Friday, September 12, 2008

babbling idiot

I suspect that would be a fair description of me today. Of course, some might say it's a pretty fair description of me on any day. Sorry, I truly am feeling a bit loopy today. Lack of sleep, nothing more. Thanks to a kiddo with a chronic case of insomnia and a dog, who frankly should be thanking his lucky stars that I'm not serving doggie kabobs for supper tonight, I barely got two hours of sleep last night. I'm not complaining (I get a lot more sleep in general these days than I have in many years), just trying to make excuses for my rambling.

I'll be the first to admit that Rich, my darling husband, is very good to me. Very supportive. Thoughtful, loving, generous. Etc., etc., etc. Still, as none of us are perfect, he makes the occasional blunder. He made one such blunder this morning when he called me from work with "some news". Now at this point I had been up since 12:30am, had single-handedly cooked all children breakfast, got children ready for school, packed lunches, fed and medicated the currently in-the-doghouse dog, and begun the school day with our daughter. The news? It was official...he is again going to co-teach a marine biology class in the Bahamas for two weeks in January. Now, it's not like I didn't know this was likely going to happen. We've talked about it, and I gave my blessing (the no-way-am-I-ever-going-to-keep-you-from-such-an-awesome-opportunity, despite-the-fact-that-it-is-going-to-totally-suck-for-me variety of blessing) to the whole idea. But still...this morning was NOT the ideal time to call me with this news.

Or was it? See, I just read Dewey's announcement about this fall's READ-A-THON! Now, I can say with absolute certainty that regardless of anything else, Rich would have been perfectly willing to haul the boys (Annie, of course, wants to read again) off for the weekend so I can participate. But coming on the heels of his big announcement, I can most assuredly say that I don't feel one iota of guilt about asking him to do so!

Hey, and while I here dumping on my poor, sweet husband, let me just throw a little blame his way, too. You know how I was sort of unofficially participating in J.Kaye's book buying ban challenge. I said, and I really meant it, that I wasn't spending another penny on books for myself until I'd knocked 20 off my TBR piles. Well, I seem to have a bit of a setback. Since books I already had started at the time didn't count towards my 20, I'm now sitting at 0% of the way there. Well, Rich found out about a library book sale a few towns over. I told him I couldn't go because of my book buying ban, but he dragged me there kicking and screaming! (You're buying this, right?) Oh heck, to make a long story short, here's the pile I came away with:



And there are some points to be awarded here, by the way...point for Carl thanks to his wonderful review of Out by Natsuo Kirino, point for Stacy thanks to her wonderful review of The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards, and point for Dewey thanks to her wonderful review of The Buffalo Soldier by Chris Bohjalian.

So, you see, when you combine the incredible reviews you all write with Rich's abominable behavior, you understand why I just didn't stand a chance, don't you? That said, I'm going to try again...

Oh, and one more thing before I finally shut up. Many of you have been so sweet, asking about Annie. So here's a quick update on how her class is going. First of all, she absolutely loves it! She comes home chattering away about the things they discuss in class. Words like "rhetoric" and "pathos" and "ethos" and "logos" and "persuasion" come tumbling out of her mouth. Secondly, she hasn't felt as if any of the other students have looked down on her or anything because of her age. And finally, she seems to be holding her own as far as her work is concerned. They didn't receive the initial writing assignment they did in class back. Turns out it was just for diagnostic purposes, not for a grade. But the professor told her in person that he was impressed with both her reasoning and her writing. And she did get back her first essay assignment yesterday, and she received an A-. Overall, so far so good. Hopefully things will continue to go well...it is just the start of the semester after all, but at least it's been a good start.

And now, I really will shut up.

12 comments:

Carl V. Anderson said...

Hey, awesome for Annie!!! And awesome for your hubbie as well. And kudos to you for instantly figuring out a way to turn that to your advantage! I'm sure you'll enjoy the read-a-thon...although you'd probably rather he pack you in his suitcase and smuggle you to the Bahamas!

Glad you got dragged out to buy books. Heck, we'll all share the blame for your weakening resolve, we are all in the same boat! :)

Ana S. said...

I'm so excited about the read-a-thon. This time I'll finally be able to participate in full. Can't wait!

