And in other news...

I need to start blogging again. REALLY!

So, anyway....
I decided to google a few of my names today. It was interesting. Mostly the results were comments I made on other blogs or my photos. This is probably because I haven't been blogging, although I really need to find time again. I miss writing.

I wrote this blog back in January of 2010 in which I talked about a train case that I got from a lady on the North End. She had advertised a free cabinet that I wanted. We spent a lot of time talking and she had lots of neat stuff that I wanted to check out. I was able to get quite a few interesting items, including a "commode" (small table with drawers and shelves that was used for holding the washbowl and pitcher back in the days before plumbing) that was just like the one I was supposed to get from my Grandmother, but never did. Other than the fact that it was used in the garage and was covered in different paint and other interesting stuff, it is identical to the one my Grandmother always promised me. Long story for another time about why I never got the one from my grandmother. Maybe when I get around to refinishing the one I have I will post it on the "Better After" blog. I'm hoping that will be this summer sometime. Oh, I digress...back to the point of my blog.

So, anyway...
Imagine my surprise at finding the following "interpretation" of my blog on a sales site. From what I can gather, their material must be translated from the English language to theirs and then back again to English. That is the only explanation I can come up with for this horrible piece of writing that they have attributed to me. They did credit me at the bottom by showing the source, but what if a person just reads that piece and doesn't bother to check out the source to find out that I really do know how to use the English language? YIKES!

Here is their translation:

A World of Words: The train case.

by The Invisible Mo

I don't have notwithstanding today to highlight all the things I got. I do however requirement to put away a blog to this one jotting, the train victim. This was sitting on the patio as I walked up to the back door to batter. I told Tonia set to rights away that I wanted it. I have a train happening that belonged to my old lady and I insufficiency to sit them both in my sewing margin to maintain ribbons and such. Back in the day baggage sets came with these smidgin cases. Some people called them forge-up, cosmetic, or dear cases, but most people (at least the people I knew) called them train cases. I take it for granted it is because more touring took task on trains in those days and in these cases is where you kept your main items for looking your master so that you didn't have to unrestrained and go through your bigger suitcases while traveling. The riveting part about this one is that Tonia's parents outfitted these cases with their own view of tour kits. She said they had divers collections in each one. The one I brought adept in was a coffee kit. Here are the pictures.

Source: A World of Words: The train case.

The links are disabled and I put them in red so you would know where they were. The links were pointing to things on their site that they sell. Who knows if they are even still around.They had several news articles, too, which were equally poorly written. Here are a couple of my favorites. I'm not sure how these were translated, but they are not even understandable.

Top 10 court cases | Black History Month

by info@personalmoneystore.com (Personal Money Store)

Angry Background Month is here, and it’s beforehand to bookwork up. A Sunday way to dash some of the distinguished events in raven CV is to look at Greatest Court decisions that momentarily simulated African-Americans. Not all of these decisions were victories, but they all were conspicuous in disgraceful experience.
In an age when African-Americans can get payday loans with no esteem inspection, it’s moderately inviting to review about what the laws were 150 years ago. Here are the top 10 most telling Consummate Court decisions correlated to Negroid narration, according to infoplease.com .


WOW...seriously? When did they get an Angry Background Month?


Phoenix New Times (blog)PHOENIX (AP) - Authorities have conclusively identified a man who was fatally struck by a train in Phoenix almost 27 years ago. A spear pedestrian was pronounced dead at the scene on May 17, 1985 and injured beyond acceptance. Among his possessions was a Luis Gonzales, Killed by Train in 1985, Unmistakeably ID'd by Fingerprints This all 5 news articles » 

I suppose being killed would qualify as being injured beyond acceptance. LOL...


I went to their home page and there I found two more that amused me to the point I was laughing out loud. At the risk of making this one of my longest blogs ever, I have to share these last two. They really need to find someone who can translate these stories correctly. I'm not sure if the problems come from the articles being translated to their language or when they translate it back to ours. There were no clues as to where the site administrators reside.



