jjmcgaffey's books for 2013

Hi - going to do this again this year. Last year I read 151 books, so I doubt 75 will be a stretch - but it's nice to be talking to people about my reading (though I seldom manage a real conversation).

Oookay...having gone through a (very) few of the other threads here, I'm going to try to do some more setup in this thread.










That may be over-ambitious (the BOMBs, not the total), but I'll try. I'd also like to get rid of a lot, but that will depend on quality - whether I'd want to reread that book again. Adding a ticker for that, too.

I read mostly SF/Fantasy (I don't separate those - an individual book may be one or the other (or both) but they all fit the same group). I also read a lot of other genres - romance (including historical and paranormal), mystery, animals, etc. - and quite a few children's/YA books (or books that are marketed as children's/YA, which is not at all the same thing). Non-fiction includes history, science (biology, mathematics, physics, archaeology, etc.), computer books, crafts, biography, words/names, cookbooks...

Hmmm, might be easier to say what I _don't_ read. Very very little 'literary' fiction, as few depressing books as I can manage (a lot of overlap there), no horror if I can help it. Little self-help, as little new-agey stuff as I can manage (though some of it I read as humor, and some for gorgeous art). Little chick-lit, unless it's both ironic/snarky and well-written (rare). I'm sure there are other classes of books I avoid, but I guess I avoid them so well I can't remember what they are.

I read a _lot_, play on the computer (which includes some light programming), do half a dozen crafts (knitting, tablet-weaving, braiding, wood-carving, cross-stitch, among others), bake, cook as little as possible (I live alone, so if I want to eat I have to cook - but it's _boring_ compared to baking. Or reading, or...), garden, play guitar (a little - though I mean to do more this year), sing, participate in the SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism - if anyone's interested, ask), have two cats, no kids and no significant other. I live in Alameda, California, on the San Francisco Bay, where "cold" is normally around 45F (with occasional drops to freezing - like, maybe twice a year) and "hot" is about 80F (with a day or five above 90, but usually pretty scattered). I'm a Foreign Service brat who grew up living all over the world - Philippines, Afghanistan, Iran, and Greece (as well as the US) before I was a teenager.

Hope to see lots of people commenting and asking questions here. If you have a hint about something I could do to encourage that, suggest it, please!

Books read in 2013

# indicates re-read, % indicates library borrowed book, @ indicates ebook, * indicates Book Off My Bookshelf (BOMB)

January
1. Cosmicomics# by Italo Calvino - review.
2. Exiles of the Stars*, by Andre Norton - review. Discard
3. Flight in Yiktor%, by Andre Norton - review.
4. Dare to Go A-Hunting%, by Andre Norton - review.
5. Kon-Tiki*, by Thor Heyerdahl - review. Discard
6. The Queen's Man%, by Sharon Kay Penman - review. (actually borrowed from my mom, not from the library, but same thing for these purposes)
7. Girl Genius Volume 1 : The Beetleburg Clank#, by Phil Foglio - review.
8. Girl Genius Volume 2 : The Airship City#, by Phil & Kaja Foglio - review.
9. Girl Genius Volume 3 : The Monster Engine#, by Phil & Kaja Foglio - review.
10. Agatha Heterodyne and the Airship City@, by Phil & Kaja Foglio - review.
11. Gift from the Sea*, by Anne Morrow Lindbergh - review. Discard
12. Lucy's Blade@, by John Lambshead - review.
13. Necessity's Child@, by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller - review.
14. The Loner*, by Linda Turner - review. Discard omnibus
15. Target of Opportunity*, by Justine Davis - review. Keep standalone
16. Harness Horses, Bucking Broncos, & Pit Ponies*ER, by Jeff Crosby - review. Keep for now, for the art.
17. The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat*, by Oliver Sacks - review. Fun - keep.
18. On Basilisk Station#, by David Weber - review.

February
19. Drawing Blood*, by Poppy Z. Brite - review. Only got it for last Christmas, but I guess it still counts as a BOMB. And discard.
20. Honor of the Queen#, by David Weber - review. Lovely as usual.
21. Stinz - Horsebrush and Other Tales, by Donna Barr - review. Love Stinz. Apparently this is the only book I have - surprises me.
22. Wizard at Work%, by Vivian Vande Velde - review. Fun, a bit young for me.
23. The Wide-Awake Princess%, by E.D. Baker - review. Fun, a little simple (but better than Wizard at Work).
24. Unlocking the Spell%, by E.D. Baker - review. Again, fun.
25. The Warlock's Companion#, by Christopher Stasheff - review. Fun as always.
26. The Microbe Hunters*, by Paul de Kruif - review. Bleah. Very poor writing on an interesting subject. Discard.
27. Saint Vidicon to the Rescue#, by Christopher Stasheff - review. Eh. Cute but slight.
28. Escape Velocity#, by Christopher Stasheff - review. Fun fluff.
29. The Warlock Wandering#, by Christopher Stasheff - review. More fun fluff.

March

30. The Silvered%, by Tanya Huff - review. Excellent.
31. The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making%, by Catherynne Valente - review. Good but not wonderful.
32. The Johnstown Flood*, by David McCullough - review. Interesting, unsatisfying.
33. The Stranger in Primrose Lane% (Children of Primrose Lane), by Noel Streatfeild - review. Strong memories.
34. Home from the Sea%, by Mercedes Lackey - review. Lovely. On my wishlist now.
35. The Mostly True Story of Jack%, by Kelly Regan Barnhill - review. Unsatisfying.
36. Enchanted Again%, by Robin D. Owens - review. Middling, but I do want to read the rest of the books in this universe. Once, anyway.
37. Tanglewreck%, by Jeanette Winterson - review. Bleah. Too much auctorial intervention - deus ex machina.
38. Smoke and Ashes*, by Tanya Huff - review. Lovely. Definite keeper (though it's not a great deal of help, since I bought it last week).

April
39. High Stakes#, by Dick Francis - review. Reread - nice as usual. Pretty standard Francis - this is the toyman.
40. The Jason Voyage*, by Tim Severin - review. Excellent, I'm glad I read it, I don't think I really want to reread, at least any time soon.
41. The Testing@NetGalley, by Joelle Charbonneau - review. Interesting. Like ER, this was a (temporary) free book in return for a review of an ARC. Some oddities, but kept me interested in a subgenre and style I usually avoid. Oh, and DO NOT READ my review if you're sensitive to spoilers - I was taking notes as I read, and it's full of them.
42. Tourney Cooking, by Kelli Bausch - review. Interesting recipes and info.
43. Ruins@#, by Lazette Gifford - review. Lovely as always.
44. Muse@#, by Lazette Gifford - review. Ditto. Muse is funny, even when I know the answer to the mystery.
45. The Girl in the Iron Mask, by Peter O'Donnell - review. I do enjoy Modesty; three good stories here, no standouts.
46. Chuck and Danielle, by Peter Dickinson - review. A sweet (but not cutesy) dog story. Fun.
47. The Thirteenth Child, by Patricia Wrede - review. Reread in prep for reading the sequel. But I just bought the book, so it's not a BOMB.
48. Across the Great Barrier%, by Patricia Wrede - review. Good. And addictive - I only meant to pick it up and read the first chapter or two...
49. A Culinary Reference Manual, by Eden Rain - review. Probably useful, but definitely a reference book. Small enough to read all the way through.
50. The Castafiore Emerald%, by Herge - review. Yuck. Annoy Captain Haddock and me.
51. Tintin in America%, by Herge - review. Very silly. Better than the last one, is the best I can say.
52. The Iron Ring%, by Lloyd Alexander - review. Interesting - silly surface and deep philosophy, in an Indian mythological setting (rather than his usual Celtic).

May
53. The Mythical Man-Month*, by Frederick P. Brooks - review. Eh. Good concepts, antique examples. Swapped (before I finished, so this is also a library book).
54. The Far West%, by Patricia Wrede - review. Loved it, hope there's another.
55. The Raven Ring#, by Patricia Wrede - review. Loved it as always.
56. Leviathan%, by Scott Westerfeld - review. Good, I want to read the next. Not sure I'll love it, but enjoyable.
57. The Emperor's Soul% by Brandon Sanderson - review. Good - good enough to hook me though I usually dislike manipulation and lying.
58. The Only Cowboy for Caitlin, by Lois Faye Dyer - review. Keeper. Fun series - I like Dyer.
59. Lonesome Cowboy#, by Lois Faye Dyer - review. First one in the series.
60. Mommy Midwife*, by Cassie Miles - review. Not bad, not worth keeping.
61. The Kissing Blades*, by Jessica Hall - review. Surprisingly less good than I was expecting - still good, just not wonderful. Also confusing because it's the last of a series that I thought I'd read but apparently not. Keep until I get the rest of the series.
62. Lord Freddie's First Love*, by Patricia Bray - review. Fun fluff, well-written and (reasonably) accurate to period. Nice! Keeper.
63. Castle Waiting#, by Linda Medley - review. Old friend - lovely as always
64. Castle Waiting Vol 2, the Definitive Edition, by Linda Medley - review. Ah, lovely. Answered all my complaints about unfinished stories from the earlier edition.
65. Elemental Magic, edited by Mercedes Lackey - review. Not bad, interesting seeing others' perspectives, a trifle repetitive.
66. Jennifer Scales and the Messenger of Light*, by MaryJanice Davidson - review. Good adventure eventually, the first 2/3rds or 3/4ths is teen angst.
67. So You Want to Be a Wizard, New Millennium Edition@, by Diane Duane - review. Good as always.
68. Deep Wizardry, New Millennium Edition@, by Diane Duane - review. Good.
69. High Wizardry, New Millennium Edition@, by Diane Duane - review. Good, though the tech changes were a bit more visible.

June
70. A Point of Honor#, by Dorothy Heydt - review. Old and well-loved friend.
71. Americashire, by Jennifer Richardson - review. Good descriptions, ultimately unsatisfying.
72. Truckers, by Terry Pratchett - review. Fun, deeper than expected.
73. A Wizard Abroad, New Millennium Edition@, by Diane Duane - review. Good as always.
74. Reboots, by Mercedes Lackey and Martin Cody - review. Good - I'm looking for more from him.
75. Fire Season@, by David Weber and Jane Lindskold - review. Good, looking forward to the next one.
76. Kumihimo Basics : A Taste of Japanese Braiding@, by Victoria Inman - review. Really badly written - can't extract instructions from the mess.
77. My Robin@, by Frances Hodgson Burnett - review. Silly.
78. Deadly Valentine*, by Justine Davis and Cindy Dees - review. One pretty good, one OK (two books in one). Keeper for now
79. Always a Hero*, by Justine Davis - review. Good story, Davis' usual excellent characterization. Keeper.
80. Complete Little Orphan Annie Volume 9, by Harold Gray - review. Fun as always.

Books read in 2013

# indicates re-read, % indicates borrowed book, @ indicates ebook, * indicates Book Off My Bookshelf (BOMB)

July
81. Enemy Waters*, by Justine Davis - review. Average good. Keeper.
82. Dragon Bones#, by Patricia Briggs - review. Good as always.
83. Dragon Blood#, by Patricia Briggs - review. Also good as always.
84. Paul the Peddler@, by Horatio Alger - review. Nice - in small doses.
85. Slow and Sure@, by Horatio Alger - review. Continuation of Paul's story.
86. Summon the Keeper#, by Tanya Huff - review. Good fluff.
87. The Way We Work%, by David Macaulay - review. Interesting overview.
88. Omnitopia Dawn#, by Diane Duane - review. Good - wish there was another out.
89. The Second Summoning#, by Tanya Huff - review. Next good fluff.
90. Long Hot Summoning#, by Tanya Huff - review. Last (so far) good fluff.
91. Grandville Bete Noir@, by Bryan Talbot - review. Fun pulp steampunk furry mystery graphic novel (whew!).
92. The Map that Changed the World, by Simon Winchester - review. Not good - too thin and padded, about an annoying man. But I'm glad I read it, for the information buried in the muck.

August
93. Breathe {ss}@ by Emma Bull - review. Good.
94. The Rumpelstiltskin Problem* by Vivian Vande Velde - review. Fun once.
95. Three Tales of my Father's Dragon* by Ruth Stiles Gannett - review. More fun for kids than for me.
96. Knock on Coffins {ss}@ by Elizabeth Bear - review. Nasty gamma, character expansion.
97. Dexterity {ss}@ by Sarah Monette - review. Weird - links to later stories
98. A Handful of Dust {ss}@ by Will Shetterley - review. Ick, both past and present. Good story, though.
99. Ballistic {ss}@ by Sarah Monette - review. Poor kid.
100. Endgames {ss}@ by Emma Bull - review. Another gamma trying and failing to resist.
101. Overkill {ss}@ by Elizabeth Bear - review. Holiday Killer - nasty.
102. Refining Fire {ss}@ by Emma Bull - review. Chaz captured. It's a hard story.
103. Lucky Day {ss}@ by Emma Bull - review. Hexes - interesting.
104. Sugar {ss}@ by Leah Bobet - review. Starving teens - a grim manifestation.
105. The Sin Eater {ss}@ by Emma Bull - review. Ouch. Pain of a gamma and a major crack in the team.
106. Getaway {ss}@ by Emma Bull - review. Chaz on his own.
107. Wind-up Boogeyman {ss}@ by Elizabeth Bear - review. Good for Chaz.
108. Forgiven but Not Forgotten?* by Abby Green - review. Not bad, though it's got a stupid title.
109. This Heart of Mine@ by Suzanne Hayes - review. Mildly interesting.
110. Plagues and Peoples* by William H. McNeill - review. Excellent.
111. Princess of Wands@ by John Ringo - review. Weird, interesting.
112. Queen of Wands@ by John Ringo - review. OK, good, really bad (3 stories).

September
113. Saturday Evening Post Funniest Cartoons edited by Joan Servaas - review. Not bad.
114. Beauty and the Werewolf% by Mercedes Lackey - review. OK, a bit fluffy.
115. Unnatural Issue@ by Mercedes Lackey - review. Interesting, mostly for Peter.
116. Steadfast% by Mercedes Lackey - review. Eh.
117. Ha'penny% by Jo Walton - review. Somewhat less depressing than Farthing.
118. Seven Views of Olduvai Gorge* by Mike Resnick - review. Eww.
119. Swallows and Amazons# by Arthur Ransome - review. Lovely as usual.
120. Swallowdale# by Arthur Ransome - review. Again, lovely.
121. Winter Holiday# by Arthur Ransome - review. First arrival of Dick and Dot.
122. Coot Club# by Arthur Ransome - review. Not as good as S&A, but still fun.
123. Pigeon Post# by Arthur Ransome - review. More serious - still a good read.
124. We Didn't Mean to Go To Sea# by Arthur Ransome - review. My favorite S&A book.
125. The Attenbury Emeralds% by Jill Paton Walsh - review. Not good.

October
126. Oath of Fealty# by Elizabeth Moon - review. Fourth reread - to prep for Limits of Power.
127. Kings of the North# by Elizabeth Moon - review. Next...
128. Echoes of Betrayal# by Elizabeth Moon - review. And next.
129. Limits of Power% by Elizabeth Moon - review. Love it.
130. The Willful Princess and the Piebald Prince% by Robin Hobb - review. Ugh.
131. Noah's Boy% by Sarah A. Hoyt - review. Pretty good.
132. Japanese Braiding: The Art of Kumihimo% by Jacqui Carey - review. Useful pattern book with some instruction.
133. Aunt Dimity and the Duke by Nancy Atherton - review. Fun - good fluff.
134. Cuckoo {ss}@ by Emma Bull - review. Good, and weird.
135. No Wind of Blame by Georgette Heyer - review. Lovely, aside from a very annoying character.
136. Into You - Dial H Volume 1* by China Miéville - review. Eh - the 1980s series was better.
137. Death in the Stocks# by Georgette Heyer - review. Wow, a lot of very annoying characters...still, fun to read.
138. Behold, Here's Poison* by Georgette Heyer - review. Not bad, somewhat flat characterization.
139. They Found Him Dead* by Georgette Heyer - review. Fewer idiots, confusing situation.
140. A Blunt Instrument# by Georgette Heyer - review. OK, but rather spoiled because I remembered who the murderer was. Discard.
141. Restoree# by Anne McCaffrey - review. The epitome of fun fluff.
142. The Sword# by Jean Johnson - review. Nice setup for the series, good characters.
143. The Wolf# by Jean Johnson - review. More fun.
144. The Master# by Jean Johnson - review. Painfully stupid misunderstandings trope, but well done - good characterization.
145. The Song# by Jean Johnson - review. Threads coming back together; the wounds dealt in the second book are healed.
146. The Cat# by Jean Johnson - review. One POV on events.
147. The Storm# by Jean Johnson - review. And the other, on the same events. Fun.
148. The Flame# by Jean Johnson - review. Good, with extra murder mystery.
149. The Mage# by Jean Johnson - review. Series arc nicely wrapped up.

November
150. Shifting Plains# by Jean Johnson - review. Same universe, different setting than the Sons series. Nice.
151. Mirror of Destiny by Andre Norton - review. Eh. Too many coincidences.
152. Smoke and Mirrors {ss}@ by Elizabeth Bear - review. Important events. Good story.
153. Not Alone {ss}@ by Holly Black - review. Shadow Unit - ugh. And strong season cliffhanger.
154. The Shifter% by Jean Johnson - review. Sequel to Shifting Plains, fun.
155. Wolves of Willoughby Chase# by Joan Aiken - review. Fun.
156. Black Hearts in Battersea# by Joan Aiken - review. Fun, silly.
157. The Little White Horse# by Elizabeth Goudge - review. Cute story with deeper underpinnings.
158. Nightbirds on Nantucket#% by Joan Aiken - review. Slightly more serious, but less plausible (how?).
159. The Whispering Mountain% by Joan Aiken - review. Predictable, but fun.
160. The Stolen Lake% by Joan Aiken - review. Eh - don't like Arthur stories, also implausible.
161. Dangerous Games% by Joan Aiken - review. Not bad, not a favorite.
162. The Wrangler's Bride* by Justine Davis - review. Good, mostly for the characters.
163. The Cuckoo Tree% by Joan Aiken - review. Nice - would have made a good end.
164. The Wizard's Dilemma, New Millennium Edition@ by Diane Duane - review. Wonderful and horrible, as usual.
165. Dido and Pa% by Joan Aiken - review. Nice extension, good story.
166. Is Underground% by Joan Aiken - review. Too simple for its own grimness.
167. Midnight is a Place% by Joan Aiken - review. Slightly different view - another alternate?
168. Cold Shoulder Road% by Joan Aiken - review. Odd combo of loopy and grim.
169. Chimes at Midnight by Seanan McGuire - review. Lovely like every Seanan - start of a new arc for Toby.
170. Enchanted No More% by Robin D. Owens - review. Interesting, if a little too easy at the end.

December
171. A Wizard Alone, New Millenium Edition@ by Diane Duane - review. Good as usual - relief from Dilemma.
172. Akin to Anne* by L.M. Montgomery - review. Sweet, don't need to reread.
173. Balance of Trade# by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller - review. Good as usual - picking up threads for Trade Secret.
174. Trade Secret by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller - review. Hmmm. Somewhat disappointing, for a Liaden book.
175. Dave Dawson with the Pacific Fleet* by Robert Sidney Bowen - review. Funnish fluff, a bit pulpy.
176. Everything and More* by David Foster Wallace - review. Magnificent.
177. Castle Waiting Vol 1# by Linda Medley - review. Wonderful as usual.
178. Castle Waiting Vol. 2: The Definitive Edition# by Linda Medley - review. Wonderful.
179. Elementary edited by Mercedes Lackey - review. Eh. A few gems, a lot of blah.

