This is totally up my alley, thanks to A Girl and A Boy (someday I'll link, the few who read this know who I mean though.)
In the list of books below, bold the ones you’ve read, italicize the ones you want to read, red the ones you won’t touch with a ten-foot pole, put a cross (+) in front of the ones on your book shelf, and asterisk (*) the ones you’ve never heard of. In the comments, let me know if you're up for it; I'd love to see if y'all have been puttin your book-learnin' to good use.
1. +The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. +Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. +Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)--
5. +The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. +The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. +The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
8. +Anne of Green Gables (L. M. Montgomery)- I am obsessed and own every book the author has ever written, including those out of print
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. *A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. +Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. +Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. +Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. +Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Rowling)
17. *Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King) HATE King
19. +Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban(Rowling)
20. +Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. +The Hobbit (Tolkien)--tried it as a kid, never got into it, tried again, still not interested
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J. D. Salinger)
23. +Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)--And all her other books. I go through author phases.
24. +The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)-I have this, just haven't gotten around to reading it
25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)-This should be #42
27. +Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. +1984 (Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. *The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)--I tried but never finished
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43.+ Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. +Bible
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)--
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)--I HATED Dumas.
48. +Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)--
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)--
50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)--I would prefer not to read Dickens
53. +Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)- Thanks MLE!
54. +Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. +The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)--
56. *The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. +Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. +The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60.* The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrew Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)6
2. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)--
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
64. Interview with the Vampire (Anne Rice)--Never interested
65. *Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. +One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)69. +Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. +The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)--En Francais of course
71. +Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)--
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)--
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)--Couldn't bring myself to read it after the movie
75. +The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. *The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79. *The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)
81. *Not Wanted On the Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. +Of Mice And Men (Steinbecck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)--Put me into a HUGE DuMaurier phase. I've read most of her books
84. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. +Emma (Jane Austen)--Jane Austen can do no wrong
86. Watership Down (Richard Adams)--Simon insists this is awesome
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. *Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. *Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. *In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. +Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)--
94. *The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S. E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)- UGH
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)--Had to read it in high school
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Friday, February 23, 2007
House Update
Ok, so the house thing isn’t a plumbing leak. 3 Plumbers and only one understood our need to have it tested to make sure it wasn’t. We had to make sure before we start going after the foundation people. So that wasn’t the problem. Yay, except not. Turns out that the foundation just sunk on the other side of the house because we got rain. Yep. And it’s not covered by homeowner’s insurance because they don’t do that in Texas anymore. Yeah.
But we think it’s the fault of the foundation company. When we first did everything, we had one side fixed because it was sloping by 2 inches. The guy who came to our house told us (and our realtor) that we just needed to stabilize it because the house was fine as it is and we just needed to make sure it didn’t sink anymore. There were no obvious huge cracks, just some little ones. Fine. We agreed and the seller agreed to pay for it.
They come out and put the pier thingies underneath and leave in 2 days. We notice a few days later that the cracks in the drywall are horrendous but are told that it is normal. We don’t really think about it and put the paperwork away without really looking at it. (BIG MISTAKE).
Three months later, on December 28, after a weekend of rain, the tiles in our kitchen pop up and our door starts sticking and other things happen. Carpet pulls away from the wall. Drywall gets worse and has issues in new places. This mostly on the side of the house not stabilized. We call the original contractors and that story is in the archives somewhere. When the foundation guy comes out, he tells us that yes, the house was only supposed to be stabilized but it was LEVELED instead. Not what we had been told. Yes, that one side of the house was raised 2 inches to be level with the other side of the house, and not stabilized like we had been told. We were also told that it shouldn’t have caused the other side to go, but we had been told previously that it was an eventual possibility and that was why we opted for just stabilization. Makes sense.
