Moving Right Along in 2017 - Q2 (Storeetllr/Mary)

I am editing this post, which I originally published on April 2, 2017, to replace the pics that Photobucket aka Scambucket is holding for ransom (actually, they are holding the links to the pics on my soon-to-be-erstwhile Photobucket account for ransom). I will, in fact, be replacing all the pics on this entire thread, which suddenly today, with no real notice (an email sent late on Thursday, which I didn't see until today), are inaccessible unless I pay them a lot of money - over $400 a year. Sorry, that's just wrong. So, thanks to Julia's suggestion, I found that I am able to get links from my OneDrive account. Unfortunately, not all of the photos I shared on this thread are on my OneDrive account - yet, anyway. Also, unfortunately, all the pics on my prior threads from approximately 2008 to the present are also gone, and I will not be replacing them as that would take too long. I am so angry that I am calm, if that makes sense. Anyway, if any of you use Photobucket, you might want to find another photo storage service. Going forward, I don't intend to mark each edited message where I replace pics with the "ETA" note as it's going to take me long enough to accomplish as it is. And so, here is the original post with the restored pics (and some that have been replaced because I couldn't find the originals):

Some things I will miss when I move from the Denver area to Pueblo.


The Butterfly Pavilion


The Denver Zoo "Holiday Lights Event 2015"


The Botanical Garden "Chihuly Exhibition 2014"


Day trips to The Stanley Hotel at Estes Park and the Rocky Mountain National Park


The Aurora Public Library


Meetups at The Tattered Cover - 2014

Hi! Happy Spring!

I'm Mary, a retired transplant from Southern California now living in a Denver suburb with my sister and two parrots. I'll be moving toward the end of April to a place of my own - well, mine and the birds' - and in the meantime have been working to purge the excess stuff I own, something I've been trying to do for a decade at least. This time, this year, this move, I am determined to succeed! Toward that end, I've donated about 300 of my books, many of them "classics" from the 60s, 70s, and 80s in various genres including mystery, scifi, fantasy, and romance, and have filled the recycling bin with shredded paper.

I found a rental on the southwest side of Pueblo, not far from Pueblo Community College, City Park, the zoo, and the State Fairgrounds. It's an old neighborhood of houses mostly built in the 60s, and looks like it. I take over the lease on April 15, and the lease at my current place ends April 30, so I'll have a couple of weeks to get things moved and organized in my new place and get things cleaned up in my old place, which makes me happy.

Books Read in 2017
(List of 1st Quarter Books Read is here.)

April

42. Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders. 4 stars. Audio. Very strange novel, but I really liked it. Due to the fact I was moving while reading it, I'm afraid I didn't pay as much attention to it as I should have, so I may have to reread it when I get a chance. Thanks to Mark for recommending it! Another score!

May

43. Silence Fallen by Patricia Briggs. 3.5 stars. Audio. Latest Mercy Thompson. Okay, but not my favorite, perhaps because not many of the usual supporting characters are around.

44. Darkover Landfall by Marion Zimmer Braley. 3.5 stars. Reread.

Next number omitted intentionally.

46. A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking. 3.5 stars. Audio. I don't claim to understand most of what I heard, but what I did comprehend was fascinating. I plan to reread this in print to try and understand more. I wasn't thrilled with the narrator, who not only stuttered occasionally but spoke so quickly in places that, even if I could have comprehended what Hawking was saying, I couldn't understand what was being said.

46. (Intention reuse of #46) We Are Legion by Dennis E. Taylor. 4.5 stars. Audio. They say there are no coincidences, so I wonder at the serendipity of my having read A Brief History of Time just before I picked up this strange but intriguing scifi adventure, because what I learned from Hawking helped me grasp some of the concepts Taylor uses, and vice versa. Can't wait to read Vol. 2 of the Bobiverse.

47. The Black Echo by Michael Connelly. Audio, narrated by Dick Hill. 4 stars. The first in the Bosch mystery series. This wasn't the first Bosch I read back in the day. First was Concrete Blonde, then I went back to the beginning. I think if I'd read this one first I might not have continued, or not as eagerly. Yes, it was well written and gritty, but why Bosch had to fall straight into bed with Eleanor Wish, and how he somehow just intuits things so miraculously, and the almost over-the-top melodrama, would have turned me off if I hadn't had a taste of a later Bosch. The Vietnam flashbacks were fascinating, though, and the way the war directly impacted events even 20 years after its end was intriguing.

48. Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman. 5 stars. Audio, narrated by Neil himself. Reread. I know I listened to this within the last few months, but lately I have been feeling in need of comfort reads, though I'm sure it says something about me that a story about homeless, displaced, grungy people living under the City of London and a girl running from two of the most gruesome, creepy and well-drawn monsters (Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar) ever to stalk their way through time and space who just murdered her entire family, that I consider it a comfort read. Anyway, it never disappoints and just keeps getting better every time I read/listen to it. I also seem to pick up more allusions to classic mythology each time I reread it. Cannot wait for the sequel!

49. Dusk or Dark or Dawn or Day by Seanan McGuire. 3.75 stars. Audio. Coming of age ghost story set in NYC and featuring ghost Jenna who died when she was a teenager before her time and has been aging to that time slowly over the 40 years since her death by doing volunteer telephone work at a suicide prevention center. Weird and without a lot of character depth but intriguing take on ghosts. Wasn't thrilled with the narrator, Emily Bauer.

June

50. Silver Silence by Nalini Singh. (Early review copy from Penguin's First-To-Read program.) 4.25 stars. Well, I gobbled this book up pretty darn quickly! Silver Mercant is assistant to Kaleb Krychek, reputed to be the most powerful and most dangerous man on the planet (and hero of my favorite Psi-Changling book to date, Heart of Obsidian), and has been pretty much in the background for much of the original Psi-Changling series (the Silence arc). Now Silver has taken up the reins of the newly formed worldwide emergency response network set up in the wake of the Trinity Accords and, in this first novel in the spin-off series (the Trinity arc), emerges as a powerful and surprisingly dangerous woman in her own right. I really enjoyed the romance between her and Valentin, and parts of the story had me laughing right out loud. Being an early review copy, there were a few grammatical errors and missteps in wording that I hope will be rooted out of the final published book, but even with those little problems, it is a really fun installment in the Psi-Changling universe. I took off .5 star off the rating for the little glitches and gave it an extra .25 star for the humor and the delightfully different romance.

51. Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire. 3 stars. Audio. Very strange, very dark little YA story about teens who have gone through a door to another world and have, for one reason or another, been rejected by that world and returned to the real world, willingly or not, and how they cope with it - or not. I liked the premise, and the writing is good, as always, but I couldn't get a feel for any of the characters, all of whom seemed two-dimensional to me. I admit, I'm not a fan of YA, so take my 3-star rating with a grain of salt if you do. This just isn't McGuire's best effort, imo.

52. The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu. 3.5 stars. Audio (Luke Daniels, narrator). Hard scifi/China's Cultural Revolution history/first contact. I'm sure it's only coincidence that, within 3 weeks, I have read three books the subject of each being theoretical physics, one nonfiction (A Brief History of Time) and two scifi novels. All were, in places, difficult for me to comprehend, but all were fascinating. The Three-Body Problem starts out like historical fiction set in China during the Cultural Revolution and features a female science student whose scientist father is murdered by the Red Guard on a public stage after her mother betrays him and testifies against him. It was a pretty horrifying, violent time in history. The girl is sent to work on a deforestation project at a reeducation camp near a SETI facility. There she is falsely accused of wrong actions and might have been executed if she hadn't been drafted to work at the facility in her capacity as an astrophysicist. Then there is a jump to the present, when scientists are committing suicide for no apparent reason, and one man - a nanomaterial expert - is tagged by the military to help figure out why this is happening. He becomes addicted to a strange VR computer game titled Three Body. Actually, the scenes in the game are some of my favorite parts of the book, especially the part about the human computer. If my mini-review is a bit scattered, it's because so is the novel. We go back and forth in time, and the behavior of the characters isn't always clear. The characters, in fact, are mostly unsympathetic, even the brash cop who seems to be the favorite of a lot of readers. I mostly found him obnoxious, though he may be the most sane of all of them. I'll probably read the second and third books in the trilogy, but it won't be right away.

53. Dissolution by C. J. Sansom. 4.5 Audio. Historical mystery. Reread. I read this a decade or more ago, and have read every new installment in the series as soon as it is published. Lately, I have been thinking about rereading the series, and this seemed a good time to do so. Interestingly, though I remember the broad outlines of the story, I had forgotten many of the details. Anyway, for anyone who's been living on a desert island since 2003 (when it was published), this is an historical novel with a murder mystery set in the time of Henry VIII, a few years after Anne Bolyn's beheading when Henry and Cromwell were busily destroying the monastic orders in England and appropriating the monastery lands to enrich themselves and their followers. Sometimes it seems that 2017 is the most corrupt time in American history, with the greediest, most destructive ruler ever, but Henry VIII's era rivals this one. As I read, I was depressed at various times by the fact that we, as a species, haven't advanced much in our humanity in the 500 years since the Dissolution and sad at the loss of so much history and culture when the monasteries were destroyed and the books burned. As literature, though, it's wonderful.

