Books I read in 2013

Its time for my traditional books-I-read-this-year post! Everyone else is reflecting on things they did and things they will do and making new goals, and all I seem to care about is how many books I read--what they were, how many there are, and how many I'd like to read the next year. Which doesn't seem quite as, you know, deep.

But on the other hand, it kind of is. I think books can show a lot about how your year went--or at least, how my year went. There is a Lord Peter quote about books being like shells you shed to show previous periods of development, but I'm to lazy to find the exact words right now.

Anyway. What I read this year.

These are in reverse order, meaning the book I read most recently is listed first. This isn't a complete list because I'm not nearly as organized or on the ball as I'd like to be, and sometimes I'd go a few weeks or a month or more without remembering to write down titles of what I'd read, so I'm sure there are a few books missing here. Most are novels, mostly YA but some Middle Grade and Adult, and some are graphic novels. My goal was to read 52 books (one per week), a goal which I met by the skin of my teeth--there are 52 titles here. This is less than half of what I've read other years, but this year was very busy in other ways. I think I want to make a goal for 78 books next year--1.5 books a week (since, yanno, I don't have homework anymore). We'll see how that goes.


Ok, ok, ok, finally--here they are. The books I read in 2013:

• East, Edith Pattou (again)
• Friends With Boys (graphic novel), Faith Erin Hicks
• Gilead, Marilynne Robinson
• The Maytrees, Anne Dillard
• Traveling Mercies, Anne Lamott
• Very Far Away from Anywhere Else, Usrula K Le Guin
• Clouds of Witness, Dorothy Sayers (again)
• A Letter of Mary, Laurie R. King
• My Antonia, Willa Cather
• Gaudy Night, Dorothy Sayers (again)
• A Monsterous Regiment of Women, Laurie R King
• Divergent, Veronica Roth
• The Beekeeper's Apprentice, Laurie R King
• North and South, Elizabeth Gaskell (Librivox)
• The Search Part 2
• The Search Part 1
• The Return of Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Librivox)
• The Princess and the Bear, Mette Ivie Harrison
• Passage, Lois McMaster Bujold
• Legacy, Lois McMaster Bujold
• Beguilement, Lois McMaster Bujold
• The Curse of Chalion, Lois McMaster Bujold (again)
• The Raven Boys, Maggie Stiefvater
• The Doomsday Book, Connie Willis
• The Seven Towers, Patricia C. Wrede (again)
• The Perilous Gard, Elizabeth Marie Pope (again)
• The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, Avi
• Team of Rivals, Doris Kearns Goodwin
• Crown Duel, Sherwood Smith (again)
• A Stranger to Command, Sherwood Smith
• The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate, Jacqueline Kelly
• Memory, Lois McMaster Bujold (again)
• Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont, Elizabeth Taylor
• Well of Ascension, Brandon Sanderson
• Shards of Honor, Lois McMaster Bujold (again)
• Cryoburn, Lois McMaster Bujold (again)
• Brothers in Arms, Lois McMaster Bujold (again)
• Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte (Librivox)
• Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen (Librivox)
• Maus II: And Here My Troubles Began, Art Spiegelman (graphic novel)
• Maus I: My Father Bleeds History, Art Spiegelman (graphic novel)
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Audiobook), J.K. Rowling
• Mistborn, Brandon Sanderson
• Kidnapped, Robert Louis Stevenson (Librivox)
• Spellhunter, R.J. Anderson
• Tuesdays in the Castle, Jessica Day George
• Old Mans War, John Scalzi
• The Girl of Fire and Thorns, Rae Carson
• A Countess Below Stairs, Eva Ibbotson
• The Warrior's Apprentice, Lois McMaster Bujold (again)
• Memory, Lois McMaster Bujold (again)
• Murder Must Advertise, Dorothy Sayers (again)

Skit, scat, scoodle-doot, flip, flop, flee.

Take a look at this.





Yep. Those are my feet... in flip-flops. I haven't worn flip-flops in YEARS. This is because flip-flops are flat and can't hold arch supports.

But.

I made arch supports. Yes indeedy!

I used craft foam, really good glue, and scissors. Of course I used my arch supports as a sort of guide.




I'm very happy with my flip-flops. Its so nice to not wear a full shoe in the heat!




Also: Kudos to the first person who can tell me what book the post subject comes from. (WITHOUT Google/internet help, obviously.)

Footloose and Fancy Free

Finals are over and I'm home for the holidays! Well, temporarily at least. I'll be heading back down to Provo to work (gotta pay tuition!) but I'm home this weekend, with no homework to do, no finals to study for, and new books to read--what more could I want? When finals ended I splurged somewhat and bought myself a hardback copy of The Christmas Carol illustrated by P.J. Lynch, because I could...and it was on sale, so really, it wasn't that big a splurge :-}. I'm really looking forward to reading it--Charles Dickens was a funny guy, and of course the illustrations will be awesome.

Now that I finally have TIME to tell all you blog readers (like, all three of you ^.^) what's been going on I can't really think what to say. Hmmm... well, some big news of the last couple weeks (heh) was that I got and ARC (Thats an Advance Readers Copy, to you non-book-nerds) of A Conspiracy of Kings by Megan Whalen Turner (the sequel to my absolute favoritest book EVER, The King of Attolia) which will be coming out in March or April and is MADE OF AWESOME (in case anyone was wondering). After I finished reading it I promptly passed it onto another obsessed fan, then to the next, then the next, who passed it on to several more, and I just got it back this morning and will be handing it off to the wonderful Shanelle tonight. (I really should try and count up everyone who has read this ARC, just to know, you know?) EVERYONE SHARE THE BOOK-LOVE. Book friends: I'm glad that you all understand me, and the awesomeness that is these books. And I'm glad that there is such a lovely concentration of us in Provo/Orem/SLC area.