Currently Reading (copied from last year's thread)
*Kon-Tiki, by Thor Heyerdahl - my table book (I forgot about Cosmicomics). Interesting, but dense. He's explaining all the makeshifts and plots and begging he did to set up the trip.
@Agatha H. and the Airship City by Phil and Kaja Foglio - the novel of the graphic novel. Interesting - I think I'm going to read both of them simultaneously. With the novel, of course, we get a lot more explanation of what people are thinking...which helps! Complicated story. Which I know well - from half a dozen rereads of the graphic novel - but still. Oh, and reading it as an ebook.

Nice set up for this year, Jenn. Very inspiring!

I read Kon-Tiki but it must have been over 40 years ago! A lot closer to the actual event.

Hi, Jenn, I really enjoyed Kon-Tiki. I look forward to following your thread this year. Happy reading!

Thanks, Roni and karspeak! It's getting a lot more interesting now - they've gotten the balsa and are out on the ocean. Just got visited by the whale shark. It's stopped being a table book, because I didn't want to put it down when I finished eating.

Welcome back!

Thanks, Jim!

I was a little baffled about BOMB was at first. Thanks for the explanation. I have a goal to read more of those sorts of books too. I call my stack TBR Mountain.

Also, it looks like we read (and avoid) the same kinds of books. I will look forward to watching what you read this year.

Hmmm - I picked up the phrase somewhere here on LT - maybe in a TIOLI challenge? Whatever, I like it. I've got two separate groups there - my TBRs are ones I've actually decided to read, which are usually stacked up somewhere (until I give up, put away the stack, and start rebuilding it); the BOMBs are usually books I bought because they looked mildly interesting. Which is fine, but when I have shelves and boxes full of books I've never read... I'm hoping the challenge will help me shed a few, as I said above. 50 in a year would be easy, if I limited it to, say, romances and similar light reading, but I want to get at the denser ones too if I can. We'll see how I do.

Books Read

1. Cosmicomics. Wow. I was clearly in entirely the wrong mood for this one - all I could think of was what a sad sack the narrator was.

Currently Reading
*Kon-Tiki, by Thor Heyerdahl. More interesting as I get into it - they're now mid-Pacific and I didn't want to put it down.
@Agatha H. and the Airship City by Phil and Kaja Foglio - the novel of the graphic novel. Interesting - I think I'm going to read both of them simultaneously. With the novel, of course, we get a lot more explanation of what people are thinking...which helps! Complicated story. Which I know well - from half a dozen rereads of the graphic novel - but still. Oh, and reading it as an ebook.

Well, I un-forgot about Cosmicomics and finished it. Still reading the others.

I loved Kon-Tiki so much when I was a kid - one of the intriguing books my parents had around as book bait, I guess! They were quite clever that way.

I read a lot of F/SF but other stuff too....... Been on a serious jag of filling in 'historical' sf (from the 50's) and a real run of Cherryh. I'll be interested to see your recommendations.

*BAM* Starred you. Your "what I don't read" list is pretty much the same as mine, though I'd add "anything sports-related" to my list. Hah!

What's your favorite book?

13-15> Thanks, and welcome!

sibyx - Hmmm. Old SF. That's one group of BOMBs I have, that would be quick reads...yeah, I'll keep that in mind.

dk_phoenix - yeah, that's one of the ones I blanked out, I think!

gagirl101 - No idea. It totally depends on what mood I'm in, what I've been reading recently, what genre I feel like reading... Some of my favorites are Murder Must Advertise by Dorothy Sayers, The Cuckoo's Egg by Clifford Stoll, Charmed Life by Diana Wynne Jones (and also her Dogsbody), Prehistoric America by Anne Terry White, Hellspark by Janet Kagan, Citizen of the Galaxy by Robert Heinlein, Little Fuzzy by H. Beam Piper...etc, etc.

Sheesh, I can't keep to a sequence.

Books Read

2. Exiles of the Stars. Much better than Moon of Three Rings - better written.

Currently Reading
Still Kon-Tiki and Agatha, but they're waiting for the moment because I have to read %Moonsinger's Quest (next book after Exiles - omnibus of Flight in Yiktor and Dare to Go A'Hunting) - it's a library book and due tomorrow. Dozens of other books are crowding in, trying to distract me - but I'm going to _try_ to finish these in sequence. And go back and finish the other books in my Currently Reading collection, before I go on to another.

Books Read

3. Flight in Yiktor - adequate. Not wonderful, but readable.
and
4. Dare to Go A-Hunting - bleah. Poor plot, poorly written, poor character design - the single viewpoint character never knows what's going on with or around him. BOOring!
Read these two in the omnibus Moonsinger's Quest. As I reviewed them separately, I count them as two different books.

Currently Reading
Still Kon-Tiki and Agatha. Holding off by main force from reading some other books I picked up from Baen (ebooks), plus an ER book, plus... Read Agatha, at least, before I move on. And make Kon-Tiki my table book again if I can't pick it up elsewhere.

BOMBs - having now read all of the Moonsinger series, I know I don't care if I have those books. So I can dump Exiles of the Stars, and Moon of Three Rings (which I read before the beginning of the year), and return the omnibus. One gone!

I have had Kon-Tiki in the BlackHole for years but never gotten around to reading the darned book. I really must correct that oversight!

Ah, but I have a sweet spot for Moon of Three Rings given that I first read it as an adolescent girl in the 60s and loved it! I'll grant you the sequel is better written. The other two--definitely not my favorite Nortons.

20> Yeah. That's why I had to read the whole series - there were fond memories hanging on. But none of them really called out to me, and the last two are quite poor, so I can dump the two I have - yay!

19> I've had Kon-Tiki longer than I've been on LT (I deduce, since it was added within the first six months of my LT membership), and am _now_ finally getting around to it. It is fun, I'm just distracted.

Books Read

5. Kon-Tiki - Very interesting book, with three different (very different) aspects. Overall enjoyable...but I don't think I need to keep it.

Currently Reading

Well, I picked up Sharon Kay Penman's The Queen's Man - I'd borrowed it from my mom, so it was on the table right by me. I'll get back to Agatha later. The Penman is being interesting - a setting (time) I know (I've been a Robin Hood fanatic from way back), a lot of unpleasant characters and a lot of twisty plotting (both of which I usually try to avoid), but a great main character and an interesting story. I'll definitely finish it...not sure whether I'll read more Penmans, at least right away.

BOMBs

Kon-Tiki - I'm not sure I'll want to reread it, and if I do I can probably get it from the library. Two gone!

Good progress for the year! Keep it up. What are you reading now?

I've been busy the past week - I finally got the community garden plot I've been wanting for several years, and trying to get since last autumn. The plot was planted last spring by a woman who apparently never came back after that - so it's knee- to chin-high in weeds. She apparently planted lots of lettuce of various sorts (but I'm not keeping that), mustard (probably for greens, but it's bolted nicely - the bees love it), mint...probably other things. Oh, and at least one tomato plant, so I'm going to have volunteers (I can see rotty tomatoes lying under it - can't get at it yet, it's too buried in the weeds). And mallow is growing all over. It's an edible plant, but not one that's attractive to me - but it's going to be a pain to remove. It's slippery when you pull on it, and it's got a looooooong taproot...gonna be fun. But the soil is nice and soft - she did work it over thoroughly last year - so it's not hard to pull most of the stuff. I'm working on it now, when it's too early to plant most stuff, so that it will be ready when it is time to plant (and also to make room for garlic, which should be planted about now in this climate).

I have pictures - but no time to put them up right now, because I need to head out to my new guitar class. Tonight is the first time. I'm _hoping_ I'm good enough for this class - probably depends on who else is taking it. I know the teacher from a singing circle - she's _definitely_ much better than I am, it just depends on how much beginner guitar she's willing to teach. Gonna be fun! I'll add the pictures later, and more info about my gardening and guitar.

Jennifer, be sure to check out the Gardens & Books area: http://www.librarything.com/groups/gardensbooks

Pictures, as promised. I have a 16-by-16 plot, which is, as I said above, pretty well drowned in weeds - here's some images of my work.

Done Monday:





Done Tuesday:





Mustard plant in the garden:





Opposite angle, as of Tuesday (from the other front corner of the plot):





I really need to get into that back area, and get the mallow out. I see other things there, including something that's already seeding (looks like dandelion flowers, on a tall woody stem). There's also milk thistle tucked under other stuff - not hard to deal with, as long as I don't let it touch the backs of my hands where my gloves are soft (they're those nitrile-palm things, absolutely wonderful _except_ for prickly stuff on the backs of the hands).

Those two plants left in the front corner are the mint. I'm going to dig them up and put them into big pots and half-bury the pots at the front corners of the plot - so I still have mint, but it can't (or at least, is less likely to) escape and take over the plot. I'm also responsible for the paths around the plot, which are pretty full of stuff - and the mint had started to wander out there, too. Looking at Tuesday's picture, you can see the path has a little less greenery showing.

She planted a lot of edible stuff - but if I can't identify it, or if I'm not interested, I'm just going to pull it. I _like_ edible plants, but not enough to take up space in my garden for them (note that this is mostly reminding myself of my decision...). Milk thistle is another with uses, but not enough to give it space.

This is going to be fun. Hard on the back and arms...but that's good, it's exercise! The kind I'm most likely to take, with an actual reason for it (I never go to the gym, or do something _just_ for exercise. Walking or biking to go somewhere, walking up the stairs, yes. Spinning or stairstepping? not so much. Let alone something like Jazzercize or lifting weights).

Fun! We got six inches of snow today :-)

The guitar class went about like I expected - it's considerably higher level than I am (bass runs! I have trouble strumming...) but not so far I can't stretch a bit and get up to minimal matching. And my level is actually pretty variable - I'm really good at some odd chords, for instance. Though I thought my left hand had good stretch in it and I find I was overstretching it. And she wants me to do bar chords...but her way is easier than I'd tried before, so maybe I actually can.

The songs are interesting, though of the first set she gave us I only know the tune for one (and we didn't play it last night). Some traditional folk, some of what I call art-folk - folk songs written by a particular person, for performance. The one song I know is I Get the Urge for Going, for instance.

I think I'll enjoy the class and get quite a bit out of it. The only problems are a) owww my fingers - I haven't played in well over a year, until last week (when it occurred to me that if I was taking a class having some calluses might help...), and after the class my fingers are quite sore, particularly the ring finger (for some reason). And b) there's something else I really wanted to do next week, at the same time (almost exactly) as the class. And I'm just going to have to miss it, darn it. It's a lecture, by a Master Gardener, on garden soil - what it needs, how to build it up, good stuff like that. I know the basics - compost, worms are good (and I have worms!), turn the soil - but this is apparently a really good lecture. A bunch of other Master Gardeners are planning to attend, because they missed her the last time she spoke. Wahhh! Maybe there'll be a handout, or someone will tape it.

It's sponsored by the garden group I belong to, Alameda Backyard Growers. The group is just about to turn 3 - started as a couple friends who gardened getting together with a few others in their area to discuss plants and soil and weather and bugs and so on. Now we have 20-50 people at every meeting, and a couple hundred on the email list; we do Gleaning (find trees/crops that are going to waste and offer to pick them, and deliver (most of) the gleanings to the local food bank) and Grow-a-Row - donated seeds, grow a row for yourself and one for the food bank, among other things. It's fun, nice people, and it's neat to be in on the beginning. And this year, thanks to the Alameda Point space, I'll be able to really do Grow-a-Row - hard to do when you're gardening in pots on your balcony, which is what I've done for the last several years. Actually, I think this is the first real garden I've had - when I was at home, I grew a few things, but mostly tended the bulbs and such. And tried to grow raspberries and successfully grew raspberry canes (complete with thorns...) - not sure I ever got a berry off it.

Anyway. Two fun things, happening more or less at the same time (I mean, starting the class and getting the garden). Plus working on computers for my clients, plus the normal taking care of the house and my cats, plus LT...busy days. And fun.

27> Heh. Advantages of living in the Bay Area - though it's been very cold for here the last few days. It nearly froze overnight a couple times last week, and usually we get at most one frost day (one day (night) with a low under 35F) a year. When I say very cold, I don't mean what the Northeast means, or even Virginia (where I lived for a good many years, and one of my sisters lives now)...or Reno, where my other sister lives. But it's still cold! And I don't have clothes for a Northeast winter, at all.

Highs in the mid-40s to 50s, lows low 30s to low 40s. Part of the reason it's been so cold this last week is that it hasn't rained - this is the rainy season (which is one reason why the soil in my garden is so easy to work). It's also the growing season for this area - a _lot_ of the plants, and the grass, are green and growing now in the rains and go more-or-less dormant in the summer (when we usually have highs in the 70s, with occasional ventures up to 80s or low 90s). Which means it's weed season too...

The garden never really goes dormant here. Northeastern (and Midwest, and most places) gardeners get the winter more-or-less off - prep time and thinking time. It's garden work year-round, here. I'm still picking a few cherry tomatoes off my balcony plants - and dealing with weeds (even in pots), and planting next year's stuff (saffron crocus, which should have been planted in September...oops, and garlic, and snow peas, and maybe carrots and parsley...).

We've had the same weather down here in San Diego, Jenn. Fortunately it is warming up now--got into the mid-60s today, about 10 degrees warmer than it has been.

I picked my first crop of sugar snap and snow peas this week, and lettuce and kale. Carrots and beets and sweetpeas are growing well, and I need to start new sets of the carrots, beets, lettuce and spinach this week as it warms up. The almost-frosts this last week, though, have rimmed my lettuce leaves with a little border of brown. I think it's exciting to have your first real garden--I've tried never to be without one, wherever I've lived.

26: The Garden & Books group would cheer your efforts. And appreciate the photos, especially those of us stuck in winter at the moment.

I've got a garden on my balcony - EarthBoxes and pots, growing tomatoes, garlic, various herbs including a lot of basil, marigolds, snow peas, strawberries, carrots, New Zealand spinach...lots of stuff. And yes, I've tried to have at least something growing everywhere I went. But when you have that limited space, it's hard to grow more than will feed one person (actually, I've had to buy veg anyway, except for a few weeks in summer when I can supply myself with tomatoes). It's nice to have all this space...I'm thinking about how I'm going to use it (Square Foot gardening, but there's still lots of variations possible).

31 (and 25)> Heh, OK, maybe I will make it over there. Like I need another group to participate in...

What's the vining/climbing plant with the cucumber-like leaves?

Just a little more done today. I got at that back area, and pulled out three large mallows and quite a few small ones, as well as lots of grass and some kind of vine. I thought it might be oregano - that kind of soft triangular leaf - but it just smelled green when I squished a leaf. And I discovered that at least some of the mustard has gone to seed, so I need to harvest them tomorrow (when I bring a bag out to put the seedpods in), and that maybe I don't have tomatoes. She seems to have planted quite a bit of peppers of various sorts, so I'm not sure what that one with the rotted fruit under it is (still in among weeds). I pulled one plant of orange bell peppers - the peppers were only at the berry stage, round and green - and haven't yet pulled another pepper plant with narrow bright red-orange peppers on it. That one I'll harvest and give the peppers to the food bank - _I'm_ not going to eat them, but someone might be quite happy to see them.

Wednesday's work, northwest corner:





Wednesday's work, northeast corner: (you can actually see what I've done)





Wednesday, southeast corner: (same shot I've done each day)





The mallows weren't as bad as I thought - tough, and took some work with a dandelion digger around the roots, but they came up with some effort. I didn't have to break them off and leave the root, which I was afraid I'd have to do.

Tomorrow I'll work on that big mallow in the center, and start on the southeast corner - one mallow and a lot of mess. And that maybe-tomato. It is nice actually getting something done - visible progress each day.

I also got a client's computer cleaned up - installed WinXP and did the necessary updates. Yeah, I know, but it's a kid's computer, and it's now reasonably functional which it wasn't before. I got it before Christmas and just now _finally_ got it done. Now I'm down to six computers in my house waiting for me to work on them...bah.

OK! Back to the ostensible purpose of this thread...

Books Read
6. The Queen's Man. Hmmm, not sure whether I like it or not. It's a decent mystery, of a type not too interesting to me; an interesting historical setting, but with holes; and at least a few very nice characters and a heck of a lot of twisty plotters. Well, I'll read the next one, anyway.

Currently Reading
Going back to Agatha - reading the novel Agatha Heterodyne and the Airship City along with the four graphic novels that the novel covers (I think - we'll see). The first GN is Agatha Heterodyne and the Beetleburg Clank; the second has the same name as the novel. The third and fourth are the Monster Engine and the Circus of Dreams. I've read the GNs before, some several times, but I want to see what the novel's talking about.

33> The one with the big roundish leaves, like a giant geranium? (Not sure I've ever seen cucumber leaves). That's the mallow. Or do you mean the one just over my shadow's left shoulder, in today's NW picture? I don't know - it's on a long juicy stalk, I'd classify it with the lettuces. It might be celery (I haven't gotten close enough to smell it, yet).

The only vining plants I've seen are very low to the ground and small-leaved (the not-oregano, for instance) - not sure you could see them in the pictures. Everything else seems to be on stalks, woody or juicy.

Books Read
7. Girl Genius Volume 1: Agatha Heterodyne and the Beetleburg Clank. Fun, as usual.
8. Girl Genius Volume 2: Agatha Heterodyne and the Airship City. The story gets more complicated.
9. Girl Genius Volume 3: Agatha Heterodyne and the Monster Engine. Very complicated - and Agatha _begins_ to figure out who and what she is.
10. Agatha Heterodyne and the Airship City - yeah, it was worth reading it with the graphic novels. It actually overlaps three, not four. Much richer story, though some images from the GNs say things the words can't...on the other hand, the words say a lot more (especially about emotions and motivations) than the GN has room for. I prefer the novel, though the next time I think I'll try reading it without the GNs and see how it holds up.

Currently Reading
I haven't a clue. Agatha kept me up until 2 am - I only meant to _start_ reading the four of them! Now I go to bed. I'll figure out what I'm reading next tomorrow.

It's the Mallow, and Geranium-like leaves is a better description.

Currently Reading

Gift from the Sea, by Anne Morrow Lindbergh. Not what I was expecting - given where I shelved it, I apparently thought it was science, not philosophy. Interesting but not absorbing, so far. It's my table book - I'm running too hard to be reading any other time, the last couple days! I'll post more later.

My mom loved that book, but I've never read it.

Books Read
11. Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh. Yawn. Sweet little philosophy book, mildly interesting historical view of things, I guess I'm glad I read it but I don't need to read it again.
12. Lucy's Blade by John Lambshead. Ow. I've been saving this for sometime when I needed a good read - but it's not. Could have been excellent with a few more rounds of editing/revising.

