Books

Weekend

Not as productive as some weekends, Ryan got very little sleep last week (getting up at 5am is definitely rough) and I was exhausted which meant I got a headache AGAIN on Sunday – fun times.

Anyhow, we did get some work done 🙂 Saturday we recycled half of the aluminum we’ve been storing, then drove over to my uncle’s house to get more scrap metal from him (including our old engine from the BMW) and recycle that – got back to the recycle just before it closed. So now the snow blower can fit under the back porch again this winter – yippee – instead of just out like it is right now.

I’m pretty sure that’s about all we did on Saturday unless you count catching up on lots of tv shows on Hulu and finding some new ones 🙂 Sunday we got a nice early start thanks to Fitz wanting to get up at 8am on a SUNDAY. Ryan got to work on his second bookcase and got it put together…

Bookcases in place, not yet installed and still need face frames. The shelves will be adjustable so those go in very last.

Then Ryan installed the copper above the diningroom windows (and even soldered the joints as best he could in the wind). While he did the copper I raked the side yard (had to stay close to hand him tools etc). I also raked the back yard but only the side yard actually got the piles bagged up – Fitz decided to play in one of my back yard piles and pee on another – lovely.

Copper on the windows, can't wait to do the panels above the windows...

The rest of Sunday we relaxed some more (headache) – I read Inheritance and finished it up! I don’t remember for sure but I think it’s better than Brisingr and definitely better than Eragon and Eldest were (and I enjoyed them all). The story is complete and satisfying and I didn’t have to stay up late reading at all since I spent most of sunday reading 🙂 So goodbye to Eragon and his friends/family, it was quite a journey!

Working from home today because headache yesterday turned into migraine last night and only sleeping late helped, so to make up time I skipped the commute and stayed home to get all the work done 🙂

Inheritance

Things may be slow around here for a while, got a new book in the mail from pre-order so I completely forgot it was coming…

Evening plans are mostly on hold while I finish up this ‘story’ that I’ve been waiting to finish for years now! It works out great, been fighting headaches lately and reading never bothers my head!

I’ve been a little busy with work lately (read that: really busy). However I do make sure and take a little down time to read before I go to bed (even if my only break to read is between midnight and 1am which means I’m exhausted the next morning).

What am I reading – a new series Aimee loaned me by Mary Balogh. Some more Victorian romances, something like comfort food to my tired brain after a very very long day at work.

Hopefully life will resume this weekend since I try not to work on weekends.

Julie Klassen (author)

It’s official, I really like Julie Klassen’s books. I got both her first and second books for free on the Kindle (Lady of Milkweed Manor and The Apothecary’s Daughter). They’re regency era and contain a lot of historical information on specific topics.

Lady of Milkweed Manor was about a young woman who gets pregnant out of wedlock and is then disowned by her father. She goes to the Manor to have her child and meets a man she knew years before who is now married (a doctor). Interesting details about nursemaids and midwifery are revealed as the young woman continues to follow a complicated path, trying to find happiness.

The Apothecary’s Daughter is quite different, following the life of a young woman who’s mother left when she was young and who has a perfect memory and many suitors. Details regarding apothecaries and physicians during the regency era is given which I found very interesting.

It’s always good to find a new author to follow. She’s got a third book out I will have to try soon and I’ll add her to my watch list!

Memorial Day

I got a little distracted after lunch reading my kindle book. A couple of hours later Ryan got home (still reading). So that got me motivated to get the tile sealed while he mowed the lawn…

Finally done with the last tile related step! Unfortunately my book kept drawing me in so I finally went back to reading so I could finish by book. It was a new author – Julie Klassen’s Lady of Milkweed Manor. It was very different from what I’m used to reading and I really enjoyed it. Enough so that I started her second book The Apothecary’s daughter before bed.

I did also get started stripping the bathroom door a bit before bed. I’ll try to work on that project in the evenings this week.

Reading

I don’t have a lot of time for reading lately but I do have a 45+ minute commute each way every day so I have been listening to a good number of audiobooks.

I recently finished up Tale of the Thunderbolt by E.E. Knight, the third in the series and I really enjoyed it, even more so than the first two. It was kind of an abrupt ending but pretty fitting. After that I needed something lighter…

So I’m currently listening to Anne of Green Gables (Anne with an E) by Lucy Maud Montgomery. I loved the tv miniseries growing up so I thought I might enjoy the actual book. It was kind of slow going at first and I almost fell asleep a few times (not good while driving) but once it got going I thoroughly enjoyed it. Everything I liked about the tv series I like about the book and it definitely is a light easy “read”.

