Funiculars

I love finding these web museums of sorts and can spend hours looking at the home on the web for Drive-in Movie Theaters, or Abandoned buildings in Indiana. But this is my newest love is reserved for funiculars. Tim and I didn’t ride up the one in Montmartre in Paris, we toughed it out with the stairs up to the top of Sacre Coeur. But I did ride up this one in Pittsburgh on a freezing night with Pilar, Suzy, Joann and Newman.

Good times.

Overall Better

Thanks to everyone who inquired about Tim after my last post. I didn’t know it would cause quite a stir. We still don’t officially know what is the root of the evil belly, but he is on some hardcore medications that are making him feel better. I really hope this does the trick, but so far we just will have to wait and see if we’ve licked it for good.

I have continued spending copius amounts of time working on last year’s Block of the Month quilt. It is really time consuming and involves a great deal of fabric shopping, washing, ironing and in my case often…ripping out stitches. I am finally at the point where I am quilting three long panels of the soon-to-be queen sized quilt after which I will have to assemble together. I contemplated a fancy quilting design, but have opted for a much simpler design which I like very much and will probably mean that the quilt will be done in the next few months instead of the next few years. Working on some more quilt items as well…and should get cracking on the three quilts for the soon-to-be born.

Today I finished Love in the Time of Cholera…which for some reason took me the entire month to read. I liked it, but for some reason never really got drawn into the story. Next up for the February SGBC is the Virgin Suicides (a wonderful Christmas gift from Gina). Hopefully it will be a little quicker read and give me some time to read something else before March. Also spending a little time doing some travel related research. So many places sound so facinating to visit! Hopefully will make a decision soon. I am hoping this week to also take a look at my 101 list and do some revsions that I’ve been meaning to tackle.

Hope to be back posting regularly soon too…

xoxo

No News is…

Good News? We’re still waiting. Poor little Tim…he has spent many hours lately sitting around in waiting rooms of doctors, specialists, labs and emergency rooms to get scanned, xrayed, poked, prodded and required to give up specimens. He is alive and doing ok, and we might have a real diagnosis by Friday, as opposed to the random guessing of a diagnosis by different doctors and scary internet research on our part.

Doing some of this waiting with Tim has given me some good time to work on the SGBC January selection. While Love in the time of Cholera isn’t hard reading like I anticipated, it is long. And maybe it is because I just read the book on syphillis, I don’t understand why the book isn’t called Love in the Time of Chlamydia based on the activities of Florentino Ariza who passes up real adult relationships with deserving women based on a teenager’s crush. Anywho, I hope to finish it up soon to move on to The Virgin Suicides.

I have been putting off actually doing it, but I think I need to change my 101 List a little bit. I do not think that I am going to be riding RAGBRAI this summer as originally planned in favor of taking a trip abroad with my family and Tim. We haven’t decided where we are going yet, but research is being undertaken for a few different locations in Northern and Western Europe. So the Travel, Exercise and Quilt sections may change a little bit in the 101 list in the next month or so.

Despite either feeling obscenely stuffy, or zombie like due to the Allegra, I am trying to finish up last year’s Block of the Month quilt. Making the 12 blocks are just one little part! I framed the blocks and trimmed them up all to the same size and have added sashing and cornerstones. But you don’t piece together all of the sections, as we are going to quilt them in smaller sections and then put them all together AFTER the quilting. I will end up with a queen sized quilt and haven’t ever made something so big, or done the quilting in sections so that will be interesting. I am currently working on the borders and have two more classes to work on getting it finished up. Would like to get it done and displayed in the guest bedroom…also have more ideas for quilts that I would like to start as well. Though might need to decide on one for Gina’s baby boy due this spring!

Also…thought it was going to be the Colts year. *sigh*

Cedar

There are things I like about living in Texas (cost of living) and things I dislike about Texas (the summer heat)…but I can’t believe that we live in an area where people get allergies in January! Many people are allergic to Mountain Cedar, and I am one of those lucky people suffering in the middle of the winter. Forgive me, as the medication is making me totally spacey.

