Showing posts with label The Dead of Winter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Dead of Winter. Show all posts

Monday, July 1, 2013

Hmmm - What Did I Read in June?



I happen to be a part-time OCD list maker...or maybe it's selective compulsive disorder (which I think I might have just made up - hope it's not official anyway).  SCD is when people like me are too lazy or exhausted to be compulsive at all times, though we are definitely feeling the urges, we're too damned tired (or at times just too lazy) to actually ACT on these compulsive urges.  Which can lead to a high frustration level, as you can imagine.... (or Compulsive Interruptus)
I used to make lists much more frequently - lists about what I was going to buy, what I recently bought, what I'm going to read, and what I've read....  that's not the only thing I'm selectively compulsive about.  Other things are doing dishes - I stay away from doing dishes because it turns into this extreme event of SORTING before anything actually gets either washed or into the dishwasher.
  1. first you have to clean off a counter
  2. then you have to find all the plates, which then must be sorted from glass plates to plastic plates along with being stacked by size (see what I mean?)
  3. Then it's the bowls - biggest on the bottom - separate stacks for plastic vs glass
  4. then the glasses and mugs.  yup.  The plastic stackables are stacked together, of course by size...then the glass mugs in one section, drinking glasses in another and again by size...
  5. the silverware....spoons have to separated and sorted (by size and which pattern is my favorite) butter knives are next, and then come forks, and then sharp knives.  large serving utensils and knives are also sorted in their respective places.
  6. and then of course come the pots and pans...
  7. by this time, of course, I'm exhausted and it's taken me twice as long to accomplish anything as your average normal dish washer.
That's just sorting before I wash them.  Imagine me loading a dishwasher.  Oh yes - things must be loaded a certain way, and if someone else happens to load a dishwasher, I have to stop myself from re-arranging things......which leads to putting away the dishes.... omg, life is just one big mass of compulsive urges....

I used to be like this with laundry, but I now just wash everything together - except for those towels....
I also get weird with the closet and my dressers.  shirts are hung separate from pants, separate from dresses.  Of course, things are also separated by short and long sleeve, and then by color.  It's exhausting and when I became too weak to hang my own laundry I had to bite my tongue and let helpers (like my sons or their girlfriends) hang things as they see fit....
I have a hard time with germs and microbes also - I am far from the cleanest neat freak around, but certain things....toilets must be clean.  Sinks and faucets have to be clean.  Doorknobs in my bathroom have to be cleaned, because I do not like to touch a doorknob - especially if you're not sure who's touched it lately and if they've bothered washing their hands lately.  I have to use a tissue to touch the flushing lever, open a door knob.  Which leads to my hesitation in touching a remote, a keyboard that's been used by someone else....I washed my keyboard so often, that I rubbed a lot of the letters off.  within a year of having a keyboard.
As you can see, I can rarely even post a simple post without explanations and anecdotes ....

So I indulge myself with the Monday posts and I've been having fun trying to keep my reading list updated with not only the day I finish a book, but a link to my review when I finally review a book...and now I've added a monthly recap of books I've finished.  Luckily for my fingers, I rarely read more than six books a month.  :)


June 2013 - another month where I finished reading six books.  Unless I forgot one - I do tend to forget a book here and there - forget when I've read it of that I've read it until I see the title somewhere.

Hexed
by Kevin Hearne
6/06/13

The sequel to Hounded, this is part of the Iron Druid series.  In this novel, our hero - Atticus - is under attack by yet another set of witches, these ones are some really wicked ones who spread sexual chaos and death throughout.  Not only that, but his two goddesses still manage to make life way too interesting, his lawyer is pressuring him to kill Thor, though he would rather not, and some "monster" hunters seem to be after him as well.  I enjoyed the second novel as much as the third.

Review pending (meaning I haven't reviewed it yet)




6/19/13

The story of Esme Suiza, who apparently had a small part in a previous Serrano Legacy novel, and how she survives a court-martial, survives finding out the truth about a childhood illness, survives reassignment to a Deep Space Repair Ship, and then becomes one of the most important people on this huge ship full of experienced officers and admirals, as well as other long term crew members.  something to do with her amazing brain and the career track she should have been on - it just bursts forth from her very humble brain....I know that sounded very facetious - and really - I did enjoy this story, though the events were just a bit far-fetched.  However, the fact that this is after all - a science fiction novel eases my acceptance of these special circumstances. LOL - still sounds facetious, and I really didn't mean it too.  It's a fun, easy read with some harsh events described, though not graphically.  Very little info dumping, except for a certain series of therapy sessions.  Oh, My.