And I'm glad you opened an exception on the book buying ban to go to that library sale. Library sales are too great to pass. Plus, if you hadn't, you'd probably end up buying those books for a lot more in the future. So you actually saved money :P

That's great news about Annie :) I'm sure she'll continue to do very well. And lucky Rich!

Rich said...

I'd better get you a damn good Christmas present.

Dawn said...

I can certainly relate to the lack of sleep my dh (and I don't mean dear) woke me up early the other morning with his tossing and turning and I couldn't get back to sleep! I'm not a nice person when I am tired!

I see that you have a few more Stephen King books in your stash! :) I read The Memory Keeper's Daughter last year and enjoyed it!

I am pleased to hear how well Annie is doing! Good for her!!!!

take care,
Dawn

Thoughts of Joy said...

First, Rich - you're on the right track! :)

Second, hooray for Annie! :) :)

Third, ^5 for you on the great loot you were held at gunpoint to purchase. :) :) :)

What a family!

Trish @ Love, Laughter, Insanity said...

Oh Debi--I love your babblings. :) Don't apologize for anything. I'm so disappointed that we will be out of town for the read-a-thon and won't even have access to a computer that weekend to be a cheerleader. I've been looking forward to it ever since the last one ended and am a little heartbroken about it. *Sigh*

Glad things are going well for Annie! She seems to have such a great spirit about everything and I'm glad she's still enthusiastic about the class. Rhetoric? Blah! :) Glad she likes it anyway.

And oh well about the books. I've been seeing "Out" around a lot lately--I guess because of the Japanese Challenge. Hope you enjoy them!! I just ordered 4 more from Amazon--I didn't even Think about joining a book ban...

Apparently I'M the babbling idiot this morning. ;)

Anonymous said...

That is SO awesome for Annie! :D

I wish I could do the read-a-thon but really...there is no way.Not this year,anyhow.

Let me know about Jennifer Government. I used to play Nation States ,which is based on that...or was it the other way around? I can't remember.

Midwives made me angry and I have yet to read another book by chris Bohjalian.Is it sad that I hold grudges against authors?

Debi said...

Carl,
We're definitely proud of the way Annie's handling her class so far. It is definitely challenging her, and occasionally frustrating her, but she's still loving it and is and is working hard. How's Tori doing? Is she getting settled into a new routine and enjoying herself?
And thank you...it's nice to see someone owning up to their responsibility in the whole book buying matter. ;)

Nymeth,
I'm so thrilled that you're really going to able to read this time!!!! And Chris is, too! I'm more excited about this one than past ones, because you two will be there, too!
And good point about buying those books later...just think buying one of those new would have cost more than I paid for all of them. ;)

Rich,
LOL...but you always do.

Dawn,
"my dh (and I don't mean dear)"...you totally cracked me up!
I used to buy every Stephen King book as soon as they came out, but then I sort of stopped reading him for a long time. And during one of my "we have too much crap in this house" binges, I got rid of most of them. So now I've been trying to build my collection back up buying them at library sales.

Joy,
I'm definitely passing on your comments to Rich! lol

Trish,
I'm so sad (and I know I'm not the only one) that you won't be able to read-a-thon this time around!!! :(
"Rhetoric? Blah!"...yeah, my thoughts exactly!

Debi said...

Jupiter,
Oh no...if Midwives made you mad, it's probably going to make me mad, too. For whatever reason, I had it in my head that it was going to be a supportive-of-midwives type of thing...now I'm fearing my assumptions are totally off the mark.
You've left me intrigued...I'm going to have now go look up Nation States to see what it is (yep, my complete and utter unhip-ness is shining through again).

kreed said...

I always thought you were superhuman and didn't need sleep! I have always marvelled at how well you seem to function without it...I am truly sorry that you are sleep deprived - I feel your pain. Maybe we can fly off to the Bahamas together and sleep for a week or two!

Awesome news that Annie is loving her class and doing well. And as far as falling off the book ban wagon - they are just simply to hard to resist! Blaming Rich seems fair, though, since he is taking off to sunnier parts in teh dead of winter again!

Jennifer said...

Sorry the news hit you at the wrong moment, but great way to turn it around!
So glad you updated on Annie's progress - how awesome!
Hope you get some much needed rest soon!

Melody said...

Wow, look at those books!!! I want to read Out! I've seen this book being mentioned all over the blogosphere and it'd really piqued my interest!

I'm glad to hear Annie is doing well in class!! :)