Currently Reading
I started The Gutenberg Elegies by Sven Birkerts, then deliberately put it aside. Essays and opinions on how the world is going to hell in a handbasket because no one can read in our modern electronic age - written in 1995, and that's the most amusing part. The number of arguments made here that I've read in recent news stories about the Death of Publishing... I will read it, I'll probably even enjoy it. But not so closely after Gift from the Sea and The Medusa and the Snail - I need something solider.
So my current table book is The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks. Much more interesting - about a selection of neuropathies. The first two are face-blindness (and blindness to other things - to the gestalt of vision), and instant amnesia - the man could remember normally things many decades before (and he thought they were current) but couldn't make or keep memories from now. I'm looking forward to the rest.
And as a reward for several poor books, I'm going to read Necessity's Child by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller. A new Liaden Universe book! Yay!

BOMBs
Gift from the Sea is gone. Yay, I'm 3 for 3 so far! On the other hand, I've read 3 BOMBs and 9 other things - rereads, ebooks and borrowed. Well, not too bad considering it's still January.

I've been too busy to post, but not too busy to do. Still going to the garden every day, and seeing real progress. Today it's raining, and I still went out - it was only barely drizzling off and on when I got there, so I worked for longer than I expected. Got out a lot of the center, and left just as it started to really rain.

I've gotten quite a lot! Compare these two, taken from the same corner.

Thursday, 1/17:




Wednesday, 1/23:




That orange spot in the background is my tote bucket - it's actually on the path on the far side of the plot, you can see right across the plot at ground level!

There's still two big mallows I'm (literally) struggling with - they're both in the picture, but you'd never know how nasty they are from looking at it. The many-stemmed bushy thing just above the center, lying down; and one of the long sticks in the background, just in front of the orange bucket (also lying down). I've heaved and pried and loosened them as best I could; today it's raining, so I _hope_ tomorrow I'll be able to pull them. I've lost one root - that is, there was one mallow whose root cracked off deep below the soil where I couldn't get it. I'll settle for that with these, too.

The northwest corner is the least done - but the whole north side was basically lettuces and grass, which aren't hard to pull. Lettuces are really nice, actually - they're huge plants (if allowed to grow), so when you pull them there's a big hole in the ground cover, but they're shallow-rooted so they're very easy to pull. I've been leaving that corner - this one, northwest:





for last, because it's only small stuff. The tall things visible in the Wednesday picture above are mostly mustard and will be staying until they've set seed. I've harvested a lot of seedpods, which should give me mustard seed once they dry. We'll see - I'm not sure, now, that I should have cut them green. But I wanted them out of the way. I left the mustards that are still flowering, because the bees love them. There's also another plant that I haven't been able to figure out. It grows very like a mustard - tall juicy stem, compound flower, and the flower extends into seedpods when it's done - but the flowers are shaded purple instead of bright yellow, visibly cross-shaped, and considerably larger than the mustard (1 inch across, instead of 1/4 to 1/2), and the pods are enormous compared to the mustard. More like beans. You can see some of the pods, looking very lumpy and beany, just right of center by the mallow leaf. Anyone recognize this?





And I've been practicing guitar, a little - my calluses are coming in nicely. Yesterday was my second class - I'm still struggling, but I'm keeping up, I think. Bass runs and flatpicking are...fun. And hard. Trying to coordinate a new song, new chords, and right-hand work...yeah. More practice. On songs I actually know, please. Most of my folk-song knowledge is pretty early - traditional ballads and 60s singer-songwriters, and only a selection of the latter. So I don't recognize - have never heard of - a great many of the songs she's teaching us on. They're lovely songs and I'm glad to learn them, but it does make it harder to coordinate things.

Very busy, very fun days. And the sun this last week hasn't hurt - today is the first rainy day in two weeks, and the last few days have been really bright. Not warm, exactly - highs in the low 60s, for whole minutes a day - but bright and lovely.

I think your mystery plant is a wild radish (raphanus sativus).

Yep, you got it! That's exactly what it is - thanks! Did you know it, or how did you search for it? I was searching on everything I could think of and not getting anything even similar.

Huh. I'd never thought of radish as anything but the little bulbous roots. Fascinating. I don't know if I'll keep it, but at least now I know what it is...

And I suspect I'll have lots of it later, even if I pull this one out now. There are so many seeds of various sorts in the soil already...that plot is going to be fun all year.

Books Read
13. Necessity's Child by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller. Yeah. That's exactly what I needed after that run of poor books. Love it.

Currently Reading
Going back a bit to a book I started last year - it's still in my Currently Reading list, and I want to clear it up. Especially since, unless it improves tremendously, it's going to be a discard. The Target (Target of Opportunity/The Loner), an omnibus with one book by Linda Turner which is what I was reading and disliking, and one by Justine Davis which I expect to like - I love most of hers. Fortunately I have the Davis separately too, so once I've finished The Loner I can dump the omnibus.

Books Read
14. The Loner by Linda Turner. Yuck.
15. Target of Opportunity by Justine Davis. Heh. Same tropes as the other book in the omnibus, but a very different feel to it. Not wonderful, but quite readable - and even re-readable. Also hot.

Currently Reading
Pull Double Vision out of my retired Currently Reading list. Short stories by very good authors (the same Sharon Lee and Steve Miller that wrote Necessity's Child).

BOMBs
Discard the omnibus that contains both books, since I have the readable one as a standalone. Hmmm - make sure I still have it, first. Now I'm sort of 3.5 for four...or four for five...or something. I guess 4 for 5, since I'm keeping Target of Opportunity. I didn't read the physical book, but I did read the work...

Jennifer, the stalk looked familiar so I searched through wildflowers, no result.

Then I happened upon some pictures, did a search and there it was!

Radishes are good at loosening soil, and are believed to have some pest-deterrence properties. Let a few of them grow, pull if/when they try to take over the plot! :)

One of my friends sent me one of the books from Sharon Lee and Steve Miller for Christmas. I really need to find where I put it!

48> Yes, you should - they're _all_ excellent!

47> There's only the one - well, was. I pulled it today. When new ones grow, I may let them stay for a while - but I need to clear the plot as much as possible so I can deal with it as a new thing. The mustard is only staying until it sets seeds, the pepper until the peppers are ripe - the only thing I'm actually keeping is the mint, and I'm putting that into pots (speaking of taking over the plot!).

I expect I'll have a lot of mustard, probably some radish, quite a few peppers and tomatoes (unfortunately I don't think much of Romas, they're great for sauce and such but I hate the taste of cooked tomatoes. I eat tomatoes raw, and want more flavor and juice than Romas provide), lots and lots of lettuce. It'll be an ongoing task to control them. I need a blank slate to start, though.

Radishes aren't invasive, I don't think.

But OH is mint something to be controlled!

Mmm - depends on your definition of invasive, I guess. I meant that all of those have dropped lots (and lots, and lots) of seeds over the past year. So though I've pulled all (nearly all) of the current plants, I expect to have a bunch of volunteers popping up all year - and probably for the next couple years. Not the same thing as mint, sneaking around and popping up in places it wasn't before - just reseeding itself merrily along.

Once upon a time, we actually had mint be overwhelmed. There was a patch of really bad soil - hardpan, little sun, right under a rainspout and freshly denuded of English ivy (speaking of invasive). We planted mint, and just for fun a few lily-of-the-valley bulbs. Three years later, the patch was solid with lily-of-the-valley - no mint (and no ivy) to be seen. A wondrous sight. And the nice thing was, the lily liked its little bad patch - it wasn't trying to sneak out into the grass that bordered it. We sold that house - I wonder what happened to the lily patch.

So busy with garden and with guitar..... but it's hard for me (here in Vermont) to imagine so much greenery.

Mint can be managed if you cut out the bottom of a sheetrock bucket, bury it down to the rim and then plant the mint inside it.

That's the plan - actually, not cutting out the bottom, but I have a couple big nursery pots. I'm going to dig up the mint from where it is, bury the pots in the front corners of the plots and plant the mint in them. Do you think the bottom needs to be cut out? They have the enormous (1"x2") drainage holes in the bottom/sides, so I figured that would be good enough.

Mint will send runners through those drainage holes...

I planted mint in its pot into my herb planter, which is an old metal wheelbarrow. The planter does NOT rest on the ground, but is supported by bricks.

Mint has not escaped to date!

Yes, but the drainage holes will be ~a foot below the surface. It ought to slow it down, at least (and that's all you can hope for, with mint... if there's any dirt-to-dirt contact).

Books Read
16. Harness Horses, Bucking Broncos, and Pit Ponies by Jeff Crosby. Mildly interesting, nice illustrations. ER book - from August 2011. I'm _way_ behind on ER books... working on it.

Currently Reading
Still reading The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, which is still excellent.
Picked up a book I got for SantaThing this year, Drawing Blood by Poppy Z. Brite - um. Very well written, but ugh. People I don't really want to spend much time with. I will finish it, but unless there's one heck of a payoff it's out.
And started reading an ebook (and continued with the paper version) - On Basilisk Station by David Weber. I do love Honor.

BOMBs
Harness Horses - I'm keeping it for now, mostly for the art. The info is fun but not useful - glad I read it but I don't need to keep it around.

Gardening continues - I'm _almost_ done weeding. Two more patches on the north side to go - either one long day's work (that is, an hour and a half or two hours - I've been spending between 45 minutes and an hour out there just about every day) or two days. Then I need to harvest as much of the mustard as I can at this point, and all the peppers - apparently they're Thai peppers and just as edible green. I also need to turn some of the dirt (and add compost), and grid it off for Square Foot Gardening, and get my garlic into the ground, and get the mint out. And check what else needs to be planted early - peas (snow peas) for sure, maybe carrots and some other veg (celery, cauliflower). Potatoes early next month, after I've gotten a box built for them (or maybe just mound them, but I'd rather have a box). Also start tomato and basil and a few other seedlings next month, but later in the month - we bought some tomato seeds yesterday (my mom and I) and I have a lot of seeds collected from my tomatoes this last year. And somewhere in there I really need to plot out my garden and figure out what gets planted where!

Third guitar class today - my fingers are less sore, my arm more so. She really likes chords up the neck - most of one song was 5th and 4th frets (so not all that high, but higher than I usually go). Trying to teach my hand and arm how to fold (and not fold) so I'm not stressing my wrist. Nice songs - Wichita Linesman and Green Grow the Rashes O, today.

Oh yeah. Speaking of gardening - my dad's on the board of the local Food Bank. The city has decided that they're going to turn over a bit of ground to the Food Bank for a garden (it's an old railroad right-of-way that they've been fighting with the railroad over for years, and last year they got it). The Food Bank manager said he'd love to have the produce, but he really didn't want to be in charge of the garden itself. So part of it will be handled by the guy who's in charge of the community garden I'm in, but they'll probably need more people (he's kind of busy with the community garden and the small commercial farm he's already running) - so I need to check with Alameda Backyard Growers to see if they can and will help. And I bet I'm going to be at least the liaison with the Food Bank, and possibly the manager of the whole thing...whee. I hope not, I've got enough on my plate too - but if there's no one else willing to take it, I will. It would be awful to tell the city "thanks but no thanks" on the garden. And that one's going to be physically hard - that soil hasn't been worked in literally years. Decades. I've no idea how long the railroads haven't been running...and it wasn't exactly a garden when they were, either. Centuries? A century, at least, and maybe two. Yeah, digging that up is going to be fun - I hope APC can help with that, with tools and maybe experienced workers (Alameda Point Collaborative, the community garden/farm/nursery group).

More pictures? :)

I wish Sherman had a local community garden. I think it is a wonderful idea!

Books Read
17. The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat - fun. You wouldn't think that discussions of neurology patients would be that interesting, but Dr. Sacks presents some fascinating insights into their strange worlds.
18. On Basilisk Station - love it, as usual. Probably my twentieth reread. I'm going to go through the series - but only with at least one other book, and preferably a BOMB, in between each one.

Currently Reading
Drawing Blood - have to finish it before I can start the next Honor (or I never will).

BOMBs
The Man Who Mistook... - keeper. I need to read more romances, and maybe old SF, so I get more I can get rid of.

I'll add some pictures later (oooh! someone wants to see my pictures!), but I'm being awfully busy these days. I did get out to the garden today (1/31) - in the morning, even! I've mostly been going late, near sunset. But today I got the last of the weeds out. Well, there's still little stuff everywhere, but I'm not going to worry about it - turn it under when I add compost. The next task is to dig the mint, and harvest peppers; the mustard harvest will be an ongoing task. Then add compost and turn things over, and mark the Square Foot grids. I've gotten some wood for a potato box, and I need to get the garlic in the ground. And start seedlings. Fun...even if I keep telling myself to do the same things.

The Beltline garden is not as far along as I was thinking - Evan is waiting on city permission to do soil tests, then when those are done there will be community meetings about exactly what to do with the land, then the infrastructure needs to be built (both things like plots and paths, and the soil itself, need a lot of work). We _might_, if the city moves faster than usual, get to plant this autumn. More likely next spring.

And nothing new on the guitar front, except I'm looking at my music instruction books. If I find one that has exercises for strumming on the beat (instead of on the syllables), that will be very helpful...

59> Looks like they were trying... http://www.shermancommunitygarden.org/Home but the latest news is from 2010 so it may have gone under. Or they may just not be updating the website - you might check it out.
There's stuff from early 2012 on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/pages/Sherman-Community-Garden/174982035870814
Don't know whether they'll have space, or whether they're within reach of you (a garden a long way away is a pain!). But it does, apparently, exist.

Books Read
19. Drawing Blood by Poppy Z. Brite. Not for me. Beautifully written, great descriptions, solid characterization - but I didn't like anyone in the story, they were all determinedly trying to screw up their lives. The happy ending - they failed at the screwing up - kind of redeemed it, but not enough to make me ever want to read it again.

Currently Reading
Yay, next Weber! The Honor of the Queen.

BOMBs
Drawing Blood is out. I only got it for last Christmas' SantaThing - sorry, Santa - but I don't want it around any more.

I've had The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat on my shelves for ages, and haven't read it. It's one of the ones down there I really want to read, but keep forgetting about. Nice it hear it's kept its readability through the decades!

Books Read
20. Honor of the Queen by David Weber. Excellent as usual - but I was really noticing how grim it was. Influence of Drawing Blood?

Currently Reading
The Microbe Hunters by Paul de Kruif, as my table book. Interesting, though the style's a little hard to take - lots of exclamation points and weird similes. It reads like a bedtime story - like Just So Stories or the frame of The Princess Bride. Need another fiction book, but nothing particularly appeals - I think I'll try something random. Open a box and grab a book.
Oh, actually - I forgot, I got a NetGalley ebook. I better read that - it expires. Orphanage of Miracles. Then an ER book.

We found that not cutting the bottom out caused the mint to die of being too wet, which can be a problem here...... holes might work if they are right at the bottom, but the sheetrock bucket, being something like 18 inches deep seemed to be far enough down to keep the plant in one place only. I would worry with holes, unless they are at the very bottom, that they would creep up too easily..... Sorry I didn't get back here sooner, in case you are done already! Answer is: YES I would cut the bottom out, or most of it for drainage.

I just read On Basilisk Station and will definitely get on with the series!

I agree wholeheartedly with your assessment of Sack's ability to make almost anything to do with neurology fascinating.

Well, the holes are at the bottom - or the sides of the bottom, at least - and since it's a plant pot, they're designed for drainage. The mint may yet die of being too wet - I seem to have a weird kind of clay soil (and yes, I already buried them. They seem to be doing OK so far). We'll see. But if it dies, it's not hard to replace...

My soil is powder-dry; if I water it (just a hose-spray, I don't have a sprinkler but I do have a hose nozzle), the top quarter-inch gets sopping, puddling, sticky-mud wet. But below that, it remains powder-dry. ???? My Dad thinks it's a pulverized clay soil, so when it's dry the particles slide over each other but when it gets wet they expand into solidity and keep the water on top. Not sure - but more compost can only help. So that's the next project. And on Tuesday it's supposed to rain, even rain hard - which may be what the soil needs, a nice long soak. Again, we'll see. But I want to get the compost in, at least some, tomorrow before the rain.

I've been doing quite a lot in the garden - but between the garden, guitar class, programming class, clients, volunteer stuff, and spending time with my parents I haven't had any time to post here. I'm several books behind, even. I'll get it in soon.

If it's clay, add gypsum as well to break it up.

Yeah - the only clay I've encountered before was heavy and clingy and solid. This isn't - it's light and easy to shift, and as I said it's powdery when dry (which it mostly is). That's why I don't understand why the water doesn't get into it. I don't know if gypsum would help with this - as far as I know, it mostly helps break up heavy soils. I don't know if it would be useful in soil that's already thoroughly broken up. That's why I'm aiming for compost rather than mineral amendments - compost always helps.

Compost does a garden good! I collect coffee grounds from other offices at work (in a medical school) and the earthworms love it!

I've updated my gardens thread with lots of pictures. Sorry, not going to copy all of them... I'll put the daily info in that thread, and shorter comments here. So comments here - I've got garlic sprouts! I've marked all my beds, and turned them, ready for tomorrow's rain. I hoped to get compost into them before the rain, but it didn't happen - try tomorrow, if the rain's not too heavy. New unidentified plant - tiny blue flower on a ground-hugging vine. The flower is barely as large across as a pencil eraser.





71> Hmmm, hadn't thought of coffee grounds. I could get those from my parents (they drink a lot of coffee). How do they affect the acid/alkaline balance? I knew, once upon a time...

I have 256 square feet of ground, of which I'm planting 132, plus the potatoes and blueberry bushes. Whee! Here's my garden plan - as currently worked out, it's still a work in progress. Especially, I think I'm too late to plant some things. Though...if I buy starts...hmmm. OK, I'll still try for cauliflower. And sweet basil - I'll buy a pot or two from Trader Joe's. But I need to add the compost before I try planting anything else.

I tried playing my steel-string guitar today - it actually worked, my fingers didn't get slits in them! The action is awfully high, though (the strings are a long way off the neck, especially near the guitar body) - and in checking it, I discovered that the guitar had been dropped hard on its side at some point. The veneer, at least, is thoroughly cracked, and the tone is different when I tap near there. It still sounds good playing it, though. I'm going to take it to a guitar shop tomorrow and see if a) the action can be lowered (does the neck need resetting or whatever), and b) if so, is it worth doing it on a cracked guitar? We'll see what he says.

Catch up on books in the next message.

Books Read
21. Stinz - Horsebrush and Other Tales by Donna Barr. Love Stinz, as always. This is a compilation of several issues, so it jumps around in Stinz' life a bit (a "teenager", courting, a father, an older man).
22. Wizard at Work by Vivian Vande Velde. Fun, a bit young for me.

Currently Reading
I was forced - forced, I tell you - to start A Short Victorious War by David Weber, the third Honor Harrington book. I was out for the day (two clients close together but rather far from home, with a couple hours between the appointments), went to the library and got several books (including Wizard at Work). Went for lunch and grabbed a book - but discovered when I was sitting down that what I'd grabbed was the second book in the series (I don't _do_ that, I read series in order). Pulled out my tablet to start the NetGalley book - totally dead, and no place near to plug it in. So I just had to read on my phone, and what I had there was the Weber books... When I came home, I switched (mostly) to paper. It's easier for casual pick-it-up-and-read.

Hmm, I'm not reading nearly as fast (not nearly as many books done) in February as I was in January. No idea why - well, I'm pretty busy with various stuff.

Ugh! Don't you hate it when technology fails you! VVV has written tons and tons of stuff - fun, but yes, not much to stretch the brain.

