he says, let me let you in on a little secret. I looked him dead in the eye and told him, yeah, I know, I don't want a silicone case because it will attract dust and lint and crumbs when I stick it in my purse or my pocket right? He gives me this weird look for half a second and then says EXACTLY! I told him that I had been there a few weeks ago and the other salesguy had already given me the whole sales pitch.

He informs me that I'd be better off in the long run buying the more expensive case, because it will last longer. He asked me if I really wanted to blow money on cheap cases only to have to keep replacing them. I told him that actually, it would be kind of cool because then I could get a bunch of cheap cases and match them to my outfits! HA! He says to me oh no, that's ghetto, you're classier than that, I can tell. I'm like dude, you have no freaking idea.

Then he decides to change tactics on me. He asked me if I had my phone with me. I told him I did. He says let me see it. I told him no. He says come on, just let me see. He says but you have to SEE how good this cover looks when it's on the phone! I said well, your phone is sitting right there by the register, so I can see how it looks. Besides, I was here a few weeks ago, remember? The salesguy at that time showed me his since I didn't have mine yet. So I know what it will look like! He says, but mine is blue, and your's is pink. You have to see the difference. I informed him that I thought I had a pretty good idea, but thanks. He says come on, just give me your phone. I told him no again. He asked why not. I said because, if I pull out that phone, you're just going to slap that cover on it and then try to force me to buy it while you hold my phone hostage. It's just another forceful sales tactic, so no, you may not have my phone.

I can tell I'm really irritating the hell out of him at this point, because he steps in toward me and says, "Sales tactics? You really think I need to sell you this cover? I made $800 in sales today, what the fuck do I care about selling this one to you? I'm doing you a FAVOR, I just don't want you to be walking around with a crappy case!" I'm thinking, did this guy REALLY just drop an F bomb??? LOL! I said well, good for you then, we're both okay! I informed him that I was going to shop around so I could check out my options, and we left.

Now, two kiosks over was a kiosk that was selling hard covers of the teenybopper variety. I looked at those and decided that they weren't for me, so we moved on. In order to get to the next store I wanted to visit, I had to backtrack past the first guy's kiosk. He didn't have anyone there so he was free. When he saw me, he walked up to me with a smirk on his face and was all like, did you find one? Did you find a better phone cover over there?

I told him no, I did not. He triumphantly grinned at me and says SEE! I told you! These covers are the BEST covers and you need one! I looked at him and said, you are one cart in one mall. That over there was just one cart in one mall. Do you realize that we live in the fifth largest city in the country? Do you know how many malls are in this city, and how many carts are in those malls that I still need to check out? Not to mention the Apple store and online shops. I think I'm going to do more research still, but thanks!

Defeated, he says, tell you what. If I sell it to you for $30 will you buy it?

So I did. I really did like it best of all the ones I've seen so far, online and Apple store included. I made that fool earn his commission though, I'll tell you that! HA!

My Closet

As I was blog hopping, I came across a site called Closet Couture. It's kind of like Polyvore, but I like it better because it's easier to navigate and you can upload your own items. I joined Polyvore at the beginning of this year but never really got into it. Closet Couture seems to be a better fit for me.

You remember Cher's closet computer from Clueless? This is kinda sorta like that. You upload all your clothes, shoes, and accessories, and then you can use them to make outfits. You have the choice of using your own uploaded photos, photos from online, or other member's photos to build your wardrobe. You can also make a wishlist of items you'd like to have.

I've uploaded a lot of stuff into my closet already. Mostly it's stuff that I was able to find online. I did photograph a few items though and get those in there too. Here's what I wore today:

I took Bubba to Baby Storytime at the library and then out to run some errands, so there was no need to get dressed up. Oh, and if you are looking for the perfect tee shirt, may I present to you the Xhilaration Sleep Tissue Tee at Target. Holy crap - it's awesome! The scoop neck is just right - not so high you're choking, but not so low you're exposed. They're nice stretchy, thin cotton, so they're not hot and you can layer them if you like. They're long, so you don't have to worry about exposing your crack if you bend over or your gut if you stretch up high. The cotton is super soft. The sleeves are short, but not cap sleeves, so your arms won't look like sausages. Best of all? They're only eight bucks each.

I wore these bad boys all through my pregnancy, and I love them. They just came out with some new colors that they didn't have before, so I picked up a light green, a hot pink, and a black one. (I already have gray, tan, green, and pale pink) They're in the pajama section of the store, but you can order them online too. Kick butt!

