KiwiRia

Thankfully today isn't a Tycho Brahe day at all :-) I've slept well, Lars pointed out to me that it's very probable that I simply left the book at the library, and it got put back on the shelf without getting checked in, and in just one hour I leave to meet scheibye to plan our 10 year high school reunion! :-)

I'm one of the few people where high school really were some of the best years of my life, so I can't wait to see everybody again. We've got the date sorted, now we just need to figure out where to meet and what to do.... details, schmetails ;) No matter what, I know we're gonna have a blast.

Tomorrow we're celebrating Lars' birthday by having our families over. Don't get me wrong, I am looking forward to it, but there's just so much that needs to be done before then, that I get stressed out just thinking about it :-S Fortunately Mum offered to come by a bit earlier to help me put the finishing touches on the layer cake, but I still have to get it started, bake sweet-rolls, do the rest of the dishes, tidy up the living room (no, I never got that done yesterday - I DID do some dishes and fold laundry, so it wasn't all lost ;) ) and get Lars to do the cleaning. Phew!

I love having people over - I hate all the preparation that goes before it. That's one of the reasons why I so enjoy having Henni over - she's no longer a 'guest', so I don't have to worry about the place looking nice before she comes :-) My in-laws on the other hand... still feel a need to "impress" there, as silly as that is.

Ah well, we'll get it done - we always do - and it'll be fun! :-D

I'm bored, have 120 books standing around waiting to be read, and have NO clue what to tackle next...

Poll #1427418 Reading, reading, reading
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

Oh gentle readers, which book should I read next?

None of those, you dim-wit! You should read....

1) Lars' alarm clock rang at 4:30am as he had a morning shift. My thoughts ran away with me, leaving me unable to go back to sleep properly afterwards, leaving me with 5 hours effective sleep.

2) As I was packing my bag to go to work, I discovered that not only could I not find the book I'd gotten out of the library last week, I had no recollection at ALL of bringing it home. A frantic search did not bring it to light, but almost made me late for work - go figure.

3) Work went well - thank the Lord.

4) Upon coming home after shopping for Lars' birthday party Saturday I discovered that I'd forgotten some of the more important things I needed to get, and out of the things I DID buy, I'd forgotten that I wanted to leave some of it for Saturday... so now I have to figure out how to keep fresh strawberries fresh until Saturday.

5) Now I REALLY just want to curl up with a good book or a chick-flick (I'm home alone tonight), but I still have to fold the laundry, make dinner, do the dishes and tidy up the living room, so Lars can do the cleaning tomorrow.

Feeling sorry for myself? Yeah, I do believe I got that covered.

I know I've posted The Mom Song before, but just in case you missed it, here it is again:

And today I also found the Kid Song! Same tune, same idea - different words. Hilarious!

Okay, I KNOW I'm a geek, but this made me laugh way harder than it should have.

I dedicate this post to moredetails who inspired me to get my A in G :-D

Before	After

Please excuse my extremely tired look. These were taken way too early in the morning.

It's the month of rereads! 8 rereads out of 18 books.
( 17 books under the cut )
Books total: 102
New books: 80
Non-fiction: 13
Pages total: 28.822

Book of the month: The Sweetgum Ladies Knit for Love. A very sweet and cozy book. It's closely followed by Dronningeofret though.
Biggest disappointment: Deadly Angel. I had expected so much more of it, but had to force myself to finish as I was reviewing it for Armchair Interviews.

Currently reading:
The Power of the Praying Wife by Stormie Omartian
Homegrown: the Terror Within by Haasnic Cialan
Strange Angels by Lili St. Crow

Books I've read:
The Yada Yada Prayer Group Gets Caught - Neta Jackson
Deadly Angel - Fred Rosen
Emissary, Part One - Fiona McIntosh (translated into 2 parts in Danish)
The Last of the Wilds, Part One - Trudi Canavan (translated into 2 parts in Danish)
The Last Unicorn - Peter Beagle

Currently reading:
Homegrown: The Terror Within - Haasnic Cialan (for Armchair Interviews)
Strange Angel - Lili St. Crow (for Tellerup)
The Power of a Praying Wife - Stormie Omartian (for christianreader)

Next in line:
The Yada Yada Prayer Group Gets Rolling - Neta Jackson
The House of Mirth - Edith Wharton

And a Top 10 meme, stolen from rachet
( The 10 to 1 Meme (no list is in any actual order) )

I've discovered...