I have been fighting through the haze this weekend to work on last year’s block of the month quilt a little bit. I got my 12 blocks framed and have another class this week to learn how to do the sashing and cornerstone blocks too. So fun. Also contemplating additional embroidery projects…just need to get some more materials together for those.

It is sports spectacular around here lately too. Friends of ours were nice enough to take us to the Spurs vs. Lakers game last week, and Tim is really excited about his Colts who killed my Broncos today. The Colts better get it together and win this year! We do get to see the occasional IU basketball game as well, but those can be sort of hard to watch lately.

Watched Anchorman this weekend, which was alternately hillarious and boring. Not as funny as Elf or even Dodgeball. So many movies I want to watch, both in the theaters and on DVD. I also need to pick Love in the Time of Cholera again for the Jan SGBC selection.

There might be revision of the 101 list at some point…I hope that isn’t considered cheating!

Book List 2005

1. Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The first choice for the SGBC of the year. I am glad that I read this book, that we selected it, because I might not have read it on my own. I enjoyed this book, but didn’t love it. It wasn’t hard reading as I thought it might be, but it still did take me a long time to get through. I enjoyed the story, but in terms of a great-classic-epic love story, I was a little disappointed.

2. Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes
Not a bad read/listen. I enjoyed the parts about their work on the house and general life in Cortona. Had trouble concentrating on the recipes, which is odd because I love to cook. I listened to this after watching the movie, and it is crazy how different they are (except for the Polish workers). It also makes me want to travel, or at least go to her house for dinner.

3. Running with Scissors: A Memoir by Augusten Burroughs
Finished this a little while ago, and feel that I should have something important to say about this memoir. It is hard to know how to take some of the episodes because there is little introspection on the author’s part…he is just reporting odd, funny, horrible things that happened to him growing up, not saying anything about how that made him feel really. Parts of this were really hard to listen to and were pretty shocking. Other parts that bordered on funny (God is talking to me through my poos), when you think about them and what it must have been like, it is really sad. In the epilogue, the author mentions what happens to most of the people he grew up with…for some reason I made me really happy to hear what happens to Natalie. Just for that, it might be worth a recommendation.

4. My Kind of Place: Travel Stories from a Woman Who’s Been Everywhere by Susan Orlean
I was just going to listen to parts of this while I waited for some other books on CD to come in but I started really enjoying it. There were some stories from this collection that I really enjoyed, like the one about the taxidermist world championships, and about the child pagents, and other stories that didn’t capture my imagination as much. A quick and overall good read.

5. Virgin Suicides by Jeffery Eugenides
Ok, I didn’t love this book the way I loved Middlesex, but it was pretty damn good. There is something about Eugenides writing that gets me, like John Irving. Both men write exactly the stories that I crave without my knowing what they are or how they should go. The Virgin Suicides is about 5 sisters who commit suicide, but is also really about memory, artifacts and supposition. The narrator suggests that it is possible that the imagining of events could color your life just as much as actual events, if not more so.

6. The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan & the Forgotten Colony That Shaped America by Russell Shorto
Loved it, was bored by it, and then loved it again at the end. Near the end, I was having trouble concentrating, at about the same point the English take over the colony. But the end did a good job at pulling it all together. I love the idea (as a dorky history major) that history isn’t some static collection of facts, but something constantly changing as new sources come to light, or as attitudes change. Seeing how our country is the better for having the Dutch influence is really interesting and seems obvious, but it hasn’t always been so. And Wall Street in Manhattan is named after an actual wall that was built by the Dutch colonists, not to keep the Indians out (as sometimes believed) but to keep the English out.

7. Over the Edge of the World: Magellan’s Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe by Laurence Bergreen
Is it so wrong that I loved this book? I was actually smiling when the 18 remaining survivors were landing in Seville. I think that is is so interesting when a book about a topic, which you were never interested in really to begin with, totally catches you and you learn amazing stuff while being totally engrossed in the story. In that sense it is a lot like Seabiscuit for me. But really, what isn’t there to like? Geography, munities, torture, anthropology, killings, orgies, scurvy, history and pure wonder at the big, and small world. This isn’t really a book you can rip through in a weekend, but it is a page turner and truly wonderful.

