My friend Liz and her fiance came over Saturday night and we made pizza from scratch. It was pretty good if I do say so myself. And even though it wasn't restaurant quality, as my older brother so readily pointed out to us after he tried some, it was still good, and we had fun making it. And now we can all say we made pizza from scratch. Go us!
I started watching The Prestige on Friday because I hadn't seen it for a while and it just sounded good, and then I was trying to remember how the book differs from the movie so I decided I needed to reread the book. I read it a few years ago and I'm such a slow reader that by the time I had finished it I had pretty much forgotten most of the beginning and middle, which was very inconvenient because The Prestige is not one of those books where you can forget the middle or beginning and still have it make sense. It's a pretty involved plot and it's difficult to keep everything straight. So now I'm trying to reread it faster and hopefully remember more of the details. That's my goal for this week. And I want to finish reading Seabiscuit (which I started reading at least two years ago, got a third of the way through, and stopped), because I'm feeling overzealous and a tad bit unrealistic right now. I need a goal for the week to keep me busy while I'm not working very much and since I probably won't be able to go riding because I need to get everyone to sign that paper and that may end up taking longer than I'd like.
Yesterday would have been such an excellent day to ride too. Oh well, we worked on the shed and made some progress there so that's good.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Feeling Accomplished
I am so proud of myself, I just had to blog about it. I read a book today. An entire book in ONE day! That might not sound like anything to be proud of, but anyone who knows me knows that is like the biggest accomplishment of my LIFE because it usually takes me WEEKS, to finish a book, if not longer! And today I read one (only 200 pages, but still) in only 2 hours. Do you realize what this means? This means that if I work really hard I could be reading several books a day. That would be nice, and definitely a good way to spend my time considering that I don't have that much going on in my life right now. Plus I could knock a few books off of my To Read list in not very much time at all. Woo hoo! I'm feeling very accomplished right now, so I'm going to ignore all the factors about the book I read that might make my feat seem less successful (i.e. the fact that it was a teen novel with easy words, and that I had read it back in high school). But hey, I'm still proud of myself despite that fact. Yay for reading fast!
I had forgotten how much I love that book too. And I still remembered the main plot and even some of the details without having to read every single word to myself in my head, like I normally do. I always thought reading fast made you miss out on the details or the important stuff in books, I'm so glad I was wrong.
I had forgotten how much I love that book too. And I still remembered the main plot and even some of the details without having to read every single word to myself in my head, like I normally do. I always thought reading fast made you miss out on the details or the important stuff in books, I'm so glad I was wrong.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
The Bucket List
Just for fun...and because I'm bored:
The Bucket List. Place an X by all the things you've done
Things you have done during your lifetime:
( ) Gone on a blind date
(X) Skipped school
( ) Watched someone die
(X) Been to Canada
(X) Been to Mexico
( ) Been to Florida (I think I've been in a FL airport, but that probably doesn't really count)
( ) Been to Hawaii
(X) Been on a plane
( ) Been on a helicopter
( ) Been lost
(X) Gone to Washington, DC
(X ) Swam in the ocean
(X) Cried yourself to sleep
( ) Played cops and robbers
(X) Recently colored with crayons
(X) Sang Karaoke
( ) Paid for a meal with coins only
( ) Been to the top of the St. Louis Arch
(X) Done something you told yourself you wouldn't
( ) Made prank phone calls
( ) Been down Bourbon Street in New Orleans
( ) Laughed until some kind of beverage came out of your nose & elsewhere
(X) Caught a snowflake on your tongue
( ) Danced in the rain-naked
(X) Written a letter to Santa Claus
( ) Been kissed under the mistletoe
( ) Watched the sunrise with someone
(X) Blown bubbles
(X) Gone ice-skating
(X) Gone to the movies
( ) Been deep sea fishing
(X ) Driven across the United States
( ) Been in a hot air balloon
( ) Been sky diving
( ) Gone snowmobiling
(X) Lived in more than one country
(X) Lay down outside at night and admired the stars while listening to the crickets
( ) Seen a falling star and made a wish
(X) Enjoyed the beauty of Old Faithful Geyser
( ) Been in the Statue of Liberty (If I have it was a looong time ago and I don't remember, but I have seen it and stood next to it on several occasions)
( ) Gone to the top of Seattle Space Needle
( ) Been on a cruise
(X) Traveled by train
( ) Traveled by motorcycle
(X) Been horse back riding
( ) Ridden on a San Francisco CABLE CAR
( ) Been to Disney World (where is Disney World, again?)
(X) Truly believe in the power of prayer
( ) Been in a rain forest
( ) Seen whales in the ocean
( ) Been to Niagara Falls (Not having been to Niagara Falls is so un-American, but it's not as bad as not having been to Mt. Rushmore)
( ) Ridden on an elephant
( ) Swam with dolphins
( ) Been to the Olympics
( ) Walked on the Great Wall of China
( ) Saw and heard a glacier calf
( ) Been spinnaker flying (what the heck is a spinnaker?)
