twinkelbelpeach

I went with friends to our annual 'Bamacon',aka friends get together and go to DeSoto State Park in Alabama and eat, laugh, read fanfic, and hike (if so desired). We left with high hopes on Thursday, but our rented Toyota Sienna van just wasn't built for climbing icy mountains.
We ALMOST made it, but it got just a little too steep and we gently gently slid back into a shallow ditch. We were trying to explain to AAA where we were (on a mountain, in a park, no, we don't know the name of the street) when a good samaritan came along and he and Kendall were able to push us enough to get traction and go back down the mountain. We never even got the guys name, he came and went like a flash. So after one night in Huntsville (went to the Space Center) and another night in Chattanooga (went to the Aquarium) we finally made it back to our mountain and our snow covered cabin. It was beautiful once we were finally there. We had plenty of food with us, and Walks-With-Twigs (aka Deb) makes a great fire, so we managed a day and a half of what we had originally planned. It wasn't what we had expected, but I've got to admit, it was fun.

Last year I started keeping a list of books that I read all the way through. At the end of the year it was 54 books. I was surprised because I used to read a lot more than that, and I vowed to do better this year. I just counted the books on this years list. 54 books. I couldn't figure it out until I remembered how many books I had tossed aside after the first few chapters. I wonder if it was the books I chose, or just me having less patience for anything that didn't grab my attention right from the opening page. I'm not much of a genre reader despite my love of fantasy and science fiction movies, so I'm not surprised there's only one really genre book on this years list. And of course this doesn't include the mountain of fanfic I read. (Newest obsession is Sherlock; there's some really good fic turning up there). So anyway, here's the list of books I read in 2010. I probably kept about half of them, and the rest went into the barrels of Friends of The Library.

Neverland by Piers Dudgeon
Under In The Mere by Catherynne M. Valente
The Emancipator's Wife by Barbara Hambly
Possessing The Secret of Joy by Alice Walker
Crimson Joy by Robert B. Parker
Thin Air by Robert B. Parker
Quartet In Autumn by Barbara Pym (re-read)
Some Tame Gazelle by Barbara Pym (re-read)
Excellent Women by Barbara Pym (re-read)
Jane and Prudence by Barbara Pym (re-read)
Crampton Hodnet by Barbary Pym (re-read)
Virginia Woolf and the Raverats by Wm Pryor
Rich Was Better by Philip Van Rensallear
It's Been a Good Life by Isaac Asimov
Alice I Have Been by Melanie Benjamin
Becoming Jane Eyre by Sheila Kohler
The Rector of Justin by Louis Auchincloss
The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
Virginia Woolf by Nigel Nicolson
Another Name for Madness by Marion Roach
The Letters of Virginia Woolf, Volume II
Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
A Guilty Thing Surpsised by Ruth Rendell
A Sight For Sore Eyes by Ruth Rendell
Just an Ordinary Day by Shirley Jackson
The Confessions of Elizabeth Von S. by Gillian Freeman
The Sister by Poppy Adams
Eddy: The Life of Edward Sackville-West by Michael De-la-noy
Look Me In The Eye by John Elder Robison
Lost Horizon/Goodbye Mister Chips/Random Harvest by James Hilton
The Heart to Artemis by Bryher
A Very Close Conspiracy; Vanessa Bell and Virginia Woolf by Jane Dunn
Secret Lives by E. F. Benson
Period Piece by Gwen Raverat
The Young Apollo by Louis Auchincloss
Selected Letters of Vanessa Bell
Boy Alone by Karl Tero Greenfeld
The Virgin Blue by Tracy Chevalier
Passion and Prejudice by Sallie Bingham
The Art of Scandal by Douglass Shand-Tucci
It Ain't All About the Cookin' by Paula Deen
The Edwardians by Vita Sackville-West
Gunn's Golden Rules by Tim Gunn
The Art of Racing in The Rain by Garth Stein
Cleopatra's Sister by Penelope Lively
Undue Influence by Anita Brookner
Forward From Here by Reeve Lindbergh
Appetites by Geneen Roth
Last Wish by Betty Rollin
703 by Nancy Makin
Brief Lives by Anita Brookner
If I Live To Be 100 by Neenah Ellis
Life in Lower Slaughter by Robert G. Deindorfer
Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffennegger
The Secrets of a Fire King by Kim Edwards
The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie o'Farrell

There seems to be a large segment of the country that I have been avoiding. A lot of this comes from growing up as an Air Force brat.

