When I was in college and had a choice between used and new books, I almost always bought new unless the used book was pristine and unmarked. Before that, I didn’t have a choice. I just had to live through the scribbles and highlights of the previous textbook user. If their name was written on the bookplate, and I knew them, their reputation was taken down a notch in my mind. But after high school, I had a choice and I chose unblemished books.

I admit, I don’t like reading ‘dirty’ books. I like to keep mine as clean as possible. Because of that, I keep meticulous notes in a separate notebook. I am not obsessive about keeping a book clean, mind you. I’ve had lapses when I didn’t have anything else to write on and I just had to make a note on the margin or highlight a passage. The reason I didn’t like books that have been highlighted or marked up when I was in school was not due to any OCD tendencies either, I just didn’t want any spoilers. I want to see a passage and say to myself, ‘Wow! that’s highlight worthy!’ When something triggers a question or thought, I want to be the one to jot it down on my notebook or on the margin. I don’t want other people’s mark ups to influence how I understand or absorb or react to any book.

But I found, in the process of reading Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, that maybe there’s another way of looking at mark ups.

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Tomorrow is the first day of spring yet winter seems to be determined to put in its last hurrah. And just when I think I’ve gone through the whole season without as much as a cough, that itchy, scratchy feeling in my throat is slowly trying to take hold.

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My girls never liked to eat school cafeteria food so they always brought their own lunch from home. When they were in elementary school, I would pack their lunches for them but by the time they reached middle school and high school, it became their job to pack their own lunches.

Today though, the tables were turned on me when my youngest daughter packed a lunch for me. I had never been so thrilled to bring a packed lunch to work!

First off, she packed it in her own lunch bag. I don’t think she realized though how strange it would be for me to carry this into a medical related facility. LOL!

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Meet our his and hers babies. They’re pretty sad lookin’ aren’t they?

They’re our babies before we met each other. His is the black Triumph and mine is the Blue Firebird. We just had our 21st anniversary, so that means we’ve had these two for over 20 years.

Since we married and had kids, we used these cars only during our early years together. After that, we got ‘family’ cars and vans to accomodate the kids, but we never got rid of our babies. We just took them to the backyard where my husband would occasionaly start them up just to make sure they’re still alive. Aside from being moved around the yard, they really haven’t been driven for years.

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