Harder to get things done these days. As someone with mental disorders, I find my motivation dramatically reduces during the winter months. I love winter, but the lack of light isn’t good for me. I’m sleeping much better now thanks to Seroquel, but it’s adding to the appetite-increasing effect of the Effexor, which also isn’t good. Particularly when you like to cook things like homemade honey-gingerbread marshmallows:

I plan to take most of the batch to a friend’s this weekend!

Two brief thoughts on politics. As usual, I prefer to stick to process here when I touch on politics at all, not partisanship. So take partisan arguments to other blogs.

First, I read an article this morning that said that young people really aren’t turning out much so far in Florida’s early voting. Guys—VOTE! We all like to complain that past generations have left us with a mess of a world, politically, environmentally, etc. But one of the major ways we have of trying to make a difference is by voting for the candidate we think will best clean things up. So I don’t care who you vote for—just do it! It doesn’t take that much effort!

Second, after Obama put out his ad quoting John McCain as saying he’d need a VP who could advise him on economic matters, and then showing Palin winking, there appeared a fresh wave of complaints of sexism. As a woman I’m calling bullshit. The question of whether Palin is qualified to lead the country in economic matters is a perfectly legitimate question. If she is, she’ll withstand the questioning by proving she has the credentials. If she isn’t, well, it’s important to find that out. We ask these questions of male candidates all the time. Refusing to push a female candidate for her credentials just because she’s female, THAT would be just as sexist as saying that she couldn’t understand economic matters because she’s a woman.

I’ve been making more jewelry, and I’m very pleased with some of the new pieces. Here are two that I particularly like, Ice Queen Jewels:

and Desert Mesa Necklace:

You can click on the images above to look at larger versions at deviantArt. Or, you can click on the text links above them to see 5 different photos of each at Etsy, and to buy them if you wish!

My last customer commented that she was extremely impressed with our packaging. You see, I try to package each piece separately within a little jewelry gift box inside of a padded mailer. I do this for entirely practical reasons. Our mailman has driven me insane with his treatment of packages. He’s shoved things into the mailbox so hard they split open and tore the contents open. He throws things at the house—and I don’t just mean a tiny little lob. So when I package something, I ask myself, “How can I package this so it would survive treatment by someone like him?” If this has a side effect of giving the customer a really nice little box for the jewelry, that’s great!

It’s been two weeks since I skinned my knee and it’s finally scabbing over. I’ve had notoriously weak ankles all my life—I do exercises specifically to strengthen them, but nothing ever seems to work. I was on the last step of the stairs to the sidewalk out front when my ankle gave way. My foot stayed on the step, and my knee hit the concrete below it. I’m really very lucky that all I did was skin my knee. But it took enough layers off that the center refused to scab over for two weeks. Once or twice a day I had to clean out my knee and make sure it wasn’t getting infected. It’s great to finally be able to wear long pants without having to tape gauze over my knee!

Anyway, between the fact that I was in constant knee-pain until a day or two ago, and the days getting darker, and my husband having been out of town on a trip, I’ve been incredibly unproductive. But I’ve made some jewelry, and I’m looking forward anxiously to this election being over. I hope you all have a great weekend!

Oh yeah, Here’s that review I had to re-write, of Michele Bardsley’s Wait till Your Vampire Gets Home, as well as a non-review of Allyson James’s The Dragon Master.

Edited to add: Check out the funniest campaign sign ever! Well okay, the funniest one I’ve ever seen, which is good enough for me.

We’ve pretty much finished rolling out the level 80 T-shirt designs at cafepress. This means two things: first, we expect to phase out the level 70 designs around the end of the year; we’ll keep them on sale until then, so grab ‘em while you can! Second, we think the level 80 designs are even better than the level 70 designs, and the level 70 designs have been quite popular. So be the first to get your own!

Also, cafepress has added some new items, like travel mugs and the flip mino camcorder. Yes, a pocket-sized camcorder. What will they add next?! Pssst—level 80 items make great holiday gifts for gamers!

 

In unrelated news, I almost always put brief excerpted versions of my reviews on Amazon, just for the heck of it. I thought it was kind of cool when I went from starting out in the 700,000s (back before there were millions of users posting reviews) to the 700s. Apparently today they started calculating the reviewer ranking differently. Partly to stop people from “ballot-box stuffing”, or finding ways to rate their own reviews. Partly to emphasize whether a person’s reviews are seen as helpful or not, so that quantity doesn’t trump quality. And partly to emphasize newness of reviews, so new reviewers get a chance to climb up the ladder.

And suddenly my rank went, literally overnight, from 679 to 64. That’s pretty cool.

My husband, on the awesome graham crackers we found at Trader Joe’s:

These aren’t graham crackers. They’re graham crack!