54. Within the Sanctuary of Wings by Marie Brennan. 4.5 stars. Audio. Wonderful *ending?* to the Lady Trent series. Quite satisfying, and I absolutely loved the newest characters. :) Will Brennan write a spin-off series about Jack now, do you think?

55. A Useful Woman by Darcie Wilde. 4 stars. Audio. Okay, I've found the last few books I've tried to read that had a similar protagonist and storyline boring (referenced series will be disclosed on request), but I really enjoyed this Regency mystery - I hesitate to call it a "romance," though it had elements of romance in it. Heyer it isn't, nor Austen, but it is a light, fun read nonetheless. There were a few things that jarred me, having to do with titles and the addresses of various nobility, a few awkward turns of phrases that seemed to me to be a bit anachronistic, and a plot point or two that didn't make sense, but nothing that stopped me from enjoying it and looking forward to the next in the series. Recommended by ronincats- thanks Roni!

56. Silver on the Road by Laura Anne Gilman. 4 stars. Kindle. This is a fantasy set in the American southwest in an alternate universe in the 1800s. The U.S. Revolutionary War has been won by the Americans, and they have formed the United States and claimed the land from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mississippi, which in this world is called The Mudwater, and from The Great Lakes south through Florida. Spain, and the Church, holds the lands west of the Rockies, which in this world is called The Mother's Knife, and from what looks like Oregon or Northern California south deep into Central and South America. In the middle is The Territory, land that was claimed by The Old Man, aka The Devil, back before Europeans came. In The Territory, people and other creatures are free to settle, but only so long as they agree to abide by the rules of The Devil, whose base is a dusty town called Flood. Silver on the Road has been called a coming-of-age story, and Isobel, the protagonist, is young in years - just 16 when the story begins - but she isn't like any 16-year-old I've ever known, even taking into consideration the era this is set in, where people grew up fast, and the fact she was raised by The Devil. Other than that, and a few grammatical errors I picked up on, this is one hell of a ripping good story, with really special characters (which includes The Territory and a few nonhumans) and I can't wait to read the next in the series, which is on hold for me from the library as we speak! Learned about from ronincats - thanks, Roni! You are hitting me with so many BBs! I hope you enjoyed this one too!

57. Song of the Lion by Anne Hillerman. 3.5 stars. Audio. Okay story pitting Bernie against a mad bomber and setting Chee up as bodyguard for a man arbitrating a dispute about building a resort in the Grand Canyon. Leaphorn only made a couple of cameo appearances.

58. Bazaar of Bad Dreams by Stephen King. 4 stars. Audio. Short story collection with introductions to each story by King. Some were okay, most were good, a few were superlative. I really enjoyed Mile 81, Mister Yummy, Obits and Ur. Blockade Billy was pretty good too, though much of the baseball cant went over my head. The last one, Summer Thunder, made me cry and get more than a little freaked because the possibility is so real these days.

Now Reading

Days Without End by Sebastian Barry. Hardcover. (Gift from Mark!)
A Purely Private Matter by Darcie Wilde. Audio.
The Obelisk Gate by N.K. Jemisin. Audio.
(Both these last came off hold from the library at the same time. Ain't that just the way it always is!)


*****
Books I Gave Up On/Put Aside For Awhile

Natural Gardening for Birds by Julie Zickefoose. I read or skimmed the entire book and found a lot of great tips, but much of it didn't seem to apply to me. I am renting, and I don't live in the country, so a lot of it wouldn't work for me. Still, some good information in there.

Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson. Audio. I got a ways in (Part 5 out of 34) and realized I was bored and had no idea what this was about. Maybe another time.

Discount Armageddon by Seanan McGuire. Not sure why I couldn't get into this. I just didn't like the breezy style. Might have been my mood, because I have mostly liked McGuire's work that I have read.

Favorites

Q1

1. The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein. 5 stars.
2. March: Book Three by John Lewis. 5 stars.
3. The Fall of the House of Cabal by Jonathan L. Howard. 4.5 stars.

Reserve

Happy new thread, Mary!

Happy new thread, Mary.

The Tattered Cover is another target on my eventual US visits.

