LostSurprise
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Posts posted by LostSurprise
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We don't.
It used to bother me, being the daughter of an auditor, but dh either can't or won't use a log for checks and withdrawals so I just input everything later and keep a cash reserve for dh's payments. It works, and I get to see it on the page when I catalog money in and out when I do bills every 2 weeks. I don't bother to resolve it to the penny because we will never be completely caught up. I just budget, estimate, and deal with big bills myself.
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I learned to knit and crochet several times from my mother, but I seem to be particularly deficient when it comes to reproducing complex hand maneuvers so I always messed everything up or forgot what I needed to do. I have a hard time visualizing the work from multiple sides too.
Uninterrupted time and Youtube does wonders. One week my youngest was sick so I was stuck in one spot with not much to do. I spent a week just learning to cast on...no kidding. I would go back to the video after every trial.
I kind of think if I can learn to knit almost anyone else can, but I certainly understand that not everyone else wants to learn. It's been very good for me. It's kind of zen, really, and it gives me a feeling of accomplishment that I need right now.
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I'm knitting away, and finding it very soothing.
Most recently I finished a hat for my nephew. I used Elizabeth Zimmermann's pattern for a reversible hat ('a very warm hat' I think she calls it) and added a wave pattern from Tricksy Knitter. I should wash and block it (a challenge...I haven't bothered with that yet) and then mail it out.
This week I'll see if I can make this creepy facemask for my older DS...he's into creepy and he has a birthday in a few days. After that I'll throw together some Bofur Dwarven Mitts for my soon-to-be 12 year old (bday Friday..what a week).
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DH is a collector and completest by nature. He collects board games. He also collects "useful things" which are generally electronic and can be added together to make other things. He's interested in the Maker community so pretty much anything goes that he finds interesting.
I would say I'm not a collector but if I turn around once or twice I'll plainly see that I must collect books...all kinds.
One of my boys is also a collector at heart and used to keep weird piles of stuff in his room but has found in the last year or so that it's a lot less work if he doesn't collect anything (amen).
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Read McEwan's The Children's Act yesterday. Really spoilt for me by a rubbish last line. I guess he is too famous to have editors sending him back to rewrite. But sort of interesting up to that point.
McEwan is like that, I think. Amsterdam was like that for me. Beautiful writing and an ending that made me want to throw the book across the room. It made no sense. Atonement is suspect as well, although a lot of people like that kind of twist.
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Happy Birthday Mel!
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Olive Kitteridge: So true. Deals well with ageing too.
I finished the 3rd in the Finishing School series by Gail Carriger, Waistcoats & Weaponry. Quick, easy Supernatural Steampunk. This is her YA series set in her adult steampunk world (Souless, the Parasol Protectorate series), but the characters are now 16 so there's a lot more age-appropriate opposite sex curiosity, flirting, and accompanying drama. Despite a love triangle being one of my least favorite tropes, this remains sassy Victorian adventure with lots of fun lines and plenty of bustles, bladed fans, mechanimals, floating dirigibles, and tea.
Not sure where I'll land next, picking through these until something sticks:
1177BC (the first collapse of civilizations)
The Innovators (history of computer science)
Why Children Succeed (what it sounds like)
Knitting Around
Labyrinths (finally finish pile)
The Nine Tailors (finally finish pile)
Galatea 2.2 (philosophical speculative fiction about raising an AI on the great works of lit)
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52 Books Blog - Akutagawa Prize: In my meandering around Japan and checking out translated books, I stumbled upon the Japanese literary Award - the Akutagawa Prize which is currently sponsored by the Society for Promotion of Japanese Literature. modern young authors who deal with more current events.
Right on time for me. :) Finished my Tanizaki Junichiro novel (from the '20s I think, although he was writing plays and novels in the teens). Pre-Akutagawa, but I didn't see The Makioka Sisters in there (which was published during WWII under difficult circumstances since MS seems slightly critical of the Sino-Chinese war and societal changes that led to WWII...it was censored by the military government).
