pinocchio by carlo collodi

ever since i stumbled across a quote about teaching the alphabet to the ants, pinocchio has been on my to-read list. it's bit of a random story, not surprising for a print-by-the-week story. pinocchio's adventures include the ones featured in the disney film, as well as more outrageous ones. he goes from one scrape to another despite his promises to work hard and obey. eventually his bouts of diligence are longer than his vagabond periods, but it is only when he must nurse geppetto that he works and serves his father with his whole heart.

there's an undercurrent of christian ethics seen in the oft-repeated morals of working hard and helping others. overtones of the prodigal son story and bits of isaiah (where the righteous are judged against and the prisoners are set free) show up in the second half of the story. pinocchio's is a highly dramatized, often ridiculous, story that is nevertheless easy to relate to. i love the repeated maxim that little boys who won't learn and work turn into little donkeys, which is literally fulfilled by pinocchio and his friends. if i had a little boy, that's what i'd tell him to get him to do his homework.

i am nujood, age 10 and divorced by nujood ali

this book caught my eye on the fancy updates our library sends out now. very simple and descriptive prose makes for fast reading. the confusion of a 10-yr-old thrust into marriage with no idea what that entails comes through clearly. an insider's picture of life in yemen is marred by violence against women, which is rarely acknowledged and more rarely discussed. i expected some legal drama perhaps. instead, the book is told entirely from nujood's perspective and based on her limited knowledge which only increases its impact. for me, this book touches on the right of any person to make their own choices much more than a western vs. eastern theme. and yet i can't help wondering what men (anyone) are really thinking when they follow destructive traditions.

paper towns by john green

this is a good YA novel. paper towns starts at the end of high school, with a nerdy guy drooling over the hot girl next door, and his one big chance for adventure. which turns into his chance to (possibly) have the girl of his dreams, solve a mystery and learn how hard it is to truly know anyone. there's introspection on how we relate to and understand others. there's also the obligatory teen drinking and sex although not in painful detail, thankfully. and yet this book is not chained to the stereotypes it invokes and is surprisingly true to reality, where no matter how much you've thought something through and changed your perspective, something can still come out of nowhere and knock you on your back. over and over again. good stuff.

the road to lisdoonvarna by charles de lint

this book came out of my owned but unread pile. unlike most of de lint's fantasy books, the road to lisdoonvarna is a straight forward mystery novel. a private detective is trying to find out who raped and beat a friend while taking on a case for a missing teen. some of de lint's trademarks sneak in: a love of celtic music, busking musicians, canadian setting, a native american sidekick, and the idea that we should all help each other as best we can. except for the bad guys, maybe, who take each other out in the end. no surprising twists here, just an enjoyable read.

forest born by shannon hale

i was delighted to find another installment of the bayern books at the library. this book is the fourth in the series, although i believe each book can stand on its own. each book has examined a different kind of magical speaking and the focus in this book is tree speaking. hale's characters experience the typical faery tale journey of self-discovery, and in the discovery and acceptance of their talents, must learn to use them to reach out to others. the broad trope is the only similarity, as each main character has their own particular problems to solve and faults to overcome.

rin, the main character in forest born, has perhaps the most clearly human problems to resolve, despite her magical abilities. she must learn how to be herself, rather than reflecting others, and discover the truest way to speak with others. as in the previous books, political problems and their resolution form the backdrop for rin's journey through the land and to self-discovery. none of the solutions come easily and rin's difficulties are easy to sympathize with as characteristic of struggles we all go through.

heart of gold by sharon shinn

i followed up on one of the short story worlds from quatrain, which led me to the stand alone book heart of gold. again, i was captivated by the fascinating clash of cultures and races. a matriarchal, blue-skinned race conflicts with a patriarchal, gulden-skinned race over customs legal and private, land control and terrorism. there's also an albino race, although they stay in the background of the story. racial and cultural tension are central to story as the races deal with terrorist acts done in retaliation for land taken over in violation of a treaty. shinn manages to convey both societal and individual reactions to the main and underlying conflicts. she successfully portrays contrasts and conflicts at several levels.

beyond the question of national interest and what means are acceptable to protect that, shinn takes on how our understanding of life is based on culture, upbringing, and individual characteristics, and whether and how people can change. on the personal level, her characters deal with moral dilemmas reflecting those larger issues and how those larger issues affect family and personal relationships. the world of heart of gold is very complex in a subtle way, realistic and highly engaging.

the princess and the hound by mette ivie harrison

the princess and the hound was a very good story, although the title characters were not the sole focus as the title might lead one to think. fairy tale motifs were used in a new way, to great effect with unexpected twists. the ability to speak with animals is outlawed and the prince who possesses it is forced to hide it for his safety and the good of the kingdom. he also learns to sacrifice his self for the kingdom, until his pending arranged marriage forces him to examine himself and the worth of a life half lived. told from the prince's perspective, i'm reminded of the description given of the princes bride "fighting, torture, revenge, chases, escapes, true love, miracles..." there is a bit of everything that comes together in the end.

the story didn't just end right at the climax, but actually followed through on some of the repercussions of choices made. rather than leaving practical consequences to the reader's imagination, the author showed things aren't always roses right away and showed the character's responses to opposition. instead of an unrealistic all-ends-tied-up ending, there was enough of a follow through to show that new problems will arise in the solving of current issues. i really enjoyed this book with its very human characters. there are two sequels which i plan on reading once the library picks them up.

uglies pretties and specials by scott westerfeld

uglies

uglies starts off in an interesting post-apocalyptic setting. the explanation of the "past" is a bit self-consciously simplistic, more suited to an elementary audience than a teen one. the story line is fairly fast-paced, although several parts are easily guessed ahead of time. as i said in the review for the grimm legacy, one of the main plot devices is poor communication. that really gets old by the end of the book. normal adolescent problems of coming of age, thinking for oneself, understanding and rebelling against authority provide more conflict and tension, which mostly overcomes the poor communication issue. uglies was still an engaging, fast read overall.

