![\"meds\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/358\/2013\/01\/meds.jpg\")
<\/p>\nHappy stupid new year, everybody!\u00a0 It\u2019s supposed to be our first day back at school today, but we\u2019re keeping everyone home, waiting for the phone to ring, hoping that the idea of nine kids coming in to the hospital to be tested for strep throat is just as terrifying for the doctor as it is for us, and that she will just call in prescriptions for everybody.\u00a0 Maybe just a giant vat of penicillin, which I will pour into the tub, and we can just swim around in it for a while. I wouldn\u2019t even mind the big pink cat ring, as long as we don\u2019t have to go to the hospital.<\/p>\n
We did this same thing last year (the strep, I mean, not the vat).\u00a0 This photo is in the folder marked \u201cChristmas 2011\u201d:<\/p>\n
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(Don\u2019t worry, I wasn\u2019t storing them in direct sunlight.\u00a0 I just lined them up on the windowsill for dramatic effect.)\u00a0 This year, my husband went from being sorta kinda sniffly to DYING VERY FAST, and it turned out he had an abscess on his tonsil.\u00a0 EWWWWWWWWW.\u00a0 I mean, awwwwwwwwww.\u00a0 Poor guy. Isn\u2019t that awful?<\/p>\n
The worst part was that he only had me to take care of him.\u00a0 I can be nurturing for as long as ten or eleven minutes at a time, but beyond that, I find sick people irritating.\u00a0 As you can imagine, I then feel horribly guilty about that, and take it out on the sick people. So, the moral of this story is, get the hell away from me, with your pain and suffering.\u00a0 I mean, would you like some orange juice?\u00a0 Or tea?\u00a0 No?\u00a0 Well, then I guess I\u2019ll go shovel the driveway ALL BY MYSELF, with no one to help me.<\/p>\n
The other thing I stink at is doing fifty book reviews on the fifty days before Christmas<\/a>.\u00a0 I thought I would be really clever and have fun while raising enough Amazon credits to entirely pay for Christmas.\u00a0 And dad gummit, I almost made it!\u00a0 To tell you the truth, I made TONS of money in credits, and I am so grateful to you guys!\u00a0 Lots of people went out of their way to use my links to buy all sorts of big ticket items.<\/p>\n The only catch was, there is a 60-day delay on payments, and so I\u2019m expecting a huge credit\u00a0 . . . any day now.\u00a0 Le sigh.\u00a0 But man, next Christmas is gonna be a doozy!\u00a0 So again, thank you for going to the trouble.\u00a0 I know shopping is complicated enough, without having to remember to make sure some lady on the internet gets her piece of the pie.<\/p>\n By the time Christmas came, I had managed to list 33 books, and have sort of organized them below.\u00a0 (If you want to see the original posts, here is a list of them<\/a>.)\u00a0 I thought it would be fun to keep up a once-a-week book recommendation, too, probably on Wednesdays.\u00a0 As long as no JERKS get SICK again and mess up my schedule.<\/p>\n Oh, and Christmas day itself was lovely at our house (the sickness really set in a few days afterward).\u00a0 We went to Midnight Mass and spent Christmas day wallowing in wrapping paper and cinnamon buns, and everyone was happy.\u00a0 There was a little bit of this<\/p>\n while we were preparing to go out in the cold in the middle of the night, but there was a lot more of this:<\/p>\n [yeah, okay, actually I haven\u2019t uploaded the Christmas morning photos yet, but it was pretty great.]<\/p>\n Oh, one more thing:\u00a0 please join me in sending up a prayer for Melanie Bettinelli<\/a>, who was hoping to have her new baby Lucia in her arms by now, but had to postpone her c-section because she was so sick!<\/p>\n All right, here are the 33 books:<\/p>\n Most of these were recommended by my 13-year-old and 14-year-old daughters.\u00a0 I\u2019ve starred the ones I recommend for adults as well as \u201cyoung adults.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Wow, I can\u2019t believe those are the only two adult fiction books on the list!\u00a0 I guess I was trying hard to branch out, since I actually read mostly novels.<\/p>\n Happy stupid new year, everybody!\u00a0 It\u2019s supposed to be our first day back at school today, but we\u2019re keeping everyone home, waiting for the phone to ring, hoping that the idea of nine kids coming in to the hospital to be tested for strep throat is just as terrifying for the doctor as it is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1533,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[17],"class_list":["post-8444","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-50-books-till-christmas"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"OLYMPUS](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/358\/2013\/01\/pc240308.jpg\")
