Can I get a "that's what she said", from any of my devoted Church of Michael Scott followers?

But really, that's all I dreamt about last night, and it was crazy disturbing.  The night before last, I absolutely could not fall asleep.  The harder I tried, the more wide awake I felt, which was really ridiculous because I was exhausted.  I finally dropped off around 6 in the morning and woke up around 10:30.  Last night I was nervous about whether I'd be able to fall asleep, so after the somewhat surreal experience of watching the second to last Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien, I stayed up and read until about two when it felt like I was really fighting off sleep.

Happily, I was asleep within about thirty minutes of closing my eyes, but what followed was dream after dream featuring a faulty brake pedal and one run in after another with the disgruntled victims of my driving malfunctions.  It was the most frustrating dream--I would press as hard as I could on the brake pedal, but try as I might the car would not come to a full stop.  The car would slow down a little, but not enough to prevent me from careening into the car in front of me.  At one point, I caused a chain reaction accident involving six cars in front of me.  My subconscious does not screw around.

Anyway, generally speaking, my dreams don't really stick with me once I wake up, and I'm not usually much of one for dream analysis.  But for some reason, this dream really struck a chord with me.  I'm still mulling over my feelings about this dream in my own head, and I hesitate to even write them here because I don't know if words of advice (however wise, kind and well intended) are what I want or need right now.

It's safe to say that I do spend a lot of time questioning the path down which my life is going right now.  Not my relationships with people, but questioning my life choices, my future career possibilities, my "time line", my schooling and so on.  Wondering if I'm making choices because they're what I want or if it's because they're what seem the most appropriate from the outside looking in.

My life is in such a state of flux right now, and it seems like a poor time to be making big decisions about the future.  But sometimes it just isn't possible or realistic to take life a day at a time.  Sometimes you do have to think ahead a few months or a few years.  I'm not sure what my brain was trying to tell me last night, but today I'm feeling very unsettled.  And I just really, really hope that dream car accidents aren't reported to your insurance, because if so, our premium is going to skyrocket.

Last year I made a quasi-resolution to continue with the chick-lit ban and focus on reading more meaningful works of literature.  Not necessarily Kafka or Dostoyevsky (confession, never read anything by either--they frighten me somehow), but things with a little more heft and meaning than the Shopaholic series (which, confession, I love).  Sadly, that's pretty much the only resolution I did stick with, though I'll admit that I improved greatly in all resolution areas over the year.  But more on that another time.

Today, I want to go back through all fifty books that I read last year and whittle them down to my top ten recommendations.  I read some seriously fantastic books last year, some of which I feel are way too below the radar.  You can see the full list of books I read in 2009 by clicking here, along with a short personal review on some of the earlier reads before I got lazy and dropped that feature of the list.

In no particular order:

1)  Sarum: The Novel of England, Edward Rutherfurd
This tells the story of England's development from the time it fully breaks off from the rest of the European continent through the 1980s, by following the fortunes and pitfalls and five families throughout the generations.  Yes, sometimes the characters were a bit predictable as Rutherfurd seemed to rely on a few specific genetic and personality traits to define each family, but overall a fascinating look at one of my favorite countries told from the perspective of people rather than purely events.

2)  The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, Mary Ann Shaffer
I loved this book so much, I immediately logged on to Amazon to buy everything else Mary Ann Shaffer had written, only to find that she died before she was able to write anything else.  That's the world's loss, but she did leave behind this gem of a story about a tiny English island occupied by Nazis during WWII.  Told entirely through letters, each character's voice is at times charming, intriguing, hilarious, and heartbreaking.

3) The House at Riverton, Kate Morton
Set in England before, during and after WWI, a young girl comes to the home of a wealthy family to work as their maid and becomes embroiled in their relationships and secrets.  A twisty, turny mystery filled with intrigue, romance, and drama.  What's not to love!

4)  Drowning Ruth, Christina Schwarz
What is it with my obsession with deep, dark family secrets?  Deeply compelling from the first line of this novel--"Ruth remembered drowning"--to the last, I read this one on an airplane and it made the ride go by in the blink of an eye.

5)  The Red Tent, Anita Diamant
If you've been to Sunday school, you've heard the story of Jacob, Leah, and Rachel.  But who knew that a retelling of this Bible story from a the perspective of Jacob's daughter could be so beautiful and enjoyable.  They should have read us this book at our youth group...

6)  The Secret History, Donna Tartt
Follows the lives of five deeply twisted classics students at a small college in the Northeast and the outsider who befriends them and is sucked into their mysterious world.  Absolutely loved this, but I would recommend at least a basic knowledge of mythology to get the most out of it.  At the very least, have a web browser open ready to look up references.

7)  The Drowning Tree, Carol Goodman
I picked this one up in the morning and couldn't put it down until I'd read it all the way through.  The plot twists and turns throughout the novel and the descriptions of art made me feel as though it was part compelling story and part museum.

8)  The Street of A Thousand Blossoms, Gail Tsukiyama
Beautiful story of a Japanese family spanning the 3 decades before, during, and after WWII.  One of those books where every time something good happens to someone, something heartbreaking happens shortly after, but the characters are fascinating, the prose is the perfect combination of imagery and plot, and it ends on a hopeful note.  Give it the first 100 pages to really suck you in.  Reminded me a bit of Memoirs of a Geisha.

