I had a fabulous time on my first-ever solo vacation! (Poor husband couldn't get off work.) I spent a week in London and crammed everything I possibly could - Westminster Abbey, the Tower, St. Paul's, the National Gallery, the British Museum, the Victoria & Albert, Windsor Castle, and Hampton Court. I did everything on my own except for a bus ( Read more... )

I signed up for the 52 books in 52 weeks challege at Ravelry and I actually managed to finish 68.

Stats: 14 non-fiction, 54 fiction (mostly historical fiction), 18 were re-reads

Favorite fiction: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society - historical fiction set in 1946 ( Read more... )

Various books I've read during 2008 - some good, some not.

First, the good.

Isaac's Storm by Erik Larson - excellent nonfiction account of the Great 1900 Galveston hurricane which is still the deadliest disaster in US history. I read this on Sep 12 while waiting for Hurricane Ike to arrive, and it was very surreal to look up from my book and see ( Read more... )

I survived my first hurricane. Overall, we've been very lucky. I've seen the pictures of the destruction on Galveston/Bolivar ( Read more... )

We are renovating the kitchen and the laundry area. In order to install the new flooring, everything needs to be cleared out. I successfully disconnected the dryer and the washing machine, but the supply hoses continued to drip even after I tightened the shut-off valves. Score: 3 dish towels and one bucket ( Read more... )

I haven't posted in a while so - an update.

After much procrastination and writer's block, my Helga Hufflepuff story for femgenficathon is finally finished.

Last week, I finally got to visit my sister and her new baby. Caleb was born at 12:34 AM on July 21, roughly the time I got home from the bookstore with my copy of Deathly Hallows. I'd say he's a cutie ( Read more... )

I went to the "Jeopardy" tryout yesterday where I was one of 30 potential contestants in the afternoon session. First they took extremely unflattering Polaroid photos of us. Then we took a 50 question written test; I think I got at least 45 right. The fun part was when they called 3 people at a time to the front of the room so we could play 15- ( Read more... )

Posting for omniocular's March "Something Old" challenge ( Read more... )

Back in January, I took the online test to be a contestant on "Jeopardy!". I just found out that I did well enough to be invited to the local in-person auditions in May. I'm so giddy I can't sit still. Would it be too much to hope that HP and knitting are some of the test categories ( Read more... )

Just a look back at what I've done this year ( Read more... )