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Terms of the Duel

New-Year's resolutions have a pronounced and infamous tendency to fall by the wayside by, say, the 1st of February. Perhaps, however, that is because they are resolved upon, adhered to, and discarded, by solitary individuals. Perhaps what's needed is some good old-fashioned competitive spirit.

The participants:

  1. Ilya Gandelman - desk jockey from 9-5:30, Monday thru Friday. Free time activities include, but are not limited to, writing, reading, watching tv/movies (very selective in this area!), eating Meredith's delicious food, playing with Gizmo, spending time with family and friends.
  2. Meredith Gandelman - also a desk jockey, from 9-6, Monday thru Friday. Free time activities include, but are not limited to, reading, watching tv/movies, cooking/baking for Ilya (and others), snuggling/playing with Gizmo and spending time with family and friends.

The resolutions:

  1. To read more books
  2. To watch less television
  3. To spend less money (by reading library books, and by making our way through unread volumes gathering dust on the shelves)
  4. To spend more quality time together with a shared interest

Therefore, the challenge proposed: who can read the most books in a year? On one side the wife, on the other the husband: who'll get the most volumes under her or his belt before 2015?

The rules:

  1. Books will be chosen independently. Any genre or subject is eligible.
  2. No second thoughts once starting a book. An uncompleted book is not counted, except of course as time lost. We shall have to choose carefully; and if a book seems to be disappointing, best to soldier on through to the end!
  3. A 300-page minimum. However, books briefer than 300 pages may be combined with others to count as one entry in the Duel.

Sunday, February 23, 2014

All good (and not-so-good) things must come to an end

Pages read today: 232 for Meredith (86 of Messenger, 146 of Son), 78 for Ilya

The weekend went by too fast!  For me, it was a mix of fun and not-as-fun busy.  My overtime was a half day yesterday and then the rest of my time has been spent cooking up food for the week (and beyond) and doing laundry.  I really enjoy cooking, especially when trying out new recipes (which is what I was doing this weekend).  But man, I do NOT enjoy all the rounds of dishes!  The end results were all great, though!  And this is really the only way for me to make homemade meals for us (doing them up over the weekend).  Between our schedules and only having the one car, we don't end up getting home until at least 6:30, usually 6:45, and then by the time we wash our food containers from work and so forth, the last thing I feel like doing is making a big meal (not to mention I don't want to eat as late as that would end up being).  I also managed to get in a good amount of reading time in between things while Ilya worked.  For him it was an all non-fun, work busy weekend.  On the upside, that means more money to throw on our debt!  But I think he definitely feels like he needs a weekend to recover from his weekend.
I'm now on the final installment in the Giver series, if they're even really considered that (Gathering Blue and Messenger, at least, were actually called "companions" to The Giver...whatever that means).  All of the books have really captivated me and made me want to keep going to find out what will ultimately happen.  There have definitely been some things I didn't love about the last 2, but overall I have found them all to be really good reads.  I'm enjoying how Son so far is directly tying into The Giver, providing a view of that same community/world but from a different perspective, and am curious to see how it might do the same with Gathering Blue and/or Messenger.
Also, I was notified today that the e-book of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is now available for me to borrow from the library.  I downloaded it onto my nook (via the kindle app) thinking that might be my next read.  I can't for the life of me, though, figure out how to make it show me progress at the bottom in terms of what page I am on out of the entire book!  It will show the percentage of the entire book I have completed, and the page of the current chapter I am on, but that's it.  So I will just have to figure out a different way of updating my progress on here when I read that one.
But it's late now and Gizmo is indicating a need to play, so I am off to perform my good dog owner duties.  (I mean, how could I possibly say no to this face?!)



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