I saw two women wearing pants to church Sunday (one jeans, one tunic/stretch pants) but I'm quite sure they were wearing pants because they often do so, not because they had heard anything about the pants thing (I'm not sure anyone besides me heard about it). I forgot to think about it until RS in the third hour, so I have no idea if anyone was wearing purple.

I've been reading a bunch. I'm behind on blogging now...but I did read: The Brides of Rollrock Island, that was a weird one. About selkies. Bye-Bye Babylon, a sort of sketchbook of memories about the civil war in Lebanon 1975-1979. Pink and Blue, a really great history of children's clothing in America. Covers the past couple hundred years. Below Stairs, a memoir of life as a kitchen maid and cook back in the old days, when servants got one afternoon off a week if they were lucky. Great stuff. The author is very sharp and insightful. For a list of all the books I read this year, read my list on my blog. It's too long to post here. I'll hit 200 by Christmas. (And I'm never going to count again; it was fine for one year but no more.)

I haven't answered because I'm not quite sure what option would be right. We've never had Barbies in our house, but I wouldn't care if my girls played with them at someone else's house. I was not allowed to have Barbies, though I did have a Sindy doll. My mom just couldn't stand Barbies. I wasn't too wild about them either, though by the time my girls were little, Bratz were making Barbies look wonderful and wholesome! My kids never seemed to care and preferred playing with Pollies and AG dolls anyway. I also didn't buy Disney Princesses. I'm not going to come up with a whole elaborate philosophy about it--that was just my preference. :)

She hasn't gotten hold of a copy yet, so we don't know! But you reminded me to put it on hold for her at the library. I think it's a great idea to write to the author!

My daughter loved it! We had quite a surprise one day at a college's open campus day--we went to the room with authors because there were a couple of names there we wanted to meet. This one guy was there and it was the author of Steinbeck's Ghost! I think he was happy that we'd heard of his book, honestly, but my daughter was thrilled to meet him. Has your son read The Haunting of Charles Dickens by the same guy?

This. Some people wear pants to church sometimes. I've never seen anybody complain about it, though.

That's about how I feel too. Now that I've heard about it--15 minutes ago I had no idea. :p

Thanks for starting this thread! I feel way smarter now than I did 10 minutes ago. :D However these are titles that I've read in my lifetime, not in the last couple of years necessarily. Don Quixote - Miguel De Cervantes The Pilgrim's Progress -John Bunyan Gulliver's Travels - Jonathan Swift Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne Moby Dick Moby Dick - Herman Melville Uncle Tom's Cabin - Harriet Beecher Stowe Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy--on pile to read in 2013 The Return of the Native - Thomas Hardy--am reading right now! The Portrait of a Lady - Henry James--on pile to read in 2013 Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain Red Badge of Courage - Stephen Crane Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad The House of Mirth- Edith Wharton The Great Gatsby - F.Scott Fitzgerald Mrs. Dalloway - Virginia Woolf The Trail - Franz Kafka Native Son - Richard Wright The Stranger - Albert Camus 1984 - George Orwell Invisible Man - Ralph Ellison Seize the Day - Saul Bellow One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez If on a Winter's Night a Traveler - Italo Calvino Song of Solomon - Tony Morrison White Noise - Don Delillo Possession - A.S. Byatt

I'm also wondering about the answer to this question! I quit using it before the school year started because it wasn't working for me at all. Should I try again?

That's what they're supposed to be doing. Some schools are shoving it onto the English teachers instead of spreading it around like it's supposed to be, though.

This week I finished: The History and Topography of Ireland, by Giraldus Cambrensis. A lovely little medieval book that talks about Ireland from the invading Normans' point of view (the invasion is not so lovely but it's not mentioned either). This finished off my medieval lit challenge! A Child's Christmas in Wales by Dylan Thomas. A classic, but not one I cared for a whole lot, even though I usually love that sort of thing. Operation Mincemeat, by Ben MacIntyre. A WWII adventure about a secret operation to fool the Nazis and invade Europe! Nonfiction--it really happened.

Robin, I have a question--will you be designing a new button for 52 weeks or will it be the same? I need to know for blog-decoration purposes! ;)

I was kind of pondering the irony of joining a mini-challenge about Catholic books when I have a pile of LDS books to read too. Maybe I'll just get a double dose of theological reading this year--that would probably be beneficial!

I'm sorry, but I'm afraid your LDS guests won't eat the dip or the cheesecake then. Even if they're not too worried theologically about some Kahlua baked into a cheesecake, they probably won't find the flavor to be pleasant. I wouldn't anyway, Amira might! :)

I don't drink cider or hot chocolate! But that's because I really dislike drinking hot things, esp. if sweet. I like drinks with ice in (hey, I'm from Bakersfield...when I was a kid we put ice cubes in our milk at dinner). I cannot understand why my kids want hot chocolate every time the temperature dips below 70 degrees. :ack2: I did know an LDS family once that had some near beer in the fridge. I was 14 and pretty shocked! But you know it's quite likely that they had it there for a friend, too--we always had instant coffee stuff in our fridge for my grandmother.

Can't stand Mannheim Steamroller OR the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. Aaaaargh.

Oh yeah, it's absolutely a soap opera, only in really, really, beautiful clothes. I've only seen the first season so far, and it's as soapy as soapy can be. But I sure like the clothes.

I agree with stopping the outside activities for a while. They're not working for you. What I would do is get them outside, though. Take them to the park and let them run around for a couple of hours in the afternoon (or the morning!), shove them out to the backyard, etc. I'd also make sure that the two older kids are separated. Don't let them be together, or as little as possible.

Hm, that sounds like fun. 10 would be a LOT of Catholic reading for me though, since I'm not Catholic. But I have St. Theresa and St. Francis on my TBR pile anyway...those are some good categories, maybe I would try to pick 5 or something.

Oh, the poor girl. Hope she has a relatively easy time. She should definitely barf on some paparazzi!

I'm so glad she's been found safe. I hope they can all heal a bit. What a relief that she has been found. I would also like to know how she got to Texas. Where did the gas come from? I suppose if she was by herself she may have just driven on freeways until she wound up in Mesquite at random? Which gives me horrible shivers to think about, what if she'd run out of gas in the desert?

I just got a Peter Kreeft book and I'm really enjoying it. It's just a run through the Bible. So far I haven't found much difference, except of course for the Fall narrative, which my church takes very differently than anyone else does.

This week I read Book V of Herodotus' Histories, Jerome K. Jerome's Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow (funny, but unexpectedly sentimental), and a mystery set in an alternate-history Britain, Ha'penny. Now I'm in the middle of a whole bunch of giant books.

Wait, you mean "Warrriiiiors, come out to plaaaiiiaaaay!" Warriors movie? Oh my golly. :svengo: Mind. Officially. Blown.

We don't start until December starts, and we don't really decorate until we get the tree about 10 days beforehand. Tomorrow we'll put my star lamps in the window, maybe put my knitted elf out, and get out the Advent things. That's all.