There has been almost no reading of books this week, after my obsession with reading many books a week lately. Dear Diary, I was distracted. Distracted in the form of escaping cats, that ever-present pesky work, travel plans, wedding gifts, a complete inability to do laundry despite an alarmingly empty underwear drawer. But over all this clutter, the King Of Distraction is Ewan MacGregor.

Perhaps you saw the BBC documentary called Long Way Round from a few years ago, in which the charming Ewan and his goofy bumbling best friend Charlie spend three months driving their motorcycles from the UK to New York "the long way 'round" - through Asia, China, Mongolia, Russia (not necessarily in that order). Bikes break, border crossing are treacherous, they eat dubious food with natives that do not speak a shared language. Man and best friend get fed up with each other and their stinky socks and have spats. Ewan has a doofy Everyman best friend - awwww. That was my kind of documentary!

I have just discovered that they did a second trip! Long Way Down is the second documentary, this time of their trip from the top of Scotland to the tip of South Africa, through Europe, over the Mediterranean, through Egypt, Libya, the desert, Ethiopia (surprisingly green), and several other African countries. They visit Unicef landmine-removal projects, Bikes For Health, a charity Ewan contributes to which provides dirtbikes to use in getting healthcare and vaccines to remote locations, and are in danger which requires armed guards to travel with them in Sudan. Bikes break, sandstorms wreak havoc, we get to see inside Roman ruins and pyramids, baboons frolic. It is all, as Ewan would say - Fantastic, in that cute Scottish accent.

There are six episodes, each an hour long. Last night I watched three of them while giving myself a home pedicure. What a way to spend an (entire) evening.

I am about to embark on another episode or two, while Oregon Trail downloads. Today was our friend Chad's wedding, and Liam was able to call my cell and speak to the happy couple from Cuba. I even had wedding cake. Perfection on the first day of summer. :)

Almost time to pack up and head back to Madison. This week, as all client installations, has flown by in spurts of great productivity and slogs of head-numbing grunt work. Salt Lake is a lovely city to be in. It is clean and beautiful and the Mormons care greatly about the community. It is a pride of place city, surrounded by mountains (some snowcapped, some green) that remind me of The Sound Of Music. I did take some time yesterday to wander with my camera, so pictures soon to follow on flickr.

Apparently, the Mormons know the secret antidote to the song that gets stuck in your head. It is to sing Somewhere Over The Rainbow, which ends in such a sweet lonely wistful ending that it is impervious to cycling through your head again, and thus finishes the spin of the other song in your head. I tried it, and though Laura claims it was the placebo effect, it worked. So now you are co-holders of powerful knowledge.

I feel strangely detached. I am not overly worried about my fledgling client - I think they have a good handle on the new software and we made a lot of efficent improvements to the way they had been doing things, so I do not leave in a fit of mother hen worries like I usually do. I am lonely for my Liam, but he is not home waiting for me at the end of my rainbow, so that cold ache will continue to sit in my chest for a while. I finished the good books that I brought with me, and am reduced to reading the third book that I picked up at the Denver USO, and it is not really worth reading. Perhaps there is nothing quite as sad as reading a book that holds no joy in the reading. It's akin to your best friend not calling you back when you are lonely. Also, I am out of Diet Coke, alas, alack.

So back to a few more things to do for the client, then to bed and up for the morning red-eye flight. I hope all of you get to sleep in tomorrow morning, lovies.

I miss fandom. Gone are those lovely days in which I was embroiled in the tidal wave of obsession with pretty boys and devastating women, when I could sink my geek into the Lord Of the Rings movies and fiction. That make me start my LJ and it made it fun to browse my Friends page in every moment I could spare. I had online friends and inside jokes and was creatively writing and daydreaming.

