Thank you all for your kind words about our loss of Chloe. Our house feels so empty. Both Bryan and I keep thinking we either need to get home and feed her, if we’re running late, or I’ll expect her to be hiding under the bed before we go to bed. It’s truly amazing how much these little furry creatures touch your life and make you a better person. (This is a photo I took of her about four days before she died. She had food on her nose and kept giving me the look of “What? I’m saving it for later.” She was such a sweetheart and loved having her photo taken.)
Bryan, friends and school have kept me busy this past week. Wednesday I baked bread and learned all about what it means to have a very warm and humid kitchen. The end result bread was fabulous and was so airy. I have more bread in the works this morning.
Sunday we went blueberry picking for the third time this summer. We came home with just over seven pounds. We’ve slowly been freezing some of them to have for later. Last year we had blueberries until December. My breakfast bowl has been so filled with berries over the last few weeks between the blueberries we’ve picked and the berries from our friends’ backyard. Now our little garden in back is becoming fruitful with bell and jalapeño peppers, along with our amazingly huge plant of basil.
With my two classes this summer I’ve been reading a lot. Every summer, I sign up for the adult summer reading program at the local public library. I also keep a list on the fridge of the books I’ve read and “reward” myself with cute stickers I’ve had for years. (To decorate all of those letters that I was supposedly going to write all of these years.) This weekend I passed a goal that I didn’t think was possible for summer. Granted I started my summer reading as soon as school ended, but still I’ve read more than 25 books since May 3. This doesn’t even count the picture books that I’ve read for my Children’s Non-Fiction class. In summers past, I’ve been proud of 16 books over the summer but this will be hard to surpass next summer. So what are these books I’ve read, well here they are:
(one star = read for Adult Popular Literature, two stars = read for Children’s Non-Fiction)
* Devil in the White City by Erik Larson Gossip Girl by Cecily von Ziegesar What Happened to Cass McBride by Gail Giles
* Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin
** Laika by Nick Abadzis
* Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
* Thursday Next: First Among Sequels by Jasper Fforde
* Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card
** Little People and a Lost World by Linda Goldenberg
* Anyone But You by Jennifer Crusie
** Code Talkers by Joseph Bruchac
** Indian School by Michael Cooper
** 1621: A New Look at Thanksgiving by Catherine O’Neill Grace and Margaret Bruchac
* Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld
* Be Still My Vampire Heart by Kerrelyn Sparks
** Bearing Witness: Stories of the Holocaust selected by Hazel Rochman and Darlene Z. McCampbell
** Maus: A Survivor’s Tale by Art Spiegelman
** Maus II: My Father Bleeds History by Art Spiegelman
* Forbidden Pleasures by Bertrice Small (I was surprised how explicit this romance novel was)
** Ain’t Nothing But A Man: My Quest to Find the Real John Henry by Scott Reynolds Nelson
** Steel Drivin’ Man: John Henry, The Untold Story of an American Legend by Scott Reynolds Nelson
* Mojave Crossing by Louis L’Amour
** What’s Going on Down There? by Karen Gravelle
** The Period Book by Karen Gravelle
** Kampung Boy by Lat
** Hole in My Life by Jack Gantos
For my sanity, a couple of them I’ve listened to as audio books so that I can get off the couch and do a little sewing. Only two more weeks of class and 11 more books to go. Then I can start reading for pleasure again, which seems sort of strange to say since so much of the reading I’ve done this summer has been pleasurable reading. On my list for after-school reading - Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer, Bonk by Mary Roach, The Host by Stephenie Meyer and I’m literally drawing a blank on what else is on my list. I only have three weeks off before school starts in last August but I plan on getting more done than just reading. There’s a quilt the desperately needs to be finished and I have some fabric for tops that I’d like to get made before it gets too chilly to wear sleeveless tops.
My classes this summer have been keeping me very busy. I’m having a lot of fun in both classes, which is how summer classes should be. I’ve also managed to get a little sewing in during my breaks from reading.
My Adult Popular Literature is an online class and I’ve been reading science fiction, fantasy, romance and non-fiction books for that class. I’m in the middle of a romance novel now called Be Still My Vampire Heart. It’s really been a fun read and one that I didn’t expect to like. I still have to read three mysteries and a western.
