No excuses

Yeah, yeah, yeah.... I know. No excuses here. I just haven't had a whole lot to say or a whole lot of time in which to say it. Now that Noah has started flag football, we have just one more thing on our plate. Actually, I guess that would be at least 2 more things, sometimes 3; one night of practice, plus 1 to 2 games a week (Thursday evenings and/or Saturday afternoons).

So to ease back into this posting thing, I'll go with something easy: an update on my fall reading challenge progress. I'll post the original list with the completed books in strikeout:

1. Oceans Apart, Karen Kingsbury
2. Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe.
   
3. The 5-Minute Face, Carmindy.
   
4. When Faith Meets Fame, Guideposts.
   
5. Blameless: A Novel, Thom Lemmons.
   
6. Alpha Girls: Understanding the New American Girl and How She is Changing the World, Dan Kindlon.
7. Paula Deen: It Ain't All About the Cookin', Paula Deen.
   
8. The Sleeping Doll, Jeffrey Deaver.
9. Sunrise, Karen Kingsbury.
   
10. Life's Healing Choices, John Baker.
11. It's All Too Much: An Easy Plan for Living a Richer Life with Less Stuff, Peter Walsh.
    
12. How Starbucks Saved My Life, Michael Gill.
13. Down River, John Hart.
14. The Other Mother, Gwendolen Gross.
15. Keeping the House, Ellen Baker.
16. Barefoot, Elin Hildebrand.
17. 74 Seaside Avenue, Debbie Macomber.
18. The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold.
19. Still Summer, Jacquelyn Mitchard.
20. The Memory Keeper's Daughter, Kim Edwards.

11 out of 20 books read so far. I am working on Alpha Girls right now. UGH. We'll see if I finish it. That's the one by my bed (it is good for getting into a sleeping mood, that's for sure). I have a new book not on my list in the van to read in the carpool line... Abide With Me, by Elizabeth Strout. Carrie recommended it, so I added it to my request list at the library and got it almost immediately. I just started it today during the kids' music lessons and am over halfway through it. I only have 3 other books on my list that are actually here at the house, plus 2 waiting to be picked up at the library. I guess I'm still in line for the other 4.

Oh, and before I forget... notice the header? I won it in the Dog Days of Summer giveaways back in the summer. The giver was a bit backed up and wasn't able to work on it till last week. It's a definite improvement over the one I improvised in Paint.