Personal Time!

Hi everyone! I really enjoy the Thursday memes where it's time to get personal and share a little bit about yourself.  Although I focus mainly on reviewing books and guard my privacy like crazy, I do like to share some things about myself. 

Enquiring Minds Want to Know is a weekly meme hosted by Dollycas's Thoughts.  It's a fun way to share some interesting things about yourself that you wouldn't normally discuss in a regular post.  We spend a lot of time on our computers, often sharing thoughts and comments, but we don't really know each other that well.  As they do in the younger grades, something I always rather enjoyed which says a lot about my mental state, it's "special share day".

1. Author Jessica Park commented this week on Facebook that "Naming characters takes me almost as long as it does to write the book." which led me to start thinking about names. Is there a story behind your first name?


I was supposed to be named Jennifer.  My mother really wanted her first child to have that name and throughout her pregnancy she insisted on calling me Jennifer, even insisting she was carrying a girl.  As soon as I was born, she called me Stephanie and that was that.  My dad tried reminding her about the 'Jennifer' name, but you don't ever argue with someone who just went through labour as she insisted on Stephanie, and Stephanie it is.  I'm really glad I wasn't named Jennifer as I went through elementary school with four Jennifers in my class and that would not have been fun.

2. Do you think parents today give more thought to the names they give their children than our parents did?

I don't really think so.  I've seen some pretty unusual names, but I also see many of the traditional come through all the time too.  My grandmother's name was Jeanne D'Arc.  In English, that would be Joan of Arc, and today that would be pretty original and unprecedented.  Even for a girl born in the early twenties in a rural French community, it was pretty unusual.

3. What is the most unusual child's name you have noticed recently?

I have no idea.  I am a teacher so I come across some pretty unusual and fascinating names all of the time.  What I really like is the unusual spellings of everyday names such as Kamron, Holleigh, Ashleigh, Ashelynne, Quinne, Margherhite, Aprille, and so on.  I see a lot of that now and it's pretty neat. 

Booking Through Thursday

Do you multi-task when you read? Do other things like stirring things on the stove, brushing your teeth, watching television, knitting, walking, et cetera?


Or is it just me, and you sit and do nothing but focus on what you’re reading?

(Or, if you do both, why, when, and which do you prefer?)

I do both actually, but it depends on what I am doing.  I can definitely read while watching television, but when things get interesting on television, or in my book, I will give either my undivided attention instead of just part of my concentration.   My husband is always amazed that I can do that as he definitely can't.  Maybe it's a skill I've learned through watching my mom do it when I was young as she always read and watched tv and always knew what was going on.  And I always tried to emulate my mom.

I can definitely read and cook and do other things.  I can't read and exercise though.  I've tried and it just doesn't work.  I've switched to audiobooks for that as I can't hold a book and walk without walking into something, you know, like a tree, a car, a hole, and hurt myself terribly.  And hurts take a lot longer to heal today than they did twenty years ago.  Besides, I like looking at things when I walk.  And reading is for passing the time when I am bored. 

Which one do I prefer?  Oh, reading quietly with no distractions, for sure.  I still have a list when I was five years old of the ten things I could never do without and BOOKS were at the top of my list then and would probably still be at the top of my list today.  Today, however, it would say EREADER as it can hold more books.