Challenge Panic

  I have the library juggernaut under control, as long as I keep reading. Unfortunately, I now have to read a few dozen books to finish all my challenges -- I need 11 states, two colors, and a large sack of Cybils books. I'm a bit stressed, to be honest.

In exercise news, I've promoted myself to Week 4 of the Couch Potato program. This is big news, because I've been working on this intermittently for two years now and this is the first time I stuck it out this far. I'm signed up for a 5K on Sunday, so we'll see if my time reflects my new exalted status.

I'll sign in at Book Journey or Teach Mentor Texts since I want to see what everyone else is reading this month.

This week I managed to finish:

• A Parent's Guide to Developmental Delays, Laurie Fivozinsky LeComer. My sister gave this to me about five years ago. It would have been quite helpful for me to read it.
• Outpost, Ann Aguirre. YA I find I like this author in both her adult and YA incarnations. The second book in this post-apocalyptic world worked even better than the first.
• Blood on the Verde River, Dusty Richards. This is an example of the kind of book I do these crazy challenges for -- I read it because I needed a book with green in the title. It was not a treasured gem, but I do enjoy stretching myself by reading something completely out of my sweet spots now and again. Also, my kids enjoyed my quoting some of the more gary-stu-ish bits.
• The Shameless Diary of an Explorer: A Story of Failure on Mt McKinley, Robert Dunn. I obviously read this for the Alaska connection, but it was a refreshing tale of five men bickering and complaining through the wilderness and part of the way up a mountain.
• Chime, Franny Billingsley. YA, audio. This did not work for me as an audio, as there were many places where I would have read quickly ahead. But the story overall was good -- my teen liked it.

What am I currently reading?  My book bag has a library book from the 2012 Best of the Best list, the most recent Tamora Pierce, a literary novel from my shelves, and my NOOK. Tomorrow I'll add a Cybils book to that and hope the stitches don't break.

• Paradise, Toni Morrison. I've had this book on my shelves for years, and I'm finally driven to read it because I need an Oklahoma book.
• Battle Magic, Tamora Pierce. YA. This story fills in some gaps -- it's looking to be rather grim.
• Big Girl Small, Rachel DeWoskin. YA. I'm at the end, where we catch up to the events that almost destroyed our main character.
• Etiquette and Espionage, Gail Carriger. YA NOOK. Lots of fun initiative on the floating dirigible / finishing school for spies.
• Conspiracy, Lindsay Burokers. NOOK. Still not making progress. The library picks always push in front of this poor purchased book.
• Developing Standards-Based Report Cards, Thomas R. Guskey & Jane M. Bailey. Time to get to chapter five.
• Radio Fifth Grade, Gordon Korman. Killing a parrot on air is not the best path to a successful advertising campaign.
• Out to Canaan, Jan Karon. The vicar loves his wife.
• Keep Me Forever, Rosemary Laurey. More clues about the body in the garden.
• A General Theory of Love, Thomas Lewis. More about our limbic system.
• The Pickwick Papers, Charles Dickens. Courtroom losses. Yawn. Least favorite Dickens so far.

What's up next? A whole bunch of Cybils finalists, probably starting with the older nonfictions. The Boy Who Loved Tornadoes will replace Big Girl Small. I've picked up Are These My Basoomas I See Before Me? from the library and will start listening to that on my next drive of more than five minutes.

2013 Challenges:

1. Cybils: 59/74.  No change as I worked on library books instead.
2. Where Am I Reading?: 40/51. Argh, I miscounted! I still need eleven, although I finished the Alaska book and am reading a Oklahoma one. Have Indiana waiting.
3. Crazy Quilt Colors: 7/9. Finished a green book. Have brown waiting.
4. Reading My Library:  Not this week.
5. Best of the Best 2012: 58/25.  Finished Chime. Almost done with Big Girl Small.