Somerset Maugham's semi-autobiographical novel Of Human Bondage.I was so torn about that novel when I read it. I almost stopped reading it several times because the narrator did so many stupid things, but in the end I appreciated that he seemed to be on a journey. Sometimes he learned something, sometimes he didn't, but there was a sense of realness about it.
It's also in an interesting philosophical line between the sense of fate/society/urban spaces in Hardy's Jude the Obscure and the pre-WWI Fabian dream of the country that Maugham has in OHB.
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See...to me that's bad design. I live in the far North, but landscaping and passive home design can help a home keep heat or cool in. I feel for people that are cold. I believe you can be cold almost anywhere, but pointing at housing is frustrating because that's choosing cheap design and lax housing code over letting people be prepared for the full range of weather their climate holds for them. We all have outliers sometime. We'll probably seeing more weather outliers (or what are outliers to us now) in the future. Code should include the full range of temperature.
~Tam @ -2 and a wind chill advisory of -25/30, on her soapbox but not critiquing any shivering souls in this thread, just a frustration with design and housing code.
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Happy Birthday Rosie!
Excited about the Ishiguro novel. I picked Never Let Me Go off a shelf the other day and started reading in the 2nd half (which I kind of buzzed through the first time because I knew the twist) and I realized the book is not as much about cloning and ethics as much as it's about mortality and how one of the definitions of being human is being mortal. It's something we all face which should bring us together, but it rarely does. It was like a mini epiphany and I was so thankful I just pulled it off the shelf for 15 minutes that day. A reason to re-read things, I guess.
Finished my '50s culinary letters and my Japanese obsessive relationship book and moving on to Waistcoats & Weaponry, the 3rd in the Gail Carriger Finishing School series. It came in yesterday so I tossed everything else in a corner.
The boys are heading out to some gaming conference (video, RPG, board) this weekend so little guy and I will be alone. I'm going to knit, watch the series Engineering an Empire (90% classical history, 10% engineering), and read fluff. :laugh:
1. As Always, Julia: the Letters of Julia Child and Avis DeVoto~non-fiction, letters, '50s, food.
2. Naomi: a Novel by Tanizaki Junichiro~fiction, Japanese lit, obsessive relationship, East/West symbolism.
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Not that I've seen. Conditioner softens but it weighs down. The best natural lift comes from regular washing following your body's time table (oil weighs it down too) and either blow drying or air drying it in such a way that it gives it a slight lift. You can extend that lift with products (gel, etc.) at the scalp.
The joys of fine hair.
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My thought was not so much to debate but to point out that not all of these would be something you'd necessarily have a kid enjoy--which was why I qualified my own answers with information about prevalence of sex and drugs in the content, knowing that they wouldn't be on many people's homeschool lists for that reason.
Is this a kid's list though? The OP was kinda vague. YA is such a huge market now, I'm not sure high schools will use many modern "adult" books...at least not the complex ones. The only complex adult stuff is going to be grandfathered in with Shakespeare.
The Book Thief and Divergent...already in public schools. It's interesting how modern the local middle school choices are...but all solidly YA. I suppose it's easier than it was trying to get Beloved (Toni Morrison) in without a fight.
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I thought Anderson's The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing was an amazingly pulled-off idea. I have Feed on-shelf and haven't gotten to it yet.
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Anyone have books with female protagonists based on these books?
Cloud Atlas is pretty equally male/female protagonist, Never Let Me Go has a female narrator, and The Immortal Life... is about a real woman.
Can we each vote on one book that we think is slavishly over-rated? This one is mine.I hate to yuck someone's yum on a thread like this. Without more information it's all about opinion. If it's only about opinion, it can sound like an attack if we issuing point blank dis-agreeals. There are plenty of books I consider pop literature mentioned in this thread but since it's a list, not a debate, I let them go by. We each are entitled to our own opinion.
