Lists

I like lists. Life lists. To-do lists (well, I don't like to-do lists, but I do like crossing things out.)

On Twitter this morning, Leslie tweeted a link to an NPR list of the 100 best YA books. Of course, I haven't been able to get this out of my head all day. I love young adult fiction, how many have I read?

Upon counting them up, the answer is: woefully few. I think I need to head over to the library ASAP...

Check out the list yourself. How many have you read?

Thanks so much to Leslie for this great idea! This is one to-do list I wouldn't mind crossing off.

1.

Camp Mighty and Alt Summit

Last month (I really can't believe it's been so long already), I had the privilege of attending Camp Mighty. It was an amazing weekend, much different from what I had expected, yet I am very much glad that I went.

Unfortunately, I am glacially slow at processing these sorts of things, which is a bit of a liability in the blogging world. But the bottom line is that it reinforced my interest in blogging and bloggers, and I am approaching the goals I have set for myself this year with renewed gusto. I will likely do a post with all of the photos I took, but to be honest, they are all on my iPhone, which seems to make me a bit backward when compared to all of the other bloggers running around with their fancy Nikons and Canons. I just have to remind myself that I can only move so fast, and that given all of the other responsibilities in my life currently, I'm doing just fine.

So, without further ado, the five goals I've chosen to focus on this year are:

1. Teach a class on champagne (more on this soon!)
2. Learn how to code (this is in progress via Codecademy)
3. Create a gallery wall of picture frames
4. Start a foundation for the research of pediatric migraines
5. Publish a best-selling book.

Ambitious, yes, but what's the point of having a goals if they're not?

One other thing that was on my Life List was to attend AltSummit. Like someday. I wanted to be enough of a "real" blogger that someday attending AltSummit was just something I needed to do. Well, perhaps sometimes you just need a swift kick in the pants, because the folks at AltSummit read my Life List and saw that this was on it and they, with the help of Bing (#thanksbing), they gave me a ticket to AltSummit. Which is fantastic and slightly terrifying all at the same time. So with that, I now have an enormous incentive to get things in gear. Here's hoping I don't get laughed out of the conference!

House Hunters International

Confession: I've been watching way too much TV. Specifically: House Hunters International. Yes, I know it's all fake, but something about vicariously watching people choose a place to live as part of the larger life adventure on which they are embarking. I especially love the segment at the end of each episode where they show the family a few months or so after they have settled into their new home. You can see how they've redecorated and how they've dealt with that one part of the house they couldn't stand. Perhaps most importantly, the family often shares a few thoughts about how they are adjusting to the new culture, which is the part I find most interesting.

So naturally, I was fascinated by this promotion for Disney World's new Fantasyland. It features  Belle and the Beast on House Hunters International, searching for a new castle. What a clever idea! The spoof is spot-on--narrated by the same person as the rest of the series, the same over-enthusiastic, bubbly commentary on the house selection-process from the home-searcher, and same overly-specific requirements ("I need space for a library," says Belle).

While I'm not sure that the audiences for Disney World and House Hunters International overlap too much, I still think this was a brilliant way to market this addition to the theme park. This ad is brilliant--just perfectly clever. I love it.

What do you think?