pretties

the follow up to uglies seems a bit more mature, although there's some rinse and repeat with a very similar story line. everything was laid on thicker than the first book - the main character feels responsible to save EVERYBODY she comes in contact with. the main character is innovative and brave, but keeps getting her mind physically rewired and i've started to feel some sympathy for her -i suspect she will never be normal and happy. despite basing conflicts on civilization vs. nature, scott westerfeld doesn't really know what to do with his pretties outside the city. the ending was disappointing, and very reminiscent of hollywood's inability to deal with a happy couple. i suppose pretties was still fast and engaging. my disgust didn't surface strongly until the last page. there's only one book left in the trilogy - i will probably read it, but i won't like it :)


specials (warning: minor spoiler)

by the end of this book, all the underlying themes were impossible to explain away as accidental. there's a strong female character, manipulated by everyone, and guilt ridden. she feels responsible for other people's choices - her best friend accuses her of thinking she's the center of universe. and she must, because everything is her fault. some things are, most are not, as other people chose how to act and react on their own. there is some maturing over the 3 books yet the ending is still characterized by crappy communication. it ends with a sort of 'let's not talk to the people about how they're changing and positive choices they could make, let's go hide in the woods and attack them if they do something i don't like' scene. all i could think was oh, brother. that sure is the way to change the world.

summary

i doubt that i will reread any of these books. i read more to see what quirks would pop up in the futuristic setting than because i cared about the characters. unfortunately, most of the devices used by the author to keep the story going were very irritating, but i suppose it could get a good discussion going on how not to solve problems. the trilogy was at least interesting when it couldn't be excellent.

the story of the scrolls by geza vermes

i've always been interested in the dead sea scrolls, as an archaeologist and a christian. although people would talk about the scrolls in very general terms, i never heard any specifics mentioned about their contents, or any books discussing them. almost 2 months ago chuck and i signed up for a new testament class (which we have since dropped - the teacher was the type who assigns reading and then repeats the reading without adding any depth or perspective). the class did remind me of my interest in the scrolls, which was good timing as it turns out. besides books with translations of the scrolls, the library had a book released last spring, the story of the scrolls, that gives an overview of the discovery of the scrolls, their context and contents, plus the scholarly work done up to the present.

vermes' review of the translation work and publication makes it clear why i've never heard specifics: very little was published until the late 90s. archaeological work was done at qumran where the majority of the scrolls were found, and that's even more embarrassing as nothing has been published in the 20 years since the work ended. artifacts have even gone missing. not very professional, as a major part of archaeology is preserving what we find and publishing the information for the public. it's a shame that sharing such an exciting find has taken over 50 years. but it does mean that there are books for me to read, now that i've come back around to the topic.

despite the academic presentation and dense language, i found the story of the scrolls an interesting read. i'm glad i read it before taking on any translations of the scrolls - now i have more context to understand them. some of the scrolls are copies of biblical texts but many deal with community rules and non-biblical topics. the scrolls fall in the time period between the old and new testaments, and vermes explains the historical background and religious groups present for that time period. he seems to present theories objectively, pointing out pros and cons of each. the book was very thorough and a great introduction to the dead sea scrolls as it not only introduces the scrolls themselves put places them, and the people who kept them, in the historic and cultural landscape. i'd definitely recommend it if you're interested in the dead sea scrolls.

next up in my serious reading queue is the complete dead sea scrolls in english by the same author, to be followed by josephus' history of the same time period. that ought to take the rest of the year. good thing i can read more than one book at a time......

hey there, little red riding hood......

somehow my movie and book queues synced this week, with little red riding hood re-tellings. both were referred by sur la lune.

hoodwinked (2005)

hoodwinked starts with the end of the story as we know it, then rewinds to tell the story from each character's view. the movie is funny, light-hearted, and unconventional, with many humorous references to well-known movies and stories. i'm sure i didn't even catch all the references. it's a bit like a disney film, in that it has music, but (and i never say this) i actually like the songs. chuck even liked it, and he's skeptical of animated faery tale movies. i want this one on our dvd shelf.


sisters red by jackson pearce

sisters red starts at the end of the story as we know it too, oddly enough. instead of one girl, there are two sisters, and pearce explores how they live after the wolf eats grandma. there's new werewolf culture, a woodsman legacy, and the struggle of close siblings to grow up and apart without losing each other. this is a good YA book. the back of the book had a review for pearce's re-telling of hansel and gretel, also with an extra sibling. looks interesting......

grimm legacy, quatrain and neverwhere

posting reviews of books sure makes it seem like i'm reading more than i thought! i just hope they're interesting to the other bookworms out there.....

the grimm legacy by polly shulman

this book has a library i'd love to work in. the setting is urban fantasy and as a young adult book, it was engaging and quick to read. i liked it, but there was something lacking. this fell between uglies and pretties by scott westerfeld, which i'll review after i've read the last book of the trilogy. they were all decent books, but read so close together impressed me with the same flaw.

harry potter caused an explosion of YA sci-fi/fantasy, with positive and negative results. there's fascinating new worlds, retellings and twists on traditional tales. for me, the main difference between adult and YA novels has been the age of the main characters. the dilemmas should be somewhat adapted to the character's age, but more to their life situation. either way, adult and YA novels should have a feeling of reality and depth that brings me back for a second reading. some of the recent YA books, including the ones above, lack that sense of reality and depth. there's a little too frequent use of hollywood's favorite plot twist - no clear and honest communication rather than true moral dilemmas. it's a bit too easy to guess what's coming next. really, it's almost like there's not much effort to write a real story. the fantasy bit is the setting, the background. how the characters solve their problems is what grabs our attention and makes a story relevant for re-reading. communication issues are boring, just stop being a coward and talk - not telling your friend something should not be the main problem the book solves. the newer YA books have interesting worlds and are fast reads, but CS lewis and madeleine l'engle still have 'em beat.

what do you think? any opinions on the new trends in YA books?

quatrain by sharon shinn

this book is a collection of four short stories/novellas, each set in a different world previously published by the author. i grabbed it for the first story, set in the world of samaria and the archangel series. it was a decent story, set in the same time period as archangel. the other stories were in worlds i hadn't read yet. the second story, blood, was my favorite. it's got very different cultures and customs clashing in the background of a young man's personal quest. this story was most successful at drawing the world and its conflicts in a short space. the next story, gold, was very fluffy - an immature princess and her unconvincing story. the last story was another good one. in a world again brought to life with few words, it tells of an outcast with a mystery to solve. the second and fourth stories will have me looking for other books about those worlds.

