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I've challenged myself to blog every day in June. No, not here! If I were going to blog every day in June in my LiveJournal account, I'd already be 4 days behind. What I'm doing is posting one entry every day in my reading journal. I've made a good start, and have started writing ahead with two partially written posts stored as drafts.
June 1 — Kindle: Wishlists
I started off the month by talking about how I use two functions provided by Amazon.com to identify books that I want to get to read on my Kindle. These complement the formal wishlist I maintain at BookCrossing.
June 2 — Cheap is good; free is better
Since I bought my Kindle, I've taken advantage of special deals and freebies which have been offered by authors and publishers. In this post, I review some of the free and cheap books being offered in the month of June.
June 3 — Kindle: Save For Later
Bouncing off of Monday's post, I described Amazon's “Save For Later” feature for the Kindle and listed some of the books that are on my list.
June 4 — BTT: Sticky
Keeping up with this challenge is going to be made easier due to the weekly prompt posted at Booking Through Thursday. Each week, I won't have to struggle to come up with a topic to write about, I can just go see what the meme for the week is. This week, Laura asks us to think about “sticky books”—those books that are unforgettable and stick with you.
June 5 — Book swapping -- an update
And today, I talked about some swap books that arrived in the mail yesterday. I am not lacking for books to read—neither paper books nor electronic ones—but I still thrill over new books. Erm. Not “new”, but as NBC said one summer, “if it's new to you...”
If you read this blog, please hop over to the reading blog to see how I'm doing with my challenge. I'm sure I'll post here periodically—particularly when I want to say something about a subject other than books!
In the first three months of 2009, I read 31 books, evenly distributed through the months—10 in January, 9 in February, and 11 in March. As I noted earlier, I started out the year reading mostly electronic books. In mid-February, I realized that I owed quite a large number of as yet unread books which I had offered in swaps at BookObsessed and I needed to buckle down and read those so I could mail them out. So, I've been dilligently catching up with the owed TBRs for the past 6 weeks.
1. The Host, Stephenie Meyer (2 Jan, Kindle)
2. Miss Julia Strikes Back, Ann B Ross (3 Jan, TP)
3. The Girl Who Stopped Swimming, Joshilyn Jackson (5 Jan, HB)
4. Fortune and Fate, Sharon Shinn (11 Jan, Kindle)
5. Neptune Crossing, Jeffrey Carver (12 Jan, Sony)
6. Mars Girl, Jeff Garrity (13 Jan, Sony)
7. Dragon Bones, Patricia Briggs (18 Jan, Kindle)
8. The Dragon Delasangre, Alan F Troop (19 Jan, Kindle)
9. Suspicious, Heather Graham (22 Jan, Kindle)
10. Oleander House, Ally Blue (25 Jan, Kindle)
11. The Right to Arm Bears, Gordon R Dickson (31 Jan, Blackberry)
12. A Ceremonial Death, B J Oliphant (2 Feb, MMP)
13. Stargazer's Woman, Aimee Thurlo (5 Feb, Kindle)
14. The Shack, William P Young (14 Feb, Kindle)
15. Mistborn: The Final Empire, Brandon Sanderson (17 Feb, Kindle)
16. Halfway to the Grave, Jeaniene Frost (20 Feb, MMP)
17. Home Sweet Homicide, Kate Morgan (21 Feb, MMP)
18. Alien Secrets, Annette Curtis Klause (22 Feb, MMP)
19. Monkeewrench, P J Tracy (23 Feb, MMP)
20. Live Bait, P J Tracy (27 Feb, MMP)
21. Killing Raven, Margaret Coel (5 Mar, MMP)
22. The Well of Ascension, Brandon Sanderson (6 Mar, Kindle)
23. The Edge of Winter, Luanne Rice (7 Mar, MMP)
24. A Door into Ocean, Joan Slonczewski (11 Mar, MMP)
25. Click Here for Murder, Donna Andrews (15 Mar, MMP)
26. Access Denied, Donna Andrews (17 Mar, HB)
27. Birds of a Feather,, Jacqueline Winspear (21 Mar, TP)
28. Murder of a Sweet Old Lady, Denise Swanson (22 Mar, MMP)
29. How to Murder a Millionaire, Nancy Martin (27 Mar, MMP)
30. Nerd in Shining Armor, Vicki Lewis Thompson (30 Mar, MMP)
31. Dragon's Bait, Vivian Vande Velde (31 Mar, MMP)
All of the paper books are registered at BookCrossing and most are already promised to a swapper at BookObsessed:
More information in the full post at my Reading Blog.