9)  The Bloody Chamber, Angela Carter
I love how macabre and creepy many of our favorite fairy tales are in their original form, and these even more haunting and spooky retellings were absolutely gripping.  Carter includes her versions of Snow White, Beauty and the Beast, Red Riding Hood, and Blue Beard just to name a few, and her stories are beautifully eerie and remarkably fresh.

10) Revolutionary Road, Richard Yates
Incredible book that I probably never would have read based on the blurb on the back of the book.  It's the story of the perfect couple, living the American Dream and hiding their utterly miserable existence behind the facade of a 1950s nuclear family.  Somehow the characters manage to be both insufferable and sympathetic, and while there's no major twist at the end, I stayed hooked all the way through, laughing on one page, and finding myself squirming uncomfortably on the next.  An at times relatable, at times disturbing book that reminds us, no one ever really knows what goes on behind closed doors.

Honorable Mentions:
The Dante Club, Matthew Pearl

A Cup of Tea: A Novel of 1917, Amy Ephron

Last night, as I was drifting off to sleep, I found myself thinking about children.  Specifically, the kids that I hung out with everyday at before and after school care last year.  Lord almighty, those kids were enough to drive the Pope to drink every last drop of communion wine.  From "sex scandals", to bullying, to bald-faced lies, to snotty pre-teen attitude, there were days when I would come home from work completely and utterly convinced that I would never, ever have kids of my own.

But there were also moments when a five year old suddenly realized that she could sound out the letter c-a-t to make a word.  And when a frustrated boy somewhere on the autism-spectrum would sit down and manage to make some beautiful music between the squawking of his cello.  Or when a ten year old who'd had a bad day just needed a hug and a good cry into your shoulder.  Best of all, when the two boys who'd never got along without name-calling or shoving would play basketball or football together with no discord at all.

I miss those moments.  Those constant reminders of so many parts of my childhood I'd completely forgotten about.  The joy of sitting on top of the jungle gym to better survey the playground.  Being so certain that a new pair of shoes would give my feet wings so that I could win relay races.  Even the sullen tweeners reminded me of my former self and I remembered how hard it really was to survive being 12.

Babies have definitely been on the forefront of my mind lately, and sometimes I wonder if I want a baby like I want a third puppy.  As in, it sounds like such a fun idea until you think about all of the work that goes into it.  And then, if I want a baby, do I actually want a child?  Am I ready to deal with the terrible two's and the transition to kindergarten, the awfulness of a household with a teenager residing within.  After the angelic little cherub cheeks, do I really want the reality of being a parent?

I still don't have an answer to that, and maybe I never will until I face all of those milestones down the road.  But I do know that I miss those kids in a way that gives me a sort of empty feeling in a small quadrant of my being and where ever they go in life, I hope that in some small way they remember those hours we spent before and after school with some sense of fondness.

I think I live in a house built for giants.  Or maybe the Papa Bear from Goldilocks.

While most things about the house are juuuust right, there have been a few little bumps along the road of getting to know each other.  Because we were the first people to live in our last house, there were some quirky sides to homeownership that we didn't get the chance to experience until now.  There were quirks in spades to that house as well, don't get me wrong, they were just different quirks.

The first thing I noticed while slaving away in the kitchen, finding nooks and crannies to stash more dishes than would be needed at a dinner party with the entire population of China, I noticed that the cabinets were a bit taller than I'm accustomed to.  That's nice! thought I, to myself, we have the extended height cabinets!  But then, as I was reaching up as far as my arm could stretch while elevated as high as my tippy toes could take me, I realized that I could just barely reach the third shelf.  Making that extra special fourth shelf nearly equivalent to a trip to Siberia.  Less cold though, the parallel has only to do with distance.  So, we went to Lowe's and I bought a stool.

Then we went to unpack our wardrobe boxes and I noticed that the top rack of the closet, where traditionally I have stashed all of my purses is also located geographically somewhere around the latitude of the out of reach fourth shelf.  So, I have determined that I shall have an upstairs stool and a downstairs stool.  And judging by the closet heights in the other rooms, perhaps and office stool and a guest room stool as well.

We are living in a Colby-sized house and I feel rather like I've climbed a beanstock to arrive here.

That doesn't really have anything to do with the house having a previous owner, but here's one for you.  Is there any way of removing those furniture divets in the carpet?  Our entire house looks as though a terrible golf player has come through and knocked out chunks of carpet.  In addition to that, bordering most of the rooms there is a nasty blackish residue that doesn't appear to be mold, but doesn't come up with a vacuum cleaner.  My solution to both of these problems is to just rip up the carpet and put in wood floors, but I'm having trouble convincing Colby that this really is the most fiscally responsible decision.

In addition to that, the front door has a finnicky bolt and the bedroom is always about 8 degrees colder than the rest of the house.

But even with all of that, I still think that this is a really great house and can't wait to see how it turns out when all of the walls are painted, our pictures are hung, and cardboard boxes aren't functioning as china cabinets.  Until then though, I need to go fetch a stool and find somewhere to cram the contents of these last few boxes.  Too bad we aren't at the top of a beanstock, or I'd just pitch them off the side for some old farmer to discover and ponder over.  I'm sure a load of Gone With the Wind music boxes and paper doll books would come in very handy on a farm.