My favourite topic

1) What is the most beautiful book you own?
2) In what way is it beautiful? Is it the illustrations, the binding, a combination of these, or something else?
3) How often do you look at it, browse through it, read it?

I have 3 books written by Lucy Maude Montgomery which were given by her to a friend of hers. They were all published in the early 1920's. The books came to me when I was in my teens from their previous owner (a relative of the lady who'd received the books from the author) who knew that I loved the Anne of Green Gables books. They are Anne of Green Gables - Magic for Marigold - The Story Girl. I cherish these books because of their age, because they were written by agrueably the most famous Canadian author of all, and because of the storys themselves. And now I live just ten minutes away from the small town where Lucy Maude Montgomery lived with her husband and sons during the years that he was pastor for the church - in Norval Ontario.

I have lots of other books that I love for various reasons but they are too numerous to mention. My collection of Folio books for a start. And my National Geographic books.

Reading: The Way the Crow Flies - by Ann Marie MacDonald

the week in review...

Monday: started reading "My Sister's Keeper". Wonderful book!! Quick read. Will probably finish it in two days. Worked part day.

Tuesday: Finished "My Sister's Keeper". Shocker at end of book. Nearly started crying on the bus (I was on my way home from work at the time). Do other people cry over the books that they read?? I was snickering the other week when I was reading "The Eyre Affair" on my way home on the bus. Oh well, it's a good way to get a seat to yourself on the bus.

Wednesday: Book club. It didn't get cancelled. Hurray!! We discused last month's book "Star of the Sea" a bit - those of us that had read it. Both of us. Some of the others plan to read the book eventually. It was a good one. About the famine in Ireland and a murder mystery too. Then we discused "My Sister's Keeper". It was interesting to hear the way that the men in the group (3) felt about it compared to the women's (4). It's about a girl of 13 who goes to court to stop her parents from using her as an organ donor for her older sister who has had cancer for many years. She was born specifically so her umbilical cord cells could be harvested to save her sister when she first got sick. It was cause for quite the debate around our group.

Thursday: Weather. Freaky weather. From this day and into Friday we went from rain and warmer temperatures to freezing rain and flash freezing. Thursday night we lost our power around 9:15 and had a pretty impressive thunderstorm. Friday morning the temperature started out at 6 degrees celcius and then dropped to -2 degrees in little over an hour. Shoveled the driveway after getting home from work while being rained on. Wanted to get it cleared before the freeze came and turned it all into a solid block of ice.

Friday: Nasty weather aside....After work went to the new super store that's opened here in Georgetown for groceries. Our regular Loblaws closed in the mall and they moved to this new monster further down the street. Wandered around the place for awhile just to get my bearings. Much bigger store of course. But not so they can stock more selections of foods. Just so they can start selling stuff like kids clothes, kitchen wares and house wares. Didn't impress us all that much. DH met me there and once we found the stuff that we needed we boogied out of there PDQ. It's going to take awhile to get use to the new lay out.

After finishing reading "My Sister's Keeper" I next read "Bitten" by Kelley Armstrong. Another writer from Ontario. She writes books about Werewolves, Witches and Vampires etc. Sort of romance but also adventure and very witty and sharp. She has a wicked sense of humour. I've read all five of her books now and I'm a big fan of hers.

Watched our recording of Lost last night too. The only tv show that I watch. Love it.

And now the weekend....

A quiet weekend at home...

On Friday it was back to the dentist for part two of root canal. Finishing of root canal and a filling over it. Now I have to go back to have a cap made and put on. That is if I can stand to have the tray and the goop that they use to make the impression of your tooth inserted into my mouth and held there for five minutes. It's sort of like having a blob of plastacine in your mouth. And I have this darn gagging reflex. Have trouble just brushing in that area. We're going to have a trial run first to see if I can handle this. If I don't have a cap put on the tooth it's possible that eventually the tooth could crack and that would not be good at all.

Finished reading The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende and it was very good. One of her earlier books. I've also read Daughter of Fortune by her.

I spent alot of time this weekend cross stitching a piece that I started last week. Its from an old issue of Cross Country Stitching (Oct 95). Three victorian style shops - antiques - quilts - apple cider. Nothing fancy, just something to ease me back into the craft once more after leaving it for a number of years. I'm stitching it on 28 count evenweave, using DMC threads as called for in the pattern. It has pretty colours and no fancy stitches, but lots of backstitching ... ugh!!

Visited my Mom today at the retirement home where she lives near us and we had lunch and chatted and I worked on my stitching and she knitted. She's making tiny hats for new born babies to be given to our local hospital.

I'm starting to read "My Sister's Keeper" by Jodi Picoult tomorrow. Its for the book club that I belong to which is set to meet this Wednesday. Opps! Should have started this sooner. Oh well. I'll just have to crack down and get it read by that time. Hopefully book club won't get cancelled at the last minute because no one can make it, which is what happened last month.

Gotta go give Phoebe some more dinner. Cheers.

Just dropping in...

I'm sitting here, with my cat Phoebe curled up tight against me on the table next to my computer keyboard. She'd prefer me to keep my arm wrapped around her so she can sleep with her head on my arm but that is awkward when I'm trying to type here.

Made it through the weekend without any major problems after the first part of the root canal. Developed a headache and a minor ache around the tooth in question on Saturday afternoon. Took a dose of tylanol 3's and spent the day quietly. Not much choice really since winter decided to return with a vengance after being AWOL pretty much since Christmas around here. Started snowing around 1:30 pm and kept going for the rest of the day. Quite pretty actually.

We have extra fun around here when we get lots of snow because our house has a metal roof. So when it snows, and the snow is heavy (in weight) as it was on Saturday, we get avalanches. LOUD avalanches. It starts out as an ominous rumbling that has both cats sitting up and taking notice. Then the rumbling gets louder and louder. If the snow falls onto the back deck it makes a tremendous THUD! Not so much noise when it hits the driveway. Sometimes the sound of the avalanche is so loud it can be heard by our neighbours across the street if they happen to be outside at the time. And we've been told that the kids across the street love to watch from their livingroom windows while our roof sheds it's load. The cats are not so impressed with it all though. They high tail it for cover when the rumbling starts.

Phoebe's moved to my lap now. Purring away. I've wrapped my housecoat around her.
We're nice and cozy warm.

Reading: The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende.

Home for the afternoon....for a price...

Good news: I've got the day off of work. I'm reading blogs, cross stitching and listening to my favourite radio talk show.

Bad news: I took the day off to have a root canal done at the dentist this morning.
First of around 5 appointments needed to fix the problem. Two for the root canal, one for the filling and a couple for the cap that's also needed. Ugh!! I'm your basic coward when it comes to this sort of thing. Shouldn't be since it was vertually painless and so far this afternoon I have no pain. Got a prescription for tylanol 3's just in case.

Last week I read "Child of the Morning" by Pauline Gedge. I've been wanting to read this book for years. It's Egyptian historical fiction. About the female Pharoh Hatchepsut (spelling?) It's a book that I've wanted to collect in hardcover - but since it came out originally in 1977 that's probably never going to happen. I broke down a few weeks ago and bought the book in paperback. What a facinating story.

Then I read "Bitten & Smitten" by Michelle Rowen. A vampire romance novel. Funny and cute. An enjoyable light read.

Both of the above writers are Canadian by the way.