<\/p>\nYA Fiction<\/h4>\n
The Bartimaeus Trilogy <\/em><\/a>by Jonathan Stroud<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Shooting Kabul<\/a> by N. H. Senzai<\/strong><\/h4>\n
The Star of Kazan <\/a>by Eva Ibbotson<\/strong><\/h4>\n
The Name of This Book Is Secret<\/a> by Pseudonymous Bosch<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Angels and Other Strangers:\u00a0 Family Christmas Stories<\/a> by Katherine Paterson <\/strong><\/h4>\n
*The Golden Key<\/a> by George MacDonald, illustrated by Maurice Sendak<\/strong><\/h4>\n
The Princess Bride<\/em><\/a> by William Goldman<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Leviathan<\/em><\/a> by Scott Westerfield<\/strong><\/h4>\n
*The Hobbit<\/em><\/a> by J.R.R. Tolkien<\/strong><\/h4>\n
*Dirk Gently\u2019s Holistic Detective Agency<\/em><\/a> by Douglas Adams<\/strong><\/h4>\n
The Thief<\/em><\/a> by Megan Whalen Turner<\/strong><\/h4>\n
A Dog\u2019s Life:\u00a0 The Autobiography of a Stray<\/em><\/a> by Ann M. Martin<\/strong><\/h4>\n
*The Great Gilly Hopkins<\/em><\/a> by Katherine Patterson<\/strong><\/h4>\n
The Witch of Blackbird Pond<\/em><\/a> by Elizabeth George Speare<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Children\u2019s Books<\/h4>\n
A Time to Keep:\u00a0 A\u00a0 The Tasha Tudor Book of Holidays<\/em><\/a><\/strong><\/h4>\n
The Flying Carpet<\/em><\/a> by Marcia Brown<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Who Is Coming to Our House?<\/em><\/a> by Joseph Slate, illustrated by Ashley Wolff<\/strong><\/h4>\n
The Golden Egg Book<\/em><\/a> by Margaret Wise brown, illustrated by Leonard Weisgard<\/strong><\/h4>\n
The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig<\/a> by Eugene Trivisas an illustrated by the wonderful Helen Oxenbury.<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Mufaro\u2019s Beautiful Daughters<\/em><\/a> by John Steptoe<\/strong><\/h4>\n
The Golden Bible, Old Testament, <\/a>illustrated by Feodor Rojankovsky<\/strong><\/h4>\n
It Could Always Be Worse:\u00a0 A Yiddish Folktale <\/a><\/em>written and illustrated by Margo Zemach<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Non-fiction for adults\u00a0 (I\u2019ve starred the ones that are also suitable for teenagers.)<\/h4>\n
From Bauhaus to Our House\u00a0<\/em><\/a>\u00a0 by Tom Wolfe<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Searching for and Maintaining Peace: A Small Treatise on Peace of Heart <\/em><\/a>by Fr. Jacques Philippe<\/strong><\/h4>\n
God Help Me!\u00a0 This Stress is Driving Me Crazy: Finding Balance through God\u2019s Grace<\/em> <\/a>by Gregory Popcak<\/strong><\/h4>\n
The Fannie Farmer Cookbook<\/em><\/a> by Marion Cunningham<\/strong><\/h4>\n
*Masterworks of Ukiyo-E: Hokusai Sketches and Paintings <\/a><\/strong><\/h4>\n
*The Rattle Bag<\/em> edited<\/a> by poets Seamus Heaney and Ted Hughes<\/strong><\/h4>\n
*The Family of Man<\/em><\/a> by Edward Steichen and Carl Sandburg<\/strong><\/h4>\n
*and Hokusai, First Manga Master <\/a><\/em>[for some reason, WordPress won\u2019t l<\/a>et me turn this one into a <\/a>link]<\/a><\/strong><\/h4>\n
http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B005DI81I2\/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=ihavtositdo03-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B005DI81I2<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/h4>\n
Fiction for adults<\/h4>\n
Gorky Park<\/a> by Martin Cruz Smith<\/strong><\/h4>\n
The Odyssey, the translation by Robert Fagles<\/a><\/strong><\/h4>\n
*The Great Divorce<\/a><\/em> by C.S. Lewis<\/strong><\/h4>\n
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