This is the one about ‘The Tower Treasure.’

I don’t really have a good reason, but I’ve always been attracted to childrens literature.  One theory is that when I was younger books were so enjoyable that to this day I find myself drawn to reading some kids-lit.  Another theory is that, like a Saturday morning cartoons, the story lines are so mind-numbingly predictable, reading young adult novels are actually soothing for the brain; you can just sit and read as put your brain in to auto-pilot.

Whatever the reason, I picked up the first Hardy Boys novel The Tower Treasure.  I’ve never read a Hardy Boys book before, so it was kind of fun to see how 1950s it was.  Many of the chapters started with the boys just finishing up at baseball practice or church, and ended with a good night’s rest.

The squeaky clean image of the Hardy Boys is refreshing though, isn’t it?  I’m curious why we haven’t seen a Hardy Boys movie recently where the boys are super conservative (like they are in the book) and they are trying to solve some crimes from 2009.  I do know that there could possibly be a movie coming out next year called “The Hardy Men” with Ben Stiller and Tom Cruise playing the boys all grown up.

This book is quick…we see the suspect on page one.  YA’s aren’t going to wait around for action.  But really predictable and mind-numbing.

I used to work with this guy that read the entire Sweet Valley High series, and I’m thinking about giving that a try…or maybe The Babysitter’s Club.

Nothing.  I’m going to spend the month of November doing NaNoWriMo, and I’m not going to taint my creative juices with someone else’s novel.

This is the one about Grandma’s ovaries.

I was sitting with a 12 year old this afternoon and we were talking about some Dia de Muertos stuff and he was telling me about his Grandma that passed away a couple of months ago.  This is what he told me verbatim:

“My Grandma died in June.  She always ate unhealthy, and she had clogged ovaries in her heart.”

The kid just poured it out for me.  This was a recent death, and he was still dealing with losing her and he was talking about making an altar for her because he missed her so much.  And when he looks over to me, I can’t stop smiling.  I’m a jerk.

This is the one where I write a novel.

I’m going to do it.  Again.

NaNoWriMo is pretty intense, if you do it right.  And it’s totally time-consuming.  And rewarding.  And stupid.

I wrote a novel in 30 days back in 2004 about a guy that works at a nursing home.  Then I repeated the process and wrote a shitty novel in 2005 about a straight guy that worked in a homo-saturated industry and had to pretend to be gay to get ahead…Twelfth Knight rip off .  And then in 2007 I tried again.

This time I’m serious.

If you are participating in NaNoWriMo, hook up with me on the site.  My profile is located at: http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/user/82575

If you are thinking about doing NaNoWriMo, but aren’t sure, here’s a little list I found on WriteToDone by Leo Babauta:

Just a few reasons to do NaNoWriMo:
1. It gives you the motivation to finally write that novel.
2. It teaches you some good habits — getting writing done every day.
3. You learn a lot about yourself when you’re put to the test like this.
4. Like I said, it’s tremendous fun to join up with so many enthusiastic writers.

This is the one about poop.

I wrote last week about the new addition to our house, and Beezus has been a pretty good challenge for us.  First off she is a few weeks younger than Olive was when Olive came home.  Secondly, I am in a different position and at a different Club now so I can’t run home at lunch to take her outside.

Daniel has been coming home each day to take Beezus out to relieve herself, but even still she has been doing her business in her crate when we are at work.

Yesterday we started a new (exhausting) routine that we’re hoping with cure this shitting-where-you-sleep problem.  In the morning we wake up and feed the dogs.  Beezus gets taken out to do her business.  Then she gets taken out every hour until I leave for work.  After work we do the same on-the-hour kind of thing.  Once we go to sleep, I wake up at 1am to take her out, and Daniel wakes up at 4am to take her out.

I know that with Olive we were the kind of dog owners that over-analyze everything.  We Googled any problem we had with training, and changed up our routines if we found a website with new suggestions.  I’m hoping that right now we’re just being annoying dog owners again.

This is the one about ‘Official Book Club Selection.’

You either love her or you hate her.  It seems that I haven’t found anyone that is just like, “Kathy Griffin is okay.”

I just finished Griffin’s memoir Official Book Club Selection, and she doesn’t disappoint.  The book begins with a letter to Oprah that explains the title.

“Get ready, cause after you read this barn burner, you’re gonna want me on sweeps week.  You’re gonna want to open a school in my name, and have a special edition white ladies’ legends ball, just for me.  Barbra Walters can cater.  Maybe.”

The memoir gives you some of the stuff you’ve come to expect from Griffin; she has chapters devoted to celebrity stories and funny mom stories.  What I enjoyed most was the details she dished about the tough road she took as a female comic, life as a TV funny-girl sidekick, and the family stories we’ve never heard in her stand-up or on My Life On The D-List.

If you’re a Kathy fan, it’s worth a read.  If you’re not, what’s wrong with you?