Steve Jobs' health is a private matter

28.08.11

Now that he's no longer Apple CEO, it is.
During Jobs' two medical leaves, starting in antiquated 2009 and 2011, I argued that his health was not a private matter . Apple is a community company, majorly owned by shareholders -- not Jobs, the gathering's board or any other executive or employee. In Jobs' role as chief official, and as someone so closely identified with Apple, health impacted his ability to act daily duties and, therefore, could affect Apple operations and monetary performance. Jobs is no longer chief executive. He remains an Apple worker, according to a recent 8-K filing but in unspecified role, and is Chairman of the Enter. But he is no longer directly responsible for Apple operations.
I took lots of flack from the Apple Fanclub with respect to my previous "health is a public matter" position. I wholly stick out by it. The president of the United States gets a yearly checkup and discloses the claim of his health (maybe someday "her", depending who wins some future poll). It's part of the president's responsibility serving the public. CEOs to the shareholders, who are any public company's real owners. I don't lead one to believe chief executives should get yearly checkups and disclose health facts -- although considering their high salaries, there is good plea for it. They should disclose anything that might jeopardize their ability to perform their duties, strikingly compromised health.

Health Officials Warn Against Mosquito-born Illnesses

28.08.11

The eradication of a 48-year-old man that was linked to the West Nile Virus has prompted Oakland County officials to give prior notice people to protect themselves against mosquito bites.
"Prevention is the key to reducing mosquito bites and lowering the imperil of West Nile Virus and other mosquito-borne illnesses, signally in the evening and nighttime hours when mosquitoes are most active," Kathy Forzley, foreman and health officer of Oakland County Health Division said Friday in a request release.
The warning came on the heels of a Macomb County man's extirpation that was confirmed Thursday to be the first probable human death from West Nile Virus this year.
The man, whose hometown and name weren't released, was hospitalized earlier this month after showing symptoms of the virus. Tests to buttress that he died from the West Nile Virus are pending from the Michigan Bank on of Community Heatlh's Bureau of Laboratories.
"West Nile Virus is identified in Michigan every summer and can ground severe illness. We want to be sure that citizens take candidly the risk for WNV infection," Dean Sienko, state interim chief medical governmental said in a press release. "The months of August and September are when most woman cases of West Nile Virus occur in Michigan."


 
YIKES again!~ So maybe it's a good idea to go look up your names once in awhile and see if you've done any really bad writing. It sure worked for me!

Wow....day 24.

The prompt for today is "Do you enjoy being alone? Would you rather be around other people?"

I love being alone. I love the solitude and the ability to do just what I want to do and not think about who else is there and what their needs are. I have always loved being alone and have even been somewhat of a loner at times. I am sure if I had not had children I would live up on a mountain somewhere and eke my existence out by the land.
I like being around other people sometimes, especially those of the super short variety. The ones that are between their 1st and 5th year of life. Those are some of my favorite people. I love their energy and innocence and their lack of concrete reasoning skills. I love that you can stand behind a three year old and be hidden from view. I love that you can put your hand over your face and be gone. I love things like when a friend's five year old wanted me to hide behind the couch with him, because obviously if he fits there, so do I. haha. I love that they love singing silly songs and dancing to silly songs and giggling and falling down. I love that you can break a graham cracker into four pieces and magically give them "more". haha. Toddlers and pre-schoolers are the best. I love their screaming temper tantrums (especially if they are not my very own toddlers) and I love their little voices when they are being earnest and I love to hear them laughing.
As far as being around other people...the non super short ones...yeah, it's ok some of the time. And other times it just makes me hate people. I'm not really a people friendly person, although my friends would often disagree with that. I am amazed at the stupidity of people and disgusted by how mean and awful they can be to one another. (not that I've never been stupid or mean)
I super enjoy being with my friends. But I like people in very small doses and in small groups or one on one. I am not comfortable around big parties or gatherings. I am not one to want to go spend time with a huge group of people even in someone else's home and even if I know most of the people at the gathering. I will go to things, but I'm usually very self conscious and even shy. I will usually focus on one or two people. Sometimes I get so self-conscious that I will sit there with an empty glass when I really want to refill it, but I am too nervous to actually get up and walk across the room. I'm not sure why that is. I know I lack confidence so I'm sure it's related to that. I will find a spot to sit and sometimes I will sit in that same spot the whole time I am at the gathering. That's just how I roll.
So, the short answer if that I truly enjoy being alone. I am dying to try out this empty nest thing I've heard so much about. And yet, I can really enjoy being around other people, too. There's no easy answer to this question and I'm starting to fall asleep. This is kind of a rambling blog, I guess! So goodnight and I'll see what I can come up with for tomorrow.