Help, I'm truly hooked. Can anyone tell me where to look for some fanfiction on Hawaii 5.0, the 2010 reboot? Somewhere other than fanfiction.net I mean.

Okay, so it is still hot in Georgia, but at last it is not broiling. I can come out from my air conditioned cave and breathe without feeling like I am swimming through the air. The moose (aka Bella the dog) and I have resumed our morning walks and OMG I am so out of shape. I have definitely used the heat as an excuse to become a sloth. So I have got to make myself get up, get dressed, put leash on moose and go out the door before I have time to think about what I am doing. Thinking is dangerous. I will come up with dozens of reasons I should put walk off until later. And I don't know why this is! I enjoy the walk once I actually begin. It's just that gettin' started thing. I have all the proper accessories (walking shoes, ipod, dog-on-leash); this shouldn't be a chore. So. Motivation is needed. Suggestions are welcome.

I am so appalled by the following letter. I will definitely be buying everything I need from Home Depot in the future. The out and out lies of Tim Wildmon and the AFA just make my blood curdle!


For several years, The Home Depot has given its financial and corporate support to open displays of homosexual activism on main streets in America's towns. And, it says it will continue to do so!
"At the end of the day here, we're not going to...forbid our associates to be involved in these pride festivals in any way." - Stephen Holmes, company spokesman. (Note: The associates participating in these parades were clearly doing so as representatives of the company.)
Rejecting several requests by AFA to remain neutral in the culture war, The Home Depot has chosen to sponsor and participate in numerous gay pride parades and festivals. Most grievous is The Home Depot's deliberately exposing small children to lascivious displays of sexual conduct by homosexuals and cross-dressers, which are a common occurrence at these events.
The goal of every homosexual organization supported by The Home Depot is to get homosexual marriage legalized. BoycottTheHomeDepot provides just a glimpse of how broad its support for the homosexual movement is. The Home Depot says it is committed to furthering the homosexual agenda.
"The bottom line is, it (remaining neutral) just runs counter to our inclusive culture...and that's where we stand." - Stephen Holmes, company spokesman.
See it for yourself. Photos at BoycottTheHomeDepot.com, taken during recent homosexual events sponsored by The Home Depot, show:
Children being encouraged to visit gay sex websites.
Employees using company property to push gay marriage.
The Home Depot employees riding and marching in homosexual parades.
TAKE ACTION
1. Sign the Boycott Pledge at BoycottTheHomeDepot.com.
2. Call your local store manager. Let him know that you will not be shopping in his store until the company stops supporting the homosexual agenda. You can find his number here. (click "Store Finder").
3. Print the paper petition and distribute it at Sunday School and church.
4. Extremely important! Post this alert to your facebook page (link above) and encourage others to join the boycott!
It is very important that you forward this alert to your friends and family members.

Sincerely,

Tim Wildmon, President
American Family Association
Help us Financially

American Family Association | P O Drawer 2440 | Tupelo, MS 38803 | 1-662-844-5036

I went furniture shopping with a friend this morning, and I fell in love with a leather office chair. I do not need an office chair, the one I'm sitting in right now is perfectly adequate. But ooooooh, this leather chair! On sale for only $699! (Right. Like there's any way I can convince my brain that this would be a bargain). Sigh. Don't need it. Won't buy it. But OMG, I know I'm gonna dream about it tonight.

1. I have painters in the house.
2. Half of everything I own is shoved into the other half of the house which explains why I am wearing mismatched clothes today since I forgot to set anything out last night.
3. I have defied the laws of physics because there is *no way* all that stuff came out of my closet.
4. I have more clothes than any one human being should possess and since there are things in the pile that I know I haven't worn since I moved to this house seven years ago... off to Goodwill with them.
5. When they get to my husband's junk room tomorrow (no, he doesn't call it that, but I do) he is probably going to have a nervous breakdown because they're touching his stuff!
6. I am never doing this again. Not never ever.

I haven't fallen off the planet, but I have been sucked in to the black hole of geneology. I was just going to look up a couple of relatives on my mother's side, and it grew and grew and grew. How can you not smile when you find out you had a 5-times-great-grandmother named
"Cindarilla." And a way-back-there-times grandfather from Liverpool known only as "Sea Captain Pearl." I mean, c'mon now, this is some good stuff.

I just heard that Robert Parker died. I love his books; I don't think there is a Spenser novel left that I haven't read. They say it was natural causes, and he died sitting at his desk. I guess that is the way to go if you are a writer, but still... 77 is not so old these days. I really hate this.