The Five

Sight
The Ten Year Nap by Meg Wolitzer

This book had me shouting, "Yes! Yes! That's it!" and reading passages to my husband, much to his annoyance, I'm sure. Wolitzer perfectly captures so much of what being a mother is. To say I loved this book isn't enough. I can't say it better than Publishers Weekly, so I'm sharing their review here: Wolitzer takes a close look at the opt out generation: her cast of primary characters have all abandoned promising careers (in art, law and academia) in favor of full-time motherhood. When their children were babies, that decision was defensible to themselves and others; 10 years on, all of these women, whose interconnected stories merge during their regular breakfasts at a Manhattan restaurant, harbor hidden doubts. Do their mundane daily routines and ever-more tenuous connections to increasingly independent children compensate for all that lost promise? Wolitzer centers her narrative on comparisons between her smart but bored modern-day New York and suburban mommies and the women of the generation preceding them, who fought for women's liberation and equality. Contemporary chapters, most of which focus on a single character in this small circle of friends, alternate with vignettes from earlier eras, placing her characters' crises in the context of the women, famous and anonymous, who came before. Wolitzer's novel offers a hopeful, if not exactly optimistic, vision of women's (and men's) capacity for reinvention and the discovery of new purpose.

Sound
I'm Not Dead by Pink

I think Pink is brilliant. Her duet with Steven Tyler, Misery, and her haunting, Family Portrait on Missundaztood hooked me when that CD was released. I'm Not Dead (Platinum Edition) gets me pumped when the last thing I feel like doing is cleaning. Snap on the iPod, hit play and try not to bop around and sing along while doing what you need to get done. I can't even begin to pick a favorite song of hers. She's just brilliant. Dear Mr. President is the perfect protest tune. Stupid Girls is delightful commentary on those girls that seem to gather great media attention. Please don't purchase the clean version, censorship is deplorable and they're just words. Clean it up and you don't get the artist as she was intended.

Scent
Cinnamon Apples drying in the oven.

Taste
Warm Cinnamon Apples. Yum.

Touch
New clothes. I'm down another size and am enjoying some cooler weather clothes in my new size. Purchased at my favorite shopping "mall", a local thrift store, I just bought 6 shirts, two pairs of jeans for under $30!