The first few pages of Mr. Churchill’s Secretary made me nervous because I wasn’t feeling the instant love. I kept plodding along because EVERYONE I know really liked it. By the time I was 75 pages in, I was hooked and I must find out what happens to Maggie Hope next! (I sure wish Aunt Edith wasn’t stuck in the USA, because I’d like more of her. I’m not so taken with Edmund, but maybe he will grow on me?)
Mr. Churchill’s Secretary Read More »
When Jenn called me a few weeks ago to say they might becoming to the mainland, I was very excited but didn’t talk about it because it was a big “maybe”.
When she called me again, a week later, to say they were coming but the dates were a muddle, I was very, very excited but didn’t talk about it much because it was such a confusing mess.
When she called again, with more specific dates, I was over the moon, but didn’t talk about it a lot because she also called to give me some sad news and that over-shadowed the over the moonieness of it.
I did, however, start to prepare!
I ordered cold weather clothes, because JMP gets cold if it’s 60F or if the fan blows on him. Oy.
We went to Target and bought more cold weather clothes, because JMP gets cold if it’s 60F or if the fan blows on him. Ugh.
We bought a wooden farm toy thingy. I went digging in the closet for toys I’d bought to send him for Valentine’s Day or Easter or his birthday.
We bought diapers and wipes and baby food! We bought a sippy cup.
We cleaned out Prince J’s bedroom (sort of) and I decided he needed a pack-n-play, so I ordered one (on sale!)
TW decided he needed more toys and maybe a Jenny Jumper since he loves to bounce and jump. So, we went to a couple of thrift stores and a used clothes/baby toy shop. We hit pay dirt at the used clothes/baby toy shop.
We came home with a box of blocks, a drum, a panda rattle thingy, a Fisher Price Little People school box, a circus car, a board book and… I over-ruled TW and insisted on the bouncy car instead of the door frame jumper. Heh. Totally ridiculous, but it’s cute! And it was only $5 more than the jumper.
I cleaned all of the toys. I’m washing the pack-n-play sheets and his cold weather pajamas right now. The house is trashed, but it’s always trashed because we have a puppy who shreds anything she can get her teeth around… hopefully she won’t shred JMP. His shoes, toys, socks, diapers etc… I’m pretty sure she’s gonna LOVE those.
I cannot wait to cuddle JMP… and hug his mom, tight. After spending a month with her in May, I’ve missed her a lot. Like I missed her when I left her behind in NJ after high school graduation. Sniff.
Did I mention JMP is COMING???!!!! I hope you don’t get sick of me posting photos and videos for the next week…
OMG! Johnny Mac Pippin Is Coming! Read More »
I did that thing that I always do at the beginning of the year – I went through my reading list from last year and reserved a few books from series or sequels to books that we’ve read, to try and keep up/catch up. Girl of Nightmares was one of those – the sequel to Anna Dressed in Blood (one of the best kids horror books I’ve read.)
Girl of Nightmares wasn’t as creepy as Anna Dressed in Blood – not enough scary stuff, too much talking about scary stuff that might or might not happen. And I guess watching an already dead and gone to hell ghost die over and over again, in horrible ways, is not as creepy, scary as reading about very scary ghosties attacking people. The suicide forest wasn’t even as creepy as I thought it would be – maybe I’ve always pictured the suicide forest differently?
So while it wasn’t nearly as creepy, it was still good. I really liked the addition of Jestine and how it all played out at the end – Anna went where she was supposed to go, I think … now we just have to see what happens with the Order and its asthame…
Girl of Nightmares Read More »
Chris Carfi works for Swipp. Chris Carfi is Lisa Stone’s partner, and a wickedly smart, super-duper, all round awesome guy. Neither of them asked me to blog about Swipp or even asked me to try Swipp. This is all me…
If you don’t know what Swipp is, you should read Virginia’s post: Swipp Your Way to Social Intelligence and get used to seeing my swipps appear in your Facebook or Twitter streams if we’re friends/you follow me. I’m kind of addicted to swipping stuff. I even swipped what I’m having for dinner tonight. Heh. It’s a social media tool, telling people what yummy things you’re eating is a must. 😉
Besides having fun coming up with stuff to swipp and swipping stuff others have swipped, I’ve learned some stuff about myself.