Almost three years later, my life is drier. Yes, I am happily married and own a home, love my family, am owned by two cats. I dream less, desire less, plant and clean more. If I am obsessed with anything, it's my job... which grows increasingly corporate and unsatisfying. Okay, maybe quilting - though that is not a hobby that inspired people to sit up and take notice. Katie (the endlessly moving, relentlessly witty, constantly thinking trickle of long-legged sunshine that she is) just spent a week with me. We talked and played and created things and were social. Her stories of college made me nostalgic for my college days, when new people sprung into my life and I was happily puzzling out who they were, who I was, and how we tasted mixed together.

I know, everyone settles down eventually.. Even Angelina Jolie put away her knives, erased a few tattoos, and is hunkering down behind a wall of children. I'm just not sure that I like this turn of events. I think that I shall make a concerted effort to start wearing makeup everyday, like I have someone to impress. I will find new music online, dance more around the house, buy clothing in something other than charcoal grey and chocolate brown. Maybe my new short hairdo, that red sweater from Goodwill that Sharon likes, and the tattoo I got in New Orleans can be the start of my comeback. I am tumbling down the hill to 35 but maybe I can salvage some youth still. I really don't know how to do the 30-something thing yet. I'd like to figure it out so that I can become that funny, creative, artsy lady writer with the long braid of salt-n-pepper hair that I've been imagining for my future since I was seventeen. But how to polish my sparkle in a way that is not as tedious as counting points in Weight Watchers or paying $30,000 to go back to college and get a Master's degree?

I want to glow. Now, where's the magic outlet to plug into?


All day
Staring at the ceiling
Making friends with shadows on my wall
All night
Hearing voices telling me
That I should get some sleep
Because tomorrow might be good for something
Hold on
I'm feeling like I'm headed for a
Breakdown
I don't know why
I'm not crazy, I'm just a little unwell
I know, right now you can't tell
But stay awhile and maybe then you'll see
A different side of me
I'm not crazy, I'm just a little impaired
I know, right now you don't care
But soon enough you're gonna think of me
And how I used to be
Me

Liam just called from Cuba! From his soon-to-be-office. He says it is 95 degrees or hotter, sweaty, with lizards running around. He doesn't have phone or internet yet, but will hopefully in a week or so.

I just can't stop smiling.

I am obsessed. Obsessed with quilting. I don't know why exactly, that this craft is my sole expression of creativity right now. Perhaps it is the sentimentality of doing what I think of as Mom and Grandma's specialty. Perhaps I feel so out of control with Liam off on deployment and out of phone reach that I am offsetting that feeling of helplessness with the uber control of cutting apart fabric into little pieces and then lining them up and sewing them back in patterns. Perhaps it is just the eye candy inspiration of the quilting books I've taken out from the library lately (I highly recommend this one, this one, this one, and this one in particular).

I am at work, busy with work, and all I want to do is go home and quilt. Even if my corners don't always line up and i know I'll have to re-square all my pinwheel blocks, I still want to go home and joyously, imperfectly, create a quilt. Or, um, three. Which would be the number of quilts I am concurrently working on.

I don't have pictures of the works in progress yet, but here is a photo of the little stuffed dolly and her doll quilt that I made for Grace for Easter:

Liam left this morning for his deployment to Cuba. I stayed with him at the hotel until his 4am call, but chose not to trail him to the airport. One tearful goodbye is bad enough without another one in front of his superior officers, we figured. I came home and fell into bed again but the cats only let me sleep for two hours before making insistent noises that I get up. I dreamed that I lived in a house with acoustical tile ceilings and that Chloe (my tortoiseshell cat) had learned to leap up and "walk" across the ceiling by digging her claws into the soft tile. It was a big relief when I became conscious enough to realize it was only a dream! I am buying a water pistol today though so I can get them to leave me alone. I'm not sure if it spring or if it is just lighter earlier or what, but they are being unbearable in the mornings.

