Kid's Book Series of the 90s

Last week's post about The Babysitter's Club got me thinking - what other book series did I enjoy reading as a kid in the 90s?

What kid from my generation doesn't remember Goosebumps? For some reason, as a kid, I was fascinated by scary stories and RL Stine's book sure did deliver!

I was first introduced to them by my childhood best friend (she always found the best books for us to read!) and got hooked!

These books always had some scary title and cover art and the books always featured a kid or set of kids as the main characters, facing some scary scenario where they had to beat the monster or whatever to stay alive. There was usually some twist at the end of the book too that would blow your mind - like a relative was also a monster who showed their true nature at the end and killed the villain, or the main characters ended up being something completely non-human... I loved the Nickelodeon series "Are You Afraid of the Dark?" and these books were quite similar.

I remember reading Welcome to Dead House, Stay Out of the Basement, Monster Blood, Say Cheese and Die!, Let's Get Invisible, Night of the Living Dummy, The Girl Who Cried Monster, The Haunted Mask, Be Careful What You Wish For..., Piano Lessons Can Be Murder, One Day at Horrorland (I LOVED this one), Monster Blood 2, The Scarecrow Walks at Midnight, Go Eat Worms!, The Cuckoo Clock of Doom, Monster Blood 3, The Barking Ghost, The Horror at Camp Jellyjam, Revenge of the Lawn Gnomes, and  A Shocker on Shock Street was the last one I read.

Choose Your Own Adventure books were another series I enjoyed. Some were scary too! 

For those not familar with these, you would start at the beginning and then after a few pages you had several different options to choose from, each option telling you to flip to a different page in the book. Some of these options led you down different paths, some would end the story. My goal was always to keep the story going.

I remember checking these out of the library on the weekend and spending an entire afternoon reading through them, trying to reach every possible scenario and outcome. What kid didn't love these? I wish they had an adult version - I would still read them!

   

Another mystery series I really enjoyed were the Nancy Drew series and then the Nancy Drew & Hardy Boys Super Mystery books.

By the time I started reading Nancy Drew, the book series were right around #100, and #103 - Stranger in the Shadows (first image) was one of the first ones I read. These books had so much mystery, most of them were real page turners! Who dun it? Will Nancy be able to solve the mystery without getting in danger?

The Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys Super Mysteries were fun too as it introduced me to the Hardy Boys - the male versions of Nancy. I remember these books were longer though and they seemed a bit more mature too, as I remember my parents being wary of letting me read them. I didn't mind though - I loved the mystery and danger aspects of the books.

While I never read all the books, I did go back read some of the early Nancy Drew mysteries. My school library also carried a lot of the early Nancy Drew books, as well as some of the Hardy Boys books too so I even read some of those.

When I was in grade school, I wasn't allowed to read Sweet Valley High because well, it was about high school girls and my parents thought I was too young to read about them and what goes on in high school. The acceptable alternative though was to read the Sweet Valley Twins series.

While it still follows twins Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield - the same twins in the high school books - this spin-off takes place when the girls are in junior high, starting in 6th grade. They have the struggles of trying to each be their own person, despite being twins, having friendship troubles, school troubles... they were much more relatable to my grade school self that the original series probably would have been.

I never read all the books - I probably owned just a handful of them, but I enjoyed reading them!

While I mentioned them before, another series I enjoyed reading was the Silver Blades books.

These books followed a group of friends who were figure skaters and aspired to one day compete in the Olympics. While the books were centered around figure skating, storylines involved the girls having friendship problems, having crushes on boys and dealing with the mean girls at the rink. I

only read about the first 10 books, as they started taking too long to put out the next one, but I guess the series ended up with 23 total, several of which where recognized by the USFSA.

The Boxcar Children was a series I was introduced to at school.

The series follows siblings Henry, Jessie, Violet, Benny and their dog Watch. After their mom and dad die, their grandfather gains custody of them, but they soon runaway fearing that he's a mean guy. The find a home in an old boxcar and furnish it with items they find from the dump. Henry, being the oldest, finds work helping a local doctor in order to help pay for food. Eventually they don't live in the boxcar forever - they learn who their grandfather is and decide he's not so mean, but he relocates their boxcar so they can still play in it.

Throughout the series, the children have numerous adventures and even solve mysteries. I remember a bunch of these as a kid, borrowing them both from school and the church library too.

What book series did you read regularly as a kid?

Just an update

First off, I'm typing this on my phone so apologies for any typos!

I'm currently on day 20 of our 2nd cycle TTC and my temps the last few days have been in the 98s, so it would appear that I've ovulated on time.

I don't want to set myself up for disappointment, as it's too early to tell, and who knows if it's wishful thinking, but I have had some symptoms that don't seem normal for me the past few days.

I woke up feeling nauseous yesterday, but that could have been due to low blood sugar in the morning. I also have been craving specific foods (this could be normal though, as I do get cravings from time to time). I've also been constantly hungry - I eat and soon after I'm hungry again. We just bought a tin of cashews last week and I've already eaten like 2/3s of them!

Also, the past few days I've been so tired! Granted, I've been staying up til 5am due to hubby's work schedule, but I'm pretty used to it. Tuesday I took a good 4hr nap in the afternoon after waking up at like 10am; yesterday I woke up again at like 10am, tired as hell, went to work and was so tired by the time I got home I napped for almost 5hrs; and same thing today - I'm so tired! I'm gonna eat some cashews (despite having just ate a delicious salad) and take a nap after I finish this.

I noticed some minor abdominal cramping today too....

Like I said, I don't want to get my hopes up just yet - I've had it happen in the past where I thought I might be but then I got my period right on time. So I guess we'll wait and see if my temps stay high for the next 2 weeks!

To dye or not to dye...

Driving home from work today, I had on our local rock station and was listening to the afternoon radio show that 2 of the head "jocks" do on the weekdays.

They were talking about this story that was in the local newspaper - an 8th grade student dyed her hair blue the night before her 8th grade graduation and was told Tuesday morning during the rehearsal that she would not be able to walk across the stage and participate that night due to her wild hair color as the school/district policy states that "the dress code does not allow hair dye that will disrupt or distract from educational activities."

Honestly, that policy is nothing new - every school has a dress code that's spelled out in the student handbook.

By dying her hair blue she broke the policy, regardless of whether her parents allowed it or not (the article states getting her hair dyed was part of her graduation present) - the rules are rules, they choose to not follow the dress code guidelines.

They state she wasn't rebelling or anything and that she had dyed her hair previously before coming to this school district. Well boo-f'ing-hoo! That was that district, this is this district. If you didn't like it and thought it was a big deal, go to a different district or homeschool her. Again, they knew the dress code, yet they chose to let her break it - why not wait til the day after graduation? Why did she have to have it blue for the ceremony? No one else dyed their hair blue, so why did she?

Sure, it wasn't in a classroom setting, but it was still a school sanctioned activity.

Even in the "real world" most jobs have dress codes - most places don't let you have crazy hair colors or excessive piercings or visible tattoos. If you're out of dress code you get sent home without pay or even fired if it's a continued thing.

This upcoming generation just doesn't seem to care and thinks they're entitled to do anything and everything they want. And it's all because the parents let them. I'm tired of it!

This past semester my mom was telling me about a couple girls who got facial piercings at my sister's school, one of which was on the bowling team with my sis. Now my sis goes to the same private school I went to, however since I was there they switched to uniforms as too many students were breaking the dress code and it was getting too hard to easily enforce everyone.

Anyways, at the school, excessive piercings and facial piercings are not permitted on girls and boys cannot have any.

The girl on my sis's bowling team wore hers during a bowling match. While they were not in school (they were at a bowling alley) there were people who were watching and started asking about the girl with the piercings, verifying that she went to my sis's school. These weren't parents, they were just observers. I guess some also complained to the principal about these girls getting to wear their piercings, as they were wearing them around school and the principal confronted them about it.

What was the reaction?

They whined and complained, stating they couldn't take them out yet as they were still new enough that if they took them out they would close up. Then they threatened to make the principal pay for the piercings if they were to take them out and they closed up.

The principal gave up and didn't press it any further.

Now when I went there, this principal was just one of the junior high teachers. But I was sort of friends with the girl in school who had the facial piercings and multiple holes in her ears.

She didn't get most of them until senior year and I remember how much crap she went through with the faculty and administration over them. She couldn't have more than 2 in each ear while at school or at school sanctioned functions. The ones she couldn't take out yet she had to cover with a bandaid. She understood though, as she knew the school dress code prior to getting them and once they found out and noticed and confronted her about it, she complied (she had over 10).

There were boys at our school that had piercings - they too were asked to remove them during school hours and I don't recall them ever complaining or throwing a huge fuss like these girls were or the girl with her hair dye.

I think it's ridiculous that 8 years later the current administration and faculty (some of which were there at the time my friend was and gave her grief over it) are now just giving up at the first time students whine about it and threaten to make them pay if it closes up.

Hey, guess what - the dress code policy on the issue hasn't changed since it was written like over 2 decades ago! You knew it was there, you choose to do it anyway and you got caught. Boo-f'ing-hoo!

What really irks me is that radio jocks this afternoon who were talking about it, stating they're not sure if she was right or wrong in doing so and whether or not the school administration's reaction to it was right or wrong, wanted to invite her out to some upcoming area-wide festival and have her walk across the stage in her cap and gown and receive her recognition prior to one of the bands going on.

How is that fair to the other 180 students in her class who followed the rules?

She broke the dress code and now she gets to be a minor local celebrity getting recognized at a city event because of it? It sounds like we're rewarding "bad" behavior here - break your school's rules and you'll get recognized on the radio and get to be recognized at some area-wide festival.

I'll admit, I think the administration was a little harsh, not letting her participate in graduation because of her hair color and I can see the misunderstanding her and her parents made that they assumed because classes were over it would be okay, but still. It was stated in the dress code that it was not permitted at school sanctioned events, which graduation would fall under, and she did it anyway. Yes, they could have let it slide this once, but still - who's to say other students wouldn't have dyed their hair crazy colors if they knew they could get away with it too?

I know that if I could get away with lots of piercings and still have a job or have no problem getting a new one I would get more than what I have.

What are your thoughts?

**edit**
One thing I failed to mention, from what they said on the radio, she was given the option to go home and change her hair color back, but I take it she didn't. Obviously she didn't feel that this graduation was that important - if it was really that big a deal, if it really was that important for her to walk across the stage, she could have changed it back that afternoon and been able to, but she chose not to. 

My WoW and anime cosplays

Last week when I won my Geek Girls Unite award, I mentioned in my "10 Geeky facts" I used to cosplay when I went to anime conventions. I also forgot to mention that for Halloween one year (2005), my college roommate and I dressed up as our WoW characters.

She dressed up as her mage, I dressed up as my pally. It wasn't really too hard to do - we found some Medieval-type costumes and just added onto them - I bought a pair of red leggings and said they were "Lightforge" (the original level 60 blue dungeon paladin armor set), I had a pair of boots already, pulled my hair back into a ponytail like my paladin's was back then (I changed it right before Wrath when they introduced the Barber Shoppe, as I was wanted to change it up after 3 and a half years), and shopped around in various shops that had Halloween costume accessories and found a 2-handed mace that sorta resembled the level 40ish 2-handed mace Blanchard's Stout (which my pally had for a while).

Here's the final result:

 

On facesofwow.com and on various guild forums this pic became synonymous with me, as everyone thought it was awesome - I created Flour (my pally) after my own likeness, so naturally this costume worked pretty well!

And yes, that's a Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban banner hanging on the wall behind me - I won this my first summer at the theater for selling the most overpriced Wonka Bars in a single weekend (10). Seriously, it was like $3 for this tiny chocolate bar that we had to push that weekend since the movie was out and it was a limited time promotional item. The winner got their choice of 1 of 3 HP3 banners - when I told my roommates they insisted I do everything I could to win it as they wanted it for our apartment, lol...

We had a lot of fun with our costumes though - we took pictures of my roommate doing various "mage-y" things, like stand at the kitchen sink and "conjour water" or pose at the dining table with a sandwich on a plate and we claimed she "conjoured food" lol...

For those that asked, below are my ACEN cosplay photos

Take the Ticket, Ride the Train

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New Month, New Goals

First off, for those that physically visit my blog instead of just reading my posts in a reader - thoughts on the new-ish layout? In case you missed it, I did have with the current background in a 2-column format, but decided to give the 3-column format another try. What do you think? I'm currently indecisive about the background - if I like it enough to keep it, but I guess we'll see.

At the beginning of May, I put together a list of goals for the month. Now that the month is over, let's see how I did.

1. Read 4 books this month

I only finished 3 this month, just starting the 4th tonight. In May I read the latest Sookie Stackhouse book - Dead in the Family - which came out at the beginning of the month, I finished Son of a Witch - book 2 in the Wicked series, which I started in April, and Coraline, by Neil Gaiman.

