Katie seems to be feeling a bit better. She slept through most of the day, and just got up a few minutes ago (right at the end of my and Sam’s date) feeling like she could eat something. Solid food, even! That’s progress. Since she didn’t have any antivirals, I don’t think this was really the flu. She should still be much sicker if it was. I’m not at all unhappy about that. Continue reading “Maybe It Isn’t the Flu”
Tag: library
I’m Allergic to Our Bedroom
More specifically (I hope), something in it. Not Sam, happily, but every time I go in there, I’m all stuffed up within a few minutes.
We keep that room closed and have a window a/c unit in there, because the house a/c just doesn’t keep up so well.1 I’m wondering if there’s something about the air not circulating to the rest of the house that’s causing dust to settle in there?
The cat is seldom allowed in the room at all, and we don’t have any other pets. There aren’t any plants in the room.
We haven’t been using the air cleaners, because I can only get their filters by mail-order and just didn’t get around to getting new ones. I guess I need to order them and see if that helps.
Bah.
In nicer news, the girl and I went to the nice library today. I had gone through my “to-read” shelf at Good Reads and requested a bunch of books. More of them than I expected came through all at one time, whereupon I learned that they allow a maximum of 75 books to be checked out at once. Whoops! I had to put two back.
I have plenty to read now, though!
1 We had to put a unit in Katie’s room, too–it really wasn’t factored in to the tonnage on the a/c unit when someone finished a former garage, and it doesn’t have enough ducts. Now we need one for the guest room.
Good Reads Migration Finished!
That was not painless at all. The import feature is tetchy, at best. I had to go through the entire list of 1300+ books and fix their “bookshelf” assignments, and add some that just didn’t import at all. I had over 1400 books in Now Reading, and I haven’t quite figured out why there are fewer books in Good Reads. Oh well. It’s pretty much done!
The dates I’d read books, my ratings, and my reviews did NOT transfer to Good Reads, which is highly annoying.
I was able to go through and update a bunch of books that I’ve read since NR stopped working, and use the to-read category to request books from the library. As a result, there are 33 books awaiting pickup now, and another 61 pending (mostly books that are really new or not yet available). That doesn’t include the inter-library loan items I requested.1
Sam and I had bonus gaming time tonight. He’s storing up brownie points before Dragon*Con. Katie, unfortunately, couldn’t sleep last night, then slept all day until about 11:30. Now she’s re-hydrating and getting some food now. I hope she can go back to sleep. She’s definitely having a fibro flare. 🙁
1 I’m so tickled that the library added a way to put in ILL requests online!
Books Books Books!
Yes, the girl and I managed a library run (to the GOOD library) on Friday. It took more time and energy than expected, of course, but we got a bunch of very good books.
I read My Big Fat Supernatural Honeymoon last night, with much giggling. The stories were a bit uneven (normal for an anthology), but worthwhile overall.
I especially liked “Heorot,” the Harry Dresden piece from Jim Butcher. I love the way he brings in mythology from so many different cultures.
Kelly Armstrong’s “Stalked” was fun, too. Her werewolves are just more wolfish than most, in my opinion.
P.N. Elrod’s “Her Mother’s Daughter” wasn’t bad at all. I’ve obviously missed some of her Jack Fleming novels, and I’m looking forward to catching up.
I want to find some of Marjorie M. Liu’s longer works, as “Where the Heart Lives” isn’t the first of her short stories that have impressed me. What’s even better is that WtHL is a total departure from the earlier stories I remember.
Bookcase Bedroom!
I suppose it could be called a Bookcase Tree, because of its iasic deisngn. It wouldn’t be the best choice of design for sleeping quarters for a claustrophone lke me, and procratinators wpuld find it even harder to quit reading and go to sleep. I would love to have this for a little one
Stairway to Heaven
Warning: The following photo may engender extreme reactions in bibliophiles. View with caution.
Continue reading “Stairway to Heaven”
Happy Car Day!
Well, that’s what it felt like. Poor Sam had to take time off from work, because it was Pain Doc Day. The pain doctor is off in the wilds of Cobb County, because that’s where we lived when I started seeing a pain doctor, and it’s darn near impossible to get a reference to a new one (much less trust that a new one will, in fact, keep writing prescriptions for the meds that actually work). Then we headed to Big Warehouse Store to get the RXs filled, and also hit the bank and the post office because they’re just so much fun! And then it was time to go see the friendly therapist lady.
Happily, we were able to game off and on during the day, which made the whole business far more pleasant than it would have been otherwise. And we picked up a great big bag of fat-lady clothes from a nice freecycler! Some of them are so cool the girl is eying them covetously, so I need to be sure they go to my room and don’t wander off to hers.
While we were gone, though, a sweet fairy girl washed our quilt and comforter! Sam put fresh sheets on the bed, so I’ll be crawling into a nice, clean bed next to a freshly-showered, cuddly man soon. That part of the day, I’m looking forward to!
Continue reading “Happy Car Day!”