Liam and I have had a wonderful couple of weeks - in fact, a wonderful eight months since he got back from Basic/AIT in July last year. Mary's visit over Easter was good, and out impromptu trip to Myrtle Beach was silly fun. I cannot complain but it makes the house this morning even colder and emptier.

New photos are up on flickr: http://flickr.com/photos/gypsyjolie/
The last shots of Liam before he left, crafts, my new glasses

Off to make a shopping list for some retail therapy as well as to replace a few things that Liam took with him. I'm hoping it'll help chase the blues away.

Check out these ADORABLE vintage valentine scans from the 50's. :)

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/23516766@N04/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/23516766@N04/</a>

I wasn't feeling all that great about 2007 until I realized that I started 2008 off 23 pounds lighter than my highest weight in 2007. It may very well be the first year in my life that I weighed less one year than the last (with the possible exceptions of 1999 and 1990, thinking back). I feel great about that!

Also, I am so happy about my taking up "craft therapy" this year. I re-learned how to sew, I learned to crochet, and tried a bunch of other crafts as well. My best friends are part of a weekly craft night group, and they kept me relatively sane and happy through Liam being gone, as I know they will this year ahead - with Liam being deployed for an entire 12 months or more, the office closing so I have to transition to working at home alone, and whatever else rears its head in the coming months.

I invested twice as much this year into my 401K as last year, and I really didn't miss it from my paycheck. That's another good step in the right direction. I consolidated credit card debt into a payment program at 6% and paid a big chunk of that off. I finished my first year as a homeowner. Financially, this was a pretty good year for me.

Not that I made resolutions (that word is doomed), but  in 2008, I intend to:

- get more organized physically in the home (I need a craft supplies system, revamp kitchen storage, set up a home office)
- hang more wall art and get crown molding up in the living room and bathroom
- develop a gym habit that sticks
- get great at writing letters to Liam
- craft weekly or more often
- write more often in this blog
- use the breadmaker more often than once a month
- go completely vegetarian ? (I'm 70% there now, so I'd like to try it and see)

I'm happier, healthier, and more stable than I was in 2006. That's really the goal for 2008 as well. :)
Thanks to everyone that helped make that happen

Happy 2008, folks!

Lots of new pictures uploaded to my flickr account at http://flickr.com/photos/gypsyjolie for your perusal. Cats, crafts, Christmas, Wedding show, and snow. No, not the rest of New Orleans, but  maybe in two weeks when I get back from South Carolina. I will be in Myrtle Beach for a client conversion/installation from Jan 20th to the 25th. Liam and Mary are heading to Portland on Friday, and return Monday night. Poor fella will have an empty house for four nights! Be sure to check out the ADORABLE felt food that I made for Grace in the flickr account. I am so proud and a little bit addicted...

The Cold Of Doom is still hanging over my head, but I'm attacking it with everything I can think of hoping that it will be gone by next Sunday. Once the plague is gone and the work load slows down, I can get back to crafting. I am in crafting withdrawal! In the meantime, I've been working too much and watching movies from Blockbuster and the library with Liam. Some recent movies I liked were: 3:10 to Yuma, No Country For Old Men, Chinatown, Away From Her (sob!), Ocean's Thirteen, The Last King Of Scotland (Forest Whitaker is amazing), The Assassination Of Jessie James (bleak), BeforeThe Devil Knows You're Dead (bleaker), and Two For the Money (Al Pacino plays the flawed characters so charasmatically you root for him instead of the good guy).  We had a few stinkers in the bunch too, but that's the beauty of the free rentals from the public library. I've even read some books in HARD COPY, not just as an audiobook in the car. See? Every downside has its upside.

The first of the New Orleans honeymoon pictures are up on my flickr site:

http://flickr.com/photos/gypsyjolie/sets/72157603501121214/

They are basic ones - cottage, streetcars, French Quarter, and some Aquarium. There a lot of cemetery, zoo, more aquarium, cooking class, and other pictures to upload, which I'll add this week. Check back for the updates - or don't follow the link until the weekend. :)

We had such a great time! It's a wonderful, historic city with lots to do and even more to eat. I'd highly recommend a trip if you have not been there.

