This is the Stuff - Francesca Batistelli

A fun and relatable song I heard on the radio for the first time today - enjoyed it! :D

Reading List Update

A detour from my 101 books in 1001 days project this past week as the second autobiography of one of my favourite wrestlers - the incredibly athletic, entertaining, and yes, oh, mildly attractive Chris Jericho - hit bookstands and I considered it a must-read. :) Please note its addition to the below list.

1. Dead and Gone - Charlaine Harris
2. The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
3. Reading Lolita in Tehran - Azar Nafisi
4. The Year of Living Biblically - A.J. Jacobs
5. A History of God - Karen Armstrong
6. Dreams from My Father - Barack Obama
7. Beloved - Toni Morrison
8. 'Tis - Frank McCourt
9. The Host - Stephenie Meyers
10. The Constant Princess - Phillipa Gregory
11. Wicked - Gregory Maguire
12. The Six Wives of Henry the 8th - Alison Weir
13. Eleanor of Aquitaine - Alison Weir
14. Tuesdays with Morrie - Mitch Albom
15. The Fellowship of the Ring - J.R.R. Tolkien
16. The Two Towers - J.R.R. TOlkien
17. The Return of the King - J.R.R. Tolkien
18. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - J.K. Rowling
19. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - J.K. Rowling
20. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - J.K. Rowling
21. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - J.K. Rowling
22. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - J.K. Rowling
23. Dracula - Bram Stoker
24. Paradise Lost - John Milton
25. The Inferno - Dante
26. Towelhead - Alicia Erian
27. Sex, Lies, and Headlocks - Shaun Assael and Mike Mooneyham
28. The Way the Crow Flies - Ann-Marie MacDonald
29. The Robber Bride - Margaret Atwood
30. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
31. This United Church of Ours - Ralph Milton
32. Anansi Boys - Neil Gaiman
33. American Gods - Neil Gaiman
34. Stardust - Neil Gaiman
35. Tess of the d'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
36. The First Christmas - Marcus J. Borg and John Dominic Crossan
37. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
38. Little Women - Louisa May Alcott
39. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
40. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
41. Deception Point - Dan Brown
42. Digital Fortress - Dan Brown
43. The Lost Symbol - Dan Brown
44. Lolita - Vladimir Nobokov
45. Atonement - Ian McEwan
46. All the King's Men - Robert Penn Warren
47. Under the Dome - Stephen King
48. Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
49. The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
50. Uncle Tom's Cabin - Harriet Beecher Stowe
51. A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess
52. Scarlett - Alexandra Ripley
53. White Noise - Don De Litto
54. Their Eyes were Watching God - Zora Neale Hurston
55. Primary Colours - Anonymous
56. Revolutionary Road - Richard Yates
57. Ragtime - E.L. Doctorow
58. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie - Muriel Spark
59. Misquoting Jesus - Bart Ehrman
60. Fast Food Nation - Eric Schlasser
61. My Years as Prime Minister - Jean Chretien
62. Memoirs - Pierre Trudeau
63. Shake Hands with the Devil - Romeo d'Allaire
64. Team of Rivals - Doris Kearns Goodwin
65. The Secret Mulroney Tapes - Peter C. Newman
66. Why I Hate Canadians - Will Ferguson
67. Planet Simpson - Chris Turner
68. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
69. The Restaurant at the End of the Universe - Douglas Adams
70. Life, the Universe and Everything - Douglas Adams
71. So Long and Thanks for All the Fish - Douglas Adams
72. Mostly Harmless - Douglas Adams
73. Fifth Business - Robertson Davies
74. The Manticore - Robertson Davies
75. World of Wonders - Robertson Davies
76. The Donnellys - James Reaney
77. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
78. Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand
79. Farenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury
80. Not Wanted on the Voyage - Timothy Findlay
81. A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
82. Coraline - Neil Gaiman
83. The Crucible - Arthur Miller
84. Mirror Mirror - Gregory Maguire
85. The Emerging Christian Way - Marcus Borg et al
86. Sorbonne Confidential - Laurel Zuckerman
87. What Happened to Anna K - Irina Reyn
88. The Silver Linings Playbook - Matthew Quick
89. Hey Nostradamus! - Douglas Coupland
90. Girlfriend in a Coma - Douglas Coupland
91. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
92. The 5 People You Meet in Heaven - Mitch Albom
93. The Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver
94. Interview with the Vampire - Ann Rice
95. The Diary of a Young Girl - Anne Frank
96. The Bonfire of the Vanities - Tom Wolfe
97. Guys and Dolls - Damon Runyon
98. Good Book - David Plotz
99. He's Just Not that Into You - Greg Behrendt, Liz Tuccillo, Lauren Monchik
100. Undisputed - Chris Jericho
101. Jesus for the Non-Religious - John Shelby Spong