( ) Been water-skiing
( ) Been snow-skiing
( ) Been to Westminster Abbey
( ) Been to the Louvre
(X) Swam in the Mediterranean
( ) Been to a Major League Baseball game
(X) Been to a National Football League game
The Bucket List. Place an X by all the things you've done
Things you have done during your lifetime:
( ) Gone on a blind date
(X) Skipped school
( ) Watched someone die
(X) Been to Canada
(X) Been to Mexico
( ) Been to Florida (I think I've been in a FL airport, but that probably doesn't really count)
( ) Been to Hawaii
(X) Been on a plane
( ) Been on a helicopter
( ) Been lost
(X) Gone to Washington, DC
(X ) Swam in the ocean
(X) Cried yourself to sleep
( ) Played cops and robbers
(X) Recently colored with crayons
(X) Sang Karaoke
( ) Paid for a meal with coins only
( ) Been to the top of the St. Louis Arch
(X) Done something you told yourself you wouldn't
( ) Made prank phone calls
( ) Been down Bourbon Street in New Orleans
( ) Laughed until some kind of beverage came out of your nose & elsewhere
(X) Caught a snowflake on your tongue
( ) Danced in the rain-naked
(X) Written a letter to Santa Claus
( ) Been kissed under the mistletoe
( ) Watched the sunrise with someone
(X) Blown bubbles
(X) Gone ice-skating
(X) Gone to the movies
( ) Been deep sea fishing
(X ) Driven across the United States
( ) Been in a hot air balloon
( ) Been sky diving
( ) Gone snowmobiling
(X) Lived in more than one country
(X) Lay down outside at night and admired the stars while listening to the crickets
( ) Seen a falling star and made a wish
(X) Enjoyed the beauty of Old Faithful Geyser
( ) Been in the Statue of Liberty (If I have it was a looong time ago and I don't remember, but I have seen it and stood next to it on several occasions)
( ) Gone to the top of Seattle Space Needle
( ) Been on a cruise
(X) Traveled by train
( ) Traveled by motorcycle
(X) Been horse back riding
( ) Ridden on a San Francisco CABLE CAR
( ) Been to Disney World (where is Disney World, again?)
(X) Truly believe in the power of prayer
( ) Been in a rain forest
( ) Seen whales in the ocean
( ) Been to Niagara Falls (Not having been to Niagara Falls is so un-American, but it's not as bad as not having been to Mt. Rushmore)
( ) Ridden on an elephant
( ) Swam with dolphins
( ) Been to the Olympics
( ) Walked on the Great Wall of China
( ) Saw and heard a glacier calf
( ) Been spinnaker flying (what the heck is a spinnaker?)
( ) Been water-skiing
( ) Been snow-skiing
( ) Been to Westminster Abbey
( ) Been to the Louvre
(X) Swam in the Mediterranean
( ) Been to a Major League Baseball game
(X) Been to a National Football League game
Let's not be stoopid
Ok, so I'm going back to school in September after I took a semester off and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't scared to go back. Ok, I'm petrified. Terrified. Scared you-know-what-less. Sometimes I wonder why I'm going back at all. I'm so close to being done (theoretically, at least) that it really would be foolish and stupid not to finish. And I'm thinking I've been far too foolish in my life so far and made too many mistakes to knowingly make another one. I'd really rather not throw one more log of foolishness onto the fire thanks very much. But it's so hard to want to go back, to see a need to go back when I really don't feel like I have any career goals. I don't know what I want to do with my life, I can't even decide on a minor. (At least I've finally picked a major I'm at least kind of excited about graduating with, and THAT's progress for me, let me tell ya). It's just soo frustrating sometimes! And at the same time I know that in all liklihood it doesn't really matter what I decide to minor in, what matters is that I finish and get a degree (any degree!), and get out. Move on with my life. I'll worry about a career and internship and all that when I have to.
Plus, this is the first year I've been able to get financial aid and I would be stupid, STOO-PID not to go back now. That makes it sound like I'm complaining or ungrateful. I'm really not, I promise! I am sooo lucky and grateful that my tuition this semester will basically be paid for and that I don't have to take out any more loans. There were far more college students that needed financial help much worse that I ever did in previous years, but I am extremely grateful that I was able to receive financial aid for this semester since the whole reason I deferred last semester was financial. Getting this aid makes me want to decide on a career goal even more. I'll figure it out, it just might take a while. And that's ok, I gotta keep reminding myself of that.