neverwhere by neil gaiman

i am a fan of gaiman, his books have good plots, good twists, and incorporates fantasy and mythological elements in new ways. neverwhere is one of my favorites, which i am re-reading after watching the 6 episode tv series. if you've read the book and liked it, it's a decent enough show. it's a bit odd, just like the book. chuck thought it seemed hokey and unrealistic - like it couldn't really happen. the book was more convincing but the series is not bad if you're at the bottom of your netflix queue and waiting for the new doctor who season to start.

quick reads

gathering blue by lois lowry

the story and setting were intriguing and quickly pulled me through the pages. gathering blue is set in a very small scale futuristic society, which after war and upheaval, has developed very strict customs. there are some children with extraordinary talents that could change the (almost entirely) negative way of life. the story builds up anticipation for great changes but the conclusion is anticlimactic. the main character was not as quick on the uptake as i expected - she seems observant and intelligent, yet doesn't make some very obvious logical connections. instead her younger sidekick is the one who draws conclusions and acts. the closing scene showing the main character poised for action is not quite believable, as she didn't seem to have developed the brains and gumption for it. the book is perhaps too obviously written as a "teaching" book, focusing more on drawing the conflict between opposing ideas and leaving the discussion and resolution for the classroom. oh well. it was an ok read overall.

and, on a side note, are there any futuristic/rewritten history tales where the men are reduced to breeding and manly chores, and allowed no education or opinions? the stereotype of women being held back gets a bit old sometimes.

serenity: the shepherd's tale by zack and joss whedon

lots of anticipation was built into this graphic novel: at last the super secret background of shepherd book (from the firefly series) was to be revealed. the events go steadily back in time, illuminating the journey of book's life as if going through a dying man's memories. it was an interesting read, and an intriguing method of exposition, as the story jumped between scenes, often connected by a single word. the stream of memories revealed different sides of book's character and past. enough was revealed to answer the questions raised in the show, without too much explanation, and satisfied my curiosity. the simple telling fills out book's character as we already know him from the series. and hey, there was a jayne scene in there!

the particular sadness of lemon cake by aimee bender

this book came to my attention through a summer post on sur la lune, which i only read recently. luckily, there was no waiting list and i nabbed it from the library right away. i sat down to read for 15 minutes and ended up reading through the whole book in an afternoon. the prose is well-written and flows easily. the lack of punctuation in the conversations made them seem more like conversations, no commas or quotation marks for your eyes to hang up on.

overtly, the book's premise is the main character's ability to taste someone's emotions in the food they cook. what was truly fascinating was not the details of tasting someone else's unconscious emotions but examining flawed family relationships and different ways we keep people at a distance. the main character, rose, discovers her ability as she's turning 9 and the sudden knowledge of the hidden sides of others becomes a barrier for rose. rose's family is already emotionally distant and rose learns to hide from the negative and surprising emotions in food and rarely interacts with people directly. very slowly, events conspire to help rose realize there's more to people than the emotions she finds in their food.

rather like real life, there is no neat and tidy solution to everything, but rose begins to reach out to others and develop her own stunted emotions. food remains an intermediary, however, which is sort of disturbing. the lack of a clear conclusion was a bit annoying, too much like everyday life with its unfinished ends. leaving it open allows room for the imagination to continue where rose left off though, and consider possibilities for more open relationships with people without the need for any kind of intermediary. rose's talent/curse can be compared to experiences we all have growing up that can turn into walls between us and others, and her coming to terms with her experiences makes me wonder how far i've come in the same process. i will probably read this book again, which definitely counts as a thumbs up.

2010 in review

looking back, i am impressed with myself. i thought i only posted once last year, but there's 3 whole posts up! 2010 was similar to 2009 in many ways, which is why we have a huge round up post rather than shorter, more regular posts. so, the last year in review, if not in chronological order:

• in the spring, chuck changed jobs, then got fired, and now drives a school bus. that was a whole mixed bag. he was looking for less work stress, which he now has. he's also been wanting to get out of banking, which he has. the initial job switch let us use part of chuck's retirement to pay off a huge debt (with one tiny click. i savored that moment). we're now down to almost a third of the debt chuck had when we got married. not having that $900 monthly payment and several small miracles helped us through the 3 months of unemployment before the bus job and makes it easier to live on the lower income.

• archy work was very short this year, a measly 3 months. i worked in delta again, with all the fun side effects of living in two places that i noted last year. the work and crew were great though. site monitering is where it's at. you hike out to a known site, relocate surface artifacts, make sure the military hasn't blown a hole in anything, take some pictures and notes, then repeat. i loved it. still wish there was a good option for winter archaeological work up here........

• about the same time chuck started driving buses, i started working part time at a yarn store. work has tapered off, so i ought to look for something else, but it's been tons of fun helping people with their knitting and picking out yarn.

• i played more with homemade stuff. we haven't really bought bread since 09, and i've made my own tortillas and english muffins besides sandwich, french and flat breads. our garden gave us lots of potatoes that we're still eating, along with squash. everything else we ate as it ripened. i wish we could grow enough tomatoes to put up. we gathered blueberries, most of which we froze, and lingon (lowbush cranberries), that were turned into cranberry sauce. i also made spruce tip jelly, which has an interesting spicy sweet flavor. next year i want to try rose petal jelly from all the prickly rose in the yard. Homemade mustard and barbecue sauce are in the fridge, along with homegrown (homelaid?) eggs, some of them blue. chuck raised broiler chickens again, so we haven't bought chicken for 2 years. he also raised a turkey that grew to 25 pounds and barely fit in our tiny oven on thanksgiving, and we have 6 laying hens. they average 4-5 eggs daily, more than we can eat, so we trade them for moose and caribou meat. i even made laundry detergent too! seems we buy less and less at the store. mostly i try stuff out for fun, and because i like knowing how to make my food and what's in it and changing things to suit my taste. none of it took very much time (the jelly was a small batch) and costs very little. i made soft cheese, but for the cost of milk vs the lower cost of cheese and considering the ratio of milk to finished cheese......we will keep buying cheese.