Blogging for blogging's sake, part two

I'm trying to decide if I want to give up blogging or at least give up NaBloPoMo. It was gads of fun while I had friends doing it with me and we read and commented on each other's blogs. But part of the reason my blog title says, "comments optional" is because when I first started blogging outside of Myspace, I found that there were lots of bloggers who seem to be people who need lots of attention and comments on their blogs are practically required and they snub you if you don't play along. Wow...that was a long run-on sentence, but I guess it's ok.
 I did not know at first that there was etiquette involved in the whole comments thing. I usually did my reading of blogs while lying in bed before falling asleep and because I usually had my laptop up on it's end, reading it while I laid on my side, it was very difficult to comment. Commenting required sitting up and typing and then lying back down. I only commented on those blogs which really made me think or struck a nerve. I was blissfully unaware that I was breaking any rules or etiquette.
That first year in NaBloPoMo I was surrounded by a bunch of "mommy bloggers" that all thought they were the cleverest, funniest, smartest mommy bloggers around. Many of them were quite caught up with themselves and my question was always the same....where are your kids. Those delightful kids that you write about everyday are obviously not sitting on your lap while you are spending hours on the computer making the perfect blog. And I started to feel quite disdainful toward these perfect strangers who somehow while running a house and family found time to write blogs and comment on blogs and live, breathe and eat blogs. Were they all hoping to make money? or? I never knew because I eventually distanced myself from them. I got tired of seeing their pictures that were starting to seem contrived and having them beg for votes for this or that and then I got really annoyed when they started showing pictures of the mess the children made while they were blogging their lives away. I was a stay-at-home mom while my kids were growing up and I'm not sure I would have ever had the time to blog while my children were babies and toddlers.  I barely had time to myself to go to the bathroom. I did pursue some artistic things, but after the kids were fast asleep in bed.
Over the years I have continued to blog, mostly because I like to write and it's good typing practice, writing practice, grammar practice and hopefully will keep my brain nimble and free from dementia as I grow older. I  don't really write for others and I say I still don't care about comments, but I do think that comments at least let you know that someone is reading your writing. But then do I care that someone is or isn't reading my blog? I often think I don't care, but sometimes I find I do care. So I have no idea what I want to do now with my blog. Do I want to try and start reading other people's blogs again and commenting in an effort to make myself "known" and therefore generate a reader base, or at least an occasional reader base? Will that put me in that same category of the bloggers that annoy me with their needy ways? Do I want to change to just journaling for journaling's sake and leave the reader base out of it all together? I don't know. But I do wonder if this will be my last NaBloPoMo. They have moved to Blogher, which at first I thought was a great idea. Now, I'm not so sure. I don't think I like Blogher. It is way too much stuff on the page with way to many ads and I really have a hard time knowing what to do when I get there. It just seems all jumbled up to me. I have tried several times to go there and make sense of it, but it is much like reading a catalog to me and I've never been able to really read a catalog. They just make my head hurt. I have to look for a specific item if I want the catalog to make sense. And, in the case of Blogher, I have no idea where to start. None. So that is my blogging for blogging's sake tonight. Do I really want to continue with NaBloPoMo? It's just not as much fun as it used to be.

