Swapping!

At long last, I've sent out my package for the garden swap over at A Little Sussy. Since the recipient doesn't know I have a blog, I'm free to go ahead and post a picture of what's being sent. (I'm impatient like that).

Gina is into flower gardening. She's a teacher who likes books and lives in New York. So what do you send such a lady? Here's what I put together:
- 4 packets of flower seeds (3 of them good for cut flowers)
- A cute vase to put cut flowers in
- A felt flower made by yours truly to put in the cute vase while waiting for the first flowers of spring to go ahead and bloom already.
- Some vintage flowery postcards
- Two gardening memoirs by Dominique Browning - Around the House and in the Garden and Paths of Desire
- Pretty photo notecards by my ever so talented husband (available for purchase on his etsy shop - In The Sun Studio)

I hope she likes her package!

God she's good

scar that never heals

This song makes me so happy.

New craftyness

No worries! I am finally making some progress on a brand new crafty project. There will be pictures this weekend.

I'm so tickled by them. Its one of those things that needs some tweaking definitely, but once I've figured it all out, these may go into the much-ignored Bandit Queen shop.

Details and pictures soon!

Zombies!

I picked up Fantastic Mr. Fox for two reasons. First, I love Roald Dahl. Second I love We Anderson movies and apparently he's working on an animated film based on this book.



It is, of course, pretty cute with wonderful descriptions of the three farmers. Can't wait to see the film.

I appear to be pretty firmly hooked on nonfiction reads anymore. The Day the World Came to Town deals with all the flights suddenly grounded in Gander, Newfoundland after the US closed its air space on September 11th. Its the sweetest read!

A small island of 10,000 people is suddenly host to over 6,000 people from around the world. It made me feel all warm and fuzzy about the world in general.

I listened to the audio version of World War Z, and I'm blown away by how much I enjoyed this book. War stories aren't usually my thing. Neither are zombie stories. But this is fantastic! Written in a journalistic style with some big name people reading different parts, it was hard to stop listening to. I loved the made-up slang expressions that felt so natural to the story telling. SO many people I know are getting copies of this book from me.

It wasn't until I was all finished and raving about the story that I found out that the audio version is abridged. Normally, I would be angry about this. I hate abridged stories. I don't care if it is forever long to listen to a whole book, I want the whole thing dammit! However, I felt kind of a rush when I found this out because its a great excuse to get the book and dive right back into the story once again. (However, I'm gonna be so much more cautious about these audio books and their tricky abridgedness).

Chunkster update - Misfortune

I recently finished book #2 for the Chunkster Challenge. Misfortune by Wesley Stace clocks in at a hefty 544 pages. The premise sounded so interesting that its been on my to-read list for a while, but the idea of lugging this monster back and forth with me for lunchtime reading everyday put me off a bit.

The novel starts in 1820 and revolves around a baby found by a garbage heap by the wealthiest man in England. Although the baby is a boy, the man has never gotten over the loss of his sister and so decides to raise the child as a girl. Hooked yet?

When explaining the idea of the book to my husband, he declared it creepy sounding, but it isn't at all! I loved so many of the characters in this book. There's Rose Old who grows up believing herself to be a girl, her childhood playmates, the adopted librarian mother so geniusly named Anonyma, and her caring but obviously not-all-together father.

It took me about 100 pages to get really hooked on the story. Thankfully, the blizzard of '08 hit just as I got to the point that I couldn't bear to put it down. The book is an interesting mix of Possession and Fingersmith as well as its own delightful and odd originality. I really really enjoyed this one.

Fitness update

My yoga class is hatha yoga - so says the instructor. One hour of stretching and working out in a dark classroom with a good smelling candle burning and pretty music playing. It may be my new drug of choice.

Today, I did 100 crunches. Tomorrow, I help Miss Kristen with packing and tossing. That has to be a bit of exercise, right?