Friday Five (Take 2)

1. Dear poor neglected blog, I didn't mean to forget about you. I didn't mean to break my New Years Resolution two months in a row. And yet, I have - even though I actually have this sticky note of awesome blog post ideas right here on my printer... Hmm. I'll try to be better about this (but honestly though, it may have to wait until after I finish these revisions). xoxo, S.
   
   
2. A dear college friend stumbled upon my blog (ahem, I mean, she asked and I sent her the link), and she wrote a poem based on the fake title from this post, The World Is Ending and All I Want Is Chocolate. Reading it totally made my day!!
   
   
3. I recently finished Carlos Ruis Zafon's The Shadow of the Wind, which I've been carrying around (unopened and unread) to all my new homes for at least twelve months. Honestly, I'm not sure why it took me so long to read it. Everyone who'd read it recommended it like whoa. Maybe you have to be in a particular mood to read a labyrinthine gothic romance set in Barcelona between 1910 and 1970, but apparently, I was in that mood when I started it last week. Anyway, THIS NOVEL IS FANTASTIC!!! It's actually one of those stories that makes you fall in love with books all over again.
   
   Here's one of my favorite quotes: "Books are mirrors: you only see in them what you already have inside you." (209)
   
   
4. I've been way into books for grown-ups recently. I don't often read adult novels. (In fact, sometimes I rant about adult novels, rather than read them.) Actually, since I've been keeping track of all the books I've read since last August, I can say with absolute certainly that in the last nine months, only 17% of the books I've read have been aged for adults. :-| (I am a grown-up, I promise. *avoids eye contact with old friends who stare with disbelief*) And a third of those books have been read in the last three weeks.
   
   I'm not completely sure what changed, but I think it might have something to do with revisions. MG or YA books, especially ones with a strong voice, get me back in the mindset of how I need to change such-and-such and move this scene to that chapter and delete that dialogue exchange, so reading them doesn't always feel like R&R (and sometimes makes it hard to sleep, to be honest, after the brain goes on overdrive).
   
   
5. Mainly, I have been working. Desk, living room, kitchen, hair is all in a state of disarray, but otherwise, it isn't all that exciting. No, you don't get a picture of my insane hair. Instead, in honor of Earth Day, I give you a pretty picture of a tree in early early spring: