working the 35mm

I took a few more shots with my 35mm lens today.  All were edited in Picnik.

Sepia with a little fade to bring back the color.

This one was a little washed out from using the flash so I added ‘vibrance’.

Used ‘Orton’ but faded it just a tad.

1960’s and took off the rounded corners.

This one I just cropped.  Originally the flower was in the middle.

I’ve been slightly obsessed with these flowers lately.  They’re like teeny sunflowers.  Here I just cropped as well.

I’m getting the hang of my 35mm and at least getting more use out of it than I was before.  I don’t think it’s the kind of lens I want to use for street photography or every day running around, but it’s nice.  Now I just need to play with the settings a bit more and see what it can really do with bokeh and lights!

distractions

Yesterday I had planned on finishing Quinn by Iris Johansen because it was due at the library yesterday and I couldn’t renew it.  Instead I spent most of the day online reading Jason Lee’s blog Sisters.  I first read an interview he did with My Modern Met where they showed off really cute & creative pictures Jason’s taken of his two daughters.

I loved them so much I pinned them.  Yes, I’m on pinterest too.  You can find me here.  I don’t have too many ‘pins’ but I do love checking out other people’s pins so let me know if you’re on there too so I can stalk you!

Anywho…I started looking at Jason Lee’s wedding blog and discovered the blog he has where he just takes pictures of his kids.  Once I got started I couldn’t stop.  I went all the way back to the first post and just kept clicking away.  Haven’t gotten any reading done.  This distraction has now cost me 25 cents at the library!
But sooooo worth it.  These kids are super cute and Jason’s photography is phenomenal.  I find myself perusing more photography blogs lately and starting to get the itch again to go out and start snapping away.  Today I pulled out my 35mm lens because really, I’ve been neglecting that one.  I took a couple of pictures of Emma with it, but I really want to get outside and see what I can do with more natural light.


I played around with the second one in Picnik and added some ‘stars’.  Weird, I know, but fun.
I read this article today about Henri Cartier-Bresson and his street photography.  I’ve always loved street photography.  Especially after seeing Vivian Maier’s found works, but I’ve always felt kind of awkward about taking pictures of strangers.  After reading Eric Kim’s article I’m even more intrigued by street photography.

And then there’s Alex Beadon.  Her stuff is amazing!  I love her self portrait series and her seasonal princesses.  I can’t wait to see the next one!  I actually have loved every picture she’s taken.  Not only do I love her photography, but she has some great tutorials and inspirational ideas and encouragement. 

I could probably go on and on, but again I really should be doing something else right about now.

 

so much fun!!

So have you noticed my purty new blog???  Didn’t Ms. Ali do a fantastic job!  I’m so happy with it.  I love the colors and the fun little touches she added.

And guess what?  Now you can have some of your own awesomeness for your blog too!  You can visit Ali’s blog Our Happily Ever After and enter her giveaway!  She’s gifting someone with a complete makeover for their blog!  How great is that?  You' have until the 27th of August to enter so get on it!

If you don’t win her giveaway don’t fret.  Ali’s prices are ridiculously reasonable and she also has some freebie backgrounds you can grab to test out on her site for the designing.  You can find that blog here or you can click on the Lil’ Crazy Designs button on my sidebar.

Good luck & thanks Ali!!  You’re the best!

and the fun keeps coming

Today I had my first appointment with the High Risk Pregnancy NP.  It was quite informative.  Quite.  Never in the time that we were trying to get pregnant or when I was pregnant with Emma did I think this would be something I would have to worry about.  I always kind of went with the idea that ‘that won’t happen to me’ and to be perfectly honest, in the grand scheme of things all of this is not really that bad.  Everything could always be worse…it’s just frustrating.

My blood sugar levels have been really good all day long, but during the night when your pancreas ups your hormones it’s too busy making crazy preggo hormones that it’s completely ignoring the fact that I need insulin.  I’m supposed to have a snack right before I go to bed to help keep my blood levels down then when I wake up in the morning I have to test my blood and those numbers should be relatively low.  Unfortunately, mine have not been consistent.  I haven’t been in the danger zone, but I have been close and then I’ll have a couple of days where everything’s fine and then it will spike up again.