• we bought season tickets for UAF hockey while we had money in the summer, and now the games are like free dates.

• i apparently knit a storm through the year, ending up with more large projects (shawls and sweaters) than before. i also experimented with some new things, knitting with wire and making small toys.
  that doesn't count anything started but not finished of course. i knit more for myself - it makes no sense for me to not have enough socks when i'm the one knitting them. out of 25 finished projects, 11 were for myself, almost half and a definite improvement. mostly i knit from stash, since yarn was not really in our budget this year. sweaters were probably the most satisfying projects while socks were not my friend all. year. long. fitting issues. hopefully to be fixed in 2011.

• the fairbanks knitting group just gets more awesome with time. they're a great mix of people with very different tastes and backgrounds and opinions, yet mostly we manage to encourage each other and have intriguing conversations. if we moved, they would be the people i missed.

• we got lots of yardwork done while we were unemployed together. the raised flower beds i built in 07 have been slowly but steadily eroding and we had started building boxes for them in the spring. we finished those and planted rhubarb, a red currant plant, daffodils, tulips and crocus. ever since living in sweden i've wanted crocus of my own to peep out from the melting snow. we even cleaned out the prickly rose from the raspberry bushes and raked leaves! not all of them, but more than normal. i almost like our yard now.

• my wisdom teeth were pulled dug out in the spring. i was a bit worried, from the horror stories told to my body's high tolerance for medication to getting an IV and being put under for the first time ever. my mouth felt crowded though, and the new teeth were trying to push aside other teeth. so it had to be done, and in the end? not so bad. i almost wouldn't mind doing it again. the IV took a couple tries and hurt more than anything else. the dentist had to give me two hits of anesthesia to knock me out and as i came to, he clearly asked is she waking up already? that didn't make me feel too good, but they were almost done. there was a bit of swelling, and i got a cool ice pack band to wrap around my head. made me feel like i was in an old time war movie.
  i took the (huge) aspirin they gave me and nothing else and was back to work on monday without missing a day since the surgery was on friday, my day off. the pains from crowded teeth were gone and i was happy. although i'd've been happier if i could have kept the teeth for souvenirs..........

• we signed up for the rosetta stone online through the military. i'm reviewing spanish, and filling in some everyday words missing from my vocabulary, while chuck is learning swedish. i love hearing him learn, it's more exciting for me than him i think. he's improved in every lesson and i can't wait till his vocabulary is large enough to have conversations.

• i read lots too, although i have no idea where i fit it and the knitting in. according to goodreads, i read 45 books this year. that's almost one a week, not too bad. some really good ones were: Sorcery and Cecelia or The Enchanted Chocolate Pot by patricia wrede and caroline stevermer, a lighthearted, funny fantasy with sequels to follow. stieg larsson's girl who.... series was a fascinating mix of mystery, journalism, crime solving, and political corruption set in sweden. they were gripping reads, and had fairly accurate descriptions of swedes. the only downside was the sexual crimes against women, but i suppose that was the point. the latest additions to the vlad taltos series, jhegaala and dzur, by steve brust added more depth to vlad's character. despite being quick reads, they kept me thinking long after reading. in defense of food by michael pollan made an interesting analysis of our current food culture and how traditional food culture has been manipulated for commerce. an extremely well-written and highly creepy fitcher's brides by gregory frost i would recommend for the writing and morals but won't re-read. i'd like to sleep at night, thank you very much. another non-fiction book i really enjoyed was the paradox of choice by barry schwartz. he delves into the unconscious and conscious factors that go into all our choices, big and small. the book was not as dry as i anticipated and points out a need for us to limit our own options to make effective choices. an interesting concept.
  
  annoyingly less good were: water for elephants by sara gruen, which a few of us in the knitting group read. the story just seemed to descend into melodrama and ended in an unlikely series of events. it started well, but i felt cheated at the end. name of the rose by umberto eco has sat on my shelves unread since high school. now it can sit on someone else's shelves. the long involved story of medieval religious heresies and dissidents is mixed with murders at an abbey. when revealed, the motive for the murders seems absurd and superficial. cheated again. wuthering heights by emily bronte confirms that british female romance writers are not for me. a bunch of whiny noble people make bad choices which have bad consequences and i think i'm supposed to feel sorry for them. um, nope. sorry. think i'll avoid the bronte's along with austen from now on.

• the week of thanksgiving it rained. this just doesn't happen in interior alaska. the warm weather made the foot or so of snow on the roof slide off, which normally happens in april. the fall compacted it all and made normal shoveling impossible. when it started coming off the deck in solid square chunks, what could i do but make a wall? crenelations and archer slits possibly to be added later.

• since summer, chuck has been working on painting the kitchen cupboards (the ones he took the doors off the summer before). the kitchen has slowly transformed from a dark green and gunky yellow 70s combo
  
  to a much brighter white (inside), blue, and yellow.
  
  the colors remind me of sweden and make the kitchen a thousand times brighter. i love it. the cupboard doors have been materializing the last couple weeks, and after a year and a half without doors, it feels odd being unable to just reach in and grab what i want.

• we watched more than a few movies in 2010, but not many made it to our favorites list. we really enjoyed blind side, ondine and the A team remake. oddly enough, tv on dvd was much more popular with us (we don't ever watch any tv shows on tv). a random series of events introduced us to the 2005 season of doctor who. september and october were a haze of the 5 recent seasons. it's a crazy, unpredictable, upbeat, funny british sci-fi space/time travel show and if you haven't seen it, do. you never know what will happen and yet only a few times is the story so outlandish that it seems impossible. we're waiting anxiously for next season to start, and have infected the grandkids with the addiction. we finished watching the dollhouse show, joss whedon is my hero for interesting tv. it's a bummer his shows have such short runs.