I'm flying to Hartford from Dallas today. As we headed to the airport, the weather in Dallas was deteriorating quickly. Ice storms were predicted for the morning, and we seemed to be just a wee bit ahead of the front. By the time I was pulling my suitcase from the back of the car, a cold drizzle was falling steadily. I'm expecting a bumpy ride and the word is that this bad weather will follow me from Texas to New England. I'm simply hoping that it's not so bad as to change my return plans.
Shortly after reaching our cruising altitude, I glanced out of the window to see an almost solid layer of clouds—with a very bumpy surface. Then I noticed a line through the clouds with every appearance of having been cut by a knife. I wondered if the clouds had been cut apart by an airplane flying through them or if this was the junction between two independent clouds.
I grabbed my camera from my backpack and snapped a couple of pictures. With the sun shining so brightly on the clouds, all the bumps were easy to see. The higher portions were more brightly lit than the lower ones. And therefore, the long, dark swath across the surface of the clouds was clearly a cut or crease in the cloud's upper surface.
So, what's the source? What caused this cleavage in the almost unbroken expanse of clouds? Since I'm still aboard the airplane, I can't turn to Google to search for meteorological information. I asked the head flight attendant, but not only did she not know, she'd never even seen such at thing. She said, “I never look out”—but she did suggest that I might ask one of the pilots after we land. And I might just do so.
Even though I fly regularly—one might even say too regularly— it's still almost miraculous. This large tube containing over 100 people, propelled by two or three engines (OK, they're massive engines), guided by two pilots and a lot of electronic gear, flings itself into the sky. Unbelievably, the air holds it up for hours and hours. Outside, it's bitterly cold with insufficient oxygen to support life. Inside, while not as warm as I'd like, passengers and crew are safe and comfortable. (OK, I'll admit that when you're sitting in the middle seat, you're not all that comfortable, but you get what I mean—it's comfortable by comparison to outside.)
We're 45 minutes from Hartford and have outrun the cloud cover. Below me I see snow and ice. I'm not looking forward to the cold, and I'm particularly uneasy that the bad weather will arrive with more snow or freezing rain to shut down flights on Thursday. Now why can't all my business engagements in the winter be scheduled for Miami, San Diego, or Puerto Rico?
I'm in Columbus, OH, attending a series of meetings with a customer. Last night, five of us went to P F Chang's for some scrumptious Chinese food. We shared an order of the vegetarian wraps and the spicy green beans as appetizers while waiting for our main courses to arrive. I chose the Ma Po Tofu with brown rice and wound up eating less than half the portion! And, of course, as we ended our meal, the waiter brought us fortune cookies along with take-home boxes.
I particularly liked last night's fortune which reads:
Do not let great ambitions overshadow small success.
Now that's just intriguing—and very good advice. Too often we hear “don't sweat the small stuff”, but in reality, if you don't pay attention to the small stuff, you miss out on a lot. It makes a lot more sense to celebrate every success, no matter how small, instead of postponing until some major milestone has been reached.
We have a lot of real-life examples. Consider the major success of getting your high-school diploma is preceded by many small successes. There's the yearly promotion as you master the skills and knowledge prescribed for each school grade. There's the smaller success at the end of each grading term as the report card goes home with progress indicators.