And there is nothing I can do about it.  It isn’t something that can be fixed by changing my diet.  They’re all very quick to assure me that it’s nothing that I’m doing, it’s just my pancreas.  (In case you’re wondering, my pancreas and I?  We’re not friends right now)  So because I’m only got about 9 weeks left it’s time to take action before it gets too late.

Which means medication.  For the duration of my pregnancy I’ll be taking a very small dosage of a medicine that will stimulate my frenemy Pancreas to release more insulin.  Hopefully, this works.  If I don’t see any improvement they’ll up my dosage.  If there still isn’t any improvement I’ll have to start giving myself insulin injections every night.  BOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!  Once I had to give myself one of my fertility injections because I forgot to bring it with me to the office.  It was NO FUN.  I thought I would take it to my mom (she’s an RN) and she’d do it for me, but she said no way.

But I’m optimistic that this medication will be fine.  The other complication is if this medication makes my pancreas release too much insulin.  Then they’ll just pull me off and stick me (literally) with insulin.  So we’re rooting for that not happening.

With all this fun stuff comes bi-weekly appointments for stress tests where they monitor the baby to see how she’s coping in there and at least one, but most likely two more ultrasounds to measure her belly.  If her belly gets too big at 36 weeks they’ll have to pull her out of there.  So we may have a September baby instead of October.

Like I said, I’m optimistic.  My blood sugar levels have been excellent after every meal and I’ve felt really good.  With Emma in school now I’ve been either walking or riding my bike to pick her up so my NP was very excited about all that exercise.  Hopefully, things will be just fine.

But for right now, me and my pancreas are gonna fight.

teach what you know

With Emma starting kindergarten I knew that some things would change, but I thought those changes would be more about me.  She went to preschool so it’s not like this is the first time she’s been away from home for a few hours and as far as she’s concerned that was school so to her, kindergarten isn’t that new of a thing.  So I thought it would mostly be me adjusting to this new 5 hour block of ‘free’ time I would have and the idea that my baby now goes to ‘big kid’ school.

And for the most part it’s been that way.  We’re getting used to getting up earlier every morning (we’re both kind of late sleepers), packing lunch, eating breakfast in a timely manner and walking to school.  We meet up with our friends who live nearby and I get to chat with them on the way home.

What I didn’t think about is that despite the fact that there’s only 20 kids in her class, she now has contact with the other kinder classes as well so she’s observing and absorbing attitudes from 79 other kids.

The charming parts are things like meeting a new friend in her class whose name is Jasmine.  She told us, “there’s a girl named Jasmine in my class!  She’s in real life, not in the movies!”  Of course, the other friend she has named Jasmine is in Disney’s Aladdin.

But then there’s the other things that I knew would be a part of elementary school life, but I just didn’t think it would happen in kindergarten.  Maybe because it’s been 30 years since I was there myself.  A boy in her class is quite overweight.  When Ray picked Emma up from school on Friday she told him how the other kids were making fun of him at lunch.  She told him ‘But I like him just the way he is.’

It occurred to me that while we’ve always told her that saying someone is ‘fat’ is not a nice thing to say we’ve never really explained that commenting on someone’s weight is not nice too.  We usually say ‘chubby’.  Since she pretty much has no more baby fat (and hasn’t since she was about 8 months old) when we tickle her tummy or squeeze her cheeks we would say we were pinching the chubs.  I’ve said how Mama has chubs or Ray will say he has chubs and we’ve never said it in a mean way.  When she says it, she’s not saying it to be mean, she’s just calling it like it is.

Then the other thought in my mind is how the mean spirited teasing has already begun.  Ugh.  You want to protect your children from everything without clipping their wings.  You want them to be able to stand up for themselves or let it roll off their backs without affecting them, but it’s hard.  It’s hard leaving her there every day hoping that she’ll have a good day and be a good girl.  That she won’t come back to me hurt.

