The day after I got the book at the library, I had a pretty bad day (migraine – ugh!) and slept all afternoon. That meant that by midnight, I was wide awake and not ready for sleep. I picked up How to Knit a Love Song, started reading, finally got tired, and didn’t put the book down until 3 hours later when I was done with it. It was pretty great, not what I was expecting from a romance novel. Thanks Rachel!

Amy and I received some money for Christmas and we’d been trying to figure out what to splurge on. One day I sent her an email asking, “Should we get a Wii?” I think you could have knocked her over with a feather she was so surprised. Needless to say, I’m not much into gaming and actually made her put her old-school Nintendo system out in the garage when we bought the house. But we got the Wii and so far I’m really enjoying our one game (the one that comes with it) with tennis, bowling, and baseball. In a few months we’ll probably splurge a little more and get the Wii Fit. I’ve heard such good things about it. Do you have any experience with it? Worth it?

Visting:

We went to Cabo San Lucas, Baja, Mexico with my parents and Amy’s parents! It was wonderfully fun and although I wasn’t sick of winter before we left, I sure am now. You can see all my photos at Flickr. A few of my favorite memories:

• eating my body weight in guacamole
• snorkeling at Chileno Bay where we saw all sorts of amazing fish including a moon wrasse and several king angelfish
• whale watching from our patio
• four flat tires at the airport

Photos courtesy Richard Ling (license) and laszlo-photo (license) on Flickr, under Creative Commons licenses.

Reading:

Neil Gaiman. How have I never read anything by him other than his collaborative Good Omens (with Terry Pratchett) before? He’s an amazing storyteller. On vacation I read Anansi Boys and The Graveyard Book.

Other Stuff:

I’ve been doing lots of other stuff too (hockey, soccer, LWD – living with dogs, and working) and will probably write about some of those things at some point. I’ve also got a post brewing about useful software products for undergraduates (or other folks) who want to stop using so much paper. It involves things like Zotero and Evernote, but oh so much more…. Stay tuned!

Yes, I’m the 30-something middle-class female homeowner who is the target market for:

• Real Simple
• Martha Stewart Living
• Domino
• Blueprint
• Body + Soul
• ReadyMade

Every month my mailbox fills up and I get stressed about reading all of the magazines which come in. I’ve not renewed any of them for next year; trying to decide which I like best requires more effort than I’ve been willing to spend on it until now.

 

So with that, I think I’m going to let Domino, Body + Soul, and ReadyMade lapse, and am going to re-up on MSL, Real Simple, and Blueprint. We’ll see if having half the home magazines around next year causes less stress for me.

Anyone want to buy a near-complete run of ReadyMade (issues 3, 5-31)? The rest of my magazines I cannibalize and recycle….

I have read and enjoyed most of Mary Janice Davidson’s Sookie Stackhouse Betsy Taylor Vampire Queen novels, and decided to pick up something else of hers. Brief reviews I’ve read don’t bode well for this one, but I’m willing to reserve judgment for a few more chapters.

On deck: Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin.

Last week I was in Seattle at the Educause conference, and Goodwin was the opening keynote speaker. Her 75-minute long speech, given without notes and without stopping for a drink of water, was on the theme of Lincoln and leadership. I was blown away, as were the other 5000+ people in the audience. She’s truly amazing, and I can’t wait to get to this big tome.

Listening: World Cafe: Next from WXPN.

I downloaded several podcasts from WXPN for my flight to Seattle. Ever since we moved to Boston, I’ve acutely missed XPN (as well as Clark Park, the tofu hoagies from Fu-Wah, the Philadelphia Freeze, Cherry St. Pub, and my friends). But with the wonderful world of podcasting I can get a taste of XPN on my ipod and listen when I’m not near a computer.

Watching: NHL hockey – Boston Bruins on NESN and NHL Hockey on VS.

What can I say? I’m hooked. It’s a good thing we can’t actually get the Center Ice package since we’ve got FiOS and they don’t appear to carry it yet. But if they do carry it next year, I may have to get it for Amy as a present. Because presents like that are fun when you can share them!

Copyright on all images belongs to the organization in question.

Rest in peace.

• BC made it to the women’s Frozen Four!  I’m really excited for them.  Someday there will be a cable channel devoted to women’s college hockey, and I will be one of the first subscribers.  Lake Placid is just a little too far to drive this weekend

• I’m trying to accumulate a list of college/university computing groups who have blogs.  Unlike in the library community, which has the lovely blogwithoutalibrary.net listing, I can’t seem to find a listing of those sorts of blogs.  Any help, anyone out there?

• Hi Mom!

