Christmas in Amsterdam

Spending Christmas in Amsterdam! I have completely fallen in love with this beautiful city. The entire city is covered with a blanket of snow. I am mesmerized by the Dutch language. I can't stop taking pictures of the gorgeous canals. I visited the Anne Frank house today and was so moved by what I saw. I think it was ever more special because I read the book earlier this year. Loved some of the quotes from the book that were up on the walls:

"I know what I want,
I have a goal,
I have opinions,
a religion,
and love".
-Anne Frank

and a quote from her father:

"We cannot change what happened anymore. The only thing we can do is to learn from the past and to realize what discrimination and persecution of innocent people means. I believe that it's everyone's responsibility to fight prejudice. -Otto Frank, 1970


Merry Christmas from Amsterdam!

Weeks 5 and 6

Almost done with week 6 of training. Week 5 went well. I increased my mileage to 4 miles 5x a week. Cardio-wise I was ready, but the increased mileage really did some damage to my shins. I completed week 5, but had to take it easier on week 6. Monday I could only do 3.1 miles instead of my scheduled 4 because my legs were not having it at all. Tuesday was a speed play or "Fartlek" day. Warmed up at a slow, steady jog for 10 minutes and then did 1 min on, 1 min off x 4 and then 10 minutes at a jog to cool down. This ended up being about 3 miles as well. Wednesday was a very busy day at work and I had to pack for out of town, so I didn't make it to the gym at all. Thursday I got my 4 miles in, but Friday I traveled all day and Saturday was Christmas Day, so I gave myself the day off as my Christmas present! Tomorrow I will still be in Amsterdam but I scoped out a local park where I can get my running in. When I get back home I know my training schedule will go back to normal. Next Saturday is the New Year's Day Resolution Run 5k. This will be my first 5k in almost 2 years. Want to set goal to beat in future 5k's. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Weeks 3 and 4 of Training

Weeks 3 and 4 of training are over. The mileage increased to 3 miles 5x a week. Last week we ran a total of 15 miles and this week we completed 16 miles. Next week we increase the mileage to 4 miles 5x a week. The group training sessions seem to be the best runs so far. I think it is so much easier when you have other people to push you. I have also had easier runs because I discoved an awesome website www.motiontraxx.com . These are free podcasts that are usually about an hour long and the music is recorded at certain beats per minutes so that you can pace yourself. This has allowed me to run at a steady pace and I feel like my strides are more even. I

I am still battling shin splints, but taking ibuprofen before the runs usually keep the pain under control. I have also taken out any other cardio/leg workouts from my schedule other that cross-training so as not to strain my shins any further. I want to incorporate more swimming and biking into my training to help take some of the pressure off of my legs. I am doing Pilates and/or Yoga about 3-4 times a week in addition to the running and cross-training and so far this has given me a good balance.

2nd Week of Training Completed

Week 2 of training completed! Training was difficult this week because of Thanksgiving and the schedule had to be tweaked a little. I uppedmy mileage to running 3 miles 3x this week for a total 9 miles. My cross training consisted of a 55 min Spin class on Tuesday and an hour on the elliptical on Friday. Saturday was our group run. It was really COLD and we were all still stuffed from Thanksgiving leftovers, but the run went really well. Saturday I also went to a Level 2 yoga class at a studio in Cartersville, which felt amazing after the run that morning.

Running has been a little better this week. My shins are still hurting after running, but not nearly as bad as last week. I still take Ibuprofen about 30 min before running and I bought some calf compression sleeves to help as well. So I am ready to enter week 3 of training!

1st week of training completed

Just finished my first week of training for the Berry Half-Marathon. I have been battling shin-splints this week. The mileage doesn't bother me at all, but by the end of the 2 miles my shins are screaming in agony. It is really frustrating! I finally went on friday to Just Sports and Tennis to have someone watch the way I walk and actually measure my feet so that I could be fitted with the right running shoes. I was told that I have really low arches and that I overpronate when I run. I got a really good pair of shoes and some inserts, but when I ran friday afternoon my legs were still in pain. I am hoping that the new shoes will help my shins get better, until then I am downing Ibuprofen and icing my legs!

Have you read more than six of these books? The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books listed here.

Have you read more than six of these books? The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books listed here.



Instructions: Copy this into your NOTES. Bold those books you've read in their entirety. Italicize the ones you started but didn't finish or read only an excerpt.



