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Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Teaser Tuesday October 26, 2010

I haven't been doing much reading recently, but for some reason I've been blazing through the books this month. I have also stopped making myself finish books that aren't holding my interest. I've learned that this plan helps with the FINISHING of books! This week's Teaser comes from Cassandra Clare's book Clockwork Angel




"At some point she had lost Camille and become herself again. She must have been dazed indeed, she thought, not to have noticed the return of her own heartbeat." ~ page 264





Teaser Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by MizB at Should Be Reading.

Monday, October 25, 2010

A Day Off Work

Today I didn't go to work. Not in a super exciting way, just in a "I have been having crazy bad migraines and was hoping a day to sit at home and relax would fix all of that" kind of way. I got a lot of stuff done today. I finished reading a book, I caught up some TV shows, I worked on some of my blankets, I folded laundry, I started another book. I also got tagged in a note on Facebook. Usually I ignore those kind of things (even though I have a secret love of memes) but this one was about BOOKS! The prompt was to take fifteen minutes and list fifteen books that will always stick with you. So I posted that on my Facebook page, but I thought that I would post it here too!


  1. Harry Potter (series) by J.K. Rowling
  2. Paper Towns by John Green
  3. Sea by Heidi R. Kling
  4. Love is the Higher Law by David Levithan
  5. Number the Stars by Lois Lowry
  6. Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld
  7. Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson
  8. Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan
  9. How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss
  10. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L'Engle
  11. Wonderful Tonight by Pattie Boyd
  12. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
  13. Twenty Boy Summer by Sarah Ockler
  14. Tricks by Ellen Hopkins
  15. Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
I should mention that there are WAY more books I could add to this list. Especially A Midsummer Night's Dream, and most anything written by John Green, Ellen Hopkins, Maureen Johnson, Scott Westerfeld, E. Lockhart, and sooo many other fabulous books. If there are any books on this list that YOU haven't pick up I highly recommend them all. They may not all be epic works of literature, but each of them has left an imprint on me. I hope they will make a difference in your life as well.

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Teaser Tuesday October 19, 2010

I am partway through SO MANY books it isn't funny! Today's Teaser is from Bloody Jack by L.A. Meyer. I'm not very far into this book, but it's been in my TBR pile for quite some time and I thought that it was about time I read it. It also helps that I have promised not to buy any more books until I read through some of the books on my shelves. This is bad news because I am REALLY looking forward to Dash and Lily's Book of Dares. I want it SO BAD!!! I may have to settle for rereading Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist in the meantime. 



"The rest of the townspeople flee into the hills, and LeFievre burns the town. He has many ships now, and reports from survivors are that he is growing in his pride and struts about in fine silks and talks of setting up his own kingdom on one of the islands. But he could not grow so foolish as to take on a King's ship, could he?"~ pg 132




Teaser Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by MizB at Should Be Reading.

Monday, October 18, 2010

Blanket Update!

I spent most of my weekend working through my "To Do" list, and amazingly was able to get through most of it. One item I did not have on my list was to work on my "Hodgepodge Blanket," but since I was able to get everything else done, I devoted a lot of time to my blanket. I was able to finish working the rainbow yarn into my blanket and five new colors into it too. I now have a grey, a jewel tones variegated, a steel blue, a brown, a hunter green, a light grey, a blue variegated, all worked into the blanket and have started working a small amount of cream yarn into it as well. In all honesty this blanket should be horribly ugly, what with all of the random bits of yarn and no color pattern. To tell you the truth, I'm surprised that I am able to just let this go and not worry about the pattern at all. Last Christmas I made my mom a blanket to give to one of my aunties, and my mom now has about ten skeins of yarn that I refused to use because I didn't think they worked with my pattern. The saddest part is that none of the skeins are the same, so my mother basically has useless yarn. I'm sure at some point we will find a use for that yarn, we are always doing projects. The point is that I tend to be OCD about my yarn projects. I've even been known to carry a project into a store in order to compare how I think the yarn I am buying will work with the rest of my project.

Moving on! I am really proud of myself for just letting this blanket go. It has turned into a great stress outlet for me. I sit and watch TV or listen to music and lose myself in the yarn. When I run out of a color I grab a random ball of yarn out of my "leftovers" bag and keep working. So, without further ado....HERE it is!


