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

Me (replenishing various bathrooms and other places): We only have 36 rolls of toilet paper left! We're almost OUT!*
Dan: We'll have to make a run to WinCo!
Me a la Worf: The toilet paper supply is in a crisis, Captain. I recommend beaming down an away team.
Dan: I'm going along.
Me: No, Captain, you're not supposed to go down.
Dan: I have to go, Number One.
Me: I have to go number two. That's why we need the toilet paper.

*We probably actually have more than that.

Well, the Inevitable Toothbrush Incident has occurred.

My toothbrush is light blue. Dan's toothbrush is mint green. And, I might add, the bristles are splayed out while mine remain daintily erect.

I pick up my toothbrush to brush after Dan gets done and behold my toothbrush is wet and his is dry.



In other news, (fluff)Book, now offering a "trick or treat" type hunt, seems bound and determined to eat the rest of my life away, so I heroically stopped at 10 treats and a corner spiderweb and am thinking about a variety of things I could be doing like cleaning more stuff out of the way or going to bed.

Cleaning more stuff out of the way seems more logical. No word still from Warren when he'll be arriving. However, I have made an executive decision that he will have the couch. There's just no way we can all live in peace and contentment if he, being a person who likes to sleep until ten, is in the office where Dan likes to start working by nine, and where I kind of like to have constant access myself.

Today's bread:


I wanted to try challah, but since it requires many eggs and I have no eggs, I opted for pseudo-challah that actually is nothing like it except for the fact that it is braided. Mine is rye. It tastes fairly decent. We are thinking the caraway is a tad old, however, and maybe fresh caraway would be a good investment.

We were going to go to Bi-Mart for a new ironing board cover tonight, but Dan's installation of DC Mentors' new shopping cart has taken a good five hours longer than he originally anticipated.

I have a potential customer as well. My great-aunt tells me she's been wanting a black dress for her concert performances. She was nice and specific about what she wanted (princess seams, sweetheart neckline, long skirt and sleeves), I found a pattern that's about perfect, and so now she says she'll think it over and let me know when and if she decides to go for it. I think if she does decide to do it, I'll do her muslin test for nothing.

Anyway.

Let's see if I can manage to clear a few things away.