2. Exercise at least twice a week

Yeah, I failed on this one. The first week of the month it was rainy pretty much everyday, so I couldn't use the bike/walking path and our TV in the living room broke and I can't ride the exercise bike if I have nothing to distract me. I did workout a bit once a week though, so it's not like I blew this one off entirely - I went rollerblading, I rode the bike a few times, I got the Shake Weight and a thighmaster that I use several times a week now... so not a total loss.

3. Get caught up on Entourage

Soooo close! This one's more dependant on hubby though, as I can't really watch it without him as we're watching it together and the only time we really have time to watch it together with his work schedule is on the weekends. We did get pretty far - we have 8 episodes left in the 6th season and then we'll be all caught up for the 7th season premiere near the end of June.

4. Work on design stuff

Didn't do much with the Zazzle stuff, but I did work on some business-related stuff my dad wanted me to design for him and hubby has a project for me as well to work on this month...

5. Call Mary Kay corporate and get the ball rolling on sending back the rest of what I have

I did this almost 2 weeks ago, just waiting for the paperwork to come in the mail so I can mail stuff back and get a check to pay off the card I opened to put my initial inventory on.

6. Finish my panels for above the stove

Almost done - I decided to change one of the colors and I finished 2 of the 3, I've just been waiting for the 3rd to finish drying so I can finish it up.

7. Put together a centerpiece for our table

I decided to scratch this one - I have an idea in my head and there's a few things at Walmart I'd like to buy for it, but... I thought about it and I'd rather wait til we have a house before I really put together a centerpiece for our table.

8. Try a new food

Did this one twice - hubby and I went to Coldstone Creamery for the first time and split some of their ice cream, and then the next week we went to a sushi bar and tried several types of sushi and california rolls.

9. Spend sometime with friends

This I did - I hung out with one of my friends and her newborn and 3 year old. We would have gotten together again but one week she had stuff the day I'm over on that side of town and then the next week they were out of town. It was still fun though - I hung out and sat around and chatted with her for several hours. 

 So, now... onto goals for June:

1. Read 2 books this month

Yes, a step down from last month, but the next 2 I have picked out I'm not sure how much I'm going to enjoy them - if I'll be able to get into them enough to breeze through them or not.

2. Exercise twice a week

This should be a permanent list item, as it encourages me to get off my ass.

3. Go swimming at least once

Now that the pools are officially open, why not? We have several local park district pools (one I could even walk to) that only cost a few bucks to get in as well as a water park that I just learned admission is only $10 on Tuesdays - just the other day when it was really hot out I was thinking how nice it would be to spend an afternoon floating down the Lazy River.

4. Make plans to go to a concert

I'm hopefully seeing Powerman5000 (for a 4th time) up in Madison later this month, but even so, there's several other shows I'm interested in going to this summer that are fairly cheap, so I hope to go to at least one concert this summer - I haven't been to a show since I saw Nine Inch Nails on my birthday last summer!

5. Participate in Project 365

I started this like a week ago, but really failed on it the last 2 days. What it is, is you take a picture everyday for a year, posting your photos every so often. I figure, my phone has a decent camera on it and I recently spent $1 on an app that turns your photos into collages that you can upload to the web, so it could be fun... I just need to remember to take a photo of something everyday.

6. Try something new

Last month I specified food, but this month it doesn't have to be - it could be food, an activity, a place... just anything I haven't tried before

7. Visit with friends

This should be an easy one, as I already have plans made to visit at least once with my college roommate when she's up here from Dallas for her brother's high school graduation, and if the Powerman5000 plans go accordingly, I'll be hanging out with my 2 favorite brother in laws and maybe a female friend of hubby's I've gotten to know online.

8. Go see Sex and the City 2 with someone

This one could be a challenge as I only have a handful of female friends in the area who would consider seeing it and only a select few who have seen the first movie, let alone the entire series. I'm not a SATC fanatic, but I've watched the entire series like 5 times on TBS late at night and enjoyed the 1st movie enough to watch it a 2nd time, so I would like to see the next chapter in the story of Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte. I'd go see it by myself if it came down to it, but what female wants to go see a movie about 4 friends by herself? Seems a little ironic and a bit sad if you ask me... I have a friend who lives out of town who said she'll be in town this weekend and might be able to join me, but we'll see when the time comes.