... that going "sight-seeing" with Lars along the Danish rails is lots of fun... and a bit geek'ish :)

... that going for a 3km walk in the sun makes me really, really sleepy!

... that reading isn't as much fun when it's a boring book that you have to read (don't bother reading "Deadly Angel" by Fred Rosen, and "The Last Unicorn" isn't nearly as good as I'd expected).

... that on the first visit back at my own church after a couple of Sundays at the Pentecost church, it's really hard not to "talk back" to the pastor and feels weird to sit down and sing.

... that it feels great to overhear Lars' brother explain to his FIL, "Yeah, Maria and Carina became really good friends while Lars and I lived together. We both like to sleep in, and they both get up early, so they spent the mornings chatting."

... that I kinda miss those mornings. And feel kinda 'honoured' that Carina does too.

... that one of my class mates from Std. 4 at Winchester School whom I've seen neither hide nor hair off since 1990 may have a Facebook accout. At least somebody with his name commented on a status update from another guy from that class. I wonder if he even remembers me!

... that I have another three dreamwidth codes - comment if you want one :)

Lars came to bed rather late last night (no news there - he's DEFINITELY a B person... if not a C person!), and as he did told me, "The breaking news were actually news tonight - Michael Jackson died today."

WHAT???

I surprised myself by the shock and grief I felt upon hearing those news. I've never really been terribly interested in the private lives of stars, nor terribly affected when they died. I thought it was sad and tragic when Heath Ledger died, because he was so young, but I didn't feel the same stab of pain that I did here. And I'm not sure why. It's not even that I'm a great fan of Michael Jackson. His music is okay, but I don't actually think I own a single CD with him (Lars might though).

Yet it would seem that I still have a bit of a soft spot for him. Or at least for the "him" of the past. He used to be quite cute-looking before he went overboard with all the plastic surgery, his music was some of the first popular music I discovered, and I had my first slow dance to one of his songs. He's done a number of crazy things in his life, but I've never believed the worst allegations against him.

I'm sad that life/stardom got to him, and pulled him down so far. I'm sorry he died before he had a chance to prove that he wasn't too far gone. On the other hand he has appeared a very, very sick man these last years - both physically and mentally - so perhaps he was too far gone, and death was a release to him after all.

RIP Michael - you'll be missed.

His current facebook status:

Claus thinks Antarctica is cool.

Some older status updates:

Claus ponders the reality of complex numbers and the complexity of real numbers.

Claus will not change his mind. I'm quite happy with the mind I have, thank you very much.

Claus wonders if R2D2 can get H1N1.

Claus is roughly equivalent.

Claus believes that because of the financial crisis the meaning of life, the universe, and everything is now only 41.

Claus is invisible. If you see him, it's a hallucination.

I LOVE my dad's sense of humour!

What Are You Reading on Mondays? is a new weekly event hosted by J.Kaye's Book Blog. You list the books completed the past week, the books you're currently reading, and the books you want to finish in the coming week. I guess it's a way of keeping yourself accountable?? For me, it's just an excuse to talk about books more often than I already do! ;-)

Books I've read:
The Yada Yada Prayer Group Gets Tough - Neta Jackson
Libri di Luca (The Library of Shadows - Mikkel Birkegaard
The Jungle Book - Rudyard Kipling

Currently reading:
Deadly Angel - Fred Rosen (unfortunately really, really boring. I have to read this to review for Armchair Interviews, but am not quite sure I can make myself finish it)
Last of the Wilds - Trudi Canavan (like it so far - still not as good as "The Black Magician" series though)
The Last Unicorn - Peter Beagle (for mythical_truth)
The Power of a Praying Wife - Stormie Omartian (for christianreader)

Next in line:
Homegrown: The Terror Within - Cialan Haasnic (also for Armchair Interviews)
Emissary - Fiona McIntosh
The Yada Yada Prayer Group Gets Caught - Neta Jackson

Showing off my new icon, even though it has nothing to do with the rest of the post.