• we got a couple camping trips in. we took the bratlings camping in denali in the spring and hiked with them all day with no complaints from grownups or kids.
  
  chuck kidnapped me to paxson lake for a relaxing weekend in the summer, complete with canoeing and a beautiful sunset.
  
  we also finally hiked angel rocks together. we've been saying we'd do that for years. the trail starts out on the valley floor and climbs to the ridge top
  
  where granite tors are eroding into cool formations and caves.
  which of course we had to explore a bit, crawling into that hole behind us that opens into some small caves, then out the other side.

• on the winter solstice, we saw the total lunar eclipse. apparently the last time one happened on the solstice was in the 1600s. the moon wasn't totally blacked out but looked shadowed, like seeing it through a black curtain. very cool phenomenon, but we couldn't get a photo that didn't look like a black sky.

• after the very long break i've had in blogging, i have a clearer idea how i want to blog, a way to balance my content. several blogs i read manage to have good, varied content in short posts and i think i have learned from their good example. i suppose this next year will be the test. my iphone was no replacement for the internet and so there are still podcasts and blogs being caught up on.

all in all, 2010 was a good year. i never got tired of being home with my husband. i'm grateful for my friends, talking to family over holidays, and all the little miracles that keep me going every day. i'm thankful i can do so many things that i enjoy and are meaningful to me, which luckily tend not to be very expensive. reading my summing up post on 2009, i must have got something right in the balance department this year. the year was equally disruptive, busy, and i still worked out of town yet i feel as if i did more in most areas of life and feel more peaceful and happy looking back. i have to keep doing that.

in which we learn another disadvantage to having a fake christmas tree

it doesn't die. (i know you thought that was one of the advantages, but hang with me) since it doesn't die, there's no needles piling up on your floor and it doesn't ever turn into a fire hazard. which means there isn't any real urgency to take it down, if say, one were to travel an inordinate amount in december and january, so that one might not actually get the tree down until the day before superbowl sunday.

ahem.

i haven't been on such a traveling rollercoaster since i was a project-hopping archaeologist. you get home, unpack, wash your clothes, catch up on a few bills, maybe talk to a couple people, squeeze in an email (hej lasse!), pack and repeat. ojojoj.

two weeks after getting back from MA we went to anchorage for a long MLK weekend. chuck had bank training mon and tues, so we went down fri and stretched it out. i came to the conclusion that if you're not shopping for something, there's not much to do in anchorage in the winter.

especially when the hotels don't have internet. between traveling for work, and chuck's random training meetings, i'm getting good at sizing up hotels. i've noticed something odd: the expensive hotels have gold framed mirrors and fancier looking sheets but they actually offer the same amenities as cheaper hotels - for a fee. so you're paying more . . . . for less. the midrange hotels tend to have free breakfasts, free internet, microwaves and fridges. and, well, i like those better. i'm paying less for a room, and getting more services with it. the marriot spring hill has my votes.

so, without internet to catch up on blog posts and emails, what's a girl to do?

go to yarn stores and title wave of course.

title wave is a gem among book stores. it beats out barnes and noble any day. they sell new books and used ones in really good shape, plus out of prints and hard to find books. chuck gave me 50 bucks to spend (cuz if i decided the amount who knows what it'd be) and i walked away with 13 books and a dollar to spare. whoo-hoo.

i found some forgotten realms books (used to read them pre-high school and lately have been having urges to revisit some of those stories), a couple of l'engle's austin family series that i missed reading somehow, a cookbook on herb vinegars (so i could use those herbs i dried out this summer), sword singer by jennifer roberson, zel by donna napoli (awesome retelling of rapunzel), dawn by elie wiesel and a wild card never-been-read winter queen by devin cary. i was quite satisfied.

even though chuck promised to go with me to the yarn store (far north yarns, web site out of service), i went ahead by myself to set him up for the kill scope it out. sweater yarn was on the list, but somehow the fiber and the colors refused to match up for me. except for this one yarn, ooooo, it was tempting. sulka from mirasol, merino, alpalca and silk. felt wonderful, and they even had colors i liked. but.....the price was a bit much for our checkbook. and i sure couldn't figure out a 2-3 skein project for myself. darn.

since sock yarn doesn't count, and they had louet gems, one of the few sources for solid colored sock yarn, we grabbed a couple skeins of that. (before my resolution by the way - i think)

blah color for chuck, blue for me. merino wool, machine wash, and solid colors. i've been wanting to try some, and it does seem a crime to walk out of a yarn store empty handed. i sat and knit with the staff for a bit. it was so nice to be in a yarn store and feel comfortable. the one i normally frequent in fairbanks has an odd atmosphere that i haven't ever felt comfortable in, no matter how much i've spent on yarn there.

we squeeked back into fairbanks in time for knit night, where i discovered i had my first ravelry convert. whoo-hoo! she signed up after the last knit night, and got in that very day. her eyes widened and shined with that ravelry-struck gleam, as she said, "i only looked up felted patterns and there were so many. . . . .ooooooo that place is bad"

things are starting to quiet down as we get settled back into life. between work and catching up, knitting time has been at a premium. as in practically non-existant. i guess those cushy subbing jobs spoiled me with extra knitting time, not to mention slightly shorter work days. still i'm plugging away at everything, without any miraculous advances. and trying to ignore the itch to cast on something new.

my book stack has been neglected lately too. i'm trying to borrow less books from the library at a time, so i can actually read them before i have to return them. elie wiesel's memoirs are going slowly, cuz it's january's choice for a dying book club, and i didn't want to finish it way before we met and forget my thoughts on it. but we still haven't met, so i'm going ahead and finishing it. i made it through trickster's choice and trickster's queen though, both excellent books more on the sneaky spy side of fantasy then the other tamora pierce books. i've got the first book in the protector of the small series, first test, and beka cooper in the stack too now. sometimes i find an author and i want to read everything they've written. i did that with elie wiesel about (ouch) ten years ago, and now i'm in the mood to go back and re-read some of his works and digest them some more.

