This Week, for What It's Worth: A Worthy List

My list for this week, in no particular order:

I miss tiny babies. Mine are older now and I miss their tiny, squishy, cuddly, cooing, baby-powder smelling bodies.

Looking at kids looking at art is awesome.

1/5th of Pakistan is under water. How can that be? 1/5th of an entire country!  It's hard to think about that, Haiti, the Gulf, the Middle East and troops in harm's way without becoming overwhelmed and upset.

Being Muslim is not equivalent to being a terrorist. Not all Christians, nor Jews, Budhists, Russian Orthodox, Sikhs, Hindus, African Diasporics, and/or Neo-Paganists, etc., are the sum of the worst acts of those that practice their religion. C'mon America...let's get this right—there should be mosques and temples and churches, libraries, museums—places of beauty and learning and freedom to help us deal with the horrible things/honor the people that died on 9/11.

I would like to elect people that govern and not politicians.

Funniest line in a romance novel ever: "He smiled then and made her heart spring like a lemming flinging itself into the sea." Best. Line. Ever.

Best advice I gave my son this week: If a girl sees you picking your nose, you can never, ever, ever recover from that with her...or with any of her friends.

I'm re-reading the Brother Cadfael series by Ellis Peters. So well written, such well plotted stories.

When my daughter wears her Scharfen Berger chocolate t-shirt that states "Extra Bitter" on the front...it's a statement of fact.

Read the Mistress of the Art of Death series by Ariana Franklin. Stunning historical novels with a protagonist that puts any modern day forensic scientist to shame. Sorry Bones!

My kids hate it when I sing everything I say to them. I'm funnier than they realize. 

I have good friends. I am lucky.  This week was the Clay Pit in Austin and a bottle of good wine at 50% off.

We do get better at some things with age and practice. I'm just sayin'. Sighhhhhhh.

I am anxious to read "The Blasphemer" by Nigel Farndale. One of the best British books of 2010. Second chance stories...they make me hopeful.

The Economic Security Index says that 20% of American households are facing "utter economic devastation".  Look around folks, we are them.

I love the Allstate "Mayhem" commercials.

School starts next week. Happy and Sad.

I love Laurell K. Hamilton and her Anita Blake, Vampire Killer series.  Great suspense novels that happens to have multiple and complicated love triangles among Anita, a Christian necromancer, wearwolves, vampires and the such. 

My daughter believes that my life gets better every time she enters a room.  She told me this when she woke me up the other day at 1:30 in the morning.  Ta-dah...my life was better.