Endymion Spring

2 Comments / 2007, A to Z Challenge, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Favorites, Fiction, Sci Fi and Fantasy, Young Adult /

Look! Another YA book! And, another book I own but have never read! And, another book I meant to read a year ago! I’m so glad I put Endymion Spring on my A to Z list. And extra glad that I’m making a final last ditch attempt to finish the A to Z list. Otherwise, I might never have found time for Endymion Spring and it would have sat quietly unobserved on RJ’s book shelf where it’s been for a year. Heh.

It was good. I wee bit of a slow start but right about the time (chapter 3) that I mentioned it was starting slow, it picked up and didn’t quit til the end.

Awesome. And I’m so glad I knew who the “shadow” was. I like it when I’m right – which is always, ya know.

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I’m all about the bling…

6 Comments / Christmas, Daily Dose, Day to Day, Family Funk, Love or Sex, Memories /

Ha. Not. So totally not about the bling.

The car for Christmas wasn’t inexpensive and it was nice but it wasn’t the best gift TW has given me.

The really expensive and very special 40th birthday party was fantastic (even if I did end up having to do all of the work for it, ahem) but again not the best present (sorry Melissa and travelers from far away.)

I’m not sure I know what the best gift was, there have been so many…

1) The photographs from the newspaper, printed and framed, that TW described to me in those very early days. (want to see a picture?)

2) The carved jack-o-lantern she sent to me via USPS for Halloween.

4) A little pillow book with TW marshmallowy sentiments tucked inside.

5) The quilt, oh lord the quilt. TW doesn’t sew – or even cut straight – but I have a tiny practice quilt and a full sized quilt made by her own little hands.

6) The little book of, well, more marshmallow fluffy conversations that she and I have had. Very sweet.

7) The socks. Errr. So I don’t actually have those yet. She’s been working on them for 9 months because, again, she doesn’t knit. Or she didn’t ’til she decided she needed to knit me a pair of socks. But, she’s working on them and I might have one sock by Valentine’s Day. And I will love that one sock a lot more than any piece of jewelry, not because I don’t really like jewelry but because it really IS the thought that counts.

Forget the bling, give me a sock instead.

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IKEA Orlando

Daily Dose, Day to Day /

I just realized that I never blogged about our visit(s) to IKEA Orlando. Oops, my bad. I got really distracted by Jenn’s visit, TW’s trip to Atlanta and my own hectic work week. So let me try and hit the highlights for you.

First, IKEA Orlando does not have Swedish pancakes or lingonberries for sale in its cafeteria – yet. They just have the boring scrambled eggs etc… and cinnamon rolls. HMPH. The cafeteria workers have indicated they will be selling them, they just didn’t know when. I guess maybe they have to be taught how to make Swedish pancakes or something? Though TW made them from an IKEA mix this morning and they tasted exactly like IKEA’s so it doesn’t seem to hard. Whatever. I was disappointed.

Also, going to IKEA Orlando on a Thursday, a week after Thanksgiving, was not as horrible as I was afraid it was going to be. It wasn’t very crowded at all.

IKEA Orlando is either sold out of a bunch of stuff I would like to have had or they never got a shipment of those items in the first place. Not sure which it is but it was slightly troubling. How can they have Billy bookcases in brown/black but not have the height extension units? Annoying!

IKEA Orlando has self-checkout stations – a ton of them and they work OK but not super great, particularly if you purchase something from the “return – as/is” room. IKEA Orlando could use 2 fewer self service lines and 2 more cashiers, particularly on weekends.

IKEA Orlando on the first Sunday in December was frightening…from the parking lot. When we pulled in, there were cars parked in the empty field in front of IKEA. Scared the hell out of me. But as I drove through the parking lot I realized there was a ton of side parking and it wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought. Still more crowded than our Thursday visit but not as bad as I’ve seen IKEA Atlanta on a Saturday.

IKEA Orlando felt smaller than IKEA Atlanta – is it? Or was it just my imagination?

IKEA Orlando changed a ton of “room” displays between the time I visited on a Thursday and the time I visited on Sunday – three days and a ton of rooms were completely different. I was really surprised. How often does IKEA change a room display in general???

