2008: The Year in Books

What with taking classes three semesters of 2008, my reading list is on the sad side. I included one book I read for school because I read it cover-to-cover and it was not a text book. This tradition of posting my reading list year after year is one I got from Berrybird. I have included re-reads (rr) again this year and listed the books in the order they were read. So without further ado, I give you my reading list for 2008:

Ability Profiling and School Failure by Kathleen M. Collins
Comfort Food by Kate Jacobs
Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv
DragonHarper by Anne & Todd McCaffrey
Tallgrass by Sandra Dallas
Track of the Cat by Nevada Barr
A Superior Death by Nevada Barr
The Illustrated Olive Farm by Carol Drinkwater
A Wind in the Door by Madeleine L'Engle (rr)
Ripe for the Picking by Annie Hawes
Ill Wind by Nevada Barr
Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser
A Swiftly Tilting Planet by Madeleine L'Engle (rr)
Knit Two by Kate Jacobs
Hominids by Robert J Sawyer (rr)
Rise and Shine by Anna Quindlen
The Green Glass Sea by Ellen Klages

Saturday With a Friend

Yesterday I drove one major city to the west to visit my friend, Crunchy Forester. We didn't have any big plans for the day, it was just about seeing each other and spending time together. We went out for a delicious lunch at a crepe place, went to the mall (a place we both hate) to return a sweater she'd received and buy a gift for another celebration I'll be attending later in the week. We got coffee and then dinner. Mostly we talked. And talked. And talked. We talked about the old days and what all our college pals are doing now. We talked about the future, as it is even more uncertain than usual. She might be moving to another state, even further away. We talked about boys and relationships.

And when it was past the time I usually nod off on the couch, we hugged goodbye and I drove the hour and a half home. It was a day well spent.

Merry Christmas

I'm drinking tea and watching snow fall lightly through the front window. In a few hours I will head over to my parents house for a home-cooked meal and a gift opening.

I hope everyone has a very merry day.

Enough Snow!

Seriously. Enough already with the snow. In the past few days I've shoveled the driveway, had it plowed, had the neighbor across the street volunteer to snowblow it for me (thank you!!!), and had FF do it another time.

Which brings us to Sunday night when FF was snowblowing. I was at the bottom of the driveway waiting for him to finish his pass so I could run by up to the house. The snowblower stopped throwing snow and, as I've seen him do a thousand times, FF moved around the machine and reached into the arm. From where I was standing I could see the blades were still turning. Time moved into slow motion and in that moment I knew something awful was about to happen. Then he was screaming and I was running. I counted five fingers still attached, wrapped the bleeding hand in a clean towel, and we took off for the ER. He ended up with 8 stitches and a fractured finger tip. It could have been much, much worse.

I know, and he knows, that what he did wasn't the smartest thing, but if one more person tells me how stupid he was, I will scream. I feel guilty because it was my driveway and my snowblower. He can't work for a minimum of three weeks! I have to say that I stayed calm and never freaked out. I'm kinda proud of that.

Bah Humbug

I am a very bad gift giver. I want to give gifts that people will like, want, and be happy with. It stresses me out. I don't do a good job paying attention to little things people say all year long to be able to put them to good use at the holidays. Part of the problem may be that I could spend ten minutes listing thousands of things that I would be happy to receive, whereas other people struggle to identify one item.

Needless to say, I have not completed my gift shopping for this year. My biggest hang-up is with what to buy for my boyfriend (as a side note, I hate that term). He lives in California, in an apartment I've never seen. He has enough disposable income that he generally buys whatever he needs or wants. Clearly, whatever I get him at this point wouldn't arrive by Christmas anyway. I've been agonizing over this for days, which has resulted in absolute inability to take action on the matter.

I guess I'll go burn off some of my obsessive energies by shoveling. Maybe that will take my mind off my own lack of creativity.

Hair There

I got my hair cut on Saturday. It's not as short as I wanted it, but after I had her take more off once, I couldn't ask her again. I think I will go back there again though. I liked her and the price was reasonable. My theory is that because my hair is (was) so long stylists are afraid to take too much off for fear I might freak out. That is not my nature, but they can't know that the first time they meet me.

Many people at worked noticed my new hair, which almost surprised me since they've never noticed in the past. The best however was the woman that sits behind and to one side of us at the basketball games. She was practically gushing over my new hairstyle. I almost felt bad that I'd never even noticed she existed before, but I rarely am looking behind me at a game.

It doesn't look all that different to me, but shorter is always easier.

Fresh Eggs

I used to be able to buy farm fresh eggs about a mile from my house, but now there are no more chickens playing in the grass. The farm appears empty and abandoned. I haven't found a new local source of free-range eggs. During the summer months I buy free-range eggs at the farmer's market, but during the rest of the year I rely on my friend, Bird Watcher, at work to get me some from her friend who has a shop in a small town to the south. She sells local, organic, or healthy types foods at the store.

The egg transfer usually occurs at work, which often garners some attention since it is not usual to see a co-worker carrying a carton of eggs out the door at the end of the day. On Friday as I was exiting with the eggs, I was stopped by a pair of co-workers desirous of an explanation. When I gave them the details, the woman was clearly taken aback.

"How do you know they are fresh?" She asked with apparent concern.

I know they fresh because the farmer walks out and picks them up from under the hen just days before they arrive in my hands (and even sooner if there wasn't a middle (wo)man or two to get through). I have absolute confidence they are fresh. I know where they come from. Once when I got eggs from the farm down the road, the farmer didn't have any cartons already filled, so he dashed into the barn while I waited. Talk about fresh!

How does she know her store bought-eggs are fresh? Because they say so? OK, maybe I'm cynical, but that doesn't do it for me (nor does the whole poultry industry, but that's another subject altogether).

Still Here

Fear not, my friends, I am still here. The crunch of semester end, the return to work, and a trip to California have all cut into my blogging time. Alas, the end is in sight. Only two projects remain (granted, I have not started either of them) before I can put this miserable semester to bed. It would appear that I will not have to fight to defend my student teaching experience. I feel marginally relieved with this knowledge, but I won't trust it until I see the grade on paper (or on the computer screen as it is, since I believe paper grades are now a thing of the past). This weekend will be spent on the afore mentioned projects and then hopefully I will be able to enjoy some down time come next weekend. I'd like to finish the book I started on the flight back from San Francisco. Really, if it comes right down to it, I'd like to be back IN San Francisco.