Hi Mary, it seems like everything is falling into place with your move. I will have to take notes on your moving with style and grace as it looks like we will be giving up the house and moving to an apartment in June of this year. It's been in the books for awhile, but has suddenly come together as the particular unit that we wanted is coming available. I am feeling a little flustered and unsure of where to start, but hopefully we will get it all figured out by June.

Happy New Thread, Mary! Exciting times coming up, indeed.

>5 drneutron: Thanks, Jim!

>6 PaulCranswick: Yes, Paul, you (and Hani) MUST come to Colorado and meet up with us Denverites (maybe even us Puebloites too) at one of The Tattered Cover bookstores.

>7 DeltaQueen50: Oh, Judy! Don't look to me for tips on moving with style and grace! So far, it's been all stress and angst, frantic culling and disorganized packing. :) I know last year you were talking about looking for a new home, but I thought that plan had fallen by the wayside. Guess not, huh. Are you okay with moving from a house to an apartment? I personally loved moving from my suburban house of 18 years to an apartment in downtown L.A. (That was 2008, I think, and I may have posted pics back then, but I'm not sure.) I am sure that, if you start now, you should have things at least halfway under control by June. I know what you mean about not quite knowing where to start. I started with books, partly because (other than the stress of deciding which books to donate), it was the easiest thing I could think of. And also I LIKE working with books. Now that I'm closer to moving (three weeks - YIKES!), I've moved on to other things - like glass- and cook-ware I seldom use, artwork that I don't need to have on the walls and on shelves, and generally things that I don't use on a daily basis.

>8 ronincats: Thanks, Roni! It is exciting, mostly, when it isn't terrifying. :)

>7 DeltaQueen50: Here are a couple of pics of the suburban neighborhood where I lived for 18 years, during an unexpected winter snowstorm (in SoCal, where it never rains, much less snows). and a pic of Nickel in front of the window of my 11th floor apartment looking out over downtown L.A. - just for contrast.


Mine is the house where the road bends left, yellowish with brown garage door and snow-covered car in driveway


The view from my back yard onto the park



I know I have better pics, but these are all I could find without searching old backup disks.

Nickel looks very happy with apartment living! You had a great view of the L.A. skyline. Wow, snow in S. California - I thought that only happened in Post-Apocalyptic books!

The unit that we will be moving to is the same one that we have looked at and passed on two times previously. Now, due to the unfortunate parting of the couple currently living there, it came up again and this time we decided to take it. I have been ready to down-size for quite some time, but it's taken a while for my husband to get on board. He's ready now. This unit was originally the builders unit so has plenty of extras, including three rooms with wall to wall bookshelves so I don't need to worry about culling my books. The big draw for my husband is the huge deck that we will be getting. It's large enough for our outside table and chairs, the BBQ and still have room for planters etc. This building only has three floors and we will be on the top.

I know there are some downsides to living in an apartment, and I will miss the convenience of having a house with a driveway to pull up and unload the car, but we have been looking at various apartment units and we always come back to this particular one.

Oh! The apartment sounds amazing, Judy! Wall-to-wall bookcases, a large deck, top floor? (Driveways are overrated.) I can't wait to see pics of it!

Happy new thread, Mary! I love your Denver photos and will enjoy seeing your Pueblo photos too!

Ps. The LA Zoo looks a lot like the Denver Zoo....🙂

Happy new thread, Mary!

>13 Copperskye: Ahahahaha! I don't have L.A. on my mind. No, not at all. :) Thanks, Jo. I changed it.

>14 scaifea: Thanks, Amber!

Happy New Thread, Mary.

Love those toppers. Are those Chihulys in the Botanical Garden?

I can see why you'd miss all those, but it's sounds like a good situation in Pueblo. And I hope your being part of the Denver meetups continues, as I hope to join one one of these days!

Happy New Thread and Happy Sunday, Mary!

Thanks, Joe! Yes, there was a Chihuly exhibit at the Botanical Garden a couple of summers ago. It was spectacular! Now there is just one sculpture - it's a permanent feature.



Pueblo is only about 100 miles from where I live now, so I am sure I'll be coming up for meetups, definitely if you (and mrsjnwelch) ever make it to Denver! There are two LTers who live not far from Pueblo, and we are already making plans for a Pueblo meetup! So exciting!

>17 alcottacre: Thanks, Stasia! Hope you are having a lovely weekend! My Sunday is going to be spent driving down to Pueblo with a load of boxes of fragile breakables that I would rather not risk on the truck on moving day. Then tomorrow will probably be spent recovering. :)

Oh, yay! I just found out through FictFact that Anne Bishop is writing another book in The Others series. Lake Silence (Book #6) is set to be published next year. Going to be hard to wait, but glad to know Book 5 was not the end after all.