I read an article yesterday about a French company, Jours Apres Lunes who have designed a line of lingerie for girls aged 4-12.  They called it loungerie as they say it is a mixture of lingerie and loungewear.  While that is disturbing to me, why do 4 year olds need bras and panties that look like sexy lingerie, what is most awful was the ad that shows some girls laying back wearing the loungerie and pearls bed headed or sporting sunglasses looking very adult.  To me, it’s fodder for pedophiles.  It was disgusting.

A friend of mine sent me this article after she saw my post on Facebook about the kiddie lingerie.  I couldn’t agree more.  And what can we do?  The best thing is to do my best with my daughters.  To teach them to be respectful to the people they come in contact with and to themselves.  To be confidant and strong, but not so much that the fall into arrogance.  To be compassionate.  To be heard.  To be fun.

Good luck to me.

a life worth living

On Friday, my mom, aunts & uncles, cousins and my sister and I attended a memorial for my Great Auntie June.  I am incredibly sad that she is gone, but she really was ready to go so I thought this would just be a sweet, simple celebration of her life.  I didn’t expect to bawl like a baby at the luncheon afterwards.

My Auntie June was an amazing person.  She had married my Grandmother’s brother Tad and they had two kids, a son Jeff and a daughter Susan.  Jeff passed away in a car accident when he was 20.  I was about 5 years old at the time and I wasn’t lucky enough to hold onto memories of him.  My Uncle Tad passed away 11 years ago and since then my Auntie has been patiently (and sometimes, not so patiently) awaiting the time until she could see Jeff and Uncle again.

Before my Uncle died he told Susan and Auntie that he didn’t want a memorial or funeral or anything.  He said he didn’t even really want people to know.  At Auntie’s service on Friday Susan said she felt like the service was for both of her parents and that she was finally getting closure.  My Auntie Lori had put together a slide show of pictures to show and it was amazing.  Pictures from when they were kids, their wedding, other special occasions and just pictures of the two of them together.

I realized at that moment how much I love and missed my Uncle Tad and how much losing Auntie June meant.  I was also struck at how in love they were.  There was never a picture where they were just standing side by side.  Every picture was infused with their love…holding hands, hugging, kissing, smiling so brightly it almost hurt your eyes.

I wanted to go up during the service when they invited people to speak, but I’m just not that comfortable with public speaking.  Paraphrasing Jerry Seinfeld, my sister said ‘I’d rather be in the coffin than doing the eulogy.’  But I wanted everyone to know that I knew what an amazing woman she was.

When I got married the first time I was young and clueless.  For a bridal shower gift Auntie June gave me a cookbook called A Dinner A Day.  Inside she had written me a note on a post it.

I never took the note out of the book.  Every time I opened up the cookbook to try out a recipe I would reread it and remember what she told me afterwards.  She told me that when she had married Uncle she couldn’t even boil water and spent so many years feeling inadequate.  She wanted better for me and promised me all the tools I would need along the way.

I remember I loved going to their house. My Uncle Tad loved gardening and their backyard was like a lush, green jungle. They always had interesting things to discover and look at in their home. Auntie would always have something for us, just little things, but we knew that she was always thinking of us. The last time she came out to Morgan Hill she brought a bunch of stuff that the hospital gives you. She gave me one of those round rubber discs that help you to open jars. I swear I have used that thing more than anything else in my kitchen. Greatest gift ever!

Throughout my life, out of the blue, she would send me letters, little notes.  Just to say hi or to encourage me when she might have heard troubling news.  To give me comfort when I went through my divorce.  Congratulations when my life turned around.  She always knew just what to say and I always knew that what she was telling me was the truth.  She was never afraid to speak her mind.  If she thought something was wrong, if someone was being misused, she would step up and say so. 

I admired her greatly.  I will miss her presence immensely.

change, change, change

With Emma starting school and a new baby on the way I figured I didn't have enough change around here so when Ali over at Our Happily After offered to do a new layout for my blog I jumped at the chance!

She's been sending me her ideas and I am SO EXCITED!  I can't wait to see what it all looks like together!