As a matter of discussion, IMO McCarthy is a masterful writer who will be long remembered and The Road is probably his most emotional and accessible book. Definitely not my favorite, but he gets the kudos for it because lots of people don't want to read Blood Meridian. Kind of like when Al Pacino wins Best Actor for Scent of a Woman or Martin Scorcese wins for The Departed. We all know it's less about the vehicle (which is fine) and more about the pile of good work that hasn't been honored.
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We're in central WI, although dh has an aunt in Kansas City we were talking about visiting over the Christmas holidays. We just never got around to it. ;)
Looking for players?
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No Country for Old Men
Cloud Atlas
Never Let Me Go
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lack
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I finished a few things over Christmas...some rainbow fingerless mitts that I could never get the right size (frogged), this cute pouch from the Beginner's Knit Along, some practice Mary Jane slippers which I will make in a more luxurious yarn for MIL later, and a boring shawl.
I started a hat for nephew. It's reversible and I found a fun wave pattern for it on Tricksy Knitter. They have some cool tools for patterning. I'm trying to use yarn I have for this but it never seems to work together perfectly.
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Hanabi is very interesting with the right group, Kareni! The last time we played it here it got very creative...and funny. Simple concept, harder delivery. Some people really rise to the occasion.
We own Rampage but I've never played it (dh played it with the boys some night I was gone). It looks fun! DH should pull it out again some day.
Have you found a good group for Concept? That one seems hit or miss but I love the idea.
I haven't heard of Neptune or 1989. I'd be interested in hearing more about them.
In the Amazon sale we got:
Timeline (mostly as gifts)~I talked about this in an earlier thread
Splendor
Takenoko~talked about this in an earlier thread
I forgot dh also got:
Among the Stars
Go Goblin Go!
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I only received 1 game this year (Expedition: Explorers), so I think dh got the message that it was a little bit overboard last year. We haven't played it yet (I'm still trying to understand the directions from Elequentia de Vulgare (yes, I know the Latin spelling is atrocious).
DH got a few games this year though, and we have a few new ones from the big Amazon pre-Christmas sale. I'll try to cover just a few at a time. Christmas break was a good one and we got a few games in and laid around reading directions (him) and knitting (me) while watching movies.
I bought dh La Isla, a medium-light game from Stephan Feld (Castles of Burgundy), where players are scientists studying extinct species found on an island. You use cards each round to gain resources, surround creatures to study them, and increase your "knowledge" (really a knowledge track increased by cards or surrounding an animal for study) of different animals. The extinct creatures run from the well-known (the dodo) to the much less well-known (the Owlet Moth which dh calls "the mosquito"). Probably more European-focused animals. More than one person here wished for the Passenger Pigeon.
Each round you receive 3 cards. Each card has 3 aspects (special ability, resources, knowledge track) and you decide where to play each card in your round. Resources are spent to place scientists in the field. You try to maximize your placement and abilities to study multiple creatures.
Final Thoughts: I don't love it as much as Castles of Burgundy (which is more of a tile-layer like Carcassone mixed with a building game), but I did like this game. The theme is great. It's strategic without throwing you into one of Feld's super-complex fiddly games (Bora Bora). The more players you have the more chaotic it can be. People can get there first, but allows more than one person to occupy a space so it doesn't feel vindictive.
The other game dh got was Safranito. He and ds14 played it at the Gaming Hoopla last fall. Safranito is a dexterity game where you buy and sell spices (cardamom, cumin, garlic, chiles, ginger, saffron, mint, cinnamon, and curry...which is weird because it's already a spice mix) to create Indian-style spice mixes. Players pitch discs with bids on them (10-60) onto bowls of spice and can either buy or sell spices depending on what bids are in each bowl. Collected spices can be turned in for spice mix cards. The person with the first 3 cards wins.