ETA the next St. Cyr mystery - Where the Dead Lie (book 12) - is coming out on April 4.

The St Cyr mysteries look good. I'm not so sure about Anne Bishop.

I was a volunteer at the Denver Botanic Gardens way back when I lived in Boulder. I haven't been there in a long time.

Happy New Thread, Mary. Happy Sunday. Miss seeing you around. How are those books treating you?

Happy New Thread, Mary. Good luck with the packing and moving. Are the birds good with moving or does it cause some angst?

Happy new thread, Mary, and good luck with the moving.

Happy New Thread, Mary!

Moving is such a chore - I'm telepathically sending you some Angst Be Gone!

I hope this month goes as well as possible. I hate hate hate moving. So I don't do it. Though I do like the purging (when the decisions are easy). Fingers tightly crossed for you.

>21 dallenbaugh: Hi, Donna! I thought about volunteering at the Botanic Gardens when I first got here, but I decided to volunteer at The Gabriel Foundation, a rescue/shelter for companion parrots, instead. I bet it was great to volunteer there. What did you do? The Others series is urban fantasy, and, since I'm a fan of that sub-genre, it works for me. I think you'd enjoy the St. Cyr series if you like historical mysteries.

>22 msf59: Hey, Mark! I'm trying to get to more threads more often and, you know, actually post rather than just lurk, but with the move imminent it's hard. I'm not doing much reading - too focused on packing for the move.

>23 Familyhistorian: Meg! How nice to see you here! I've been very bad about visiting other threads - barely able to keep up with my own - but I hope after the move I'll be able to settle down a bit. The birds are doing okay so far. Nickel is starting to make the packing tape noise again - she's been with me for three moves, one of them from L.A. to Colorado, so she's an old hand at it. Not so sure how Rosie is going to do, but I'll try to make it as easy as possible for both of them.

>24 FAMeulstee: Hi, Anita! Thanks for visiting me! And thanks for your kind wishes for the move. I have a feeling I'm going to need all the luck I can get!

>25 streamsong: Thanks, Janet! Such a chore! Angst-Be-Gone should be bottled and sold over-the-counter. :)

>26 lunacat: Haha! Every time I move, Jenny, I swear it's going to be the last. Purging was fun when I had months to pack. Now it's weeks, and I'm no longer having a good time with it. In fact, I'm back to saying, "I'll think about this after I move." Which means I'll be bringing a bunch of junk with me, unless it's so obviously junk I don't have to think about it.

Well, just finished breakfast, so need to get offline and finish up packing the books from my two bookcases down here in the basement. So far, I've got five boxes packed and estimate two to go. Then I need to get two upstairs bookcases packed - another 15-20 boxes, I think. Ugh.

But, before I go, I wanted to share this month's free book from the University of Chicago Press that I thought might be of interest: Walden Warming.



Here's the blurb:

"In the late 1840s, Henry David Thoreau made copious notes about the natural world of Walden Pond in Concord, Massachusetts. He noted the date the ice left the pond, when birds arrived, leaves appeared, and the dates of first-flowering for three hundred plant species. These journals were never published, but when Richard B. Primack found them, he knew they would be useful for documenting changes in climate since Thoreau’s time. The highbush blueberry, for example, now blooms three to six weeks earlier than in the 1840s. In our free e-book for April, Walden Warming: Climate Change Comes to Thoreau’s Woods, Primack carefully and compellingly reveals the scientific data in Thoreau’s writings and its implications for our own time."

And here's the link to the page to get the e-book for free: http://www.press.uchicago.edu/books/freeEbook.html

>28 Storeetllr: Thanks! I got the email but it got shoved down by too many others - I might have missed the book, and I did want to read it.

>29 jjmcgaffey: It's not too late! The link at the bottom of the post goes to the page where you can ask to get the free book.

Yes! I said I _might_ have missed it, if you hadn't reminded me. I've gotten it now.

So much moving going on around these parts, between you and Judy! Have you talked to Nickel and Rosie about the upcoming move? Are parrots pretty chill about such things in general?

>31 jjmcgaffey: Oh, whew! I was worried!

>32 rosalita: I know, right? Nickel knows something's up, because she's been with me for three moves, one of them from L.A. to Denver. She is making the box-tape sound, which she associates with prior moves, I'm sure. Rosie just ignores all the packing in the hopes it will all just go away or, at least, not affect her. I'm going to board them at The Gabriel Foundation for two or three days during the actual move. Once I've returned the moving truck and have gotten their cages and perches set up in the new house (first order of business, right after my bed), I'll bring them home. Lots of driving, but we do what we must for our feathered/furred friends, right?