So I know I'm scared to go back to school, so I've been trying to figure out ways to prepare myself, things I can do to make it easier for myself when I am back in college mode. What's that scripture again? "If ye are prepared ye shall not fear" This is why I need to read scriptures more, then I might actually find ways to make life easier for myself. Anyway, so I've been stressing out about taking this english class that I have signed up for twice now if previous semesters and ended up dropping it last minute because I am a wimp and the idea of writing a 10-15 page research paper totally freaks me out. Well, I signed up for it this semester because I just really need to get it over with and out of the way, and I need to break this pattern of signing up for it and psyching myself out and then dropping it.
So to keep an already long story from getting any longer unnecessarily, I am trying to teach myself how to speed read as well as trying to figure out a few good topic ideas for a research paper that I could actually write about. I just started practicing some speed reading today. It's proving to be more difficult that I thought. It's definitely not as easy as it sounds, or as easy as I thought. People always make it look so easy. My sister can read novels in 30 min to an hour. It takes me weeks to finish reading a novel. But anyway, I am excited to devote more time to this and even though I wasn't impressed with my practice today (and I'm not sure how much of what I read I actually understood or retained), I did increase my reading speed. And that's something to be proud of.
Plus, this is the first year I've been able to get financial aid and I would be stupid, STOO-PID not to go back now. That makes it sound like I'm complaining or ungrateful. I'm really not, I promise! I am sooo lucky and grateful that my tuition this semester will basically be paid for and that I don't have to take out any more loans. There were far more college students that needed financial help much worse that I ever did in previous years, but I am extremely grateful that I was able to receive financial aid for this semester since the whole reason I deferred last semester was financial. Getting this aid makes me want to decide on a career goal even more. I'll figure it out, it just might take a while. And that's ok, I gotta keep reminding myself of that.
So I know I'm scared to go back to school, so I've been trying to figure out ways to prepare myself, things I can do to make it easier for myself when I am back in college mode. What's that scripture again? "If ye are prepared ye shall not fear" This is why I need to read scriptures more, then I might actually find ways to make life easier for myself. Anyway, so I've been stressing out about taking this english class that I have signed up for twice now if previous semesters and ended up dropping it last minute because I am a wimp and the idea of writing a 10-15 page research paper totally freaks me out. Well, I signed up for it this semester because I just really need to get it over with and out of the way, and I need to break this pattern of signing up for it and psyching myself out and then dropping it.
So to keep an already long story from getting any longer unnecessarily, I am trying to teach myself how to speed read as well as trying to figure out a few good topic ideas for a research paper that I could actually write about. I just started practicing some speed reading today. It's proving to be more difficult that I thought. It's definitely not as easy as it sounds, or as easy as I thought. People always make it look so easy. My sister can read novels in 30 min to an hour. It takes me weeks to finish reading a novel. But anyway, I am excited to devote more time to this and even though I wasn't impressed with my practice today (and I'm not sure how much of what I read I actually understood or retained), I did increase my reading speed. And that's something to be proud of.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
The BBC's Big Read
I need something to blog about. Thanks to the BBC's Big Read
1) Bold those you have read.
2) Star the ones you loved.*
3) Italicize those you plan on reading.
4) Underline those you have partially read (series) or gave the OCT (Old College Try)
1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee*
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger (pretty sure I have read this, though I couldn't tell you much about it)
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen*
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis*
37. Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White -Wilkie Collins (I REALLY want to read this one!)
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding - I hated this book with a passion
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens*
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
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
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert (A good friend of mine calls this book Madame Ovary)
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White*
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams (I'm pretty sure I've read this, but not 100% positive)
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Toole
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo (I really should read this book and I really want to)
Hey, I did better than I thought. I've read 16 of those. Pretty sad, but still, I'm just glad I made it over 10. Looks like I've got a lot of reading to do.
1) Bold those you have read.
2) Star the ones you loved.*
3) Italicize those you plan on reading.
4) Underline those you have partially read (series) or gave the OCT (Old College Try)
1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee*
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger (pretty sure I have read this, though I couldn't tell you much about it)
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen*
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis*
37. Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White -Wilkie Collins (I REALLY want to read this one!)
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding - I hated this book with a passion
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens*
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
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
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert (A good friend of mine calls this book Madame Ovary)
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White*
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams (I'm pretty sure I've read this, but not 100% positive)
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Toole
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo (I really should read this book and I really want to)
Hey, I did better than I thought. I've read 16 of those. Pretty sad, but still, I'm just glad I made it over 10. Looks like I've got a lot of reading to do.
My blog?
Well, I've been threatening to start a blog but haven't done it before now because
A) I have this deep-seeded belief that blogs are...(dare I say?) pointless
B) I never know what to write and
C) I didn't know what to call it
At any rate, looks like I've joined the ranks of the world of bloggers. I am officially freaked out now.
A) I have this deep-seeded belief that blogs are...(dare I say?) pointless
B) I never know what to write and
C) I didn't know what to call it
At any rate, looks like I've joined the ranks of the world of bloggers. I am officially freaked out now.
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