Twilight

Whew. I finished the Twilight saga.

What a delicious book.

I raced through the first three books in about three and a half days, but took nearly a week to get through the final book. I loved them! Forget that the target audience is teens and the book is displayed in the “Juvenile” section. I think that the intensity of the books requires more maturity than “Juvenile”. Also, after studying Bram Stoker’s Dracula in a college literature class, I can’t miss the sexualization in vampire stories. I don’t know if I would have been mature enough as a teen to appreciate Twilight, but I sure can now.

Let’s see, where to start? I had avoided the hype over Twilight until three weeks ago when I decided to add the $6 Twilight paperback to my Amazon order, in order to qualify for the free shipping. I promised myself that I’d “try” to get through at least half of the book, expecting that I’d hate it, but I at least wanted to get a feel for the story so that I wasn’t so in the dark. I began reading it at 10pm one night while my husband was out of town, and didn’t put it down until nearly 2am! It was so intense. I was sucked right in. The first book was the best, in my opinion, though the second book New Moon was very good, also. The third book, Eclipse was my least favorite, though still overall a good book and essential to continuing the story. And the final book, Breaking Dawn, was also very good. I remember hearing that fans complained about the ending in Breaking Dawn, but I’m not sure why. I thought it was just fine. Sort of wrapped up nicely in a bow for us. Nothing wrong with that.

I began reading this saga with the following knowledge/expectations:
• The story is for young people, not older readers
• It’s about vampires, which I don’t care for
• Robert Pattinson (YUM) and Kristen Stewart play the leads in the movie
• The movie got slammed by both critics and fans of the book
• The ending of book 4 was disappointing.

So of course, after reading the books, I can safely say that:
• The story may be appropriate for some young people, but I bet we older readers get more out of it than a young person! Lots of subtle details and mature references that a young person may not fully appreciate.
• Indeed, the story is about vampires—the very best kind. The kind which are sexy, impossibly good looking, sexy, mysterious, intense, intriguing, and did I mention sexy? Which is a great combo to engage a reader like me, who doesn’t “care about vampires”.
• As I read the books, I didn’t get to use my imagination to form an impression of Edward and Isabella, since I already knew what Robert Pattinson (YUM!) and Kristen Stewart look like. That’s okay. They’re plenty good enough for me!
• I want to see the movie so bad!
• The ending of book 4 was just fine! And lastly,
• Vampire sex is hot!!!


I'm looking over my post thus far and see that I haven't yet addressed how obsessed I was about finishing these books once I started. I just devoured them. They made me insane. It was all I could do to remember to feed my children, as I was so obsessed about finishing these books. As it is, one of the kids went without her allergy meds all week because I had other things on my mind at bedtime--like getting everyone to bed as quickly as possible so that I could get back to reading! And one morning, I dragged the kids to Super Target with me at 8am to buy the book and some donuts, and we sat at the Starbucks inside so that I could start reading right away, while the kids were busy with their own breakfasts.

Thank goodness there are internet support groups for Twilightaholics. Really, it's not often that you come across a book that is so, so satisfying, not to mention addicting! I hope Stephanie Meyer makes an absolutely obsene amount of money from these books, as she should. She deserves it.

If you’re intrigued at all by these books, I say drop $6 on Twilight and give it a whirl. But the one major mistake I made was not realizing that I should just suck it up and buy all four books together. I should have known better. Because guess what is impossible to do at midnight with a house full of sleeping kids? Going to a bookstore to buy the next book, after you’ve finished the last book, that’s what. That was excruciating! I was bribing friends to bring me their copies at midnight. Nobody would agree. Jerks! Tee hee, just kidding.

What a rotten night.

Kyle’s sleep study last night could have only been worse if he would have thrown up on me. It was pretty bad, when by 2:45am he still had only slept about 30 minutes the whole night. But then he upchucked chocolate milk and French fries all over himself and the bed, and I almost packed us up and walked out right then and there. And if last night wasn’t already going to cost me $1,300 out of pocket, I would have. But I couldn’t bear to spend all that money and get none of the data we needed, so we cleaned up Kyle and the bed and stayed to give it one last try. Ugh. He finally let the tech put a mask on him and fell asleep somewhat quickly at that point—I imagine he had just finally exhausted himself entirely.

