HAVE YOU READ A GOOD BOOK LATELY??

My friend Melissa posted this list of books from The Big Read. 

How many have you read?  If you are bored this list should keep you busy unless you were an overachiever in high school and you've already made your way through them.  I have put the titles I have read in purple but I have to say that did read a lot of them in high school and I only have vague recollections of them now but a good deal of them I read in college.  I should probably reread most of them what with all my free time with three kids running around (one of which is Andrew!!).  Feel free to copy the list for your blog so you can take an inventory of ones you've finished and maybe you can inspire someone to read a book!

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
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - 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 (all but 7)
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker'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
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
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's 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
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White 
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
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
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare 
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

JENNY ON OPRAH

Jenny McCarthy is scheduled to be on Oprah tomorrow Wednesday, Sept. 24 to discuss her new book Mother Warriors: A Nation of Parents Healing Autism Against All Odds. 

In her book, she features tons of stories from parents who are healing their ASD children through biomedical and behavioral therapies and dietary interventions.  Every one of you who read this blog know at least one person who has a child on the autism spectrum (namely me!!).  Please watch if only to get a better understanding of the challenges the children and their parents face and the extremely tangible and real possibility of recovery and progression for all children affected with autism.  We have seen it in our own lives with our precious boy!!

HIGH SCHOOL TAG

So my friend Rebecca tagged me and I was so excited about this post and I even went over to my parents' house to find some high school pics I had in mind but I was so disappointed to find that my mother had stored all the photos in a closet that I can't get into because they are remodeling the upstairs.  I was completely bummed but I did manage to get a couple. Here goes...

   Senior Picture

     This pic is cracking me up and totally reminds me of those classmatesearch.com ads.  Big hair and bushy eyebrows...love it!

Graduation (I'm top row fourth from the left)

I went to high school at Sacred Heart Academy in Grand Coteau, La.  I graduated in 1987.

On to the questions...

1. Did you date anyone in your high school?

    Uh, no...all girls.

2. What kind of car did you drive?

 Ford Tempo...only it was blue.  I drove it until one day my Dad gave it to the housekeeper          and then I had to drive a huge Lincoln TownCar to school.  It was very embarrassing.

3. What was your most embarrassing moment of High School?

     Driving up in that huge boat of a Town Car!  I would gladly take it now but it's definitely not     cool when you are 17.

4. Were you a party animal?

     Baaahhh! No!

5. Were you considered a flirt?

     Good grief...NO!

6. Were you in a band, orchestra or choir?

    No.  I was lazy.  I did nothing but go home and eat snacks and do my homework and watch          reruns of Gilligans Island and frankly that is what I STILL do.

7.  Were you a nerd?

     Well, technically no because I would kind of "sabotage" my grades so I wouldn't have all A's.  I didn't want to be a geek...I just wanted to fly right under the nerd radar.

8. Were you on any Varsity Teams?

    I think we had a basketball team and a volleyball team but I am not entirely sure.  I tried to get out of P.E. almost every day so I was definitely not on any sports teams.

9. Did you ever get suspended/expelled?

   Absolutely not!  But I did get two demerits for dropping a fingernail on the floor (New headmistress trying to prove a point...long story.)

10. Can you sing the fight song?

  Pretty sure we didn't have one unless you count "Ave Maria".

11. Who were your favorite teachers?

  My only favorite teacher was Dr. Landry who taught AP English.  She knew everything!

12. Where did you sit during lunch?

 In the cafeteria...duh!

13. School mascot?

  The Virgin Mary???

14.Did you go to Homecoming?

  Didn't have one but probably wouldn't have gone.

15. If you could go back and do it again, would you?

 Hell to the No!

16. What do you remember most from graduation?

  That I drove 20 minutes out to the school and 30 minutes before we were supposed to start the procession I realized I brought the wrong duffle bag and I didn't have my dress or shoes so I had to frantically call my parents who thankfully hadn't left the house yet and my Dad broke the sound barrier getting out to Grand Coteau.  I got dressed with about two seconds to spare and walked out last.