I've read some of hers for teens, and enjoyed it very much. That's why I picked this one up. I was surprised at how light it was. I'll keep trying, though.

Coffee grounds will acidify the soil, somewhat. The blueberries will LOVE them! I sprinkle fresh (or several day old) grounds around my blueberry bushes, my azaleas and my gardenias, and they seem to thrive on the side dressings. Our soil here is on the acid side, so I have mainly acid-loving plants, anyway.

Tentative identification of your plant is Corn Speedwell (Veronica arvensis ).

77> Looks like it, though mine is lying pretty low (not as upright as the images show). But that may be because of the weather - some strong winds - or just because it's growing by itself, not in turf or among other plants as it apparently usually does. A spring flowerer, quickly sets seeds, and grows over the winter (or grows in fall and then goes dormant, probably, where the winters are colder). Hmmm, I like. I think I'll try to collect some seed, and sprinkle it around in the fall and hope it grows some more. And just leave it where it is so it can self-seed, too, but I want it in some other areas of the plot as well.

Thanks!

Books Read
23. The Wide-Awake Princess by E.D. Baker - fun. Neat blending of literally a dozen or more fairy tales into a cute story of a princess magic can't touch - which is a defense, a tool, and a problem at times.
24. Unlocking the Spell by E.D. Baker - Next book in the series, starting about a week after Wide-Awake Princess ends - still fun, but falling into the usual YA/teen trope. Female protagonist so a great deal of the book is spent on considering romance and love, and the ending is a HEA - true love triumphs. Of course.
25. The Warlock's Companion, by Christopher Stasheff. This one is entirely MyriadBooks' fault. MB mentioned the Warlock series in a Name That Book thread about robot horses...which made me go look it up to make sure my return comment about it (no, not the right book) was accurate...and 6 hours later (well, OK, 10, but I had a dinner and a meeting in the middle) I finished the book. Fun as always. Not deep, but fun.

Currently Reading
Still working on Short Victorious War. Still working on The Microbe Hunters. Haven't started the NetGalley book. Just slightly distracted in my reading (books inserting themselves all over the place...).

Only one library book left, and it's not a quick read (though I expect it to be excellent) - The Girl who Circumnavigated Fairyland...

Got the compost in, and turned the beds again, yesterday (Wednesday). Today turned the two beds I hadn't managed Wednesday, stirred up the ones I had done, and watered. I now have 29 garlic sprouts - mostly Nootka Rose and Gilroy, a few ABG (really need to find where I put that mention of the variety!) and a few more Inchelium Red.

I hope this square foot thing works. Proper Square Foot Gardening is largely (not entirely, but largely) dependent on the rich, loose soil mixture you're supposed to make up and use. I'm enriching the soil, but it's still mostly what was there. Things can grow, certainly, but I'm not sure it can handle the density of planting SFG recommends. We'll see - some but not all of my plants are planted appropriately. The celery looks pretty good so far, with the full 9 plants per square foot in.

Oh, and I bought a bunch of plants - too many asparagus, not quite enough strawberries (got 20, need 24 for optimum space-filling), a few cauliflower and some oregano. Also have marjoram. And want to buy some basil from Trader Joe's and plant that - it works well. And I _need_ to start seedlings! I've gotten seedling soil (ended up buying it, because making it wasn't happening) and today I wet it down. Meant to start planting, but it's not going to happen (not least because my eyes keep closing).

Maybe tomorrow, but probably not, unless we get tired early - Mom and I are going to a quilt/sewing show. Neither of us quilt, but we both sew, I stitch (cross-stitch, mostly, a little embroidery) and weave and braid - and quilts are lovely to look at, too. Should be fun. And in the evening there's a party for/of the folk song circle I sometimes sing with - also fun, but it will be a long day.

OK, bed now. Oh - I haven't yet reviewed the E.D. Baker books. I'll do it later, when I'm awake.

You can send the extra asparagus my way, hehehe...

...I'm contemplating going perennial with my vegetable garden. :)

Books Read
26. The Microbe Hunters by Paul de Kruif. Yuck. Fascinating subject, and I'll keep an eye out for someone _else_ writing about it (the history of the discovery of germs/viruses). It's written as if for gradeschoolers - I kept getting flashes of the Just So Stories and the frame of The Princess Bride, that kind of "keep them engaged!" injections and overly simple language. Bleah.
27. Saint Vidicon to the Rescue by Christopher Stasheff. Not his best. Cute ideas, pointless story(s), pointless "climax". But it is cute, so I'll keep it around.

Currently Reading
Escape Velocity, because reading The Warlock's Companion got me hooked on the history of that universe (St. Vidicon interrupted, but Escape Velocity is a better story). That Netgalley book, because it's going to expire - Orphanage of Miracles. And The Girl Who Circumnavigated... - same thing, it needs to go back to the library pretty soon.

BOMBs
The Microbe Hunters is out! Apparently it gets good reviews, so maybe someone will want it on Bookmooch. Funny...now I need to reread Prehistoric America, my textbook favorite from my early teens. That one is the history of paleontology - and geology, a bit, and this, that, and the other thing. But I think it's written, at least a bit, in the same "isn't this _interesting_!" mode - so maybe it's a matter of when you first encounter it. Or maybe Anne Terry White can write better than Paul de Kruif. I've reread and enjoyed Prehistoric America a good many times.

I've planted all my assorted buys, and some of the seeds that can go out in the garden. Not all, because I couldn't tell on my plan which were fennel, which dill, etc. I've redone the plan so it has labels, now - http://www.growveg.com/garden-plan.aspx?p=347812 . And added some plants - I gave away my spare asparagus to my next-door neighbor and got some cantaloupe seeds in return (though I think the garden planner is overstating the size. I'll make them grow up a trellis, to fit in the square foot). The p means planted, though I didn't mark every square when there's a bunch of the same plant together.

I still haven't started the seedlings, though I did check my seeds to make sure I have what I need. And discovered I don't have seed for one of the tomatoes I wanted to plant - so I whizzed up the tomatoes I still had of that one (yes, it's still making tomatoes. Now. It's covered in powdery mildew and I need to take it down - but I'm still getting ripe cherry tomatoes off it...). That will take a few days, and I'm not sure the seeds are truly mature enough to be viable, but it's worth trying. Otherwise I can buy a start or seeds.

And I had some very considerate vandals in the garden a few days ago. They tromped all over, but carefully avoided any green plants - they walked on beds containing some root plants (strawberries and asparagus), and all over some seeds, but I don't think they actually hit anything that was growing yet. What they did do was snap every string that was marking out the paths. I haven't bothered to replace them - at this point, I can see where the paths and the beds are because I've tromped on the paths and they're noticeably lower than the beds which are all fluffed up. But sheesh.

Books Read
28. Escape Velocity by Christopher Stasheff. Fun fluff, a little preachy but worth rereading every now and then.
29. The Warlock Wandering by Christopher Stasheff. See above. Fun pair, but I think I'm done with the Warlock for now.

Currently Reading
Nothing, at the moment. Going to read Orphanage of Miracles and The Girl Who Circumnavigated... Plus two more books, one triggered by someone else's successful Name That Book search - The Children of Primrose Lane - and one a recommendation from Robin McKinley on her blog - Tanglewreck. Both library books (I have to go get them). Primrose Lane is in my local library, I'll pick it up tonight. Tanglewreck is in the county library, so I'll get that when I return the E.D. Baker books and Girl Who. Oh, and one more thing - I guess it counts as reading, since I'm going through the whole thing (skimming a lot, though) - the America's Test Kitchen D.I.Y. Cookbook. Neat stuff, but the first section on pantry staples (where I still am) has a _lot_ of various types of hot sauce...which I don't eat/use. So skimming. When I get to the snacks section, and the dairy one, there will be less skimming and more drooling, I expect. Already found a couple recipes for things I make or would like to make; for instance, candied ginger. I do make it myself, but not quite the way they have it; I'll try a batch their way and see if I like it better.

(83) Sorry to hear about the vandals. Don't they have a movie to go watch, somewhere?

My dh once worked very hard loosening a patch of ground behind our mobile home (in a park). He had worked in manure,and piled it up into a neat mound, and was going to plant strawberries in it. Then one of the neighbor's son rode his dirt bike through it repeatedly, breaking it down and all over. To be fair, although the son was an adult, I don't think he realized what the dirt was for: he just saw it as something to drive through...

Wow. I really disappeared for a while. OK, back to posting.

Books Read
30. The Silvered, by Tanya Huff. Excellent, of course - it's a Huff. New kind of werewolves, in a medieval moving to Renaissance fantasy setting.
31. The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, by Catherynne Valente. Interesting, I want to read the next one, not really satisfying.
32. The Johnstown Flood, by David McCullough. His first, I think. Lots of detail, some of which would have been better expressed in graphics (maps!), again not quite satisfying. Though I learned a lot.
33. The Stranger in Primrose Lane (Children of Primrose Lane), by Noel Streatfeild. Weird split-brained reading - my 11-year-old self was overjoyed to reread this favorite, my now-self thought it was interesting but their choices were annoying.
34. Home from the Sea, by Mercedes Lackey. Wonderful. Not my absolute favorite Elemental Mage story, but well up there - and it pretty much dissolved a bad mood brought on by a day of utter frustration.
35. The Mostly True Story of Jack, by Kelly Regan Barnhill. Bleah. Mildly interesting universe, confusing setup, uninteresting "hero", too much deus ex machina.

All of these except The Johnstown Flood are library books. So only one BOMB in the lot.

Currently Reading
The Orphanage of Miracles (I think, unless it disappears. I've lost track of when it goes). The Jason Voyage by Tim Severin - fun. Enchanted Again by Robin D. Owens...interesting, but I'm delaying. I had decided I wasn't interested in the first book in the series, so now I'm trying to decide if I want to read this then go back for the other, or get the first one. I think I'll just read this (I'm already several chapters in, anyway). The DIY Cookbook, still - well, I put it down and haven't picked it up in a month (been busy!). But it's on the table next to the sofa, my reading spot. And I have a huge stack of library books - 7 books I haven't otherwise mentioned - that I really need to read before they're due. And one of them is the second book in a series that I have the first one of but haven't read...sheesh. (Chicory Up is the library book; I have Thistle Down but haven't read it yet).

BOMBs
The Johnstown Flood. I'm not really interested in rereading, but I want to pass it on to Mom, and she's drowning in books right now. So not getting rid of it, yet.

I've been (mildly) sick, haven't gotten enough sleep (entirely my own fault, for the most part), have been doing stuff hither and yon, and got way behind in my posting. I have been making it to the garden pretty well, though I missed a whole week once and nearly as much another time - that's another post I need to do. I've done a DevFest at Google, an Android class in San Francisco, and a mini-Meetup with Zoë and Shelley at Green Apple Books (and now I need to go back sometime when I can spend a whole day there). Oh, and made strawberry jam - an online class. The jam will be good, I think, but the class was utterly frustrating because the teacher didn't do anything but post videos of her cooking her jam. Not nearly enough detail, no timeline, no hints, and those few questions that got asked never got answered. So bah. The day I made my jam was the frustration day that Home From the Sea cured.

Next week I'm going up to Portland, OR for a Culinary Symposium - an SCA event. Which means I need garb (medieval clothing) for two or three days - which I don't really have - plus I need to know what the weather is going to be. And pack sleeping things - it's at a camp, and the last one I did I forgot my sleeping bag and had to go buy one. And I'm going to miss Easter, too, because it's that weekend (wahh!). But it should be fun nevertheless. It's just a big process, and as usual I've left most of it to the last minute. Not to mention that I'm supposed to have a couple things embroidered by April 1 - which is the day I get back from the Symposium (I'm driving. Not stitching). I think I'm going to be late, that's all. With a good excuse, I didn't get the patterns until late. But gotta pack, and I think make at least one more tunic. And start seeds! They should be all right for a few days. And clean up my house a little, because Mom is going to have to be the one to come over and take care of the cats and the plants, and she can't stand the way it is now (too crowded, which I don't mind, and too grubby and cat-hairy, which I do mind but haven't had time and/or energy to deal with). And I need to make soup with the stuff that's threatening to rot in my fridge - and make pesto, because I'm out - and and and... A couple weeks' worth of work to do in 4 days. Whee. So of course I pick now to post...

I was wondering where you were...that maybe you got lost in your garden? ;)

Welcome back!

Books Read
36. Enchanted Again, by Robin D. Owens. Not bad, not wonderful. Too much "if the sex is great it must be true love", but she did manage to draw me into that universe. So now I need to find the first book.
37. Tanglewreck, by Jeanette Winterson. Another bleah, very similar to Jack - too much deus ex machina. Plus random events that she only mentions, a few chapters later, when they become important...plus language/voice lack of continuity. Honestly, given it's about time travel and alternate worlds and the like, I thought she might be making a point - but if so, she never admitted it, so it just looks like bad writing.

Currently Reading
The Orphanage of Miracles - it's not good, I can only stand a chapter or two before I have to put it down. Still, theoretically, reading The Jason Voyage - I put it aside to finish some of the library books before my trip. And with the number of disappointing books I've read recently, I keep getting urges to reread some Lackey or Huff or someone like that, a book I can trust to be good. I'm trying to keep to new ones. Though I should not be reading so many library books! Well, I'll come up with something to read for the next couple days, then I go on my trip and won't be reading much until I get back.

Sorry you're in the middle of a bunch of blah reads--hate it when that happens!

I take a break with a tried-and-true when my new reads are awful.

Go for it! Read Take A Thief or something!

Books Read
38. Smoke and Ashes, by Tanya Huff. Just lovely. Huff is very good at finding the exact right phrase - the lightning bolt rather than the lightning bug. So I kind of took the middle path - a book I hadn't read before, but I knew (well, practically knew) it would be good. Hmmm - not sure it counts as a BOMB though, since I bought it last week. Ah well. At least it's out of the "not sure about these" boxes and onto my shelves. Yeah, I guess it counts.

Currently Reading
See above.

Books Read
39. High Stakes, by Dick Francis. I picked it up (from a free pile) because I wasn't certain I owned it. I do, of course, so I need to get rid of this copy and I'm not even cataloging it. But I'm definitely keeping the other copy. The problem with Dick Francis for me is that the titles and the subjects often don't link up. Some do - To the Hilt is about the swordhilt, Reflex is the photographer - but this one just doesn't tie in. I like the toyman, but can't remember which book is his. Good story, with some interesting twists on the standard formula.
40. The Jason Voyage, by Tim Severin. Finally finished. Good story - I really liked the way he integrated the story of the original Argo's voyage as he told the story of his Argo's trip. Fun to read, even if the original story ends in several serious downers. Now I want to read The Brendan Voyage and his other ones.
41. The Testing, by Joelle Charbonneau. A NetGalley eARC (in return for a review). Very interesting story, that managed to keep my interest despite being post-apocalyptic and full of manipulators and plots (both of which I tend to avoid). The POV character was a good guy, though. But a lot more tell than show - possibly because it was written in first person present tense. A lot of dialog was subsumed into quick sentences and paragraphs of description...which weakened the story, to me. So - not wonderful, glad I read it, intend to find the next book when it comes out, and I'll be looking for more from this author. She apparently mostly writes mysteries.

Currently Reading
Still have five library books and Orphanage of Miracles waiting for me. I've been recovering from my trip and not reading much (or doing much of _anything_!). OK, try to read some of those. Oh yeah, and need to try The Mythical Man-Month - I've gotten a Bookmooch request for it. If I'm slogging after the first couple chapters, I'll send it out unread - but I thought I'd read it when I offered it on BM. Whoops. I'd _like_ to skim through it and send it out in the next couple days - we'll see how heavy it is to read. Oh, and I forgot - my new table book (since I finished The Jason Voyage) is Tourney Cooking, that I bought at the Culinary Symposium. Interesting.

BOMBs
The Jason Voyage...and I may be getting rid of it. I haven't decided yet. I did enjoy reading it, but I'm unlikely to read it again anytime soon (his other books yes, this one no). So - more room on my shelves (particularly as it's a hardback. Hmmm.

So on March 28th, Thursday, I headed up to Portland Oregon (well, to Camp Namanau, an hour or so east of Portland) for an SCA cooking symposium. It was quite a trip - I got back, physically, on Monday night, but it took until the next Thursday before I felt even moderately back to normal. Look, I wasn't even reading! Shows how bad off I was.

Thursday the 28th - meant to leave at 7 am. Actually left at 2 pm (I had to get my car its overdue oil change. That's a whole saga itself - see below). Got about 50 miles from home (Vallejo), got gas, puttered around shopping. Left there about 5 pm, which meant I was not going to get to do a Jelly Belly Factory tour (I pass it regularly, but am usually either in a hurry or it's too late, like this time. I did it once, but on a weekend so the factory wasn't running). Oh well. So drove on up 80 and 5 and up to Ashland, where my nephew and his fiance are going to college; arrived about 10 pm, I think. I was sleeping on a couch in their living room - they were playing various games, so I pulled out my computer. I needed to make a new MP3 CD - my car radio will play those (200 songs, on shuffle!) but the one I'd burned the day before I left kept erroring out. And did various other things, including reading and posting on LT. Went to sleep about 3 am, when they finished playing. This is only slightly late for me, though doing it while I'm doing long-range driving was rather dumb.

Next morning, left the house about 9, left Ashland about 1230 after eating breakfast in a cafe and stopping at Safeway. BTW - the way I stay awake in long-distance driving is eating. Being smart, I'd brought along a lot of baby carrots and cut-up celery; also candy, bread, cheese...it all helps. So another late start. I'd intended to leave early, race up 5 to Portland and spend a couple hours at Powell's Books. By the time I'd gotten up nearly to Portland and gotten another tank of gas, I'd have arrived at Powell's about 5:30, and I wanted to get to the camp while it was still daylight. So I decided I'd go to Powell's on Sunday, and headed straight for the camp. This was very smart. It's a Campfire Girls camp, originally built in the 1920s or '30s, and the road to it, while perfectly simple and findable (with GPS help) in daylight, would have been a creeping nightmare in the dark. And it was pretty dim under those trees even though it was an hour or more before sunset, when I did get there! Got there, signed in, got my cabin assignment and moved in (to a top bunk - very like home, though the endboards ladder was a lot worse to climb. Poor spacing, and a headboard). Went back and got dinner, and chatted with a lot of people. Found out that while the cheese class I'd wanted to take had been cancelled (which I knew before I set out), it had been replaced by another (very different) cheese class. The original had been on how to make cheese for aging, which is something I want to get into (having more or less mastered fresh cheeses); the replacement was on making skyr, a Norse cheese that varies from cream cheese to Greek yogurt in consistency, with a rather sour flavor. Fun, and interesting, but. Anyway, that was for the next day. Bed, in the dark. Nice warm cabins, though.

Breaking this up, because otherwise it's ridiculous.

Our cabin - named after Winnie the Pooh characters.


My bunk (top).

In the morning, it was pretty cold out - again, nice _warm_ cabins. Amazing the difference central heating makes. Heavy condensation on every window. On the other hand, by the time the sun was full up about 10 am, it had gotten quite warm - and by noon, it was plain _hot_. Which is ridiculous for Oregon in March, but there you are. Fortunately I'd packed layers (of garb - I don't have a lot anyway!). I never did wear my flannel tunic, it was too heavy. Linen over cotton in the morning, and just linen (over a shirt and trews, same as in the morning) after noon. And boots (Ugg knockoffs, two sizes too big - with no socks) in the morning, then sandals after noon.

