There was such a wicked wind blowing last night that I had a total Meg Murray flashback and felt like I should go looking outside for Mrs. Whatsit. It also gave me a huge liverwurst sandwich craving. I totally understand why Meg didn't stay up in that attic though; I thought the house was going to take off and fly away for awhile there.

I have a zillion things to do and have decided to make most of them happen this weekend. It's not that they are difficult, just that there is a lot of them. To wit - the list of Thanksgiving Weekend 2010 (which I've decided starts tomorrow - so it's a FIVE day weekend, in case you were wondering):

1. Read through December feature, make sure it's good to go, send to Bookslut.

2. Last couple of reviews for December column, read it through, send it off as well.

3. Blog entry to run next week on very cool poetry collection VS by Kerry Ryan which I am reviewing in the Dec column. I hardly ever review poetry but this one, about a woman who decides to fight in an amateur boxing match, is really cool and should appeal hugely to women of all ages.

4. Review book on "armed humanitarianism" for Booklist. Yet again I am stunned by how screwed up the Iraq War was.

5. Struggle to resist ordering Lists: To-dos, Illustrated Inventories, Collected Thoughts, and Other Artists' Enumerations from the Collections of the Smithsonian Museum. It is on my wish list and I need to leave it there but oh - the siren call of seeing so many cool peoples' to do lists!!!

6. Two boxes of books out the door on Friday - one to a very young nephew and one to a much older niece filled with books for her soon to be born baby. Books out the door to happy people who want them! Huzzah!

7. Wrapping. It's that time of year and one must stay ahead of it.

8. Finishing getting all the books back up on the shelves downstairs. We went through all of my son's books the other day (which is why those two boxes in item #6 are going in the mail) and created a huge pile to donate to Children's next month. (Because we will be there, next month, AGAIN.) While the books were down we dusted the shelves and then I started resorting and then I started reconsidering how to put them back up on the shelves and the end of this story is that there are still books on the floor. They need to get put away.

9. I have a half dozen reviews to be written for a variety of books - some for Bookslut (one for my February column if you can believe it) and a couple for Chasing Ray and one I think for Eclectica. Basically, I have a small pile of books to sort through, write about and get out the door.

10. The theme of this list seems to be "books out the door!!" Can you tell we watched one too many episodes of HOARDERS this week?

11. And that brings me to sorting the books still to read. I actually have a list (another list!) of books I'm thinking of requesting but I'm tempted to just request nothing for the next several months. I have a backlog of books to read for review and if I just concentrated on them then that would keep the piles from getting out of hand. Of course doing that means ignoring some books down the line that sound quite intriguing and that seems, quite frankly, impossible. But if I pulled out books I have been hanging on to with no real intention of ever reading then I might feel better about the whole thing.

12. First I need to settle on the themes for the next six months. JAN and FEB are already set. I also plan to have a "rebels with a cause" type column and a standard mystery column and a "not your Twilight fantasy column". And because I have to have a coming-of-age column in there somewhere (it's required when you cover YA) I'm thinking of aiming for a "friends forever" type theme as well. That would carry me to June. Gah. June!

13. Annnnnd I talked to my editor on Monday. (First conversation - it went well and was quite informative!) I need to send her an email pointing out the chapters I think need some changes in MAP so she can take an extra look at those. I intended to have this to her today but the epic storm made pretty much everything but dealing with it nearly impossible and we had day job/airplane junk going on. Plus we've decided to get a puppy which involved emailing some people. More on that when he arrives. Which will not be this weekend. (Which is probably good because then this whole list would be pointless!)

12. I was going to say laundry but I did that yesterday! Huzzah!

13. I think that's enough, don't you? Reading, writing, reviewing, cleaning. And the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade on Thursday, of course. I'm sure I'm forgetting something. Oh - yes - need to pick up a gift for my Mom that I just thought of, and need to talk to my brother-in-law on Thanksgiving about gifts for his daughter (the preteen niece). She is FINALLY reading some books. This is epic. She has discovered anime and fallen madly in love. So I need to clear what I can get her and let him know what to get my son. So the little darlings will be delighted and surprised. We are such good parents, aren't we? :)

[Post pic from LIST book. I wish my lists were this cool! See more on the Smithsonian exhibit that the book accompanies, here.]