I decided to spend some time reading some kids-lit.  I think I want to write a kid’s book, so I’m going to hit the Hardy Boys up…starting with the first in the series The Hardy Boys: The Tower Treasure.

This is the one with my 12 of 12.

Haven’t been able to do my 12 of 12 for a couple of months because of camera drama.  Glad to be back.

If you don’t know what 12 of 12 is, here’s the basics: On the 12th day of each month bloggers all over the world take 12 photos throughout the day and post them on their blogs. It’s Chad Darnell’s idea, and you can see his website and a list of links here.

To see my photos from past months, click here.

Here are my photos for October 2009.

We pushed the snooze button too many times this morning.

One of the first things I do each morning is feed and walk Olive.

Low-carb breakfast

This is the reason I'm doing low-carb. This is my AFTER breakfast number!!

This is the beautiful building I work in.

My desk is cluttered with kid-art.

This week is FALL BREAK - so the kids are in the building ALL DAY. I hung out in the game room.

This is the "snack" we fed the kids at 3:30.

I cooked some pork chops for dinner.

I can't post a 12-of-12 without a photo of Olive's face. Next month we'll have Olive and Beezus.

Ouch.

Watching David (Schuster) and reading David (Croxis.net)

This is the one about Beezus the dog.

Next Saturday we’ll be picking up our new dog, Beezus.

Like Olive, she’s a pug/beagle mix (puggle).  We’re getting her from the same place we got Olive.

Daniel wasn’t completely sold on the name Beezus, but I  got stubborn and said that I’m going to call her Beezus regardless of what he names her.

So we’re going to have a little puppy in the house again…and we’ll have to work on training a new dog.  But at least Olive will have a little sister to play with.  And how can you not fall in love with that face?

This is the one where I get my camera back!

Last July I broke my digital camera.  I really jacked it up.

That’s why I missed the 12 of 12 in August.

I was really upset about not having a digital camera because I’m not in a place to afford a new one, and I really loved my camera.  But then I started thinking that when I bought the camera I had purchased a 2 year warranty.  So I dug through the boxes that I have in my parents’ garage and found the warranty that was valid through December 2009.

I brought the camera into Best Buy and the Geek Squad shipped the camera off to Geek Squad headquarters.

That’s why I missed the 12 of 12 in September.

There was a little bit of drama where the camera wasn’t fixed properly, and it had to be sent away again…but the short story is this: I have my camera back, and it works!

So I’ll be taking pictures again, and I’ll be participating in the 12 of 12 tomorrow.

This is the one where I count my steps.

This weekend I scored a free pedometer.  So I’m putting it to use tomorrow.  I’m not sure, however, how many steps a normal person takes.  I don’t actually have a goal number of steps…I’m doing this more as an experiment.

After some Googling, I found that 10,000 steps per day has become a common goal…but there doesn’t seem to be research to back up that number.  I’ve even found that something as low as 6,000 steps a day is shown to be connected to lower death rate in men according to a  Harvard Study.

So I decided to use the numbers published by Dr. Catrine Tudor-Locke in Sports Medicine magazine.  He’s been studying pedometer walking and these are the classifications he came up with:

Classification of pedometer-determined physical activity in healthy adults:

1. Under 5000 steps/day may be used as a “sedentary lifestyle index”
2. 5,000-7,499 steps/day is typical of daily activity excluding sports/exercise and might be considered “low active.”
3. 7,500-9,999 likely includes some exercise or walking (and/or a job that requires more walking) and might be considered “somewhat active.”
4. 10,000 steps/day indicates the point that should be used to classify individuals as “active”.
5. Individuals who take more than 12,500 steps/day are likely to be classified as “highly active”.

I’ll give you my number tomorrow.

This is the one about my hair.

This sixteen-year-old kid at work wants to go to cosmetology school, and he has a pretty good eye for style.  Last week I told him that I wanted him to cut my hair for me.  It was a week of “do you really trust me?” and “what if I mess it up?” conversations…I kinda think that he liked telling people he was going to cut my hair more than he actually enjoyed cutting it.

Last Friday I brought my clippers and scissors to work, and the kid went to town.  My instructions were simple: do my hair the way you’d do it if you had hair like mine (his hair is much curlier than mine is, and he has told me he wishes he had straighter hair).

He did a fairly good job.  The length on the sides and top was really good…except for my front curl.

Backstory: I have this annoying Clark-Kent-like curl in the front of my head.  It’s particularly frustrating for people that are trying to style my hair when they realize that their entire creation is thrown off by this freak curl.

So when the teen was cutting my hair he took the scissors and totally gave me baby bangs.  Like the hair on the top of my head is 5 inches, and my bangs are 1 inch.

It’s a pitty too, because the kid really gave me a good haircut.  But I can’t live with these stupid bangs.  So today I had Dan do this to me:

I think that after it grows out I’ll give the kid another chance at my head.  Like I said, aside from the bangs, I really liked the doo.