Thankful for Women's Rights

Went to Bible study tonight, at which one of my friends offered up her thanks for women's rights being what they are for our lifetimes. (Amen to that.) This immediately made me think of what I'm reading right now: The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. A professor of mine recommended it, and so far I'm really enjoying it. It's crazy and intriguing...and totally different from the books I've been reading, which were...
Size 12 Is Not Fat by Meg Cabot--enjoyable but took a little bit to get into it; I think Cabot overdoes the unique features for her main character by restating them too often.
Maisie Dobbs (various): The names of the individual books aren't coming to me, but this series by Jacqueline Winspeare has a very unique tone and a strong sense of place and time.
Splitting Harriet and Perfecting Kate by Tamara Leigh: these are well-written Christian chic lit with a wonderful look at how women of faith live it every day.
I also read Reconstructing Natalie by Laura Jensen Walker about a woman of approximately my age who fights breast cancer and finds herself. I enjoyed it (and found out a few things I didn't know) but sometimes it was too obvious what was going to happen down the road.

painting

Of a different kind...normally I mean on a canvas, but this time I mean my kitchen walls! I bought a place a few months ago, and now for the first time I get to tackle projects like this (and choose my own colors!)

My mom came and helped with the living room over Thanksgiving, but the kitchen I slaved over myself. The color? Jekyll Club Veranda Blue. Sorry about the less-than-stellar pictures. The first picture is the after, the second picture is the before.

Christmas 10: Reduce REUSE Recycle

As promised, here are the Christmas "cards." I decided this year to do something different--and to make use of one of the many things I save and say "maybe I'll use that some day."

I printed my message and cut it apart, taped the pieces to a reproduction from a planner from college and cut it apart to make a puzzle. This one is from a planner of Norman Rockwell paintings, but some of the cards I sent out were from a museum in New York and some were flower photographs by Robert Mapplethorpe. I enjoyed picking out which image went to which friend or family member.

Lots of time, but definitely worth it. I hope everyone was entertained!

Christmas Cards Later

I intended to make my next post about my Christmas "cards" this year, but I haven't taken pictures yet (because this is somehow too difficult I guess) so for now...

I've been watching the most bizarre things recently. And when I say watching, I mean listening as I clean or pay bills or something. First there was a PBS special on choral music...who knew Minnesota is considered the premiere place for choral music? Then I caught Morgan Spurlock's documentary on the Simpsons (do you remember when that show was incredibly controversial? Anyway who knows Mr. L knows what I mean.) Oh, and I am quite embarrassed to admit catching about 10 minutes of a truly awful, trashy reality show with a conveyor belt (I'm trying to block that one out.) And I watched the first episode of American Idol, which wouldn't be odd for most people, but it is for me...I've never really gotten into it. I appreciate though that they showed more of the good singers and fewer of the crazies...some days I don't need to be reminded those people are out there.

I'm on season 3 of Battlestar Galactica now; wow, did they speed that thing up or what. The mini-reboot was great. I'll see if I like it now that they are back on Galatica.

Ah, and as a Minnesotan and a sports fan, I'm excited to see what happens with the Vikings this weekend. No, I don't always watch, but I'm always rooting for them anyway even when they are bad (down with naysayers!) unlike this year. And as a double bonus, I get to hang out with my sil T and her son A. Off is E--my guess is he's watching the game with the boys.

Late Nights

I'm a night person living in a daytime world. Or at least working a daytime job. Which means I have this pesky problem of staying up too late during vacations, which is why I'm typing this in the wee hours of the morning.

Anyway...

Keeping me busy these days is the television show Angel, which I'm thoroughly enjoying even though they can't ever let anything go well for more than 1/4 of an episode.

I'm also making my way through Battlestar Galactica. Great show; I hope I remember which disc to get when I go to the video store in the morning.

I also watched The Apartment today, which I thought was a pretty surprising premise for when the movie was made. And it came through my online subscription so I have no idea what possessed me to add it to my cue. It was very watchable though. Jack Lemmon in his younger years--still makes me think of Grumpy Old Men.

Also on the screen today was Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. These later books are definitely helped in my mind by greater distance from the books. When I watched movie 5 (I think it was that one...) I couldn't help but compare everything, but this time, since I barely remembered what was happening, I couldn't pick it apart. Good thing! (This also helped New Moon, which I saw a little while ago.)

Also, I discovered an author I like recently: Tamara Leigh writes some great Christian chic lit. And Jen introduced me to Maisie Dobbs awhile ago, and I started up the series again. The series feels very realistic to me, which most of the time is great and sometimes frustrates me because it doesn't have as many happy endings :)

And the project of the moment is Christmas cards...more on that next time.