DEAR Monday: January Wrap-up

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Hello everyone! We’ve had a lot going on with the family. My husband’s grandmother is in the hospital right now, any good thoughts you can send her way are greatly appreciated. Things seem ok right now and I hope things can continue on a positive path. Thanks!

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During the month of January I read 16 books. I’m definitely more than halfway to my goal of 25 books for 2012. Once I get to the 25 books I’ll definitely increase my 2012 goal.

Fifteen books were from the Stephanie Plum series by Janet Evanovich. I have thoroughly enjoyed the series so far. The situations that Stephanie Plum seems to find herself in are hilarious. Let me tell you, I would love to have Joe Morelli or Ranger available to rescue me any time. swoooooon

My friend, Molly, and I went to watch One for the Money at the theater on opening day. The movie was ok, as far as movies go. However, I was very bothered that the movie didn’t accurately represent the book. They changed a lot of the plot and the details of the characters. In all honesty, if I would’ve known I would’ve waited for the DVD. I also didn’t think some of the actors were right to portray the characters. Oh well… it was a nice time out.

I’m super excited that we are finally going to be starting our book club this weekend! We are going to be brainstorming ideas for our book club format, books to read, meeting frequency, and so on. Stay tuned for what we come up with…

Do you participate in a book club? Let me know in the comments what works for your book club. Or if you’d like to participate in a book club, what are you looking for in a group?

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I call it DEAR Monday because when I was in elementary school the reading time during school was called Drop Everything and Read or DEAR. I also found that I would complain a lot about another Monday coming along and I decided to be nicer to Mondays. Mondays are the days I come to my little corner of the Internet and write about what I’ve been reading or plan to read.

DEAR Monday: The reading dilemma solved

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Last week I posted asking opinions on what I should read next, considering I had just finished a book that was not on my original pile of books to start read in 2012.

I’m sure you’re all on the edge of your seats waiting to know what I decided to read… drum roll please… Last week I read Two for the Dough, Three to Get Deadly, and Four to Score by Janet Evanovich. Not one book but three books.

What can I say? I decided to go with the momentum of reading the first book in the series. I have enjoyed the Stephanie Plum stories very much. Like I was telling my husband, as I read these I think to myself that some of the situations can only happen to Stephanie Plum. I like the characters, the stories crack me up and they are quick reads for me.

The other good thing about continuing with the momentum of the Stephanie Plum series is that reading these has brought my 2012 total books read to 5 out of 25, for 20% complete. According to Goodreads, I am 4 books ahead of schedule towards my goal.

2012 Reading Challenge

2012 Reading Challenge

SimplyGabrielahasread 5 books toward her goal of 25 books.

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With this considered I may revise my goal and aim for the 52 books in 52 weeks, we’ll see at what point in the year I get to 25. I won’t decide until I make it to 25 total.

What did you read last week?

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I call it DEAR Monday because when I was in elementary school, yes I know that was in the last millenium, the reading time during school was called Drop Everything and Read or DEAR. I also found that I would complain a lot about another Monday coming along and I decided to be nicer to Mondays. Mondays are the days I come to my little corner of the Internet and write about what I’ve been reading or plan to read.

WIP Wednesday: Multnomack! Shawl, Sockhead Hat (Knitting)

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Work-in-progress report today:

Multnomah is in trouble! When I picked it up to work again on the border there was mysteriously one less stitch than what I needed for the row. Grrrrrrr! So, I ripped back to my lifeline which I had placed at the beginning of the border. I’ve got my needle back in place but I haven’t even counted the number of stitches. I’m so mad at it right now! So, it’s called Multomack! at least for the moment.

My sister-in-law is going to New York to celebrate that she just turned 18. She had asked me for a slouchy hat a little while ago. I had been looking for a slouchy hat pattern because we weren’t quite on the same page about what she wanted. One afternoon I was searching on Ravelry for a slouchy hat pattern and I found the Sockhead Hat. I took a cell phone picture of the screen and texted it to her, luckily she loved it. It was just what she wanted, we finally agreed on what “slouchy hat” means.