8. A Home at the End of the World by Michael Cunningham
I really liked this novel. I had seen the movie, and liked the movie, but I liked the book even more. It is a little more complex and told from different perspectives of the four main characters. Cunningham is great at telling details that just suck you in, similar to my fav Irving. The story is about family, love, friendships home and loyalty. It is an odd friendship that dominates the story, but aren’t all friendships a little bit odd?

9. The Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary by Simon Winchester
It is a bit intimidating to write about a book so much about language, by an author clearly in love with words. The book starts off with a history of the English language, which is really interesting how different it is than the romantic languages. Shakespeare loved making up words and sometimes they stuck around like accomodation, laughable and others that never really caught on like soilure and tortive that do seem sort of awkward, but I may try to bring vastidity back to describe bigness. And this sentence about English language being an evolving language? Just slays me: “…no critic and advocate of immutability has ever once managed properly or even marginally to outwit the English language’s capacity for foxy and relentlessly slippery flexibility”. Really the book is about the Dictionary, those who created it and how they did it. And it is wonderful, a good read for anyone who can derive pure pleasure from a well written sentence.

10. Round Ireland With a Fridge by Tony Hawks
This book is very funny, funny in the Bill Bryson vein. Tony Hawks is bet by a friend that he can’t hitch hike around Ireland with a mini fridge. And for some reason, he does it. The book is more introspective that I imagined and wickedly funny. Bryson usually packs in a few historical or ecological bits, but Hawks just sticks to his travels, the people he meets, and his fridge.

11. Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell
For history geeks like me, this was a wonderful read. Vowell goes on an assassination pilgramage to sites linked to Lincoln, Garfield and McKinley assassinations. It is quirky and weird and interesting. A book like this reminds me why I love history. History is so very strange, and not just in the overplayed Kennedy and Lincoln coincidence kind of way. Robert Todd Lincoln was witness or just arriving at all three assassinations is so spooky that Vowell nicknames him Jinxy McDeath. Hee. She also nicknames Garfield (who was obsessed with finding time to pursue his favorite activity…reading) Mr. Loner McBookworm.

12. Oh, Play That Thing by Roddy Doyle
I enjoyed listening to this book, but also sort of glad that it is finished. Parts of the story were fascinating and I was interested in what happened to the characters. There were parts though that sort of dragged on. Parts with so much detail that you think that it would be important, but really, not so much. Situations are drawn out breath by breath that really don’t have an impact on the characters or the story in the long run. Overall though a decent read.

13. Around the Bloc by Stephanie Elizondo Griest
I attended a reading by this author and really enjoyed both the reading and the book. As a young woman (as she still is), she begins her lifetime of travels in Moscow after the fall of communism. She works and studies there making Russian friends. She continues her “red” tour of China and finally Cuba. She learns a lot about the places she visits, and the people. But winds up learning more about her home and self.

14. P.S. I Love You by Cecelia Ahern
Read this in about two days…quick read and a cute little story. I did get into it, but there were a lot of characters that I kept confusing (Tom, Jack, Daniel, John) and I don’t think that she always did a great job of really showing (versus telling) what the situation was like for the characters. Apparently this is her first book, and has written at least one more, so I might be inclined to check out another one.

15. Word Freak by Stefan Fatsis
Second book this year to deal with language and words. This book however mostly centers around the world of competitive Scrabble play. The author profiles some of the top players, while also learning the competitive side of the game himself. The profiles of the players are interesting, the history of the game was interesting and so was the general discussion of the words (british have more playable words) and sources (reminded me a little bit of the lexographer info from Winchester, see 9 above). While those parts kept the book interesting, the second half mostly deals with the author’s obession to turn into an expert player, and therefore discusses IN EXCESSIVE DETAIL plays from tournaments. Yawn. I had to make myself finish this.