At the beginning of each year, many of us make New Year's Resolutions. Too often, the resolutions are abandoned by 1 March because they ask for a great accomplishment rather than setting up an environment where we can achieve any number of small successes.
Several years ago I stopped committing to large scale Resolutions. Instead, I set new goals that require only small changes in my behavior with lots of opportunities to succeed—daily, even. And, the fortune last night reminds me that I need to allow myself to celebrate each success, no matter how small—or even how mundane. When I get to bed at a reasonable hour instead of staying up until 2am, that's a success. When I avoid overeating, that's a success. When I write down the name of a book that I've read and update my GoodReads bookshelf, that's a success. And these successes contribute to a greater goal. I'll be healthier at the end of 2009 than I was at its beginning. I'll have a record of every book I've read during the year.
In the past two weeks, I've been reading other peoples' blogs as they talk about New Year's Resolutions and Goals. I had one I wanted to point to, but I didn't save a link; and now my browser history is so full, I can't find it again. Oh well! You get the point. Every day brings a new opportunity for multiple successes. I can set goals which take only a small amount of effort to meet, but which provide a cumulative benefit. I'm not going to look so far ahead that I miss what's right in front of me.
Hey! Fortune Cookies make excellent springboards for journaling and blogging. I think I'll keep the little slips of paper and reuse them for journaling prompts some time.
Our second Chinese meal of 2009 was last night at Chinatown Cafe in Denton. We ate from the buffet, and I'm really enjoying the braised baby bok choy which was recently added to their menu. I miss the sauteed spinach and mushrooms that it has replaced, though. One reason why this is my favorite Asian restaurant in the area is because they offer lots of vegetables and a good variety of them.
So, last night's fortune reads:
This year your highest priority will be your family.
Since the family has always been a high priority, so I'm not sure what changes to anticipate. Perhaps we will see each other more often.
Our kids still live in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Daughter Jaime lives about 15 miles south of us and she teaches in the next town north, so on her daily commute, she passes with 2.5 miles of our house. This nearness means that we tend to see her at least once per week, often when we meet for a meal. The boys are sharing our former house in Grapevine, about 40 miles from where we now live. Even though they are close by, we don't actually see them more than once every month or so. Since their house is very close to the airport, Dad will sometimes drop by for a short chat on the days he takes me to catch a flight or when he picks me up.
My sisters live in Virginia and Florida. All the nieces and nephews on this side of the family live in Virginia, so when we get to Virginia, we get to see a large chunk of my family. Steven's parents live about an hour away, but his brothers are in NYC and Las Vegas. Distance plays a big role in how often we get together. And, my business travels often take me to major cities such as NYC, Vegas, Orlando, or DC—making it possible for me to squeeze in a quick visit with family who live nearby.
One thing I should probably strive to do is increase the frequency and quality of e-mail communication. I know better than to aim for traditional letters; even if I were to actually write one, I would probably age it to perfection in an unstamped envelope rather than getting it promptly into the mail. And, now that Evelyn has found this blog, perhaps it will serve as a way of letting the family know what we're up to. But this needs to be a two-way street. I want to know what they are doing as well.
OK—time to get out of the LiveJournal editor and think about an e-mail to send to family near and far to open new channels of communication.
We ate our first Chinese lunch of the new year, and as is customary, we were presented with fortune cookies at the end of the meal. Since I find it difficult to maintain any regularity with posts to the blog, I thought I might use fortunes as a starting point throughout 2009.
Today's fortune reads:
Focus in on the color yellow tomorrow for good luck!
Fortunately, I have a lot of yellow shirts, but why is yellow associated with good luck?
To answer that question, I turned to our good friend Google search.
