Joys of fostering

This year my husband and I finally were able to do what we have wanted to do for some time. Become foster for itty bitty little kitties and puppies. It has been quite the roller coaster ride but so worth it.
We started of with 7, 4 week old kittens last May. No, "let's start slow" for us, we tend to just jump right in and do it. The house smelled, we didn't get much sleep, and our washer was constantly going. But man was it fun. Seeing those little balls of fully grow and learn and become such wonderful loving kitties was great. All seven found forever homes and we couldn't be happier.

This past week we brought a 5 week old little puppy in to the house. One puppy = seven kittens. Liked really, no lie. She is a handfull but such a good little dog. Loves to eat and be with her humans. We were all cuddling on the sofa watching movies last night. Don't think I have seen a happier pup.

I might want to add that our permanent resident cats were not cool with this at ALL. We have been bitched at, ignored and shunned by them for extended periods of time for bringing this sort of noise and smell into the house. When the kittens came, we were treated to such stink eyes as have never been seen by humans before. When the pup came however, they just looked at us like we were idiots. Maybe we are, but awesome idiots on my opinion. The cats and us don't often agree on things in this house. But it is what to be expected I guess.















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Letter Game

I just finished reading 'Sorcery and Cecilia ; or the Enchanted Chocolate
Pot' by Patricia Wrede and Caroline Stevermer. It is a really cute and fun book anout two cousins corresponding through letters, in Victorian England. One is in London coming out to society while the other is at home. It has comedie, mystery and romance. Everything a young (or old) lady would love in a fun and easy read. My favorite part about this book, however is that it was written by the authors using the letter game.

Read the description here

I am now itching to get a game going myself. I thought about asking my husband but asking is for old people. So, I guess he will be getting a letter from someone mysterious one of these days. Just the thought makes me all giddy and giggly. Heeeheeeheeeheee

My first challenge will be to decide "who am I?" second will be "will there be dragons?"

I think I might go all out on this. Include pictures, drawings, aged paper. Ok ok...'nough talking. More doing.

*giggle giggle snort*

This is so exciting.

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Location:Kitchen

Cheating authors

I was 'followed' on twitter yesterday by an author. My excitement could barely be contained.
"OMGOMGOMG some writer digs my deplorable tweets, YAY!"
Then today a private message arrives in my inbox from this author, to download his lates book for free on amazon. Duuuude! How cool was that. I was so awesomely happy I whooped.
Then I clicked the link to the free book.
"Hey lookathat, he has 4 out of 5 stars out of several reviews for this title." I said to myself. Not bad, but I have learned to be dubious about amazon reviews. Usually I read the one to three star reviews firsts to get an idea of what the main complaint about a product is. This title had lots of five star and only a few one or three stars. When a product or a book has lots of five stars and then just a few one stars it...interests me. Statistics class ruined me in many ways, but mostly in that it tought me to look at weird spreads like these a little closer. Surprise, surprise, the few one star reviews I read were scathing. One reviewer mentioned that their previous review (of one star) had been deleted unexplicably.
The one star reviews for this book all had the same complaints: bad writing and bad character development.
After studying the bad/meh reviews, I looked at the five star reviews to make sure I wasn't being too biased. Most were several paragraphs in length, which to me is a good indicator of something dubious going on. Who bothers to write a five paragraph review for anything...I mean REALLY! It does happen, but paid for reviews tend to be very wordy and often sound more like an advertisement (or a summary of a plot) then a plain old "I HATE THIS THING", " OMG I LOVE THIS THING" or a "meh" review.
The best way to see what is going on with the five stars is to look at the reviewers history. The "see all my reviews" link next to a reviewers name, is a the best thing since popcorn. Click on it and you will see what that person has reviewed and what rating he/she tends to give. I had been hopefull that I was wrong about this author and he was an all around great guy with no ego issues whatsoever. Going through each of the five stars however bashed my hopes to pieces. The reviewers were either prolific five star givers or this was the only item they had ever reviewed. Not saying that a review cannot be legit when it is the only one made so far. Maybe the item was SO good that the reviewer felt compelled to write about how awesome it is. But when you see post after post where the reviewers have only reviewed this one specific item, it becomes suspect. My conclusion after doing this minor research is, that this author bought five star reviews for his book. Does that mean that his book is a piece of trash and shouldn't be bought? No, but it might make you think twice about wether or not you want to spend your money on it.

Authors paying for reviews make me exceptionally sad.
Every author throughout human history has had to rewrite and fail several times before getting any recognition. If you are unable to accept criticism and rejection, then maybe you should rethink writing as a career. We want people to read; trash books with fake reviews turn people away, and eventually you will run out of an audience willing to give you the time of day. Be brave and matue enough to take honest feedback. Use it as a lesson and learn from it, then go forth and write something epic.

(Edited 1/30/13)

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Location:Kitchen with tea

TADA

Trying to pick this blog up again. Just have to keep trying, hoping that this time it will stick. I MUST BLOG or so I have heard. To be relevant, to be hip and with it, to make sure people know who I am dammit! I must blog. But then again, that's just what I've heard.

Working in the library world, now a days you ain't nobody till yer blogging, tweeting, pinteresting, in short over-socializing. So, in the spirit of a true overachiever (not that I am one, but then I did say "in the spirit of") I will do all of the above....except maybe Pinterest...Pinterest is dumb. But you didn't hear that from me. Don't be surprised if I do succumb to peer pressure and end up pinteresting. I am not usually a follower...or a leader really...more like roaming around looking at butterflies and shiny...but in the interst of making myself look sparkly and cool on a resume, I must do what must be done.
So, Pinterest, be ready. I may be coming. Maybe.