Since the honeymoon to New Orleans took a week out of my crafting timetable in my self-proclaimed All Handmade Christmas, I'm been running to catch up. Poor Liam has been a craft widower since we got home on Saturday night. However, I finished the last of the gifts last night in one big effort, and Liam wrapped them all. They are in a big gleaming pile that I just put in boxes, addressed, and taped up for shipping.

Then I realized that I didn't take pictures of any of them. Not a single one.

sigh.

I had links to tutorials and was going to post a big brag book  of pictures and links and show you all what I've been learning to do since October, but sadly, no. Rats!

These are the top 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing's users (as of today). As usual, bold what you have read, italicize those you started but couldn't finish, and strike through what you couldn't stand. Add an asterisk to those you've read more than once. Underline those on your to-read list. ( my list... )

To play this game, type "[your name] needs" into Google or any other search engine, and write down the first ten things that come up (or your ten favorites :) out of the results).

Holly needs...

1. Holly needs help in her Olympic efforts
(oh, this could pertain to work! Vancouver 2010, here I come!!)

2. Holly needs to go to obedience and learn how to walk nicely on a leash because she does a lot of "drifting" from side to side investigating things.
(This is alarmingly accurate.)

3. SWEET HOLLY NEEDS A HOME:-)
(don't we all?)

4. Holly Needs A Singer
(like I need a hole in my shoe)

5. holly needs to take a baths............she iz stinky ewwwwww
(hey! I showered last night!)

6. holly needs a pollinator
(that's one way to put it, I guess)

7. Holly needs some more details to fire up her own fantasies.
(no comment)

8. Holly needs colder winters, milder summers, more rainfall
(Then Holly needs to move to Seattle, obviously)

9. Holly needs to feel valued, very much
(That's the truth)

10. Holly needs a lesson in overcoming jealousy before she ruins all her friendships.

It's raining... again.

Carla came in from lunch and I remarked that it was clever of her to have brought a raincoat today, especially since the weather report hadn't predicted rain this morning. I wished aloud that I had thought to bring a raincoat. Then it occurred to me that I don't even own a raincoat. Raincoats are things that responsible adults would have. I am demonstrably not a responsible adult yet.

My mortgage didn't come with a raincoat.

In this article on NPR about reading habits,

"A National Endowment for the Arts report found that only 57 percent of Americans had read a book in 2002 a four percentage-point drop in a decade. Book sales have been flat in recent years and are expected to stay that way for the foreseeable future.

Among avid readers surveyed by the AP, the typical woman read nine books in a year, compared with only five for men. Women read more than men in all categories except for history and biography."

Book sales are down, but audiobooks sales are up (other articles say). And only an average of nine books per year? I guess I am a very lucky person that I get to read as much as I do. With audiobooks on CD and a CD player in the car, I just don't have the excuse not to listen at least one book at a time. Our excellent library system in Madison makes it so easy and cheap to get all the latest and best books. This is me, counting my blessings.

Happiness is...

craft night for the second night this week, and third night in nine days

losing weight, even if I don't get to eat enough cheese on my pasta

having the husband home to cuddle on the couch with

friends who are pleased that you called, even when you wake them up

finding the perfect pattern for the perfect present - and finishing it!

a sale on the item you've been watching for a present for two years

finishing Christmas gifts while you are sweating because it's still summer

watching your husband wash dishes of his own accord

a light summer thunderstorm that makes cool sleeping weather

unlimited audiobooks from a truly excellent library

wearing a pretty new skirt

high speed internet

fresh watermelon

kitty lap love

and a coupon for a free oil change!

