Ms. Smarty Pants Know It All

I think almost every girl who reads Little Women by Louisa May Alcott identifies with Jo. She certainly helped me develop my confidence as a young tomboy whose only lovely feature was her hair.

Little Women was the first book I ever bought with my own money. This book was mine, and the first addition to what was surely to be the magnificent library in my future.

I recently read a review of this book at Page Turners, and it brought all these memories back to me.

I remembered that for years, I would come back to this book. During middle school, high school, college and beyond, I would reread Little Women for the pure enjoyment of it.

Then one year, and I don’t remember how long ago it was, I couldn’t make it through. I got annoyed with it. Did it somehow lose its resonance with me? Was I so changed that I no longer wanted to read what is arguably the most influential book of my life?

I still don’t have that answer. It surely can’t be that I’m too old for it or that its simplistic world view no longer applies to my life can it?

I’ve gotten rid of a lot of my book collection. That dream of having a Henry-Higgins-like library has been replaced by others, but I still have my original Little Women. Surely it will come back to me.

Tags: Books, Life by Ms. SP
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Look what my awesome Chicago artist boyfriend gave me for Valentine’s Day!

Here’s a photo of Thunder dog. You can see in the painting just how much more gray he has around the muzzle now. The poor guy is getting really curmudgeony for all his cuteness. He’s grumbling more and finds puppies annoying. I’m sure he’d tell the punks to get off his lawn if he knew the cliche.

Thunder has an arch-enemy in our building. The boyfriend did a holiday art commission of that dog and commented how much they are really built alike. We people have always known that, but somehow the two dogs believe they are worlds apart.

Tags: Art, Life by Ms. SP
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February 11 was my next Do Something For Others Day. During this one day a month, I just go about my normal routine with the mindset of being as helpful as I can to the people around me.

On February 11, I helped staff a conference so it is hard to tell if I did anything out of the ordinary. Technical difficulties always arise at these events so I was running around a bit to get everyone up and going. Then I tried to pay special attention to the VIP keynote speaker, but when an event has as many moving pieces as this one did, I think it’s hard to keep attitude in mind instead of just solving problems.

So I don’t think I was as gracious or graceful as I really should have been. This was not a particularly good Do Something For Others Day.

Random.org tells me that I’m on again for March 8.

Related:

• Do Something For Others Day: Report No. 1

Tags: Life by Ms. SP
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