>33 Storeetllr: We do, indeed! I'm not surprised that they know something's going on. Parrots strike me as pretty bright animals.

African Greys have been shown to have the intelligence level of a 3-year old human child, give or take. (She also has the emotional level of a toddler. Sometimes it's not pretty. :) Not sure about Amazons, but Rosie's pretty smart, even if she isn't vocal like Nickel is.

Please tell me the box tape sound is the actual sound of tape being pulled?!

Yes. Yes, it is. By the end of the moving process, I expect she will be doing it nonstop and that it'll take at least two weeks of me ignoring her when she does it before she stops. If I manage to get a short vid clip of it, I'll post it, but it's hard because she stops whatever cute thing she's doing immediately when she sees a cellphone being pulled out.

>37 Storeetllr: I know it must be an irritating noise to have going on all the time, but I think it's quite cute (from a distance).

I knew of a parrot on a yard who made horse's hoof noises, whinnied, and the worst...........a squeaking wheelbarrow! So annoying!

"the box-tape sound" How funny, is that? Go Nickel!!

Hi, Mary! Sounds like you have your hands filled with moving preparations. Moving those darn books! Never fun, but unpacking them is always fun...at least it is to me.

When is your actual moving date?

>38 lunacat: Haha, Jenny, a squeaking wheelbarrow! Nickel can get annoying, but I try to stay calm and remember it really IS cute. Another cute sound I taught her to make is "squeaky toy," which she likes to do especially when she hears a dog barking. (I remind her it's dangerous to make the squeaky toy sound around dogs, but she does it anyway.) I also inadvertently taught her to say "sh*t," which she also likes to say. Incessantly sometimes. And worse. she sounds just like me when she says it!

>39 msf59: Hi, Mark! Yes, I'm in power-packing mode now. As to when I'm moving, that's problematic. My lease starts on 4/15, which is when I get the keys to the place, and when I intend to start moving stuff in, but 4/27 is the date I rented the truck for and when my nieces and their boyfriends will be helping us move. We're going to move my sis first (to Salida) and then me (Pueblo). We figure it's going to be a two-day job at least, maybe 3.

Happy new thread, Mary and wonderful thread topper pics!

How funny that Nickel mimics the box tape sound! Whenever I wanted to have our cats come out of hiding at my parent's place, all I had to do was pull some tape off the roll.... they came running every time, it was better than a can opener for getting their attention. Crazy cats. ;-)

Thanks, Lori! That's weird about the cats and the sound of tape being pulled off the roll. I wonder how that behavior got started.

I don't usually have the patience to read poetry, but today's Knopf Poem-a-Day really got to me - and gave me another way to look at the Daylight Savings time change (in autumn, at least). (I've always hated Spring Forward but loved Fall Back and thought of it as an extra hour of sleep.)

Daylight Savings

There was the hour
when raging with fever
they thrashed. The hour
when they called out in fright.
The hour when they fell asleep
against our bodies, the hour
when without us they might die.
The hour before school
and the hour after.
The hour when we buttered their toast
and made them meals
from the four important food groups—
what else could we do to ensure they’d get strong and grow?
There was the hour when we were spectators
at a recital, baseball game,
when they debuted in the school play.
There was the silent hour in the car
when they were angry. The hour
when they broke curfew. The hour
when we waited for the turn of the lock
knowing they were safe and we could finally
close our eyes and sleep. The hour
when they were hurt
or betrayed and there was nothing we could do
to ease the pain.
There was the hour
when we stood by their bedsides with ginger-ale
or juice until the fever broke. The hour
when we lost our temper and the hour
we were filled with regret. The hour
when we slapped their cheeks and held
our hand in wonder.
The hour when we wished for more.
The hour when their tall and strong bodies,
their newly formed curves and angles in their faces
and Adam’s apple surprised us—
who had they become?
Hours when we waited and waited.
When we rushed home from the office
or sat in their teacher’s classroom
awaiting the report of where they stumbled
and where they excelled, the hours
when they were without us, the precious hour
we did not want to lose each year
even if it meant another hour of daylight.

From The Players by Jill Bialosky
http://x.e.knopfdoubleday.com/ats/msg.aspx?sg1=fe09a6bedbab65e9282170f43ba37203&...