1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien

3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte

4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling

5 To Kill a Mockingbird-Harper Lee

6 The Bible

7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell

9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman

10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott

12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy

13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller

14 Complete Works of Shakespeare

15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier

16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien

17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk

18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger

19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger

20 Middlemarch - George Eliot

21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell

22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald

23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens

24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy

25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams

26 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh

27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck

29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll

30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame

31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy

32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens

33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis

34 Emma -Jane Austen

35 Persuasion - Jane Austen

36 The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe - CS Lewis

37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres

39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden

40 Winnie the Pooh - A.A. Milne

41 Animal Farm - George Orwell

42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown

43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving

45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins

46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery

47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy

48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood

49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding

50 Atonement - Ian McEwan

51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel

52 Dune - Frank Herbert

53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons

54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen

55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth

56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon

57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens

58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon

60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck

62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov

63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt

64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold

65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas

66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac

67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy

68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding

69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie

70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville

71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens

72 Dracula - Bram Stoker

73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett

74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson

75 Ulysses - James Joyce

76 The Inferno - Dante

77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome

78 Germinal - Emile Zola

79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray

80 Possession - AS Byatt

81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens

82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell

83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker

84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro

85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert

86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry

87 Charlotte’s Web - E.B. White

88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom

89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton

91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad

92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery

93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks

94 Watership Down - Richard Adams

95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole

96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute

97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas

98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare

99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl

100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo


43/100 isn't bad. I read a lot of these books in high-school and then went on a "classics" kick a couple of years ago. Some of these books are sitting are on my bookshelf right now. I am going to try to read more of these important books over the next year.

Training for the Berry Half-Marathon

I have been running for about 2 years now and I have run 3 5k's, but I have always wanted to push myself past that 3.1 mile marker. So I began looking for some local 10k races to begin training for and found one at Berry College in March 2011. Luckily, the local YMCA was getting together a training group for the race. I went to the first training session on Saturday morning along with my friend Samantha. Lo and behold, the training schedules that they handed out were not for the 10k race but the half-marathon! 13.1 miles!! Samantha and I thought about it and decided to REALLY push ourselves and train for the half-marathon instead of the 10k. This is going to be a long, tough journey but we really feel up to the challenge. I am going to try to blog about this training process as much as possible. I think it will be a nice outlet to share this amazing experience. The official training schedule begins tomorrow. . .here we go!

Great Quote From Bob Marley

Isn't this what we are all looking for?


"Only once in your life, I truly believe, you find someone who can completely turn your world around. You tell them things that you’ve never shared with another soul and they absorb everything you say and actually want to hear more. You share hopes for the future, dreams that will never come true, goals that were never achieved and the many disappointments life has thrown at you. When something wonderful happens, you can’t wait to tell them about it, knowing they will share in your excitement. They are not embarrassed to cry with you when you are hurting or laugh with you when you make a fool of yourself. Never do they hurt your feelings or make you feel like you are not good enough, but rather they build you up and show you the things about yourself that make you special and even beautiful. There is never any pressure, jealousy or competition but only a quiet calmness when they are around. You can be yourself and not worry about what they will think of you because they love you for who you are. The things that seem insignificant to most people such as a note, song or walk become invaluable treasures kept safe in your heart to cherish forever. Memories of your childhood come back and are so clear and vivid it’s like being young again. Colours seem brighter and more brilliant. Laughter seems part of daily life where before it was infrequent or didn’t exist at all. A phone call or two during the day helps to get you through a long day’s work and always brings a smile to your face. In their presence, there’s no need for continuous conversation, but you find you’re quite content in just having them nearby. Things that never interested you before become fascinating because you know they are important to this person who is so special to you. You think of this person on every occasion and in everything you do. Simple things bring them to mind like a pale blue sky, gentle wind or even a storm cloud on the horizon. You open your heart knowing that there’s a chance it may be broken one day and in opening your heart, you experience a love and joy that you never dreamed possible. You find that being vulnerable is the only way to allow your heart to feel true pleasure that’s so real it scares you. You find strength in knowing you have a true friend and possibly a soul mate who will remain loyal to the end. Life seems completely different, exciting and worthwhile. Your only hope and security is in knowing that they are a part of your life."
— Bob Marley