This weekend I was working on a book talk that I have to do for Adult Pop Lit. I’m doing it on one of my favorite books, Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld. It’s been two years and after reading over 90 books since then I needed a bit of a refresher. I’m not one to reread books but I reread Prep to refresh my memory and I enjoyed it as much as I did the first time I read it. As one of my friends said yesterday, “The cover really doesn’t do it justice.” If you like coming-of-age stories and haven’t heard of Prep, I highly recommend it.
My other class is Information Books for Children. It’s basically Children’s Non-Fiction but since there are fairy tales, poetry, plays and literature cataloged in the Dewey numbers with the “non-fiction” in a library, information books fits the books better. We’ve read some great and not-so-great books for the class. The point isn’t to read all wonderful books because we need to learn about the not-so-great books out there too. My instructor is wonderful, she’s the same instructor I had for my Children’s Lit class last fall that I loved.
The last several weeks have been a whirlwind. June has also not been a friendly month for the Lee kitties. My parents lost their second cat, Lucy, last week. She hadn’t been doing well since her friend Milly died on the first of June. My parents were out of town and Lucy was boarding at the vet. She’d been having trouble breathing on Tuesday and just slipped away later in the day. At least she went peacefully and knew she was loved, she was definitely a spoiled cat. My mom made sure of that.
This past weekend, Bryan and I decided to make it a three day weekend to celebrate his birthday and both took Friday off. Friday, we just relaxed and got a lot of reading done. We’d planned to go to Springfield, Illinois but the threat of bad thunderstorms made us rethink our plans. Saturday, we did one of our favorite things - blueberry picking! There is nothing quite as scrumptious as fresh, handpicked blueberries. We thought we’d pick just enough to get us through a week since we’ll probably go back this Friday. We had not idea we’d picked almost five pounds. So we gave some to our friend L and her husband to enjoy since we know they won’t be able to get out there for a while. Then Sunday, L brought us some black raspberries from her garden to add to the berry delightfulness in our house. Even Chloe seems to like the fresh berries, though she can’t eat them. She gets so excited when we open the container of berries. You’d think we had kitty cat food stashed way in those bags by the way she acts.
Bryan also spent part of the weekend getting his Etsy shop and new blog set up.
Once I get some photos of my sewing I’ll post them. I hope everyone is having a good summer.
Thank you all for your kind words about George. We’re all getting along okay and Chloe is figuring out what it means to be the only cat in the house. This is the first time she’s ever been without George. I swear George gave her some snarking tips before he passed away.
I’m finished with school for the semester! It felt like the semester that would never end a few weeks ago, but I turned in my final paper (exam) on Wednesday, a day early. I’ve been home sick for the last seven days with a nasty virus (cold-like symptoms) so I’ve have a lot of time to read, watch Ugly Betty on DVD and knit. Another Baby Surprise Jacket is three rows from being finished. (Photos soon)
This summer I’m taking an Adult Popular Literature class and figured I’d start doing some reading for the class before everything kicks into full gear in June. In four days, I plowed through Devil in the White City, an amazing book. If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend it. I seriously could have stayed up all night to read it but knew that I needed my sleep.
Of course, after I finished Devil in the White City I got a bit distracted. For one of my final papers this semester, I had to evaluate a medium that was geared to children or teens. I chose to evaluate the show Gossip Girl with no idea how addictive the show could be. It’s sort of an updated Beverly Hills, 90210 mixed in with Sex & the City. In all of my research, which included watching several episodes of the show and reading quite a few articles on the show, I totally got sucked in. Yesterday, I checked out a fair amount of books for my Adult Popular Lit class and a Gossip Girl book just happened to end up in my stack of books. How odd! I’ve since finished the book and am thinking I’ve found yet another guilty pleasure. They aren’t books I would recommend to younger teens and they’re books I would be hesitant to recommend to fifteen-year-olds but if they are fans of the show, then I probably would recommend them. I can definitely see why many parents are not happy about these books and the show - the amount of underage drinking is more than I think most adults want any kids engaging in, although I’m sure a lot of teens are drinking anyway.