In the end, he slept 4.5 hours, one hour longer than they minimum needed to get the data on the bi-pap titrations for him. I slept considerably less than that. And I am so sick of Baby Einstein DVD’s today that I am tempted to trash them all. We “watched” Baby Einstein from about 8pm until about 4am. Blech. This should be the last sleep study for him.

My next blog should be an account of my experience reading Twilight. Does that sound boring? If I were read this sentence on someone else’s blog a week ago, I would have been turned off—who gives a rat’s patootey over Twilight? But I was curious about the hype around the books and movie and decided to read just half the book to find out how much I hated it. And I love it. Love isn’t even a strong enough word (heh heh, and if you’ve read the book, how appropriate it is that I just said that). I am obsessed with it. As you all should be.

Okay, must go finish book 3 and start book 4. Ta ta for now.

The Day I Thought Would Never Come

1. The Cardinals are going to the Super Bowl! The Cardinals are going to the Super Bowl? Really?? Wow. And I heard that we had a crappy record this season, you know, until the post-season popped up and apparently all our players were paying attention. This is amazing for Arizona! But frankly, it's crappy for the rest of the world. Everyone is expecting a game on Super Bowl Sunday. We can't give them a game. Let's be realistic. We'll get our arses handed to us in the 2nd quarter and that will be the end of that. But still. The Cardinals going to the Super Bowl is good for the local economy! Woo hoooo, buying beer and snacks for football parties, or going to bars and spending lots of money to watch the game and drink, woo hoo!

2. Today is the day I woke up with no sore throat. Nothing. Not even a twinge of a sore throat. Have I even miserated here yet about this sore throat? This sore throat to end all sore throats? It was so painful. So bad. Just like the last sore throat I endured a few months ago. It's curious really because I had no fever, and nobody else in my family caught it. So it was just me, by myself, wanting to die because the pain was so bad. Hoping that my body could process 1200mg of ibuprofin every 5 hours because that's what I felt I had to do to make it through the days. I emailed my doctor because I was worried it could be strep, and he told me he'd be happy to see me the next day. But I didn't get this message in time, because I was in a prone position for about the next 36 hours. This germ knocked me on my ass, people. And it's a good thing I didn't go in to see the doc, because 1) he has never seen me without makeup, and 2) nobody should be exposed to the germs I was emanating at that point. In the end, I doubt it was strep. But what was it? Just tonsilitis? Isn't that something they remove your tonsils for? And I bet there's a threshold, some minimum number of times you have to suffer this horrible pain before they take out your tonsils, and because I didn't rush in to see my doctor, I just wasted one time. Ugh.

Linda Ashby Nickell, What Will It Take To Get YOU Into a Facebook Account Too-day??

C'mon, Linda. This blog is dedicated just to you. Won't you please join me over on Facebook? You don't even have to post a photo of yourself if you don't want to. You could even post a picture of your cat instead of yourself! Or the Eiffel Tower. Or whatever.

What reasons might you have to join us? So many! On Facebook, you'll find me, Josh Aranyos, Misty (Senior) Larson, CD Arnold, and tons of Thunderbird'ers. There are lots of groups to associate yourself with: Americans In France, Americans In France For Barack Obama (if you lean that way), Americans in Paris, Thunderbird High School, You Grew Up In the 80's in Phoenix if You..., Fans of MetroCenter in the 80's, I Was On Wallace & Ladmo, about 1,000 groups for photographers, about 1,000 groups for cat/dog lovers, and about a million completely random groups. Does "I Don't Care How Comfortable Crocs Are, You Look Like a Dumbass" or " I Secretly Want To Punch Slow Walking People In The Back Of The Head" sound like fun groups to join?? There's even a blogging network.