On the in hand reading side I’m finishing up “How to Train Your Dragon” which is very different from the movie but quite enjoyable. I’m now completely biased by the movie which is too bad, it’s also the reason I started the book before I saw the movie but I didn’t have time to finish it (that’s quite sad considering the book is a children’s book). But one or two more nights and I’ll finally know how the book’s version ends!

I’m looking forward to the weekend, finally a full weekend to work on the house! We have so much planned and the weather is supposed to be great so hopefully we’ll spend some time outside as well!

Tuesday Craft Night

I’ve decided that Tuesday nights will be craft night, which means I’ll do whatever I’m in the mood for but it’s not house work and it’s not work work.

So last night I went into my craft room around 7:30 and decided I wanted to go through my old unfinished projects to see what inspired me. Finally I decided I wanted to finish up 2 projects – the first is a cross stitch round robin I did back in 2003. A few online friends and I passed around projects and stitched on each others’ pieces. My project was herb blocks so I have 8 finished blocks that I intended to finish into a small wall hanging for the kitchen. My grandmother made me 2 matching towels to go with the blocks so I could decorate my kitchen in an herb theme.

My other project is the quilt I plan to do out of the wedding blocks everyone signed for us at our wedding. I bought fabric in Hawaii to make the blocks but dont’ have a pattern yet.

I decided to start small with the herb quilt. I picked out two fabrics from my stash that coordinate and that call to me. Originally I was going to just go with dark green but I decided since I like bright colors so much I would like the quilt more if I added more color. So I went with brown and gold. I found a pattern I liked and adjusted the block size to fit the blocks. Then I cut all the pieces and started putting it together and got 4 of the 8 pieced already!

Now I need to decide if I should use green sashing between the blocks or just attach the blocks and add a green border and then gold/brown binding.

Here is my progress with and without the green… input welcome!

My first crafty night was definitely a success, after 2 1/2 hours of fiddling I went to bed and finished reading “A Fatal Waltz” by Tasha Alexander which I loved! The 4th in the series is a little expensive on Kindle so I need to decide if I’m going to splurge or wait.

Tomorrow night I’m getting together with my cousin to do a practice hair style run for her prom this weekend!

Flying

The most stressful part of flying for me is getting to the airport and through security on time. Once I know for sure that I’m going to make my flight I can relax and enjoy the ride (as much as you can enjoy a loud, cramped ride). I do like take off and landing and any time that it’s clear enough to see out the window. This time however I have an aisle seat, there were no window seats available which is a bummer.

Now the decision remains – do I try to sleep (probably not since I don’t have a window to lean against). So I’ll probably stitch and listen to my audiobook, just like the flight out here. And what am I listening to?

E.E. Knight’s Tale of a Thunderbolt. It’s the third in the Vampire Earth series which is a sci-fi series set in the future. It’s very different from most of the books I read but I really like the main character and I’ve started to care about how the humans will make out in this future earth.

On the Kindle – ooh.. maybe I’ll read my kindle on the plane… I’m reading the third book in the Lady Emily series: A Fatal Waltz by Tasha Alexander. It’s set in the Victorian age in England and it’s about a woman who has through a series of strange events in her life has turned out as a sort of detective. She’s always trying to prove that some person she knows who is accused of murder is actually innocent.

So I have a few options for the plane and while I can’t look forward to the actual ride I am looking forward to who is waiting a the other end.

Finally home at a normal time

It’s been a hectic week back to work for both Ryan and I. Monday and Tuesday night found us both at work late. Finally tonight we were both home by 7 so we had a quick dinner and then a nice walk around the neighborhood.

I’m enjoying a new author on my ipod – Lisa Kleypas. I’m listening to the second book in her Hathaways series and quite enjoying it.

Now we’re watching some netflix on our Wii – trying out Robin Hood the tv series before calling it a night.

A Stitching Weekend in Maine

I just got back from a 3 day vacation in Maine with Sarah. The 3 days included the drive up and back which is significant (just over 4 hours) but we got a lot of stitching done. We decided to continue the tradition of stitching on Celtic Banner which we started together in Maine 4 years ago.

Progress was definitely made!
This is the picture I took after stitching Sunday and Monday:
And this is after stitching on Tuesday:

The piece is getting very long and it’s hard to show much of it since it is on scroll rods but it is 4 pages long and we are more than halfway through page 3!

While stitching we listened to Storm Glass by Maria V. Snyder (Glass series book 1). This is the same author (and many of the same characters) as a long time favorite of ours the Study Series. While the story was very interesting the reader was very distracting, mis-pronouncing almost every pronoun which was beyond frustrating. I was however motivated to go back to the Study series directly after and I’m happily more than halfway done with the first book in that series again.