Library Girl

In all my excitement about owning an RV and traveling all around the country with My Marine, I only had one big concern. Books! It sounds crazy, I know! The problem is that I have always been a library girl. I got my first library card from the Handley Library in Winchester when I was five years old. My parents took my brother and me to the library every 3 weeks like clockwork, we all got a large pile of books and plowed through them with glee. As a result of this early training in frugality, I very rarely buy books. There are three reasons for this, one of the reasons is that once I have read a book I'm done, I'm not the type to read and reread the same book over and over again. There are way to many books in the world for me to limit myself to stories I already know. Secondly is the expense, why would I pay for a book when the local library will let me borrow it for free?? I feel so lucky to live in a country that is blanketed with free libraries! Thirdly is the clutter. While I love books and love perusing shelves of books, I really don't want to have a houseful of them. I have always preferred small houses and right now I'm sharing living quarters with Mama and My Marine so we have enough furniture and "stuff"; that it is a blessing that I haven't bought every book I ever loved and toted them around with me.

But how can I be a library girl when I will have no fixed address and won't be in the same place for very long? This was a real concern for me and I brought it up to Joseph and everyone else that I discussed our travel plans with. Finally I asked my dad about it. He and his wife have owned a motorhome for several years now and he is also a reader and a library user, so I knew he'd have already faced the same issue. He had an immediate answer. Yard sales! Well of course! Used books. Once I started thinking about it, I realized that yard sales would be just one option, most libraries have used book shelves where they sell off duplicate copies of books, and there were also thrift stores, not to mention actual used book stores.

Since this revelation I have bought books at the Waynesboro Library, the Smith Mountain Lake Library and the Goodwill Store in Bedford. I have also been given piles of books by my dad and my friend Gramarg. I now have a lovely shelf full of books in Rallye Girl, at least 30 books and I have invested less than $20! The best part is that when I am done with them, I can trade them out for others or leave them in campgrounds or coffee shops for others to enjoy. This makes me supremely happy!

Guard Your Energy

The raw material of personal performance and productivity is contained in your physical, mental and emotional energies. Your body is like a machine that uses food, water, and rest to generate energy that you then use to accomplish important tasks in your life and work. When you are fully rested, for example, you can get two time, three times, and five times as much done as when you are tired or burned out.

One of the most important requirements for being happy and productive is for you to guard and nurture your energy levels at all times.

From the book “Eat That Frog!” by Brian Tracy

Monthly Resolutions Month 3

I got so excited about my resolutions last month that I actually looked at the handwritten list that I wrote on January 1st and realized that there were originally ten instead of six. So this month I worked with ten resolutions. I posted it on my bulletin board at work so that I could keep track of what I was supposed to be doing.

I have to say that I really do like this new "system". I am most definitely a "system" girl. I don't accomplish much in this life until I have figured out what my "system" is. Are y'all tired of the "quotes" yet? So to recap...


Here is the February List.

Monthly Resolutions for March:

1. Meet Someone New - I sat down on my morning train into the city yesterday and hefted "Breaking Dawn" out of my tote bag. The guy in uniform in the seat beside me was suitable impressed with the SIZE of this hardbound book of wonderfulness. He struck up a conversation with me. Now I don't know how many of you commute by train in the DC area, but I can assure you that talking, on the train, in the morning, is pretty much not done. Anyway, this lovely gentleman made some funny remark about my heavy reading and I laughed and then showed him what it was. We ended up getting into a whole conversation about the Twilight series. His son's "little girlfriend" has read them all, and his son read them to be supportive. Mr. Soldier said that he should probably read them too since everyone talks about them so much. I encouraged him as I believe they are fabulous and everyone should share the love. Then we talked about other books we liked. I ended up recommending that he read "The Time Travellers Wife" As I do to all my male reader friends. Sheldon first recommended it to me and I loved it. Anyhow, as with last month, I didn't get his name, but we had a moment on the train.
2. Go to a Museum - Tuesday evening I went walking a mile or so to my local library (which I will soon be leaving far behind, as I move into the wilds of Loudoun county, wah) and I ran into my friend Kiki who just happens to work there. She and another librarian started talking about the American History Museum which is where Kiki used to work. The museum just re-opened after a few years of being closed for remodeling. The other librarian was talking about the long lines at the First Ladies exhibit which reminded me of this very resolution and I thought, OH, if I go on a weekday I won't have to wait in line, and I all but shouted I'm Gonna Go Tomorrow! I'm sure that Kiki and her friend thought I was nuts, but I did go less than 24 hours later! I saw the First Ladies gowns, the original Star Spangled Banner, a lovely doll house that was amazing in its scope and detail and, last but not least, Julia Childs' Kitchen. I love going to museums by myself so that I can read each and every description and take all the time in the world without someone huffing over my shoulder about how hungry or bored they are. Sigh.
3. paint a room - FAIL, but mostly cause I'm moving in a couple of weeks and I know I'll be doing lots of painting in the new house!
4. spend time with an old friend - Got to visit with Wren AND Kiki in the past week!
5. try a new recipe - Oh Lord the goodness of Grandma Iny's Cake.
6. go dancing - FAIL, this one just makes me sad. I really need to get off my butt and GO! It will be such fun and I will burn so many calories too!
7. sushi - lunch at my favorite "fast food" sushi place in DC. Yum!
8. sell old stuff - FAIL, damn, again.
9. lose five pounds - COLOSSAL FAIL. I think I gained five instead of losing five. Sob.
10. spend time with a family member - Had a smoothie with my cousin AJ last week. She is going through a rough time. Her husband of five years informed her that he had a girlfriend and wanted out of the marriage. She is in the process of moving out of her house and is understandably crushed. We hadn't seen each other in a while and it was nice to catch up and hopefully give her a boost.

