Once upon a time (January of this year) Psycho and I decided to participate in the 2011 goodreads.com reading challenge. We set what we considered an acceptable goal of reading 24 books for the year. At the time, 2 books a month seemed doable. However, we’re now two days in November and Psycho and I are 18+ books behind. I imagine most people in our situation would say “Oh well, we’ll just try again next year.” But NOT US! lol I decided last night I was sticking to this goal no matter what!

In an effort to motivate each other we’re turning into a competition. We each have until December 31 to reach our goal of reading 24 books. First one to 24 wins. We’ve agreed the only rule is each book has to be at least 100 pages. Thankfully for both of us there is no shortage of books to read in our home since I have this terrible habit of buying WAY more books than I read. I can’t help it. I’m a shopaholic and there’s something incredibly fascinating about books and their beautifully designed covers. Need to get rid of me for a few hours? Drop me off at Joann’s or Barnes and Noble and I may never come home!

The Stakes:
If I’m the first to make it to 24, Psycho will have to completely clean and organize the kids’ room. This means going through the biggest closet in the house and unpacking all of AJ’s toy boxes, etc. It needs to be a clean, organized room/closet again, instead of a mini landfill. Honestly, I don’t know how they do it. I make them clean up their room every weekend and every weekend it ends up looking like a tornado landed in there. (If anyone has tips on how to get your kids to keep their rooms clean please let me know.)

the aforementioned kids' room

If Psycho is the first to make it to 24, then I will have to buy him 3 AAA title games of his choice.

Can you see where our priorities lie? lol Not that I’m complaining, I’ll take buying a few games over cleaning the kids’ room ANY day!

Now here’s the thing… I read 6 books and Psycho read 2. That means I only have 18 left to read while he needs 22. Some would argue this is unfair. But the truth of the matter is this is a challenge we both accepted at the beginning of the year. So as far as I’m concerned, it’s not really my problem he spent more hours gaming than he did reading. We discussed this, and he agrees.

Lastly, I’ve gone ahead and added a couple of widgets to the right so you guys can keep track of our progress. You’ll also be able to take a peek at what we’re reading. In case you didn’t already know, I ♥ Vampires.

Be sure to let us know who you’re rooting for in the comments and feel free to make some book recommendations. Would any of you be interested in weekly updates? or should we just announce the winner on January 1st, 2012? Let us know what you think.

NOTE: For those of you wondering… We’d didn’t have another kid. I still have only one son. However my 2 younger brothers and nephew moved in with me recently. My 10 year old brother is currently sharing a room with my son. Two 10 year old boys, in the biggest room in the house, makes for one hell of a mess!