If anyone is reading along…please hang in there. This site is acting a little crazy tonight as I try to figure it all out.
The thing is that I really, really like the scratchpad theme. A lot. It is playful enough without being childish and with so many post format options, it should end up being fairly pleasing to the eye once more content is added.
There is just one thing I don’t like about it….the comments. In order to write a comment, you have to open up the actual blog link by clicking on the title, even though you can read the entire post without doing so. I ADORE comments and I am a bit hesitant that people won’t know that they can in fact leave a comment by doing the above.
So….I am playing around with the themes and trying to figure out what to do.
40 regular and 12 advanced books. 52 weeks to complete them all. Doable? I am about to find out.
When I was younger my nose was always in a book. On the bus to/from school, before classes started, during study hall, up late at night in bed. I remember one summer, probably around 2001 or so, I worked full time at a convenience store – 7a to 3p, M to F. Each day I would come home, shower, grab my best dog Hero and a book and sit outside in the sunny yard until my mom called for dinner. I would wriggle my shoes off and enjoy the touch of grass on my toes, the sun warming my skin and the breeze rustling my hair. It was bliss.
When medical school happened there was no time for pleasure reading. You could still find my nose buried in a book, but these were heavy books, both in content and size.
Now a days it’s rare to see me with a book in hand. Too little time is my excuse but that’s not really true. Like so many, my phone has replaced a good book. Not any longer.
My mom and I are doing this together. I chose the first book, she will do the next.
Book #1: A book recommended by a librarian.
I don’t have a library card and will have to wait a while before I can acquire one, so this topic was a bit hard. Thankfully there is always The Google and it didn’t take long to find a list of books recommended by librarians.
I’m Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid
My first attempt at taking a picture of the book. Thanks cats.
This book. I couldn’t put it down. Seriously, I read it in one sitting. It was that captivating.
The book begins with an unnamed girl stating that she is thinking of ending things. She is in the car with her boyfriend as he drives out to his family farm to introduce her to his parents. She questions the timing, but goes along hoping to find an answer by the end of the trip. Would meeting his parents make their relationship any better?
I won’t ruin the plot for anyone wanting to read it, and everyone should read it, but I will talk about the book in general.
The writing style is easy to follow and consume. With modern day topics and language, the book puts you right at ease from the beginning in terms of accessibility of the character and plot.
Straight away though you get a sense of eeriness. The first half only has two characters: the girlfriend and boyfriend (Jake). While they converse, a lot of the book is spent inside the internal musings of the girlfriend as she tries to wrap her head around the value of relationships and if she is happy in her current one.
This feeling of something being a bit off continues throughout the meeting of his parents and the return drive home until it reaches a crescendo in an ending that left me reeling.
5 stars from me. Go read it. It won’t be a waste of your time.
My whole life I have been plagued with one very serious personality trait: I follow the rules precisely and exactly. Being a rule follower isn’t a bad thing. In fact, according to teachers, law enforcement and bosses, it is a really good trait to have and while it tends to keep me out of trouble, it does have its downsides. Mostly, when I strictly adhere to rules others are breaking, it makes me incredibly angry. This has led to some fun encounters in life.
Now, one more piece of information before I move on to my story. My mother, whom I love dearly, couldn’t follow a rule if it was branded to the inside of her eye lids. In fact, I truly believe that she views rules more as challenges.
The deal at the new house is that the horses can live there free of charge, but we are responsible for all maintenance. Pretty great deal. One of the biggest and the most immediate need is fencing. About this same time, a beautiful farm directly across from our current neighborhood was declared a new subdivision with plans to tear down any existing structures including a beautiful white vinyl horse fence that surrounded the entire 50+ acre property.
My mom saw this and told us to go take the fence.
Tempting for sure, but there was something about a massive NO TRESPASSING sign and the thought of spending the night in jail that didn’t seem too appealing to me.
She assured me nobody would care, but I wasn’t convinced. I mean, sure the place was abandoned and someone had managed to steal the front door to the house already, but two people wrenching a fence off the perimeter of the property alongside a very busy road wouldn’t be hard to miss. The very thought of seeing blue lights coming towards me sent me in a near panic attack.
Instead I talked her into calling the company on the sign and asking for permission. Yes, that goes completely counter to the idea of stealing it, but this way I wouldn’t get arrested. Supposedly we got our permission although this was all word of mouth and even after several requests to get something in writing, I’m sorry officer but really some lady at the company told us we could take it, it never appeared.
We finally grew tired of waiting and took advantage of the Bible Belt to sneak across the road while everyone was at Sunday church service. We began in the back and were both very tense and constantly looking over our shoulders for those tell tale flashing lights.
Now, anyone who has ever built a fence will immediately know the futility of this task. We had about 6 hours of daylight on a damp and grey Sunday to remove 50 acres of 3 board vinyl fencing. With two adults, a toddler and a screw driver.
We began on the first partition. We already figured the posts would be cemented in and didn’t plan on removing those although we were hopeful that maybe they skimped a little in installation. No.
Moving on to the first set of horizontal boards, we tugged. It didn’t budge. We tugged some more. Nope. Then we dug up the first post thinking maybe that would allow some wiggle room. Nope.
An hour later I googled how to take down a vinyl horse fence.
Turns out you need a special tool. One we most certainly did not have.
When the horizontal boards are installed, there are four tiny and very hard tabs on each end that spring out thus preventing the board from slipping back out of the post. If you are particularly strong, you can jam a flat screw driver in the end and push in on the tab to give a few millimeters of clearance. Of course, you have to do this on all four tabs at once.
Taken from the internet
We had a single screw driver, an increasingly irritated husband, a paranoid wife and a bored toddler.
Things were not going well.
Finally Dusty just jammed the screw driver in from the top and pushed with all his might while I pulled out. The board popped out. This was after 45 minutes of wrestling with it.
I beamed in delight. One down! Except then we looked down deep to where the second board was. There was no way we could reach the tabs from the top.
We looked down the length of fencing in either direction.
This wasn’t going to happen.
With a sigh we loaded up all our tools, the kid and our hopes and drove back around the front and onto the main road. Even when we did attempt to break the rules, sorta with permission, we made the worst set of thieves.
The Roaming Rider 