16. My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult
This book was enjoyable, told an good story and was annoying at the same time. The story starts off with a good idea, and quickly takes you there. However, I was distracted by many parts. The story is told by all the characters in revolving chapters, ok fine. The character of the mother drove me insane. And I found it very hard to believe that two adults (in their 30s?) would still be upset with each other for a bad break up that happened in HIGHSCHOOL! Their bitter comments about commitment at eachother went on and on and was quite distracting. Overall, an interesting read with a crazy plot twist at the end that was interesting though sort of a cop out.

17. Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
Counts as a Historical genre for my Summer Reading program. Sort of. Eh. I don’t know what to say. This book won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, and the National Book Critics Prize. And? I didn’t like it. The story is an elderly father writes a letter to his very young son about himself, his father, his grandfather and the boy’s mother. And I guess forgiveness, redemption and family…yadda yadda. I never really got drawn into the story or the characters. Maybe I missed something. I would love to hear if someone else read this. (p.s. my mom didn’t like this book either, so it wasn’t just me!)

18. Dating Dead Men by Harley Jane Kozak
This was the Mystery selection for my Summer Reading program. I don’t think I have ever read a Mystery, and it will be awhile before I pick one up again. I couldn’t really get into the whole whodunnit part of the book, even though this one the Agatha Award for best first novel. The mob was involved, and who was related to who blah blah blah everyone had nicknames and fake names like Gomez Gomez. Really. Take away the mystery part, and it was pretty much chicklit. The characters were interesting, and the love story was decent so I guess I would have liked it more if it just focused on that and didn’t have all these dead bodies, threats, mobsters, etc.

19. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Counts as my Classic for the Summer Reading program. What can I say about this book that probably hasn’t been said? The last time I read this book was 15 or so years ago, and didn’t really remember very much in the way of details. And it is all in the details. Really, this book doesn’t take one wrong turn or one false move. The chracters are wonderful and the descriptions make it a total page turner. Read it again if you don’t remember the soap figures or the ham costume.

20. The Warrior’s Path by Louis L’Amour
I. KNOW. For the Summer Reading Program, it is my Western. Purely for scientific purposes…experiment over. Thankfully. Its funny, I consider myself a westerner (vs. a midwesterner or a southner), I don’t really like Western art, or now I can say with confidence, western novels. Or maybe it was just this one. The tedious detail on tracking through the forest, or fleeing those tracking you was bothersome. I have to admit, the female characters weren’t as wimpy as I expeceted. I was about to write that the female characters were also pleasantly not sexualized as I expected, but just the opposite. They were completely desexualized, which doesn’t really make sense either. I won’t even go into the slavery aspect of this book, because it is so ridiculous. This is apparently one book in a huge series of Sackett books that follow different members of one family, but I don’t think I will pick any more up soon.

21. The Turk and My Mother: A Novel by Mary Helen Stefaniak
Though this books claims to be a novel, I am reading it for my Biography selection for the Summer Reading Program. It has also come recommended by the esteemed Central Library Manager. Didn’t take long to finish, and really enjoyed this book. I would have to stop frequently to keep the generations straight, but overall a great read. I loved the stories of love, family and loyalty and how they bounced back and forth between different time periods. I will have to read this one again to really get it all. When it ended and I think I finally got it all straightened out, I got a big smile across my face. Good for anyone who enjoys a good novel.

22. Fire by Sebastian Junger
I don’t really know what to say about this so-called book. I read it because I highly enjoyed A Perfect Storm by the same author. The cover of this book and the jacket makes it seem like it is going to be about firefighters, fire and what it takes to put them out. But only the first two chapters involve fire. The second of these articles is about a fire in Glenwood Springs, CO that killed 14 firefighters. That chapter was horrifying, interesting, sad, and has stuck with me. The rest of the chapters are old news articles, none of them really with the personal punch that made A Perfect Storm or the second chapter. I have to admit that I didn’t even read the last 10 pages! Hahaha!

23. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
There are difficult parts in this book, and it isn’t always happy and some situations and relationships are uncomfortable. But I loved this book. Really enjoyed it. I listened to the audio version, and the reader was really excellent. When it got to the end, I wanted it to keep going, but I liked the end so much that I listened to it again, smiling the whole time.

24. Drums Along the Congo: On the Trail of Mokele-Mbembe, the Last Living Dinosaur by Rory Nugent
An interesting read about a cryptozoologist on a trek through the Congo jungle looking for the fabled dinosaur living in Lake Tele. The details were interesting about getting permits in the communist country to visit certain areas, and having to consult with witch doctors and local chiefs for additional permission. Towns in the jungle have stores with all possible items, they occasionally get television service, but yet the locals have many superstitions that sort of hamper the expedition. Overall pretty good read.

25. Hot Peppers: The Story of Cajuns and Capsicum by Richard Schweid
Pretty interesting story about hot peppers, focusing on the hot sauce companies and the agricultural aspects of hot peppers in Louisiana. The parts about the Tabasco plant on Avery Island were fascinating. The author went there though in the late seventies. The book has been updated several times, but parts of it do read out of date. Reminds me of when I got colds working at the Lion, I would eat their creamy potato soup with a heavy dose of cayenne sprinkled in. Also talks about the botnany of different pepper plants, but still reads pretty well.

26. The Master Quilter: An Elm Creek Quilters Novel by Jennifer Chiaverini
In some ways, I liked this book and in some ways I didn’t. Overall it was a pretty cheesy story…sort of a mystery but pretty much ridiculous. This is about the middle book in a big series, and there were a lot of characters, each who got their own chapter telling the same story (pretty much) from thier own perspective. Initially this seemed like a good idea, but got old after awhile. I was ready for the story to move on, but there was again another chapter about the same thing from another person. What I did like about this book was it talked a lot about quilting! So that was sort of fun for me. I don’t think I will read more in the series, and wouldn’t really recommend it to anyone who isn’t obsessed with quilting like me.

27. My Antonia by Willa Cather
I never read this book in highschool and now I don’t know why not. This was a lovely book, and I really enjoyed reading it. From the description, it seems like it might be slow but I got sucked in right away. The people and descriptions of the land were wonderful.

28. A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian: A Novel by Marina Lewycka
A decent first novel that traces two sisters dealing with their 80 year old immigrant father and his remarriage to a 30 something wanting a green card. Parts were funny, parts were sad, and all of it was pretty quick. I enjoyed reading this novel but it could have really done without the whole tractor story within the other story. A recommended read for something light, quick and easy. I would be interested in what else this author puts out.

29. Until I Find You by John Irving
Phew! I finally finished this one, and now am ready for something short and sweet. I love John Irving, I really really do. But sometimes he is just really weird. Sometimes I highly enjoy the weird (Owen Meany, Cider House Rules, Hotel New Hampshire, Garp) and other times I don’t so much (Son of the Circus, Widow for One Year). This one I was sort of eh about. I enjoyed the story, but it didn’t suck me in like Owen, and I didn’t love all the weirdos like I did in Hotel New Hampshire. The sex was a little over done, even for an Irving. Jack was the same as the John character in the Owen and HNH or Homer in CHR, just a vehicle for strange things to happen to. Strange people to know, but I didn’t love the surrounding characters like I did in the others. Wasn’t great, but I’m glad I read it.

30. We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda by Philip Gourevitch
I am really glad that I made it through this book. It wasn’t easy, both subject matter wise and detail wise. There are a lot of names, acronyms, dates that slow me down a little bit as a reader. This book horrified me, and angered me. Albright, Clinton and the rest of the international administrations really dropped the ball on what happened here. Maybe if it didn’t fall so close on the heels of Somalia that things might have been different in terms of international aid, but it does show you how screwed up aid can be in Africa. The author ended on a slightly up note, to show that he thinks there is hope for Rwanda and Africa. I guess I do too, but it isn’t and won’t be easy.

31. Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare by Stephen Greenblatt
Phew. I am due for an easy read. My Shakespeare background mainly consists of movies based on his plays, and I know very little about him as a person. This book I think would be best read by people who might be familar with more of his work. There were a lot of reference to plays that I have never heard of (Measure for Measure and the Merry Wives of Windsor, etc). Since there isn’t much written information about who Shakespeare was and what he thought, the author uses many of his different works to sketch out how Shakespeare may have thought on marriage or retirement. It was interesting and I did learn a lot, but I wouldn’t really recommend this for people who have only a passing interest in Elizabethan England or Shakespeare’s works.

32. The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers
Not so much about plot, but a character study of four people and a town. The characters are rich and wonderful, even the side characters really shine. I can’t believe that McCullers wrote this at 23, and in 1940 no less. I have to admit that I was a little bored at times with all the labor/One True Thing dialogue, but overall found it a great read, though not the happiest of books. One thing that I didn’t understand though was the relationship between Singer and Antonopoulous. This was on the Time 100 Books list, and I’m glad I read it, though probably wouldn’t read it again.

33. Babette’s Feast and Other Anecdotes of Destiny by Isak Dinesen
So really the only story worth reading is the first and most famous one, Babette’s Feast, which I really enjoyed. I would not recommend the other four. Now I just have to sit down and watch the movie that my mom has been bugging me to see for YEARS.

34. Julie and Julia : 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen by Julie Powell
I read this in about three day, and it is a three day book. You will either highly enjoy it, or dislike it right away. I loved the Julie/Julia Project blog once I discovered it, it became my seceret lunchtime activity at work. Days she didn’t post, I was disheartened. The book focuses less on her actual making of the recipes (all 500+ in Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking) in one year, but more how the project in general effected her life, her relationships, her work and her psyche. While she seems to have crying fits every other day, the book is light and a fun read. I can’t wait to see what she brings up next.

35. Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Suskind
This book kept coming up as being recommended in the oddest places (originally by uber-reader Jeremy H. years ago), I finally had to read it. And while I didn’t love it, I found it interesting. A whole book about smell and odors and how it changes the course for one person. It never gets boring or seems repetative. I enjoyed the book for being wholly different and taking a risk for what would other wise be a crack mystery/murder novel. I wouldn’t recommend this for most people, but if you are looking for something different, something unlike anything you’ve read before, give it a shot.

36. The Journey That Saved Curious George : The True Wartime Escape of Margret and H.A. Rey by Louise Borden
Ok, so it is pretty much a children’s book, but after I heard about it on NPR, I had to read it. It was longer than I thought it would be, so totally counts as a book on my list. It was really interesting too, thought sort of glazes over the horrors of Nazism and its effects and how lucky the Reys actually were when compared to what happened to many who weren’t lucky enough to happen to have a Brazillian passport. But it is an amazing story, and the illustrations are fun combined with real photos and artifacts from the Reys. Recommended for anyone who remember reading a Curious George book.

37. Truth & Beauty: A Friendship by Ann Patchett
Just what I needed over thanksgiving, a book to zip through. This book follows the friendship between two writers, Ann Patchett and Lucy Grealy. I read Lucy’s autobiography many years ago, and loved Patchett’s Bel Canto last year. This work focuses on their friendship, but it is so strange. Ann is the sensible one who wants to do good deeds to help her friend Lucy. Lucy in turn embarasses Ann, makes outrageous requests and relies on Ann to drop thigns to come and save her. In the end Lucy ends up doing heroin to kill several types of pain, and Ann still stands by her. The friendship is confusing, but seems rooted in something deep that is still a mystery even after reading the whole book. Can a friendship sustain itself when only one person is giving? Ann doesn’t say what she gets out of having this friendship…a famous friend? An exciting friend who doesn’t pay her taxes or students loans, but zips off to Morroco or Greece? I don’t know. I wouldn’t really recommend this to anyone except for fans of Ann or Lucy, but if you liked Bel Canto even 1/2 as much as I did, it might be an interesting read.

