total randomosity

*First up, a few words on the book I finished last night. Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing by Judy Blume. I have to say it just didn't do much for me. I'm one of those who loved Judy Blume as a kid, but I honestly have no idea if I read this all those many years ago or not. It seemed to me that this book was written in such a simplified manner that it was almost insulting to kids. However, that being said, I still have to admit that Gray really enjoyed it. There were some very humorous moments scattered throughout the book. And I believe a lot of the appeal for Gray was the fact that he could relate so well to the main character and his never-ending troubles with a little brother. In Max's defense though, let me say, that he has never eaten one of his brother's pets. :)

(This was February's read for Becky's Celebrate the Author Reading Challenge.)

*My sweet husband. Rich and I get the kids a few small gifts for Valentines Day, but we decided long ago that we didn't need to be buying each other anything. We have a few little traditions around here...I make chocolate dipped strawberries each year for breakfast and I make the kids heart-shaped M&M pancakes for supper while Rich and I order pizza to eat after the monkeys go to bed. This year, unbeknownst to one another, Rich and I each planned a little surprise. I sent him an Amazon gift certificate that he would find when he checked his e-mail at work. (Nothing says "I love you!" like books, right?) Anyway, when he called to thank me, I could tell he was not only thrilled, but also quite surprised...which was my goal.

But late in the afternoon, he called again. He asked me if I'd gotten a call from UPS. I had no clue what he was talking about, but I told him "no". Then he spilled the story. See, he had tried to surprise me, too, and early in the week had ordered tulips from www.flowers.com to be delivered to me. (No, I'm not a roses kind of gal...really, I'm a daisy and black-eyed Susan kind of gal...but I do love tulips as well.) So all day long, he'd been expecting a call from me. When he didn't hear, he knew that something must have gone wrong, so he checked the tracking and found out that UPS had just marked it as rescheduled for delivery on the 15th. Rich was flabbergasted, and called flowers.com...but they were less than helpful, telling him that if they weren't delivered today, he'd get a discount on the shipping costs. Needless to say, he was livid! I mean how can you take orders for Valentines deliveries, and then just reschedule them for the next day, without even notifying your customer to boot?!! To be perfectly honest, I couldn't care less about the flowers...but I am so touched that he tried to surprise me. (And I do think that was really sleazy of flowers.com, too.)

*It's no secret that computers intimidate me. Technology and I just don't seem to relate on any kind of intuitive level. But I finally decided that since I managed to figure out Mr. Linkys for Annie's challenge blog, that maybe I could figure out google reader. Of course, I know you're all laughing at me now...as it turns out it couldn't have been any easier. But that's okay, I don't mind all that much when people laugh at me. And I'm just so thrilled to finally have done this...I can't imagine how much time it will save me not having to click on each of my links to see if you've all posted anything new and exciting for me to read.