You're So Vain

Bubba loves mirrors. One of his favorite games involves someone holding him and quickly running back and forth in front of one, as if he's zooming in on his own reflection. Even when he was very tiny and barely had any control of his head, I could stand in front of one while rotating my torso side to side and he would swivel his head so he could watch himself. We would also lay on our backs, side by side on the floor, and I'd hold up a hand mirror and he'd babble at his reflection. Silly baby!

I asked him what exactly was so fascinating about mirrors and made a video of his response.

Another thing he will do when in front of a mirror is to slowly lean forward until he has his forehead against the glass. Sometimes he'll just sit there and watch that "Extreme Bubba Close Up," and sometimes he will give himself kisses.

This video was taken first thing in the morning (hence, the puffy eyes) about 3 weeks ago and I never posted it before. Mainly due to my attire, or lack thereof. Terrible the stuff I'll post on the Internet, huh?

Bookworm

I love books. I own a lot of them. One of my pet peeves when watching home makeover shows on TLC or HGTV is that they always get rid of the freaking books! I think you can tell a lot about a person by the books they keep in their home, and I don't understand people who take it as a point of pride that they don't have any. I have even met people who bragged that they had never read a whole book before in their LIFE! Why would you be proud of that???

Before the baby was born, I used to read. A LOT. I've always been a reader, all my life. My mom teased me about it. My brothers teased me about it. My friends teased me about it. Heck, even some of my teachers teased me about it! I've read so much that I've forgotten a lot that I've read. It's not uncommon for me to start reading a book and a few chapters in realize that I've read it before already.

I learned how to read before I started school and was reading at a third grade level by kindergarten. When I was seven, I read the entire Wizard of Oz series. I'm a ridiculously fast reader, but I'll never be a speed reader because I refuse to skip words and skim. I value the WHOLE language and read for pleasure, not just to get through something. I've also always been an advanced reader, albeit with lowbrow tastes, as evidenced by all the chick lit in this house. Ah well.

Since Bubba has been born, I've read one book. (Well, one and a half if you count the nap book that I was supposed to review. Ugh.) I miss reading for the enjoyment of reading. We've been thinking about taking a family outing to the library lately (my husband just realized that yes, the library has current and new books as well as boring old ones) and I've been looking forward to it. Just in time for that, Lindsay posted a list on her blog of 100 Books to Read that she found online. She went through and marked off the stuff she's read and replaced some stuff that she had no plan to read (I have to agree with those, no Book of Mormon reading is happening here!), so my list is based on her edited list. I went through and changed them to match my own experiences.

Key

BOLD: Read it
UNDERLINE: Read previously and plan to re-read
ITALICS: Replacement book for one I don't plan on reading

ORANGE: I'm pretty sure I read it, but I read so freaking much I tend to forget what I read so I'm going to have to read it again!

and because I am me:

GREEN: my own comments, ha ha

1 To Kill a Mockingbird (1960) by Harper Lee
2 The Secret Garden (1911) by Frances Hodgson Burnett
3 Pride and Prejudice (1813) by Jane Austen Awful awful book. I have the hardest time reading anything by Jane Austen or the Bronte sisters. I just can't relate to how they write and it takes me forever to struggle through them. I do it though because I like the idea of being well read.
4 Paradise Lost by John Milton
5 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1964) by Ronald Dahl
6 One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1962) by Ken Kesey
7 1984 (1949) by George Orwell
8 Jane Eyre (1847) by Charlotte Brontë I probably started it and gave up. I can't remember if I finished it or not, so it needs to be reread.
9 The Richest Man in Babylon (1955) George S. Clason
10 The Catcher in the Rye (1945) by J.D. Salinger I read this one in high school just because. It wasn't required. I remember not getting why it was so great, but then again, I was 15. I think I may reread this one as well.
11 Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl (1947) by Anne Frank
12 Little Women (1868) by Louisa May Alcott Read this one when I was ten or eleven, I think.
13 Gone With The Wind (1936) by Margaret Mitchell
14 The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950) by C.S. Lewis The only one of the Chronicles of Narnia that I read. I remember liking it, so I don't know WHY I never read the rest.
15 The Giver (1993) by Lois Lowry Required reading for a college class. I still have my copy.
16 The Kite Runner (2003) by Khaled Hosseini
17 A Christmas Carol (1843) by Charles Dickens I want to say I read it, because I have it in a set of leatherbound books that I got for my13th birthday, but it could be that I just have seen so many versions of it on tv that I just THINK I read it, you know?
18 The Great Gatsby (1925) by F. Scott Fitzgerald Saw the movie in high school because we were supposed to read the book. My 11th grade Honors English teacher should be ashamed! Yeah, I went to school in the ghetto, LOL!
19 The Count of Monte Cristo (1844) by Alexandre Dumas
20 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1979) by Douglas Adams We own this. Leatherbound. I've avoided it because it's SO NERDY.
21 Ender's Game (1985) by Orson Scott Card
22 Anne of Green Gables (1905) by L.M. Montgomery, Margaret Atwood (Introduction) I read a few in this series. My fifth grade teacher said I reminded her of Anne.
23 Crime and Punishment (1866) by Fyodor Dostoevsky
24 The Time Traveler's Wife (2003) by Audrey Niffenegger
25 Les Misérables (1862) by Victor Hugo
26 The Little Prince (1943) by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
27 Mein Kampf (1925) Adolf Hitler
28 One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967) by Gabriel García Márquez, Gregory Rabassa (Translator) I must have read this at least twenty times, with the first time being when I was sixteen. This is my favorite book ever, and I'm on my third copy.
29 The Alchemist (1988) by Paulo Coelho
30 The Princess Bride (1973) by William Goldman I've never even seen the movie!
31 East of Eden (1952) by John Steinbeck This was one of those books that I read because it was a classic. While it was well written, and kept me interested, I found myself at the end with a feeling of "That's it?" I didn't get the point to the story.
32 The Grapes of Wrath (1939) by John Steinbeck
33 Animal Farm (1945) by George Orwell
34 Memoirs of a Geisha (1997) by Arthur Golden Another favorite that's been read multiple times.
35 A Million Little Pieces (2003) James Frey
36 Lolita (1955) by Vladimir Nabokov
37 Lord of the Flies (1954) by William Golding Sophomore year of high school required reading
38 Walden (1854) by Henry David Thoreau
39 A Wrinkle in Time (1962) by Madeleine L'Engle I want to say we read this in the seventh grade, and I can tell you what a tesseract is, and the principle behind it, but I can't remember what exactly happens in the book.
40 Anna Karenina (1873) by Leo Tolstoy
41 Catch-22 (1961) by Joseph Heller
42 Life of Pi (2001) by Yann Martel
43 Slaughterhouse-Five (1969) by Kurt Vonnegut
44 A Tale of Two Cities (1859) by Charles Dickens Part of the set from my 13th birthday, yet never read. I read Great Expectations from that set when the movie came out with Gwyneth Paltrow and it was super hard to get through so I gave up on the rest, ha ha!
45 Watership Down (1972) by Richard Adams
46 Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass (1865) by Lewis Carroll I read them when I was a kid, and thought I had a copy, but I guess not.
47 A Thousand Splendid Suns (2006) by Khaled Hosseini
48 The Poisonwood Bible (1998) by Barbara Kingsolver
49 Wuthering Heights (1847) by Emily Brontë
50 Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (1997) by J.K. Rowling Read and own all of these, but I still refuse to give in to Twilight, so THERE! HA!
51 Dune (1965) by Frank Herbert
52 The Odyssey(600) by Homer, Robert Fagles (Translator)
53 Water for Elephants (2006) by Sara Gruen
54 Brave New World (1932) by Aldous Huxley
55 The Road (2006) by Cormac McCarthy
56 The Fountainhead (1943) by Ayn Rand
57 The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890) by Oscar Wilde
58 The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) by Mark Twain 11th grade required reading, along with Tom Sawyer.
59 A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1943) by Betty Smith
60 Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
61 Angela's Ashes (1996) by Frank McCourt Although, I read the sequel, 'Tis. Weird, huh?
62 The Book Thief (2005) by Markus Zusak
63 The Da Vinci Code (2003) by Dan Brown
64 The Hobbit: Or There and Back Again (1937) by J.R.R. Tolkien Another book that I hated but suffered through anyway. I will not be reading the Lord of the Rings though. The Hobbit was quite enough Tolkien for me!
65 Night (1958) by Elie Wiesel
66 The Pillars of the Earth (1989) by Ken Follett
67 The Giving Tree (1964) by Shel Silverstein
68 Outlander (1991) by Diana Gabaldon
69 The Brothers Karamazov (1880) by Fyodor Dostoevsky, Richard Pevear (Translator)
70 Atlas Shrugged (1957) by Ayn Rand
71 A Prayer for Owen Meany (1988) by John Irving My second favorite book of all time. SO GOOD!
72 Don Quixote (1605) by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
73 Dracula (1897) by Bram Stoker
74 The Lovely Bones (202) by Alice Sebold
75 Sense and Sensibility (1811) by Jane Austen
76 The Iliad (600) by Homer, Robert Fagles (Translator) How are the Odyssey and the Iliad on here but not Oedipus Rex or Medea, you know, the ones I've actually read? Grr.
77 Moby Dick (1850) by Herman Melville
78 War and Peace (1865) by Leo Tolstoy, Henry Gifford (editor)
79 Of Mice and Men (1937) by John Steinbeck
80 The Old Man and the Sea (1952) by Ernest Hemingway
80 Middlesex (2002) by Jeffrey Eugenides
82 Lonesome Dove (1920) by Larry McMurtry
83 The Bell Jar (1963) by Sylvia Plath
84 The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1983) by Milan Kundera I think this book was just way too out there for me. Like, the kind of thing one writes when one is trying to prove how enlightened of a scholar/artist they are. I still read the whole thing though. For some reason, this one and The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro are linked in my head. Weird. Probably because I read them at about the same time.
85 Siddhartha (1922) by Hermann Hesse
86 The Handmaid's Tale (1985) by Margaret Atwood DUDE. F-ed up weird book. I liked it. I read it at a time when I was reading a LOT and this one really stuck with me. Great imagery, if a little strange at times.
87 Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937) by Zora Neale Hurston
88 Emma (1815) by Jane Austen, Fiona J. Stafford (Editor) It seriously took me four months to read this skinny ass book. It's that bad. Clueless was an improvement, ha ha!
89 On the Road (1957) by Jack Kerouac
90 The Glass Castle: A Memoir (2005) by Jeannette Walls
91 All Quiet on the Western Front (1929) by Erich Maria Remarque Saw the movie in history class in high school. The ending is so sad, and therefore, I never bothered to read the book.
92 The Master and Margarita (1966) by Mikhail Bulgakov
93 The Red Tent (1997) by Anita Diamant
94 Pygmalion (1914) by George Bernard Shaw
95 A Clockwork Orange (1962) by Anthony Burgess Another weird book, with the ultraviolence and codpieces and all.
96 The Perks of Being a Wallflower (1999) by Stephen Chbosky
97 Tess of the D'Urbervilles (1888) by Thomas Hardy
98 The Name of the Rose (1980) by Umberto Eco
99 The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne I can't believe this one wasn't required reading in high school either!
100 Romeo and Juliet (1595) by William Shakespeare Freshman Honors English... twice.