• Maggie got into a porcupine last week.  Fortunately, she realized instantly that she needed to get the hell AWAY from the thing, and only ended up with 5 needles hanging out of her face.  I wasn’t around; Amy got to deal with the little dog getting herself into injury situation without me once again.  (The other times she’s gotten run over by a truck and sliced open her upper lip. Fortunately, no serious damage either time. Dog of Steel.)

• I’ve been reading again.  I highly recommend Dark at the Roots: A Memoir (a book that will make you treasure your lovely, loving, not-even-remotely-that-dysfunctional childhood) and The Long Run (a book that will ALSO make most people treasure their childhoods).  Love the advance reader’s copies that I can pick up at library conferences… Fun stuff!

• My life is consumed with three things: reading, work, and hockey.  WHAT HAPPENED TO KNITTING???? I miss knitting, but can’t seem to figure out how to get back into it. Silly hockey obsession!

• Speaking of hockey, my team is almost done with our season.  We’ve not done as well as we should; we’re one of those teams that tends to play at the level of whatever team we’re playing, for better or worse.  Fortunately, we’ve got a tournament in a couple of weeks where we’ve been placed up a division.  We should get the living daylights knocked out of us, but we’re going to have fun!  A few of use from our team have hooked up with another team and are going to a tournament in Vermont in April, and I just got word of a possible May tournament as well… and then there’s hockey camp at Dartmouth this summer (seriously.) and the power skating clinic in August that I’ve already signed up for.  Did I mention that this is a bit of an obsession?  Can you tell?

• Last weekend in MN, I watched about 15 games of hockey with my dad.  The Wild, the Gophers, and more high school state tournament hockey than you can shake a stick at.  OFFICIALLY OBSESSED. Which reminds me, I need to get my skates sharpened tomorrow.

That is all.

Besides being in Seattle and walking around a lot, I ate some good food, went to a bona fide lesbian bar (with the WSS folks, even though they’re definitely not all playing on that team), and spent a lot of time in Pike’s Place Market trying to avoid the impending headaches that invariably come when I’m in places like that (I wasn’t successful – thank god for figuring out what OTC drugs keep my headaches from turning down the twisted path into migraine-land.)

Lest you think that all I did was socialize, I’ll have you know that I had a ton of meetings to attend, and spent several hours on the exhibit floor. Of course, I managed to mostly pick up advance reader’s copies of 18 (yes, eighteen) books this conference. I think that’s a record for me, and I’m not sure I’m completely proud of it. (My dratted cell phone won’t let me send the photo I took in my hotel room.  Suffice to say that the photo of all 18 books is funny). But hey – free books! I’ve already finished three of them (Summer at Tiffany, Bad Monkeys, and The Knitting Circle) and started the fourth this mornings (A Perfect Mess). I love getting to read books before they’re released to the general public. Often times I pick up books I wouldn’t give a second thought to in the bookstore and end up enjoying them immensely and passing them on to people I think would like them. Water for Elephants was one I picked up last year and passed around to about 10 folks at work.

So this year I’m trying to figure out how I can finagle going to BookExpo America. It’s right at the end of May in NYC and doesn’t cost all that much for a librarian’s one-day pass. I’m thinking that even if they don’t give out the number of advance reader’s copies that they do at ALA, it would be an educational experience.  Have any of you ever attended?  What were your experiences?

My assessment of Seattle: thumbs-up!  I’d go there again in a heartbeat and would love to see a lot more of the city than the area I could during this conference.

My heartfelt thanks must go to my best friend, who sent me copies of Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal and Island of the Sequined Love Nun about a year ago. I devoured them and immediately picked up Practical Demonkeeping to keep on with the theme.  And then I must have been distracted by something, for I didn’t read any more of his books until earlier this month.

In the past five days, I’ve read:

• The Stupidest Angel: A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror
• The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove
• Fluke: Or, I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings
• A Dirty Job

Oh my god is this man hilarious!  The second two – Fluke and A Dirty Job – I enjoyed more than the others (even Lamb).  I think it’s because the scenarios are much closer to home than the rest of his oeuvre.  Fluke tells the story of a whale researcher trying to figure out why humpback whales sing, and A Dirty Job tells the story of a man who becomes a Death Merchant, moving souls along from dying people to the people who need them next.  I suspect my love of the Death book stems partly from my love of Terry Pratchett’s Death books too – nothing better than knowing that Death isn’t some scary non-entity, but rather is an anthropmorphic personification or a second-hand shopkeeper.

Anyhow, if you want to read some really absurdly funny books, I can’t recommend Christopher Moore highly enough.  Your local public library should have some of his books, and if they don’t, you should ask them to purchase them.  Of course, you could also head to your local bookstore to get them.  Whatever floats your boat.