38. War Trash: A novel by Ha Jin
I really liked this book. I picked it up on a whim on the way out of the library one afternoon for something to read in the doctor’s office. I must admit, I didn’t really expect to like it so much. Especially the beginning concerns military strategy and movements. But I found myself thinking about it when I wasn’t reading it, a sure sign that I really enjoy something. The book is about a Chinese prisoner of war in an American camp during the Korean war. His biggest struggle isn’t with the Americans or Koreans, but within the divided Chinese. He must continually choose and prove his loyalty to either the Nationalists or the Communists. *Sigh* That description sounds so dry, it is an interesting and entertaining read. Really.

39. Coraline by Neil Gaiman
I read this book for a book group that was supposed to meet tonight, but got postponed to a night that I can not go. Written by one of Tim’s favorite authors, it is a sort of scifi book about a bored English girl who discoveres a magical other world only to be trapped by her other mother. She has to figure out how to save them all. This book reminded me a lot of Phantom Tollboth, a book I loved. And while I didn’t love Coraline, I really liked it and hope that if I ever have a girl that she reads this book. It is intended for audiences 8 and older, and is finally a fantasy story where the girl has the smarts (instead of just beauty) to win.

40. Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal by Eric Schlosser
At some point in reading this book there became a point where I kept thinking how information is power. And there is a difference between people who are privvy to certain types of knowledge and those who aren’t, because they can’t or they won’t. There are the oblivious food consumers (me included), the immigrant (often illegal) who are working in turn-of-the-century conditions in meat packing plants, and Kenny. The author isn’t just railing against the health effects of fast food, but takes a whole approach, and then suggests how to fix some of the problems that have come up in a surprisingly refreshing and sane voice. This book is a few years old now, but packed with information and is suprisingly an easy read. If you ever eat fast food, know somebody who eats fast food or even cooks with ground beef at home, you must read this book. I swore off McDonald’s french fries after watching the bonus features on Super Size Me DVD, now I don’t think I could eat a fast food hamburger again.

41. Bait and switch: The (futile) Pursuit of the American Dream by Barbara Ehrenreich
The premise of this book is that Ehrenreich attempts to get a management type job at a corporation to see what white collar work is like. But the book ends up being about unemployment and job seekers. She goes to lots of career coaches, job fairs, and networking events while meeting interesting characters that ended up blending together. It does touch on at the end the issue of under employeed or unemployeed and health care benefits, but doesn’t offer a sound solution. This is the first book by Ehrenreich that I’ve read, and while I really liked it in parts, it also got kind of repetitive. Maybe Nickle and Dimed will be better, as that is still on my list.

New Year

Happy 2005! Hard to believe that it is a new year and 2004 is over. I’m not making any concrete resoultions, just working on the list and focusing on having a great year. This is a big year for all the 1975 babies (me included) as it is the year we turn 30 (*gasp*). At least I have 8 months to contemplate it.

The holidays were very nice with both families here visiting. It was cold everywhere Christmas weekend, south Texas included. So we just hung out, played games, ate delicious food, drank, chatted, drank some more and had an all around good time. Tim and I scored an ipod Photo (with the color screen) from my parents and Tim has been working at digitizing all our cds. Tim and I gave each other a new chair for Christmas (photo up in the photos section) and it arrived just in time for our company. The weather cleared up just a little bit and my family and I were able to make it to the four San Antonio Missions on the south side of the city. Most of the churches at the Missions are still active, and at each one there are also varying degrees of ruins left of different parts of the mission, Indian quarters, grainarys, workrooms, older parts of churches, etc. Will have to take Tim back there in the spring. They were nice and are all beautiful.

Since the families have left, we’ve packed up our Christmas decorations, watched some DVDs, saw a San Antonio Rampage hockey game and chatted up with friends. I have worked on some craft projects (can’t decide how much info to disclose as some of them might become gifts…). But did make a wonky ornament that I will keep for myself. There was also a trip to the fabric store for fabric for the new 2005 Block of the Month quilt that I am making for my bro. Also have just barely started the new SGBC book selection for January.

Hope everyone had a nice holiday and a great start to 2005. Here is to another year of books, friends, family, movies, good food, drink, crafts, quilts and love.