So be on the look out for some purrty-ing up of this here blog, friends!  And be sure to check out Ali's blog if you get the chance!

her idea of being pooped is waaaay different from mine

When I picked Emma up from school today she said school was fun, but long and her brain was much bigger from all the stuff she learned.  She said that she was pooped from her long day and wasn’t all that excited to walk home, but since she had Autumn it was okay.

She spent a little time at Autumn’s house and then came home and decided she wanted to play some XBox Kinect. 

When she was done she told me that when the baby comes out I should definitely do Kinect because it will make the chubs go away fast.

Glad she’s looking out for me.

baby’s growing up

Despite my wishes.

Today is Emma’s first day of school.  Yesterday around 2:30 she asked me if it was time for her to go to bed because she really wanted to go to school.  Today she woke up and was all ready to go.  Asked me every few minutes if it was time to leave.  We finally got dressed, got her lunch packed, ate breakfast and headed out.

Along the way we discovered our neighbors a few houses down were headed to their first day of kindergarten too!  A few blocks away we caught up with Autumn and her entourage.

Their first steps onto school grounds as students!

All the girls together!  Tashi (on the end) is Emma’s adopted little sister.  Her brother Kai started kindergarten today too (but he wouldn’t pose for pictures) but Tashi doesn’t start preschool for a couple of weeks.  However, she was there today with her backpack to send everyone off!

And here it is, time to go in.  She didn’t even look back!  *sigh*  All grown up.

i just made a kick ass dinner

I did.  But I didn’t take pictures because I just threw shit together and thought ‘let’s try this’.  I didn’t think it would be so great, but it was.

It’s been kind of nerve wracking trying to think of things to eat that are not going to boost my sugar so much.  I’ve never really had to think about this, but now I do.  Though my levels have all been really good and I hadn’t changed much I still don’t want to push my limits.

So tonight I took the last of the salmon fillets I had frozen.  Then I filled a measuring cup with 1/4 cup of olive oil, sliced up a few garlic pretty thick and added that and squeezed a whole lemon into it.  Then I sliced up little cherry tomatoes and yellow pear tomatoes, white onion and a few spears of asparagus.  I spread all the veggies on the bottom of a glass casserole dish, salt & peppered them.  Then I laid the salmon down on top of the veggies and poured the olive oil/garlic/lemon mixture over it.  Covered it with foil and baked it in the oven at 350 for about 28 minutes.

It was awesome!  I highly recommend it & I wish I took pictures of it because it looked so pretty with all the colors too!

I’ll try to replicate it next week and make sure I take pictures then.  Let me know if you try it and how you like it!

fun & sugar free?

This pregnancy has been quite different than my last.  Last time I gained 60 pounds.  At about this time in my pregnancy I was probably up by at least 40 pounds.  This time, going into my last 10 weeks I’ve gained 17 pounds.

Woohoo me!

This time the ‘morning sickness’ lasted much longer.  I’ve been more tired, sleep is harder to come by and the back aches and just all around body aches are killing me.  Then to top it all off I came in a few points (2, actually) high on my glucose test which grants me with the awesomeness that is gestational diabetes.

Woohoo me.

The glucose test is by far one of the most unfun things about pregnancy.  If you’ve never had it, let me tell you about it.  You go in sometime during the day, preferably before you’ve eaten anything.  You get to drink this sugary sweet drink either in orange flavor or lemon lime flavor.  Then you sit and wait around for an hour and then they draw blood to see what your glucose levels are.  If you’re lucky enough to pass that yipee!  If not, you have to go back for the dreaded three hour test.

This time you have to eat half a sandwich and a glass of milk around 10 p.m. the night before your test.  Then you have to make sure that you eat nothing for at least eight hours, but no more than 10.  You hightail it over to the lab and they draw blood to show your levels after fasting.  Then they give you the lovely drink (which really isn’t that bad.  Think flat orange soda) and you sit around for an hour and they draw your blood.  Then you sit around for another hour and draw your blood and then the whole thing repeats itself one more time.