Blogging for blogging's sake.

That's what I'm doing tonight. Blogging for blogging's sake. The prompts they provided are too deep for my shallow mind tonight. I am tired. I took my mom out to dinner for her birthday, watched a couple of episodes of Hoarding and crocheted a row on my afghan. Then I played my gnome game, my Wordscraper (like Scrabble), and now I'm waiting for the girl I hired to finish my farms. I'm going to go finish up a little bit in the gnome game and go to bed. I can plant tomorrow, or, if I get too awake by getting my morning coffee ready and shutting the house down, I will plant on my netbook from my bed.
So that is all I have. I could post a picture, I guess. Let me see what I have.



How about this?
They used to have a color named "Seafoam Green". I've seen lots of sea foam and I have yet to see any that is green. This is part of a big long chain of seafoam that was on the beach near where we saw the seagulls at Long Beach. I see no green.

Cleaning things out.

Blueberry bushes on Moon Road in Rochester, Washington.

I've been going through paperwork and all kinds of stuff in order to find some order in the chaos that has ensued from children moving in, moving out, moving in and moving out. haha. There sure doesn't seem to be an empty nest syndrome in my future. Maybe some day I will get to experience that. I'm not really complaining. I don't mind the company most of the time and they are pretty good at sharing the space. I can't say it's been rough because it hasn't. It's been fun spending more time with the babies.

Tonight I was going through a collection of things I had saved for various reasons. I have some patterns for furniture, ideas for crafts, scraps of paper with things the kids said, and some things I thought were cute and might want to use someday. Saying all that to say...tonight's blog is something I had saved to recopy because I find it humorous. Now mind you the numbers are based on whenever this was written and the paper it is on is pretty yellowed by now, so I'm sure it was quite a few years ago, but the idea is still humorous and if the numbers were adjusted I am sure the ratio would remain the same. So without further ado, here it is:

I'm Tired

Yes, I'm tired. 

For several years I have been blaming it on middle-age, iron poor blood, lack of vitamins, air pollution, water pollution, saccharin, obesity, dieting, underarm odor, yellow wax build-up, and a dozen other maladies that make you wonder if life is really worth living.

But now I find out it isn't that.

I'm tired because I am overworked.

The population of this country is 200 million. 84 million are retired. That leaves 116 million to do the work. There are 75 million in school, which leaves 41 million to do the work. Of this total, there are 22 million employed by the government. That leaves 19 million to do the work. 4 million are in the armed forces, which leaves 15 million to do the work. 

Take from that total the 14,800,000 people who work for state and city government and that leaves 200,000 to do the work. There are 188,000 in hospitals, so that leaves 12,000 to do the work. 

Now, there are 11,988 people in prisons. That leaves just two people to do the work. You and me. And you are sitting there reading this. No wonder I'm tired. 

LOL.

Birds.

I finally got a DSLR. I decided on the Canon T3i. I got a telephoto lens at the same time with a range of 75 - 300mm. I immediately put it to use trying to photograph birds. It was then that I realized the lens I really want is 1200 dollars. Sigh.
I will continue to perfect my techniques and get back to using manual settings while I save my pennies to buy that lens. Here are my first few bird shots with the new camera. These were all taken on automatic settings, although a couple of them might have been manually focused.

A Junco in my yard.




A Crane off the Oregon coast.




Robin in a tree.



This is a baby...I'm not sure if it's a sparrow or a junco or ?
It is sitting in my flowering quince.



Nesting Canada Geese, also along the Oregon Coast.



I think this is a red-winged blackbird. He was scolding something.



This is the same red-wing sitting in the cattails.



The bearer of the twig. I am not sure what this is. I thought when
I first saw it that it was a cormorant, but it doesn't look like it
from the angle in this picture.



