Some people have scrapbooks and photo albums.  I have “stuff”.  In my kitchen cupboards, on shelves, beside my clock radio there is “stuff”.  I don’t see a toy or a book, I see the person behind it.   The “stuff” that came to me by way of those that are important.  My friends. My family.

On my nightstand – some finished, some not started

When I was young, our local library was a small rural place.  But it had a great selection of children’s books.  I was allowed to check out six at a time and I did so nearly every week.  The ones I still recall vividly are the Indian in the Cupboard and the entire OZ series.  Junior high was A Wrinkle in Time and the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. By high school I had discovered Stephen K*ing.  He is still the only author that has ever made me physically ill (IT) and given me repeated nightmares (Tommyknockers).

Started but not finished, yet.

At some point in my adulthood I asked my mother, a former English teacher, for a list of must read by the time you graduate high school books.  The premise of the request was that works of literature, movies, and even paintings often refer to other works of literature.  Without knowledge of the latter, the first fails to deliver the full intended message.  I felt pretty good that while I had read less than 33% of the books, I could summarize the plot for nearly 85% of them.  The Count of Monte Cristo has become my new favorite classic.  I now know that the Last of the Mohicans has a pivotal character never seen in the movie, Doctor Zhivago is worth every page, and that Voltaire has a wicked sense of humor. 

On a related topic, my mother never kept it a secret from her students that she did not enjoy science fiction or horror stories.  I will never forget the day I came home for a visit during my college days. She insisted that I read a short story that one of her students had written for an assignment that she thought was very well done in spite of it’s gory plot. I, in turn, insisted that she read the first 50 pages of the novel IT even if it wasn’t her genre of choice.  Apparently she failed to tell her students that her daughter didn’t share her dislike of sci-fi and horror. 

I’ve joined the ABC along for this year.  I am hoping it will encourage me to broaden the topics I post about. Knitting is my entire life and the very reason for existing a large part of my life.  I struggle to post when the rest of my life takes over and I have nothing knitty to blog.   My goal is to broaden my blogging horizon so to speak.

Full of excitement (new pictures to be taken of before now untold stories) and anticipation of blogging more frequently (this was a logical assumption given that I was expanding my resources of blogworthy topics), I joined right up.  Then I ran smack into a complete and total blank for A.   I was ready for B.  C is pretty much a done deal too, but A was throwing me for a loop.  I briefly thought about going out of order but some things should not be mess with.   I consider the alphabet one of those things.  So I began panicking over Q, X and Z continued to mull over possible A’s.

Until a discussion with my hubby about a possible DVD purchase.  He pointed out that many of the videos in our house do not feature live people and buying more non-real-people movies might certify us as, well, weird.  My husband and I enjoy a good laugh, especially if it is from a well-told subtle intelligence required joke.  Bonus points for a thin layer of sarcasm.  Pix*ar Animation films never fail to deliver as well as the Ice Age series.  My favorite has been and probably always will be this short film although this one runs a very close second.

We have no children.  I would like to take this opportunity to ask if we really should be concerned?