Breakfast was good, if a little startling in spots. You really don't expect onions in your oat porridge - at least, I don't. Not many, but...I didn't notice them until after I'd put in the raisins and milk. Not quite a normal combination. And scrambled eggs, and bacon, and rolls and butter and honey. Then a class called Just Desserts - how to make medieval-style desserts while camping, cooking over a fire (or, OK, on a camp stove - but the sample recipe we did was on a fire). The one we made was Poached Pears in Red Wine Sauce - a very easy and extremely yummy recipe. Canned pears - that took care of the poaching - in pear juice or very light syrup. Mix red wine (sweetish), vinegar, some of the pear juice, some cinnamon (ground from the stick in a mortar and pestle), and some crushed candied ginger; put it over heat (the fire) in a non-reactive bowl (stainless steel - yeah, not period) and stir until it thickens a bit. Pour it over the pears, and eat. Yum. No alcohol left (I'm allergic - I did a lot of sniffing before I tasted any), extremely easy and extremely easy to modify (use a different alcohol. Add another fruit along with the pears, or in the sauce while it's simmering - his suggestion was cherries, and cherry mead or cordial (ok, no idea how easy that would be to find outside the SCA). Etc. Fun class, even though the first hour was spent mostly getting the fire started!

Just Desserts class - cooking in the fireplace.


Then...Pies and Pasties, learning how to make various medieval pies. My group made veal pasties - hand-pies, with veal simmered in water and vinegar, and currents, and a few other things. I mostly made the crust on that one, and helped with the filling; I saw the recipe but didn't really focus. I'm hoping the teacher will be able to email the handout - hasn't happened yet. Other groups made Tart in Ember Day - a cheese-and-egg pie, for Christian fast days (that is, meatless), Tart Bianca which is a kind of white custard, and a mushroom pie. All yummy, but they took too long - we were quite late for lunch because the pies refused to come out of the oven. But we did get lunch...um, a chicken thing, I think, unless that was dinner. And what had been made in the morning classes. And stuff - rolls, and so on.

After lunch was a class on researching period recipes in cultures that didn't write down what they were eating - most of them, before about 1300. There's a little info on England in the 1100s, but it's mostly "wow, lookit how many animals were slaughtered and loaves of bread baked for this feast!" which tells you a little about what the nobility ate...though not so much the recipes. Earlier, and elsewhere, mostly what you get is travelers saying "Look at the weird stuff these people would eat!", which is even less useful for everyday foods (since a) if the food was similar to the traveler's, he wouldn't even mention it and b) what he did mention he was likely to express in the worst possible way.). So a long lecture on what wouldn't work to find foods, and the conclusion that the best way was archaeology - the kind where they can determine from pollen grains and food residues the sort of stuff that was eaten, though not how or in what format. It was mildly interesting, but I was kind of falling asleep.

Then the skyr class - which was again interesting, but I know how to make fresh cheese. Not a lot of new info about the cheese, though how and why it was used (Iceland needed to make food that would keep, because there was nothing harvestable for far too many months of the year! So they did a lot of lactobacillus preserving - the skyr was useful, but it was really the whey that was important) was new and interesting info. Then some free time, because the skyr class didn't run as long as the other cheese class would have - I bought some very interesting pamphlets on SCA cooking. I'll be adding them soon - that's one of the things I haven't got to yet. Reading one at the table - huh, I forgot to list that in Currently Reading. The handout for the Just Desserts class was a pamphlet, too - very nicely made. The others were just stapled sheets, which is more what I expect.

Final class of the day was Comparative Piecrusts - how to make some of the piecrusts they would have used in period, plus a gluten-free one that was supposed to be comparable. Not bad, but very crumbly (unsurprisingly). It was also made with stuff that could have been used in period (no indication it was, but they knew all of it. No xanthan gum or the like). We did the gluten-free, if you couldn't guess. The other three were a shortcrust - more or less a modern piecrust - and two "coffins" - self-supporting pie crusts that were crust and pan in one, one with cold lard and the other with hot. This one I have the handout for. Also a discussion of the regular question of whether 'coffin' crusts were eaten; we came to the conclusion, which makes sense to me, that _someone_ ate them. Probably not the nobility, but gravy-soaked trencher bread was handed out to the poor, who ate it - bet the coffin crusts went too, if the nobles didn't eat them. Unfortunately the crusts didn't have time to chill properly, or something, so some of them kind of collapsed while they were baking (with an egg-and-cheese filling). Still tasty, but not such a good example of a coffin.

Then dinner - and late to dinner, again because of the pies. Also because I decided to half-pack out - I got all the stuff I wouldn't need the next day and put it in my car, so I could take the rest in one (large) bag in the morning and be out of my cabin when I went to breakfast. Oh, I didn't mention that the cars were in a car park that was up a steepish, oh...50-foot, 100-foot? staircase. Made of railroad ties set varying distances apart to provide steps. I'll try to add pictures. It was a very nice camp - but hauling my stuff up that staircase was quite a job.

The Grand Staircase - it goes on for about half as long after the curve


So I came down, about 45 minutes late for dinner, and one side of the serving table was pretty much empty and the other side had rolls and things-cooked-in-class in the afternoon (our pies, and two other classes' pies...there was kind of a pie theme going on. The other classes were investigations of specific cookbooks). So I got what l could find, and ate it - at which point the much-delayed dinner was finally served. Yay, I hadn't missed it!

That was the chicken, actually, and meatballs but I didn't get any. Lunch was hand-pies (think Hot Pockets, but freshly baked). And cookies, and cake (birthday cake for the organizer of the event. Who, by the way, had a 6-week-old (?) baby in arms....). Not period (chocolate cake), but yummy.

A lot of people stayed up, after dinner. Saturday night at an event is usually the socializing night - a lot of drinking, even more talking, jokes and games and I went to bed. And was asleep before midnight - unnatural event, for me. But I was _tired_.

The Meadow - the center of the camp. My cabin is about 250 feet behind the viewpoint in this picture, up a steepish hill; Raker Hall, where we ate, is about 200 feet from where the road runs out of view, also up a steep hill.

Next morning was nippy again. Oh yes, and my nice Birkenstock clog sandals, which I'd worn before but not for very long at a time, turned out to be very much not broken in. So I had nice ex-blisters on the tops of my feet. Ow. Fortunately my boots didn't bother them, because my sneakers did - but I did have shoes I could wear for the trip home. I gathered all my stuff and moved out of the cabin, hauling it down to the main hall for breakfast. I was trying to decide if I'd take another class - the one that sounded interesting Sunday morning was Care and Feeding of Cast Iron. But it was supposed to go to noon, and I wanted to go to Powell's, and...yeah. I headed out after breakfast. Oh, I forgot - that was Easter Sunday, so there was a little egg-hunt (plastic eggs with candy in them). I found a couple. So I left about 9:40 (after hauling my stuff up to the car, then rearranging everything so I could pull out what I'd need for that night in Ashland, plus having trip food and water and so on handy).

Got to Portland about 11 (yeah, the camp was a ways out). Powell's has parking, though it gets pricey pretty quickly - if you're in and out in two hours and buy something, it's only $1.60, but if you take any longer it goes up to $4/hour (the first two are $1.60/hour, and one hour validated if you buy something). I ended up spending 3 hours and $5.60 on parking - not too bad. Went and checked the SF - I found a few things, but not the ones I was particularly looking for (nothing off my wishlist, specifically). Then wandered around - childrens gave me Chuck and Danielle by Peter Dickenson, which had been highly recommended by Robin McKinley (who is his wife, an excellent author in her own right, the owner of multiple sighthounds (which Chuck is, in the story), and a very fun blogger. Ahem. And a few others - some stuff in knitting; they had a weaving book I wanted but I couldn't convince myself it was worth $22...like that. I managed to escape for just over $60 - not too bad.

Headed south about 2 pm. Pretty much went straight through to Ashland...but between the late start, and the fact that I kept falling asleep at rest stops (more or less deliberately - it was better than falling asleep on the road), I got there about 8 pm. This time I only stayed up until 2 am - I had more to do on the computer (catching up!) but I kicked my nephew out (of his living room!) and went to sleep.

Next morning got on the road relatively early - about 8:15. I'd bought food for breakfast - yogurt and bread and cheese and milk - before, so I didn't stop (besides, the cafe I ate at before wasn't particularly wonderful). But between still being sleepy and having pulled something in my right leg, so I kept having to stop, I got to Fairfield and Jelly Belly at about 3:30, when they closed the tours at 4. I could have done it - I mean, I was in time - but it was Spring Break. The line of parents and kids was literally out the door - a couple hundred ahead of me, at an estimate. Not gonna happen. So I puttered around, managed _not_ to buy any candy, and left about 4:10. And puttered my way home, getting home (which is normally about a hour's drive) at 7:40. I did have to buy gas, and I did some food shopping on my way home because I'd eaten my perishables before I left. Anyway, home. And slept, and slept, and slept...and did chores, and placated my cats, and did laundry, and slept...

Oh, and the oil change - I was very clever and intelligent and I planned to get my oil changed on Tuesday, so I'd have plenty of time before I left on Thursday. On Tuesday morning, I hopped in my car and drove downtown - and found the roads blocked off in all directions around Big O Tires, where I get it done. It wasn't actually Big O, but there had been a major fire that morning across the street, and the cops had the whole block shut down. Ooookay...

Next day, Wednesday, I meant to get the oil change done and then go home and pack. Except I started packing and cleaning up and just a couple things, right after breakfast...At 4:15, I took the car to Big O. I thought they did oil changes until 5 - whoops, no, they stopped accepting cars at 4. Oh dear. Well, I could go to Jiffy Lube or something - but I wanted the car checked over before the trip, not just a straight oil change. I looked at my schedule and figured I had some slack, I'd bring the car in at 7:30 am Thursday and leave not too much later.

And on Thursday - again, I got up early (though not as early as I'd intended) and started doing just a couple more things to get ready. I got to Big O at noon - at which point they informed me there'd been a sudden rush, and while they could do my car no problem it would take a couple hours. Oookay again - and this was entirely my fault, so I couldn't even complain. So I wandered up and down Park Street for a while, and ate lunch (the sandwich I'd packed for road food), then came back to Big O because my phone was dying and I wouldn't get it if they called me. Sat around and did some Kumihimo braiding - I couldn't even read, because I hadn't brought a book and my phone was dying. Got the car (they'd had to adjust the alignment - they do that well) at 2 pm, and headed out.

So I got home Monday night. Tuesday I went to my parents and did laundry (it's cheaper than the laundromat, and besides I like hanging out with them). We were supposed to go out for a grazing dinner, but it got canceled until next month (whew)! Came home and slept. Wednesday I needed to do an emergency gleaning - I think I've mentioned before that I'm a member of Alameda Backyard Growers, who among other things help homeowners pick their fruit trees, and donate (most of) the fruit to the Alameda Food Bank. In this case, an orange tree had fallen over for too much fruit and too little pruning. There was an email exchange asking for gleaners, but there aren't many who can do it on weekdays, so I agreed - that was Tuesday. The gleaning was at noon on Wednesday. Fun, and interesting - it was in an interior courtyard, and pretty much filled it. The roots were still mostly in the ground, so we were being careful - but we got about 150 pounds of oranges off it (actually, more - that's how much went to the food bank, and the owner took some). The owner is hoping it can be put back up and live. And Wednesday evening was my mom's birthday dinner - just her and Dad and me. We went to a very nice new little restaurant.
Thursday...what did I do Thursday? Oh, yeah, Thursday - or rather Wednesday night - I was _DUMB_. I was playing a game on my computer and when I looked up it was almost dawn. Not quite - it wasn't that simple - but I did end up staying up all night. I do this every once in a while, but not usually when I've been exhausted for days. So Thursday I basically did nothing. Note that nowhere in this list is a visit to my garden...though on Thursday I did manage to water the plants on my balcony (which mostly didn't need it much, it rained while I was gone).
Friday I had a client job - one scheduled, with an old client, and then one with a new client where she called me at noon and I went over at 7 pm. In between I actually made it to my garden. And wow, did the weeds like that rainy weekend...but then, so did my plants. The garden is green all over, and probably a third of it is planted plants. It will be very nice, when I finish re-weeding...but that's going to take a while. And I need to finish the boards! The beds that have boards around them look and work so much better than the ones that don't. Though I have gotten boards around all the ones that were pouring dirt over the edges of the plot - did the garlic bed and one of the middle ones this day.
Saturday - oh. Friday night, late (11:30), I noticed an email exchange between other members of the HOA board, discussing when and where to meet for the HOA association seminar on Saturday. It started at 8 am, so we had to be out there at 7:40 so we could all drive together...whee. So I did - made it in reasonable time, and fortunately our driver was late(ish). We got there, and found parking, and got our badges - but unexpectedly, there was no breakfast-type stuff. Coffee, yes, and tea - but no pastries. Thank goodness I grabbed a banana before I left, as I didn't have time for a proper breakfast. The problem was that every vendor had stuff to eat - but it was all candy. Wow, did I end up sugar-buzzed! Good classes, some of them at least - how to notice the signs of damage _before_ it's a disaster, for instance. We did get lunch. And every vendor also had some kind of prize drawing - by the end of the day, I'd won a $2 lotto scratcher, two Starbucks cards (which I haven't checked, but they're probably about $5), and two Visa gift cards for a total of $150! Very nice. One of my board members won a mini-Keurig and a $50 Lowes card, the other only won a Starbucks card (hers is $5, which is why I think mine is too). Fun. We got home about 5, I went to my parents (per specific and standing invitation) to share dinner with them. After dinner I hauled Mom out to look at my garden, and watered a bit - it's nice to show it off to someone appreciative. Also there was a plant by the entrance that I thought might be a lilac - purple cones of flowers, and a sweet scent. But it's not. Mom loves lilacs, and they're very rare around here - not enough chill hours.
Sunday I actually made it to church on time (I specialize in coming in during the readings. I was there before we started singing the entrance hymn!). After church I started my laundry and went to the garden because there was a garden meeting - got a few things done beforehand, then a rather long meeting, then back to los padres for dinner. Then Mom and I went shopping - my garden boards that I was short of, a self-watering pot at Ikea for Mom, some drugstore stuff. Home (to their house), read the paper, did the crossword with Mom, finished my laundry, came home.
Monday...did very little. The guy came to fix my windshield (oh yeah, didn't mention, I got a rock on the last leg of the trip that put a nice little divot right in the center of my windshield, with a three-armed crack around it). USAA, my insurance company, has this great thing - they will, for free, send someone out to fix a small crack before it turns into a big crack and you have to replace the windshield. This is the third crack I've had fixed, in about three years since I became aware of this - the first was an old one, the other two were fixed pretty soon after the damage was done. Other than that - I read a book (yay!), posted a lot of stuff on LT, not much else. Didn't go to the garden. Didn't start taxes, or the embroidery that needs to be done by the 15th, or my seeds that should probably have been started in February or March at the latest... But it's only 9 pm, I can do a few things before I collapse. Trying not to stay up way past midnight, though.

Wasn't that fun? A complete report of my ridiculous week. (Well, more or less complete. I left out some of the assorted things I've paid attention to.) I'll try not to do it again, at least for a while.

Sounds like a full week! I'm interested in the cooking classes you took. We go camping a few times a year and I think it would be fun to try some older recipes made over the fire.

Sounds like a very interesting and FULL weekend, Jenn! Only problem was not enough reading in it.

I enjoyed your "What I did on my summer vacation" sort of posts. Really. :)

Books Read
42. Tourney Cooking, by Kelli Bausch. Interesting pamphlet cookbook - some recipes (classed by how/where to cook them - at home, on site, or combo) and lists of more, in other books; and a lot of tips and information about how to store food at events and useful equipment for cooking.
43. Ruins, by Lazette Gifford. A re(re, re, re) read of an ebook. I love Ruins - thinking about it or describing its plot, it seems very minor, but the characters and the events have long since sunk into my worldview. Very rich.
44. Muse, by Lazette Gifford. My other constant reread by Zette. Very funny, especially when he actually figures out what's going on...not the mystery, that comes later. Just the town.
45. The Girl in the Iron Mask, by Peter O'Donnell. New Modesty Blaise strip compilation - very new, I got it from Amazon today, and read it immediately. I do love Modesty. I enjoyed all the stories - none of them are outstanding, but all good. And now I want to reread the whole set - maybe later.
46. Chuck and Danielle, by Peter Dickinson. Robin McKinley, on her blog, recommended Peter's childrens' stories, including this one (he's her husband). I found it at Powell's, so it's pretty new (to me) and doesn't count as a BOMB. Fun story - I like Chuck. And Robin says the character of Chuck, if not the precise events, are based on real dogs (one in particular, and several in general) that they owned.

Currently Reading
The Mythical Man-Month, which is very odd - the early chapters, with broad strokes of structuring programming projects, made sense to me, though I didn't go into detailed thought about them. The later chapters, with more detail, are...very interesting computer history, but things like whether to use interactive debugging because typewriters (as dumb terminals) are too slow...yeah. Not really applicable any more. I'll be interested all over again when I get to the last few chapters, which are new to this (2008) 20th anniversary edition. And it will count as a BOMB, though it's a little odd - I promised it to a Bookmoocher, then discovered that I had not in fact read and reviewed it (must have gotten it confused with some other book). So I've been reading my copy, but I need to send it out, so I got it (same edition, thank goodness) out of the library and will finish on that. Not a book I need to own, I'm happy to have mooched it out, but I do want to read it and make it part of my internal library.
Also A Culinary Reference Manual - another Feudal Gourmet pamphlet, about medieval cooking in general. Only two recipes so far, but those dissected - starting with the medieval recipe, then a translation into modern terms and a discussion of how, exactly, that's done.
And (still) The Orphanage of Miracles. I have to get it read! I'm more than half-way through, but...
Returned Chicory Up, that's from my local library. I can get it again when I've read Thistle Down. Renewed the other three, though it turns out I bought one (The Thirteenth Child) at Powell's. Still simpler to hold on to it with the others. But I should get started on them. I'll enjoy them when I do start, I'm pretty sure...

Got out to my garden on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday (for a very quick visit) and Sunday. I've (re-)weeded all the front beds, which all have boards around them; the two back beds, though, are both boardless and mostly unweeded. I went through and pulled a few weeds from around things I'd planted - the corn and marigolds. Did my weeding a little too enthusiastically a few places, and pulled up plants I wanted - but I put some back, we'll see how they do. And I found a parsley and several squash of some sort, that I didn't plant. I know the parsley is parsley - it smells and tastes right. The squash is a guess, but the leaves are pretty distinctive. I just have no idea what _kind_ of squash they'll be - pumpkins or zucchini or - I don't know, pattypan. But I hate to pull them up.





Quick look at what it looks like now...

Congratulations on being industrious in your garden, Jenn! My peas are done, and I've just planted tomatoes and cucumbers, but something is eating all my cucumber seedlings! I have carrots and beets from earlier plantings, not ready for harvest yet. But my sweet peas have finally started blooming, and I love my sweet peas!