I went looking in my stash for a sock weight yarn that I thought she would like. I didn’t really find one so I went hunting for some. I happened to go to JoAnn to find some fabric and I happened to walk through the yarn aisle, I found JoAnn Sensations Truly sock weight yarn in a charcoal color. It’s a wool blend – 55% wool, 30% nylon, 15% rayon from bamboo. It comes in a 60 gram skein with 262 yards. I bought two, just in case since the pattern says less than 437 yards.

I’ve made a bit of modifications, more details to come when I post my finished project report about it. I’ve got about 5.25″ length complete of the 13″ length from the cast on edge before I start the decreases. I’m hoping it will be quick working in stockinette stitch using sock yarn on size 3 needles. No picture today since it’s overcast and we’re expecting rain tomorrow. Boo! I’ll get a picture of it once it’s finished and on my sister-in-law’s head. She leaves for New York tomorrow and is hoping to have a warm hat to wear. I better get back to work on it.

In case you were wondering, I decided to read the next book in the Stephanie Plum series since I’ve got some momentum going right now with that series of books.

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I’m linking up for WIP Wednesdays and at Yarn Along.

DEAR Monday: What to do?

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This past week I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to read very much. Like I said in yesterday’s post my evenings were busy with Mr. Bubba being out for meetings at work. I had snuck in a few minutes here and there while waiting in the car to pick up the kids but on Friday evening I was able to curl up on the recliner in my pajamas with a blanket and my book, One for the Money by Janet Evanovich. A friend of mine, Molly, had recommended this series of books to me months ago.

On New Year’s Eve, hubby and I decided to take the family out on a date and we went to watch The Muppets at the movie theater. We saw the poster for the movie version of One for the Money. When I was talking about it with Molly we decided to watch the movie together but only after I read the first book. So I went on Paperbackswap and searched for the books, not just the first book but the entire Stephanie Plum series. I had a lot of credits stashed away on Paperbackswap…

Look at what I got in the mail:

All received from Paperbackswap.com

A nice big stack of books! I was so excited to see all these books coming in… Now, I’m at a crossroads, I finished the first book:

It was great, as I said on Pinterest, it “cracked me up, made me gasp and sucked me right in once I actually sat down to read.” I really liked it! I saw mixed reviews on Goodreads but everyone is entitled to their opinion. It was a fast read for me, I read the majority of it in one evening. As my husband likes to remind me, I read fairly quickly.

Now to my dilemma: At the beginning of the year I posted about a stack of books that I already have that I would like to read in 2012 but now that I have this whole new stack of books that are in a series, should I read the series or go back to my original stack of books?

I think that if I read the next books of the series, I’ll get through them quickly and put a big dent into my reading goal for the year. The only thing is that I don’t want to forget about the stack of books I already have.

What do you recommend? What would you do?

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I call it DEAR Monday because when I was in elementary school, yes I know that was in the last millenium, the reading time during school was called Drop Everything and Read or DEAR. I also found that I would complain a lot about another Monday coming along and I decided to be nicer to Mondays. Mondays are the days I come to my little corner of the Internet and write about what I’ve been reading or plan to read.

#SOCSunday: The week ran away with the time

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So we all know how the dish ran away with the spoon… yeah, well this week ran away with the time.

This was a rough week – Mr. Bubba had evening meetings at work 3 out of the 5 workdays and last night we had to attend the school’s Annual Crab Bash. While it was a fun event, he was still working – shmoozing, talking everyone up, networking, or as someone on Facebook said: hussling.

Having him gone in the evenings makes it difficult to maintain some semblance of a routine for all of us. Dinner times fluctuates, the little ones swimming is more complicated (I can’t take him into the women’s locker room and he refuses to go to the men’s locker room alone so he has to get dressed in the women’s bathroom), stuff to be done at home where I need his help can’t get done – I’m pretty independent but I can’t go into the storage shed and dig out the Christmas boxes alone. I sit here typing as I sit in the recliner next to the dried up Christmas tree that still has its decorations on.

I’m hoping this week was an anomaly, that next month I can’t expect the 2nd week to be this packed with meetings. I’ve got obligations at our younger one’s school as his class’s room mom and I have evenings I have to be at his school. We’re still working it all out. I’m sure soon enough we’ll fall into a rhythm, at least that is my hope.