A very simple game to learn, but the dexterity element can be difficult. The board is really well-made, one of the better cardboard dexterity boards I've seen. It has nice t-pins on the side (instead of folding) which helps with the warping other boards do. The board also has a higher edge which keeps most (not crazily pitched) tosses on the board and adds an element of bounce back. The art on the chips is beautiful too and they are nice and solid with a hole in the middle (like Hong Kong currency) which you use to see if the chip is out or in the bowl (as long as you can see the bowl or edge in the hole the chip is in).
Over Christmas we had a fun time leaving the board out for the kids to play with the dexterity element. They didn't really want to strategize, but they loved tossing discs and collecting spices.
Note: The pictures used are from boardgamegeek and all have either open rights or creative commons sharing rights. La Isla pics are from Jacky Pohl on Boardgamegeek.
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I've been meaning to start one, especially with all the Christmas gaming and gifting.
http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/538391-i-just-played2015-edition/
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Happy New Year of Gaming!
Did you get anything interesting for Christmas? Did you play with friends and family?
Here is a space to talk about the games you've played (or received).
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Too much here for me to take in, let alone comment.
AggieAmy: I've played Concept. That's the one that's kind of like charades but with a board and you break the phrase down into main and secondary concepts? I left a review in the Gaming Social Group but the librarian in me is fascinated with the idea of it.
I'm finishing up Julia Child and Avis DeVoto's letters and I find I like Avis more. She's fun to read...down to earth and just a little witty. Julia was probably trying too hard at the beginning of the relationship, and then she can be given to impulsiveness and 'letting people have it.' The politics is killing me. I hate carte blanche statements about entire groups, but with McCarthy (both women were adamant Democrats) at his height I'm not very surprised. An interesting look at the 'intellectual set' in the '50s. The circles must have been very small because it feels like everyone knows or knows of everyone else. I think the impact Avis had on Mastering the Art of French Cooking in terms of unofficial editing, discussion, and getting it published was immense. I don't think they would have pulled it off without her publishing connections, and Julia needed a friend and confidant who could understand her obsession.
My current Tanizaki (Naomi) is one of his older ones. I didn't think I'd like it. I assumed it would fall on the Diary of a Mad Old Man end of his repetoire. They even have a quote from Updike calling it 'sexy' (a pox on that man calling anything sexy, his sex-related stuff is awful). Anyway, it is another obsession story, but this one is with a young man (30 or so) who is obsessed with Western culture and forms a "Daddy Long Legs" relationship with a teen girl from the wrong side of the tracks so he can raise her to be the perfect Western-flavored wife. They end up raising each other really, and forming an unhealthy relationship in the process. While I don't adore this as I did his The Makioka Sisters, it's turning out to have enough depth for me to have some compassion on the idiot narrator and feel that reactions of the two characters are the realistic consequences of this kind of relationship and what it says about the people involved (something Lucy Maud Montgomery and Jean Webster never do).
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My Antonia?
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If you were a kid or teen in the '80s Ready Player One is nostalgic dystopia which manages to not be depressing.
Not already mentioned:
We
Anthem
A Canticle for Liebowitz
Alas, Babylon
most things by Philip K Dick (a book of his short stories is interesting but he did tons of things..."Minority Report," Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? many others)
Never Let Me Go
The Road
The Diamond Age
Cloud Atlas
Alas, Babylon and Anthem are the easiest reads of the group. My favorite is The Diamond Age but it's a bit more of a commitment. There's a lot of YA dystopia right now but I think others have it pretty well covered...maybe City of Ember, Maze Runner, Feed, The Host, Ender's Game haven't been mentioned.
S/O: Dishwasher loading
in The Chat Board
Posted
I have my ways...and I do put sized spoons together. I put them in different corners and rarely have a problem. Having the silverware in each square the same saves a lot of time.
Since each dishwasher is different isn't half the fun figuring out the most efficient way for your dishwasher? That makes loading the first 100x almost fun. ;)