IKEA Orlando’s returns & exchanges personnel were very fast and very friendly – BOTH times I had to visit them. On Sunday, there were 11 people ahead of me in line and I was afraid it was going to take hours. Instead, it took about 10 minutes. Amazing.

Overall impressions… pretty darn good and I’m not just saying that because I like the idea of a two hour drive better than a five hour drive.

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On Becoming Fearless

1 Comment / 2007, A to Z Challenge, Books in Bed, Non-Fiction, Women /

Yes, another book I own (thank you Arianna and BlogHer) that I never quite made time to read. On Becoming Fearless was better than I expected.

Better because I’m not a huge Arianna fan. I think she’s interesting. I like her blog. But no fan love here and I didn’t really know what to expect. The chapter on being fearless in relationships was a little flat – the chapters on parenting, money and work were much better.

Overall – a pretty good “self help” type of book.

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I Have a Bed Made of Buttermilk Pancakes

2 Comments / 2007, A to Z Challenge, Books in Bed, Fiction, Young Adult /

In the spring of 2006 Sassymonkey started talking about I Have a Bed Made of Buttermilk Pancakes. She talked about it so much that I wanted to read it but it was Canadian or something and of course not available at my library. So, sassymonkey gifted me with it. And it’s been on my TBR pile ever since. I added it to my A to Z list challenge because I thought that would encourage me to get it read… and it did. I finished it last night.

But not before I griped about reading it. (and no I’m not sharing the video TW made of me griping about reading it)

The first 150 pages or so were so confusing and just a little slow. I just could not get into it and could not see why Sassymonkey had been talking about that book. And, I could NOT figure out how or why this was re-titled and published as YA in the US. (The Spell Book of Listen Taylor)

About half-way through, I figured out why Sassymonkey (and TW) enjoyed the book. I am here, grudgingly, to say that it WAS a good book. And it was interesting and different and if I’d have been Cath, I’d have killed the entire Zing family. Dead. OK not Cassie (or Taylor, part of the extended Zing family) ’cause they were kids and not involved. The rest – DEAD, completely DEAD.

I’m still not sure I like the idea of this being a YA book and I’m pretty sure there are huge groups of rabid, over-protective mommies who would hate the idea even more than I do. I just don’t see any of the YAs in my world ever sitting through the first 150 pages of this book, Coyote F*** or no Coyote F***.

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Flipping for Flip Video

2 Comments / Daily Dose, Day to Day /

For the last year or so I’ve been thinking about Flip Video. Not in any serious way just in an I’m sort of interested way. TW’s been thinking the same thing. Nothing ever pushed us into buying one and trying it it out, though. I should have taken one to BlogHer Con. We should have taken one to England when we visited the little kids. But we didn’t. We were still wondering about it and thinking about it.

Around Thanksgiving, I started to see Rosie blogging about Flip Video. Interesting. The woman takes a lot of photos and a lot of videos and here she is raving about Flip Video? I got interested all over again.

Then, we realized TW was going to be in Atlanta on the day of RJ’s holiday concert. I started thinking more about the Flip Video – particularly once I realized I was not going to Atlanta with her and Michelle’s video camera (that I’ve never learned to operate) had been loaned to one of her friends. I went back to Rosie’s blog and looked again at her videos… Flip Video wasn’t going to be the perfect solution to recording the missed moment for TW, but it was worth a try.

So, I headed out to Office Max (where they just happened to be on sale) and grabbed one. And it worked pretty damn well.

Even though I was like 15 rows away from the stage in less than ideal lighting. The sound was really good and the video quality was good enough from that distance that you could actually make out which kid was ours.

Awesome.

I don’t feel like I can post the videos publicly because there are tons of kids in these things who may not want to be blogged so we’ll make some little videos and I’ll share them as we go. In the meantime, if you’re wondering whether Flip Video is for you – check out Rosie’s videos, they’re all being done with the Flip – even this dolphin flick.

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Elissa’s Quest

2007, Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Fiction, Sci Fi and Fantasy, Young Adult /

It took me a very long time to read Elissa’s Quest and it should only have taken a day. It’s a very young book and a very easy to read book but I was distracted by kid activities and a heavy workload. Too bad – otherwise I’d have hopped over to the library to see if the sequels were available. I want to know what happens to Elissa next.

Very nice little girl’s adventure book.

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