vacation and vampires

Yes, yes, I hear the complaints loud and clear -- why has a week gone by without a post!

Well, you're not bound to like this much better -- for some reason I'm unable to upload photos today due to an "internal error". Whether it's my computer's internal error or Blogger's, I'm unsure (nor do I know how to figure that out!), but I'm going to hold to the faith that by the time I actually have photos worthy of posting, it'll be all straightened out. For now, all you're missing is my kids sledding, playing in the snow, playing games in the house, our current ice storm, and my living room looking like a Toys-R-Us store threw up on it.

However, that is not my excuse for not posting.

My reasons are two-fold:

First, we're still on our winter break. Not that that stopped me from posting up until this point, but truly, there's not much to report. My kids have been busy redecorating the living room to look like it does in it's present condition (something I really need to take some time to remedy one of these days), which, while amusing to them, isn't really something worthy of documenting.

And second, and the real reason for the absence of posts, has been my absorption (obsession?) with Stephanie Meyer's Twilight Saga. You know, the teen vampire books that have been all the rage -- Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, and Breaking Dawn.

One of the kids got me the first book for Christmas. I made the mistake of picking it up on Friday morning. I finished it around midnight, with not much of anything getting done around here between those two points in time. The dastardly publishers had printed the first chapter from the next book at the end. I resisted reading it. Until morning.

So then I had to run out to the bookstore to buy the 2nd book, using a grocery shopping trip as an excuse as to why I was going to be out ANYWAY. I started the 2nd book at about 4pm on Saturday. And finished it about 4am. Which would have been OK if I hadn't had to work on Sunday. And if they hadn't, yet again, included the first chapter of the next book.

As luck would have it, I had 2 hours to kill between students on Sunday. I discovered I forgot a few items in the previous day's shopping trip and ran out to pick those, and the last 2 books in the series (I wasn't naive enough to think I wouldn't just run out for the 4th after finishing the 3rd, so figured I'd save myself another trip out).

I started the 3rd book on Sunday evening, but was dozing off about mid-way through it around midnight, so forced myself to put it to one side, where it sang out lovingly to me all Monday morning while I actually caught up on laundry and animal chores. By the time I got the kids fed with an early lunch, I'd run out of excuses to avoid it, and jumped back in. I finished up about 4:30 in the afternoon.

I showered.

I started into the 4th book about 10 minutes later.

Fortunately, there was just NO conceivable way of reading the last book all at once -- it's over 700 pages, for goodness sake. So I had less trouble putting it down at my self-imposed deadline of midnight and getting a semi-reasonable amount of sleep. I allowed myself a few hours of reading time Tuesday morning, but needed to take the kids to therapy on Tuesday afternoon and forced myself to leave the book at home -- I remembered what a mush my mind was at the grocery store on Sunday, entirely consumed with the characters and story line, and decided that a little coherence would be good for dealing with therapy homework instructions, as well as making the long drive to and from the office. And I resisted even looking at the cover when I got home, as I gathered dogs and trotted off to classes with them, getting home too late to consider picking it up again.

So it was with a sigh of relief that I picked the book up again this morning. And with even more profound pleasure that I thumped the cover closed at about 3:30 this afternoon, sighing the deep sigh of satisfaction that only comes from a story well told from first page to last.

Do you like vampire stories? How about stories of forbidden love? Or just romance in general? How about anything written by an author who really knows how to develop characters that you care intensely about, and how to weave them around a mysterious and intriguing story line?

Yes? You'll love it.

But make sure you can afford to take a week out of your life before you read the first paragraph....