Nov 12, 2008

Dramatic Much?

To clear thing up before I start this blog post: I did not SERIOUSLY think I had cancer. Just that niggling part of your brain that reads too much WebMD and watches too much House. I had some serious pain and bloating in my abdomen. I am now thinking it's stress. If I internalise too much, stress turns physical and mental. This is why I have a blog (or several). That quote on my side bar is no joke, "This words I write, keep me from total madness"

Yesterday was Veterans Day. Most of my family are Vets--if I could I would give them all hugs. My grandfather, my father, my step fa ther, my mother, and my two brothers (are they vets if they are still active duty?) Without their and all that went before them and worked with them: our country would not enjoy the freedom or prosperity it has today (times might be tough, but it could always be worse).

One of my favourite writers, Laurell K Hamilton, has her own personal blog. I love it. As a writer myself (writer's block not with standing), her blog encourages me. Today, her post was just spot on and just reaffirmed, that I really want to go to St. Louis and meet her. After the emotional firestorm that was this weekend: it's what I needed to hear. It's also good to know that I am not alone.

Because, I've been hiding from my blog (no more I assure you), I haven't been able to tell funny kid stories. On the Micci front: currently he's obsessed with two things (well he's actually obsesses with many things, Bakugan being one of them, but this story is not about toys) setting his room A/C at 60 degrees (Fahrenheit!!!) and stealing and hiding my bras. The A/C thing was sort of understandable a few months ago. Now? It's just nuts! And it was NEVER okay--it's expensive. I tried to explain this to Micci. A/C at 60 means HIGH CPS bill. High CPS bill means NO Christmas presents. Smart arse responded with, that's okay Santa can still bring me presents. Oh yeah! Well, Santa doesn't give presents to energy hogs!! Sigh. Bhat! And my bras...we have been dealing with this for MONTHS!! He was good over the summer, but a few days ago he's started back up. I keep my bras hanging on my closet door (easily accessible) and when they are missing? All I need to do is yell into the house, "Micci, bring me my bras!!!! Being the observant Birdy, I always notice this when I am half naked, just from the shower. I am trying to break him of this, not because I don't want him to have bras, I just don't want him to have MINE. I told him when we are at the Dollar Store next he can buy his own. Shrug. I think he just wants something of mine. That or he enjoys me yelling at him.

I mentioned, I think, that I cleaned up my bedroom. No pictures of the actual bedroom part yet, because while it is clean, it's just ugly. No nice bed spread set, ugly, bedside tables. No pictures...I need to decorate. I really want to break out my sewing machine after the holiday. But, I do have pictures of my book shelves and CD storage.

Yeah, I need more book shelves. That tall one on the left, is stacked two deep and two tall with paper backs. And ya know what, I still feel that I don't have enough books.

This is where I keep my CDs...I have no idea how many I have, but I must have at least a hundred--maybe even two hundred. If you could zoom, you would be shocked at the spectrum of my music tastes. The only thing I don't have: Death Metal. (Jamey has the country--his paltry collection joined mine when we married). I love music. I wish life was like movies and we had a soundtrack to keep us company...at the very least it would give us a heads up when life goes on it's ups and downs. I am still listening to a lot of Mika. But lately (because I can get to my CD collection), I have been listening to whatever takes my fancy. A bit of U2, a little Sinatra, a dash of Enya, a smidge of Bach.

If ya go to my knitting blog, I took pictures of my yarn stash. If y'all are into that. Grin.

Yes, I agree. I do need a better organisation system for my books and Cds.

Labels: books, daily rant, Kid Antics, knitting

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Jun 1, 2008

Reading lately

I bought Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali on Friday night and devoured it by Saturday evening. Awesome, awesome book. I highly recommend going out and reading it it straight away. It's a remarkable story of a woman inside Islam and where her strong spirit takes her. Here is a wikipedia entry detailing her life. But reading it in her own words is just inspiring and eye-opening.

I picked up A History of The Wife by Marylin Yalom at the library when I went out with Phisto last Tuesday--also very interesting. I am only a quarter into it, but also very excellent. The idea of marriage and our role as women in it also eye opening.

Both books taken together--certainly gives me pause.

Labels: books

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May 11, 2008

Books and more Books!

A meme from Euroknits--a new blog I found today when she stepped out of lurkdom in my LSSK group. She's already a bunch of fun and I have barely started reading her blog.