this weekend we finally bought a proper snow shovel (archaeologists can be picky about things like shovels) so i can start chipping away at the melted hump on the deck. it appeared during a thanksgiving warm spell when the snow slid off the roof onto the deck, where it froze up again before we got back. mildly dangerous, and starting to get on my nerves. now i can do something about it! yay! (i'm one of those rare and odd people that like to shovel, so i actually am glad)

oh, and if you need to do your weekly shopping, and it just happens to be payday weekend and superbowl saturday, um, don't. cuz there might be some lines. across the whole front of the store, down the frozen aisle,
and past the milk cases.and we weren't even the last people in line.

there's a downside to everything

so the FFF that looked kid-size? it probably was. cuz it sure didn't fit my neck after i put the bottom on three circulars and tried it on. which means. . . frogging. *sigh* the worst part is, since i log all my time on knitwars, i know exactly how many hours of work i'm ripping out. ouch. big ouch. otherwise i could be more diplomatic about it.

we found a cheap fake tree last night, without lights. do you know how hard it is now to find trees that don't come with lights? geez. so monday night we'll be setting 'er up and decorating. fun fun! i love decorating. when i was a kid we'd always listen to these old records of christmas carols, and those have always been my favorites that i think of as "the" christmas songs. luckily i've found lots of them so we can listen to them as we decorate. and i found candles that fit my advents holder! yay!

tonight we're babysitting step-grandbrat seth otherwise we'd probably start decorating tonight. after the last couple days catching up on bills and blogging and reading blogs and unpacking and doing laundry and most importantly not knitting, i have got an itch to knit like you wouldn't believe. but with a kid wandering around, i don't know how likely that is tonight.

my library book pile has been out of control lately. actually, it's more that i haven't been reading as much rather than checking out mountains of books (which i have done on occasion). so i'm trying to whittle it down before christmas. i'll keep a couple for the trip, hopefully paperbacks. our library has a surprisingly good selection, but most of them are hardcovers. ugh. how am i supposed to fit those in my back pocket? in our stack of mail was promises to keep, an update on jilly by charles de lint. i'm reading wild magic right now, and need to finish the amber spyglass. chuck already finished it (!) and started on a wrinkle in time. he's been testing out this reading thing, and i try to read the books (again) with him so we can talk about them.

this morning, (my brother) miah woke us up, cuz he found out what his first assignment (after he graduates in may) in the airforce would be: guam. which makes his clearance top secret, so he had to get our updated address. the military actually sends people out to ask about him. i always want to make fun of things like that, but they're so deadly, deadly serious i can't. what's cool is, guam was chuck's first assignment, 20+ years ago in the navy. so we'll try and dig out some old pics to take home for miah. all the traveling he'll get to do makes me jealous and gets my feet twitching.

whew

i'm feeling more caught up now, but there's still some stuff left. *sigh*

last night i went to discuss the count of monte cristo at book club. i read huge chunks of it while flying, a couple hours today, and finished with 10 minutes to spare. the story flowed really well, so it was fast, interesting reading. but the end of the story really ruined the book for me. the main part of the book is focused on dantes getting revenge on the people who set him up, but you can't do that sort of stuff without it affecting your soul. yet there's only one short conversation with his old love (who he doesn't hook back up with unlike the movie, and the only thing close to real life) where he realizes he isn't the avenging hand of god and that's it. he's all done with the bitterness like it never happened, except he's 20 or so years older, and goes off into the sunset (literally) with a hot young chick. the wrap-up could have given more meaning to the whole story, but was shallow instead. all the bad guys were ruined, the good people got out of the traps somehow, and it was all la-di-da fine at the end. crazy how the last pages of a book, or last 5 minutes of a film can change your whole opinion of it.

for next month we picked 2 books: the ultimate gift (which i never heard of) and all rivers run to the sea (elie wiesel's memiors). the last i've been wanting to read so this'll be good motivation.

speaking of motivation, i haven't had any at all for seaming those blanket squares. so that's one of my goals in the next 2 weeks. to at least start seaming and get as close to done as i can.

we've decided to buy a fake tree (yuck!) because we won't be in town to make sure a real one stays alive, but we want the fun of our tree and the christmas spirit. we had planned to go tomorrow to find one, but this morning chuck was all excited and didn't want to wait the one day. so tonight for date night we'll be finding a tree. and i need to find some candles to fit in this awesome birch bark advent's holder. my friend lasse in sweden gave it to me, and it's handmade (although not by him), so it has cool memories. me and chuck are doing little advent's presents this year. one each week, with the dollar amount slowly going up. it's kind of fun. i love finding special presents, that mean something but don't have to cost much of anything. the memories and meaning are what make them precious.

my family has always done the list thing, make a list of what you want. but we rarely get anything from the list, especially as we get older. it's almost like the list is misleading, so the person won't know what you're getting them. i love trying to guess what the coolest present would be, finding out details without the person knowing i am, and keeping it secret right up to the end. that's what i love about christmas.

how do you all celebrate christmas and pick presents?

bored out of my mind

xela's broadripple i finished friday night. i tried it on (and it totally should not have fit my huge foot) and it was about the right foot length for me. so yeah. i ripped back an inch or so and finished with just a tad of yarn left.saturday we went to branson so we could get off the couch. talking to family is fun, but the tv always on in the background disturbs me, and after a while both of us needed to get up and move around. you know it's gotta be bad if we're shopping for fun.

we went through old branson, which had random little shops. we found an antique store, and those we could spend all day in. you just never know what treasures, or what junk, you'll find. we got this rug

to replace this rug (see the pinky red bits? they're not my friends. i won't miss them)

sunday i got to experience a southern baptist church. chuck's sister linda invited us to go with her. i was expecting lots of music and some pulpit banging and finger pointing, but the service was rather tame. the congregation was pretty small, and about half of them were the choir. a couple of the songs they sang we knew, and the sermon was about moral responsibility in politics. an unexpected topic, and chuck's sister and brother in law were more surprised and disappointed than we were. and had a harder time following the pastor than we did. *giggle*

after another afternoon of hanging around, we were really feeling dummified and headed out to springfield MO on monday. our two favorite words for the last days of the trip were dummified and stupified. joking about it was all that kept us sane. even though we were in a different city, the shopping bored us cuz we usually only shop for specific items. we did find a coat for chuck though. and a flea market antique store. apparently the "flea market" bit makes all the difference between mostly cool old stuff and random new junk. this store didn't have much to recommend it.