Reviewed


Deadlocked
by Charlaine Harris
6/12/13

**second to final, {or would this be final-eve} of the series**

Sookie helps Eric deal with a district supervisor who has been giving them all kinds of problems, deals with their blood bond, has to rethink her relationship with him, the bar is bombed while she and Sam are working one night; her cousins are acting strangely.  She discovers a secret stash of papers her granma left along with a fairy relic, and finds out that she's been in more danger than she thought from a variety of directions.
This book was much more interesting than the previous novel, though the pace is slow n easy - a build up of events and tension until by the end things are hopping.

Review Pending

Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency
by Douglas Adams (r.i.p.)
6/23/13

At times long winded, this is a mostly engaging read about a strange case that involves a mysterious professor, an electric monk and his horse, a former student of Cambridge, another former student of Cambridge, a weird poem, and beings from another planet.  Oh, yes - add in a ghost or two.  A story with some twists and turns, and many, many explanations...  
Dirk Gently is a character in at least two - possibly three of Douglass Adams' books.  I just found out, that Dirk Gently was also made into a BBC series.  I would have liked to see a few of them- why can't they put that on BBC America?  for that matter, why can't Comcast feature some REAL BBC channels for Americans who would like to see some series on BBC that aren't three to five years old? Except for Doctor Who's latest few seasons, I haven't been able to watch much actually produced in 2013 (unless I want to watch Top Gear...hell, this could turn into a whole other post - so I'm dropping the rant subject, now)

Review Pending


The Android's Dream
by John Scalzi {Who has just one an award}
6/26/13

Rebel Conspiracies, Government conspiracies, inter-government conspiracies, spying and inter-governmental spying, space aliens, computer geniuses, rituals of ascension, sheep, DNA, gene splicing, murder, excellent fighting, battles, etc.  It's all packaged in a book with some of the best dialogue and banter that I've read, hell, even the informational dumps were interestingly presented, almost like you're listening to the most charismatic professor or teacher telling you about fights, politics, spy gadgets, history, computer tech and software in almost laymen's language.  That is simple genius.  Brilliant.  

Reviewed



The Dead of Winter
by Lee Collins
6/27/13

A husband and wife team, Cora and Ben, travel from town to town, to sparsely populated areas hunting and destroying monsters - supernatural monsters.  They're back in Leadville, a small mining town, because they've heard about an odd monster.  What they find is something they've never come across before.

Review Pending


I remembered that there were a few books from previous years (not to mention this year, lol) that I still haven't reviewed, so I tried to get through a couple of them week before last.  I still need to review for 2009, two novels:

Kitty and the Dead Man's Hand by Carrie Vaughn
Bone Crossed by Patricia Briggs

Then it's on to catch up for 2010.



All of the LOL Catz used here are from ICanHazCheeseburgers. 

It's Monday....and we're in the middle of a heat wave....."I'm mellllttttiiiiinnnnnggggg...."




It's been soooo hot.  We had one of the mildest springs - days of cool to cold mornings and nights and either mildly warm afternoons, or semi-cool afternoons.  Last week we even had a few days of rain - which was hard on the old bones, but still fun to listen to.  It's really nice to be able to listen to the rain when you've got time to just lounge about on your bed, reading and catnapping, covered up with your little dog next to you.... or cat.  I guess one day, my husband's dog climbed up and was laying against my legs, my little dog was behind my knees (his favorite spot to sleep) and my son's huge boxer mix climbed up and was stretched along my back....this apparently resulted in me being just about pinned into place, while the three dogs had most of the king-sized bed that we own.  Those guys - hogging the bed.
So we went from a wonderfully mild spring to a horrid heat wave over the last few days.  It was so hot, that we ended up breaking down and buying a small window a/c unit for our bedroom.  We have a slightly bigger one in our living room that I bought about 7 years ago - but it only kept the front of the house cool.
This new unit is quiet and just enough to keep the bedroom bearable in the extreme heat we've been having.  I'm thankful that we live 30 miles from the coast  -because tonight I swear I can feel a bit of the cool flog coming in.  It's nice to be able to feel a bit of coastal air instead of being stuck inland and not having the benefit of the fog coming in. I'm ever grateful to be living where I live.

Hosted by Sheila of Book Journey,  we visit each other's blogs and discover new things to read.  It's fun.