You can find my review over at my In This Very Ring blog by CLICKING HERE. And yes I note it has replaced one of the books on religion I've been on a kick of lately - unfortunately, as much as 99% of the time I enjoy Bart Ehrman, I struggled through his God's Problem book a bit, as ultimately I disagree with him - which I can deal with and often in fact find entertaining and fun if done right; but for an intelligent and readable Jesus scholar, I find his arguments against a deity due to the suffering in the world (the whole concept that if God is both almighty AND loving, there shouldn't be suffering in the world - thus, since there is, that which we call Holy is either powerless to stop it, or cruel) to be simplistic. A very intelligent case can be made on that side - however his seems to amount to 'Because I can't believe in a God who is not Theistic (old man 'out there' somewhere) - ie God as presence, God as spirit, God as nature - a God who is more complex than 'The Lord Giveth and the Lord Taketh Away', therefore as that foundation has crumbled for me, I can no longer believe in the Divine, period' - which I would expect more from a very learned religious studies professor who I would have thought could wrap his head around more complex, postmodern religious ideas.

I do hope to pick his book up again perhaps - however it went back to the library before I could complete it and I don't feel a particular urgency to grab it again. Jericho's book was about twice the length and honestly, fairly well written itself, so this isn't exactly 'cheating' in the sense of building up my book count. lol And as I said - I might add Ehrman back at a later date if the book catches my eye again while browsing. He's a smart enough guy whose work I've enjoyed enough to date, I'd believe the more complex crux of his argument coming later in the book than I got to at this point.

Ruby and Bon Jovi

So it's been some week. We had to say goodbye to our 2004 Chevy Optra, Ruby, this week as she died. Oh, she could be revived, to the tune of $2500. But for a seven year old car with 180 000 km on it, we decided it was more feasible to buy a new car - we will be greeting our as-yet unnamed 2006 Pontiac G5 sometime in the next week-ish. This isn't incredibly great financially either - but the salesman at the lot has offered us a great financing deal and is looking to see if he can have both car payments rolled into one and just paid out over a longer period of time as opposed to two payments a month for the next two years. We appreciate this.

On a much happier note, however, we got to celebrate a belated Valentine's Day. Yesterday, my mom got to spend her birthday (HAPPY BIRTHDAY MUMMY!) with her two grandsons as Ari took me, for my Valentine's gift, to see THIS awesome concert in Montreal ... yup. Jon Bon Jovi. Ari likes the rock'n'roll, I like the guy. This concert worked just fine for both of us.

Here's to a fun weekend, and a new week ahead - Happy Family Day Ontario!

In Honour of Valentine's Day

Click here for a fun Video in honour of Cupid's Day ... and whether you are single or attached, remember: be sure to be good to one another, and yourselves, today and every day. Hope everyone has a ... uh ... Super evening! :)

Potty Training

Yup. This has been our project this week with Little Tyke - and I feel a reasonable excuse as to where I've been lol. We've definitely had some frustrations - Rome wasn't built in a day, nor was a child's ability to know where and when to pee! But I think we've gotten to some success. Over the last 24 hours or so, Little Tyke has had only 1 accident, and we're taking him every 20-30 minutes to the potty. This is hardly a finished process - he is initiating maybe once a day on a good day, so it's more about dilligence on our part than his learning to know he has to go. But he's been wetting himself less and less frequently, which tells me he is at least learning to hold it until he's on the potty, and while we're not at, or even near, the finish line, I at least feel we're past the halfway point. So proud of our LT!!! :) And of Little J for putting up with the extra attention big brother's been getting the last few days. Fun stuff all around, but thinking we might be getting to the 'it was worth it' point.

Hope those of you who are into that sort of thing enjoy the Superbowl tonight; *I* will be enjoying marking while hubby watches it, and then catching the Glee special afterward. Yay Glee!