Kinda quiet around here! Wish it were so quiet in my real life. I've been packing like a madwoman, with the birds watching and kibitzing (sometimes loudly), but I came to a screeching halt last night when I RAN OUT OF BOXES/BINS. Also ran out of room to put the packed boxes until moving day, so I guess that's okay. I'm going to start going through some of the boxes/bins that I never unpacked from my last move and getting rid of stuff, so I may come up with a few more boxes to pack needed stuff in.

I'm going to the new place on Saturday to pick up the keys and will be bringing a big load (borrowing my sister's SUV). I plan to line the kitchen cabinet shelves and drawers and start putting stuff away, so I'll be returning with a bunch of empty boxes/bins to use for packing the rest of my stuff.

I'm going to be sooooo glad when this is over and soooo grateful to not have to go up and down stairs anymore!

So empathize with you!! Soon. Soon.

Oh gosh, it's getting so close, Mary! I am sending all the smooth-move vibes I can muster in your direction. Moving might possibly be the least favorite thing I've ever done, and I'm including cancer treatment in the list!

>45 ronincats: Thanks, Roni. Soon. That's both comforting and terrifying. Comforting in that I'll soon have my own place again and won't have to live in a basement (as nice as it is) and walk up and down stairs a couple dozen times a day. Terrifying in that I'm not even close to being finished packing and there's only 2 weeks left to get it together!

>46 rosalita: Thanks, Julia! Moving is a pain, but I'm not sure I'd rank it more painful than cancer treatment. Close, maybe. Anyway, thanks for the smooth-move vibes. (That sounds kinda odd, for some reason.) ;)

Just the thought of moving is horrifying.

It sounds like everything is going smoothly for you though!

I hope everything carries on going fairly smoothly, other than running out of boxes! I'm sure having your own place and not having to go up and down so many stairs will make it all worth it.

>43 Storeetllr: I like this one too, Mary. If you feel like sharing it on the AAC thread, feel free.

Hope the packing is nearly complete and good luck with the next stage.

Looking forward to you getting your feeders set up, at the new place.

>48 Copperskye: Horrifying is another good word to describe the process of moving, Jo. :) It's not going smoothly just now as I've stopped until I can get a load to my new place tomorrow. (Oh! TOMORROW!!!!)

>49 lunacat: Thanks, Jenny. It will be SO worth it!

>50 msf59: I'll do that, Mark. Thanks for the good wishes on the move. I'll definitely be setting up feeders in the new place, but after I'm settled for a bit. First comes a garden, and I'd like to find a way to make the back patio safe for my birds to be outside with me without my having to clip their flight feathers. I'm thinking about putting up outdoor pull-up blinds along two sides and maybe some sheer outdoor curtains along the third. I don't think I have the skill to make an aviary, and I can't afford to buy one.

Just got one of my Early Reviewer wins in the mail! The audiobook of Lindsay Faye's The Whole Art of Detection. So excited! I'll be listening to it on my way down to Pueblo tomorrow (if my sister's SUV's CD player is working - not sure about that).

Faye's one of my favorite authors. I hope you like it!

Thanks, Jim! She's one of my favorites too! Unfortunately, my sister's SUV's CD player is not working, or, rather, it works except then you need tweezers to remove a disk after you listen to it. I'll be waiting until I drive down in my own car next week to start listening. :(

Good luck today, Mary. Hope you accomplish wonders.

>55 ronincats: Thanks, Roni! It was a long, busy day of moving boxes into the rooms where they will ultimately belong and putting some of the stuff away, and I'm exhausted!

So I thought I had more kitchen cupboards and cabinets than I needed? Hahahaha! After I put away all the cups, glasses, dishes, and cookware (which doesn't even include everything), I realized THERE'S NO SPACE TO USE AS A PANTRY FOR CANNED, BOTTLED, BOXED FOOD! I'll be rethinking my plan when I return later this week. Also, when I plotted where my furniture is going to go, I realize the rooms are not as big as I thought they were. Am I the only one who does that?

Nevertheless, as I puttered around the place, feelings of peace and contentment washed over me. It's really a lovely home, inside and out, and I know I am going to be very happy there!

>56 Storeetllr: Rooms tend to look larger when they are empty, Mary, I learned that early in life. Ever since I have all our furniture clipped out of paper (1:20) and made a floor-plan of the new house, so we arranged everything on paper before the move.
Glad your new place feels good, that is the most important.

Morning, Mary!

Yay for being happy with the new place! I think everyone does that with the thinking the rooms are bigger than they really are - at least I know *I* do.

