Hi. My name is Addiction

If you have read my blog for any length of time you may have noticed that when I do something, I throw my entire being into doing it. I don't really do anything in halves. This can be a good thing and it can be a bad thing. Hence the reason I call them addictions. Most of my addictions last a few months at best, but there is one that began 4 1/2 years ago and hasn't slowed down yet.

This addiction is called Naruto. Yes, the anime/manga. I read it. I watch it. I have favorite characters. I collect the cards for the collectible card game. And I trade the cards. I also have just recently (read - this year) begun to collect other Naruto items. In an effort to share my addiction with ya'll, I took a few pictures of a few of my collectibles.

First, there is my calendar. Joseph actually found this one for me. And I love it.

Kakashi is May

Sai (pronounced "sigh") is June

A few bookmarks and collectible trading cards that I use as bookmarks

My new stash. Two pencil cases, pencils, a pencil sharpener (metal!), a posterzine (magazine of nothing but posters, volumes 1 and 2 of the Naruto Shippuuden soundtrack, and last, but not least, my favorite item of the bunch - Gaara (the figurine).

There you have it. My addiction is collecting Naruto stuff and honestly, this is one addiction I am NOT ashamed of. I actually really, really enjoy it! Of course, it DOES help that Joseph likes Naruto just as much as I do and therefore he is constantly helping me amass these wonderful items. *grin*

Here's my question for you: Do you have anything that you would consider an addiction?

I Just Realized

That I have already surpassed my reading goal for this year. Talk about someone being a Blonde! I'm already 33 books passed my goal and I'm just now realizing it. Yes, I AM special.

May Tally

May was another pretty good month for reading even though it wasn't such a great month for blogging again. I think I've got blogging covered for June, though. I've got alot going on, but still have lots of ideas for posts. Now I just need to bring them into being. However, this post is about the books that I've read this month, not about my lack of posts. Here's the list.

Ill Wind ~ Rachel Caine 5/5

Heat Stroke ~ Rachel Caine 5/6

Chill Factor ~ Rachel Caine 5/7

Windfall ~ Rachel Caine 5/8

Firestorm ~ Rachel Caine 5/10

Thin Air ~ Rachel Caine 5/11

Gale Force ~ Rachel Caine 5/13

Cape Storm ~ Rachel Caine 5/14

The Scots Never Forget ~ Barbara Cartland 5/16

The Personal Correspondence of Hannah Brown and Sarah Smith: The Underground Railroad ~

Nancy LeSourd 5/16

The Borrowers ~ Mary Norton 5/18

The Last Rogue ~ Deborah Simmons 5/19

My Invisible Boyfriend ~ Susie Day 5/19

Daughters of the Sea: Hannah ~ Kathryn Lasky 5/19

Love and War ~ Barbara Cartland 5/22

Scary Beautiful ~ Niki Burnham 5/23

Kiss of Death ~ Rachel Caine 5/23

Do-Over ~ Niki Burnham 5/29

How NOT to Spend Your Senior Year ~ Cameron Dokey 5/29

The Inheritance ~ Louisa May Alcott 5/30

Love Undercover ~ Jo Edwards 5/31

Emma-Jean Lazarus Fell Out of a Tree ~ Lauren Tarshis 5/31

That makes 22 books read in May which brings my yearly total to 183. Wow. That's alot of books even if I AM counting manga.

Watching Michael pitch against the Greenville Drive

This past week Joseph and I drove down to Greenville, South Carolina to watch Joseph's younger brother, Michael (Mike) pitch. Mike is part of the Charleston Riverdogs baseball team. The bonus to going south to Greenville...my older sister and her family live down there so we got to spend time with them as well. Our vacation officially started on Sunday, the 23rd, but the first game was played Monday evening. It also happened to be the game that Mike pitched in.

Fluor Field - home of the Greenville Drive

Mike on the pitcher's mound

Another shot

Keeping the guy on first base from stealing second.

Concentration

Paris Mountain

On Wednesday we went to Paris Mountain to feed the ducks and geese.

The mallard family

Rosie: "I want to hold your hand, Uncle Joseph."

Uncle Joseph: "Nope."

Rosie's "I wanna hold your hand" dance

Boy! That Uncle Joseph isn't very nice!

But he is a good follower.

One of the VERY hissy mama geese

Uncle Joseph playing the Pied Piper and bringing the hissing geese to the stairs so we can feed them without worrying about them trying to bite the kids.

Rose feeding her hissing geese

Following the leader aka Ethan

Rose getting a piggyback ride after tripping and scraping up her entire right leg.

Rose wouldn't smile cause her leg hurt too much so Ethan helped out while Anna laughed.

To the falls!

The falls over the dam

Mom with her eldest

Mom with her sweet baby

Fun at the Greenville Zoo

Since Joseph and I spent this past week in South Carolina visiting my older sister's family as well as watching Mike's team play, we just had to stop by the Greenville zoo. Here are a few shots from our time spent there.

The giraffes were out and about when we got there.

Joseph was frisbeeing the "feed the animal" crackers into the giraffes' enclosure. The female was all over those crackers! lol

The male

Uncle Joseph discussing the tortoises with Anna and Rose

Rose running backwards into the Orangutan exhibit.

Rosie

Anna, Rose, Aunt Hannah, and Ethan

Uncle Joseph with Bella

Bella learning about slides

After the first initial scare, Bella was hooked!

Climbing the stairs up to Uncle Joseph to be sent down the slide to Mom again.

Bella girl

The Cliffs of Insanity and Back Again

Dear Mama-san,

Things at my house are mild compared to what's been happening at your's while you've been away.