Books Read
47. The Thirteenth Child, by Patricia Wrede. I read this years ago and put it on my wishlist - just finally obtained it, at Powell's. I actually have it and the sequel Frontier Magic from the library - but I read _my_ book, just 'cause. Frontier Magic next. Still a great story.
48. Across the Great Barrier, by Patricia Wrede. I only meant to pick it up and read the first chapter or two. It's now 0330...luckily I don't have to get up all that early tomorrow. Still going to be a short night, but I'm not sorry.

Currently Reading
The Mythical Man-Month - reading the library book now, I've mailed off my copy. I was very confused for a bit until I realized I was wrong about the date of the new edition - the original was 1975, the new edition was 1995. He's talking about this wonderful new thing, object-oriented programming...
Haven't gotten back to A Culinary Reference Manual. Now that there's no time-pressure on MMM, I may finish that up. And I need to read the library books - Thirteenth Child (because I had to read it before Frontier Magic - two years is too long), Frontier Magic, and The Iron Ring by Lloyd Alexander. And various other stuff, but that's all that's active now.
Heh. The _series_ is Frontier Magic, the next book was Across the Great Barrier. And the next one is The Far West - I'll head over to the library and collect that either tomorrow or Monday.

Edited this post, rather than making a new one, because it's still the same day (that is, it was after midnight when I listed Thirteenth Child).

I have pea flowers about to bloom now - but they're white! I'll have to get some peas from Mom, hers are purple. I don't know where my purple flowers went...I guess I went back to some older seeds.

Mom's peas (a couple miles from my garden, but planted a month earlier) are in full harvest mode right now - as in, a good big handful a day off four plants. Enough to mix into a salad - and always a few that get missed and turn into full peas (so need to be stripped out of the pod and cooked).

And my nasturtiums are finally blooming - I picked up some pods from a plant at a building I visit about once a month. Pretty variegated leaves - green and white, like some hostas. But I swear the flowers on the plant I got the pods from were crimson - these are blooming yellow. ?? Either my memory is at fault (perfectly possible), there were yellow-flower plants there as well and I just happened to get pods only from them (two plants from two pods) even though they weren't the ones blooming (they were already done, and leaving pods?), or nasturtiums change color with different circumstances (which I've never heard of them doing). The middle possibility seems the most likely, actually, and somewhat annoying - I liked the crimson. Ah well. I'll keep an eye out for another plant like that (the one I got the pods from has been pulled out long since).

Books Read
49. A Culinary Reference Manual, by Eden Rain. I may use it, but it's not a fun reading book. Interesting, though.
50. The Castafiore Emerald, by Herge. I do like Tintin - but when I read him, sometimes I have to struggle to remember that...
51. Tintin in America, by Herge. Better than The Castafiore Emerald, but very (very very) stereotyped.
52. The Iron Ring, by Lloyd Alexander. Very similar in many ways to the books of his I know best, Taran Wanderer and that series. Different setting, but the same sort of glory-blinded youngster learning reality as protagonist.

Currently Reading
Almost - almost! - finished with The Mythical Man-Month. I like his concepts, but as soon as he gets down to specifics it turns into a mildly interesting computer-history discussion rather than anything useful. Just ran across something I hadn't considered, though - by the time I was paying attention to commercial computer software, what he calls "shrink-wrapped" software was the standard and custom work was rare - like a tailor-made suit. I hadn't realized how much of a switch that was from just a few years previously. Which is part of why his examples make little sense to me.
Beyond that - nothing, at the moment. Several books I've been reading, but put down for whatever reason, and none appeal to me right now. Still a couple library books - The Far West by Patricia Wrede, Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld (thanks for the book bullet, Roni (ronincats)!), and The Emperor's Soul by Brandon Sanderson. And I found Elemental Magic by Mercedes Lackey on my shelf (when I went to put it away along with the rest of my Powell's buys) - apparently I only read a few of the stories in it when I first found it ages ago. And - lots of maybes, nothing right now.

It's gotten hot this week, and my plants are definitely taking advantage of it. I harvested - oh, maybe 3 or 4 pounds (half of a reusable grocery bag full) of spinach off my dozen or so plants, cutting basically all the big leaves off and leaving them two or three small leaves in the center. Came back two days later and all of them had big leaves lying down as well as a cluster in the center - I could have harvested another pound right then. I didn't - left them to grow. I made pesto from half the spinach (plus some basil), and gave the other half to Mom. Getting peas - not many at a time, but a good handful - every day now; I accidentally harvested a young carrot yesterday (amazing how they look like poison hemlock, particularly when they're tucked under another plant), and today I harvested some deliberately because the seeds had bunched up when I planted them. They needed thinning, so full-size carrots can grow. These are a bit longer than my longest finger but only as thick as my pinkie (at most). More volunteers - a couple nasturtiums popping up where I didn't plant any. And Sunday I planted a whole bunch of seeds - more corn, beans and pumpkins by the corn, nasturtiums, cilantro, parsley, lots of native blue and white flowers (lots of baby blue eyes, also yarrow and flax), more carrots, other stuff that I've forgotten.

Ah, it's been long enough since I posted that I haven't said that I also _finally_ got around to planting the seeds at home - and they've germinated, most of them. I have dozens of tiny little two-leaved sprouts, that will be tomatoes (mostly) and basil. Also planted parsley (which takes a while) and oregano, anise and caraway (no idea how long they'll take). Need to plant strawberries still (little ones, Mignonette), and I want to plant peanuts too (I think I weeded up the peanuts I planted in the garden, if they managed to sprout). Need to find some raw peanuts in the shell.





I've been busy - work, and a friend come to visit my parents and I like to hang out with her too. Next weekend is the library book sale, and the theater gala I'm helping with (plus Free Comic Book Day, and the grand opening of a garden store owned by a friend, and a few other things). The weekend after...is actually free, at the moment. Next one is Maker Faire (I'll be helping with setup from Thursday on), plus my HOA annual meeting (and since I'm on the board, I need to attend); the one after that is BayCon, and my sister will be coming down for that (and her husband and one of her sons). Hmmm, I'm supposed to have heard something about volunteering for that, too...maybe poke them. So that takes care of May. Early in June - not sure if it's over June 1 weekend or June 8 - los padres are going to Tahoe and I'll be going too (always fun). Then a couple weeks/weekends free, during (one of) which I'll be running a ReadaThing, then Relay for Life (cancer research fundraiser). And that pretty much kills June. Whee! Fit some reading in there, as well as cleaning house and little things like work.

Books Read
53. The Mythical Man-Month by Frederick P. Brooks. As I've said above - good concepts, but his examples (even in the final, 20-year update chapter (as of 1995) are so antique that I can't really apply them to anything I've done or am likely to do. I'm glad I swapped this out. I finished reading it as a library book (so if I _really_ want it again...).
54. The Far West by Patricia Wrede. The last (so far, anyway) Great Barrier book - nice, well-done, nicely rounded off with enough space for another adventure or two. She's married by the end of it, but that won't stop her.
55. The Raven Ring by Patricia Wrede. This was a book bullet, out of Name That Book. One of my favorite Wrede books, and it had been bugging me to get read for a while (Eleret kept popping up and rerunning a few scenes in my head).
56. Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld. Fun, neat society, interesting characters (all of them), I definitely want to read the other two in the trilogy. I'm not sure I'll ever reread them, but I definitely want to read them.
57. The Emperor's Soul by Brandon Sanderson. I don't know why I read so few Sandersons - every one I do read is excellent. Very enjoyable, which is surprising with the amount of plotting and manipulation in it.
58. The Only Cowboy for Caitlin by Lois Faye Dyer. Picked it up at the library book sale - as a Yay! a new Dyer! Turns out it's the fourth one in a series of which I'd read (and own) the first - now I need the middle two. I do love Dyer. Real characters (though this first and fourth are oddly similar!), neat settings/setups, solid stories.
59. Lonesome Cowboy by Lois Faye Dyer. So of course I had to reread that first one. Fun, though as I said oddly similar to Caitlin and Trey's story. Similar shower scenes, similar obstacles for the man (not so similar for the woman), that sort of thing.
60. Mommy Midwife by Cassie Miles. Picked this one off the shelf - I needed to continue with the light books. Cute, relatively good for a genre romance, not worth keeping.

Currently Reading
Um...again, I have no idea. Nothing complex, I have no brain (see next post). Romances - I'm resisting rereads, though. Mostly. I'll go pick up another romance in a bit.

BOMBs
Mythical Man-Month and Mommy Midwife were the BOMBs this time around, and both are out.

So I got quite sick - starting to be sick last Friday (5/3), running like a madwoman Saturday, Sunday got some things done and then ran out of energy and sat around and read. Monday and Tuesday I spent asleep - didn't even have the energy to read. Wednesday I went to the doctor and found out I had mild bronchitis (besides the flu, which broke - fever broke - Monday night). Antibiotics and an inhaler and cough syrup with codeine - I'm feeling much better now, but still not up to anything deep.

Fortunately, this didn't have much effect on my garden. I have no idea how - either my neighbors stepped in and watered it a few times (one did once, anyway - she told me when I asked), or I understand much less about gardening in the ground than I thought I did. It was hot, most of this last week, and sunny several days (overcast several days, but only a couple of light rain-sprinkles). I dashed out last Saturday (part of my mad running around) and watered, but nothing else, then didn't go back until today. I really expected a wilderness of dying plants with maybe a few tough survivors - but it was lush! Huge plants (I didn't _know_ marigolds could grow that big!), rich green. I harvested the spinach - another bagful, this time I'm going to weigh it - plus carrots (again, for thinning) and peas. There were lots of peas, and most of them hadn't gotten fat (these are snow peas, edible-pod. You're supposed to eat them before they plump up). And the peas were, some of them, nearly the length of my hand. In pots, they tend to start fattening up when they get about the length of my index finger. Amazing. That's good soil.

And my seedlings have real leaves now. When they put out the second set, I'm going to pot them up. I need to plant the starts I bought, though! And I should probably fertilize the seedlings (with fish emulsion - mild fertilizer, unfortunately rather stinky. But effective).

And dinner tonight was spaghetti with pesto (made, a while ago, from my spinach and the TJs basil) and cut-up (but not cooked, except by having hot spaghetti dumped on them) snow peas. Yum.

Books Read
61. The Kissing Blades by Jessica Hall (who is also S.L. Viehl). Not as good as I was expecting - good, but not wonderful. Partly because I thought I'd read the series and apparently I haven't, and don't have the first two books (of the trilogy) - need to hunt those down. Try reading it again in sequence and see if it's better. I think I did read at least one of the others, but if so it was years ago and I didn't note it (so before 2007 when I started tracking read books). Very vague memories.
62. Lord Freddie's First Love by Patricia Bray. Surprisingly good. It's fluff - Regency romance, scandal and true love - but it's well-written fluff. For my understanding of the period, it's accurate - not modern thinkers forced to obey Regency mores, but people willing to endure the scandal because they made the right choice; plus, kissing is as heavy as it gets. I'm going to keep it, as a palate-cleanser when I've read some overheated or anachronistic Regencies.

Currently Reading
Still no plan - just whatever comes up next. I just entered some 35 books from the library book sale (which was two weekends ago), including Lord Freddie; I may pick another from there. Or I may be up to the Elemental Magic book or Jennifer Scales now - feeling better.

BOMBs
Two BOMBs but both keepers, at least for now.

Your garden sounds fantastic, Jenn! And I'm glad you are feeling so much better.

So I weighed the spinach - after it spent the afternoon in an open bag on my counter (so it probably lost a little water weight) it was 24 ounces, a pound and a half. Not bad.

Today I intend to pot up my seedlings - take them out of the cells and put them into (slightly) larger pots. I use plastic cups with slits cut in the bottom - small, light, cheap, waterproof, bleachable and functional. And I can write on them (have to scribble out last year's notes, though).

Also intend to plant all the starts I bought and obtained in the garden, which probably means pulling up a bunch of stuff (poppies, mostly, and some marigolds. And Mom has asked for some of the marigolds if I do pull them up) - they've grown in the space I meant for tomatoes. And need to harvest peas again - not spinach yet, though they're growing fast. I think I cut them back harder this time. Oh, and Mom wants some oregano too, since hers died. Mine is trying to take over, so I'm happy to give her some.

Feeling much better but not yet well. Well enough to catch up on chores, though - here we go!

Well, I got very distracted, by a lot of things. Being sick, and taking trips, and stuff. So here's a long list of the rest of May - I'll put June in the next post.

Books Read
63. Castle Waiting by Linda Medley - read because I finally got Vol 2 (the Definitive Edition). Fun - glad to see old friends again.
64. Castle Waiting Vol 2, the Definitive Edition, by Linda Medley. Lovely. I'd read the earlier edition and complained because it stopped in the middle of a story - this one completes it nicely, answering all the questions I put in my review. And it means she's gone back to writing Castle Waiting, which is a real win.
65. Elemental Magic, edited by Mercedes Lackey. Anthology of stories in her Elemental Mages universe. It was, in fact, quite varied - but the impression I took away was story after story of someone suddenly learning their power and having to go up against some enemy. Several good stories, a few boring ones, overall good but not excellent. But fun seeing different perspectives.
66. Jennifer Scales and the Messenger of Light, by MaryJanice Davidson. It ended well - some excellent conclusions and complicated events nicely wrapped up. But oh lord the beginning (first 2/3rds) was hard to take - typical teenage angst, accurately portrayed which means very boring for anyone who's no longer a teenager.
67. So You Want to Be a Wizard, New Millennium Edition by Diane Duane. Fun as always. Diane has rewritten the books to update the tech and clean up the timeline (messed up mostly by publishing wobbles, in the original publishing) - not really noticeable, and an old favorite. I'm trying to read the whole series through, as she releases the NMEs (though this came out last year and I'm just now getting to it).
68. Deep Wizardry, NME by Diane Duane. Same - I noticed a few variations, but mostly it's the old familiar story. This one makes the choices personal - distinguishes the series from the standard quest style.
69. High Wizardry, NME by Diane Duane. The tech plays a bigger part, so I noticed a few more changes. This is also not a favorite - which means it's merely good, not as excellent as the others.

And then I stopped reading for a while - I volunteered at Maker Faire one weekend, went to Baycon (San Francisco Bay Area Science Fiction Convention) the next weekend (and was presenting, for the first time - a class on braiding plus a few other panels), and the next week we went up to Tahoe (my sister, our parents and I, and our other sister came down from Reno). Lots of fun (and I got a few more books in all three places) but I was running like a madwoman for a while. And I haven't really stopped - or rather, I have, but I need to start up again. More to do! Fun stuff, but more.

BOMBs
Jennifer Scales - trying to decide. It was annoying to read, but ended up very rich...and there's a lot more to the series. What I need to do is find out if it's in the library, in which case I can dump it.

And these are the books I finished in June (started one in May, A Wizard Abroad). Tahoe was actually in June, the first full week - we came home and I sort of collapsed. And I can't - there was last week, and this week, and then I and the parents head out again on a road trip to Palm Springs. It's a long drive, it will be a lot of fun (because they and I agree on fun things to do along the way, like stopping in book stores and thrift shops and nature parks...) but I gotta get ready for it. And I've let the prep wait too long - let's see. Tomorrow a friend of my parents' will be over, who is also a client (and a friend) of mine - we're having lunch with her, but I'm also fiddling with her computer. And then in the evening my HOA board meeting (ugh. I'm on the board...there's no one to take my place, unfortunately). Friday I have another client and then we're going to the Alameda County Fair. Saturday is Relay for Life (if anyone wants to donate to me, it's http://main.acsevents.org/goto/jjmcgaffey ). Sunday I'm reading at church and then I and my sister and brother-in-law are going to see Marian Call and Unwoman at Gamestop in Oakland - Marian is fantastic, I don't know Unwoman yet. Monday we (the parents and I) leave. So there's a little packing and such to be done in there...and I need to buy more cat food and check on all my plants and check on the garden and and and. Oh yeah, and last week was also the ReadaThing, which was fun. Didn't take much time to run, I just had to check in from time to time. But I did have to squeeze in some reading time...

Anyway. On to the books.

Books Read
70. A Point of Honor by Dorothy Heydt - love it. It's not the only thing she's written, but close - I recently heard she _might_ start writing (books) again, and/or release her books as ebooks. Yay, both! Near-future SCA in VR - with the absolute best avowal of love (or at least interest) scene I've ever read. I was slogging in several books, picked this one up and finished it and that got me reading again.
71. Americashire by Jennifer Richardson. Got it through BookTrib (so I put my review on Amazon as well) - an odd little slice-of-life book. Excellent description, nice balance on the line between mockery and gentle amusement, inconclusive ending. I'm glad I read it but I don't think I'll reread.
72. Truckers, by Terry Pratchett. Cute YA with a good deal more serious thought in it that I was expecting. I want to read the others.
73. A Wizard Abroad, NME, by Diane Duane. Lovely as usual (this is one of my favorites), I didn't notice the changes much.
74. Reboots, by Mercedes Lackey and Martin Cody. Picked this up at Baycon - it's two novelettes (one a novella?) in one universe. Martin Cody wrote a novelette that set up the universe, Misty Lackey took his start and ran with it. Her story is better, but I want to see more of his characters too (and the way the book ended, I just might).
75. Fire Season, by David Weber and Jane Lindskold. Another YA, that spent quite a bit of time looking at the protagonist's social interactions (including her first crush), but also had some good adventures. And both parts were neatly interwoven, and at least moderately interesting (unlike Jennifer Scales). Fun - and the next one is out soon.
76. Kumihimo Basics : A Taste of Japanese Braiding by Victoria Inman. A free ebook (some time ago) on Amazon...not worth what I paid for it. There are two kumihimo braid patterns in it, written in a form that I _think_ I understand (I've been doing kumihimo for a couple months now - all the same braiding pattern, in different colorways. So I think I can extract sense out of what she wrote). Plus some warping suggestions that make no sense to me whatsoever, plus a beaded cap for braids that sounds mildly interesting and is completely unintelligible from her instructions... bleah. Glad I didn't pay for it. It's sticking around long enough for me to try the braid patterns, then out (if the braids are good, I'll put the patterns in Evernote - nothing else is worth keeping).
77. My Robin by Frances Hodgson Burnett. A very short piece - and very silly. A lot of the oddly cute language used in The Secret Garden - this is the story of Burnett and the real robin that inspired Mary and her robin in Secret Garden.
78. Deadly Valentine by Justine Davis and Cindy Dees - two short books in one. Dees' story is not terrible, but not particularly good; Davis' is much better, though only run-of-the-mill for her. But rereadable, as Dees' isn't.

Currently Reading
Always a Hero, by Justine Davis. Fun. As usual the characters are really solid. She's wonderful at that. Good plots, but it's the characters that make it for me.

BOMBs
Um...none, I think. Mostly reading ebooks so far this month, plus a couple new(ish) books. Americashire is going away, but I got it two days before I sat down to read so it's not a BOMB. Truckers is also new, and not leaving right away (I want to read the whole series, the latter two probably from the library). And Reboots is both new and staying.
Ah, wait a minute, Deadly Valentine is a BOMB. And a keeper, at least for now - for the Davis story.

So I seem to be having a bout of insomnia, or at least seriously displaced sleep. Yesterday I stayed up until 8 am and then slept till noon - well on the way to doing the same tonight (it's almost 4 am). Need sleep! But it does make for good reading time. And finally gives me some posting-on-LT time...

