The Big Read!

Today is el Dia de los Muertos, a.k.a. Day of the Dead. I've always thought it was such a nice tradition - colorful remembrances of our ancestors who have passed to the great beyond. It would be so cool to experience this firsthand.

Anyways. On to the topic of the day. I'm so tired of reading political posts on blogs, I figured I'd make the move to something educational. I recently saw the list below on The Quilting Bookworm's blog. She saw it on someone else's blog. I looked up the National Endowment for the Arts and they do have a program called The Big Read, but it only has maybe a dozen or so books involved. I've seen different accounts online of where the list actually originated (the BBC, the Guardian, NEA, ???) and each list seems to be slightly different. But I like the list below, and I am (dorkily) setting out to read everything on it. I've read the books in bold and loved the red books. I am currently reading Les Miserables. And at my current reading rate (about 20 pages/day...I don't have a lot of time to read anymore) I have 50 days of reading to go. Hopefully the library will let me keep it that long!

Another note - apparently The Big Read has the purpose of attempting to get more adults interested in literature. Some survey somewhere said that the level of literacy in adults is taking a header (well duh, tv, cell phones, the internet...). And I don't think they mean fewer adults can read or that adults are forgetting how to read...they just mean we aren't reading books anymore. So the stated statistic is that the average adult has only read 6 of the books on the list. I am happy to see that I've read more. Though every time I see the list I come up with a different count, so below I only highlighted the ones that I most definitely positively was forced to read and/or read of my own free will and I actually remember doing so.

1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6. The Bible
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcot
12. Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19. The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34. Emma - Jane Austen
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41. Animal Farm - George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52. Dune - Frank Herbert
53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility- Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
69. Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker
73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses - James Joyce
76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal - Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession - AS Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte's Web - EB White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94. Watership Down - Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Flip thingie giveaway!

Frugal Mom Reviews is giving away a Flip Digital video camera...see here to enter. She asked that you post your best frugal tip, so here's mine: I make my own laundry soap. Honestly, it isn't that hard. Here's my recipe:

• 1 bar of Fels Naptha soap, shredded
• 1 cup of Borax
• 1 cup of Oxi-clean (I use the store brand, not the real thing)
• Run it all through a food processor for about a minute. That's it! Use about a TBSP per load.

Other frugal things I do...clip coupons, use energy saving light bulbs, use a programmable thermostat...that's all I can think of for now.

200th post winners chosen!!!

Since The Husband provided the question I let him go through the comments and choose his favorite answers. BTW, He never reads my blog so he doesn't know any of the commentators identities. Here they are:

Susan Cahill said...
What a tough question. Having an inquiring mind I did
some google searching and here is what I found:The Myth of Sunlight: Vampires
are creatures of the night, living and feeding in the darkness. In traditional
medieval times sunlight did not kill the vampire. In fact, vampires could walk
around like anyone else. In the novel, Dracula, vampires could move around in
the daytime without their strength and powers. It's only been in the recent
history of fifty or sixty years that the new tradition of Sunlight killing
vampires has emerged. Popular culture, movies and novels have made sunlight the
ultimate vampire killer. However, if you ever run into a real vampire don't be
surprised if they don't explode when sunlight hits them.So, it sounds like not
many, but who knows, maybe it just isn't reported and there are more than
reported! Boy, my brain hurts, I'd better go do some quilting.

And...

justusseven said...
I've heard vampires aren't all that organized so I bet the daylight savings time catches them off guard A LOT!

He liked Susan's for its historical content and Justusseven's for it's humor. Marisa almost got it for the humor but then he thought she herself might be a vampire since she was trying to convince him that vampires might be nearly extinct. Quote from The Husband: "She can't fool me! I'm on to that vampire."

Thank you for playing, everyone! Susan & JustUsSeven - watch your email. And congratulations!!!

200 posts!

Since this is post 200 I will be giving away two little somethings. Halloween is coming up and it is a favorite time of year for me. This was last year's costume:

Ok, Ok. That isn't really me. It's Elvira. And I know she sets women's lib back like 300 years but darnit, she is funny.

Oh right, back to the giveaway. Halloween is a special time of year for me, and since it happens to correspond to my 200th post I will be giving away two Halloween quilt gifties which I have yet to determine. I'm thinking a yard of Halloween fabric and some kind of cute pincushion for each at the moment. You know me - I am terrible at posting pics off of my camera so even if I had the giveaway items on hand I would be too lazy to post a picture.

Vampires make very good pin er, stake-cushions, no?

