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This will be short - I'm posting from a friend's house because, after some bad storms on Thursday, our internet went out and is still out two days later. I'm beginning to wonder if we'll ever have internet again.

In the meantime, this week I read the first three books of the Twilight series by Stephanie Meyer, about unextraordinary Bella, who goes to Forks, Oregon and is suddenly every guy's dream, including the unearthly gorgeous vampire, Edward, who she falls in love with, and one of the local werewolves. Werewolves happen to be the mortal enemies of vampires.

There are so many questions left unanswered . . . What will happen to Bella? Will she end up a vampire and love Edward forever? Will Edward put up with her whining, stubbornness and selfishness that long? Will she stay human and pretend to be his grandmother when she's eighty and he's still seventeen because vampires don't age? Or, in a bizarre twist, will she ditch Edward altogether and decide to run away with the werewolf? Would this series seem less self-absorbed if it hadn't been written in the first person, from Bella's point of view? Was it really necessary for this series to be so steamy that I'd blush to think of my preteen daughter reading it (if I wanted her reading about vampires and werewolves, that is)? Why is it that every time I think of Bella and Edward, I can't get the song "Muskrat Love" out of my head?

This quote from the first book pretty much sums it up (it may not be exact; the book is loaned out and I typed it from memory): "There were threre things I knew for certain. First, Edward was a vampire. Second, there was some part of him--I didn't know how large a part--that thirsted for my blood. And third, I was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with him."

Everything seems to hinge on the Big Question of whether vampires have souls. There's a new fourth book in the series. I might just read reviews (spoilers) to see what happens. But I have my own theory. I think it will go something like this: "But if the Volturi could have looked a little further back, into the stillness and the darkness before Time dawned, they would have read there a different incantation. They would have known that when a willing vegetarian vampire who had committed no treachery was willing to suffer eternal destruction in a human's stead, the Table would crack and Transformation itself would start working backward . . . "

Here's my favorite quote from the series--Good Vampire Edward can read most peoples' minds; Good Vampire Alice has a limited ability to see into the future. "Edward and Alice playing chess was one of the funniest things I'd ever seen. They'd sat there nearly motionless, staring at the board, while Alice foresaw the moves he would make and he picked the moves she would make in return out of her head. They played most of the game in their minds; I think they'd each moved two pawns when Alice suddenly flicked her king over and surrendered. It took all of three minutes."

I've also started Ruth Beechick's You Can Teach Your Child Successfully. And I'm changing over Parents' Review article files on the amblesideonline website - merely a cosmetic change, just so they look better. The last 150 are done; the rest are in progress. Then, during the next couple of years, I'll read through them one a day, proofreading as I go.