My Stream Overfloweth

7 Comments / Daily Dose, Day to Day /

My feet are freezing. My slippers and my socks got wet which caused the extra freeziness of my feet.

God Damn Snow.

It’s still snowing. It’s been snowing steadily since before Noon. It looks like it’s going to keep snowing pretty steadily for quite some time. Maybe for days. I hope not for weeks. Unless it gets it all out of its system before TW’s mom heads to Denver.

I’m looking forward to that.

I’m looking forward to our mini vacation to Door County, too. I don’t care if there’s not a damn thing to do except drink coffee in a little coffee shop and wander around a strange small town library and trudge through snow along the shore of the bay or the lake.

I don’t care. I just need a damn vacation.

If I was brave, I’d leave my computer at home. But I’m not brave at all, so I’m going to take it. Which isn’t so much brave as it is smart, since TW will have to work while we’re on vacation. Damn contractor jobs. Damn tax payments and hospital bills. Damn the expenses we’re going to face over the next three years.

Because yea, I’ve really started to think about what happens 3 years and a few months from now. Where are we going to move? I’m totally looking forward to the leaving part but the figuring out what comes next and where — and how the hell much is that going to cost, recognizing just how much it cost to get us here and get TW’s mom here and TW’s sister here and then to do it all again in the other direction.

Holy hell.

My feet are freezing, I need to go dig around for a few pairs of socks.

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American Ghost

1 Comment / 2013, Books in Bed, Favorites, Fiction /

TW raved about American Ghost and I kind of rolled my eyes at her assuming her rave review was based only on the setting of the book. (North/Central Florida.) (And I can understand why that kind of thing can cause one to have an over-inflated love of a book. Happens to me quite often, too.)

But, turns out, the book is just pretty darn good all around. Good characters. Good story. It keeps a nice pace, all the way through — never too fast or too slow. I wasn’t sure when we got to the part that brought the Frazier brothers to Florida but I loved both of those guys. Loved the way they came into town and how they interacted with the community while looking for the “fangers”.

I never thought I’d say I’d love a book about exhibition lynchings. But I did.

PS. Nothing good can come of going to a fish camp. Or a hunting camp. Do not go. I’ve been saying this for years. Can’t say it enough. Do. Not. Go.

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The Teahouse Fire

2013, Books in Bed, Fiction, Queer, Women /

After reading The Last Nude and loving it, I was surprised to see that TW only gave The Teahouse Fire three stars on GoodReads. Now that I’ve finally made my way through it, I understand.

There were a lot of problems with this one — it’s really long, the storyline is less than plausible, the ending was a lot far-fetched (and even worse, unnecessary.) I wanted to really love it, and I did love parts of it. Cut 100 pages or even 50 pages and change the epilogue drastically and this would have been a great book.

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I Used To Love Fridays

2 Comments / Daily Dose, Day to Day /

For many years, I looked forward to Fridays and not just because Friday meant weekend and less work and fun. But because my Fridays were light workdays. Not a lot of meetings. Not a lot of reports, or the reports that were due were easy ones. Fridays were the days when I could catch up on the things that slipped through the cracks earlier in the week. Fridays were the days when I might actually be able to write something. Or catch up on reading blogs that I was only able to skim earlier in the week. Fridays were the days that I could hang out in Chatter. Leave some comments on blogs that I normally don’t have time to comment on.

I miss those Fridays.

Suddenly my Fridays are full of things that aren’t supposed to be there. Mayhem and chaos. Nothing goes according to schedule. My best intentions are gone by 9am and I’m flying by the seat of my sweatpants, again.

Oh well, at least Saturdays and Sundays are slow, right?

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Kill a Friend, Maim a Buddy?

6 Comments / Books in Bed, Family Funk, Friends & Family /

I didn’t read the book that led to this post from Sassymonkey, “Would You Maim a Buddy?”, but I swear I’m going to read it because how awesome is that as a post title? Any book that can lead her to ask that question has to be worth reading.

I spent a good bit of my day following the comments and being 100% amused by the answers.

Which led me to wonder which of you I’d maim. Or kill off. Given the opportunity to do so.

Which led me to wonder what the best way to maim YOU or kill YOU might be.

Think about it yourself. (Read the post first, please.) It’s fun to think about.

Who would you kill or maim first? And how would you do it? Or, which author should do it?

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Desensitized? Beaten? Bored?

3 Comments / Daily Dose, Day to Day /

We woke up to a dusting of snow.

It snowed, lightly, a few days ago, too.

A few days before that, it snowed a couple of inches.

Since JMP left, there’s pretty much been frozen slushie snowy mess on my front deck.

I bet you didn’t know that, did you? Of course you didn’t, because I’ve taken pretty much ZERO snow photos since JMP left.

Four four years I took a photo of my front deck any time it had even a wee bit of snow and now, in our fifth winter, I’ve pretty much given up.

Is it because we’ve had so little snow that I’ve gotten out of practice?

Is it because I’ve become desensitized by the snow. It’s just another day, ho hum?

Am I bored with the whole idea of snow photos?

Or has the weather just beaten me into submission?

I think it’s probably a combination of all of those things. With 3 1/2 years left here, I’m pretty sure you’ll see quite a few more snow photos from me before I’m done — but I guess it won’t be every day. I just don’t have it in my to do it.

Stupid snow.

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Etiquette & Espionage

2013, Books in Bed, Favorites, Steampunk, Young Adult /

I’ve been waiting for the new YA series from Gail Carriger since, forever. OK not forever but it felt that way. Now that I’ve read Etiquette & Espionage I’m back to counting the days (months!) until the next book is out. Grrr. I hate waiting for books.

Sophronia is more Flavia de Luce than Alexia Tarabotti — probably, in part, due to the age of Sophronia and her friends as well as the lack of supernaturals. Oh there are supernaturals, just not so many or so frequent as in the P.P. series. I wonder if we’ll get more supernaturals in future books — and more characters to help us connect the dots to the P.P. series. (the dots we were able to connect in this book were excellent. Well done, Carriger, well done.

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Collateral

2013, Books in Bed, Fiction /

Ah, Ellen Hopkins and her novels in prose. Love/hate, love/hate. About Collateral, love/hate, as well.

Realistic but not realistic. The ending, not quite right. The book leads the reader to attribute Cole’s “problems” to his military service when, in my opinion, he had some of those tendencies prior to his trips to Iraq and Afghanistan. He was raised to be more conservative than Ashley was. They were never going to be a good match, military service or not.

Love/hate. Love/hate.

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