This little hummingbird sat on this stump for the better part
of a half hour. I am not sure why he has his tongue out at
this point, but he does.



This is him taking off. He is a ruby throated hummingbird.

Trampoline, The Next Generation.

OMGoodness. Will I ever get back to blogging. Think I'm going to check out the August thing that Tui is doing. In the meantime here are the pics of David and Daelin on the trampoline. I love these pics.


Daelin is just so happy in this pic. He loves his Daddy.



Getting ready to jump.



Looks like he is doing the Tarzan call.



Jumping with Daddy.



Looks like a little elf. So cute!



Running in circles around Daddy.

Dear Blog

I miss you. I hope to get going with some new stuff soon. I miss writing. I also miss reading the blogs of my friends. We all need to reconnoiter and get going. Maybe we should start something new. Something like Thursday Thirteen, but something we create. Anyone?
Sigh.

Hello again.

I am trying to decide what to do with my blog. I could go back to doing the monthly NaBloPoMo, but don't know if that is what I really want. I throwing a few ideas around in my head and seeing if they bounce off the walls and land in the "do it" zone. If any of you readers out there have ideas, please feel free to let me know. I love the writing exercise and it's good for my brain. I want to write regularly, but not necessarily each and every day. And for those of you who used to blog with me and have also hit the blank wall we've been sitting on...I would love to have you join me in this mission!
Speaking of missions...I need to see where I stand on my 101 in 1001. The end is coming up in September and that really isn't going to be that far away. Yikes!

Friendship

I tried to find the source of some pictures with quotes that my longtime friend, Cheryl, sent me in an email and found two more quotes that I really liked.

Friends are God’s ways of apologizing for our families.
~ Anonymous
I so agree with this one. We all know we can't choose our family. It is what it is, and sometimes the friends in our life are much closer to us than those we call family. Oftentimes we would prefer our friends to be our family. And many times I've witnessed where friends became the family that a person didn't have in their blood relatives.



It takes a long time to grow an old friend.
~ John Leonard

So true. My friend, Cheryl, has been in my life for all of my adult life. We became friends when I was still in my teens, and she was a young married mother about to give birth to twins. I'm not sure she really believed she was going to have twins. They didn't have ultra sounds in those days. But she did give birth to identical twin girls. I loved babies and was so excited to have a friend that had twins. I still remember going over to her house to help with them, and give them their baths in the sink. I often babysat them and their older sister while she and her husband went out for the evening.
It was kind of funny because I was dating the man who was to later become my first husband. He would call me up for a date and I would tell him I had already agreed to babysit the twins and Tina. He would offer to go with me and help me out, so our "dates" were going over to Cheryl's and babysitting! I don't know a lot of men who would have thought that was fun, but Michael loved it as much as I did. It sure did make taking care of them much easier.
Cheryl and I have been friends for over 41 years. We have seen each other through many things and while we may not agree on everything, we have both worked to maintain the friendship over time. We have had periods where we didn't see each other for long stretches. Things just got busy for us, or we lost touch by moving or circumstances changing. By chance we would run into each other again and start right back where we left off. Since then we have both been determined to make sure we don't lose touch again, and we make time for each other almost every week when we get together for breakfast. There's just nothing better than a good friend who has been through life with you.

I love you, Cheryl and hope we have many more years to come!

Here are the pictures that Cheryl sent in the email. I couldn't find any information to post about their source, but since they are going around the internet, through the emails, I think it will be alright to post them here. If anyone knows the source, I would gladly acknowledge the person who put the quotes and pictures together!
Enjoy!

Blogging.

Blogging.
January.
Laziness.
.....sigh.....

I will get into it. I promise. Just not today.

Getting out more.

The road to a friend's house is never long.
Danish Proverb

My friend, Becky, gave me a wooden plaque with that message on it a few years back. I have it hanging on the wall. It took me a long time to realize that it should also include me. In other words....why did I always expect that everyone should come to my house?

