A Travesty Remedied, or My Lovely Mother's Day

Back when I did my major book purge, on top of having my epiphany about only wanting nice, aesthetically pleasing books, I made another startling discovery.

I did not own a single Jane Austen novel.

I'm not really sure how this came to be. Obviously, there were copies of Jane Austen novels in my home growing up. I think I read her entire collected works before entering high school. But I guess none of those copies actually belonged to me, and I guess I never asked for any.

Still, I was a little floored when I realized that I did not own a single one of her books. I mean, who am I? How did this happen? What? I own nearly every single movie version of Pride and Prejudice, how do I not actually own the physical book?

Obviously, I immediately complained to my husband about this deplorable state of affairs, and he picked up the hint. So yesterday for Mother's Day, this is what I got to open over breakfast:

Pretty, no? That husband of mine knows me so well (the boys gave me chocolates, so all around it was a present-winning kind of day). It makes me so happy to see this one nestled among the other books on my shelf (a dictionary got demoted to make room for this one on my tea cup shelf), and if I find time this summer I'm itching to reread Persuasion. It's been too long.

I hope all you other mothers out there had an excellent day yesterday and were suitably honored by the men and children in your lives (especially if your children are old enough to understand you deserve the right to sleep in every now and then and not cater to their every whim. Sadly, my children aren't that old yet). I always find it a bit funny that what I want most for Mother's Day is to not have to do any "mothering" stuff, but it's the absolute truth that I love my children more when I get a little bit of a break from them every now and then. Today I have nothing but happy feelings for my children, so that means my Mother's Day was a great break.

In other excellent news, I turned in my final paper this morning, dropped my books off at the library, and the semester is finally over! Summer is here! Hopefully this means I'll have more time to devote to some pleasure reading, and more time hanging around here to talk about that reading (and other stuff). So yay for that.