49.5.5 books

The BBC recently stated that most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books listed below. I find this a little hard to believe, especially after I marked all the ones I had read. I mean, I know I like to read, but I thought everyone read the classics. I had to laugh when I got to the Russian authors. My dad had a large collection of those in the bookcases at home and I would resort to them when I was finished with my library books. I think I made it through all of them on his shelf before I left home.

Here's the list:

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen (x)
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte (x)
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling (x)
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee (x)
6 The Bible (parts)
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte (x2)
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell (x, I read this in 1977 and it scared the crap out of me! I thought it could all still happen, hey I was 12!)
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens (x)
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott (x)
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy (not sure)
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller (x)
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare (prolly half of these)
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien (x 2, first time at age 8)
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger (x)
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger (x)
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell (x2, first time at age 10)
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald (x) (and everything else he wrote)
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens (x) (and everything else he wrote)
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy (x)
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh (not this one, but others by him)
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky (x)
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck (x) (and a bunch of others by him)
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll (x)
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame (x)
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy (x)
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens (x)
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis (half of these)
34 Emma - Jane Austen (x)
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen (x)
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis (x2)
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden (x)
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne (x)
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell (x)
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown (x)
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving (x, thought this was the best book I had ever read at the time)
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood (x) (and a ton of others by her)
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding (x)
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan (I have this on my pile to read right now)
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen (x)
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens (x)
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley (x)
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez (tried to read this and just couldn't do it)
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck (x)
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov (x)
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt (x)
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold (x)
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac (may have, can't remember for sure)
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding (x)
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville (tried and couldn't)
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens (x)
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker (x)
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett (may have, not sure)
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson (read others by him and love him)
75 Ulysses - James Joyce (oh lord, tried and couldn't)
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath (x)
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens (x read it and acted in the play twice with a professional company)
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker (x)
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry (x)
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White (x2)
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom (tried and couldn't, does that make me a bad person?)
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (x)
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad (x)
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams (x)
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo (x, took me three months. might be the longest I ever spent on one book)

You realize that now the rest of them have to go on my list of books to read...right?

LUMI

Just finished reading this book...

and I loved it! Although I don't live in NYC, I absolutely adore it there and still see a gaping hole in the skyline that breaks my heart whenever I am there. This book made 4 of those 3000+ names into real people. It also made me pine for Manhattan, reading about the great meals and the great trips they were taking really made me want a better paying job!!!

I highly recommend this book. It wasn't a tearjerker, just a realistic look at how these four women overcame the most devastating event in recent memory.

No snow sports for me thanks.

Hi All!
I am back from a lovely day in the mountains of Pennsylvania. I accompanied Sheldon and his kids Sasha (8) and Jack (15) and my Miles (14). Sheldon had gotten Jack a new snowboard for his birthday and had bought himself a new board as well while he was at it. Sasha skis but just rents for now until she is bigger. The three of them have been doing this for years, but Miles had never been so I convinced him that this would be a good "life experience" and it would also be his xmas present. I was along for the ride and to wrangle the 8 year old when she was too tired or cold to ski, so that her dad could get maximum time on the mountain. I DO NOT DO SNOW SPORTS. In fact, just walking from the car to the lodge and back was more than enough cold weather for me!

We went to Liberty Mountain which is about 90 minutes from where we live in Northern Virginia. When we got there the place was a madhouse of boards and skis and people bundled to within an inch of their lives. I was amazed at the activity, but obviously the resort workers are used to this because the place ran like a well-oiled machine. We set Miles and Sasha up with lessons and Sheldon and Jack hit the slopes. It was about 11am. I hit the lodge with my book, my cross stitch and my macbook in hand. I was NOT going to be bored!

The book I was reading was fantastic, so that got first priority. I was a little past halfway in the second book of the Twilight Series by Stephenie Meyer.



I absolutely love this series and this book. I finished it before 2pm. I had brought a second book, but didn't feel like starting it right away, so I played on my computer for a while. I checked email and toyed with the idea of writing an entry here, but didn't. I ended up playing gangster wars on Facebook for a little while and then shutting down the computer and looking for a more comfortable seat closer to the fireplace. Once situated by the fireplace I took out my stitching. I am making a little sumpin sumpin for my best friend Wren for her birthday next month. I can't discuss it any further as she reads this and I don't want to give her any information. I promise to show it to you later though.