We also had our roommate gift exchange and I got--wait for it--a Borders Gift card. Surprise! I also got a rather entertaining bookmark, with a pony on it--and it neighs when you press it. :-) I got Annie Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome... maybe as much for myself as for her, I'll admit, because I'll expect her to allow me to read it to her now. And she will enjoy it. Becasue Jerome K. Jerome was a funny guy.

I really don't have much else to say, so I shall now close :-D

Books Read this summer

I was just glancing over old blog posts when I saw a post I'd completely forgotten about from last April, saying what books I thought I might want to pick up over the summer. I thought it might be interesting to say which of those I actually did read.

Of the rather long list of books I thought I might like to try reading over the summer, these are the ones I did actually read:

Jane Eyre
The Book Thief, by Marcus Zuzak I started but didn't finish. I did enjoy what I read of it and plan to finish when the Book Chooser Says To.
Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver is another I started but didn't finish--I really liked it, but then the library recalled it. *grumble* Annie brought back her copy for me to read the next time she went home, but by then I'd kind of lost my momentum with it, yanno? But this is another that I fully intend to finish reading in the future.
The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas
Ben Hur by Lew Wallace I didn't actually read during the summer, but I did shortly after school started. Well, I listened to it anyway, which counts in my book.
Kenneth Oppel's Airborn books.
The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold
More Diana Wynne Jones--specifically The Game and re-reading the first and third volumes of the Chronicles of Chrestomanci... and maybe some other stuff that isn't coming to mind at the moment...
I didn't read The Looking Glass Wars by Frank Beddor, but I did listen to Through the Looking Glass, and the original should be even better, no?
I gave Game of Kings by Dorothy Dunnett another try--one of these days I'll be able to understand her prose. Maybe.
the Lord Peter Wimsey Books--oy my Lord Peter. I am so glad that I did pick these up... :D:D:D
The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Emma Orczy--Karen Savage is my Hero





Not a bad list. Of course I read many other books this summer, but these are the books that I did end up reading that I had on my summer reading list. And probably nobody is interested in this but me, but ah well.


And NOW I shall go do homework. Actually, I'm going to have dinner first. And THEN homework.

The last few days we've had completely clear blue skys. Which is nice and all.

But today, I woke up, stepped out side, and there were....

Clouds.

Today, my friends, is going to be a good day. I'm tired, frustrated with my current project at work, but today the sky is full of beautiful clouds.






Ok, Twilighters shut your eyes. Or, if you don't, be forgiving. I'm sure we can understand each other on other points, just not on Those Awful Books.


see more Funny Graphs

Clouds

Everyone says that blue skies are the prettiest, but it is my personal belief that they aren't half as pretty without some nice fluffy clouds.
-SarLu

Its white and fluffy and cold...

It looks like snow

it feels like snow

it falls like snow

its cold like snow

It must be... snow! Yes indeed!

You know what this means...

SNOWFLAKE CUTTING SEASON HAS OFFICIALLY ARRIVED. Thats right. Build up those old scissor callouses (I really have gotten those, by the way) because I'm determined that this apartment is going to thoroughly decorated for winter.

Guess what.

I have a computer.

Not new. Not fancy. Not fast. But mine to have and use nonetheless.

Somebody messed with the settings so everything is all in German (All these sites ask for my 'Passwort'.) But I'll figure out how to put it in English... somehow.

Now... Pictures!

I went home this weekend and did... stuff. I showed my younger siblings Avatar... Oops.



And I made a crepe cake. Don't know what a crepe cake is? Does 'leaning tower of crepes' mean anything to you?



...yeah, pretty sure I didn't thicken the cream stuff enough, so it was all slide-y. Tasted good though.



Took alot of pictures in the backyard for my photo class. Dunno if any of them will work for the assignment (hopefully they will...) but there are some pretty ones.



Played a bit with depth of field on this one.

Last Saturday

Last Saturday we were going to go to this comedy show in the Mazer building. But, when we got there, we were told that tickets were sold out. Meh.

So we were hanging around outside the Mazer building and somehow we had the idea to go around to all the statues on campus and take our pictures with them. After all, we were already right next to one of them.



Thats Brooke up on the statue.


On our way to the Tree of Life, we stopped by the Ball.



Thats me and Deidre :)




Me, Annilyn, and Brooke as the Tree of Life.

So we were on our way to the statue of the mom and dad holding hands with a little kid when we passed the SWKT, which had its lights on (it was getting kinda lateish...) We were wondering what was going on in there. Annilyn said she thought it was the international cinema movie, probably the Kite Runner, and it was supposed to be starting around that time, maybe.

We walked in just as the opening credits started.

It was such a good movie. Mind you, it was edited a bit (this is BYU, of course, and its a PG-13 movie) and I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want to see the unedited version, but we all liked it alot.

Oh, and here is my window. Because I felt like showing it. And, before you ask, no, I haven't finished the hair on the one of the girl reading. I'll get around to it... eventually.

A Tribute to Clouds

I was walking home from my Writing for Children class last night when I looked up and saw the clouds. "Gosh," I thought, "I wish I had a camera. Wait... I DO have a camera!"

Behold.








And now some randomness.

First, the Living Room Wall.
]


My painting on display, helping to brighten the room.


I had to share this... Annilyn's Flying Toasters of DOOM! (thats what I say the title should be, anyway.) Its on display, in the kitchen, of course.


My desk. I'm going to tidy it up tonight, I promise.
It is colorful!