Tivoli Audio Fashion PAL Portable Audio Laboratory AM/FM Radio in sky blue

This small, battery-operated, rechargeable radio is just the right thing for my bathroom. I love the sound, the reception is AMAZING (seriously – I pick up stations from Providence, RI), and it’s so darn cute I could die. Yes, it’s expensive. I splurged on it, because the bathroom is the one place where I need to have peace and calm in the morning. I wanted no cords draped all over the place. This fits perfectly on the bathroom cabinet. I love it!

Kiss My Face fragrance free moisture shave cream

I can’t begin to express how much I love this shave cream. It doesn’t smell (a plus in my book, ymmv), you only need a small amount of it, and it lathers up really nicely. My legs (when I do take the time to deal with them) are always happiest when I use this shave cream over soap or other body washes/shave creams.

No One Cares What You Had For Lunch

Blogger and mightygoods.com writer Margaret Mason offers up the blogger’s version of writing prompts. NaBloPoMo made me realize how stinky some of my posts are (who CARES about all those memes anyway?) and this book gives me lots of ideas to make this blog a wee bit better.

Google Reader

I love how Google Reader has changed my blog-reading habits. It’s so much easier for me to navigate through all the chaff and get to the wheat. And no annoying Bloglines plumber for me!

J. Crew factory store corduroys

You can’t get them online, from the catalogs, or in the regular stores. I know because I tried (no way I’m paying more than $50 for a pair of cord, which always wear out faster than other pants for me). But they have these cords in the outlets which are the Perfect Cords for Me. I’m in the smallest size I’ve worn in literally years – and this is because I’m at my lowest BMI in years too. Hockey plus some dedicated work after last winter’s moving/moping/new job/eatingfest has paid off. But these cords – I got one pair and loved them so much that I braved the Wrentham Outlets outside of Boston a few weeks ago to pick up three more pair. I now own them in: light sage green, dark sage green, grey, and a warm honey-brown.

Milky Way mini candy bars (leftover from Halloween)

Apparently I like candy bars with caramel in them. How do I know this? The Twix mini candy bars are gone from the jumbohumongousgigantic bag of candy we got from Costco. And tonight I think I finally found the last Milky Way in the bag. Granted, I’ve thought that before, and always another one surfaces. We’ll see if my luck holds out beyond tonight.
Timex Easy Reader watch with expansion band

It’s been a looooong time since I owned a watch I liked. Normally I agonize over watch purchases, going for something that is exactly perfectly right. On Monday I was in a bunch of meetings where I was supposed to be keeping time, only it was hard to do without a.) a computer (my normal timepiece) or b.) my cell phone (my backup timepiece). So in a fit of needing a watch now, I headed to Target and found this little dandy piece. And I got it way cheaper than they have it listed for at Times! It’s been on my wrist all day and not once has it annoyed me. That is the sign of a fabulous watch in my world.

On a different note, this is just weird.

One book you have read more than once? Watership Down by Richard Adams. It’s an epic story of life, friendships, tyranny, hope, and rabbits. What’s not to like about it?

One book you would want on a desert island? One book? Or one series? The series would be The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan, which the friend who introduced me to the series referred to as, “the series that almost made me fail out of grad school.” I used to stay up until 2 or 3 in the morning reading them. I’ve read most of them twice, and can’t wait until Jordan finishes the series. He’s been going through some really awful health stuff this past year, but things are looking a little up for him. I’m hopeful that he’ll finish the series. Now if you truly mean one single book, I would possibly bring Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. Yes, it’s one of those books that has always annoyed me for some reason, but I imagine that if I were forced to do a close reading or re-reading of it, I could find all those amazing things in it that other people see.

One book that made you laugh? Pretty much anything that Terry Pratchett has written, but since I have to choose one, I’ll say The Hogfather. In this book, someone has kidnapped the Hogfather (a spoof of Santa Claus), so Death decides to fill in during the crisis. Laugh out loud hilarious.

One book that made you cry? Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg. Amazing, stunning, touching, thoughtful, beautiful, lyrical, difficult. Read it.

One book you wish had never been written? The Bridges of Madison County by Robert James Waller. Many reasons why, one being that one of my former places of work was his former place of work, and the special collections department spent way too much money collecting every edition (in every language) of that damn book. And I’ll never get those 90 minutes of my life that I spent reading the book back.

One book you are currently reading? Blithe Tomato by Mike Madison. He’s a farmer in California and writes delightful, poignant vignettes about farming, farmers, and farmer’s markets.

One book you have been meaning to read? Affinity by Sarah Waters. I enjoyed her first book, Tipping the Velvet, so purchased this newer book during one of my adventures at the New England Mobile Book Fair. It’s been sitting on my bedside stand for several weeks now.

Now tag five people:You, you, you, you, and YOU! (Okay, really: Jessica the coollibrarian, Stella, Libby [email is cool], Amy [ditto], and Tammy[ditto]).

Thanks, Amanda!