Free-Range Knitter: The Yarn Harlot Writes Again by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee - Short stories. Like blog entries. Some were incredibly funny, some were less funny, but it was a good book to read at lunch.

The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart - This is a kid's book that looked interesting and clever, and it was. What I am embarrassed about is HOW LONG it took me to read this. I read it before going to sleep, one chapter a night, and could not get through it any faster. There are several other books in this series, and I am waffling about reading those. I felt that this was a good book by itself and doesn't necessarily need any sequels.

This World We Live In by Susan Beth Pfeffer - I was really looking forward to reading this, the third book in a trilogy. The first two were really suspenseful! This one was GREAT for the first 3/4 but the last 1/4 was a little weak. The characters (especially Miranda's mom!) were really out of character and the romantic entanglements seemed really contrived. And what was up with the end??? I am not sure if there are more books coming in this series. (The letter to Amazon readers from the author on the page for this book is very cute.)

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larsson - WOW, this was good. I can't wait to read the next book in this trilogy. I read this in one day. (Jury duty said: "You are federally mandated to sit in this room all day and read." I said: "Awesome!")

I read a lot of these on a plane, using a kindle, which I liked way more than I thought I would!

His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik (ebook) - I did not like this one. Maybe because I have actually read a lot of naval fiction or because I did not like the way dragons were done in this story, but i just could not suspend reality to read this book in the way that I normally can with fantasy novels. Also I did not like the main character. Maybe the other books in the series are different? I just thought having a crew of people riding a dragon like a british naval ship was ridiculous. And the dragons all speak english? I usually like these kinds of book but I did not like this.

The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton - SO GOOD. Suspenseful and engaging and interesting. I read this in two days. It reminded me of The Thirteenth Tale, which I also loved.

Superfreakonomics by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner (ebook) - The best part about reading this book (which was very interesting, just like the first one) was reading the section about how ineffective airport security is WHILE going through airport security.

The Help by Kathryn Stockett (ebook) - I wanted to read this after hearing this interview with the author on the radio. The author herself sounds like such a fascinating person, and the book did not disappoint.

The Man Who Loved Books Too Much by Allison Hoover Bartlett - Fascinating. I found it hard to believe this was a true story at some points, this was such a strange story. I want to know what is happening now, though!

Love Stories in This Town by Amanda Eyre Ward - I picked this up from the "February" book display at my library, hoping it would be at least okay, with short stories. UGH. I would NOT recommend this one. Uninspiring and bland.

Today we are having a super bowl party, except it is just us and the dogs, and we are not watching the super bowl. But we will be eating super bowl food. And watching Friday Night Lights instead. We started watching the first season yesterday, through Netflix streaming, and it was SO GOOD so we will be watching that instead. (Both things are about football, what is the difference, really?) And hulu is going to have the superbowl commercials. So it will be like the same thing.

Reisterstown road looking North


Reisterstown Road looking South


Standing in the middle of Reisterstown Road with NO TRAFFIC. (Very post apocalyptic!)


Today I had to take an exam, and it was one of the ones where there were 70 questions in 70 minutes, but each question really needed 2-3 minutes of calculations or analysis, so there were a lot of questions where I was just clicking fast so I wouldn't run out of time, and I know I didn't do well. Ugh. I still have to do an assignment, but I am putting it off because I am bummed about the exam.