Trying to keep up with everything house/kid related kept me from blogging this week. I did manage to read another book though so look for my post about it on Monday. I cast-on and started a knit hat while watching the 49ers vs. Saints NFC Division Playoff game. Wow! What a game!!! It doesn’t matter which team you were rooting for, that was an amazing football game. I’m not going to lie – I’m SO HAPPY the 49ers won but the Saints have to be acknowledged for a great game and for bringing TORTURE back to San Francisco.

Today, after I finish writing this, I’m baking cupcakes to celebrate my sister-in-law’s 18th birthday! She’s the baby of the family. Now, talk about time running away from us… I can’t believe how quickly time has flown by. And next week, my own baby turns 9 – shaking my head…I’m off to seize the day and make the most of every minute.

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This was my 5 minute-ish brain dump. Link up at all.things.fadra and check out more posts and to find today’s prompt if you haven’t written your post yet.

#SOCsunday

DEAR Monday: 1st book read

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Success! I was able to finish the first book of the year, I read Short Girls by Bich Minh Nguyen.

I’ve never read a book about a Vietnamese family so it was definitely an interesting one for me. I usually read books about Latino families because I can relate to them. I went to San Francisco State  and I read a lot of those books in my La Raza Studies classes.

This book was a quick read at 292 pages, the story was well written, the characters truly came to life. I enjoyed reading the sisters’ perspective as second generation Vietnamese American young women in Michigan/Chicago. It never ceases to amaze me how similar the stories and perspectives of immigrants can be regardless of the country of origin.

Since I enjoyed it so much, I’ve already requested Bich Minh Nguyen’s memoir, Stealing Buddha’s Dinner, from PaperBackSwap. It was available in the system so I should be receiving it within the next week or so. I’m looking forward to reading more of her writing.

I did receive a stack of other books from PaperBackSwap. One of my real-life friends loves the Janet Evanovich Stephanie Plum novels. The movie version of One for the Money comes out at the end of the month starring Katherine Heigl. I’m planning on reading One for the Money next so I can be finished with it before watching the movie. I really do prefer to read the book before watching the movie. My friend is going to re-read the book in preparation for the movie too. I’m glad many of the books in this series were available on PaperBackSwap, I wasn’t sure they would be with the movie release so soon.

How about you, what are you reading? Have you finished any books this year? Let’s talk about it in the comments.

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I call it DEAR Monday because when I was in elementary school, yes I know that was in the last millenium, the reading time during school was called Drop Everything and Read or DEAR. I also found that I would complain a lot about another Monday coming along and I decided to be nicer to Mondays. Mondays are the days I come to my little corner of the Internet and write about what I’ve been reading or plan to read.

#SOCSunday: Now, where was I?

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One of the new things in 2012 with Stream of Consciousness Sunday is that Fadra is offering us a weekly writing prompt, which of course we can choose to answer or write on our own like it’s always been. This week I’ve got a lot of thoughts running through my head – mainly about the fragility of life, celebrating each day, not being able to control everything, not being able to make our kids’ choices and protecting them from making bad ones. So, instead of trying to figure that all out into a semi-cohesive blog post I decided to answer today’s prompt:

When you sit down to write a post, do you get dedicated, devoted time? Are you surrounded by distractions, mental or physical?

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Where was I? Oh, yeah, I’m writing a blog post. Right now, I happen to be sitting in bed, in my pajamas with my laptop after figuring out why the Internet kept crashing. I’m not sure why we keep needing to reset the modem. My husband is in the living room grading his finals because grades are due tomorrow. Our 8 yo is playing Skylanders on the Wii in the living room while the 16 yo is still asleep in bed, don’t mind that it’s 1:20 pm. He keeps saying he can’t sleep at night, often not falling asleep until the wee hours of the morning. He’s going to have a shock when he goes back to school on Tuesday, which reminds me I have to check if we have all his textbooks since the new semester is starting. I can’t believe he’s a junior and going to graduate high school in just over a year.

Oh yeah, I’m supposed to be responding to the prompt. Well, I guess it’s pretty evident that I have a lot of mental distractions that are also connected to the physical distractions. I look out my bedroom door towards the living room and notice our Christmas tree that we’re supposed to take down today since we decided to leave it up until at least the Epiphany. I’m glad I bought the container to store our odd-shaped ornaments that don’t have a box to go back into. Like the Yoda head or the gourd from El Salvador. Now I can’t remember if I also got a shoe box size container for the new angel tree topper we got this year. I’ll have to check.