You can link your Blogspot blog to your Facebook account. You can post photos in their own albums for all to see there--or for nobody to see there, depending on how you set your privacy preferences. You can even be virtually invisible there, allowing nobody to even know you exist on Facebook unless you reach out to them.

Puh-leeze. Cross over to the other side, Linda. There's no reason not to. C'mon, whaddya say? Pretty please?
;)

Holy Expensive Leg Braces, Batman

I got the babies fitted for their AFO's this week. (Those are leg braces.) They're quite attractive. And freaking expensive! $1300 per pair, per baby. And they have to be replaced as their feet grow, just like regular shoes. Zoinks. And you thought Stride Rite was expensive?

They look something like this:






Many, many thanks to the local Muscular Dystrophy Association, who is actually paying for these this time. They have a certain amount to spend per patient every few years, and these braces fall within their limit. So we'll have to buy next few sets, but they'll chip in every 3 years or so. Woo hoo for free money!

What a great group the Arizona Families of SMA is

We met the families for dinner tonight at Fuddruckers.

First of all--Fuddruckers? Fuddruckers! The we-only-go-out-to-dinner-on-payday-Fridays restaurant of choice from my childhood! I can't even express my excitement about pumping my own cheese onto my fries, and taking my own progeny to the baker to redeem her cookie certificate. [[insert beaming mother here]]

But second and most importantly--what an awesome group of people. This was our first event with the Arizona chapter of FSMA. But wow, we are just thrilled. The parents there were so friendly and forthcoming and positive. And the kids, of course, couldn't have been happier or more well-behaved.

Jenna, at first, was "amazed" at the number of wheelchairs. She made some factual observations about wheelchairs, too, and then she got over it and made friends. We were so proud of her. We've told her that her brother and sister will be in wheelchairs soon, but I know those are just words and she doesn't understand yet. Well let me tell you, she's never seen wheelchairs that go so FAST! Those kids, iyah. They know how to work their power chairs, let me just put it that way.

A big group of wonderful, friendly, sweet families. It breaks my heart that we had to meet in this way, but I couldn't be more thrilled to be "in this thing" with such cool parents.

I can't wait to meet each of you again, in case you're reading this. :)

Who gave me these old lady bones?

I thought it was a one-time fluke, that I woke up one morning and my bones were sooo achey. I tried to remember what I'd done the day before--did we walk all throughout Disneyland and I just couldn't remember? But then it happened the next morning, and the next.

That was 3 weeks ago. I'm afraid that the fact is that I am getting older. I used to feel young and spry, even at the ripe old age of 32. But no more. Those carefree days of bouncing up out of bed to greet the day (or the wailing infant) are long gone.

My bones feel old. I find myself shuffling out of bed and to the bathroom and down the hall. I bet this is why Old People walk so slow--because it hurts just to be awake! Orthopedic shoes and a walker actually sound good to me, well first thing in the morning, anyway. Once I'm up and walking around for 10 minutes or so, I begin to feel normal again. But my joints, ohhh, these joints. What do Old People take for discomfort like this? Is this what those Aleve commercials are about, or is it the one aspirin per day regimen that is supposed to help?

And you Young People wouldn't understand. And you're probably making fun of me for not eating right or excersizing and are pretty confident in your own ability to defy Age. And I will be heartily laughing when I read YOUR blogs one day to find you complaining of the same thing, so neener neener neener.

But something tells me this is just the beginning!

What's better than finding out that your twins both need a second round of sleep studies?

No no, wait for it.... it's finding out that the first round of sleep studies still haven't paid for by insurance. Because, according to the sleep study clinic, our coverage was canceled before their sleep studies occured last month.

Really! Really?! 'Cause I don't recall canceling our health insurance, and I don't recall not paying our monthly premium. Guess I'll be making some phone calls tomorrow.

And a single sleep study costs over $1,000, so in case you're wondering, yeah, this is a major PITA. Don't know what PITA means? Check the second result in a Google search.

Blarg.