Do you think it would be gauche to have a chandelier in the kitchen? My kitchen is small and gross and we can't afford to tear the whole thing out and redo it, so I have made it my own personal mission to improve it on a budget of $400 or less. So far I am up to $60, for new knobs, to replace ceramic apples. (I could not sleep in the house until the ceramic apples were GONE.) I just got the same silver tiles for the backsplash that were in this post - currently our backsplash is 40 year old yellow linoleum and it is stained and ugly. I had wanted to use panels like this to do the backsplash but they are soooo expensive it would have trashed my budget. The stick on metal tiles were $90, less than 1/3 the cost of the other panels. (I am not counting appliances in my calculations - I got a new dishwasher (the old one had a hole in it) but it can be moved to a new kitchen in 5-7 years.)
ANYWAY - one of the next steps for the kitchen is having the light fixture replaced - currently it is a rust stained ceiling fan with the fan blades removed. Rust stained because the water from the plumbing in the bathroom dripped onto it. Fan blades removed because there were apples decopaged onto them and they were becoming moldy. I am looking for a non-fan flush mount light fixture. But on the overstock page for flush mount fixtures, they combine them with chandeliers. Would one of those distract from the awfulness that is the rest of the kitchen? Or make the whole thing more ugly?



Yesterday I did some snow removal and went for lots of walks with the girls and baked some bread from scratch (it took 12 hours!) and made strawberry-blueberry turnovers from my own recipe. (They were AWESOME.)

Year 8! I cannot believe I have been doing this for 8 years. But here we go!

The Dante Club by Matthew Pearl - This started out a little slow, and I wasn't sure if I would get into it or not, but it really picked up about 75 pages in and I loved the rest of it. It was a little like reading historical fanfiction. I do wish I knew more about Dante before I started reading it, but everything was explained well. I now want to read the second book, The Poe Shadow.

Another Day in the Frontal Lobe: A Brain Surgeon Exposes Life on the Inside by Katrina Firlik - Autobiographical account of the author's years as a neurosurgical resident. Interesting, but not too in depth. I read a chapter of this a night before going to sleep.

The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance: A Memoir by Elna Baker - This was a much better memoir than I thought it would be. It made me laugh.

Odd and the Frost Giants by Neil Gaiman - Very cute story. I read this as a kindle edition, and the illustrations did not show up well. But the story was good.

I have reached the limit on Flickr - as many pictures as I can upload without paying the yearly subscription fee.

One of the christmas presents for the house are these new curtains. The other one is a new house number, but we have been unable to install it because it has been so cold and windy and snowy.
I got new rugs for the front entry, so it is less ugly. I would post before/after pictures of that, but see above re: flickr. Instead I uploaded pictures of the dogs with squeaky lobsters.

I was in a car accident on New Year's Eve - I am okay, and the car is now fixed ($3K later) but it was a super scary accident in which I ended up driving sideways on a hill next to a road at at 45 degree angle. And I had to dodge two telephone poles and an oncoming car. (I missed all three and only hit a curb.) Paying $3K to the car repair folks was cheaper than using insurance and paying $100 more/month for the next 5 years.

I am making a quilt for the livingroom with the colors I wish were in it, instead of the colors that are in it. I have to buy fabric to redo the seat cushions because there are several ripped seams. Unfortunately I cannot afford to buy fabric to redo the rest of the couches because I am poor, see above re: car. So whatever I choose will look ugly. Should I choose a fabric that will match the rest of the fabric that is already there, or should I choose a fabric that I like even if it doesn't match the fabric that is already there? It will look weird no matter what. We will not be winning any home decorating awards anytime soon.

The final two for the year! (I don't think I'm going to finish another one in the next hour and 20 minutes.)

The Gerbil Farmer's Daughter by Holly Robinson - This book was much more an autobiography and less about gerbils than I expected. But it was better that way! Although it did make me want to get some gerbils.

The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood - This is a sequel/companion book to Oryx and Crake, which I read when it first came out, and do not remember completely. The Year of the Flood was very good, but I got the feeling while reading it that it would have been better if I reread Oryx and Crake first.

Haha! I was unaware that they had pet pictures with Santa available until this week, and I decided we TOTALLY had to do that. I thought we would get a couple of funny pictures, where they have some sort of reaction to Santa, but they both really liked him. Lucy snuggled! They held paws!
The folks there also took some studio portrait shots of Alice smiling, which was great, since she doesn't usually smile when I am taking pictures.