Yay! :-) I've had a really excellent weekend, so while I'm tired, it was definitely worth it :-D

Friday: Met up with Henni after work to go shoe shopping. To my great surprise I actually managed to find some shoes that both looked good on me and that were comfortable to wear. I HATE shopping for shoes, it always takes forever. Apparently my feet are odd sizes and adding that to the fact that I have to be very particular what I wear due to my bad ankle - there's very little left I can actually wear. Anyway, I was lucky and found some sandals I quite liked. Now I just hope they're suitable for adaption (I get a special sole put on all my shoes) - I'll know that tomorrow.

After shopping we took the train to Copenhagen where we met up with Mixi. I like that my sisters and friends get on well enough to want to hang out together :-) We went to a delicious Thai restaurant for dinner, and general craziness ensued.


Henni and I had actually planned to go to an open-air concert in Tivoli afterwards, but it had been raining on and off all day, so we decided it wasn't worth it, and ended up just sitting and talking at her place instead. Very cozy evening :-)

Saturday: Saturday was the annual NC summer party, and I had a blast! Probably the best yet actually. The people planning it had rented space at a rather exclusive beach club, and while it was too cold to actually go swimming, there were lots of other things to do, and we felt very VIP lounging in our beach chairs while drinking champagne and eating strawberries ;-) Unfortunately Lars didn't feel too good and had to leave early, but he insisted that I stayed, and I'm glad I did, because I had a great time :) I feel awful saying it, but perhaps I had a better time because I didn't have to think about entertaining Lars, but could just entertain myself? Whatever the case, it was great fun. I got to talk to a lot of my favourite colleagues, danced to my heart's content (I love dancing!) and was still able to sneak out, so I could make the last train home ;-)

Sunday: I skipped morning church and SLEPT IN! Much needed :-) Didn't feel like skipping church altogether though, so at 2pm I went down to put in my weekly (I first put 'weakly'... Freudian slip much?) training session at the gym, and then continued on to the afternoon service at the Pentecostal church. Great as always, so I'm glad I went :)

At the service they told us about a women's* conference coming up in August - "Transformation 2009. Expect great things FROM God - Dare to do great things FOR God." There are two speakers from Denmark, one from the US (Lisa Bevere) and one from Australia (Reuben Morgan from Hillsongs Church in Sydney). I'm really, really, really eager to go, but it's not all that much fun to go by myself when I don't know anybody, so I'm trying to convince my sisters, my mum, and the girls from bible study to go along with me. Thankfully Nina immediately replied that she'd love to come with me, but had to figure out what to do with the kids before she could commit herself entirely. I do hope she'll be able to get them sorted - it would be SO COOL to go with her :-D

*I just noticed - women is one word I insist on pronouncing the Kiwi way - [wo-men] instead of [we-men] :D

I LOVE it when a book loan is successful. Especially when the person didn't ask for the book specifically, but I "forced it" upon them. Happened with Nina and both Twilight and The Yada Yada Prayer Group, with Mum and The Yada Yada Prayer Group, with a colleague and Outlander and now with a girl from my cell group and The Yada Yada Prayer Group :-D

Yesterday I wrote that I'd loaned her the first three books Wednesday. Apparently she started reading them right away, because today her status on Facebook was "ADDICTED! I blame Maria E".

I replied, "Uhoh - what have I done now?"

Her answer, which just ticked in:
"GUESS!!!
Page I-VI: "Weird?"
Page 7-20: "Hmmm... Maybe Maria and I just don't have the same taste in books?" (Thankfully I'd warned her that it was slow to start)
From page 35: "(Husband's name), do I HAVE to eat dinner? Can I at least read while I eat?"
11:00pm: Finally finished the book. Lies in bed with her heart pounding and considers just skipping the 8 hours of sleep and moving right on to book 2.
7:30am: Stands in the shower and praises God at the top of her voice."