This week I read two novels, started another two and read one children's book to my grandson.  Actually - read more than one, but I can only remember one - because we've read it over and over and over throughout the last two years.

Novels Finished:





The Android's Dream
by John Scalzi




Picture Book:




Books Started:













Monday, June 24, 2013

It's Monday.... and I've been sooooo lazy, (grin)


 I've had a whole entire week of being lazy...the extent of my activity has been reading, sleeping, watching t.v., and thinking about dying my hair -  I've been getting very tired of my gray and white hair.  I've even gone so far as to send off for a copperish color of dye. I used to be brunette - the type of brunette with auburnish highlights from the sun. Kind of waffling on this, because I know I'll have to deal with the white roots coming in, and there's nothing worse (with hair, that is) than having a bunch of white hair in skunk like roots coming in - it can make you look pathetic pretty quick.  within two to three weeks of coloring your hair.  One option, is deliberately leaving a few chunks of white, hoping for a streak effect.....
I did re-arrange drawers in my kitchen - or rather, I FIXED the drawers, since a house full of men means that things get put where-ever they end up - no rhyme or reason, just stuff things where-ever the whimsy strikes.  grrrrrrr.



I usually link to Sheila's It's Monday, What Are You Reading? post, but I think she's still out of town, on her weekend getaway - I don't see a Monday post to link to yet.  So I'm linking to her home page,  we'll just have to see how things go.
Anyway, I haven't been doing very good on these posts.  I've missed a few, and then last week, when I finally posted, I didn't visit very many other blogs - being the lazy person that I was this past week.  LOL, who am I kidding?  No One!  I'm always lazy - but I've been lazier than normal (it all stems from a childhood of having to work very hard on the weekends,CLEANING house, doing laundry - and babysitting my little bros after school! like many people my age, we children had to work - do chores,we didn't just play.  lol - don't get upset, young ones.  I know some kids do have chores nowadays, but a lot of kids don't)

So - It's Monday, What Are You Reading? - the usual.  We visit each other, see what we've all been reading, or finished reading (if we've managed to finish any books).

What I finished reading:

Just two novels - 
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency
 
One of two books that feature Dirk Gently.  I think this is the first one...(The second one is better...)
This one jumps back and forth between another dimension and a monk who happens to ride a horse and college professor and one of his students - this goes on for almost half a book before something actually HAPPENS and we finally meet Dirk Gently, who is not a very likeable person.  He's a bit of a con.  There are some snooze-worthy bits, but there are also some very chuckle-worthy bits, so I stuck with it.  :)


and - 
Once a Hero 

The story of Esmey, not one of the Serranos, (there are quite a few books featuring the Serranos, a space/military family) but a woman who finds herself on the same ship as a Serrano more than once; one time there is a mutiny, and the other time with a different Serrano there is an attack on the  Deep Space Ship Repair vessel that they're on.  It was interesting, even though the character could be considered a Mary Sue - she's just so.... unassuming and barely has any experience and yet manages to play a huge part in...well, you'll have to read the review.

What I'm currently reading:


This is a book I've started previously - and as usual have flitted around to many other books in the meantime...but I do keep coming back to this one - even though I'm in a SciFi mood.
The Wild West...Mining towns, Old Miners....and a woman who happens to hunt monsters.  Vampires, and other critters from hell.
I already have the sequel here to read; it was one of those books that i accidently bought the second in the series.  But so far, this is interesting enough for me to think I'll want to read the sequel so 'sall good.

My sleeping habits have completely turned around.  My nights are wide awake - my days are spent either sleeping or extremely sleepy.  I wouldn't mind this, except for the vaguely guilty feeling I'm having.  Like I should be at work - or being productive.
We did go to the beach one day with the grandchildren.  That was fun, even though I thought we should have stayed a bit longer.  We were only there for about three hours.  But the kids played in the sand, chased the waves - staying a good length away from the water (granma is very paranoide about riptides and losing kids to the ocean)- played with seagulls, found some shells and bought some taffy.  yummy.


One moment that stays in my mind - hearing the two of them in the back seat harmonizing to "I Knew You Were Trouble" by Taylor Swift.  They sounded so wonderful singing together, and like many children were completely unaware of being heard, and therefore sang completely in tune.  Five and six years old - I wish I had had something with me to record them at that moment... ah well, something for the memories.
I hope everyone is having a good summer so far
Happy Reading All!