(I learned this semester that when school gets a bit insane that washcloths are the perfect project - from February until this past Monday I knit a total of seven washcloths. Above are just three of them that I knit for my sister.)
Even though it’s colder than %*&# (insert favorite expletive) outside things are good. I’m tired of the cold but who isn’t. At least it snowed a bit last night to justify the cold. We’re not surrounded by twenty feet of snow, like some people so a dusting is fine with me every week or so.
Things are good. Today I came home from class and decided, I’m going to make bread for my knitting group tonight (it’s a goal I have every week but sometimes just can’t manage) and just do what I want this afternoon. So I’ve been catching up on bloglines. I love blogland but don’t always feel I have the time to read everyone’s blogs. What I love about blogs is that I can read about someone I’ve never met but feel like I know them quite well from their blogs. It’s amazing that I “know” people all over the world that I’ve never met but would love to meet one day. When I read that someone’s pregnant I’m so overwhelmed with joy for them and when someone has a pet die, I find myself crying. I don’t comment on blogs as much as I should and hope to be better about it in the future.
Like I’ve said a few times now, things are good. I’m getting into a semi-routine with the semester, even though we’re in our six week of classes. Classes are going well. For my Media Literacy class, we have a portfolio we’re working on and we get to pick from a list of like ten things to do. I chose to interview an author or someone in the media that works with youth. So I emailed several authors that I’ve read recently. I didn’t expect to have the response that I did and also didn’t expect one particular author to respond as quickly as she did. She was the one that I figured wouldn’t respond and was sort of my “dream” interview. For my paper, I now have three authors and a children’s book editor.
My silk spinning class was great. It was really fun and I have a lot more confidence in spinning silk. I think silk hankies are probably my favorite just because fiber was the easiest to work with. I also really like the look of the yarn that I get from the hankies. We tried spinning several different types of silk - hankies, bombyx silk top and tussah silk top. I bought some bombyx silk in Maryland in 2006 that I’ve been afraid to spin. Now I think I’ll be spinning it up some day soon, I hope.
It’s been a while since I posted. I’m still alive and am very busy with school, my practicum at the local public library and my assistantship. I started on Sunday but it didn’t feel appropriate to lead off with but you can read it here (by clicking the “View the rest of this entry…”), if you so desire. I was having an extremely analytical evening the other night and that’s when I wrote it. While I’ve been busy with classes, I’ve managed to finish my tweedy vest (photos to come soon). One of my assignments for my Media Literacy class this week was to find a favorite YouTube video. I have several and have managed to somehow while away an hour here and there browsing through YouTube videos. Here’s my favorite and I thought you’d all enjoy it. You thought that library school was all about learning about library service and library theory, obviously there’s more to it.
My friend Dorie, who is an amazing quilter has three quilts that are part of an exhibit in New York. They are so adorable and so inspiring. I truly admire her work.
December 2, 2007 at 12:59 pm
· Filed under library, school
While I’m working away on assignments that are due this last week of my first semester of library school. I thought you might enjoy seeing just how much students have changed.
Update December 3
- One major project down with a few minor adjustments. The presentation for the project is done!
- One more paper to finish, my last of the make-up assignments I missed in October.
- Another major project due on Thursday, which is coming along nicely. Yesterday I had my doubts but after class today I’m feeling a lot more confident about it.
Looking forward to Friday for several reasons. I hope to have my paper and project done by Thursday evening so I have Friday free. It’s my birthday and I’m determined NOT to do homework that day.
November 14, 2007 at 10:53 pm
· Filed under school
I’m feeling better, I think it was a mild case of food poisoning. Fortunately by Saturday I was feeling chipper again.
I’ve been swamped with school stuff. Between now and the last week of classes in three weeks, I have two group projects that include presentations, a group presentation on poetry for children, a large portfolio for my Intellectual Freedom class and three papers, two of which are make-ups from when I was gone in October. To say it’s crunch time is a bit of an understatement as to how I’m feeling. Next week is fall break, but I have three group meetings between now and Thanksgiving.
So I’m still alive just busier than I can take. The blog posts will be few and far between for a few weeks. Don’t worry I’ll be back after December 7.