I got to do both of these.  Then six months after the baby’s born I go back in to do a two hour test to see if the diabetes has stuck around.  See, with your body producing so many hormones while your pregnant sometimes your pancreas just can’t keep up and there goes your glucose levels.  Most often it lasts only the duration of the pregnancy, but for some it can become a permanent condition.

So I got this little gadget.

It’s my glucose meter.  It’s not really as fun of a gadget as say my camera or iPad, but it’s got parts and pieces and stabs me every few hours.  What could be more fun than that?

Today I had my appointment with a diabetes nurse and a dietician to go over how to use my meter and what kinds of meals I should be eating.  Not so fun, but not so bad either.  Today was my first day checking my blood.  I have to check in the morning before breakfast and then an hour after each meal.  All of my checks were well below the max levels so I’m a happy camper.  I didn’t do too much to change my diet today except for staying away from soda.  Go figure.  Biggest Loser was right!

Ray also sent me an app that lets me track my counts and the times I test so I don’t have to make sure I always have this booklet that they gave me.  Every Monday at a certain time a nurse will call me to get all my readings for the week, answer any questions and check on my kick counts for the baby.

So yeah, way different pregnancy this time.  But eh, what are you going to do?  This will force me not to become a giant blimp by the end of the pregnancy and eat better.  Maybe I’ll become one of those heath nut weirdos.  Well, I did discover sugar free Oreos today (they are AMAZING!) so that probably won’t really happen, but who know, right?

big plans, my friends … big plans

Yes, I did.  I had big plans.  I was going to edit (and by ‘edit’ I mean add a watermark because I am actually too lazy to edit my photos more than that) all these pictures I’ve taken in the last few weeks and do a bunch of blog posts to catch up on everything that’s been going around these here parts.

I got as far as uploading all the pictures into Picnik, opening the first picture and then deciding I was just too tired and lazy to get into all of that right now.  Yes, I know, I suck.

So instead of updates about all the junk ‘n’ stuff that’s been going on around here you get this post.  Which is about nothing at all really.  Think of it as the Seinfeld episode of my blog.

We are now almost halfway through the month and I have only read 6 of the 20 books I have lined up for the month.  Though I am more than a third of the way through another 6 I fear I will not be able to make it to 20.  Though actually, next week Emma starts school so as long as I keep the house from turning into a toxic waste dump that’s 5 hours a day I could be reading.  Maybe there is light at the end of the tunnel.

In other exciting news on Thursday my friend JeNae and I attended a welcome meeting with two representatives from the Girl Scouts to begin the processes of starting Emma and Autumn’s (JeNae’s daughter, you’ve met her here before) Daisy troop.  I am so excited about this.

I was a Girl Scout from Brownies all the way through High School and then became a leader for 2 years.  I attended the National Convention in 1993 as a delegate chosen by the Board of Directors to speak about being able to substitute ‘God’ in the Girl Scout promise.  Having grown up Jodo Shinshu Buddhist it was an important issue for me.  I spent my entire Girl Scout career making a promise to an entity I did not believe in and I wanted different for other girls.  I spoke in front of thousands of people at the convention and later my speech was printed in the newspaper. 

Girl Scouts was incredibly important to me.  I made friends there that I still have to this day.  I believe that it gave me self confidence and in that time a safe place to land when the rest of the world was too hard to handle.  I grew up seeing how women could do amazing things either by reading about them in Girl Scouts or actually working side by side with them during my years as a scout. 

I earned both my Silver and Gold Award and you know, I still have a huge sense of pride and accomplishment about what I did in my years as a Girl Scout.  I can’t wait for Emma to experience this part of my world.  And she’s coming in during the best time ever!  2012 will mark the 100th Anniversary of Girl Scouts! 

Hopefully, Emma will love Girl Scouts as much as I did … and on that note, it’s time for me to hit the hay!  Goodnight everyone!

you is kind, you is smart, you is important

Last night I went with some friends to go see The Help.  Some of us have read the book and some hadn’t.  In the end, it didn’t matter.  The movie was as close to perfect as you can get.