Update on Things to Do Before I Die

I updated my 100 Things to Do Before I Die list and I will start adding something to the list everytime I mark something off!
1) Go scuba-diving off Australia's Great Barrier Reef.
2) Become a parent.
3) Visit Paris and go to the top of the Eiffel Tower. -I didn't go to the very top, but I went to the first landing 5/19/09
4) Go to a real theatre. 5/15/08 Chicago Theater to see "Wicked"
5) Take a hot-air balloon ride. -went on a hot-air balloon ride in Egypt-10/1/10
6) Climb a mountain.
7) Christmas in New York.-12/08
8) Set foot on each of the seven continents 3/7 so far (North America, Europe and Africa)
9) Visit the pyramids. -9/26/10
10) Go whale watching. went whale watching in Boston-8/10/10
11) Visit Machu Picchu.
12) See the northern lights.
13) Visit a museum in London. -visited the British Museum in London-12/31/09
14) Attend the Olympic games.
15) See the Mona Lisa at the Louvre.-5/20/09
16) Try wine-tasting. 11/7/09
17) Float in the dead sea
18) Go on a safari.
19) Walk on the Great Wall of China.
20) Take the Trans-Siberian Express across Asia.
21) Visit the Tower of London.-12/29/09
22) Eat jellied eels from a stall in London.
23) Run a marathon.
24) Send a message in a bottle.
25) Visit Mt. Everest base camp.
26) Hike the Appalachian Trail.
27) See the Niagara Falls.
28) Go to midnight premiere of a movie.-went to the premier of New Moon-11/20/09
29) Cruise down the Nile.-rode overnight on a traditional felucca down the Nile-9/29/10
30) Ride a camel in the desert.-9/27/10
31) Kiss the Blarney Stone.
32) Go kayaking. 8/2/09
33) Drink beer at Oktoberfest in Munich.
34) See a musical on Broadway.-I did not see a musical, but I did see a show on Broadway12/16/08
35) Throw a huge party and invite every one of your friends.
36) Swim with dolphins.
37) Skydive.
38) Learn to speak a foreign language and make sure you use it.
39) Go skinny-dipping at midnight in the South of France.
40) Watch the launch of the space shuttle.
41) Be an extra in a film.
42) Read “Anna Karenina” by Tolstoy
43) Give your mother a dozen red roses and tell her you love her.-5/9/10
44) Be a member of the audience in a TV show. --Done, I went to see a taping of Jeopardy.
45) Bake a cake from scratch.
46) See Ani Difranco in concert.-in Nashville, TN-3/5/10
47) Plant a tree. -in Costa Rica-5/21/10
48) Learn to ballroom dance properly.
49) Sit on a jury.
50) Go to Walden Pond and read Thoreau while drifting in a canoe.
51) See the Christ the Redeemer statue in Brazil
52) Shower in a waterfall.-3/23/08--Didn't take a full shower, didn't get naked, but I definately immersed myself in a waterfall at the end of a caving expedition.
53) Volunteer at a soup kitchen.
54) Spend New Year's in an exotic location.-in London-12/31/09
55) Drive across America from coast to coast.
56) Visit an Amish community. 8/22/09
57) Take a ride on the highest roller coaster in the country. --currently the Kingda Ka at Six Flags Great Adventure in Jackson, NJ 8/24/09
58) Go wild in Rio during Carnival.
59) Go to Savannah, GA. For St. Patrick’s Day
60) Spend Christmas on the beach drinking pina coladas
61) Raft through the Grand Canyon.
62) Spend three months getting your body into optimum shape.
63) Attend one really huge rock concert.
64) Give to a charity -- anonymously.
65) Lose more money than you can afford at roulette in Vegas.
66) Visit the Holy Land.
67) Go to Auschwitz
68) Learn a new word everyday for a year.-started 6/15/09-finished 6/15/10
69) Stay overnight in a Buddhist Monastery
70) Visit the Pearl Harbor Memorial
71) Milk a cow.
72) Visit Ground Zero in New York City-12/14/08
73) Protest
74) Take an archery lesson
75) Learn to water ski
76) Have coffee on a sidewalk in Paris 5/21/09
77) See Cirque Du Soleil live-2/1/09
78) Camp outside for a week
79) Go to a real Ballet
80) Enroll in a belly dancing class-done in 8/08
81) Ride a mechanical bull
82) Visit all 50 of the United States- visited 20/50 so far
83) Graduate college-05/15/09
84) Visit a music festival in another country
85) Help with a Habitat for Humanity Home
86) Go to a fashion show
87) Try fire walking
88) See the Acropolis in Greece
89) Watch Casablanca Completed 5/26/08
90) Learn to fly, get my pilot's license
91) Receive my black belt in Tae Kwon Do
92) Eat Chinese food in China
93) Get to my ideal weight again
94) Volunteer and make a difference
95) Run with the bulls in Spain
96) Become debt free
97) See the Highland Games in Scotland
98) Stay overnight in an ice hotel
99) Drink tequila in a bar in Mexico-11/15/09
100) Ride horseback on a beach
101) Go to Scotland and look for the Loch Ness Monster
102) Give up television
103) Pub hop in Ireland
104) Ride an elephant
105) Partake in a Japanese Tea Ceremony
106) Meet Stevie Nicks
107) Visit the Taj Mahal
108) See Count Dracula's Castle

