Genius is more often found in a cracked pot than in a whole one. (E.B. White)

A really nice day out today. Appreciate it even more since the next few days are supposed to get nasty again. The calves keep getting out tonight. Gram has called me twice to put them back in. The bitch of it is, by the time I get there, the calf that was out is back in and a new one is out in its place. They do it just to mess with me, I know they do. Just like when they stand in a line in numerical order, their birth order. And they stare at me, all cute, like “What?” They know what. Whoever said cows are dumb never hung with this crew. Mutiny I tell ya.

I’ve been seriously abusing paperbackswap.com this winter. Great site for those avid readers out there. You become a member, post the books you don’t want anymore, get points when people order a book from you, send that book out, and use the point to get a book sent to you that you actually want. I’m cheap when it comes to books since I go through so many. Repeat after me, swapping books and libraries are my friends. And when you get done with the book you ordered, if you don’t want it, you post it back on your list and send it on down the line. Genius. Except there are a lot of books that go fast and more rare authors are hard to come by. But John Grisham and Nora Roberts fans rejoice. So, there’s the plug of the day. Check it out, try it out, don’t marry it like I did (and I have the blue topaz ring to prove it, or at least a claddagh ring to indicate a serious relationship with it). :-)

The Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind has been my constant companion the past few days. I’ve been reading the series since high school, when a boyfriend at the time recommended it to me (the last guy I dated until the current one who knew books weren’t just for propping up a table). I hadn’t kept up with the last four books to come out (it’s an eleven or twelve book series), but one happened to be on my bookshelf and I was bored, so I picked it up and whoosh! I was off to lands far, far away and just as carried away as I’d been by it before. The series, like Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time, has caught flack for being too long, taking a long damn time to get where it’s going. It might. It might get long winded. It might be a mite overdramatized. But who cares? It’s an entertaining story with characters that act like adults. It has all the elements a fantasy novel should have, a good dose of reality, and really keeps you reading. Isn’t that, after all, the main goal of storytelling? A warning, however, it’s not a series for hesitant readers, but it’s been, for me, something to grow into.

After reading Twilight, I got thinking about books I enjoyed when I was in that reading age group. Most of them had really strong heroines. Tamora Pierce is still someone I like to read, even more so after starting to read her blog, Dare to be Stupid. (What a great title. I love it.) Of course, Harry Potter and Ruby in the Smoke by Philip Pullman probably would have made the list. American Girl stories and, oddly enough, Diana Gabaldon, hit me about 14-16. I also recently heard that Kim Harrison, a vampire/fantasy writer, has branched out from the adult genre into YA.

So those are my bookish observations for the day. And now that it’s dark, hopefully my calves don’t decide to play in traffic. Chaos. Absolute chaos.