I started with a simple query—yellow for luck—and quickly found an intriguing article from the Tampa Tribune telling me that I could have had good luck by wearing yellow underwear on New Year's Day. According to the article, in many Spanish-speaking countries, wearing yellow panties into the New Year will bring wealth and luck. It further states that the tradition can be traced back to Spain in the Middle Ages, when it was forbidden to wear bright colors. The people believed wearing yellow would bring them good fortune, so they wore the color underneath their clothes. But that's a Hispanic tradition, so why would my Chinese fortune cookie tell me to wear yellow? More searching...
Hmmm... this looks promising. R M Pinay says that according to Feng Shui yellow is the lucky color for 2009. She bases that on computation that the Earth element defines the most auspicious or luckiest feng shui colors and materials for 2009. But surely the restaurant didn't get all new fortune cookies for 2009. I kept searching and couldn't find a definitive source for yellow being a particularly lucky color.
But, I did find a couple of horoscope sites that will help you compute your personal lucky color. Let's see ... according to one site, as a Taurus, my lucky colors are blue, pink, and green and my gemstone is sapphire. But according to another, my lucky color is green, probably because it says my birthstone is emerald. Well, given that I was born in May and Taurus covers 9 days in April and 21 days in May, it makes sense that emerald would be the birthstone if the traditional birthstones are related in any way to horoscopes. According to Chinese astrology, my birth year says I was born under the sign of the Tiger. Ewyen Mihn says that the lucky gemstone for the sign of the Tiger is the sapphire, and that's a blue stone. Lastly, Henri Pierre's daily horoscope for Taurus says that today's lucky color is red. I guess I'd have to check tomorrow to see if he thinks yellow would be my lucky color.
So, other than total randomness, there doesn't seem to be any basis for recommending that I wear yellow tomorrow for good luck, but it certainly cannot hurt. And the research was lots of fun.
One blogger
Since hubby and I regularly go to restaurants, we often bring left-overs home to have for lunch or dinner later in the week. And when I cook, I sometimes use the recipes that make 6 or more servings as when we were raising our family. Add to that, the simple sandwich makings we keep in the house—sliced meats, sliced cheeses, peanut butter, tuna etc. We always have apples and bananas and yogurt on hand. I like to keep salad makings and cottage cheese around as well. So a "help-yourself" meal means putting together a meal from leftovers or making a sandwich or a salad or all of the above. It often means that hubby and I are each fending for ourselves and may even be eating at different times, depending on our personal schedules.
Take today's lunch for example. I opened a package of sliced turkey and made turkey sandwiches with mustard; mine also had a generous helping of black pepper. We shared a Red Delicious apple, I pulled out "baby carrots" and ranch dressing, and we finished things off with pumpkin muffins I had baked this morning.
My plan is to reduce the number of restaurant meals and increase the number of cooked-at-home meals—with or without leftovers. We are blessed to have a decent income, but I don't want to be as much of a spend-thrift as I have been in the past. For the time being, it's not about money since we don't have any worries there. But it is about putting in place good habits that will stand us in good stead when retirement time gets here. So, I'm stocking up on stables. I'm cooking more meals at home. I'm making my own stuff from scratch. I haven't gotten to the stage of paring down and getting rid of the excess we've accumulated in the past 40 years. But that's a thought, too.
Postmortem on last week's plan
Egads! We didn't follow the plan at all.
On two separate days, we wound up going to a nearby Mexican restaurant for supper or lunch. So, serving home-made soft tacos wasn't going to be a good idea. But, I had bought 6 pounds of ground beef, so I cooked it up for the freezer. Five pounds were seasoned with the taco seasoning and one pound was put up plain for some dish where the spices would interfere with the flavor.
I was going to buy a couple of chickens to cook using the classic "Sticky Chicken" recipe, but hubby wanted to buy a rotisserie (already cooked) chicken from the deli case. Turns out that wasn't such a bad idea, as my neighbor called on Wednesday and said she had bought too many rotisserie chickens and would we like one. So, we've had two chicken meals which used up the breasts from one of the chickens. I then pulled the meat from both birds, put it into the freezer in 2-cup portions. I then threw the bones & skin into a large pot with some water, celery, and carrots (I forgot the onions) and wound up with 2 quarts of stock I'm putting into the freezer.