During the week, I’ve begun to give myself a 2 pm deadline for writing my blog posts. I pick up my kids from school after that time so it gives me a target where I’m less likely to be distracted. Although while they’re at school I’m still aware of making sure laundry is done, dishes are washed, dinner is at least thought of (I really need to work on menu planning), grocery shopping, and everything else that gets done for the house to keep functional.

Oh, I better not forget adding that phone call to my to-do list, you know, the one that keeps getting longer and longer. Oh yeah, and I’ve got to go pick up those packages at the UPS store where I have my private mail box. Oh and I better get all the receipts together so I can get the 2011 medical reimbursement done. Which reminds me that I better call our insurance about the changes in fees.

Um, so yeah, I try to make dedicated, devoted time to blog but I’m definitely surrounded by distractions both mental and physical. Both of which definitely feed into each other. At least my plan of blogging by 2 pm is the beginning of putting something in place. I’m telling you that I’m taking my blogging much more seriously this year and this is the first step.

I’m going to grab my book now so I can be ready to write tomorrow’s DEAR Monday post. Just 50 more pages to read and have my first book read in 2012. Woohoo!

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This was my 5 minute brain dump. I swear it only felt like 5 minutes while I was writing, I promise it did. Link up at all.things.fadra and check out more posts.

#SOCsunday

2012: The Year of Courage and Freedom

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I took this picture on New Year’s Eve as we drove alongside Ocean Beach in San Francisco. It seemed so symbolic to me to see so much space spread out before us with all the opportunity of an open ocean and of the coming of a whole new year with the promise of time, new opportunities, a fresh start.

A few years ago, I came across the idea of coming up with a word for the year in an article on Christine Kane’s blog. I’ve had different words different years but just like with resolutions I forget about them. This year, I decided to share my words here so I not only have a place to come back to so I can remember what they were but also in order to have a sense of accountability. I’ve been thinking about this for a couple of weeks. I have a hard time committing to one word, so I chose two: courage and freedom.

A couple of weeks ago I shared the following quote on Facebook and here on my blog:

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” – Steve Jobs

For some reason, this quote resonated with me very much. I think the fact that I’ll be 35 this year, oh my goodness! that’s the second time I admit that here, is staring me in the face. I’m realizing all the ways that I haven’t listened to my heart and intuition, the ways I’ve lived worried about what everyone else thinks, the ways I haven’t honored my SELF through all of this journey called life.

I’ve been sitting with this quote, knowing that it’s something that I want to incorporate for my word(s) of 2012. I picked up on the word courage in the quote. When I showed it to my husband he immediately said freedom. Those two words immediately clicked for me. In essence, it’s about me having the courage to be free to be me, just the way I am. I need to be me just for me, not worrying about what everyone else will think or say. I’m okay with being me, I want everyone else to be too.

I also read this quote a couple of months ago:

One of the most important aspects of our lives is that they are our lives. No one else could live them exactly the way we are living them. Everything that happens in our lives is an opportunity for learning. Those moments of frustration often turn into moments of joy and creativity. – November 20 From Meditations for Women who Do too much by Anne Wilson Schaef

I figure that much of what I write about is how our hectic, chaotic lifestyle is normal… at least normal according to us. This is our life. This is what normal is to us. If it’s not normal for others, we just have to agree to have a different definition of normal. We’ve come to love and accept our version of normal, as crazy as it can be, so we’ll just continue living our normal life. And I’ll continue to write about it here…

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Do you have a word for 2012? Please share it with us in the comment section or a link to your post if you’ve written one about it. Thanks!

Knitting: Reassessing my WIPs

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Here we are at the start of another year… I’m hopeful for 2012, it’s going to be a great year. I’m starting it off with a bang and building on momentum. Over the holidays I did quite a bit of knitting, I didn’t get it all photographed or put into Ravelry… yeah, I know. However, today is a different day. I’ve been looking at the projects that I have in progress, there’s quite a few of them actually, and I’m reassessing what I’m going to do with them.