Books Read
79. Always a Hero, by Justine Davis. Yeah. It's always her characters that make the story - I love Wyatt and Kai, and Jordan for that matter.

Currently Reading
OK - some books I've started but have sort of put down.
Virgin Seduction by Kathleen Creighton - ugh. Talk about overwhelming attraction - even when it's very very stupid. I keep thinking it will get better if I can just get past the setup - so I'm reading a page or two at a time and putting it down when it gets painful.
A Wizard Alone, New Millennium Edition by Diane Duane. I actually started with this one, when it was released - then corrected myself and went back to read the first ones first. I'm almost up to it - just Dilemma to go.
And my current table book is The Map That Changed the World by Simon Winchester. The history is interesting, the geology will be when we get to it...but he keeps spending paragraphs saying essentially "Watch this! He changed everything - watch what he did!" and then going back to setting up the scene. Yawn. It will be good, eventually.

BOMBs
Always a Hero - keeper. Like all the Justine Davises.

So, looks like it's time for congrats!

You've been missed, so I'm glad you dropped in to give us an update. And congratulations on blowing past the 75 book mark!

Congratulations on reaching and surpassing the 75 challenge!

Thanks! I've been reading, and commenting on other threads (in 75 Books and elsewhere), but couldn't muster up the gumption to look at my reading list and enter stuff. And it is a process - I list books twice plus updating the ticker. But I like doing it this way...when I have the energy.

LOL! I'd actually forgotten that this was the _75_ book challenge - and was mildly bewildered by the congrats to Roni. Thanks for waking me up, guys...

And another great gap. I don't know what's up with me. Well, there was Palm Springs, and when I got back a whole bunch of jobs - my phone kept ringing while I was on the trip. Funny. But I've been back almost three weeks now. Dunno.

Books Read
80. The Complete Little Orphan Annie Vol 9, by Hal Gray. Fun as usual - I think this is my first Annie this year, but I've read and re-read this series. This one just arrived from Amazon, and I sat down and read it right away.
Didn't read anything on the Palm Springs trip - too busy.
81. Enemy Waters by Justine Davis. Not bad - only middle-of-the-road for Justine, though. Interesting characters, interesting questions as to who was telling the truth (though given it was a romance novel, it was pretty obvious in the meta-plane).
82. Dragon Bones by Patricia Briggs. Love this - one of my comfort reads.
83. Dragon Blood by Patricia Briggs. Another - I _think_ I like Bones better, but they're both great. I prefer her straight fantasy to the current urban fantasy stuff. She has said she might write sequels to some of her earlier stuff, including this series - yay!
84. Paul the Peddler, by Horatio Alger. I very much enjoy _small_ doses of Alger - too many at one time and I get sick of them, but once in a while is fun. I like Paul and his adventures, though he (like most Alger heroes) has unreasonable doses of good luck.
85. Slow and Sure, by Horatio Alger. Next book in Paul's adventures. There's another one, I think, or a spinoff, but I either don't have it or haven't found it yet. These are both ebooks, off Project Gutenberg.
86. Summon the Keeper, by Tanya Huff. Fluff, but good fluff - intentionally silly. I suppose this counts as urban fantasy - it reads rather like Good Omens, actually. Which makes me want to read that.
87. The Way We Work, by David Macaulay. I do like his books. This was a table book for quite a while - perhaps not the best choice when I was on the digestive system... It isn't very deep, but gives a nice clear overview of a lot of stuff - from the digestive system to the nervous system to immune response (and how that goes wrong with allergies and auto-immune diseases). It's amazing how jury-rigged we are.
88. Omnitopia Dawn, by Diane Duane. I do love this story, and wish the second one would happen. It's a great universe - a set of VR worlds that are just games...until they create something more.
89. The Second Summoning, by Tanya Huff. Same sort as the first book - the next step in the process. With an angel and a devil mixed into things, this time...more Good Omens echoes.
90. Long Hot Summoning, by Tanya Huff. Last in the series (at least, so far). Arthur and mall-elves and otherwise pretty much the same. Nice fluff. I didn't remember the story at all, though I had reading dates on it and other indicators that I had read it before.

Currently Reading
A Wizard's Dilemma, by Diane Duane. I don't _like_ this one, it's too depressing in the end. I need to read it for the series - and there are good bits - but it's taking me forever to get started. And since I've got the basic story pretty well memorized, I'm wincing well before I get to the painful bits.
Still chugging on Virgin Seduction. Actually I haven't picked it up in weeks - but I will finish it before I dump it.
Still reading The Map that Changed the World, too. Not really getting better. The story of the map keeps being submerged under gossip and blab about Smith - and the language is almost as annoying as the one about the search for diseases. I am assured at least once a chapter and at points once a paragraph that Smith's work was really really really important and changed lots of things. And then he goes back to "and his diary says the chalk from here looks rather like the chalk from there, and he had eel pie in this inn, and... Oh yeah, and his financial problems were starting to be serious". Booooring. There's a story here, but...The best source was Smith's diary, and I suspect that Winchester is just trying to expand matters and not just repeat the diary. But I don't like the choices he's made to do so. I will finish it, but...not a favorite.

BOMBs
Enemy Waters, but it's a keeper.

Did much the same with my garden as I did with this thread - fortunately I had a plot-neighbor who watered once in a while, so it's not all dead. The peas are gone, unsurprisingly - it's hot. Well, sort of hot. The cauliflower is gone too, and I didn't get any edible ones - I picked two (one because the gopher was munching on it), but they were quite bitter. I don't know if they were unripe or just not properly blanched. And one flowered while I was gone - and there's so much other Brassica in the garden it's not worth trying to save the seeds - and the last one buttoned (was very small) and then something ate all but one leaf so even if it grew I couldn't blanch it properly. So I pulled it. Gopher also ate most of the roots of my cilantro - one big branch is still growing, leave it until the seed finishes setting. I pulled the rest - well, picked up the rest - and pulled off the seeds - hopefully they'll dry to proper coriander use. The celery is also bolting like mad, and I never got any. So is the spinach, though I got lots of that. I _finally_, two days ago, got my tomato starts into the ground. We'll see how long it takes for me to get tomatoes off them, though I've got some nearly ripe and some still growing on the tomatoes I planted before. The Indigo Rose is seriously weird, it's _black_ and hard. Presumably it will get softer when it ripens, and it's supposed to go more brown-purple then. I've harvested some garlic - some bulbed, some stayed a single clove (which is "green" garlic). Still some in the ground. Also carrots. Strawberry flowers and runners, no berries yet. The corn is growing, we'll see if I managed to fertilize these cobs better. And the beans are climbing the stalks nicely. Lots of flowers, no beans yet. The unidentified squash lost its first flower, but it's got another one about to bloom and several small ones. The poppies are all out, the marigolds are looking pretty bad but I'm just leaving them. There are still good flowers on them, and they'll scatter seeds (ghahh!). I want to gather some of the seed and take it to the library, too. Asparagus is OK, oregano is blooming, the marjoram seems to be coming back and I've planted another pot-worth nearby. Also planted a whole bunch of basil from seed - very sturdy. And one parsley, the only one that germinated. Gopher got one of the fennels, but another one is growing nearby and one of the big ones is still going and starting to flower. I need stakes and nets for the tomatoes - quickly, they've got individual stakes but those don't really work well and I can't afford tomato cages for all of them. I have 21 tomato plants in the garden and another 5 on the balcony. Whee, lots of tomatoes!

Lots of garden news here. I've got lots of green tomatoes on the vines but none of the larger ones have ripened yet, not even the Early Girls.

Books Read
Wow, I have _not_ been reading. Well, I have...but short bits. Aha, it's the Hugo pieces that have me messed up! I'll put that into Currently Reading.
91. Grandville Bete Noir, by Bryan Talbot. A great steampunk furry pulp mystery graphic novel...I got it in the Hugo packet, I'm very glad and I want to look for more of these (there are others).
92. The Map that Changed the World, by Simon Winchester. Not good. I'm glad I now know about William Smith and his achievements - but he's the author of a lot of his problems so annoying to read about, and Winchester took minimal actual information and padded it into a largish book that I slogged through the whole way for the occasional nugget of real knowledge. Bah.

Currently Reading
Theoretically, still reading The Wizard's Dilemma and all the others I'd put aside. Actually reading stuff for the Hugos (science fiction's highest awards) - I paid to become a supporting member of this year's Worldcon largely because of the Hugo packet (most of what we'll be voting on, in e-formats). Lots of good books/stories/non-fiction pieces/magazines in it - but I left it to the last minute, as usual, so I'm mostly skimming the short stuff and don't have a hope of finishing any of the full-length books. I did manage to read one graphic novel and intend to read at least one more, other than that it's the short stories and the magazines I'm looking at. I'll vote on all of them - I have opinions on the novels based mainly on other things I've read by these authors (they're pretty consistent, the ones I have an opinion on at least). But I have to vote by midnight EDT tomorrow, so this mad reading rush won't last much longer.

BOMBs
None, I guess. The Winchester was new to me when I started reading a month ago. It's going out, but I don't think it counts as a BOMB (wasn't taking up room on my shelves).

And garden stuff - not much. The tomatoes are settling in - haven't yet gotten the nets on, though they do now have individual stakes to help hold them up. I've harvested some Sungold cherry tomatoes and one Marvel Striped, a good handful of Blue Lake beans and a couple more ears of corn (but haven't eaten them or even opened to see how many kernels they have). Mom has some ripe Indigo Rose - they change very slightly, from purple-black to green-black. Amusingly, the black is only where they're in the sun - when you take off the stems, there's a little crown of red on the ripe ones (and green on the unripe). Tasty, too. Not wonderful - Mom's Sungolds are much better flavor - but good.

Actually, just for the amusement - here's Mom's Halloween harvest in July - Sungolds and Indigo Rose that I picked today. She has a lot of tomatoes on those two plants - they were planted...a month ago? So I hope our latecomers will catch up.



Oh yeah. The unidentified squash is now identified as zucchini, and it has two fruits and more flowers coming. The larger fruit is about as thick as my finger and as long as a pencil, and dark green; the other is smaller, thinner and still has a flower crown. I've harvested all the garlic (all that was still in the ground was green, didn't bulb) and the last of the cilantro. There's still a couple ears of corn, I may yet get strawberries but it doesn't look good, the beans are rather straggly, the biggest sunflower plant is pretty well dead but the other two are doing all right, and the basil's doing rather well. I harvested a lot of it a few days ago and made pesto and froze it. They say don't put the cheese in if you're going to freeze it, but it works fine for me. The parsley is also doing quite well, as are the oregano (which is blooming wildly) and the marjoram.

Hey, Jenn, where have you been?

I answered on your thread - but I should post here too...

So - no excuse for August, but at the end of August I (my car) was hit by a hit-and-run driver and the car was totaled. No real damage (bruises) to me or my mom in the car, though - it could have been a lot worse.

Still...I'm currently carless, and therefore living with my parents so I can borrow their car when they don't need it. Many complications dealing with not enough cars, many complications of paperwork and bureaucracy getting the insurance on my car so I can get another one. My insurance company - USAA - is great, but...I didn't have a physical title to my car (never got one when I paid off my car loan), DMV made me jump through a lot of hoops, etc, etc...bah.

So - I have been reading, and gardening, and reviewing and posting on LT. I just haven't managed to post here. I'll try to get to it soon...

OK, I think I've finally managed to get to a place where I can post about what I've been reading. I posted up until the end of July.

August:
93. Breathe by Emma Bull. Short story/episode of Shadow Unit - 1.01, first episode. Good intro to an interesting universe (have as an ebook, though I read this one online at Shadowunit.org). Short, but I'm still counting it.
94. The Rumpelstiltskin Problem by Vivian Vande Velde. Eh. Not bad, but not wonderful. Rumpelstiltskin, the fairy tale, makes no sense when you think about it - so Vivian rewrote it. Six times - six very different stories, all of which could have been remembered/reported as the classic tale. The concept is amusing but the stories themselves aren't very memorable.
95. Three Tales of my Father's Dragon by Ruth Stiles Gannett. Cute stories - and I could see the parent telling them as bedtime stories. Excellent for youngsters, a little dull for an adult.
96 - 107. More Shadow Unit stories - Knock on Coffins, Dexterity, A Handful of Dust, Ballistic, Endgames, Overkill, Lucky Day, Refining Fire, Sugar, the Sin Eater, Getaway, Wind-up Boogeyman. All good, most still distinct in my mind two months later. I haven't reviewed all of them - need to do that.
108. Forgiven but Not Forgotten? by Abby Green. Not bad, though it's got a stupid title. Good characterization.
109. This Heart of Mine by Suzanne Hayes. Novella - mildly interesting, but didn't draw me into reading the book that this is a prequel to.
110. Plagues and Peoples by William H. McNeill. Excellent book - convincing theories (and their supporting evidence), not dramatized or dumbed-down for non-scientists. The role of epidemic and endemic diseases in the structures and forms of civilization through the millennia. It took me a month to read (all of August), and I'd like to read it again in a year or two.
111. Princess of Wands by John Ringo. Weird...um, urban fantasy? Sort of? Devout Christian soccer mom discovers she has the ability to defeat demons and stranger things.
112. Queen of Wands by ditto. Umph. Sorry, this one went past my suspension of disbelief - the first story was OK, I quite liked the second, and the third story - I could hear the twang as the thread parted. Poorly presented situation with a (more or less literal) deus ex machina solution. I really hope he doesn't try to write another in the series.

BOMBs: The Rumpelstiltskin Problem - not bad but unlikely to reread, I can do without it. Same for My Father's Dragon. Forgiven but Not Forgotten? - same, again (if not for the same reasons). Everything else is ebooks or online, except Plagues and Peoples and that one I'm keeping.

At the end of August - just before I started the Ringo books - I was hit by a hit-and-run driver (as I said above); damaged my car badly enough that the insurance company totaled it. See next post for more thrilling details...

September:
113. Saturday Evening Post Funniest Cartoons (edited) by Joan Servaas. Not bad - the title and subtitle overstate it, but pleasantly amusing cartoons in very familiar styles. Perhaps as many as 3 or 4 that actually presented new concepts, mostly replays of old familiar jokes (desert island, etc). Won from the weekly drawing at BookTrib.com.
114. Beauty and the Werewolf by Mercedes Lackey. A 500 Kingdoms book, nicely done with a wild admixture of fairy stories (Beauty and the Beast, Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, plus some less iconic ones - The Rake's Reform and so on). The characters are all (soon) aware of the Tradition and deliberately using and avoiding it. Nicely delineated characters, though overall the story's pretty fluffy.
115. Unnatural Issue by ditto. Elemental Mages, and not bad - the Deerskin/Donkeyskin story, but in mild form (she runs, having overheard plans). Unrequited love...Oh, and Peter is firmly established as _not_ being Peter Wimsey (merely inspired by him).
116. Steadfast by ditto. Newest Elemental Mages story, and I didn't like it. Partly because The Steadfast Tin Soldier was never a favorite, partly because the story was way too similar (in setting, and in outline of characters - not details, but generalities) to Reserved for the Cat. So it earns a resounding "Eh, not bad" from me.
117. Ha'penny by Jo Walton. Somewhat less depressing than Farthing, but an at least equally nasty society (we get to see more of the casual racism and paranoia that were established and nurtured in Farthing). Blackmail of many and varied sorts...including, just possibly, a lever for Inspector Carmichael to get loose from the trap he's in.
118. Seven Views of Olduvai Gorge by Mike Resnick. Eww. Seven short stories and a frame - aliens come to investigate the ancient home of the Humans who ruled the universe and then collapsed. Each story is pretty nasty, and the overall effect is foul. A weird mixture of 50s pulp bombast - Humans are uniquely powerful and always get what they want! - and shame - Humans destroy everything they touch. Yuck. Sorry I read it. Viewpoint possibly affected by just finished Ha'penny before picking this up - but ew anyway.
119. Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome. Lovely as usual - a favorite since I was a kid. As usual amazed at the freedom the kids have, and how well they handle it.
120. Swallowdale by ditto. Again, lovely (and these are a perfect antidote to Ha'penny and Seven Views!).
121. Winter Holiday by ditto - first arrival of Dick and Dot.
122. Coot Club by ditto. Less pleasant than the first few books - somehow the Coots have more riding on their choices. But still fun (and more Dick & Dot).
123. Pigeon Post by ditto. Again, things getting more serious. Poor Timothy! But a happy ending, of course.
124. We Didn't Mean to Go To Sea by ditto. My favorite S&A book - don't know why, it's the champion of serious consequences for casual choices. But I love it - love the way they handle the matter. But after that I stalled out.
125. The Attenbury Emeralds by Jill Paton Walsh. Hmph. I really hope she doesn't write any more - she's not up to Sayers (or herself, for that matter!) in presenting a good mystery, and she's messing with the Wimseys. More of a study of English society during and just after WWI, with a puzzle that turns into murder as the structure on which the study is hung. Not good.

BOMBs:
Seven Views of Olduvai Gorge is the only one - the others I didn't like are all library books or ebooks.

I spent the month at my parents' house - for the first week or so I mostly sat around, I was kind of in shock. After that I was spending a lot of time dealing with paperwork and figuring out what I needed to get what I needed to get what I needed to officially release my junked car and get the insurance money...ghahh. Lots of paperwork and standing in line at the DMV and boring stuff like that.

I did garden, both in the plot and on my home balcony. The tomatoes started to produce pretty well by the end of the month. Harvested a few other things, but not much - and some things I could have harvested, like basil, I didn't because I had nowhere to put them. Getting home was a pain (had to borrow the car, and couldn't keep it for long), and I wasn't eating pesto every day as I usually do.