Erhm, so yeah. Back yet again to share my knowledge and corny humor with whoever drops by. Lets hope it sticks this time.

UPDATE: It totally didn't.

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Location:My living room

Title 1

Looking forward to a summer full of reading and gardening. The two signs of domestication and becoming OLD! It is one of those things that is hard to fight. My inner teenager screams for music and dancing with late nights of mischief. The old lady in me worries about my tomato plants and looks forward to the mystery novel arriving on my holdshelf at the library. Of course I realize the old woman will slowly take over. Which isn't to bad. I like the focus and thoughtfullness which comes with age.

YaY! New post.

So this whole blog thing didn't go at all as I planned. Neither did my trip home. Ended up being really sick the first two weeks, lost my voice which made it really hard to communicate with people who you haven't seen in twenty years and only had that one opportunity to hang out with. On top of being sick the weather was pretty horrid. I got snowed on and hailed on and lots of rain IN JUNE!!! Apparently everyone was really mystified over the weather. Usually June is warm and sunny in Iceland...but not when I arrive. The day I left it decided to get sunny and beautiful and staid that way for July and August. So HAHA VERY FUNNY WEATHER GOD *grumble grumble*
I did get a couple of days where the sun peaked out for a bit and I managed to go for a long walk around the city by myself at one point. Will add some pictures from that trip later :)
I know it has been a few months since I wrote anything here, but I figured I would pick this blog up again and keep it going, not just for the trip but for my own pleasure and entertainment. So suck it if you have a problem with that ;)

Aand back.

Wow so definetly didnt keep up with my promis of writing everynight on this blog. I started of my stay in Iceland by getting sick, and not just some cold or sniffles but the flu with chills, fever, bone aches and a throat so swollen I lost my voice for three days. Feeling like that I wasn´t up for much writing or sightseeing. But I hope to make up for that in the next few entries. I will dedicate each one to a place I managed to drag my carcass to and take pictures and include some of those visual aids as well.
So far I have gone into the new symphony house Harpan (I was corrected that technically it wasn´t an opera house as I thought), I went into Hallgrims Kirkja (which was cool to do but just a bit underwhleming lol), went to my old hometown of Hveragerdi which is totally changed (it has trees know 0_0) and then yesterday, my first day of feeling pretty darn good, I spent wandering around Reykjavik taking pictures and buying EXPENSIVE souvenirs.
But right now...copious amounts of caffinated tea is needed.


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Location:Iceland, aunts living room

Arrived smiling and coughing

My apologies for the late posting. The time change has me completely confused and my brain is not very happy with going to bed when OBVIOUSLY it is bright and wonderful outside, and 4 am is a great time to go for a walk. Yes, I said 4 am. It is awesome. Wish it was like this in California. But only the summer part where it is bright all the time, the winters are pretty much the complete opposite.
Anyway, so far I have got myself a sore throat and a stuffy nose and a huge bag of candy. That monster of a bag weighed over 800grams. Full of licorice hard candies and other goodies I haven't had in years. I was bad and got some candy I am sure I shouldn't be eating as a gluten free dudette buuut since this could possibly be the last time I can have them and I haven't had any of these for over 20 years I told mah belly to suck it up. So far so good tho, don't think there was any gluten if the stuff I have eaten so far :D

As I have been sleeping and forgetting to bring my camera when I do go outside (I need to graft that thing to my arm I think), there is not much in the way of pictures except for the following:




Fields of lava rock overgrown by moss, on the ride from Keflavik to Reykjavik.















4am outside my window the first day here.





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Location:Le Iceland

The mandatory cat-in-the-bag photos

Title explains it all





Bagheera in a bag



Darwin in a bag, looks like he wants to come with me.



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Re-packing AGAIN

Seriously, I need to learn to pay attention. Crammed everything I am taking with me into one bag and that is only because I have vacuum seal clothing bags (woot, those are rad). Then mom-in-law casually mentions last night "You know you can check two bags."
Well that was a "duhh" moment. So I get to split everything into two bags now, leaving room for cheesy viking souvenirs and t-shirts for everybody :D








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Location:Kitchen over cup of coffee

Three and a half days til lift off

Getting so excited now. Just need to pack my carry on stuff which basically is a book, some music and my papers.
Got my new drivers license already (thank you california dmv, you all rock) so I am all good to go. Now just for keeping myself busy. I forsee lots of playing Crackdown and lego something or other...maybe a little black ops too. Surprised myself at how decently I performed last time we played, which was a while as the network was down. Kind of felt like my playing skills were like my spaghetti sauce, you kind of have to let it sitt for a bit and then it just kicks ass. Give it time to meld and be assimulated in the great Borg of spaghetti sauce. Yeah so my gamer skills are like spaghetti sauce...


Been looking at stuff i wanna see in Iceland, museums, galleries, the national library (an absolute have to for a future librarian). Have to go see the Pearl Nd then Harpan, and of course downtown. Need to review my list of things to see and probably try and make a plan. Got my walking shoes all prepped as those shoes were meant for walking, and thats just what they'll do. One of these days those are going to walk all over Reykjavik. YES I HAVE A CORNY SENSE OF HUMOR...but it entertains the shit out of me. I think I may have made my hubby cry with my bad puns once or twice. Love you baby muah.

If anyone has any suggestions for a great place to see in Reykjavik or there abouts, feel free to leave a comment. I would appreciate any input :)

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Location:Cafè le mmmmmm