Here I am again.  Up late.  12:30am is a little late for me to sit down and start a new blog.  It always takes me a long time to write it and read it, and edit it, and add to it.  But I always go through the day thinking, "Oh!  I should blog about x!" and then I forget.  But I'm here.  We are having a great summer - I'm trying really hard to find things for us to do, to make sure Stewart reads books and does workbook pages, to try to find a few minutes in each day to spend with each of my little boys, alone.  Even though I know the kids are loving this summer and really enjoying getting to be home with Mommy I still feel unfulfilled.  Like I need more mental stimulation or something.  A challenge?  Something that requires more brain power.  So I'll be glad when the fall semester starts.  I almost feel like I'm not doing anything all day - which sounds totally ridiculous but I guess I'm still trying to adjust to life not working. 

I stay up late and I get up early with the kids.  I wish I could be sleeping right now but this is my time.  This is the only time of the day that I get to myself.  I can sit here and Facebook, play a game, read a book - and I don't feel guilty.  I can sit here and get lost in whatever book I'm reading because it's 12:00am - I don't need to be cooking for the kids, prepping our dinner, doing laundry, change a diaper or guide a little boy to his potty.  I can just sit here.  I could sit here and stare at the wall if I wanted to - there isn't anything else demanding my attention.  I didn't realize how much I missed sitting at a desk doing things on my own schedule - and not spending a day planning everything around the demands of a 2 year old and a 7 year old.  I'm sure I am no different from any other stay at home mom, but I can't even go to the bathroom alone.  One of them is always following me into the bathroom, the shower, upstairs, downstairs, outside, inside.  Every where I go.  Sometimes I just want a minute. 

Sooooo, I've been spending a lot of late nights sitting on the couch reading a book or mindlessly navigating through my favorite websites.  It seems that I have read a lot of books.  16 in 2 months.  This is probably where this post is going to get random and wander so maybe I'll just start bullet points here.  :)

• The Charles Town library is pathetic.  I keep saying that, yet I keep finding older books to check out.  They just don't have a lot of newer books, books on the bestseller lists.  So as much as I love my Nook - I'm trying to buy hard copies of books so I can donate them to the library when I finish reading them.  It seems like a good idea - but only if there are other people in this little country town that enjoy reading the same books I do!
• Reading quite a bit of chick lit (Jennifer Weiner, Emily Giffin, et al), I have picked up on one major theme of relationships in chick lit:  All men cheat.  Good men, bad men, young men, old men, single men, married men, employed men, unemployed men, doctors, lawyers, accountants, men with children - According to modern chick lit - all men cheat.  I think it's kinda sad.  Is this a generalization that these authors write about because it sells books, makes for a good story, because it is relatable, or because they believe it?  Shit.  Who am I to criticize?  Half of the books I've read this summer are chick lit involving these men.
  
• I've said it before, but once I discover an author that I enjoy, I gather up everything that they have published and I binge read it all.  For example, Jen Lancaster.  She is probably the only writer-crush I have ever had and I've read my fair share of books.  She's awesome.  If I wrote books, I would want to write a book like hers.  I think, if we were to meet, we could be friends because we are so much alike.  (If you've read any of her books, you know that she thinks that if celebrities meet her, they will love her.  I think if she meets me, she will love me.  haha)  She has 5 books out and I have read them all, falling completely in love with each one within the first 5 pages.  Her last book, "My Fair Lazy", I actually read with a bright pink highlighter in my hand.  I highlighted things that made me laugh out loud, things she quoted or referenced that I just love - and I even made a few remarks in the margins.  I don't even do that with a textbook.  Anyway, I've been reading a lot of books that I have purposefully ignored like Emily Giffin and Jennifer Weiner and I am enjoying all of them. 
  
• "The Doctor's Wife" by Elizabeth Brundage was a welcome respite from mindless chick lit. Such a great story, I don't even know where to begin.  I can't wait to start her other book, "Somebody Else's Daughter."  I have some books checked out from the library right now and I need to read those first.  I feel really guilty if I ask the library to pull and hold a book for me and then return it without reading it.  So despite all of the great books that I stocked up on last week - I need to read my 2 library books first.