17. Where did you go on Senior skip day?

  Well, I don't think we had one.  All of my days were spent in this cozy little place.

18. Were you in any clubs?

  Yes, but only because we were required to be in at least one club.  I chose the Spanish Club and I have no idea why.

19. Have you gained any weight since then?

  Only a hundred pounds or two!!!

20. Who was your Prom Date?

  Didn't go to either one.  Prom at an all-girls school is pretty lame!

21. Are you planning to go to your 10 year reunion?

  Uh...didn't go to the 10 year or the 20 year.  I am seriously considering going to the 25 year if we can all get our act together and plan one.

22. Looking back, what advice would you give yourself?

  Don't worry, chill, relax.

I TAG:  Jenny, Heidi, Melissa, Marcy, and Keli.  I would tag more of you but apparently a large portion of you read blogs but don't keep them!

LUKE WARNER SMITH

Luke is still in the NICU but he is doing well and just as cute as a button.  We are hoping he gets to go home in the next couple of days.  I got to visit with him today and took a couple of pictures.  I will post more when Kari emails me the ones that she took.

BABY LUKE

I know a lot of you out there are anxiously awaiting pictures of Kari's new baby.  Unfortunately he has been in the NICU due to complications related to C-section delivery and I haven't gotten a good picture of him.  I'm sure he will be released soon and I will post a picture as soon as I can and I will send out an email alert.  I can tell you this:  he is adorable and super chubby and big.  He was almost 10 pounds!!  His name is Luke Warner Smith.  

MISS PRISS

     and FINALLY!!....
        

Lillianne recently turned 2 and a half and I thought I would take a nice picture of her for her baby book.  The problem is that the child cannot take a normal picture.  She always has to do some goofy pose or silly smile that messes up the pic.  It took me  almost two weeks to get a decent shot.  I have decided that I need a camera with a faster shutter speed so I will nag and whine about it until it materializes.  I am so tired of taking pictures and the kids have their eyes closed or their heads turned because it takes so long for the camera to take the picture.  I am convinced it is completely the fault of my sub-par Olympus camera and that it has nothing to do with my photo-taking skills...uh...yeah...that's it.

IS THAT ALL THERE IS????

    Evacuation

    Light down near Cajundome                                    
  LOVE firefighters saving people!!

  Bad luck with trees

                                     
 Love this gal walking her dog with her "got crabs?" t-shirt...classy.

 Big oak tree

Well, Gustav came and left and the Waihi family is no worse for the wear.  We are extremely thankful that the hurricane was pretty wimpy on our side of town and we did not even lose power.  The north side of Lafayette did not fair as well and there was some damage and some people are out of electricity but this storm did not compare in any way to storms of the past.  Duane and I are completely stir crazy as we have been home with these kids for 48 hours straight.  We only left the house briefly after the winds died down to survey the damage.  We are so blessed that this was not a horrible storm.  I keep telling myself to think of that when I think that school is cancelled for TWO MORE DAYS!!!  These pictures are some that I swiped from theadvertiser.com.  All of this damaged was sustained in central and north Lafayette.

Hurricane Update

Well, it looks like we are in the clear for a hurricane as we are not on the coast but inland quite a ways (Lafayette).  We are now expecting a tropical storm which is such a relief.  We will still have wind damage and flooding in the area and the power will probably go out for a few hours but nothing catastrophic.  I am really tired of the media theatrics as I feel they are playing upon the "Katrina panic" that is now effecting people.  I just want this to be over so the kids can go back to school.  School is cancelled through Wednesday as of now so we will see after the storm has passed and the damage has been assessed.  I will probably not update again for a couple of days, especially if the power goes out for a while. Our neighbors boarded up their windows and I thought what they wrote on the boards was funny.  Please continue to pray for our safety.  And thanks for all the messages and emails so far.  We appreciate it!