What we have here is the top 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing’s users. As in, they sit on the shelf to make you look smart or well-rounded. Bold the ones you've read, underline the ones you read for school (but I am also bolding the ones I re-read after I had to read them) italicise the ones you started but didn't finish. Oh and a star (*) that I have them or WILL read them

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi : a novel
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick
Ulysses
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre
The Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveler’s Wife
The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner*
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
The Canterbury Tales
The Historian : a novel
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Love in the Time of Cholera*
Brave New World (LOVE this book)
The Fountainhead
Foucault’s Pendulum (gives me the heebeejeebeze tho')
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo*
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King*
The Grapes of Wrath(HATE this book--loathe the author)
The Poisonwood Bible : a novel
1984 (LOVE this novel)
Angels & Demons
The Inferno (and Purgatory and Paradise)
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Gulliver’s Travels
Les Misérables (read the abridged stated the full)
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Dune
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury*
Angela’s Ashes : a memoir (even met the author)
The God of Small Things
A People’s History of the United States : 1492-present*
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being*
Beloved*
Slaughterhouse-five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake : a novel
Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed*
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion*
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an inquiry into values
The Aeneid
Watership Down
Gravity’s Rainbow
The Hobbit
In Cold Blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers

Whew--I have a massive book collection. My dream is to one day have a proper library in my house with neat shelves and a database of all the books. Besides being a knitter, I am a reader.

I know a few friends that could tackle this list--and BLOG about it--ahem Q and P??

Labels: books, word geek

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Apr 30, 2007

Not much to say??

Today I realised I hadn't blogged in quite a while. I've been really busy knitting, graphic design and coding. Nevermind monster size kid messes....sigh.

We bought Hooked on Phonics (HOP) over the weekend at Half Price books and Micci started the programme today. He LOVES it--and I tried ot get him to just work on it for 15 minutes like they suggest, but I think all total we spent HOURS. He's just so excited. Sometimes he gets frustrated if he makes a mistake...and he'll withdraw inside himself. It's challenging trying to draw him out and reassure him and not get frustrated myself. He's even teaching Lorelei the ABCs using the HOP cards.

Friday night L. had a Girls Nite In party. It was so wonderful to relax with the gals. I gotta see if we can do this more often.

Phisto has been spoiling me by sending me more Stephanie Plum books...they're complete trash--lovely addicting trash. I LOVE these stories--they're just so fun. I keep wanting to call her up when I read a particularily funny passage--but wait I can't she is either a) asleep or b) at work.

Going to the Gals Nite in made me miss my own Gals---I am still trying to get to know new gal pals and sometimes I wish I had the ease of conversation I have with Quimby and Phisto. Esp. since these group of friends are all friends since high school---just like me and the Gals. Sniff.

On the knitting front: I've been working on several secret projects--which like Stephanie says--sucks when you have a blog. I did finish Lorelei's shawl I started the week before WHIBSIB--once I download my camera I'll post a pic. After Jamey watched me work on 4 project yesterday--all before 2 pm...he remarked that I needed to work on concentrating on ONE project. Yeah--Mr. ADD--I'll work on that. He's always full of wise advice like that. I am also trying to resist the urge to buy the yarn and start knitting on a Clapotis. I keep telling myself that I need to finish a project or two before I can justify that.

We've been having plenty of rain--LOL--today it rained cats and dogs and I swear I saw some hamsters and gerbils as well--maybe even a guinea pig. It's all good for the aquifer.

Let's hope life doesn't overwhelm me again and I don't go so long posting next time.

Labels: books, daily rant, homeschooling, knitting, weather

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Apr 12, 2007

So It Goes

I had forgotten where I got that phrase from: back in my pre kid days--that phrase passed my lips all the time

Now, the man that made that phrase his own and etched his place in literature forever, is dead: Kurt Vonnegut, one of my favourite authors and who shaped my own writing style.

So it goes...

Labels: books

5:59:00 PM -- Email -- Link -- 2 Comments

Feb 28, 2007

Otherwise Occupied

I've been busy cleaning, knitting and reading. Life's been pretty quiet and I've been tired.

Yesterday was especially trying--but it got loads better when Jamey came home bearing 2 dozen Krispy Kreme doughnuts. Then I followed someone's advice and downloaded the Firefox browser from Mozilla. Wow! The difference is amazing and immediate. I was tearing my hair out waiting for web sites to load...given that I spend A LOT of time on line--I was quickly headed toward baldness. I was beginning to feel like I was on dial-up again. Shudder. I haven't tried out all the Firefox features yet, but I love the speed and the tabs. Note: Firefox has a spell check built right in--and as I mis-type, it underlines it--fantastic.

L. lent me The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold to read. I was extremely naughty and read the book in on sitting--I finished it at around 3 pm yesterday and starting it at 9ish. It's a very interesting read. A different sort of story. I also joined a blog (yeah like I need a another--but ya know blogs are addicting), but it's a Harry Potter AND knitting blog.

I am slowly getting better at this cleaning thing. Not where I want to be--but my house is looking better. Only problem with having a clean house--the kids take the clear spaces and march in them. The marching is driving me nuts.

On the knitting front, my socks are a centimeter from the heel shaping--I am so excited. I can't wait to wear these babies. All this cleaning business my knitting is being neglected, sort of. I need to start some new projects, but by the end of the day I am so exhausted I have no energy to design.

Labels: books, cleaning, daily rant, knitting

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