The Plan: December 21-27, 2008
Breakfasts: Muffins, Oatmeal, Yougurt & fruit, and eating out
Lunches: Help-yourself, occasional meal out
Dinners:
Mary Potatoes
1 package shredded potatoes (Simply Potatoes brand)
2 cups half-and-half
4 Tbsp. butter
1/2 cup parmesan cheese
1 onion, finely chopped or grated
Preheat oven to 400 degrees Farenheit. Grease an 8x8 inch baking dish. Mix all ingredients together with a little salt & pepper and pour into the prepared dish. Bake until browned on top -- about 45 minutes.
Variations
Egg Casserole
2 c. bread cubes
1 c. (4 ounces) shredded cheddar cheese
6 eggs
2 c. milk
1/2 tsp. salt
Dash of pepper
1/2 c. diced ham
Place bread and cheese in bottom of a greased 9-inch square pan. Sprinkle with the ham. Combine the eggs, milk and seasonings. Pour over the bread, cheese, and ham. Cover. Set in the refrigerator over night. The next morning remove cover and bake at 325 degrees for one hour until set. (Cooking time can be reduced if you let the dish warm up on the counter before putting it into the oven.)
Makes six servings
I'm finally back home for a full week, so it's time to post another weekly menu plan. And, yes, I know I'm late in posting my plans for the week. Therefore, the "plan" includes a couple of days that have already passed. I've also included breakfast and lunch plans this week.
While we're eating more meals at home, I don't feel obliged to cook and eat at home every meal. My menu plans acknowledge the reality. For example, we don't fix a typical cooked breakfast at home. Instead, we go out to a local diner for breakfast on Sundays and sometimes one other day in the week. Their eggs are great and it's much easier for hubby to get a couple of slices of bacon from them than it is to cook bacon at home. We also like to patronize the local restaurants—a traditional diner, a Mexican restaurant, and a pizza/pasta shop—since we've become friends with the staff at these places.
Our "help-yourself" meals are typically eating up the leftovers. I like Laura's "Leftover Buffet" idea. There are only the two of us, and we may choose to eat at different times, depending on what's going on. Leftovers may be from a home-cooked meal or may be the "doggie bag" leftovers from eating out.
The soft tacos on Wednesday will be made from Mexican-seasoned ground beef that I'll be cooking for freezer plan-aheads.
Mexican-seasoned ground beef
5 lb. ground beef
10 tsp. chili powder
8 tsp. paprika
2.5 tsp. cumin
10 tsp. instant minced onions
2.5 tsp. garlic powder
2 Tbsp. corn starch
2 tsp. onion powder
dash cayenne
Brown ground beef in large skillet or dutch oven, stirring well. Pour off fat. Stir in spices and 2 cups water. Simmer over low heat until very thick. Divide into five portions and freeze if desired. Each portion will fill 8-10 tacos.
Now that Thanksgiving and the last of the business trips are over, I'm settling down to a couple of weeks at home. In keeping with my decision to eat at home more often than had become our habit, I made soup for supper tonight. I love soup, so I was very glad to discover Soup's On Saturday This lady posts a soup recipe every Saturday. I'm definitely going to check out some of the soups she has posted.
Tonight's soup was a very basic Vegetable Beef Soup. Like many basic soups, it lends itself to whatever is on hand.
Earlier this week, I thawed a pint of left-over roast beef from the freezer, cooked it with onions, celery, and garlic, then shredded the beef. For supper that night, I added brown gravy and served it over noodles. Today's soup used the left-over beef in a tomato-based soup with mixed vegetables. I had hoped to add a can of stewed tomatoes, but we didn't have any in the pantry.