So we are PISSED. We’ve taken some time since the plumbers came to calm down and try to form some sort of plan. We want them to fix the drywall issues on the side that was fixed. There was also some grout that has come away from the wall and cabinets on the floor. We want that fixed. Since our house was NOT supposed to be leveled, this was not supposed to happen. So we should not be responsible for fixing it. We would like the other side of the house to be fixed and the damage that it has caused fixed. We do plan to have a structural engineer come out to look at the house and determine if we truly have a case for that. If the house had been stabilized on one side, the sinking of the house on the other would not have been as much of a problem as it would just end up leveling out. It sucks.
The house seems to have leveled out now that we’ve gotten tons more rain and the ground has adjusted. We plan to water the ground when it stops raining to keep the equilibrium up. The doors and locks don’t stick but there’s still damage to our roof, tiles, and walls. It needs to be fixed. We were told if we stabilized the house, the other side would be fine. If we leveled, the other side would potentially have problems. That’s why we chose stabilization. That’s why the foundation company needs to fix the problem they caused.
Grrgh. I don’t want to hire a lawyer but it looks like we’re going to have to. It’s going to be a fight. I have to call the foundation guy this week or next and get this started. He DID admit to us that there was a communication mistake made so we have that. We need to get him to admit it again though because I want it on tape. I need to research some more, but I think it’s legal to record in Texas and my phone has some nifty features. So it’s going to be fun. I don’t expect them to cave but since it was a pretty big mistake made, who knows. I just want my house fixed.
But we think it’s the fault of the foundation company. When we first did everything, we had one side fixed because it was sloping by 2 inches. The guy who came to our house told us (and our realtor) that we just needed to stabilize it because the house was fine as it is and we just needed to make sure it didn’t sink anymore. There were no obvious huge cracks, just some little ones. Fine. We agreed and the seller agreed to pay for it.
They come out and put the pier thingies underneath and leave in 2 days. We notice a few days later that the cracks in the drywall are horrendous but are told that it is normal. We don’t really think about it and put the paperwork away without really looking at it. (BIG MISTAKE).
Three months later, on December 28, after a weekend of rain, the tiles in our kitchen pop up and our door starts sticking and other things happen. Carpet pulls away from the wall. Drywall gets worse and has issues in new places. This mostly on the side of the house not stabilized. We call the original contractors and that story is in the archives somewhere. When the foundation guy comes out, he tells us that yes, the house was only supposed to be stabilized but it was LEVELED instead. Not what we had been told. Yes, that one side of the house was raised 2 inches to be level with the other side of the house, and not stabilized like we had been told. We were also told that it shouldn’t have caused the other side to go, but we had been told previously that it was an eventual possibility and that was why we opted for just stabilization. Makes sense.
So we are PISSED. We’ve taken some time since the plumbers came to calm down and try to form some sort of plan. We want them to fix the drywall issues on the side that was fixed. There was also some grout that has come away from the wall and cabinets on the floor. We want that fixed. Since our house was NOT supposed to be leveled, this was not supposed to happen. So we should not be responsible for fixing it. We would like the other side of the house to be fixed and the damage that it has caused fixed. We do plan to have a structural engineer come out to look at the house and determine if we truly have a case for that. If the house had been stabilized on one side, the sinking of the house on the other would not have been as much of a problem as it would just end up leveling out. It sucks.
The house seems to have leveled out now that we’ve gotten tons more rain and the ground has adjusted. We plan to water the ground when it stops raining to keep the equilibrium up. The doors and locks don’t stick but there’s still damage to our roof, tiles, and walls. It needs to be fixed. We were told if we stabilized the house, the other side would be fine. If we leveled, the other side would potentially have problems. That’s why we chose stabilization. That’s why the foundation company needs to fix the problem they caused.
Grrgh. I don’t want to hire a lawyer but it looks like we’re going to have to. It’s going to be a fight. I have to call the foundation guy this week or next and get this started. He DID admit to us that there was a communication mistake made so we have that. We need to get him to admit it again though because I want it on tape. I need to research some more, but I think it’s legal to record in Texas and my phone has some nifty features. So it’s going to be fun. I don’t expect them to cave but since it was a pretty big mistake made, who knows. I just want my house fixed.
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