Love is… preferring to share the last graham crack (err, I meant graham crackers) with your spouse rather than devouring them yourself.

Now, some reviews from today:

• Fiona Patton’s astounding The Golden Tower
• Cuisipro snap fit cookie cutters
• … oh freaking crud! Wordpress ate my review of Bardsley’s latest book. I’ll have to recreate it later. Grumble…

And then, the post-readathon wrapup meme from Dewey’s blog:

1. Which hour was most daunting for you? Hour one. I’m on a new med partially to help me sleep, so I tend to be a little sleepy first thing in the morning. Made it a bit tough to get down to business at first.

2. Could you list a few high-interest books that you think could keep a Reader engaged for next year? On the one hand, boy did Fiona Patton’s The Golden Tower keep me engaged! On the other hand, it SO kept me engaged that it drained me dry and I couldn’t read anything else afterward.

3. Do you have any suggestions for how to improve the Read-a-thon next year? Erm… nope. Can’t think of anything.

4. What do you think worked really well in this year’s Read-a-thon? Thank you for having someone come around and remind everyone ahead of time! Life is so chaotic that I’m not wholly certain I would have remembered otherwise.

5. How many books did you read? Only two. But in my defense, one of them was incredibly rich in detail.

6. What were the names of the books you read? I read the text portions of The Big Book of Backyard Cooking so I could finally review it, and I read Fiona Patton’s The Golden Tower.

7. Which book did you enjoy most? Patton. Is. Amazing. ‘Nuff said.

8. Which did you enjoy least? It was all good.

9. If you were a Cheerleader, do you have any advice for next year’s Cheerleaders? N/A

10. How likely are you to participate in the Read-a-thon again? What role would you be likely to take next time? It all depends on whether I’m going to be home on the day it happens on. And I can’t help it—I just have to be a reader.

Now wish me luck reconstructing that durn review.

*shakes head vigorously*

Have you ever read a book that swept you up so thoroughly, so completely, into its world that you came out of it feeling… like you haven’t quite left it yet? Like its echoes are still present around you?

That’s how I feel now that I’ve finished The Golden Tower. I know I didn’t quite finish twelve hours… almost, but not quite. I have to call this it, though, because my brain feels like a sponge that’s been squeezed dry, and I don’t think I’m capable of either starting a different book just yet, or writing the review of this one.

I won’t be home tomorrow to take part in the post-’thon activities, but I fully intend to drop by Dewey’s blog on Monday and indulge. Better late than never, eh?

Look for my review of this one on Monday, and good luck to all the rest of you who are still going!

Title of book(s) read since last update: Fiona Patton, The Golden Tower
Number of books read since you started: 2
Pages read since last update: 63
Running total of pages read since you started: 342
Amount of time spent reading since last update: 1 hr 10 min
Amount of time spent reviewing since last update: 0 min.
Running total of time spent reading since you started: 7 hours 25 min
Running total of time spend reading & reviewing since you started: 8 hrs 30 min.
Reviews written: 3
Cups of tea drunk: 2
Cups of coffee drunk: 2

5:55 pm: Hey, I spent a whole uninterrupted hour reading! At this rate I doubt it will be more than two more hours until I’m done.

Title of book(s) read since last update: Fiona Patton, The Golden Tower
Number of books read since you started: 1
Pages read since last update: 48 (on p. 262)
Running total of pages read since you started: 279
Amount of time spent reading since last update: 60 min
Amount of time spent reviewing since last update: 0 min.
Running total of time spent reading since you started: 6 hours 15 min
Running total of time spend reading & reviewing since you started: 7 hrs 20 min.
Reviews written: 3
Cups of tea drunk: 2
Cups of coffee drunk: 2

4:45 pm: Yum. 3-cheese pizza, followed by vanilla & chocolate ice cream over crumbled graham cracker. Yes, I do usually eat more healthfully than this, but about once a week we have dinner from a box. At least it’s usually a good-quality pizza that isn’t greasy. Plenty of flavor. Anyway, back to my reading!

Oh, and I have decided that I have a goal for this readathon after all: when I finish this book, I’m going to call it for the night. This book is just too immersive and engrossing. I couldn’t immediately move on to another book right after it.

Title of book(s) read since last update: Fiona Patton, The Golden Tower
Number of books read since you started: 1
Pages read since last update: 13 (on p. 214)
Running total of pages read since you started: 231
Amount of time spent reading since last update: 15 min
Amount of time spent reviewing since last update: 0 min.
Running total of time spent reading since you started: 5 hours 15 min
Running total of time spend reading & reviewing since you started: 6 hrs 20 min.
Reviews written: 3
Cups of tea drunk: 2
Cups of coffee drunk: 2

3:05 pm: Mmmmm. Acai berry green tea, followed by much reading.