I have completed nineteen rounds on this blanket and am just now starting on the twentieth round. I'm not sure how large this blanket will end up being. I may make it large enough to cover my bed, which is a full sized bed. Everything depends on how much yarn I have and when I feel like stopping. It is both strange and liberating to have no plan for this. I know it may not seem like a big deal, but I can truly relax when I work on this project because I have nothing to worry about. It is LOVELY! 

Here is a close up of the blanket where you can see the stitches and the colors that I am using. The only one missing is the cream colored yarn I am currently using. Most of the yarn is chunky or worsted weight yarn. I don't imagine that I will use anything smaller than worsted weight yarn in this project, simply because I'm using a larger needle and even if I'm not super concerned with how the pattern goes, I do prefer a certain look to my work. I prefer tight stitches, which usually causes problems for my mum (who almost breaks down when she looks at anything I've done) but that's what I like. I usually use the smallest needle available for the yarn I am working with. I'm currently using a "K" needle and I can only think of one project that I've ever used a needle that large on, and it was a scarf made of a very chunky yarn.

Now that I have spotlighted my work, I should probably do paperwork and read some more from Zombies vs. Unicorn. What I'll most likely do it make random updates on Twitter and talk to BFF1 on IM. I have no attention span OR dedication! Happy Monday folks!

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Teaser Tuesday October 12, 2010

Another Tuesday, Another Teaser! I finished Vampire Academy last week and so I am getting ready to start the second book in that series Frostbite by Richelle Mead.





"I wanted to walk away, but there was something eerily compelling about this guy. Like a trainwreck." ~pg. 136







Teaser Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by MizB at Should Be Reading.  If these teaser's don't impress you, there are plenty more to be found here!

Monday, October 11, 2010

New Project

Something I haven't really talked about on here very much is my penchant for crocheting. Yarn work is really in right now! I knit some too, but not as much. I generally have a difficult time completing projects and knitting just takes WAY too long. So, I currently am working on a baby blanket for Baby Neville and a blanket that I gave my mother for Christmas last year. Yes, I did in fact give her an unfinished blanket, which remains unfinished almost a year later. With two projects underway and my annual winter scarf looming on the horizon, I did the thing any sane human would do...started a new project.






While putting two new bookshelves in my room and sorting through all my books (more on that later) I found THIS giant bunch of yarn. The giant bag o' yarn reminded me that I have REALLY wanted to make a "hodgepodge blanket" for myself. Quick fact...in the almost ten years since I started crocheting I have only ever made myself scarves. All of my other projects have been given away. There have even been times I have given someone a project that I originally intended to keep for myself. Not that I mind that, homemade projects are fabulous and they mean a lot to the person who receives them...at least they mean a lot to the people who have received them from me. But at some point there has to be something you do for yourself. And this messed up hodgepodge blanket is going to be mine!

Since there hasn't been a lot of reading going on recently I thought I would update with something else! My new blanket. I think that on each Monday I am going to update with this blanket. And if I haven't worked on it because I have been working on other stuff, then I may post pictures of THOSE projects as well! So here is Picture Number One!

This was taken with my phone in low light, so the color isn't great. The idea is to expand on a simple "granny square" and keep going until you have a blanket the size you want. I am using up all of my scrap yarn, with no real color pattern or concerns. I'm just working yarn into a pattern. That is my aim, and you can all see the progress as I go along. Next week I'll get my actual camera out and take a GOOD picture for your enjoyment!

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Teaser Tuesday October 5, 2010

A quick, last minute teaser. Since I haven't done a teaser in awhile, I thought I'd do TWO! I hope you enjoy!

The first one is from Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead!




"All of a sudden, it occurred to me that he was still holding me down.  The skin on his fingers warm as he clutched my wrists." ~page 141






My second teaser is from Sarah Ockler's book Twenty Boy Summer.




"An undisturbed layer of dust on one particular shelf makes me think that Matt may have touched the same books the last time he was here. I crouch down to read some of the titles on the faded spines, remembering a description of this exact scene from one of Matt's postcards."~page 168




Teaser Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by MizB at Should Be Reading.  If these teaser's don't impress you, there are plenty more to be found here!