Then her friend Kim posted her own version of the list, along with 50 more that she thought were must reads. Some of her list went onto my list as substitutions, but here it is completely, also edited to reflect my experiences:

1. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
2. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
3. Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
4. Beloved by Toni Morrison
5. Essential Rumi by Mawlana Jalal-al-Din Rumi
6. The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley
7. M. Butterfly by David Henry Hwang
8. Holy Quran by Allah
9. Charlotte's Web by E.B. White
10. Twelve Angry Men by Reginald Rose
11. Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence
12. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
13. The Rainbow by D.H. Lawrence
14. The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
15. The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser
16. Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
17. The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams
18. The Art of War by Sun Tzu
19. Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw
20. Beowulf
21. The Republic by Plato
22. The Crucible by Arthur Miller
23. Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant
24. Roots by Alex Haley
25. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
26. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
27. The Tibetan Book of the Dead
28. Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair by Pablo Neruda
29. Paradise Lost by John Milton
30. James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
31. Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
32. The Aeneid by Publius Vergilius Maro
33. Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
34. Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler
35. The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe
36. The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli
37. The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx
38. Sons and Lovers by D.H. Lawrence
39. Walden by Henry David Thoreau
40. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
41. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
42. The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
43. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
44. Seven Valleys and Four Valleys by Baha'u'llah
45. How to WIn Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
46. The Kama Sutra
47. Charlie and the Chocolate Factoy by Roald Dahl

48. Watership Down by Richardr Adams
49. Oedipus Rex by Sophocles
50. Black Beauty by Anna Sewell