our total weekend accumulation was still pretty bad. here's all our loot

we picked up a couple huge mugs, a nautical shadow box and a lighthousefor chuck, a marble container for who knows what and a chinese style candle holder (it's a bit hard to see to the left).
we went in this cool cuckoo clock store, imported direct from germany. chuck likes cuckoo clocks, but wouldn't let me buy him one. so we settled for some wood cutout ornaments and a little cuckoo clock for the kitchen.

although the paint job reminds me more of sweden. also for the kitchen was a cloth calendar like my grandma used to have

in a quilt store we nabbed a king size quilt. it's even reversible too!

and man, did we need that king size. chuck is like the velcro king or something. anytime he moves in bed at night the blankets go with him. not too hard to live with in the summer, but the winter is another thing. so hopefully the extra width will keep me covered.

sometimes chuck has no understanding of moderation. they had some nice blue and yellow checkered material that i liked (the color combo reminds me of sweden). he kept asking if i liked it, and then just grabbed up almost everything he could find in it. see?

he got the tablecloth, the napkins, the napkin holders (same material with buttons), the reversible placemats, and a bread basket. he spoils me rotten.

despite our haul, we're antsy to get going. tomorrow we're leaving for little rock cuz our flight's at 6.30 am wednesday. chuck said a week was all he could take at home, and i can see why. there's probably more to do in the summertime, but right now shopping is the most exciting thing to do.

i got lots of knitting in over the weekend, mostly on the FFF with a little irish moss thrown in. i'm trying to work on it at least a couple hours a day, and it's gratifying to see the inches slowly add up. chuck's mom asked me to make her a sweater. at first i wasn't sure she meant it, but once i started asking her what she wanted she got pretty excited. she also had definite ideas about what she wanted, so it wasn't just a whim. that's good, cuz i'd hate to spend all that time (and money) on a hand knit that wouldn't be appreciated. this is where ravelry comes in super handy, cuz of course i didn't have books or patterns with me. so we looked a (very) little bit and found a pattern she liked - the hedgerow coat from interweave fall 2007. which i have! yay! looks like a fun pattern too, so i won't mind knitting it. the best thing is there's no rush - she even said i could take 2 years on it! i think i can make it in that time frame ;)

once i figured out she was serious, i started asking her about details, like yarn colors and design elements like cables and whatnot. she kept saying it didn't matter and i could pick. like as if i could know all the little things she likes. having a little experience in that, i started making suggestions and got very definite no's to most of them. so not only do we have a pattern, we have a color and some idea of yarn requirements.

chuck spent some time looking through boxes of family pictures and newspaper clippings, and i started the count of monte cristo. it's a fat old book, and i have to finish it by thursday night for book club. i've got through 200 of 600 (abridged!!)pages so far. the book's size is imposing, but once i started reading the pages flew. not as wordy as i expected for the time period, or for serials being paid by the word or line.

i'm leaving on a jet plane. . . .

(obviously i didn't get this posted before i left, but what can i say. better late than never and all that. one more postdated post won't matter)

monday i got another day of babysitting teaching math. good to have another day of work, but boring as all get out. i ran across some of my sunday school kids, and they said hi, which is always cool.

today was a no-work day, getting ready for arkansas. my biggest worry before trips is not what clothes to bring, but which books and knitting projects to bring and how many. there's all those hours on planes and in airports, the 3 hour drive from little rock to chuck's parents' house.......all those boring hours in between listening to family talk........i can't stand to have nothing to do.

and the very worst thing of all? make sure you're sitting down and all that: they don't have internet. that i'm worried about. but i'm going to be a good girl and take progress pics and write posts on my computer and put them up once i get home.

although i think for the FFF shawl, i'll take pics and post them all at once at the end. do kind of a start to finish post on it. but i'll still talk about it, you'll just have to imagine what it looks like ;)

for a really cool faroese shawl, check out the raven one at knitspot. wow. the yarn (from blue moon fiber arts) is a new line with all these raven-esque names, awesome black with slight tones of other colors. irtfa'a was designed to actually look like a bird, with feather patterns and this awesome feathery edging. i have so got to buy me that pattern. some day. when i've caught up to my queue - if i can wait that long. like after christmas maybe.

the green man collection was very good. i didn't quite get through all of the stories before the book was (over)due, and it's one of those awful books with references to more cool books, so i'll have to get it back out again later. cool forest stories, i really liked them.

last night we had potato soup in an effort to use up our milk before leaving. we had some kielbasa so i threw that in too, but then the dill that normally goes in potato soup didn't seem quite right. so i put in some cumin and coriander. mmmmmm, that was good. you should try it sometime.

speaking of food, we had a thanksgiving dinner at church last week. i brought stuffing, the real kind. with sausage. everyone else that brought stuffing did the fake stuff. it just doesn't taste as good, and real stuffing is dumb easy to make so i haven't ever figured out why people make the fake stuff. since stuffing is one of my favorite bits of thanksgiving, i asked chuck if his parents would make real or fake and he didn't know. *sigh* if i knew, i'd offer to make stuffing for them. i wonder what kind of food we'll get there anyway, since they're in "the south." could be interesting. . . . .

anyway. . . . 4 books, 2 knitting magazines and 3 knitting projects later, my packing's done. and you know what? i'm still worried i'll finish it all and be bored stiff. silly. huh?

some things you just can't predict

like when your interweave knits will show up in the mailbox. last issue came in about a month after it hit the stands (no, i wasn't a new subscriber or anything) and the winter issue is here. today. a whole week before it's out on the stands. did i do something good today? this month? craziness.

and some sock yarn i ordered came in. some things can make it to alaska in less than a month! since i ordered it monday (i think) that was way faster than i anticipated. i'll have to work faster on those thujas now so i can start a new pair finish my clessidras. and hedera. gulp.

