Remembering moving across the country

I remember moving from Kansas City to Bountiful, Utah with our dog, bird, Mom's plants, two girls and a car full (a 1952 Nash) when I was 12. My sister Delena F Previd was 14. We stopped in eastern Colorado to visit our Grandparents on the way. It was before the Interstate hi-way system was completed.

Loosing it!

I lost my watch months ago but I finally found it in the bedroom because it has a random alarm set for 3pm that I haven't been able to figure out how to disable!  It was beeping the other day and I was able to track it down!  Now I have two cheep watches because I had to buy a new one after I couldn't find the other one!

Reading

I have always been a "book-a-holic". I used to get books every month from the Mystery Book club but I have stopped buying them recently. I have a book shelf in my bedroom with many of those books on it that haven't been read yet. [This is my Goodreads ID photo] I walk down the book shelf when ever I go to the store to see if there are any new books I can afford and want. There are several authors and series that I just buy the next book in line (although I hope I can find it at a discount). I love browsing at a library book sale. I worked one year for a school book fair company and I got a lot of YA books with my employee discount that year. I borrow books from my quilt club library. I trade and borrow books from my friends. (We had an informal book club called "The Bingo Ladies and Jay" when a club I belonged to was doing bingo every week.) I now work at an airport and all of the gate agents, ramp agents and airline crews usually have books to read on breaks or during slow times during the schedule. They leave books in the break room and sometime passengers even give us books. I uset to subscribe to Ellery Queen and Alfred Hitchcock short story mystery magazines and always have one in my bag for those minutes I may have to wait in a line. When my Mom died, I brought home most of her library including a set, "The World's Popular Classics". My husband is also an avid reader, but often he reads non-fiction that I am not interested in. Once in a while we do read the same books. My younger daughter got me onto Goodreads and we often share books.  And now I am also sharing books with my 16-year old granddaughter and her younger sisters.
So with all that, I just pick a book that I have that tickles my fancy at the time and read it. Sometimes I will go for all the unread books by a particular author and get on a kick. I recently joined the Goodreads group "Pick a Shelf" and that is helping me focus on a theme each month. Basically, I don't usually know what I am going to be reading next and that's half the fun. My friends and family will tell you that I am always reading.
I have started downloading audio books and am listening to them in the car on my way to work.

Meeting Thelonious Monk

Yesterday I was working at Customer Service at the airport when a gentleman came up because he had missed his connection to Memphis.  I took a look at his boarding pass and remarked on his name, Thelonious Monk.  "Are you related?" I asked.  He replied that the famous jazz musician was his father.  In chatting with him while I tried to find a way for him to get to Memphis, I found out that he is also a jazz musician, a drummer.  It was nice to be able to help him get to his destination,  sorry that he would be a little late.  Later when I mentioned meeting him to a co-worker they didn't recognize the name.  I suppose that is normal since last fall when there were some "aging" rock stars waiting for a plane at a gate I didn't recognize the name of the band that they played with but several of my co-workers did.
Last fall I was thrilled when I was checking passports for an international flight, I got to meet one of my favorite authors, Alexander McCall Smith.  There was only one flight attendant that I told who knew who he is.  Even several years ago when I helped a gentleman named Winston Churchill, few recognized the name (my passenger was the grandson of the English PM).
C'est la vie!

Being Published

This book was published back in September, 2011. I got my copy at a book signing at Tattered Cover. It is one of the set printed to celebrate "Peace Corps at 50".  I was honored to be included in this volume with my story:  "Of Girls and Dogs and Cats".  This was edited from my two submissions that I printed here and here.  Of course what was in the book was 4 pages.
Here is a photo of me and my friend Bruce McDonald who had a story in  one of the other volumes along with Jane Albritton from Fort Collins, Colorado who conceived the series and was the editor of our Asian collection.

The other books in the set published as Peace Corps @ 50.

The Little Book of Snowflakes

The Little Book of Snowflakes by Kenneth Libbrecht

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This beautiful little book by Kenneth Libbrecht is absolutely stunning. He has added quotes and poems to photos of snowflakes in a wonderful way.

I love snowflakes, especially since I was a snowflake collector in a previous life (real snowflakes). I worked at the University of Wyoming for the Natural Resources Research Institute as a research assistant to the professor who was the snowflake man in the group. We were studying ways to increase the snow pack on the mountains because this is the water supply for this desert state. I discovered Snowflakes in Photographs by W.A. Bentley while I was working there and also found much of his early work in the National Geographic magazines and other publications of the early 20th century. I believe that Kenneth Libbrecht is a worthy successor to W.A. Bentley.

I have added his other books to my "wish list".



View all my reviews

Bookshelf Crash

So on Monday I was trying to pull a book off a shelf in my bedroom when the whole shelf started to tip! Ack!!!!! Then since it was a backless shelf, some of the books on the top shelf started to slip down behind, making it impossible to right the shelf.

Now I think I need to explain the shelf: it is made from 4 2x4s that have holes drilled up the wide side, pegs are put in the holes and 2x2s with holes are put onto the pegs, the shelves are set onto the 2x2s, there are screw in attachments on the tops of the uprights that make it so you can adjust them against the ceiling, there are no nails holding it together. I guess I didn't have the screws tightened against the ceiling and when it started to come down, it did. So there I am trying to keep from being smashed by all those books on the top and trying to let down the uprights slowly so they don't crash into the window. Tuesday I had to get up at 4am to go to work a double and didn't get home till after 8:30pm so there all the books stayed, blocking the closet door. Wednesday was my day off so I spent the whole day putting the shelf back up and getting the books back on it. I decided that while I was doing that I would catalog them, so I took my laptop up to the bedroom and created a new shelf on my Goodreads list called "bedroom shelf". Basically, all the books on that bookshelf are ones I have acquired that I haven't read yet, so they are really TBR but I wanted to have them separate. I was amazed that there are 244 books there. I think I really can't justify buying any new ones! lol
Now I can maybe relax and read a few chapters from one of my "currently reading"!!