October:
126. Oath of Fealty by Elizabeth Moon. So I got Limits of Power from the library, started to read it and realized I didn't really remember what was going on. I pulled out Oath, figuring I could just sort of skim it to refresh my memory...yeah, right. Sank right into the story and read it all the way through (again. Fourth reread.)
127. Kings of the North by ditto. And then of course I had to go on to the next part...(third reread).
128. Echoes of Betrayal by ditto. And the next - second reread.
129. Limits of Power by ditto. And _then_ I could return to the story and actually know what was going on. I'd gotten almost half-way through the first try, but I went back and started from the beginning again. Lovely book - NOT a place to start the series, everything is a continuation of threads from way back, but beautiful. And the surprise Arcolin gets is gorgeous - I read it both times and was delighted both times.
130. The Willful Princess and the Piebald Prince by Robin Hobb. Yeah, no. Most of the characters here are hapless, idiots, or spoiled rotten - or all three. The Piebald Prince himself is pretty decent, but his mother, and the POV character, and his cousin, and...ugh. And no happy ending at all.
131. Noah's Boy by Sarah A. Hoyt. Pretty good. Weird situations, with people being forced in various directions - but overall, a hopeful story, and a reasonably happy ending. It's _kind_ of a setup for another book, but not necessarily.
132. Japanese Braiding: The Art of Kumihimo by Jacqui Carey. I wasn't really reading this - it's more of a pattern book than something to read - but this is when I officially finished with it. Nicely presented instructions and patterns for kumihimo braids. I've been doing it off and on for about a year, with one pattern - nice to see some other possibilities (though I've been doing a 16-strand braid and these are all 8-strand).
133. Aunt Dimity and the Duke by Nancy Atherton. Fun. Possibly my favorite of the Aunt Dimity stories, though I don't know why - silly situation, odd characters (defined by one or two quirks each, for instance), deus ex machina solution - but it's still fun. Good fluff.
134. Cuckoo by Emma Bull. Another Shadow Unit story, second "season". Still very enjoyable - and while I did glance at the previous story, I didn't reread it, just went straight on to this one without any problem in fitting myself back into this world.
135. No Wind of Blame by Georgette Heyer. Lovely. I got this at the library book sale and read it almost immediately - interesting story, interesting characters. The girl was annoying enough on the page - glad I didn't have to deal with her in real life (new definition of Drama Queen!). An ingenious, if a bit Rube Goldberg, method of murder, and a neat twist to the romances.
136. Into You - Dial H Vol 1 by China Miéville. I used to love the 1980s version (though apparently I stopped reading midway) - this one is a _lot_ grimmer and less pleasant. Protagonist 1 is a fat, ex-factory-worker schlub; Protagonist 2 is an old woman with some weird abilities of her own (when not dialed). Not exactly easy to identify with, especially with their respective attitudes to deal with as well. Glad I read it, will read others if I find them, not keeping it.
137. Death in the Stocks by Georgette Heyer - No Wind of Blame triggered me to read the other Hannasyde and Hemingway books (I had all of them, at least theoretically). Wow, a lot of very annoying characters...still, fun to read.
138. Behold, Here's Poison by ditto - not bad, somewhat flat characterization. And while the murderer was a blank to me until revealed, I remembered both the murder weapon and what Randall was really up to (at least vaguely).
139. They Found Him Dead by ditto - fewer idiots, though there are a few, and several nice (that is, sympathetic) characters. And a motivation that was not made clear (or at least, not attached to the right person) until quite late in the story.
140. A Blunt Instrument by ditto. Unfortunately I remembered who the murderer was, though not the motivation, which rather spoiled the story. All its twists and turns are wasted on someone who's impatiently waiting for the police or somebody to figure out this obvious situation. And then I discovered that while LT tells me I have the next two (after No Wind of Blame), I can't find them...
141. Restoree by Anne McCaffrey. Now this is the epitome of fun fluff. Don't try logic on it, you'll only mess up the lovely storyline...I like how Sara keeps pulling rabbits out of her hat, yet never comes across as a Mary Sue. She's too real for that, and too aware of her own limitations (without being whiny poor-self-esteem girl) - she just does her best and it more or less works out. So for more fun fluff I went to the Sons of Destiny series.
142. The Sword by Jean Johnson. Nice setup for the series - the prophecy that binds the eight brothers is stated, and how it got them into this situation (in exile and forbidden women). Kelly needing to learn absolutely everything about that universe makes a lovely way to infodump _within_ the story.
143. The Wolf by ditto. Very different - childhood friend is the Destined Bride - but also sets up the series arc. The immediate problem is dealt with which leads to the real one.
144. The Master by ditto. Now it's Dominic out of place, rather than his Bride. Painfully stupid misunderstandings trope, but well done - good characterization.
145. The Song by ditto. Threads coming back together; the wounds dealt in the second book are healed.
146. The Cat by ditto. These two - this and Storm - intertwine; the same events, same timeline, seen through different eyes. And properly presented as not identical, especially conversations. Trev is very open about matters...oh, and we get to see a Shifterai.
147. The Storm by ditto. Finally Rydan becomes at least a little more understandable. Nice twists to the story we already know from Cat - passing mentions in that are more fully explained here, and vice versa. More info on Shifterai customs.
148. The Flame by ditto. The most frustrated of the brothers finally gets his chance, and finds the one woman who's absolutely perfect for him (and equally frustrated!). With a little murder mystery mixed in. And then a scene at the end that really belongs to the next book - cliffhanger, of sorts! Glad I found the series late and didn't have to wait (much).
149. The Mage by ditto. The implications of that scene at the end of Flame get played out - politics of the reasonable and unreasonable sort have major effects on Nightfall and all of that world. Story nicely rounded off - there are infinite stories still to tell there, of course, but not much in the way of loose ends from the Sons of Destiny series.

BOMBs:
Into You - Dial H Vol 1 is the only one I'm getting rid of. Again, a lot of library books and ebooks; all the ones I own I like (except the Dial H).

So at the beginning of October I finally got the title to my old car and sent it off to USAA, and started seriously looking for a new car. I'd firmly decided that what I wanted was the same as my old car. Unfortunately so have a lot of other people - the few Scion xBs that were on the market were frequently very expensive and/or salvage titles (that is, they'd been totaled, like my car, and someone had rebuilt them. I suspect mine will end up on the road again too - at least, many parts of it will). So I'd see a good car and email or call and get nothing back or "sorry, it's sold". Bah. Went to look at one - about an hour and a half drive away, which meant I had to arrange to steal the family car for effectively the whole day. Nice car, drove well...salvage title. Three owners back, which meant the guy selling it (probably) had no idea what damage had been done or how it had been repaired - but I don't really know, because he ducked me and left his mother-in-law to show me the car. Nice lady, but not familiar with the car...bah. Anyway, so that was a failure and left me quite annoyed - so another one popped up and I called the guy (dealer)...and went for a test drive the next day - and bought it. It needed some work (the previous owner was an idiot who went for "performance" over basic maintenance. "Harley" muffler - the kind that makes more noise than an unmuffled engine - cold air intake (with holes in it), fancy alloy wheels (and skinny little tires on them)...and very dirty oil, that hadn't been changed in quite a while. Sigh. But the dealer did some of the work (pulled the muffler and replaced it with something reasonable, among other things), I got some done, and she's a pretty good car now. Another dark blue Scion xB - a year younger than my other car, and with an upgraded stereo so I can plug in my phone and play my music that way. A lot more mileage than my car, but still under the expected level, and in good shape. And she cost a bit less (from the dealer) than the insurance gave me - the repairs and immediate maintenance cost quite a bit more, but still. It is so nice to be free again, and home.

November:
150. The Shifting Plains by Jean Johnson (not part of the series, though in the same universe). The Shifterai at home, through outsider's eyes. I'm not sure, but it may be that Tava is the queen Aitava that Amara was apprenticed to - in which case, yay and neat!
151. Mirror of Destiny by Andre Norton. Eh. Not terrible, but definitely not one of her best. Rather formulaic, in the unique Norton way - girl with powers she doesn't understand, fighting man limited and connected to her, and they go encounter strange beings and powers. Where her abilities provide exactly the right solution at every time, including freeing Ylon (among many others). Speaking (as I was a couple posts ago) about Mary Sues... Glad I read it, not planning to reread.
152. Smoke and Mirrors by Elizabeth Bear - Shadow Unit again. Chaz finally reveals his breakthrough, in a case that pushes an awful lot of buttons on many people.
153. Not Alone by Holly Black. Last Shadow Unit of the second season - and ugh. Puppetmaster is back and playing even nastier games. What did happen to Hafs? Good solid cliffhanger.

And that brings me up to now...where I'm going to sleep rather than read another book. Even if I do get an extra hour tonight - I'm going to need it. And I've done my full 150 and then some. I'll update the beginning posts later - too tired tonight.

Currently Reading: Let's see...I'm still slogging through A Wizard's Dilemma - I've progressed a bit, Nita's encountered the dilemma. Virgin Seduction is still sitting on my kitchen table - I manage to read a page or two at a time before it gets too dumb. I also started (in August, I think) Suzanne Brockmann's No Ordinary Man - I usually like her stuff, but this one is being very slow. She's trying very hard to set up the romantic lead as possibly a serial killer, but...yeah, not happening. Too obviously not, which means all the bits talking about his secrets elicit an impatient "yeah, yeah, get to the real story now" from me. In September I started Manly Wade Wellman's Sin's Doorway and Other Ominous Entrances - slow going on that too, it's short stories and the two (three?) I've read so far have skirted unpleasantly close to horror. That was a birthday present, I like a lot of Wellman's stuff. This is all his non-series stories. And at the end of September I started Akin to Anne by L.M. Montgomery - again, short stories, all her orphan stories that didn't grow into books and series like Anne of Green Gables. I'm _trying_ to read things I haven't read before, but so many aren't good...Ah well, I've had a nice run of rereads and will now try to go back to new books. Well, after I get Shifter (sequel to The Shifting Plains) out of the library and reread that - tomorrow, if I can manage it.

BOMBs - none this month (so far). I'm getting rid of Mirror of Destiny (actually, I already did - gave it to Dad) but as I read it the day I got it and got rid of it the next day, it's only forestalling filling up my bookcases, not actually relieving them.

Books Read
154. The Shifter by Jean Johnson - got it, read it, not quite as funny as the first time but still fun.
155. Wolves of Willoughby Chase by Joan Aiken. Love this - I've reread it probably a dozen times. Utter fluff, but beautifully done. Basically nothing of the alternate history visible - I suspect she didn't come up with that until the second book.
156. Black Hearts in Battersea by Joan Aiken. Very silly story - plots and counterplots and lost heirs and and. And a lot of the alternate history visible - James III on the throne. Not quite as good as Wolves, but fun.
157. The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge. I ran out of Aikens for a bit and went to this - in many ways similar, though rather sweeter. And a major happy ending, with all the ends tucked in.
158. Nightbirds on Nantucket by Joan Aiken. Goes in both directions - it's even less plausible than Battersea (pink whales indeed), but even so it feels a little (not much, but a little) deeper. The problems are real, despite the peculiar settings and solutions.
159. The Whispering Mountain by Joan Aiken. Very predictable, of its sort - and the usual Aiken flood of coincidence. Fun, but not as strong as Wolves.
160. The Stolen Lake by Joan Aiken. Overall, eh. The story is extremely silly and unreasonable, and it suffers under a second handicap of being an Arthur story - I dislike those very much. At least Lancelot doesn't show up, though Elen more-or-less fills the role.

Currently Reading
Everything listed in the last message - I haven't finished any of those. The next Aiken is Dangerous Games, but I haven't started it yet - tomorrow.

BOMBs
Add A Blunt Instrument to the total (from October) - I don't think I want to read it again.

So well over in books read, but very low on BOMBs and low on books discarded. Once I finish the Aikens I think I'll start reading romances - there's a lot I can get rid of there, once I've read them once.

'forestalling filling up my bookcases not relieving them' - how well I know that problem..... In fact, every time I 're-organize' with a view to relieving pressure, if I find a bit more room I immediately fill it up..... crazy!

I lost your thread for months, happy to find it again. Your cooking/camp expedition sounds like it was a blast, but a bit on the cool side.

I just caught up on a couple of months of posts.... Eeek, the car stuff! I'm glad you and your mother are okay and that you're free again now.

Well, _I_ just caught up on a couple months of posts...the last 3 1/2 months finally got posted in the last couple weeks. I've been tracking, but not posting. So, glad to have you back!

Yeah. I took all the books I hadn't read yet and put them in boxes, so I'd have nice empty shelves for reorganizing. A year later, I still have boxes and boxes of books I haven't read, and my shelves are nearly full - though some of what they're full with are books I haven't read, not properly shelved but just stacked until I can get to them. I am going to concentrate on BOMBs for the last part of the year...more or less.

The Culinary Exposition? Yeah, it was fun. And this year's, up in Oregon, was actually warmer in a sense than last year's in Napa - the cabins were properly warm, so it was a matter of going through the cold from one warm(ish) spot to another. Last year the rooms were barely heated, and it was a matter of wrapping up in warm blankets and things and forcing myself out of bed into the cold immediately. On the other hand, the drive was a lot less. Sigh. Don't know where it will be next year...though I'm interested.

I have all of Andre Norton's books but agree with you that Mirror of Destiny is not one of her best.

You know, I read the 4 books by Aiken published in the 60s, and maybe The Cuckoo Tree (1971) but didn't even realize she had written a whole 'nother batch starting in 1981 up through 2005 until someone mentioned it here on LT. I certainly enjoyed those first ones, but have not as yet gone to the effort of rounding up the rest of them to read. Maybe that will be one of my goals for 2014.

The Little White Horse was my favorite fantasy in sixth and seventh grade. I can't count how many times I read it!

So far - I like the older ones better. The Stolen Lake and Dangerous Games are...a little silly, actually. The Whispering Mountain is good in itself, but doesn't much integrate with Cuckoo Tree. Don't know - I'll read all of them, but I think I won't bother rereading some.

Yes - Norton has some truly wonderful stories, and some that got ground out in formula patterns. Well, with the number she's written, it would be utterly amazing if all of them were good...

Roni, I never get over marveling about it - The Little White Horse was my'go-to' comfort read for so so long - I was so careful with it that the cover is still in good shape, which I can't say about other beloved books.

I don't think I've read those later Aikens either..... must poke around and try to find some.

jj - maybe one day you will open those boxes and the books will have that 'new' cachet? And some too, you may be able to say, 'I will never read this.' and so make some progress??? I've been able, once in awhile, to remove a book, but golly, it is hard!!!!

It's the "I'll never read this" that I find hard. If I read a book and dislike it, it's out, no problem. If I read it and it's OK...that's what I'm working on now, concentrating on "will I want to _re_ read this book?" Adding the question "and can I find it in the library?" has helped a lot. But...get rid of a book I haven't read? Agggh. I've got a romance on my table that I've been slogging through a page or two at a time - it's so dumb I can't stand more than that...but only now, some 6 months later, am I beginning to think that I could just get rid of it. Yeah. I think I'll read the end and then dump it.

BTW, reviewing on LT has helped a _lot_ with getting rid of books - I often reread because I can't quite remember what happened. If I've got a review, I know what I thought was important when I finished the book, and what my opinion of it was - it's as good as rereading, for the decent-to-bad books. For the good ones, of course, I may remember everything that happened but the fun part is watching it all come together!

I found all the Aikens in the library, and will happily send them back there. I've got Wolves, Battersea and Nantucket, and am considering whether I want to bother with any but Wolves, but have no desire to own the rest, or reread them (I don't think). I finished the series, haven't yet put them in here.

Jenn, that's a good point about using your reviews on LT to jog your memory of books so you don't have to keep them around. I hope that will help me weed out some of my shelves!

I use my reviews that way too - just having the lists of what I've read helps a lot!

Happy Thanksgiving, Jenn!

Thanks!

I spent today making pies for church, and starting the pies for our dinner - made the crusts and the fillings. I'll assemble and bake them tomorrow, along with sourdough rolls and the green bean casserole. My sister is making the turkey and gravy, potatoes, etc. The funny thing is that we're both certain the other one is doing the hard stuff... which works very well!

Mom usually does the major portion of the meal, but this year she's just out of knee surgery and is not up to anything much - certainly not standing and cooking all day. She'll just eat, this time.

Sounds like you've got a delicious meal coming together, Jenn. I hope you and your family have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

A great Thanksgiving, with a delicious meal. An even better Christmas, with ten of us - Mom and Dad, me, my youngest sister and her husband who are living with the parents, and down from Reno and Ashland, my middle sister, her husband, both her sons and the elder son's fiance. Mar and Colin stayed at my house because they physically wouldn't fit at the parents - I did a lot of cleaning up and rearranging things so that I could (for the first time) blow up my queen-sized blow-up bed, with legs. It works very nicely, really.

Hmmm - apparently I didn't mention (because it happened while I was doing my catchup posts) - my parents got a new sofa (from Freecycle - green leather double recliner). So I got their old sofa (brown leather double recliner, with a big worn spot and hole where my father's head was). This entailed a lot of cleaning up and rearranging, to make room to get my old sofa out of the house and the new one in. The old sofa had to be destroyed (sniffle - gorgeous huge 7-foot sofa, in southwest colors) - between the time I bought it and now, we remodeled the elevator and lowered the ceiling by some 8 inches. 6 of those inches were necessary to fit the sofa into the elevator...and we couldn't get it down the stairs, either (7 feet is a lot). Ah well. It is nice to have a recliner. I'll patch the hole in the sofa eventually - I have the leather and glue, just need to get around to it. My dad has very acid skin - he eats gold (killed his wedding ring!) and he wears a titanium watch which is the first one he hasn't killed within a year of buying it; he ate the leather of the sofa.

I have distinct hoarder tendencies - as in, I get stuff because it looks neat and "I'm sure I can use that sometime!". Then it goes into a box or gets stacked up someplace or... and after a while, there's no floor space in my rooms any more. Then I go into culling mode and reduce the volume and rearrange things for a while. My living room was well into the full side of the cycle when the sofa thing happened, so a lot of stuff got shifted in a very short time. Unfortunately a lot of it only got shifted to my storage unit. But some went entirely away, and more will go soon - some of what I took to storage only went there because the charities weren't open when I needed to dump stuff. It's a process, but it is happening. But Mar and Colin staying over helped a lot with getting stuff out of the house.

And a pleasant New Year's Eve - we (Mom and Dad and I) went to some friends' house. They have a NYE party every year - and a mini-Burning Man, and an Octoberfest, and so on. Nice people, interesting collections of guests, and excellent food.

And now it's the new year (two days into it), and I've created a post for this year's books - http://www.librarything.com/topic/163612 . I'll post December's reading here, sometime in the next few days.

Books Read
161. Dangerous Games by Joan Aiken.
162. The Wrangler's Bride by Justine Davis.
163. The Cuckoo Tree by Joan Aiken.
164. The Wizard's Dilemma, New Millennium Edition by Diane Duane.
165. Dido and Pa by Joan Aiken.
166. Is Underground by ditto.
167. Midnight is a Place by ditto.
168. Cold Shoulder Road by ditto.
169. Chimes at Midnight by Seanan McGuire.
170. Enchanted No More by Robin D. Owens.

BOMBs
The Wrangler's Bride - keeper.

A bunch of library books, to get all the Aikens - read the whole series, and I don't think I need to read it again. The Cuckoo Tree and Dido and Pa were pretty good, for that series...and then I read Chimes at Midnight and it's in an entirely different category. Enchanted No More was also ok but not wonderful - I want to read the third, then I don't have to read them again. And the Justine Davis (my only BOMB in this lot - Chimes was new, everything else was a library book) was good, as Davises tend to be - not wonderful, but quite possibly worth a reread later on. And as usual when I hit a good one, now I want to read more Fortunes Children books - but the quality is so scattered...

Books Read
171. A Wizard Alone, NME by Diane Duane.
172. Akin to Anne by L.M. Montgomery.
173. Balance of Trade by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller.
174. Trade Secret by ditto.
175. Dave Dawson with the Pacific Fleet by Robert Sidney Bowen.
176. Everything and More by David Foster Wallace.
177. Castle Waiting Vol 1 by Linda Medley.
178. Castle Waiting Vol 2 (Definitive Edition) by ditto.
179. Elementary edited by Mercedes Lackey.

Currently Reading
The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbary
Wizard's Holiday, NME by Diane Duane
The Gods of War edited by Christopher Stasheff

BOMBs
Akin to Anne - discard. Dave Dawson with the Pacific Fleet - discard. Everything and More - keeper.

Three BOMBs, two of which were OK reads and now I'm done with them. Everything and More - was a birthday present from my parents in 2003, 10 and a half years ago, and is magnificent. He plays with English while presenting math (somewhat beyond my level - I can read the equations, but only surface stuff). I wasn't expecting to laugh as often as I did reading this. And now I want to read his other stuff. A couple ebooks, some new books, a couple rereads. Nice way to end the year.

Wow, 179 books! You ended up blowing me away by 18 books, Jenn.