So here is how you could win a giftie. The Husband (that is not him above, btw) is fascinated with Vampires. He recently asked me this question: how many vampires get burned (er, literally) because they forget about daylight savings? You know, they climb out of their coffins for a night on the town and suddenly it's still light out at 8? All you have to do is give me a response to this query in my comments. I'll close out entries at end-of-day October 4th, and post the winners the following week.

Good luck, and happy vamping!

PS - postal costs being what they are, I'm restricting this to residents of the United States and Canada. Sorry to international folks, it's nothing personal. It's just too expensive especially after ponying up money for the prize.

One coat for The Boy - done!

I finished the wool winter coat I was making for The Boy this past Friday. Yippee skippee! (Does anyone else remember Miss Piggy saying that on the Muppet Babies cartoon?)

Isn't that special? (Another quote that dates me.)

Tonight it is super-windy at our house due to the weather moving North from Hanna or maybe Gustav. I've already lost track of which storm is to blame. The Husband's parents called a bit ago to say they had lost power. Our lights have flickered a few times but so far it's been nothing but an inconvenience as the Kiddies are scared of the wind. My heart goes out to all of those people who are displaced, lost, injured or worse because of the hurricanes. Sigh. It always has to be something, doesn't it?

Oh. Another thing. I have recently become hooked on Project Runway. What the heck. Why did it take me so long to get turned on to it? I like sewing, right? I guess it is mostly because we only have one television at our house (we're practically in the fifties! Though it is a color model with a remote control) and The Husband is most often dominating it. If I want to watch a show of my own, I have to tape them and watch when he isn't around. Then I eventually get sick of being so far behind because he's always around and I dump them without even watching them. But lo, The Husband actually watched it with me (I think he was trying to ring up some points--if you know what I mean) and proclaimed it to be "pretty cool"! So now I can watch it without guilt and without having to make up some crazy contorted television schedule.

I know. A normal person would just get another TV. I guess you don't know me very well if you think that I am normal.

In other news, The Girl started a ballet class and she is freakin' adorable about it. And we are trying very hard to convince The Boy that Indian Guides or Boy Scouts would be a fun thing to do. And keep my mom and uncle in your prayers - in a few weeks she will be heading to Seattle to donate something or other blood-related to her older brother who is suffering through his second bout of cancer. She donated um, something from her blood a few years ago when he went through his first round. He was eventually declared cancer-free but it has unfortunately made a return trip. I am sure I have been told exactly what the thing is that she is donating but since it is technical jargon and I am terrible with names--even names that are not associated with people--I won't even attempt to say it because I'm sure I'll say something crazy-impossible and folks will wonder what is wrong with me, or my uncle's doctors.

Oh! And this is my 199th post. Look for a giveaway when I do my 200th...which should be sometime this year. Oi.

Fitness Update

Hey, fellow bloggers! Long time, no blog. Actually I am reading blogs. I'm just not doing much commenting or writing of blogs.

So The Boy started first grade last week. There was much drama since the school sent him home on the bus to an empty house instead of sending him to the Y program that I'd spent good money for to make sure someone was watching him. Sometimes I cannot believe how immobile people are. The school knew that they didn't know who was supposed to be in the Y program that took place after school in their own cafeteria...so instead of calling up the Y and saying, hey, wassup with my lack of list? They. Did. Nothing. I'm so glad people capable of such rational thought patterns and actions are educating my kid. Actually, I have to say that the teacher attempted rational action. It was the principal and secretary who dropped the ball, IMO.

That's thankfully all been ironed out now, though, so I can stop being bitter about it. Right?

In fitness news - I have cut back the length of my runs because it is getting dark out earlier. (Wah! I hate when the days get shorter.) But I am still running 3 or 4 times a week. Most days I do a 2 mile circuit that takes me about half an hour. I know, I know--I am probably the slowest jogger in the history of jogging. Most people can probably walk 2 miles in half an hour. But hey, I am off my behind and doing something. So you gotta give me that. Just call me pokey.

In sewing news - I finished the blankie for my cousin, who has just moved and now my excuse for not sending it is that I don't know her new address. Really it's just me being lazy but it is also true that I no longer know where she lives. I am coming round the home stretch on The Boy's winter coat. It is turning out quite well. It's the first time I've tried an Ottubre pattern and while I wasn't too keen on transferring the pattern & having to add my own seam allowance, it has come together pretty well. I had a few moments of huh? while trying to read the instructions. There are no pictures so that puts a visual/spatial person like me at a disadvantage, but I eventually figured it out. Basically all I have left is hemming the bottom, adding a few lines of topstitching, and putting on the toggle buttons & snaps. Woohoo!

Goals for September:

• Finish The Boy's coat
• Start The Girl's coat
• Maybe finally bind The Girl's quilt
• Get moving on Halloween costumes! The Boy wants to be Annikin (sp?) and The Girl is waffling between a computer, a cat, and Sleeping Beauty.