another thing you can't predict (and wouldn't that have been a good title for reviewing how many don't come to knit group) is how intertwined tamora pierce's series are. luckily, bonnie at knit group started talking books with me. when i told her i was about to read trickster's choice and realized it was after the lioness rampant books, she was kind enough to let me know the immortal books fall in between the two. man, i'da been irritated to find that out late. some books are independent enough it doesn't matter what order you read them in, but i like to follow a character's development. and those series don't let you know that they have anything to do with one another.

i now have to the hilt by dick francis in my stack too, recommended by the crochet lady. although i mostly read fantasy and sci-fi, i'll read anything good, and she says he writes good mysteries. so we'll see.

also hard to predict? if i'll get any dishes done with a new IK, new yarn, and pierce books tempting me.

bad habits

lately i've gotten into the bad habit of not having time to write a post and just scribbling down a few notes of what i wanted to post. except then they build up into novel-like posts. so while i'm not joining any of those crazy almost-acronyms i am going to try to post rather than scribble. cuz when all those scribbles add up? it feels like work and i don't want to post anymore.

so .....let's see what i have today. i've been reading a bit on the side, mostly YA novels (this means they're shorter so i whiz through them). heartlight was a pretty good book, very similar to a wrinkle in time, but with less depth. the first few pages made me wary, because they were so so similar to l'engle. a new england farmhouse, malcontented teenage girl with braces, interested in science but not in school, father/grandfather working on faster than light travel & mysteries of the universe. the story line was original though, with some cool ideas. somehow it seemed a little superficial, with a resolution similar to wrinkle. i'd still recommend it though.

apparently the seeker wasn't a great office box hit up here cuz it was in and out before i could see it. not that i was dying to see it in the theater, but it could have been a good date. lately we've been getting lots of movies i never heard of for very short runs. thank goodness for netflix. we finally saw pan's labyrinth. i really liked it, although it was unexpectedly bloody in parts. the fairy tale aspect was fascinating and surreal, and at the end you're not sure if it was real or unreal. a good movie, but with those violent bits (most war related), i wouldn't watch it with kids.

i've been anticipating the golden compass' release next month, but i'm a bit worried about the interpretation. kind of like the seeker. *sigh* hollywood did such a good job with narnia, why can't they show the same respect to other fantasy novels?

for halloween we went to a little party (ok there was tons of kids and people you normally don't see) at church. they always call it a "harvest festival" for some reason, except it's on halloween and exactly like a halloween party. i shake my head at the silliness. kim and austin came , with seth dressed as a lion (no, we're bad, i don't have any pics). we had fun. there was one little girl around a year old in a white bear costume that had the cutest growl. her face lit up if you asked what a bear says and she'd growl a few times for you.

the last two days i had off for parent/teacher conferences. i was heartbroken - not! my math job is done. i think. the teacher is adopting her newborn granddaughter and may need more time off. the kids were still trying to convince me to somehow get their normal teacher fired and become their fulltime teacher. and they said they would miss me - one girl even gave me a hug. awww. made me feel good, even with the math element.

i got some other warm fuzzies too. the woven stitch towel and fjörgyn were faved on ravelry. somebody likes what i made! i feel so appreciated this week.

thursday i was a good girl and did some housework. ok, so i still didn't get the cobwebs (they'll just make more anyway) but i did fold the laundry that i don't remember washing, took screens out of windows and took down the curtain rods. they haven't had curtains since last winter i think. i got rid of them as fast as i could convince chuck to let me. windows are for looking out. i hate curtains, shades or anything that gets in the way of my view of outside. we have pretty wood frames to, so they look nice without the curtains. and they look better without the rods! i even did some handwashing (finally) - all while chuck was on ebay. he's like a little kid discovering a candy store in his back yard.

we babysat seth thursday night, which was fun. we don't see him very often, so i don't think he really knows that chuck is his grandpa. we had fun playing with himand feeding him pizza crusts. i took advantage of kim's white rug to take pics of old FOs for ravelry. our rug's so ugly it just detracts from the picture. it's kind of cool seeing things pile up there and realizing how much i've made in the 4 years since i started knitting again. when i go home for christmas i'll be taking more pics of stuff i gave away. since i always forget to take pics. i used to have a good excuse cuz i had a sucky camera (birthday present when i was 12, very low quality - but i actually kept it till i was 27!). now i've got the digital and still forget. . . *sigh* but i think i've got pics now of everything here that i've made.



the broadripples are all done, but will be in a future post since i washed them but want a pic of them on my feet. they went so fast once i picked them up again! the stripes are a bit different, fatter on one sock than the other, but i don't mind. they still look nice. i cast on the 2nd thuja tuesday (i think) but haven't done much on it since i haven't been in school.

despite not knitting much the last few days, the second mossgrid is halfway done. yay! i'm itching to cast on a shawl but told myself i had to finish the towels first. i was planning on knitting the summer shawlette to try out the faroese style shawls, but since i got stahman's shawls and scarves (one of my bits of plunder from the ebay spree) i decided to go with something else more interesting. a feather and fan (i love that stitch), knit neck down so i can still use up the yarn i've got. i have 2 other yarns in my stash that i'm thinking of making shawls with, but i'm not sure if i'd wear them. or what pattern they'd look good in. so those keep rolling around in the back of my head.

while babysitting and not-watching the kingdom of heaven, i started in the hand of the goddess. reading kids' book makes me feel like a fast reader again. i blasted through it and finished it yesterday. i'm liking those books too, even though it was will of the empress all over again - went to read trickster's choice and found out it was sequel-ish to the lioness rampant books. luckily i had just read the first one, otherwise i'd never have known and spoiled the ending for myself. knowing the ending ahead of time sucks.

chuck ran out of lights (we bought them last year, guessing how much we needed and never got them up since it was minus degrees when we moved in), so we bought a strand of blue lights to try out. we've got those icicle lights that dangle, and the pic on the blue box made the snow look like moonlight was on it. and for once, the picture didn't lie! the blue lights are pretties, and now i just have to figure out how to convince chuck we want to buy all blue lights. hmmm . . . . . .

oh, and if anyone knows how to get rid of the little gnat buggies that live in houseplant dirt, PUH-LEASE let me know. they're making me crazy, and i don't want to ditch the plants (which is chuck's idea of a solution).