*purrs*

I'm finally back at work after Monday and Tuesday off, and am taking a quick break from wading through emails. I sprained my neck two days ago during a particularly agile bit of middle of the night migraine vomiting and so I'm not moving as well as I normally do yet. Sadly, I also managed to puke on the cat, who scooted under the bed in shock and proceeded to CLEAN HERSELF as I cried in pain and frustration. I am the worst cat momma ever. I cannot really tell you how much that night has damaged my psyche.

On the other hand, yesterday I fixed a little kid's bike in the parking lot. He was
crying and so I looked down to see if he was hurt and needed help, and his training wheel had fallen off. I took a crescent wrench down there and fixed the wheel back on and he was so happy. :) That made it pretty darn good day after all.

Tomorrow is my mother-in-law's birthday and I did not get stuff out to her in the mail in time. Rats.

Well lords and ladies - Happy Monday. I've been happy since last Thursday when my WW weigh in told me that I have lost 10.2 pounds, nearly 9 of those while I was in Michigan eating five pieces of wedding cake! I know it's silly but I was so motivated to hear that since it was a surprise. I had no idea if I had lost or gained weight. Goes to show how disconnected from my body I am, I suppose.

I made dinner for some friends and the Dear Husband last night and we all ate well - on WW recipes. A zuchinni stuffing bake and a strawberry galette (which is a pie without a pie plate, sort of). And I stayed on plan :) The food part of this seems pretty easy - especially if I bring food with me to eat instead of getting pizza with friends or something. I refuse to let myself feel strange about bringing food or eating something other than what the people around me are eating. I just can't.

I'm avoiding LJ right now so I don't get any spoilers for Harry Potter 7. I'm only on the first CD of the audiobook and it's already making me happy. Woe for the days when there are no new HP books coming out! They have been such a pleasure in my life for years now.

Speaking of pleasure, valis2 is officially going to be my sister-in-law!! Wonderful, joyous news! Next spring is the big day, in the same backyard that DH and I got married. :) My baby brother Darryl has a new bride too, as of last Saturday. The wedding was lovely and frilly and I can't wait for pictures so I can brag. I really cannot believe that he is old enough to be married... as he is 11 years younger than me and I clearly remember walking him around and around the table during fussy nights. Bless them both, they seem very happy and not at all nervous.

What else? DH and I saw the latest Harry Potter movie - which is so condensed as to be nothing more than very pretty advertisement for The Order Of The Phoenix. However, there were Weasley boys and some good moments, and lot of great screentime for Jason Isaacs as Lucius Malfoy (my cat's namesake). We also watched Die Hard 4, which is best summer blockbuster I've watched since Independance Day (which I saw in the same theatre that I watched HP5 in, incidentally).

Oh, and I just found out that I'm going to be attending a 15 year high school class reunion in October. More motivation! and another trip home to see my lovely family and cinnamom's calf growing up.

This is a very good year.

New pictures up on flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/gypsyjolie/. Turtles, bees, wedding crafts, and a solitary rockstar. :)

I'm prepping for the big trip home for ten days for the wedding. I'm a little worried about being able to stick to my diet and exercise regimen, sad that I'm leaving the cats (in McCall's capable hands), and excited to see my husband. I even get to bring him home with me!!

I'm knee-deep in the new Goodreads website. It's a groovy way to list and review what you are reading, and to see what your friends are reading. I'm there under gypsyjolie@yahoo.com, if anyone wants to check out my bookshelves. It started as a way for me to track what I'm reading in 2007, but I've ended up adding a few more books that I had read previously and adored (or hated). It's a nice exercise anyway. Check it out - it's a fun site and they are making improvements constantly.

It's pouring down rain, and the sound is comforting. Plus, the rain forced the neighborhood kids to take a break in their back yard fireworks displays, so the cats can relax for a while. I've got crocheting and dishes to do, then off to my bed. I intend to sleep spread-eagled tonight and tomorrow - before I have to make room for the darling husband again. Five months of it being all mine is coming to a close, right at the hottest time of the year. How's that for timing?