9) Visit the pyramids.-Completed 9/26/10

Visited the Pyramids in Egypt! I was like a kid in a candy store. I have always dreamed of seeing the pyramids! Ahhh.

30) Ride a camel in the desert.-Completed 9/27/10

Rode a camel in the desert in Egypt. My camel's name was Alaska. A little ironic in 100+ degree weather! I enjoyed my ride, but lets just say my rear was a little sore afterward!

29) Cruise down the Nile.-Completed 9/29/10

Sailed down the Nile on a traditional felucca. The Nile was peaceful and beautiful, well except for the cruise ships that went by sending our felucca rocking!

5) Take a hot air balloon ride. Completed 10/1/10

I went on a hot air balloon ride in Luxor, Egypt. Such a beautiful experience! Very glad that I took this opportunity while visiting Egypt.

#10 Completed Go Whale Watching 8/10/10

#10 Completed while in Boston-go whale watching. Amazing experience watching humpback whales only 26 miles from the Boston Harbor.

Completed #68 6/15/10

68) Learn a new word everyday for a year.-started 6/15/09

#47 Completed 5/21/10

47) Plant a tree. Completed on 5/21/10 in Santa Elena, Monteverde, Costa Rica!

#43 Completed-5/9/10

43) Give your mother a dozen red roses and tell her you love her.

I completed this on Mother's Day. Gave my mom a dozen peach colored roses.

Update on 10 Books From 10 Decades

1990-Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson Finished 5/10
1980- The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood Finished 2/10
1970-Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
1960 Franny and Zooey by J. D. Salinger
1950-Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
1940-Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank Finished 4/10
1930-East Wind, West Wind by Pearl Buck
1920-A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
1910-Of Human Bondage by William Somerset Maugham
1900-Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle http://1morechapter.com/decades/2010/decades-2010/

#46 Completed "See Ani Difranco in concert"

Ani Difranco in Nashville, TN 3/5/10-Amazing, up-close-and-personal concert.

I like this quote

"I can believe things that are true and things that aren't true and I can believe things where nobody knows if they're true or not. I can believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and the Beatles and Marilyn Monroe and Elvis and Mister Ed. Listen - I believe that people are perfectable, that knowledge is infinite, that the world is run by secret banking cartels and is visited by aliens on a regular basis, nice ones that look like wrinkled lemurs and bad ones who mutilate cattle and want our water and our women. I believe that the future sucks and I believe that the future rocks and I believe that one day White Buffalo Woman is going to come back and kick everyone's ass. I believe that all men are just overgrown boys with deep problems communicating and that the decline in good sex in America is coincident with the decline in drive-in movie theaters from state to state. I believe that all politicians are unprincipled crooks and I still believe that they are better than the alternative. I believe that California is going to sink into the sea when the big one comes, while Florida is going to dissolve into madness and alligators and toxic waste. I believe that antibacterial soap is destroying our resistance to dirt and disease so that one day we'll all be wiped out by the common cold like martians in War of the Worlds. I believe that the greatest poets of the last century were Edith Sitwell and Don Marquis, that jade is dried dragon sperm, and that thousands of years ago in a former life I was a one-armed Siberian shaman. I believe that mankind's destiny lies in the stars. I believe that candy really did taste better when I was a kid, that it's aerodynamically impossible for a bumble bee to fly, that light is a wave and a particle, that there's a cat in a box somewhere who's alive and dead at the same time (although if they don't ever open the box to feed it it'll eventually just be two different kinds of dead), and that there are stars in the universe billions of years older than the universe itself. I believe in a personal god who cares about me and worries and oversees everything I do. I believe in an impersonal god who set the universe in motion and went off to hang with her girlfriends and doesn't even know that I'm alive. I believe in an empty and godless universe of causal chaos, background noise, and sheer blind luck. I believe that anyone who says sex is overrated just hasn't done it properly. I believe that anyone who claims to know what's going on will lie about the little things too. I believe in absolute honesty and sensible social lies. I believe in a woman's right to choose, a baby's right to live, that while all human life is sacred there's nothing wrong with the death penalty if you can trust the legal system implicitly, and that no one but a moron would ever trust the legal system. I believe that life is a game, that life is a cruel joke, and that life is what happens when you're alive and that you might as well lie back and enjoy it." — Neil Gaiman (American Gods)