Then we went to the post office to mail Christmas cards and Lucy and Alice got to see their friends Claire and Picasso in the parking lot.

Tonight we are going to eat some food at the Veggie Garden with Gaer and some other people.

Lucy is asleep on the couch next to me, muddy because it has been raining here for the past week, mostly. She disapproves of all the small finger movements I am making as I am typing. Also she smells kind of bad. But she is demanding to snuggle, which is rare. She has always been an anti-snuggling dog. Alice is the opposite, she prefers snuggling, and she keeps trying to trick Lucy into inadvertently snuggling. When Lucy discovers she has been tricked she bites Alice in the face, but Alice always sneaks back and tries again.
Because the dogs have both been muddy, we covered the white Poang chair with towels, so they won't get footprints all over it. The towels draping over the edge make a kind of corgi fort, which Lucy has claimed. Alice keeps trying to get inside but Lucy growls at her and points to the "no annoying little sisters allowed in this fort" sign. Ha. They are very funny to watch. Alice thinks Lucy is sooooo cool.

Last week I had a migraine that was different from the ones I have had before, which I am trying to decide whether to be concerned about or not. I have (superexpensive nongeneric) migraine drugs to take when I get them, which have always worked 100% in the past - this time they did nothing. I got it while I was running with Lucy - it felt like something popped in my brain, and then for the next 36 hours I had to lay flat with icepacks surrounding my head because it felt like my brain was melting. Normally I get auras and dysphasia with migraines but I didn't this time. Both dogs laid on top of my legs the whole time. After the 36 hours was up I was completely fine.

Angus died on Monday - he was almost exactly 3. He really did not like people, he was very much a hermit. Polite, but a hermit. Whenever we would take him out to be with us or the dogs or the guinea pigs or outside, he would say "If you don't mind very much, I would like to go home now. I really do have to insist." And then we would bring him back to his habitat and he would putter around.

I think I want to paint the kitchen gray.

I am SO TIRED.

I think that is all I write about.

I also want to post this Trader Joe's video:


I have to take an exam on Saturday.

I have been reading houseblogs written by people who have gotten so much more done in their houses than I have - they are so talented and financially better off and younger than I am that it is making me feel like a big giant slacker. I wish I had family members who taught me how to drywall and use tools and install light fixtures and refit pipes when I was a kid. Instead I just went to school and look where that's gotten me. Not even a table saw.

The front door frame outside the house desperately needs to be repainted and maybe redone entirely with new wood parts. Who knows how to make wood parts? No one I know. Ugh. I picked the wrong line of work.

I finished watching some dvds that we borrowed from David's cousins 6 months ago, which makes me feel a little accomplished, in that now I can give them back.

SO TIRED.

I am tired. It still feels an hour later. I am boring like a little old lady, all I want to do is go to bed early.

Lucy went to an agility trial on Sunday and got two ribbons. She ran 6 runs, I ran with her twice and David did 4. (Guess which ones she got the ribbons for!) She had lots of fun though, which is the whole point. I think I may have hurt my foot.

I want to practice free motion quilting with the feed dogs up - all the instructions say not to do this but there are some youtube videos and stuff that show how to do it without lowering the feed dogs or covering them with a plate. Which is good since my machine doesn't lower the feed dogs.
I don't really have time to quilt anything at the moment.

I am trying to pay for our house online (B of A refuses to send paper statements which is my #1 choice - everything as a hard copy in writing!) and I guess the website is down but it is FRUSTRATING. I am pretty internet-savvy when it comes to online bill paying, I can only imagine how frustrating this is for people who are not so great at using computers. B of A bought all kinds of home loans recently from smaller banks - as soon as they switched over B of A said no more paper statements. All online. We have an award winning website! What they did not mention is that the award was for "Website Most Likely to Cause You to Throw Your Computer Out the Window in a Fit of Wrath". I am almost ready to call and scream at some customer service folks but maybe I will go to bed and try again in the morning instead.