It was so liberating on January 1st to say to my husband, “You know, I really have NO desire to finish this baby hat,” then proceed to take the needle out, unravel all the yarn and just be done with it. It was like a huge weight lifted off my shoulders. The main reason I didn’t want to finish the hat is that I hate working with that yarn. I was working with Stitch Nation by Debbie Stoller Full o’ Sheep, in all reality I know I shouldn’t have bought that yarn. I’ve worked with it before. I love the colors of this yarn but I cannot work well with single ply yarn. So, I ripped the hat out and will be destashing what’s left of the skein since I did have to cut some of it off. It was definitely nothing specific about this brand of yarn, it’s the single-ply, I destashed a bunch of Berocco Lustra because it’s a single ply yarn.

I’ll be refocusing my energies and finishing a couple of projects that have been sitting on the needle for a bit, I say needle because I use one circular needle for the majority of my projects – sometimes due to size but also because it’s easier on my wrists to use one circular than to use two straight needles.

First up, Multnomah designed by Kate Ray of Hello Knitty:

 

According to Ravelry, I started Multnomah in July 2011. I got through the body of the shawl fairly quickly and just stalled out at the border. Current status: 2 rows of the border complete, 38 more rows to go. My goal is to finish this one first.

Then, there’s Saroyan by Liz Abinante of Feministy:

 

I love this pattern and this yarn combo, I’m using a single skein of Malabrigo Sock in Velvet Grapes. I completed 8 increase sections and am working on the straight sections. I found on Ravelry that someone made this with a single skein of Malabrigo and did 8 increase sections, 20 straight sections and 8 decrease sections. I’m going to follow that and see what happens. I’m so excited for this one!

My plan is to have Multnomah blocking by this weekend so I can get back to Saroyan. I’ll be blocking a couple of other projects that I hope will be dry in time for photographs for Friday. What are you working on?

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I’m linking up for WIP Wednesday and for Yarn Along. Go check them out for more yarny goodness!

DEAR Monday: To read in 2012

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I call it DEAR Monday because when I was in elementary school, yes I know that was in the last millenium, the reading time during school was called Drop Everything and Read or DEAR. I also found that I would complain a lot about another Monday coming along and I decided to be nicer to Mondays. Mondays are the days I come to my little corner of the Internet and write about what I’ve been reading or plan to read. Here’s the first one for 2012!

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A couple of real-life friends on Twitter and I are trying to get together a book club. I know that will definitely help me read more. We’re definitely in the beginning stages: figuring out what to read and when to meet? I hope we decide on books ahead of time so I can try to get them from PaperBackSwap (if you sign up using this link I get a book credit). I love using that site to declutter books I’ve read in exchange for books that I want to read. The only drawback has been that sometimes I wait for a very long time before a book becomes available. I have plenty of books to read already so that usually hasn’t been a problem.

I didn’t meet my reading goal for 2011. I had intended to read 25 books and I read 15. Apparently, a lot of things got in my way of reading very much last year. (Ha! I remembered that 2011 was last year and not this year) My goal for 2012 is 25 books. I hope that I have a better chance this year, I’m starting out with a stack of books to read already – a nice mix of fiction and non-fiction.

The first 9 books on the list

The books that I already have on the to-read list:

  1. At Knit’s End: Meditations for Women who Knit Too Much by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee – The Yarn Harlot – I’m planning on one a day
  2. Meditations for Women who Do Too Much by Anne Wilson Schaef – I’m planning on one a day, since they’re dated
  3. Short Girls, a novel by Bich Minh Nguyen
  4. A Weekend to Change Your Life by Joan Anderson
  5. Life of Pi by Yann Martel
  6. Knit in Comfort by Isabel Sharpe
  7. A Delicate Balance: Living Successfully with Chronic Illness by Susan Milstrey Wells
  8. Stop Being Your Symptoms and Start Being Yourself by Arthur J. Barsky, MD and Emily C. Deans, MD
  9. The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity by Julia Cameron

I hope to be much more successful this year with my reading goal. I’ll definitely be keeping track of it all on goodreads and I’ll keep writing about reading on Mondays.

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What are you going to be reading in 2012? Do you set a reading goal? Would any of you be interested in participating in a linky party? Let me know in the comments and I’ll get one set up.