Memento Mori

6. The Pacific Crest Trail, William R Gray. 196pp
Typical National Geographic book: lots of pictures (which I loved), text fairly well-written but still a bit tedious to read all at once. After reading "A Walk in the Woods" I was interested in learning more about our own trail. We passed one of the access points thereto in our recent snow hunt, and both of us thought it would be fun later this year if possible to walk part of the trail.

7. Time of Wonder, Robert McCloskey. 62pp
I've never read this book despite having grown up with "Blueberries for Sal" and "One Morning in Maine" and a plethora of McCloskey's other books. I really enjoyed the different art in this one as well as seeing the familiar (albeit unidentified in the text) family of Mom and Dad and an older Sal and Jane.

8. Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things, Randy O Frost and Gail Steketee. 279pp
( Cut because I wax wordy )

9. The Full-Plate Diet, Stuart A Seale et al. 143pp.
This book is beautifully, cleanly laid out with eye-popping photography and quite good information about food and practical, accessible ideas of how to incorporate a plant-based diet into daily life.

Considering that it's supposed to be based on the Adventist health message, however, I was a little perturbed at the overall casual "meat and dairy is okay" attitude. They didn't promote the use of meat and dairy but neither did they really talk about good reasons to avoid it except for a very brief blurb at the end of the book. The basic premise is "eat more fibre" (which, in a plant-based diet, you will get a lot of), but it seemed a bit too simplistic. Or maybe I'm just sceptical.

10. Maine, Deborah Kent. 143pp
From the children's section. Not the most interesting book I've ever read. Had nice pictures.

11. Labour of Love, Cara Muhlhahn. 256pp
Ih. This was okay. The first half was really not much to do with midwifery at all. When she finally did get to talking about her work it was more interesting. Her attitude comes off as being really rather arrogant and proud of how wonderful she is, which was annoying, but she did have interesting things to say about her work and the current condition of industrialised maternity care. I thought it was ridiculous that she promoted the use of castor oil, though, and subscribed to the notion that if you have little to no morning sickness you're having a boy. Sure. Neither I nor my one friend had much nausea at all with our girls and Frances was much worse than me with Josiah.

There was a lot that rubbed me the wrong way, I guess.

12. Meet Josefina, Valerie Tripp. 85pp
I've never read the Josefina books and decided it was time. I just love the artwork and enjoyed the story as well. It's not hard to predict what's going to happen, of course, in future books. Hehe.

13. The Good Old Days - They Were Terrible!, Otto L Bettman. 197pp
This was an excellent peek into some of the realities of the Gilded Age: the dirt, the grime, pollution, crime, terrible education systems, blah blah blah. For me it provided a lot of context into why Ellen White was so adamant that the people of God move out of the cities, and why she stressed cleanliness and so forth. Very insightful and written with a humourous style that keeps it from being totally depressing. I also really enjoyed the period illustrations that he used that were caricatures of what the people were dealing with in those days.

14. Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer. 203pp
I've read "Into Thin Air" before, probably 10 or more years ago now, and it impressed me very deeply, so I thought I'd pick up another book by the same author and see how I liked it. Not at all what I was expecting, but interesting. I have a hard time sympathising with the man it's about in many ways. Although I can see a little why he didn't like his dad, I strongly believe nothing is able to be accomplished by hatred/anger in relationships and to just up and disappear seems like a cruel thing to do. It was a sad story for sure.

Year-to-date totals:
Page count for February: 1564
Total page count: 3437
Nonfiction: 11
Juvenile fiction: 2
Juvenile nonfiction: 1
Rereads: 1

Number of times Molly burned her mouth with electricity: 2
Number of pro wrasslers met: 1
Number of patterns transferred to 9x12 manila envelopes: 15

Let's start the year off right with a chipper Janeway, shall we?

We were very boring people and didn't do anything exciting last night. Dan kept Molly in the office with him while he worked late (he came to bed after midnight) so that I could get some sleep *before* midnight. That was nice. We were both up at midnight, though, because she was due for a feeding at 11.30 (and woke up right at the right time).

And then we both got up around 7. Molly has been a sleepyhead to end all sleepyheads today. This enabled me to go on a walk that was cut short because it wasn't raining when I left the house and started raining when I got three blocks from home. Which caused me to turn about and go home looking like a drowned rat. It was pretty awesome.

And I also finally get all the laundry put away (hers from days ago) and sort and tidy her drawer. I took out some too-small things, added some new things, and it's much nicer now.

And I took Molly for a second walk (this time equipped with an umbrella - and guess what, it rained not, neither did it pour) to RiteAid on a quest for white chocolate for the purposes of making Stevi's yummy wc/cranberry cookies. They had none. No chips. Nothing. Not even wc M&Ms. I found this unacceptable. Oh well. I don't have time to make them today anyway.

My neck=still killing me. Time for lunch now.

The office seems really huge now that the cot and the ironing board and the car seat box and scores of other things are no longer on the floor. I can deal with that. Dan cleaned out the coat closet downstairs and reorganised it. I think he's nesting.

Walking around is very painful today. Therefore... no luck finding stroller seat. I did get my lights on the stair railing. They look a tad ghetto with all the bare wires (can't find any ribbons in my stash that are either white or blue *and* long enough) but they make me happy.

Every few minutes I feel starving to death again and have to go eat something.

That has been my day. How is yours?

Dan is off to pick up Dixie from the airport and I'm sitting here freaking out because I still have so much to do before sundown. Blaaaaaaaaaaah.

I have the taco salad thing all made except I'm waiting for the beans to cool before adding them.

I can load up the dishwasher and save a little time.

I need to take out the garbage.

Technically I should also vacuum. I might cheat and just do the bathroom.

I think I need a s'more.

I'd like to know why the two lines I remember of Idaho's state song are randomly running through my head right now.

Srsly.

Who knows their state song, anyway? And Idaho's is hopelessly corny.

I mean, honestly.

***

Made up a batch of homemade laundry soap and cleaned out the fridge. It was really sticky and gross. Dan made pancake/tortilla type things for breakfast and we ate those with warm fruit sauce. I also had an ice-cold smoothie with my personal pharmacy mixed in.

I can tell the weather is changing because my old lady hands were stiff and achy this morning. I'm glad though. Sick of heat and the sun. I'm ready for a gloomy, rainy Oregon winter.

Hush.

Mr Baldwin is hungry. Better feed him.

beloved_tree, I got mail from you. :-) Thanks! I just love the postcard, too. I'm going to see if I have a frame to fit it.

Off to the midwife in about 15 minutes. Waiting for my apple cake to get done baking first, though. I had a bunch of apples left over from the last cake and they're too tart to just eat, so another cake was in order. Did a different recipe this time, and adapted it a bit and poured hemp seed in it as well. I had hemp seed on my oatmeal this morning. I was surprised how actually mild and delicious it is. Very nutty. Unlike flax seed, which just smells so terrible it's hard to get excited about eating it.

[/hemp seed commercial]

Not sure what else is on the plan for today, except I really hope I can finish cleaning the office. I think once the sewing closet is in order, it will stay that way for a while. I'm not really sewing for me right now (and probably won't be until next spring, much) and outside of perhaps some crochet projects and (maybe) gaining some knitting skills, I really just want to take a break. So many other things I need to do that are more pertinent.

I had something else to say. I've forgotten.

Well, despite the foot, I kept busy all yesterday. I rolled all my skeins of yarn into balls (that I have found so far, anyway). I started piles of embroidery-related, quilting-related, and interfacing-like stuff. The fabric is being sorted into flannels, suitings, cottons, home dec, and dressy (probably to be divided into further subcategories later). I've been finding books of needles all over the place, so they have been consolidated into my master needle book as I find them.

Nobody would be able to tell I've accomplished anything so far were they to step into the office, but I think I have... and I think it will be worth a day or two (or three) of mess. I'm hoping I can get it done today, though, because there's lots to do downstairs too. Like, today, laundry day.