This is something I have really had to work on this past two years. When I joined the "101 in 1001 Mission", it was one of my goals to stop being such a hermit. I made it a goal to go to my friends's houses more often, instead of always expecting them to come to my house. I also made it a goal to get out more and do things and go places. It is so easy for me to be a hermit and shut myself away from the world. I love my home and being in it and I have to work to leave it on the days when I don't work.

I have made good progress on this goal. Becky and I have made many trips in the last year and have had some really nice times going new places and seeing new things. I have also gone to visit more people and not copped out on going to functions. It's not been easy, but it has been fun. I am not a person who really likes crowds and big parties or gatherings. I have been making myself go to some of these things and have actually had fun.

I am going to continue to try and get out more and spend more time with some of the people I hardly ever see because of my swing-shift schedule. I can actually go places in the mornings and still go to work in the afternoon. haha. It's a work in progress, but I am making progress. Which reminds me...I really need to go check out my goals and see how I'm doing. The challenge ends this September and I think I have a LOT of reading to do.

Friends...the definition and some quotes.

You have a good life if you have even just one good friend. I'm not sure if that is a quote or just a thought. I read a lot and maybe I read it somewhere, but friends sure do make traveling through this life easier. Here is the definition I found online. I think I could come up with more definitions if I gave it a minute, but I slept in today and I'm trying to finish rearranging my farms so I can spend less time farming and more time being productive. Tomorrow I begin my whirling dervish period, so today was my last lazy day! Wish me luck on my projects!



friend (frnd)
n.
1. A person whom one knows, likes, and trusts.
2. A person whom one knows; an acquaintance.
3. A person with whom one is allied in a struggle or cause; a comrade.
4. One who supports, sympathizes with, or patronizes a group, cause, or movement: friends of the clean air movement.



Friends are those rare people who ask how you are and then wait for the answer.
Author Unknown

A friend is someone who knows all about you, and loves you just the same.
Proverb

The road to a friend's house is never long.
Danish Proverb

Walking with a friend in the dark is better than walking alone in the light.
Helen Keller

Don't walk in front of me, I may not follow;
Don't walk behind me, I may not lead;
Walk beside me, and just be my friend.
Albert Camus

A friend is a gift you give yourself.
Robert Louis Stevenson

It is the friends you can call up at 4 a.m. that matter.
Marlene Dietrich

I don't need a friend who changes when I change and who nods when I nod; my shadow does that much better.
Plutarch

A true friend is one who thinks you are a good egg even if you are half-cracked.
Author Unknown

Friends

Friends is the theme this month and I've been thinking how nice it is to have friends and how sometimes it's kind of like the tide. The friendships ebb and flow over time. I have had friends that were actually great friends even though we saw each other very seldom. Sometimes our schedules were just opposite, or sometimes there were other extenuating factors that made it difficult to actually get together, but when we did finally find the time to reach out to one another it was like no time at all had passed since we last saw each other. Sometimes you spend so much time with one friend and don't have any time for another.Sometimes you have a couple of friends with whom you get together and spend time many times over the course of a year as a group. Friendships come in all sizes, shapes and colors and hundreds of configurations. There is just no one way to define friendship.

I've come to learn that friendship survives these kind of things if you and the other person truly have an understanding and a strong bond of some kind. I've also learned that some people cannot handle friendship that is not exclusive and 24/7. I, myself, prefer the friendships that are tested over time and remain strong with or without actually spending tons of time together. 24/7 friendships tend to wear me out and I've found that many of the people who want that type of friendship have issues if another friend needs your time or things happen in your life that cause you to be unavailable to them. I've also found that those who want a 24/7 style of friendship are often not true friends. I'm not sure why that is, but it has proven true to me more times than once.

