Suppport Banned Books

Did you know that this week is Banned Books Week? It's a week that has been set aside for the last 30 years to promote reading. To stand up against those who would make our choices for us. It is for those who choose to proudly say I READ..

I grew up in a house where books were plentiful.. where more often than not when we were at sporting events, if you wanted to find my mom, you looked over to the nearest set of trees and there my mom would be in her chair, reading a book. Not watching the game, reading a book. The thought of not having a book on me at all times is inconceivable.

My mom always said, it didn't matter if your child would only read comic books, at least he is reading. Of course that didn't pertain to her children we read classics.. *rolls eyes* She still hasn't forgiven me for my love of romance books.. but that is another story. I do know, more often than not if she had heard that a book was banned and she felt it was age appropriate, we had to read it. I tried to raise my children in a similar manner. I can say with great pride, all four read.. they have unique and interesting tastes but read they do.

Sadly, not all people are afforded that right.. schools, governments, churches all for one reason or another choose to challenge or ban a book.. How can that possible be right? Sure some books are graphic, some books are extreme, some books are *gasp* bad.. but it is not the right of State to make that choice for us. Parents need to guide their children, encourage them to read and question what they are reading.. to make their own choices...in short to LEARN..

I found this list on Rebecca Ryals Russell's Website  and  thought it needed to be shared..

SOME of the 2011 challenged or banned books were:

    The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie
    Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson
    The Flamingo Rising, by Larry Baker
    The Notebook Girls: Four Friends, One Diary, Real Life, by Baskin, Newman, Pollitt-Cohen, Toombs
    Running with Scissors, by Augusten Burroughs
    My Mom’s Having a Baby, by Dori Hillestad Butler
    Betrayed, by P.C. and Kristin Cast
    Staying Far for Sarah Byrnes, by Chris Crutcher
    Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl, by Anne Frank
    The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky
    Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America, by Barbara Ehrenreich
    Water for Elephants, by Sara Gruen
    The Awakening, by Kate Chopin
    The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins
    Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, by Jonathan Safran Foer

In 2010 the top 10 most frequently challenged books were:

1. And Tango Makes Three, by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson

2. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie

3. Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley

4. Crank, by Ellen Hopkins

5. The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins

6. Lush, by Natasha Friend

7. What My Mother Doesn’t Know, by Sonya Sones

8. Nickel and Dimed, by Barbara Ehrenreich

9. Revolutionary Voices, edited by Amy Sonnie

10. Twilight, by Stephenie Meyer

But it’s not just contemporary books that get banned, classics get banned and challenged, too.
    *The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
    2. *The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
    3. *The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
    4. *To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
    5. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
    6. Ulysses by James Joyce
    7. Beloved by Toni Morrison
    8. *The Lord of the Flies by William Golding
    9. *1984 by George Orwell  (This one is the most ironic as its theme is suppression of books and thoughts)
    10. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
    11. Lolita by Vladmir Nabokov
    12. *Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
    13. *Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White
    14. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
    15. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
    16. *Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
    17. *Animal Farm by George Orwell
    18. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
    19. As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
    20. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
    21. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
    22. *Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne
    23. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
    24. *Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
    25. Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
    26. *Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
    27. Native Son by Richard Wright
    28. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
    29. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
    30. For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
    31. On the Road by Jack Kerouac
    32. *The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
    33. *The Call of the Wild by Jack London
    34. To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
    35. Portrait of a Lady by Henry James
    36. Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwin
    37. The World According to Garp by John Irving
    38. All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren
    39. A Room with a View by E. M. Forster
    40. *The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien
    41. *Schindler’s List by Thomas Keneally
    42. The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
    43. The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
    44. Finnegans Wake by James Joyce
    45. The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
    46. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
    47. *The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum
    48. *Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D. H. Lawrence
    49. *A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
    50. The Awakening by Kate Chopin
    51. My Antonia by Willa Cather
    52. Howards End by E. M. Forster
    53. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
    54. Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger
    55. The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie
    56. Jazz by Toni Morrison
    57. Sophie’s Choice by William Styron
    58. Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner
    59. A Passage to India by E. M. Forster
    60. Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
    61. A Good Man Is Hard to Find by Flannery O’Connor
    62. Tender Is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald
    63. Orlando by Virginia Woolf
    64. Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence
    65. Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe
    66. Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
    67. A Separate Peace by John Knowles
    68. Light in August by William Faulkner
    69. The Wings of the Dove by Henry James
    70. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
    71. *Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
    72. *A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
    73. Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs
    74. Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
    75. Women in Love by D. H. Lawrence
    76. Look Homeward, Angel by Thomas Wolfe
    77. In Our Time by Ernest Hemingway
    78. The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein
    79. The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett
    80. The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer
    81. Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
    82. White Noise by Don DeLillo
    83. O Pioneers! by Willa Cather
    84. Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller
    85. *The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells
    86. Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad
    87. The Bostonians by Henry James
    88. An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
    89. Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather
    90. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
    91. This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald
    92. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
    93. The French Lieutenant’s Woman by John Fowles
    94. Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis
    95. *Kim by Rudyard Kipling
    96. The Beautiful and the Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald
    97. Rabbit, Run by John Updike
    98. Where Angels Fear to Tread by E. M. Forster
    99. *Main Street by Sinclair Lewis
    100. Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie



To read the entire article click HERE

You want to support banned books, share what books you have read that have been banned.. shout it loud and proud!!