But, I'm sure you figured that already. I'm much better at doing dishes than Rachel is even if Joseph doesn't agree with that statement. I trust you've been teaching Anna and Rose how to wash dishes better than their Aunt Rachel can wash dishes. At least they'll be able to help you out when they come up north to see you next. You can banish Aunt Rachel to scupping the pupe instead.

I have to admit, mother, that I would personally choose groundhogs over musically inclined, tap dancing roaches and mice. Groundhogs are bigger and therefore less creepy and crawly. However, I will attempt to make an intervention call on your behalf. It's the least I can do if I wish to have you visit me again this summer, right? Prove my worth at holding your house together from a distance. I can do this. I WILL do this!

If I knew where the freshly poured cement is going to be I might be able to keep the local wildlife (and newly domestic life) off of it, but come on, Mom, you know it's just too much fun to pass up leaving handprints for the future. Remember...we all did it when the carport was poured. Of course, Mr. Byler (did I spell his name right?) probably did have something to do with us actually having left our prints. And it's not like Pinky will have the presence of mind to actually make her prints deep enough to stay, right, Pinky? (say yes, Pink...it might just save you from certain death when mom comes home and sees the prints you're bound and determined to make apparently.)

As for her being unruly - Mom, just THINK of what her kids are going to do to HER! *snicker* I can't WAIT to see that!

Can't say I blame her students for leaving the country. I'd be running too!! We may just have to get her that pretty purple jacket that we talked about last month and put her in her pretty blue room with the ONE window that overlooks her shiny things. This MAY save the lives of her students as I'm sure leaving her out of her blue room for one more day might drive them to absolute, distracted insanity.

No, my phone hasn't been ringing due to the two troublemakers still at home having been late to work. I finally blocked McD's and the school's numbers from my cell after one full weekend of them waking me up at 5 o'clock each morning.

I'll do my very best to help you out and get those two in line when I spend the weekend up north next week. Of course, with me going up there and you not being there I cannot guarantee that I won't help egg Rachel and Stephen into getting into more trouble once we've taken care of the bugs, dishes, mice, laundry, and rust stains.

You're the bestest mother in the whole world and I wouldn't trade you for anyone else.

Love you!

Hannah

We're Gonna Take Over the World

We interrupt this show for a special announcement. The Brain and Sweeney Todd have taken over the world. Any person or thing that has a problem with this deal will promptly be called in for a special one time deal of a haircut and shave personally given by Mr. Sweeney Todd himself.

The question left floating through everyone's minds, though, is not how long it will take Mr. Todd and the Brain to find a new baker of meat pies, but What exactly is Pinky going to do now that the world has been taken over without Pinky's help?

It came to my attention this evening as I chatted with Rachel on the phone that I am the Brain and she is Pinky and she doesn't know what she's going to do now that I've taken over the world without her. People she needs a new hobby! Preferably one that still allows her to continue teaching her students during the day and writing crazy letters in the late night. That leaves her a few hours in the afternoon and evening that are free and open for new schemes. Then again, she DID just go to the library for a huge stack of books today so take those few hours and make them a few minutes that she'll have left over for her new hobby.

I think she should teach the new tenants of my parents' home tap dancing and piano lessons. There's nothing quite like musical cockroaches. She could have her very own musical troupe. I think this may be a winner, friends! However, on the occasion that she actually does follow her mother's instructions, she'll still need something new to do with her free time. That's where ya'll come in. What hobbies can you suggest for poor Pinky that will only take up a few minutes each evening yet still be ever so satisfying? Leave any suggestions in the comments. I'm sure she'll love all of them.

Missing Out on all the Fun :-(

So, apparently my mama-san and my leetle seester, Rachel, have decided that the best manner of communication while my mom is visiting my older seester, Alicia, is to write letters to each other on their blogs. I have to admit that I feel a tad bit left out. Rachel doesn't ever write me cool letters like she writes mom. *pout* I suppose I'll just have to satisfy myself by reading their blogs every day and checking them CONSTANTLY in case one of them decides on a random update in the middle of the day. OR - maybe I'll write an open letter to the both of them here on my blog. Of course, I'll never match their level of coolness so then again, maybe I won't. We'll just have to see.

Love ya'll!

April Tally

As you all, who have read this blog last month, know, I haven't been in a very reading mood. Well, not a very BOOK reading mood. However, I think I still did pretty well all things considered. I finished sixteen books in April. That's half of what I read in each of the former three months, but I also didn't read ANY manga in April. I did read a few graphic novels, but all of them were pretty good sized. So, without further ado, here is my list of books read in April 2010.

Tithe ~ Holly Black 4/1
Valiant ~ Holly Black 4/1
Ironside ~ Holly Black 4/1
Hex Hall ~ Rachel Hawkins 4/2
Hatter M: Volume 1 ~ Frank Beddor 4/10
Hatter M: Volume 2 ~ Frank Beddor 4/14
Marvel 1602 ~ Neil Gaiman 4/16
Fray ~ Joss Whedon, Karl Moline & Andy Owens 4/18
Wish ~ Alexandra Bullen 4/19
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Vol. 2 ~ Alan Moore 4/19
Hurricane Hannah ~ Sue Civil-Brown 4/21
Lessons from a dead girl ~ Jo Knowles 4/22
The Actor and the Housewife ~ Shannon Hale 4/22
The Song of Hannah ~ Eva Etzioni-Halevy 4/24
Sorcery & Cecelia ~ Patricia C. Wrede & Caroline Stevermer 4/26
The Grand Tour ~ Patricia C. Wrede & Caroline Stevermer 4/30

So, that's it. Not the best month this year, but I did get alot of other things other than reading accomplished this past month which is a feat in and of itself. Wish me luck for May!

What did you read in April?