1962 was a volatile time in our nation’s history.  So much happened in such a short time and really, it was only the tip of the iceberg, wasn’t it?  The Help takes place in Jackson, Mississippi during that year.  Eugenia (Skeeter) Phelan has returned from college with big dreams of being a journalist.  Of course, no one in her circle of friends takes her seriously.  For them, the most important issues are who is having babies and building separate bathrooms for their colored maids.

The longer Skeeter is home the more she sees that things are just not right.  She' can’t stomach the way the maids are treated, the way blacks all over town are treated and she embarks on a complicated, dangerous journey to try to begin to set things right.  She enlists in the help of Aibileen who is just going through the motions of life since her son died.

The book itself is amazing.  The characters rich and full of life.  Each and every character brings something so important to the story and in some way each one surprises the reader.  And the movie, well the movie is just literature come to life.  Viola Davis, Octavia Spencer and Emma Stone are so amazing.  Maybe even more so was Bryce Dallas Howard who plays Hilly Holbroock.  She’s so good at being a hateful, awful woman!  I spent most of the movie wanting to punch her in the face.

I wish I could tell you everything about this movie, but I don’t want to spoil it for anyone.  I want you to read the book, see the movie and laugh and cry just like I did.  While the book and movie deal with a very dark time in U.S. History it also shines like a beacon of hope promising that while things don’t become perfect, they did get better.

birthday boy

I was only two and a half when my sister was born so I really only have faint memories of her the day she was born.  I remember my Auntie Lori sneaking me in through the balcony because I wasn’t really allowed in to see my Mom, but I’m not sure if that’s a real memory or if it was supplied to me so many times it became a memory.

But since I was almost seven when David was born I have clearer recollections of that day.  It was bittersweet because I had this new little baby brother and he was certainly one of the cutest things I’d ever seen, but when it came time to leave my mom and David at the hospital I remember being very sad because they had to stay.


But boy was it fun to watch him grow up.  I feel like Amy and I grew up at the same time because we were so close in age, but with David I could see everything happening from a different place and it was amazing.  He was amazing and so smart and so dang cute!  When he was 2 he got the chicken pox (thanks to us, of course) but he couldn’t say ‘chicken pox’ so they were ‘b-pox’. 

And now, he’s still cute, just much taller and I’m sure he’d prefer handsome or good-looking over cute, but hey, he’s my brother.  He’s still amazing and so smart too.  I’m hoping that for this, his 29th year, he’ll have the best year of his life so far.

I love you baby brother!  Happy Birthday!

i’m entering a contest!

Amy over at My Overstuffed Bookshelf is celebrating her 2 year blogging anniversary by giving away a gently used Kindle 2.  How exciting is that?

Amy hosts the 100+ Reading Challenge that I’m participating in and she also reviews books like crazy!  Check her out if you get the chance!

cameras cameras cameras

Today we went looking at cameras.  Mainly of the point & shoot variety. 

Right now I have my Nikon D5000.

I love it.  It’s awesome.  And I’ve learned a lot in the last year and a half taking pictures with it.  But it’s also a decent size camera and kind of bulky to carry around everywhere (which is pretty much what I do).  I’d like to get a point & shoot for just everyday picture taking, but I still want to have control of the picture taking process and I still want it to take really good pictures.

So we’ve been looking at this P7000.

It’s smaller and lighter, but has a lot of the manual settings I like to play around with on the dials on the camera instead of being in menus like other point & shoots.  It also has a viewfinder which a lot of P&S cameras don’t have. 

Eventually, I’d like to get a Speedlight, but seeing as those are between $100 and $800 that’s an investment that will be put on the backburner.  But, if I do get one it would be compatible with the p7000.  That’s a plus.  Also, my uncle, a professional photographer has this one as his everyday camera and if I can’t trust his opinion on cameras then who?

The thing about me is that if I don’t apply the knowledge I learn I will completely forget it  If I’m going to use a P&S quite often I like the idea of having the manual controls so I can still practice going through the motions and not lose any know how.  That way I can still grow as a photographer and not take steps backwards.  That’s why I like the P7000.  I read some reviews on Canon’s G12 and while the reviews were great it’s a Canon and I’d like to stick with the Nikon.