Update 10 Books From 10 Decades

1990-Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson

1980- The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood Finished 2/10/10

1970-Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison

1960 Franny and Zooey by J. D. Salinger

1950-Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

1940-Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank

1930-East Wind, West Wind by Pearl Buck

1920-A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway

1910-Of Human Bondage by William Somerset Maugham

1900-Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle http://1morechapter.com/decades/2010/decades-2010/

Decades 2010 (10 Books From 10 Decades)

1990-Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson
1980- The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
1970-Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
1960 Franny and Zooey by J. D. Salinger
1950-Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
1940-Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
1930-East Wind, West Wind by Pearl Buck
1920-A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
1910-Of Human Bondage by William Somerset Maugham
1900-Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle

http://1morechapter.com/decades/2010/decades-2010/

Books on CD 2009

Books on CD 2009

A Mercy-Toni Morrison-2/5
Against Medical Advice-James Patterson-4/
Are You There Vodka, It's Me Chelsea-Chelsea Handler-5/5
Before Green Gables-Budge Wilson-4/5
Blessings-Anna Quindlin-3/5
Brave New World-Aldous Huxley-4/5
Certain Girls-Jennifer Weiner 3.5/5
Crazy Love-Leslie Morgan Steiner-4/5
Deadly Secrets-M. William Phelps-3/5
Dewey : The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World 4/5
Ghosts of Everest:The Search for Mallory & Irvine-4/5
In Cold Blood-Truman Capote-3.5/5
Into Thin Air-Jon Krakauer 4/5
Live Through This : A Mother's Memoir of Runaway Daughters and Reclaimed Love-Debra Gwartney 4/5
Madness Under the Royal Palms: Murder, Money and Mischief Behind the Gates of Palm Beach-Laurence Leamer-3/5
Nickel and Dimed-Barbara Ehrenreich 4/5
On the Road-Jack Kerouac 4/5
Pygmalion-George Bernard Shaw-3.5/5
Ritual in Death-J.D. Robb 3.5/5
Swallowing Darkeness-Laurell K. Hamilton 4/5
Testimony-Anita Shreve 3/5
The Ex-Mrs. Hedgefund- Jill Kargman-3.5/5
The House of Thunder-Dean Koontz 3/5
The Winner Stands Alone-Paulo Coelho-3/5
Too Late to Say Goodbye-Ann Rule-4/5

Total: 25

Books I've Read 2009

Books I've Read 2009

A Confederacy of Dunces-John Kennedy Toole 4/5
Breaking Dawn-Stephanie Meyer-4.5/5
Broken:A Novel-Daniel Clay-4/5
Clan of the Cave Bear-Jean Auel 4/5
Dangerous Games-Keri Arthur 3.5/5
Eclipse-Stephanie Meyer 4.5/5
Embraced by Darkness-Keri Arthur 3.5/5
Man of her Dreams-Debra Webb-2/5
Me and Emma-Elizabeth Flock-4/5
Me Talk Pretty One Day-Dave Sedaris-4/5
Micah-Laurell K. Hamilton 3.5/5
New Moon-Stephanie Meyer 3/5
One Fifth Avenue-Candace Bushnell 4/5
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan-Lisa See-5/5
Tempting Evil-Keri Arthur 3/5
The Borderlord's Bride-Bertrice Small-4/5
The Darkest Kiss-Keri Arthur 3.5/5
The Mammoth Hunters-Jean Auel -4.5/5
The Perks of Being a Wallflower-Stephen Chbosky-4/5
The Sex Lives of Cannibals: Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific 5/5
The Shadow Queen-Bertrice Small-4/5
The White Queen-Phillipa Gregory-5/5
Trading Up-Candace Bushnell-3/5
Valley of the Horses-Jean Auel-4/5
Yo-Julia Alvarez-4.5/5

Total: 25

#54 Completed 12/31/09

#54 Spend New Year's in an exotic location.

#21 Completed 12/29/09

#21 Visit the Tower of London

#13 Completed 12/31/09

#13 Visit a Museum in London-The British Museum in London

Movies of December 2009

Good Luck Chuck-2.5/5
My Sister's Keeper-3/5
Orgasmic Birth-5/5
The Princess and the Frog-4/5