This-N-That

It's been awhile since I've blogged! That's not a good thing...but I HAVE been doing this and that!

My first project has been to de-pacify Kat. Believe me...that took a LOT of time. We went cold turkey, because I was tired of seeing this all the time:

I know. I know. Who could get tired of looking at this all day? Well the blondie hair and blue eyes and chubby cheeks could be gazed at all day. It's the glaring yellow paci that was bugging me. It had to go! So about four days were spent with me being locked in perma-Kat-grip. And she only screamed "MAMA! Daddy!" a billion times as she whimpered herself to sleep. And now she's CURED! Check out my happy-paci-free baby:

That nasty task being done...I turned to something much more pleasant! I spent a week falling in love with Blythe! Who is Blythe, you ask? Take a peek!

People of the Blog-o-sphere...Meet Blythe! My darling hubby got me a Nook for a post-Christmas surprise. I toyed with the idea of ereaders for a while. The thing is...I just love books. The heft, the sound of pages turning, the way they look on my shelves...and, mostly, the smell. Ahhhhhh...paper smell...(I might get into that in a later post)...Ahhhhh. So I wasn't sure if I'd like a cold, hard, non-book book. Oh, but I do. I won't ever give up my paper books, but the Nook is so handy! I love it, too. It's like being in a Bookworm Love Triangle! Thanks, James, for knowing me better than I know myself. xoxo

A to Z Challenge

So I've finally compiled my reading list from 2010. I kept two records...an excel sheet with title, author and number of pages, and another sheet for short reviews of each book. I've never kept track like this and I realy am glad I did! I read so much, things get fuzzy after a few years (that has NOTHING to do with my getting older!). Anyway...I also suprised the heck out of myself by reading 43 books and a whopping total of 12,836 pages! Wow. It is crazy for me to even comprehend that number of pages. Here's my list!

About a Boy
Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter
Breaking Dawn
Before Green Gables
The Betrayal
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
Briar Rose
The Bone Garden
Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict
The Covenant
Day After Night
Dawn of the Dreadfuls
Ella Enchanted
Fever 1793
A Great and Terrible Beauty
Holidays on Ice
Island of Lost Girls
James and the Giant Peach
The Kitchen Boy: A Novl of the Last Tsar
The Lovely Bones
The Master Quilter
My Sister's Keeper
Many Bloody Returns
My Name Is Memory
Nurse Matilda Collection
An Ocean in Iowa
The Prodigal
Plain Truth
The Quilter's Legacy
The Revelation
Sam's Letters to Jennifer
The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner
The Sacrifice
Shutter Island
Tears of the Giraffe
The Tales of Beedle the Bard
Undead and Unwed
Vampire Kisses
Witch Child
The Xmas
The Year of Living Biblically
Dear Zoe
Zipporah, wife of Moses

These are books I read for my own reading pleasure. It doesn't include the BAZILLION Magic Tree House, Clone Wars, A to Z Mysteries, Boxcar Children books I read out loud to Louie. Or the GATRILLION Thomas, Cars, Train, Dump Truck books I read out loud to J. Or the maybe hundreds of girlie books I've read to the Girlie. She loves her some Thomas, but her new word is, "Pin-tess, Mama! Pin-tess!" (That translates to Princess for those of you who don't speak toddler)

Fall Crochet Scarf

I am a complete newbie to the Art of Crochet. It's something I've always wanted to learn and something that my Mom has tried to teach me countless times. We've always chalked my failure up to me being a Lefty and my Mom being impatient (sorry Mom. Love you.). But I gritted my teeth and she gritted hers and we worked it out. Maybe my will to learn is stronger now that I have a daughter and I want to make her all these cute hats, flowers, scarves, ponchos...and whatnot's I see you ladies making all over the place. Anyway. It worked. But I'm still a newbie.

I am also a glutton for punishment. I found myself alone at the library. This doesn't happen often. Maybe once or twice a year. And when I'm by myself in the library...I tend to get into trouble. The kind of trouble that has me asking the librarian, "What's the book limit...?" And I found a couple of crochet pattern books. And in THIS one:

...I found a really cute scarf project. (Please forgive me...I'm also a newbie to blogging and I need to figure out how to get a cool professional picture from amazon to show up on my blog). Obviously this is a great pattern book because it looks like it's seen a lot of love. And I loved it!

I was able to figure out the pattern on my own and it's the first project I've completed without my Mom telling me what to do every step of the way! Here's what I ended up with:

There is a fringe on the ends that you can't see in my "Model's" representation. She LOVES it, so I'll be making her a Kat sized version. It's special, also, because the keen eye of my oldest picked out the colors for me. Quite nice and cozy.