Week 5: Play-dough Worms and My Quest for Riveting Fiction

We spent the majority of Week 5 getting ready for our road trip to San Diego to spend the month with our other third and to meet Nephew #5, and then actually road-tripping; thus, this will be a short post (and also because I am writing this late and from my iPhone while drinking beer).

New for Week 5 is playing with Play-dough! I broke out the stash one day after a good, long hike, made some bugs and cars, which all looked like globs (and he was just as impressed), and it was all over! Henry loves it! It kind of went perfectly with our recent found love of pretend play, not so much that he cares about the art portion of things. Personally, I love Play-dough. I like working with anything hands-on, so I never outgrew this toy. I could not be more thrilled when he goes to get the bright little yellow cans, which I suspect, he has caught on to. What a sweet boy he is.

So...ugh. I started and stopped 2 books in Week 5. Life is too short to waste your time with fiction that doesn't grab onto your heart strings! Please, please, please someone recommend an amazing work of fiction to me before I start going back through my old favorites list. The last of my favorite works of fiction were The Art of Racing in the Rain, The Hunger Games trilogy, Shutter Island, The Green Mile, and Mystic River. I will admit, I mostly read non-fiction, but I always am on the lookout for amazing works, including short stories! I also read quite a bit of poetry. I will not waste my time if I am not drawn in within the first 5 chapters or 1/4 of the book. Also, while I am not one to shy away from difficult subject matter, I have zero desire to read about pedophiles or child abuse or ickiness involving children. I strongly believe that anyone who harms a child should have the most capital of punishments. I know it is harsh, but I have zero tolerance on the matter, which is why I am probably not a very good Christian and why I could never be a social worker or a foster parent. In any case, I don't want to read about it for fun. Please send me your recommends.