3:45 pm: Time for second break: gotta feed the cats, probably followed by an early dinner.

It’s absolutely fascinating to read this author’s take on the childhood and growth of a new god…

Title of book(s) read since last update: Fiona Patton, The Golden Tower
Number of books read since you started: 1
Pages read since last update: 40 (on p. 201)
Running total of pages read since you started: 218
Amount of time spent reading since last update: 40 min
Amount of time spent reviewing since last update: 0 min.
Running total of time spent reading since you started: 5 hours.
Running total of time spend reading & reviewing since you started: 6 hrs 5 min.
Reviews written: 3
Cups of tea drunk: 2
Cups of coffee drunk: 2

1:50 pm: Mmmmm. Flatbread/cracker with sea salt. I love Trader Joe’s. Gotta have the occasional snack to go with intense reading experiences.

2:00 pm: Just spent a few minutes over at the blog that’s hosting the mini-challenge for which the bookmark is being given away: My Bit of Earth. Before I mail out the bookmark this week I’ll have to take a good-quality picture of it with the light box for posterity

2:15 pm: Just spent 15 minutes playing Free Rice at the suggestion of the readathon blog—you play a multiple-choice vocabulary game and the better you do, the more rice you donate to countries that need it. The readathon folks are holding a mini-challenge to get people to play & donate.

Back to reading with me!

2:35 pm: Had to share another quote:

He shrugged. “It makes life that much spicier.” Lifting the pita to his mouth, he chewed reflectively for a moment. “It needs nutmeg,” he said with a sigh.

“What does, life?”

“No, breakfast.”

2:50 pm: Time to make more tea.

Title of book(s) read since last update: Fiona Patton, The Golden Tower
Number of books read since you started: 1
Pages read since last update: 26 (on p. 161)
Running total of pages read since you started: 152
Amount of time spent reading since last update: 35 min
Amount of time spent reviewing since last update: 0 min.
Running total of time spent reading since you started: 4 hr 20 min.
Running total of time spend reading & reviewing since you started: 5 hrs 25 min.
Reviews written: 3
Cups of tea drunk: 1
Cups of coffee drunk: 2

12:50 pm: Already addicted to Fiona Patton’s writing!

1:10 pm: Our little girl-cat, Selene, had a small asthma attack. Luckily it didn’t last long.

Also, I offered one of my newest hand-made beaded bookmarks to Dewey as a prize offering. See [this post] for details. It’s a nice one—gold-plated hook-style bookmark, painted porcelain bead, lepidolite beads, red spot stone barrel, small rust marble beads, and a red aventurine drop!

1:50 pm: Ooooh. The more I read, the more addicted I get.

Title of book(s) read since last update: Fiona Patton, The Golden Tower
Number of books read since you started: 1
Pages read since last update: 37 (on p. 135)
Running total of pages read since you started: 152
Amount of time spent reading since last update: 1 hr.
Amount of time spent reviewing since last update: 0 min.
Running total of time spent reading since you started: 3 hr 45 min.
Running total of time spend reading & reviewing since you started: 4 hrs 50 min.
Reviews written: 3
Cups of tea drunk: 1
Cups of coffee drunk: 2

12:30 pm: Mmmmm. Lunch: blueberry scone with raspberry amaretto jam.

I’m blown away by this book I’m reading. There’s some amazing stuff in it having to do with the metaphysics of gods, but it’s handled in a really nifty and plot-filled way, so it isn’t boring. I insisted on reading a two-page scene from the point of view of a god to my husband, and he responded by insisting I go order the first book in the series from Amazon. I wasn’t about to argue!

Then, a brief stop in World of Warcraft so I could cut some gems for some socketed items he got last night in a Shadow Labs run. That’ll probably make sense to, oh, one or two of the people involved in the Readathon—at most.

Back to reading with me. I have my second cup of coffee of the day next to me, and all is right with the world.

12:50 pm: And yes, this author does have a sense of humor as well:

The Hearth God was so agitated that the temple was filled with the smell of burned toast.

How much more perfect could that be?!

Title of book(s) read since last update: Fiona Patton, The Golden Tower
Number of books read since you started: 1
Pages read since last update: 10 (on p. 98)
Running total of pages read since you started: 115
Amount of time spent reading since last update: 20 min.
Amount of time spent reviewing since last update: 0 min.
Running total of time spent reading since you started: 2 hr 45 min.
Running total of time spend reading & reviewing since you started: 3 hrs 50 min.
Reviews written: 3
Cups of tea drunk: 1
Cups of coffee drunk: 2