From today’s Booking through Thursday:

“This can be a quick one. Don’t take too long to think about it. Fifteen books you’ve read that will always stick with you. First fifteen you can recall in no more than 15 minutes.”

1. Horton Hears a Who
2. Little Women
3. Richard Scarry’s Please and Thank You Book
4. Women in the Global Factory
5. Anne of Green Gables
6. Harry Potter and the Sorceror’s Stone
7. Pride and Prejudice
8. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
9. A Tale of Two Cities
10. To Kill a Mockingbird
11. Jane Eyre
12. The Eyre Affair
13. The Bean Trees
14. The Secret Garden
15. Heidi

What would yours be?

Sorry for the blog silence since Monday. Tuesdays are my night for cooking dinner, which I turned into a multi-hour disaster area by adding cupcakes to the mix. And last night I was just cranky and querulous, so I betook myself to bed.

Three beautiful things from the past week:

1) As twilight approaches the business district near my house, I happen to glance up. One of the local restaurants is located in a row house, where the top floor is either an office or a residence with French doors opening onto a small, semi-circular balcony. The occupant has decorated the railing with window boxes of glowing fuchsia impatiens.

2) Walking home from the farmers’ market, I notice a car parked nearby. It has four brightly hued bouquets tied to each corner of its roof rack.

3) Twice in the past week, just as I’ve ventured forth into the world, the skies have opened up, thunder and lightning have split the sky, and I have found myself walking through torrents of water. The thing is, once you’ve gone from being either dry or just a little bit wet to being soaked, it just becomes comical and you have no other option but to laugh out loud with merriment.