Love it! :)

This is why I loan out books :) Yes, I've lost a couple that way (so I only loan out books that are replaceable), but it's so worth it, when I make a good "match" :D

I have now found the upper length limit of an LJ entry! I went to update bogormen with a new review, and as I did so, also updated the index... only to receive "Error! The Client entry was too long."

o_O

:-O

For now I've split the book list into two posts. I'm not sure that's the best way to do it, but I can't figure out what else to do! Any ideas or suggestions? I'd love to hear what you think.

I've gotta say... I LOVE that I've written enough reviews to have maxed out an LJ entry! :-D

The great thing about writing reviews? Occasionally receiving e-mails from authors of the books I'm reviewing.

The embarrassing thing about writing reviews? Having one of my favourite authors fall over the absolutely least favourable review I've ever written of one of her books, and not the 8 other fawning ones.

Yes, that happened to me today. I received an e-mail from Neta Jackson and just about fell down from my chair in surprise and fangirl'ish-ness. Unfortunately it was as a reply to the first draft of my review of Where Do I Go? which wasn't exactly as good as I would have liked (which is why a second version was posted). Naturally THIS is the one she sees. Or comments on, anyway. I just HOPE she saw the other reviews as well, and merely decided to comment on this one only. I'd hate having one of my favourite authors think I wasn't too impressed by her books, when the truth is quite the contrary.

I've e-mailed her in reply - just hope she doesn't get too showered by e-mails to see it.

Now to find the nearest mouse hole and go hide...

I hate when I sit and read something and think, "Oh, after this I should go to such-and-such webpage"... only to forget before I finish reading!

... of course I remembered the minute I turned off the computer! ;)

( Cut for people who think talking hairstyles is REALLY boring ;) )

Eeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!

Yesterday when I came home from work a letter was lying waiting for me from a nearby hospital, informing me that on request from the orthopedic ward they'd booked me a time to get my leg x-rayed on August 3rd!!!!

Eeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!

It's actually happening! I have no clue what "it" is, but something's happening!!! I'm jumping around thrilled and apprehensive at the same time. What if nothing can be done? What if I get disappointed? On the other hand, what if medical science can give me an artificial ankle (after all artificial hips are quite common now)? Would I even want that? How far can we go? How far am I willing to go? Will it be worth it? Or will I just end up being told, "Sorry, your current state is the best we can do - you'll have to accept your leg will continue to deteriorate. Here's your cane."?

I have NO clue what to expect, but am thrilled that they're actually taking me seriously enough to start by giving me an x-ray, rather than (as I'd half-way expected) having me fight them tooth and claw to get on.

Now to leave it all in God's hands and keep patient until August 3rd.

The bad:
I'm currently 2 for 3 in forgetting to set my alarmclock this week. I am NOT impressed. Thankfully I didn't critically oversleep neither Monday or today. Today would have been especially awkward, as I'd promised to wake up Lars as well. Fortunately I only overslept by 4 minutes! So that hardly counts :-) But this BETTER not be signs of a continuing trend.

The good:
Yesterday I received a call from the Danish publisher I review books for. Apparently they really like my reviews, and want to put them to even better use! So in addition to receiving the books after they've been published, I will now also receive them before they go to print, so they can get my reviews out even earlier (this also means I'll now function as their "safety valve" if something went horribly wrong in the setting - missing pages etc.). According to the person I spoke to I'm their best reviewer :-D I have no idea what that's based on, or if he just said that to "butter me up", but it was still nice to hear :-) It's good news for me that they get so much use out of my reviews - the risks of me being out of a 'job' anytime soon are slim to none ;)

Instead of the ugly, another good:
Yesterday I received a message on facebook from a complete stranger: "Hi, I've found a USB-stick on (local train station). Your name is listed as the author to some of the files, is it yours?" I hadn't even noticed I'd lost mine yet, but yes, it was!! Fortunately he lived just 5 minutes away, so he came over with it after work. I'm so glad he found it (and relieved he found it before I noticed it was gone, so I didn't have time to miss it or be worried ;) ), and nice thinking to look up my name on facebook. It pays off to have such an unusual name! (Only one other person in Denmark by my name - and she's 10!).