I don’t like negative swipping. I don’t mind it when others do it but it takes a lot for me to slide that little slider down into the negative range. I’m doing it but I’m not really loving doing it, in most cases.
I had no problem swipping a -5 for Rand Paul a minute ago. I am passionate in my dislike of him. But most other things, I don’t feel so strongly passionate in my dislike that I want to push that slider. I’d much rather move along and find something I like, even if I only like that something a little.
Dunkin’ Donuts, for instance. I’m not a fan. Someone else swipped it with a +5 and I had to really force myself to swipp it down. It’s just not ME to rank and rate that way. I’m still doing it, as a way to explore my own ambivalence about the negative swipp, but I suspect it won’t be long ’til I stop negative swipping except in the most extreme of cases, (soup, for instance. I HATE soup and will have no problem swipping that down if I ever see it in the stream.)
I’m also surprised by just how much fun it is to be the PRIME swipper of a topic — particularly a topic that I was really interested in or really felt strongly about.
What I’m not surprised by is that I find it interesting to see what other people are swipping — and their feelings about what they’ve swipped. TW asked my why I like this thing — and that’s it. It’s not just that I’m having fun sharing my feelings about stuff, it’s that I really like seeing what other people think and feel about everything under the sun. It’s interesting.
Swipp Surprised Me Read More »
I gave The Salt God’s Daughter four stars on GoodReads, I probably should have given it three… there were some parts that I loved and some that bored me and I felt a little let down by the ending (not because I wanted a different ending but because I don’t think it was as well-told as the majority of the book.
I loved the beginning. I hated the beginning of part 2. Part 3, I enjoyed – until the end.
I’m doing that deep sighing thing right now – yep, I probably should have given it a three. Three and a half would really be ideal.
The Salt God’s Daughter Read More »
It’s Blog for Choice Day and I was going to skip it because lord knows I’ve blogged a whole lot about abortion and what else is there to say, really?
I’m not just pro-choice, I’m pro-abortion. You want one — have one.
Any woman who wants one — should have one.
Your body. Your life. Your choice.
Etc. Etc. Etc.
I did, however, buzz my kid and wish her a Happy Roe v. Wade day, as I generally do. And, I asked her if she knew where to find abortion services in her area, as I generally do. It’s just symbolic really — she obviously knows how to find abortion services, wherever she goes. And lord knows, if her internet connection goes down and she can’t find her way to a women’s clinic, she can call me and ask me to find a location and give her the bus schedule to get her there. (And throw money in her bank account, if she needs it.)
I decided I’d just go ahead and blog about this again — because wouldn’t it be nice if I’d not felt like it was important to point out the Planned Parenthood every time we passed it in NJ. Or if I didn’t feel like it was important to buzz my kids and remind them that they should know where to find these services, for themselves and for others. Wouldn’t it be nice if they grew up knowing without a doubt that they could schedule an abortion, if they chose to do so, just as easily as they could schedule an appointment for any other medical procedure (not that our health insurance programs always make THAT easy… which is another story.)
But they haven’t grown up knowing that.
40 years of Roe v. Wade and women still fight for access to affordable, safe abortion services. So many women in this country don’t have a provider anywhere near where they live. So many women have to cross horribly offensive and violent protest lines to gain access to abortion services (or general women’s health services if they happen to be getting them at an abortion service provider.)
Fuck that.
Roe is Here for Good and I’m not just blogging for choice, I’m making a donation for choice.
40 Years of Roe v. Wade Read More »
I was sitting at my desk this morning, reading blog posts, looking for spam, doing all of the things I do every morning (even though it’s an official holiday) when I smelled something burning. I mean I really smelled something burning.
The laundry room is right next to my office and both the washer and dryer were going, (I almost always do some sort of laundry first thing in the morning, while I boot up my laptop and make a cup of coffee.)
I got up and turned off both the washer and the dryer and sniffed a bit, thinking it must be my imagination. But no. Something was definitely burning.
