Sunday morning smiles

Well it is Sunday morning. I am a heathen (I'll go ahead and say it before my cousin Josh does) as I did not go to church this morning. We planned on going last night but with the way JB was feeling, decided not to.

JB is in the hospital all day, and I do have difficulty motivating myself to go to church when he can't go with me. I turned on the TV to see if I could find a favorite preacher and stumbled upon the French Open. Not good. So that's what I've been going for the last hour and a half.

Oh, and did I mention I slept until 10 a.m.? We went to bed last night at 8 p.m., and while I woke up briefly when John left around 6 a.m., I then went back down for andother 4 hours. I had my earplugs in and was therefore able to sleep straight through the 8 a.m. church bells. I slept 14 hours! I knew I needed it. We both did. I have been sleeping so poorly and feel like I finally caught myself up. John too said he felt a lot better when he woke up this morning.

I wanted to include a couple of pictures to make you smile today. The first is of a girl Tara took a picture of at a marathon she attended to watch a few friends run. She has no idea who this little girl is. I have no idea who this little girl is, and yet, I feel so connected, somehow. Could it be ... the chocolate?!



I also cleaned out my email this morning, and found an old picture of Grace that I loved. Can you guess who Grace wants to be when she grows up?! :)

Okay, now, completely changing gears. I wanted to talk to you about ... books.

After Tara's fabulous birthday gift of the book The Wedding by Nicholas Sparks, I have since read The Notebook and A Walk to Remember in a matter of days (also by Nicholas Sparks). Now I may be a former English teacher and a woman who is head over heals for Mark Twain, but I have not been a big reader since I was in junior high. My high school years were packed with athletics, college was packed with studying, and by the time I became a teacher, I was so busy reading and re-reading the pieces I was going to teach my students, that reading was no longer a relaxing hobby for me.

They say you marry your opposite.

Now my husband, on the other hand, as you who know us well know, is a compulsive reader. He brings a book everywhere he goes. If we are stuck five minutes in traffic or 10 minutes waiting for a store to open, he is frustrated that he did not bring a book with him. Sitting in church waiting for a wedding to start, in his mind, is a perfect chance to get a few chapters in (if I would only allow him to carry a book into church.)

I have never felt this way. I've never passed time with reading. I'd much rather play a game of spades, write in my blog, go for a long walk or a quick run, work on a story, or watch a favorite television show.

Then it happened. One of those moments when you realize everything you have teased and been different from is spiraling into your own existence.

Friday afternoon I went to meet JB for lunch after my morning at Mayo. I was standing outside of St. Mary's waiting for him to call and tell me that he was done and where I could meet him. I was a little frustrated because the only seats were occupied by smokers, and when I walked into the building, my cell phone service would go out. So instead, I was left to lean against a rail, holding my phone, listening to cars go by.

I stood there and thought, "I wish I had my book."

As soon as I thought it I felt myself start to laugh. What had happened to me? Books were JB's territory. I teased him about his books unmercifully. My players knew him as "the guy with a book". I would sometimes ask him before we left the house to not bring a book so we could talk during the baseball game instead of read. I remember my cousin Josh saying he knew he had been hanging out with JB too much when he saw a book in our house entitled Swine Science and nearly picked it up. (Note the inclusion of the word "nearly").

But now, I wanted my book. All this wasted time, standing, waiting, doing nothing. I could be through three or four chapters by now!

I say all this to say that this Nicholas Sparks (thanks Tara) is awesome. So awesome that the MOMENT I finished reading A Walk to Remember, I told JB I had to go to Blockbuster. We have Netflix leading him to ask me why I had to visit the video store. I had to go to the video store to rent the movie! The ending to the book is purposely ambiguous and maybe, at least I hoped, the movie would end the way I pictured the book ending. I also knew JB would never read the book (too girly), but he would watch the movie with me and then I could read him the end of the book and see how he interpreted it.

What has become of my jockness?!

If you have already seen the movie The Notebook, I strongly recommend you make your way to your local public library and get The Wedding, which is the sequel to The Notebook. Of the three books, it is The Wedding which was my favorite. My second recommendation would be A Walk to Remember. I truly am not sure how I feel about The Notebook. It was very good, and the first book that I have EVER cried while reading. However, because I had seen the movie first, I think it ruined some of the amazement of the book. If you have not seen the movie The Notebook yet then definitely definitely definitely read the book before you go and see the movie.

Okay so there it is. Oh and men reading this blog ... I think most of you would enjoy The Wedding. JB has promised me he will read it so we can discuss it. (I am now seeing the point of book discussion clubs -- what has happened to me?) However, he has also made me promise to not tell anyone that he is reading it.

Oh shoot. I guess I posted it on my blog which means I am telling people. Well, I won't hold his arm behind his back to get him to read this post and maybe he won't see this.

So there is my current advice on books and what has been going on in my life. I need to go now -- I have started The Believer (also by Nicholas Sparks), and need to go read!