Thing-a-Day 2
My creative time today was spent webmistressing. I tweaked some WordPress templates to work better, and moved more stuff over from my old site format to WordPress. It may not seem like much, but I always rewrite and update as I do that, so I figure it counts.
Sam and I had lots of fun in our game tonight. It’s a little weird to realize that someone is an avatar of a deity and that not only does he not know it, he’s nowhere near ready to realize it. Then there’s the whole issue of not letting that little fact slip at all, because an entire race of people is waiting for his return (and they really, really need him now, of course).
I really should go to the library tomorrow, but I don’t know if Sam will have time to drive me there. I have books to return and books on hold to pick up. I’d best go to bed now, to improve my chances of waking early enough to ask him.
I need to give Kioshi some extra scritchies, though, and I’m thinking about Jen and her family, who had to let go of their newest feline family member today—he had feline leukemia. I always think of our Andre and Tom-Tom whenever feleuk comes up. I’m glad Kioshi didn’t catch it from his parents, as our babies and theirs probably did. Please, vaccinate all of your pets! Even if you don’t ever plan for them to go outside!
It Was a Lovely Day
Please note: Yes, I am referring to today, the 12th, which is my birthday. Those close to me know that I generally hate my birthday, as it’s a reminder of multiple miscarriages and other nasty things happening around this time several years in a row.
Sam and Katie managed to make #41 very nice, though.
Sam and I went out Saturday evening to Barnes & Noble, but I just couldn’t make a decision. So many choices! We went over to OutWrite, too, which is always fun. I saw lots of adorable trinkets there, and plenty of interesting reading and listening material, but still couldn’t make a choice. I really liked this mug, and it felt great in my hand, but I couldn’t find out if it’s microwave safe. (My favorite coffee cup was broken recently, victim of my unreliable grip. Thank you, fibro/arthritis/CMP!) Have any of you tried a Quotable mug? How did it hold up?
Oh! On the way home, we started to drive past Krispy Kreme and Sam had a sudden need for donuts, so we popped in there to satisfy that. I’ve never done the drive-through there before, but things were really crowded in the store. The car line was long, too, but we had the advantage of privacy and good company while waiting in it.
We enjoyed being out, but I came home without having chosen anything but donut fillings. Sam threatened to pick for me if I didn’t make a choice on Sunday. I have a lot of trouble spending any money on myself, or asking for presents, and he thought that’s why I hadn’t chosen anything.
So we went out again on Sunday—leaving the house two days in a row is very unusual for me any more! I had finally decided on exactly what I wanted, and we tried to go get it, but found the place closed for Veteran’s Day. My man insisted on taking me to Borders and buying Kim Harrison’s A Few Demons More, promising that we’d also go to The Place again on Monday. Then he took me to Steak & Shake for dinner, because when I saw the sign I had a serious craving for their mushroom-swiss burger. (Don’t bother with the new Portobello mushroom burger, as you get far fewer mushrooms that way!)
Katie and I (she’s home from school, sick) had a very nice, low-key day Monday, and Sam and I set out again after he got home. This time, success!
I asked for something that probably seems odd to most people—a non-resident library card so I can access the best library system in Georgia, Gwinnett County Public Libraries. But I’d checked, and they have 95% of the books I’m really wanting to read, and past experience says they’ll continue to carry the fantasy and science fiction I love. They have a far better selection of everything than Dekalb, where we live. (Okay, Gwinnett has stopped carrying music CDs, because so many went missing. Big deal.)
I wanted the card instead of a few books, because this way I can read all of them! And, in fact, we came home with nine books that have all been on my wish list for some time, and two or three graphic novels for Sam.
Now I have a whole pile of new-to-me books, and A Few Demons More! They’re all way too tempting to a girl who still has homework to do, including a SWOT analysis that’s due for my management class this week.
Thanks to all of you for the birthday wishes via Facebook, email, Twitter, LJ, etc. 🙂
Online Writing Labs
So anyway, I meant to post about those Online Writing Labs (OWLs) that many colleges have put online.
Their contents and quality vary widely from one college to the next. They’re intended to help students write their papers at whatever time they get around to doing them, wherever they happen to be. Good ones include online access to reference tools such as dictionaries, thesauruses, and grammar usage guides, a link to the school’s library, any formatting standards established by his school in particular, and sometimes more specific material depending on the type of student expected to be using the OWL.
Unfortunately, some schools have slapped a list of links up on a set and called it an OWL. I won’t be recommending any of those pitiful little things.
Yes, it’s perfectly fine for others to use these sites. They aren’t behind the school’s firewalls, so they are a resource that has been generously shared with the public. If you find one especially helpful, consider sending an email to the site’s authors/editors, thanking them for their efforts
- Roane State Community College
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
- University of Regina — serves to support face-to-face tutorials. However, the information that is there is very interesting, so I included it.
- University of Illiois Urbana-Champagne Writer’s Workshop at The Center for Writing Studies — again, it supplements in-person tutoring and workshops. There is a fair amount of material provided online as well, though.
- Purdue University offers online and offline help. The wording on their site causes me to wonder if they originated the use of the acronym “OWL.”
- The Writing Center at Cleveland State University