I didn't really have a direction with this blog. I just was thinking about the subject at hand because the blogs I've written so far this month have very little to do with friends per se. They have been picture blogs about things that I saw one day on a trip out with a friend, just not anything about friendship in general. I think I will try to find some good stuff about friendships and some philosophical sayings and post a few blogs about what makes friendships special. Maybe I can even tie it into some of my best friendships and give some kudos to the folks I call friends, whether we have met in real life or only on the internet and what makes them special to me. I will try to start tomorrow, but maybe not until Monday. Tomorrow is supposed to be my LAST lazy day of the lazy streak I've been having. So I just might need to take full advantage of it and be VERY LAZY because Monday I am going to turn into a whirling dervish! That's just how I roll!

Let's all read some books.

Becky tagged me for this and so I will celebrate my last day of NaBloPoMo with it. I am not going to tag anyone, but feel free to participate if you like.

Have you read more than six of these books? The BBC believes most people will have read only six of the 100 books listed here. Instructions: Copy this into your NOTES. Bold those books you've read in their entirety, italicize the ones you started but didn't finish or read an excerpt. Tag other book nerds. Tag me as well so I can see your responses!

Ok...so that's the meme.

Let me start out by saying that I read mostly non-fiction. I have always preferred it to fiction, although I love John Steinbeck, have read all of his works, and own many of them. I also have read all of the "Bunnicula" series by James Howe, and thoroughly enjoy an occasional cat murder mystery by Lillian Jackson Braun.

I love biographies and history books, such as "The Habsburgs", by Dorothy Gies McGuigan. (Doubleday, 1966). I just really love non-fiction. I do attempt to read fiction, though. I even have a list of things I want to read. I try to remember to look them up so I can get them, but I always forget. Maybe I will join a book club this next year.

So here we go...let's see how many I've read. I know it won't be as many as Becky or Chris.


1. Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen

2. The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien

3. Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
Seriously...I faked reading this for school. Didn't care for it at all.

4. Harry Potter series – JK Rowling (all)
Haven't even read one!

5. To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee

6. The Bible
When I got my first Bible, I read it cover to cover. The only frustrating part for me at the time was that there were mentions in the Old Testament to other books, which were not available to me. (or anyone?)

7. Wuthering Heights
I started this book so many times. The movie was a little better, but again...not my style.

8. Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell

9. His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
Gosh, I never even heard of this one.

10. Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
I went through a Charles Dickens phase in which I read several of his books. I even enjoyed most of them.

11. Little Women - Louisa May Alcott
And "Little Men" and "Eight Cousins" which I have also.

12. Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy

13. Catch 22 – Joseph Heller

14. Complete Works of Shakespeare
I own a copy of the "Complete Works of Shakespeare". It was published in 1890. It is one of my collection of old books. I haven't read it because the pages are brittle and I don't want them to break. Maybe I will do another blog on some more of my old books.

15. Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier

16. The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien

17. Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks

18. Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger

19. The Time Travelers Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
It's on my to-do list.

20. Middlemarch – George Eliot

21. Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell

22. The Great Gatsby -- F Scott Fitzgerald
I don't know why I never finish this book.

23. Bleak House – Charles Dickens

24. War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
Darryl finished it. I didn't.

25. The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
On my list.

26. Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
Also on my list.

27. Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky

28. Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck

29. Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll

30. The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame

31. Anna Karenina –Leo Tolstoy
On my list.

32. David Copperfield – Charles Dickens

33. Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis
My kids have all read this, why haven't I?

34. Emma – Jane Austen

35. Persuasion – Jane Austen

36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis

37. The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini

38. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Berniere

39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Willaim Golden
I really want to read this one.

40. Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne

41. Animal Farm – George Orwell
It took me years, but I finally read this one.

42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown

43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabrial Garcia Marquez

44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving

45. The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins

46. Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery

47. Far from the Madding Crowd -- Thomas Hardy

48. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood

49. Lord of the Flies – William Golding

50. Atonement - Ian McEwan

51. Life of Pi - Yann Martell

52. Dune – Frank Herbert

53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons

54. Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen

55. A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth

56. The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon

57. A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens

58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon

60. Love in the time of Cholera - Gabriel garcia Marquez

61. Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck

62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov

63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt

64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold

65. Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas

66. On the Road - Jack Kerouac

67. Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy

68. Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding

69. Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie

70. Moby Dick – Herman Melville

71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens

72. Dracula – Bram Stoker

73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson

74. Notes from a Small Island - Bill Bryson

75. Ulysses - James Joyce

76. The Bell Jar - Sylivia Plath

77. Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome

78. Germinal – Emile Zola

79. Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray

80. Possession - AS Byatt

81. A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens

82. Cloud Atlas - Charles Mitchell

83. The Colour Purple - Alice Walker

84. The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro

85. Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert

86. A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry

87. Charlotte's Web - EB White

88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom

89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

90. The Faraway Tree collection - Enid blyton

91. Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad

92. The Little Prince - Antoine de Saint Exupery

93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks

94. Watership Down - Richard Adams

95. A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole

96. A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute

97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas

98. Hamlet – William Shakespeare

99. Charlie & the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl

100. Les Miserables – Victor Hugo


I think my count is 27. Not too bad. Maybe I will make a new list for myself.
I have to admit there are several on here that I didn't even know existed, so I will have to go check them out and see what I can find.
,
And with that...
NOVEMBER is OVER! NABLOPOMO is complete! Yay!

Pick a reason.

Pick your own reason for why I'm posting this lame blog. I've been busy and that makes blogging harder. I'm excited for November to end. I'm excited to decorate for Christmas and I'm excited to get this room painted so I can put things back where they go.
So I'm doing this quick picture blog of random November blooms...
Because I'm tired of blogging every day.
Because I take pictures constantly.
Because flowers were still blooming in November.
Because there is only one more day in November.
Because my brain is on vacation.
Because I can.

More cooking.

Today I made delicious home-made cinnamon rolls. Plus something from the leftover dough and cinnamon/sugar. I spent the day doing lots of dishes, lots of cooking and lots of coughing. I'm tired and don't want to blog today. Only two more days to go. I would show you lovely pictures of my cooking but I didn't take any.

October

I so want to do the October blog, but can I really handle 61 days of blogging with all I have to do right now? Plus, I would have to pre-write for the days that I will be gone to the ocean. I guess not. I will save my energy for November. I should have a lot more free time by then because I'm hoping to finish up most of my project stuff on that week off minus the four nights and three days at the ocean. Nine minus three leaves six whole days. We will see how much I can do. It sure helps having the boys here.

September 1

It's September! I find that hard to believe! I have decided to do the September blog because the theme is "Art". I know. I'm crazy. (and a glutton, I guess, because I always have too much on my "to do" plate, but I figure I can easily get by on this subject with the posting of a picture or two. So here's your starter picture. I'm sure I've posted this picture on other blogs about things my kids made for me but this time I'm posting it as ART!


Palette by David, Castle by Dennis.

So glad it's July 31st.

No more monthly blogging for awhile. Of course, I've said that before, but then I can't stand it and I start again. August is out of the question because I will be taking my trip (OMGoodness....so EXCITED) and being busy at home. Lots planned for August including another trip to the ocean next week. This time all three of us can go, so we should have a really great time. I've been missing my friend Jewel because she's been so busy that we haven't been able to get together much at all. So she, Becky and I will have a whole day to gab our hearts out and take pictures and enjoy the ocean air. Should be fun!

In the meantime here are pictures of a cute little moth that was sitting by the bird cage. I haven't adjusted the color, yet and I haven't identified him, but you can see why I seriously need a DSLR. I'm not sure why I keep talking myself out of it. Next year I will have one. I can't always get the detail with my Fujifilm, although, I do love it. I'm becoming a camera-a-holic. I just want to buy cameras for me and for everyone else, too!