easter

The Sunday Salon – A Happy Easter Wish and a New Reading Expirement

Michelle28 Comments

The Sunday Salon.comHappy Easter to everyone who celebrates it. I hope your day is filled with love, family, friends, and chocolate. My Easter will be kind of mellow as we have no family here and all of our best friends in the area do not celebrate. But Ben and I will got to mass shortly and then we will enjoy a relaxing day of reading and soda-drinking (we both gave it up and I am greatly anticipating a diet coke upon my return).

Moving on, I was chatting with Swapna on twitter the other day about book polygamy: reading more than one book at once. I mentioned that I have to work really hard at it because I often will focus on one book and ignore the others. Swapna replied that she has a very strict plan. Well I have taken her plan, modified it a little, and come up with my own new reading experiment.

Starting this weekend, I am going to read:

  • 50 pages in a classic;
  • 100 pages in a novel that’s been sitting around unread for awhile (or a slower novel);
  • 50 pages in a nonfiction book; and
  • an entire other book

in that order.

First up for this experiment are the following books:

Classic: North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
Novel that’s been sitting around: Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
Nonfiction: Blood Work by Holly Tucker
Other: Shade by Jeri Smith-Ready

I am hoping that this will allow me to read multiple books at a time and also make me a more well-rounded reader. I have every intention of reading more classics and non-fiction but I am never sure how to fit them into my reading. Now they have a place.

Do you like reading more than one book at a time (and how do you manage it?) Or are you a book monogamist?

The Sunday Salon – The Stay In Bed All Week Edition

Michelle9 Comments

The Sunday Salon.com I went through the work day on Monday just thinking this would be a regular week. I felt fine, I had work to do, and things were generally looking up. Then at 5:30, it hit me. The Sore Throat. By 10pm, I was sick and I basically avoided life for three days. 3 days in bed? Sounds wonderful right? I always think that until I actually get sick again and remember how much it just sucks. I didn’t catch up on email or blogging or blog reading or anything that you think you can do when you’re sick until you actually are sick. Instead, I just watched a lot of Gilmore Girls and just generally felt icky.

I did, however, feel up for reading a little and I finished The Help on Wednesday and When You Reach Me on Friday afternoon. So that was the bright side to the week.

And here we are now on Easter Sunday. I always loved Easter growing up and I still do. I’m actually going to make it to church today (my mom will be so proud) and have Easter dinner with some friends. then spend the day watching tv still trying to recover. Tomorrow my little brother and his girlfriend are coming to stay with us for the week and I couldn’t be more excited (I should probably stop calling him little since he’ll be 25 next month and he’s bigger than me). My brother hasn’t been down to visit since I moved here two years ago and I can’t wait to show him around and hang out (of course, I can’t really take any time off work like I’d planned since I missed so much last week). My tentative plans include baseball, the beach, and some Mario Kart  (I have been trying to beat my brother since Super NES).

So I’m glad that this past week has wrapped up and a new one is beginning with such happy events. I also hope it contains a cadbury egg or two. Happy Easter (or maybe Passover) readers!