So speaking of cameras … while at San Jose Camera today and chit chatting with one of the employees he introduced me to this lens.

It’s a middle of the line micro lens, perfect for the type of macro photography that I like.  I got to play around with it and see what it can do and now I really want it!  I’m thinking of testing one out from Borrow Lenses, but even if I love it, at $489 it’s going to be awhile before I get my hands on one to keep! 

If anyone has any experience with the P7000 I’d love to hear it!  Or any recommendations for other camera toys I’m all ears!

devil bones

While working in Charlotte, North Carolina, Temperance Brennan is called to a scene where a plumber has stumbled upon a closed up cellar containing cauldrons, animal remains and possibly human remains.  As Tempe begins to investigate the case spirals out of control and everything is on the line.

Book 11 in the Temperance Brennan series brings us back to North Carolina where Tempe teaches at UNCC and works for the Mecklenburg County Medical Examiner’s office.  The last we heard from Tempe, she had lost both Pete and Detective Ryan and was struggling to decide what that meant to her.  Now she’s just trying to make it through a case that seems at first, clear cut, but as evidence and bodies start piling up nothing makes sense.

Always a good read, Reichs brings us into the world of forensic anthropology without boring the hell out of us.  Definitely more scientific than your average suspense thriller it’s still easy to follow.  Like Patricia Cornwell’s Kay Scarpetta series I have a hard time understanding why a medical examiner ends up in danger and solving crimes all the time, but unlike Kay Scarpetta, Tempe makes less idiotic choices involving her own safety.

I tend to like the Charlotte books better, only because there’s less French to know.  One thing that does bug me about all of her books is Reich’s need to describe the scenery to the point where if I ever found myself in North Carolina or Montreal I could pretty much find my way around these crime scenes and then back to the ME office, no problem.

But all in all, the stories are always interesting and now, I’m 11 down, 3 to go!

something strange is afoot

So here’s what happened.

Remember how I was going to finish all these serials that I had started?  Well, to get books that I needed I put a bunch of books on hold at the library.  Some I was way down the line on the waiting list so I figured I could read the ones before those and be all ready for the ones from the library.

It didn’t work out that way.  When I went to pick up 2 books that I had on hold all 9 of them were ready.  I shouldn’t be writing a blog post.  I should be reading right now.

Hopefully I can renew them as I need to, but there’s going to need to be some speed reading around these here parts.

so close i can almost taste it

I started out this year deciding that I would try to read all the books I currently have on my bookshelves that I haven’t read yet.

I have not been very successful there.  I’m always tempted by new authors or new books by favorite authors.  So I’ve pretty much given up that goal.  Right now I’ve read 158 books.  If you’ve seen my to be read list for this month you’ll notice I have 20 books set to read this month.  That means that I could possibly reach my goal of 200 books by the end of next month!  That would give me 3 months to read another 50 books and up my goal to 250.  Of course, I’ll have a new baby to contend with so it is more than slightly doubtful I’ll do that.

But my goal within the goal for the next couple of months is to finish off some of the series that I’ve started.  Get ready for it … it’s a list!  These are the series that I’m going to try to finish in the next couple of months.

1. The Jack Reacher series.  I’m currently reading book 10 of 16.
2. The Temperance Brennan series.  I’m currently reading book 11 of 14.
3. The Eve Duncan series.  I’m currently reading book 8 of 13.
4. The Morganville Vampire series.  I’ve read 1 of 11.
5. The Sleepy Hollow trilogy.  I’m currently reading book 2 of 3.
6. The Aurora Teagarden series.  I’ve read 3 out of 8.
7. The Vampire Academy series.  I’m reading book 4 of 6.
8. The Bone Island Trilogy.  I’m currently reading book 2 of 3 and a half.
9. The Divine Trilogy.  I’ve read 1 of 3 and a half.

That’s my plan so far.  I have a few more that I should probably get through, but for now this is what I’ve got going on.  For the books I don’t have I’ve put requests in at the library and I noticed today that they’re all in transit so I’d better get to reading!