Finding a daycare stinks!

The plot grows thicker with our daycare troubles. I actually had to call the place that said they would call us and let us know if they found a spot for him. Of course they didn't, which is probably why they didn't call. Why call someone you can't get money from, after all? I mean, why be courteous or professional and do what you say you are going to do even if you know it isn't what the customer wants to hear?

In desperation I called the other place. Get this. They no longer have room for either kid. So what now? When I was a kid daycares weren't commonplace around our house or maybe we were too old or it was too expensive. I'm not sure. But they sent us to the YMCA for afterschool care--called "latchkey" at the time to indicate the abandoned nature of the children.

So I called them up. And thank goodness they bus to his school. I went right up there and signed him up & paid in full so they couldn't turn me away later. Then they inform me that his application has to be approved. What?! NOoooooOOOooooo! So after a few pointed questions I found the reason he could be rejected is that his bus is full, and that she can find out if it is full by calling the director. I then insisted that she do so right now with me as her witness. And she did, and he said there was room, though it's been two days and I still haven't received approval. Grr. The Girl is now signed up at the place where The Boy is still on the waiting list. This would be because we want to pick them up and drop them off at the same place. Eventually.

In other news, lest you forget that this blog is actually about quilting and sewing:

• I finished the guild challenge and turned it in. I didn't win a prize, but since I basically threw it together in a month and attempted my first free-motion quilting on it, I didn't expect even the nice compliments I got.
• I sewed up three pillow cases. One for The Boy, one for The Girl, and one for The Husband's cousin who was in the hospital. Poor kid. She had some kind of bacterial infection painful enough to require a morphine drip. :(
• I am almost finished sewing up a minky baby blankie for my cousin who had her baby about a month ago. Oops.
• And on the upcoming agenda: winter coats for The Boy, The Girl, and--get this--me! I almost never get to sew for me. We'll see if it gets done. Fabric.com says my fabric should be arriving today. I can't wait to touch it! The Boy chose a royal blue wool that is already hanging from the line downstairs, waiting for me to transfer the pattern & get moving. The Girl chose hot pink wool. And I mean HOT!

Fitness progress

I look the picture of fitness here, don't I? We went on a trek to the Cuyahoga Valley Railroad this past weekend. That's me looking surprised to be on a train. Or that would be the apparent source of my surprise, anyway. Next is a pretty view on a bridge over the Cuyahoga River.
And here's our conductor, punching our tickets. He nicely did not comment on the possibly contraband snacks I brought for the kiddies.

Oh yeah...fitness. This week I got in just a smidge under 7 miles. I was hoping to get in 3 miles tonight but events consipired against us. We went to visit a new potential daycare for the kiddies and then out to dinner and that just blew away the whole evening. When the kids were finally in bed the weather was turning dark & rainy so I did a placeholder lap and that is the end of it.

On the subject of daycare: it is for us a necessary evil. I don't like the idea of anyone other than us watching the kids, but this is the way it is for us right now. Their current center is no longer able to bus The Boy to school so unless we can figure a way to teleport him there we have to find a new place. We have a choice of 2. So I visited one and was impressed with The Girl's new potential room, but not The Boy's room. Tonight we visited choice number 2, and we took the kiddies with us because it was an open house.

We arrive and the asst. director asks some questions, then she talks to the kids. I hear her ask almost immediately, what school do you go to? And The Boy answered (correctly, even.) And we begin a tour. We get to the end of a 30-some minute tour (long because I basically demand a full speech on everything, these are my offspring after all and they must be cared for properly) and I happen to mention why we are leaving our other center. She cocks her head at me and says, oh, I think our bus to that school is full.

What? WHAT??? Full? How can it be full, if your enrollment is not full? And why did you not mention this 30 minutes ago, before showing my children your happy shiny activities and bribing them with sno-cones when my son explicitly answered your question of where he goes to school?

I was quite annoyed. She went and checked the list and, well, yes, the bus is full. We are now on a waiting list. OMG. They will be starting at their new center August 18th...only 11 days away. We could just give up and put them in the other place...but my gut tells me this is the place they should go. She said she would let me know next week. Gah. Can we push it any closer? If this were a cussin' blog, there would be rip-roaring profanity right now.

On a happier note, here is a long-promised photo of one of the sunburst blocks. This one is my favorite so far, and I have 4 of 16 complete. I haven't been able to work on it because I'm working on a guild challenge but that is a secret reveal so I can't show it here yet. At least, I think it is a secret.

Wish me luck on the daycare dilemma. Sometimes I just cannot believe our luck.