I need help from the wily and creative!

Yesterday was my brother's 29th birthday...I have yet to get him his birthday gift this year, but am already thinking about what to get him for his 30th. You see, my brother is a creative fella...during my 23rd year he serenaded me for the twelve months with, "nobody likes you when you're 23." For my 3oth birthday he gave me Depend Diapers...there have been other creative ideas between those birthday years, but those two stand out most. So, I'm putting my thinking cap on...and asking for suggestions. Anyone have any really good ideas on what to give my little (big) 'funny' brother for his 30th birthday?

A new addiction...

Goodreads. Maybe it is because I am an English teacher, or just a book nerd, but I love any means by which I can share good books with friends!

My chosen sisters

Here is a picture of my best friends since elementary school. We aren't able to get together often enough, but our friendships always seem to pick up right where we left off. I really don't know how I would have survived the world without these strong beautiful women in my corner. I look at this picture and 'see' so many wonderful memories. Amy (far left) and I have both always considered ourselves the third twin (we'd probably fight over the title) to Kim (blue) and Jill (the beautiful bride), but in nearly all aspects, we are all sisters.

**Geez, no wonder I had a complex growing up...they are all so petite and beautiful! Even in my thirties, I am still slouching when I take pics with them! :)

Olympics junkie

It is a really good thing that the Summer Olympics happen every four years because I am having a really difficult time getting anything done! It doesn't matter if I'm familiar with the sport or if an American team/individual is competing...I seem to be glued to the television until the coverage ends every night.

The only problem with this obsession is that school has started and the district moved our start time to 7:25 am...the Olympics are depriving me of sleep. :)

Back to school

Today marked the first day of the 2008-2009 school year...I'm still trying to grasp the fact that school has actually started (on August 11th!).

I always like the beginning of a new school year...everyone gets a fresh start. I like that kids get the opportunity to reinvent themselves...they can go from being the trouble maker to the good kid and I will never know the difference. Teachers also get to start with a fresh slate...I get to try new things with new kids, figuring out new teaching strategies to benefit those new students.

Borrowing...

I've been so busy trying to get ready for school to begin that I haven't really had time to think about my blog posts...so, I'm going to borrow one from Emily. I promise to get back on track soon!

This is a list of 100 popular/classic books. So based on this list, you are supposed to highlight the ones you have read in BLUE and the ones you want to read someday in GREEN.

According to The Big Read, the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books on this list. How many have you read?

1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6. The Bible (parts of it?!)
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8. 1984 - 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 Mitchel
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 (Loved it!!)
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
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Just started reading)
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
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 (I've started reading)
87. Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom (Tuesdays with Morrie is still my favorite)
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 (started it)
98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Hmmm...after going through the list, it looks like I had better get busy reading. Of course there are some books that I believe should have made the list that didn't!