After a while Sheldon and his kids came in looking for lunch. Sheldon had packed us a complete picnic so we gathered the food and headed to the "picnics allowed" room. We hadn't been able to track down Miles at this point even though all three of us who were big enough had gone on a search, and I had called and texted him. Eventually he found us and we all dug in to yummy sandwiches. After lunch Miles decided to stay indoors with me but the hard core snow bunnies went back out into the sunshine.

Miles and I were lucky enough to find seats on the couch by the fire and ended up camped there all afternoon. He never went back out. He had had his adventure and he was done. He had a book and his iPod with him and seemed quite content. I started my second book, but didn't much like it so I ended up stitching and people watching and reading the Washington Post that was on the coffee table for the rest of the day. I was VERY bored by the time Sheldon finally came in around dark and was ready to leave. His son had been crashed on the couch for at least an hour at that point and his daugther was camped in front of Sponge Bob on the big screen tv beside the fireplace.

When we left the resort we decided to stop for pizza on the way home and I am proud to announce that we discovered one of those great hole-in-the-wall, family owned pizza joints that you always wish for, in Emmitsburg. It was named Stavros Pizza and it was absolutely delicious!!! We got a hawiian pizza which was absolutely drowning in delicous cheese, and Sheldon's kids ate burgers and fries. I swiped some of Jack's fries and they were ALSO super yummy! If you are ever in Emmitsburg, PA, I highly recommend this stop!

I fell asleep on the way home and woke up so exhausted that I wasn't sure I'd be able to drive back to my house. I did make it home and went STRAIGHT to bed. When the alarm went off this morning I felt like I could sleep for another 9 or 10 hours. The only thing I can think is that the constant stimulation of being surrounded by conversations around me, people stomping past in ski boots, the tv and screaming children really wore me out!

The Best Book!

I just read the Best Book! I started it when I was sitting in line waiting to get into the Birchmere. I just finished it this morning on the train. It caused me to miss my stop one day this week and I almost missed my stop two other days! I read a lot of good books, I even fall asleep on the train, it has been a VERY long time since I missed my stop!


The book is "Red River" by Lalita Tademy.



I highly, highly recommend it. It is about 3 generations of African American in Louisiana. It begins in 1873 shortly after the end of the Civil War. The main characters of that generation are former slaves who are fighting for their voting rights. The story follows those men and their progeny up through 1937. The most fascinating part is that it is the story of the Tademy family and the author threw in photographs of the characters as they came up in the story. It was a wonderful weaving of history and family and fiction. I got lost in it every time I picked it up.

Happy New Year, Here's to a better year in 2009.

Hi All,

I have had a marvelous day off today. I made veggie ham soup in my crockpot and my favorite bbq chicken/potato casserole. I took a nice nap. I have stitched quite a bit on my current cross stitch project which is a circle of snowmen and snowwomen that I will make into a wreath. I'd like to hang it this month, so I'm hoping to finish it soon. I only have 1.5 snowmen left! I have watched 3 episodes of the first season "Friday Night Lights" on Netflix. I have read about 100 pages of a Jodi Picoult novel. It is the first book by Jodi Picoult that I have read and I am REALLY liking it. It is called "Vanishing Acts" and each chapter is written in a different character's voice. Very compelling.


As for FNL, I had heard good things about it but never watched it so was glad to see it on the Netflix Watch Instantly menu. I really like it, even though I hated high school, there is nothing I like better than a high school football drama.

Miles has been sleeping all day. He went to an all night teen party at a local megachurch and came home tired and cranky. It is currently 5pm and he just stumbled out of his bedroom and grumped and moaned and then went back to bed. He's mad because his dad didn't come pick him up. His dad called me this morning and I said I expected him to sleep all day, so his dad said he'd see him tomorrow...can't say that I see what the big deal is.

I'm hoping that the new year brings new and exciting things my way. 2008 wasn't a great year for me. The manufacturer of my clothing line going bankrupt in June really put a hole in my year and in my bank balance. It has been a struggle to make ends meet since then and working a retail job in addition to my day job just didn't work for me, I need my sleep and two jobs just doesn't allow enough time for me.

So, in the new year, I am hoping to:

• find a better paying job, hopefully closer to home.
  
• lose the rest of this 30 pounds that has been dogging me for the last 3 years (5 down, 25 to go)
• cook more and brown bag lunch more
• dig myself back out of the financial hole I am in
• see more of my friends
• go to more museums
• write more

I thank all of you for being my friends. I hope all of you have a wonderful year!

Twilight

I finished reading Twilight and absolutely loved it.



I am feeling pretty inspired by Stephenie Meyer right now. She said some things on her website and in interviews that I have seen that really made me think I could write stories that people may actually want to read. I'll let you know when I start!