I called TW in to help me investigate — we looked around the dryer. TW cleaned the lint duct. I looked outside. I opened up the basement hatch and looked out there. TW sniffed around her mother’s room (which shares a wall with the wall the dryer is on.) I wandered upstairs to sniff around the attic. It really only smelled like burning yukkiness in the laundry room — and strongly in and around the dryer.
Hell.
I got so distracted by the idea that the house might be on fire that I never opened Outlook… at least not til almost 3:30 in the afternoon.
The landlord, I love that guy, came over tonight and discovered — yes, there was definitely some fire stuff going on in there — and he brought us a new dryer. It’s not hooked up yet, because he needs a different gas attachment thingy and a new lint duct thingy, but it’s here and tomorrow it will be all ready for me to finish drying the load I started today.
And for me to do the thirteen other loads that are waiting.
Besides the catching the house on fire thing, we spent most of our day cleaning the laundry room/stockpile room, Prince J’s room, and the kitchen cabinets. We spent HOURS on this and there’s still tons more to do, just in those three rooms. Gah. I don’t even want to think about the girls’ rooms upstairs — talk about a MESS.
I guess we can work on those on President’s Day — and maybe I won’t open my email until 8pm on that holiday…
Something’s Burning Read More »
I reserved The Clockwork Three, on audio, last year – after we finished listening to the author’s book, Icefall. Two completely different books, both very good – I really enjoyed every single character in The Clockwork Three. The kids, the adults (even the bad adults) – fabulously done. (I’m sorry he doesn’t have another book for me to reserve because I’m pretty darn sure we’d enjoy it, whatever it was about.)
(The epilogue and the reading of the news stories, from the late 1800s, that inspired him to write this book was interesting, too.)
The Clockwork Three Read More »
TW said The White Forest wasn’t very good but I didn’t believe her. I got sucked in by the author blurbs on the jacket and on Amazon and decided to read it anyway.
It wasn’t very good. It wasn’t horrible, either. It just wasn’t as good as I’d hoped it would be. The idea, Jane’s talent, very interesting to consider. But, there was too much back and forth so there was never any suspense. It wasn’t creepy and the ending wasn’t very compelling or fulfilling. Darn it.
Sitting here drumming my fingers against the desk and reloading Facebook/Twitter/BlogHer do not help me come up with something to blog. Neither does looking at my saved drafts or my Evernote tab of partially written posts. Doing those things makes me wonder why I’m so determined to keep doing this daily blogging thing. Which led me to the kitchen to clean up the dinner dishes which led me to a topic. Neat!
Here are the things I’ve learned about blogging since I forced myself to commit to this monthly blogging thing.
1) A blogging calendar/plan is a good thing.
2) A blogging calendar/plan is a good thing only if you make the time to blog what you’ve planned.
3) Trying to blog after 12/14/16 hours of work and/or family life is not a great idea.
4) All six of my kids provide great blogging material on an almost daily basis — too bad I can’t actually blog all of this stuff.
5) Coming up with lists of things you’ve learned is easier when you’re loading the dishwasher than when you’re actually sitting in front of your computer.
6) Having a spacebar that sticks every time you touch it does not make blogging easier — I’ve got to fix this, or buy a new computer. ASAP. (And not just for blogging, it’s hard to work with a sticky spacebar, too.)
7) BlogHer didn’t kill my blog — Facebook helped. Maybe kill isn’t the write word, since I am here blogging and some people do read these posts. Maimed it?
8) Kill might be too strong of word, since I’m sitting here blogging and some people do read these posts. Maimed it?
9) I should never count on finishing a book on a certain day so that I can blog it on a certain day. That’s a sure-fire way of finding myself with 150 pages left to read on the day I would have sworn I’d be book blogging.
10) When I blog regularly, I get more spam comments — and I notice them more — and that means I have to clean them up CONSTANTLY. I have an illness that prevents me from allowing spam to sit, even in an unpublished spam queue, for more than a few hours (unless I’m asleep.)
Well. That was actually more interesting (to me) than I thought it was going to be when I started typing. Maybe I really have learned some thing in the last 79 days.
10 Things I’ve Learned in 79 Days Read More »