Shauni

Frustration

Last year I came into just a teeny bit of extra money.. I didn't have a lot but I used it to make a couple of purchases for me. That's right I dared to spend the money on ME.. 

I bought myself a cute little iPod nano and a very nice canon camera.. I really enjoyed both of them.. Stupid me, let the beasties use them. I mean honestly, they are either adults or in blond girls case almost an adult.. They would respect my stuff right?

Yeah, right.. in October while blond girl was using it, the camera bit the dust.. I am hoping Canon will fix it for me but (now this was my bad) I didn't save the receipt so hopefully the fact that the model itself is under a year old, will save me..

Now, PITA boy had been using my iPod and guess what? Yep, you guessed it.. it's dead, gone caput.. ruined, destroyed.. He says he will replace it when he gets his taxes and in all honesty he probably will.. It's just the principal.

I got to listen to days of Word Girl WHINING because her computer got a virus while in my possession and yet no one thinks, hey this is mom's stuff and look what we did to it.. Oh both Blond Girl and PITA Boy felt horrid when it happened but it's still upsetting to me..

I did learn my lesson... yep when I get new stuff, they don't get to use it.. they don't seem to respect my property enough. The worst part is, the are adults, or almost adults, the lesson has been learned about how they as adults treat my stuff.. guess I won't be loaning any of said adults anything for a good long while..

I could reciprocate of course.. but somehow, I don't think I want to break their stuff.. I mean it could be a grandchild or something.. *grins*

Word Girl's Return

Oh Joy of Joys.. Word Girl came home from California to bless us with her presence for three whole days.. sadly those days were marred.. yes fans, our days of bliss were not bliss free.. *grins*

It seems, while borrowing her computer I sorta kinda gave it a virus.. and of course it happened right before she came home so we weren't able to get it fixed BEFORE she got home.. So instead we sat around plotting out ways to tell her.. what would cause the smallest explosion.. Sadly, I ignored all our plotting and didn't tell her in public.. or in the car with a friend as witness.. NO, Silly me.. I had to tell her in private.. Oh yeah.. that was fun.. NOT

So our conversation went something like this...

Word Girl: When were you going to tell me?

Me: Hello? Isn't it obvious? I am telling you now.. I obviously waited as LONG as POSSIBLE to tell you.. *shakes head* Sheesh

Word Girl: You break everything.. I am texting Hair Boy!!

Me: *rolling eyes and mock quivering*

The next day she was ok.. and on Saturday we checked w/Best Buy to see how long it was going to take.. which btw, it was forever... which lead to another wonderful conversation...


Word Girl: I knew you would break it..

Me: *just letting her rant*

Word Girl: You break everything...

Me: Finally fed up... You know.. I have had my laptop for THREE YEARS.. and this is the first virus.. you have had yours for less than two and this is your THIRD.. I know I didn't give it the first two.. But I am pretty sure I PAID for it to be repaired..

Word Girl: *Silence*

Finally I got the last word.. doesn't happen all that often with our Word Girl

So Dad is a Superhero now

I know this should not bother me, I know all things considered it is the least of worries but honestly the way the man zooms in and plays superdad totally pisses me off.

As you may be aware, Hair Boy turned 21 last week (just in case you missed the blog), well his father took him downtown to the Blues Fest, this is something they do most every year as his birthday does fall close to the festival.. as a matter of fact I had to miss the fest the year he was born because... well he was born.. anyway they went to Blues Fest.. and since he was 21 they went drinking. Yes my child is now an adult, yes he is gonna drink on occasion but it is just me? Is the need to go drinking with your son just not right? Are we ever not the parent? I guess I am just mad that he did this.

Next issue, Hair Boy has a car, it has been sitting in the parking lot kinda sad and all by it's lonesome lately as it had issues. Well superdad came and together they fixed the car... He looks so good but honestly the car has been down for over a month where was superdad then. The worst part about it was the fact that Pita Boy kept looking out the window watching.. I could tell he wanted to go join them in the worst way.. but since he wasn't invited he stayed up and watched. Just thinking about it makes me wanna scream and cry at the same time. Then superdad left without even saying hi to Pita Boy...

Now Blond Girl has a birthday coming up which superdad blew off last year.. She and her father usually go to lollapalooza for her day.. this year he is gonna take Pita Boy.. she is already mad at him for blowing her off last year (which btw, he didnt even contact the kids for months after her b-day so she has a point). If I try to explain to him that his choices are ruining his relationship with his kids he will just get all huffy and pissy...

As it is Word Girl pretty much blows him off and Blond Girl is well on her way to feeling the same thing.. I mean take what you can get and dont expect anything else. I worked damn hard so they would not resent their father.. When they wanted to be angry and hate him when they were children I spent hours making sure the could accept him for who he is not who he isn't but his behaviour is ruining all my hard work. I guess I knew it would happen but I want my kids to have a healthy relationship with their father..

