I signed up for Goodreads.com today - a cool site that lets you keep track of and rate books you’ve read with some social networking thrown in for good measure. Here’s my user profile: http://www.goodreads.com/profile/AnaisAmy

Coincidentally, I saw a book meme online just now, so I thought I’d blog both things. Here’s what you’re supposed to do with the list below:

1 - Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2 - Italicize those you intend to read.
3 - Underline the books you LOVE, and strikeout the books you read but didn’t like.
4 - Post this list on your own blog

1) Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2) The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3) Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4) Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5) To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6) The Bible
7) Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8) Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9) His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10) Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11) Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12) Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13) Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14) Complete Works of Shakespeare - Not sure if I’m read everything, but I’ve read most of his works.
15) Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16) The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17) Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18) Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19) The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20) Middlemarch - George Eliot
21) Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22) The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23) Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24) War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25) The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26) Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27) Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28) Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29) Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30) The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31) Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy - I actually borrowed this from the library and had a hard time getting into it, but I’ll try again.
32) David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33) Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34) Emma - Jane Austen
35) Persuasion - Jane Austen
36) The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37) The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38) Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39) Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40) Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41) Animal Farm - George Orwell
42) The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43) One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44) A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45) The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46) Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47) Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48) The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49) Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50) Atonement - Ian McEwan
51) Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52) Dune - Frank Herbert
53) Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54) Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55) A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56) The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57) A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58) Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59) The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60) Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61) Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62) Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63) The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64) The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65) Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66) On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67) Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68) Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69) Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70) Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71) Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72) Dracula - Bram Stoker
73) The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74) Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75) Ulysses - James Joyce
76) The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath - I didn’t hate the writing, but the subject matter was just too depressing.
77) Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78) Germinal - Emile Zola
79) Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80) Possession - AS Byatt
81) A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82) Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83) The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84) The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85) Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86) A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87) Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88) The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89) Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90) The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91) Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92) The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93) The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94) Watership Down - Richard Adams
95) A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96) A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97) The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98) Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99) Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
100) Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Damn, that’s a lot of books I haven’t read; I need to get busy with some of these classics. Which one should I start with first?

I saw mention of Wordle on some blogs, and thought it was mostly lame at first. Then I put in the URL of my blog and really liked the image that it created. So I hereby declare Wordle cool.

Check out my Wordle:

Today I celebrate another milestone on my path of recovery.

Six years ago today I walked into my first 12-step meeting and I haven’t looked back since. I’m celebrating being abstinent from compulsive overeating as well as being sober - two very big things! Looking back, I don’t think I would have willingly decided to do both on the same day, but it just worked out that way for me since I landed a food plan that had no sugar. No sugar = no alcohol.

On this date six years ago, I was nervous and excited. I was eager to try something new where my eating was concerned, but I had no real idea what I was getting myself into. In the following days, I would go through a horrible detox that kept me in bed with massive headaches, cold sweats, and bouts of vomiting and diarrhea. The withdrawals hit me hard. I don’t ever want to go through that again. And if I keep doing the same thing I’ve been doing the past six years - one day at a time - I won’t have to.

For the visuals among us, here’s a little photo trip down memory lane.

Almost 7 years ago, partying at Colleen’s family shore house:

A llittle over 6 years ago at my sister-in-law’s baby shower:

About 5 1/2 years ago, 4 months into my journey:

About 1 1/2 years ago with my friend, Deb:

And a more recent one, a couple months ago:

I need to take some updated pictures of myself. I’ve been slacking in that department for some reason! I got my hair done on Saturday and it looks fabulous. I’ll try to remember to do that this week.

Laura tagged me for this meme last week… it’s easy content to get back into the swing of things, so here goes!

8 Things I’m Passionate About

1. Recovery from addiction
2. Good nutrition
3. Raising my boys up right
4. Loving my husband
5. Reading and the education gained from such
6. Personal growth
7. Love and laughter
8. Listening to that quiet, small voice within

8 Things I Want to Do Before I Die

1. Visit every state in America for at least a few hours each
2. Travel abroad frequently
3. Watch my boys get happily married
4. Hold precious grandbabies in my arms
5. Swim in the Pacific Ocean
6. Own a stray dog refuge ranch
7. Write a memoir
8. Help as many alcoholics, compulsive overeaters, and codependents as I can find recovery

8 Things I Say Often

1. Hi, babe!
2. Hi, honey
3. I love you
4. I missed you
5. How was your day?
6. Hi, I’m Amy and I’m a compulsive overeater/alcoholic
7. I know, right?
8. Gracie-Janey! Who’s the good girl? You’re the good girl. Oh, yes you are. You’re mama’s baby girl, aren’t you?

8 Books I’ve Read Recently

1. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
2. The Alchemist by Paolo Coelo
3. The Witch of Portobello by Paolo Coelo
4. Floor Sample by Julia Cameron
5. Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
6. Invisible Acts of Power by Caroline Myss
7. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
8. The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle (reading now)

8 Songs I Could Listen to Over and Over

1. The Shadow of the Day by Linkin Park
2. Hey There Delilah by Plain White Ts
3. Yahweh by U2
4. Running to Stand Still by U2
5. Valparaiso by Sting
6. Saturday in the Park by Chicago
7. Isn’t She Lovely by Stevie Wonder
8. Nervous Alibi by The Outfield

8 Things That Attract Me to My Best Friends

1. Honesty
2. Integrity
3. Sense of humor
4. Recovery
5. Talent for listening
6. Unconditional love & acceptance
7. Intelligence
8. Kindness

8 People I Think Should Do Crazy 8s

1. Darla
2. Cindy
3. Colleen
4. Kim
5. Steph
6. Marisa
7. Suni
8. Jenn

I saw this over at Skeet’s and thought it would be fun. I’m a glutton for punishment, though, since I’ve got a long middle name with a “z” in it.

Here we go.

The Rules:

1. You have to post these rules before you give the facts.

2. Players, you must list one fact that is somehow relevant to your life for each letter of your middle name. If you don’t have a middle name, use the middle name you would have liked to have had.

3. When you are tagged you need to write your own blog post containing your own middle name game facts.

4. At the end of your blog post, you need to choose one person for each letter of your middle name to tag. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

Did you guess my middle name? It’s Elizabeth, in case you didn’t.

E - My mom’s maiden name starts with E. Her middle name is also Elizabeth (as was her mother’s).

L - My last name starts with L.

I - Ice cream used to be one of my biggest binge foods.

Z - Zoos are not my favorite place to visit.

A - Aric is the name of my second born son.

B - Booze proved to be a problem for me, like most other addictive substances.

E - Eating is something I do 4x a time. No more, no less.

T - Tall - that’s me. I’m 5′11″.

H - Happy! I like to choose happiness over all the other negatives. It really is a choice.

I’m supposed to tag people now, but I’m too lazy for all of that. Play along if you want to!