booking through thursday

Another edition of Booking Through Thursday!

Suggested by Tammy:

What items have you ever used as a bookmark? What is the most unusual item you’ve ever used or seen used?

My bookmarks are pretty normal I guess. When I was little, I would ONLY use a bookmark.  Or I would just remember what page number I'd last read, and open to that page.  In college, I went through a phase for a long time wherein I didn't buy any bookmarks.  I would either fold corners down or use whatever scrap of paper I could find.  You know, the usual: index cards, post-its, fliers.  Mostly, though, since I went to a crap load of sporting events in college, I used game tickets as bookmarks.  I would occasionally fold corners, but it didn't often happen that I didn't have a scrap.


I have since begun to buy bookmarks as souvenirs when I go to really special places. I only have a couple right now - one from St. Louis, when I was there for the 2005 Final Four.  I bought it down in the dungeon of the arch, and it's a spiffy magnetic kind.  I also picked up a nice leather one from the Library of Congress in Washington DC when Brian and I visited there with a couple of friends.  We had barely any money at all, and the bookmark was $2.


In keeping with the ticket theme, I now keep tickets from special games or events and use them from time to time.  


Brian, the third generation librarian, has effectively broken me of the corner-folding habit...for the most part.  I will fold corners in certain books I know I'll use for reference.  I'd rather do that than have a million little scraps poking out and whatnot, but I will now go to almost any effort to find a bookmark alternative to corner folds.


(Incidentally, Brian won't fold corners but he WILL write in the margins.  I'm not sure what the difference is.  Maybe he will enlighten us with an explanatory comment.)


How about you?  Play along here.

Book Review: Summer at Tiffany

YOU GUYS.

I just read the greatest book.  It's called Summer at Tiffany.

Ok so maybe it's not the greatest book, but I sure enjoyed it.

It's the story of two college friends from Iowa who spend the summer of 1945 working at Tiffany.  Or, as people today might know it, Tiffany's or Tiffany & Co.

It's a fantastic true story about two college friends who move to New York City for the summer, planning to land a fabulous job at a large well-known store on 5th Avenue.  Things don't go exactly to plan, and their big job lead turns up nothing. So what do they do?  Hop back on the bus until they come to Tiffany. They march in and ask for jobs, right there on the spot. A few days later, they find themselves as the first women on the sales floor that Tiffany has ever hired. They work as pages - taking packages from the floors to the repair room, and from the repair room to the sales floors.  Set against the backdrop of the end of World War II, the story is a fun look at the Big Apple through the eyes of a good small-town girl and her friend.

So to all my friends out there who are really into charming stories and the cute life in general - see if your library has this book.

TBR Challenge

For the year 2010, I am signing up for the TBR challenge.  Here are the details, and my list will follow:

** Pick 12 books – one for each month of the year - that you’ve been wanting to read (that have been on your “To Be Read” list) for 6 months or longer, but haven’t gotten around to.

** OPTIONAL: Create a list of 12 “Alternates” (books you could substitute for your challenge books, given that a particular one doesn’t grab you at the time)

** Then, starting January 1, read one of these books from your list each month, ending December 31. )

By the end of the year you should’ve knocked 12 books off of your TBR list! (of course, if you’re anything like me, you’ll have added *at LEAST* 12 more to the ever-growing pile by then! LOL).

The good news is, though, that you’ll be making some progress! ;o)

Additional rules/guidelines for this challenge:

* the challenge is to read 12 TBR books in 12 months — you can read those all in one month if you want, or one a month, or however you wanna do it.
* you should have a list posted somewhere for others to see
* you CANNOT change your list after January 1st, of the current year!!!
* you can create an Alternates list of MAXIMUM 12 books, if you want, in order to have options to choose from (you can read these in place of books on your original list).
* audiobooks and e-books ARE allowed
* re-reads are NOT allowed, as they aren’t TRUE “TBRs”
* you CAN overlap with other challenges
* OPTIONAL: you can join the Yahoo! Group created for participants of the TBR Challenge, if you want to have a place to keep your list, or just to share with others about how you’re doing!

So, here's my list of 24 books - the 12 main and the 12 alternates:

1. blue like jazz

2. love as a way of life

3. how to speak dog

4. born to kvetch

5. the well-educated mind

6. why (by anne graham lotz)

7. a concise history of the russian revolution

8. cleopatra's daughter

9. the other end of the leash

10. the way of a pilgrim

11. between god and man 

12. slow is beautiful

and alternates:

1. metaphors we live by

2. the excellent wife

3. andrew carnegie

4. father melancholy's daughter

5. i isaac take thee rebekah

6. the unlikely disciple

7. the man who loved books too much

8. ellen foster

9. after dark

10. the life of lou gehrig

11. sink reflections

12. something by Bonhoeffer

Anything look interesting to you?  What would you put on your list?  Did I miss something good?

a post about snow

Holy white stuff, Batman!

As is to be suspected, it is snowing again here in Colorado.  Twice in 2 weeks!  My feeble southern snow-loving mind might explode.  Other pertinent details include: the forecast predicted that it would 'snow for two days.'

Did you see that?  SNOW for TWO DAYS!  Not like two hours, or two seconds like I'm used to seeing.

Eli has experienced a couple of snowfalls in his young life.  While it can't be determined whether he actually likes the stuff, he certainly tolerates it pretty well and he's been known to brave snowfall deeper than he is tall, which is pretty cute. He is not so much interested in temperatures in the teens, or lower.

Rory LOVES snow.  More specifically, she loves to eat it.  She does NOT love to potty on it, which has proven a challenge for me, the potty break enforcer.

All in all, we love snow.  Good thing, since we moved to the mountains, right?

This just in from a little while ago in basketball news

NCAA mens basketball referees call fewer fouls on the home team.

And they try to keep foul counts relatively even (though this is, in most cases, subconscious).

Read more here.

What the article doesn't mention is the well-known fact that ACC refs are firmly implanted in dook's pockets.  Who's gonna write THAT story?




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Eli non-update

It's 7pm. I was supposed to hear something between 6 and 630 and there's been no call.

I haven't quite decided how much to panic, but I've already cried and calmed down three times.  So...there's that.

I am so worried for my little buddy.



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Nerves for Eli

Hi guys.  I could use a little bit of support today.  Eli is going in for his first (and hopefully last) dental procedure today.  This will involve anesthesia, which makes me very very nervous.

I could use some warm thoughts and encouragement today.  Hopefully I'll have him home again by 4pm this afternoon.  And hopefully he'll still have all his teeth.  I'll post a report later today, if my nerves haven't defeated me by then.

Here's a little cuteness for you to focus on today:

Thanks.




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