One Half Buddhist, One Half Christian, One Half Pagan

(Trying to get back in the habit of posting this every day.)

Body: I've been feeling pretty good lately.

Stress Level: 2

Book Review: The Briar King, The Charnel Prince, and The Blood Knight by Greg Keyes, the first three books in his The Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone quartet. Very good dark fantasy. Too much to try to summarize, so I'll just say it's a complicated story with interesting characters and good world building. Rating: 7 out of 10. Not loanable on the Kindle as of 1-13-11.

Reading: I started The Born Queen (book 4 of the series above) last night.

Hearing: The sound of my co-workers working.

Etsy Find: Beautiful Wool Coat. I don't need a new winter coat, and this one is on the expensive side, but oh is it ever pretty.

Tonight's Project: The usual Thursday night dinner with the gang. Around that I need to stop and pick up the last few odds'n'ends of stuff for Arisia, mix up some honey mustard to take, and do my packing. I also want to wind the yarn for the project I'm bringing into a ball, and if I have time cast on and stitch a row or two.

Randomness: So in addition to getting more exercise, I'm also trying to change the way I eat. For now, I'm just making a couple of small changes. 1) I'm using My Fitness Pal to track my calories consumed, and trying to stop when (or before) it tells me I've had enough. I've told it my goal is to lose half a pound a week, which seems achievable. 2) I'm trying to drink more water. The rule I'm using for now is that I need to consume as much water as soda. The way I'm doing it is that when I finish a soda I refill the container with water and drink that before I let myself buy another soda. At some point I may up that to 2:1.

Body: I'm really tired, even though I turned the lights out around 11:30. I kept waking up all night long. My lower back is bothering me and the pain gnomes have been having a busy day with their ice-picks and sledgehammers. Overall, not a good day.

Stress Level: 4 - I'm really having to fight the temptation to leave work early.

Book Review: I finished Kidnapped (Dover Juvenile Classics) last night. It was fun, but sort of a light-weight book. 7 out of 10

Hearing: So far just music. I'll probably switch to podcasts this afternoon.

Etsy Find: Tree of Life pendant made with moonstones. Very pretty.

Tonight's Project: Knitting: I'm 99% done with the scarf I'm making for purpura. I just need to bind off the last row and weave the yarn ends in. Once I've done that I'm going to start a scarf for Tom. I'm probably also going to play some Sims tonight.

Randomness: As far as impulse buys go, what can't you resist? Lately my downfalls have been fun socks and pretty yarn.

Body: I was on my feet a lot over the weekend, and they still hurt a little, but the new insoles seem to have kept the pain from creeping up past my ankles. My right knee hurts... about as much as usual. Also my right shoulder hurts enough that it's making me a little nauseous.

Stress Level: 1

Book Review: The Fox (Inda, Book 2) 7 out of 10. Just like the first book, it was good but not perfect. In my opinion, the biggest weakness to this book is that the back-story doesn't come out smoothly. I had the same problem with the first one.

Reading: I didn't start a new book after finishing The Fox. It was late, and I was tired.

Hearing: the BBC's World Book Club, Celtic Roots Radio

Project Follow-up: The errands got done on Saturday, and I made it to the Sheep & Wool festival on Sunday. I was mostly good, but there were a lot of pretty yarns that were hard to resist.

Tonight's Project: Picking up some bits and pieces for a Halloween costume, dishes, maybe some knitting.

Randomness: My newest accomplishment is a grasp on the very basics of makeup. I'm not good yet, but practice will make perfect. Unfortunately, it still takes me about a half an hour to put everything on. I don't have 30 minutes to spare in the mornings, so wearing makeup to work is going to have to wait until I get good enough that it takes less time. What's a new skill you've learned recently?

Body: I've been on the verge of a migraine for the last 24 hours, and my right hip is yelling at me every time I stand up.

Book Review: I finished Dead Men's Boots. It was pretty good (7 out of 10), and I have a feeling that if I'd read the earlier books first and known the backstory better I would give it a higher rating.

Reading: I went to sleep without starting a new book.

Hearing: Dan Carlin's show Common Sense; and a few other podcasts. I switched to music in the afternoon.

Etsy Find: Spaceship earrings! I think I need a pair of these to wear at SF cons. :)

Randomness: Recommend me reading material. LJs, other blogs, books, anything at all.

Body: Ow. Right knee is killing me, and it's affecting the whole leg. Also my right shoulder hurts a lot.

Book Review: Finished Harald. 7 out of 10. The story was good, but something about the writing style made it really hard to follow who was doing or saying what, and how long things were taking. One of the rare books I think would work better as an audiobook than it did in text format.

Reading: Free: The Future of a Radical Price

Hearing: I'm going for upbeat fun music today.

Randomness: As of last night, getting to Pennsic has become much more complicated. We're figuring out what we're going to do.

A Plague of Angels
by Sheri S. Tepper
Copyright 1993
ISBN: 0-553-09513-7

While I eventually enjoyed this story a great deal, it took a long time to get started.

The plot of this book is complicated enough that I don't think I can summarize it without giving away important parts, so I'm not going to try.

Tepper is a good storyteller, but as frequently happens in her novels, this story gets buried behind the message. Even though I agree with her ideas of environmental responsibility and women's rights I think she's sometimes irritatingly preachy. In A Plague of Angels, this tendency shows itself the most in the chapters set in Artemisia, a land of peace and plenty where men and women have broken out of the old patterns of sexuality and patriarchal rule and are therefore able to live as equals.

Overall, I'd say that A Plague of Angels is worth reading, but only buy it if you already know that you like Tepper's style.

Rating: 7 out of 10

I also updated my To Read List, adding several of Tepper's other books.

King Kong
It was...pretty good. Not great, but good. Like many of the movies Tom & I have seen lately, the individual parts were wonderful but they somehow didn't add up to a wonderful film.

Complements:
- The special effects and computer animations were amazing.
- The casting (especially Naomi Watts and Adrian Brody) was almost perfect.
- The writing was good.

Complaints:
- Jack Black didn't quite feel right in his role.
- The pacing was a little off, especially in the first third.
- The characters were very one dimensional. None of them seemed to grow or change in any significant way over the course of the film.

Rating: 7 out of 10.

Nightfall
by Isaac Asimov and Robert Silverberg
Copyright 1990

A novelization of Asimov's short story of the same name, this book tells the tale of a world that has no night and their once in 2049 years experience with Darkness.

The short story has been judged the best Science Fiction Short Story ever written, and the novel, mostly, lives up to that. While it loses some of the poetry, it gains fuller character development and a broader timeline.

Rating: 7 out of 10.