Guess that isn't gonna happen...

Oh yeah.. and the number one thing they do when they are with him is bash mom (ok kids need to vent but come on) idiotfaceratbastard...i mean superdad should be kissing my feet praising me to the moon and singing my accolades cuz his children are such great individuals.. and they dont hate him.. but nope he just bashes me right along with them. Will this man ever grow up?

Sorry I am a bit irked..

So No School Til TUESDAY

IF I start to babble, if it looks like I have lost my mind. If you wonder what is going on just understand.. NO SCHOOL TIL TUESDAY...

Just keep an eye out, look for me.. if it gets to scary send alcohol and chocolate...

and if all goes well you won't be reading about me in the paper..

but would someone explain why they need yet another 4 1/2 days off. Lets see Winter break was less than two months ago. And since then they have had every other Monday off, snow days and various other days..

Come On!! Give us poor mom's a break because bored teenagers are worse than anything

Facebook Policies

Just a thought for all you parents of teens and preteens or soon to be parents of said group...

Facebook recently revamped their policies to say they basically owned anything you put out there and it was theirs forever. Now this caused a huge uproar and has provoked facebook to reconsider that particular statement. But I have a thought on that. While I wouldn't want facebook to lay claim to my writing as it is mine and they havent paid me, I have to consider another option. Hey don't put something out there that might embarrass you..

Seriously have you SEEN what some people put on their facebook and myspace pages? Parents, take the time to read and monitor your kids pages... I do, much to the chagrin of my children. Having read their stuff pretty regularly now I just go in and do a quick scan and I am out. This is part of my job as a parent, if I don't like what is there, who they are communicating with or what is being said they are done.. the pics, posts and or comments are GONE!!..

By doing this, they tend to not post things that I am not going to like, things I find inappropriate and that leaves little or no room for fear. So Facebook go ahead make your claim, I know for a fact that my kids while, irksome, annoying and obvious pests are not posting things in facebook or myspace that might embarass them later (they do it somewhere else i am sure as they aren't perfect....).

Just an Irksome Thought

I know I promised I would not write about the octybaby dilemma anymore in my blogs (well I promised on my other blog) but this relates to me as a mom so I thought I could make an exception.

It seems the octymom is receiving state aid, not necessarily a bad thing in and of itself but it is insulting to those of us who can't get it. I have struggled on the cusp for years and managed to raise my kids for the most part without aid, and certainly without any state aid.. She is receiving social security assistance for having a child with ADHD.. shoot, i could have used that, pita boy at 19 is still having issues we could still use the assistance.. and yet we as do millions of others persevere.. we raise our children (that we had naturally) we clothe them, we feed them and we shelter them all to the best of our ability.

When I find out that our government is going to be paying for her, her medical bills, her food, her shelter, her very life it seems it just irks the heck out of me..

10 Things Only I Can Do Around the House

It is an amazing fact that there are things in our household that only I can do. I thought I would share a few with you all.

1. throw empty containers away (food, beverage, shampoo)

2. replace the toilet paper

3. hang up wet towels

4. put laundry away

5. do laundry

6. empty the trash.. to them the overflowing just means well i hope it makes it.

7. wash the dishes

8. pass out money (oh they all have their own just dont like to use it)

9. make phone calls, to say colleges, doctors, whatever

10. go to the post office..

Back in the day when I planned my children (and the first three were planned almost to the day they were born) I thought it would be cool to have them so close together... to have a unit.. I now often wonder what was I thinking?

Oh well, ain't life grand?

Life Seems To Never Get Easier

I wanted to dedicate this blog to my kids.. this is not really about them. They have been pretty darn good this past year, actually they have been pretty darn good these past 12 years. But this last one has been the hardest.

I raised them to believe that together we can do anything, that they just have to want it enough and it can get done. The problem has been I taught them to want it and I would get it done. Over the past year I have fallen into a form of depression, my belief in myself flounders.. This has to be especially hard on them as often we survived literally on the force of my personality alone. They had it pretty darn good, trips to Europe, Scout Camps, Band Trips and just day to day stuff. When things were going good they had it excellent and when things were bad they had it good. They never had to really do much..

This past year, my force, so to speak has diminished, I just couldn't fight it anymore so they are learning, the hard way that life can be rough.. sometimes they step up and sometimes they withdraw. What I find I resent is the anger and what appears to be contempt.. They have had it way better than they should have an believe me, I didn't get help from their father.. who by the way is quick to step in and take the credit for things when they are good or gleefully point his arrogant finger when things are rough.

Lately I have suffered often thinking I have failed, that maybe I am not such a great mom. Forget the homemade costumes and cookies, days as scout leader and den leader. The hours spent teaching ccd so they could go. The programs I developed so they could participate, the hours driving to and from swim practice. The music lessons... Maybe I should have said no a heck of a lot more often.. then maybe I would feel better about the pains right now.. Oh don't get me wrong, they will all have happy fulfilled lives, they will function in society and make something of themselves but I find right this minute I resent every single one of them