>57 FAMeulstee: That's a great idea, Anita! I did something like that yesterday using graph paper, first measuring the rooms, including doors, closets, windows, then plotting it (one square=one foot) on the graph paper, then drawing the furniture to scale using a pencil. (The eraser has been my friend in this, let me tell you! LOL)

>58 scaifea: Good morning, Amber! I was trying to keep that in mind when I was looking at places, but I obviously wasn't too successful. Honestly, it's a good thing I didn't find a one-bedroom place that I liked, though that's what I started out looking for. I'd've had to build a lean-to against it for all the excess stuff! Or, I could have, you know, gotten rid of a bunch more stuff. *shudder*

So, today I woke up barely able to move. After my first cup of coffee and a couple Advils, I'm feeling almost human. All that lifting, stretching, bending, and sitting as I drove down and back yesterday really took a toll. So, today I am going to be working through two more large bins of papers, getting rid (I hope) of most of it. Tuesday is the last recycling day at this place, so I want to get as much recyclables out of here as possible.

>52 Storeetllr: I bought that one in hardcover form recently. I hope it is a good read for us both.

I hope you recover from the moving soreness quickly! Happy Easter!

Sending energies for your moving...you'll get settled in and figure out the space!

Happy Sunday, Mary! I hope you had a good holiday weekend and I hope you were able to find a bit more energy. Sounds like you have been working hard.
Hugs to my pal.

Glad you got so much done, Mary. Yes, empty rooms always look SO much bigger. I also do the graph paper diagrams of the rooms with furniture cut-outs to scale for planning. You'll figure it all out, I have confidence. And hope you are taking today easy and working through muscle aches.

Sending lots of Moving Mojo to you, Mary. I would hate to think about moving but I'd love to downsize. It's a good thing DH wants to stay in this big ol' 3-story house until he dies! If I'm still around then, I won't have the energy to worry about it. lol

>60 alcottacre: I hope so too, Stasia! I'm looking forward to starting it when next I drive down to Pueblo with another load. I've been having trouble settling down to read anything - between packing and worrying, I just don't have the time. Then I'm too tired to read at night. Anyway, I'm feeling better now after a couple of days of mostly sorting through bins of papers and shredding old stuff. Today, though, it's back to more strenuous packing.

>61 witchyrichy: Thanks, Karen. I am sure you're right. Can't wait!

>62 msf59: Hi, Mark! I had a quiet Sunday after that super-strenuous day Saturday. It sounds like you had the best weekend - meetup on Saturday and Easter gathering of family. Thanks for the hugs - I need as many of those as I can get! Hugs back!

>63 ronincats: Thanks, Roni. I kept telling myself that the rooms were not as big as they looked, but it was hard to remember. Oh, well, I'm sure I'll fit everything in, especially since I'm taking very little of the furniture. I'll be able to live in the place for awhile with minimal furnishings until I figure out what I want to do with the place.

>64 Donna828: Thanks, Donna. I know what you mean. I don't regret selling my house and downsizing, but sometimes I think about buying another place so I WILL NEVER HAVE TO MOVE AGAIN until they move me to the nursing home. lol

Ack! Your scaring me. We are still in the sorting and getting rid of stuff and it's amazing how much junk one collects over the years. I sent seven bags of clothing away on the weekend and that was just my husbands' stuff. Haven't got to my clothes yet. I am looking forward to getting into the unit with my tape measure and my daughters' eagle eye!

You are getting close to the finish line, Mary, just another week or so and you will be settling into your new place. :)

Yeah, I can't imagine what we'd do if we had to move after almost 20 years in the same house. :)

>66 DeltaQueen50: Deep breaths, Judy! At least, that's what I am telling myself, here near the end of the race, so to speak. I got up early today because I was feeling anxious. I walked around the house, just looking and freaking out at so much stuff there is left to sort through and pack. How much time until you have to move? If you have at least a month, and keep at it every day, you should be fine. (Says the person who started prepping for this move in JANUARY. LOL)

>67 drneutron: Hi, Jim! I lived in my house for 18 years before I sold it and moved to a small apartment (about 10 years ago). I downsized at least 50% (donated a bunch of furniture to a women's shelter, rented a dumpster and filled it 2x, and put the rest that I just couldn't part with in a storage unit), but when I came to Colorado from California, I had to rent the largest moving truck available, and still ran out of room. And that was after giving away my sofabed and antique armoire (both of which I loved and which I now wish I still had) plus a bunch of other furniture and stuff. It's like a nightmare that keeps recurring, like a horror story where no matter how much I get rid of with each move, it seems to regenerate without my realizing it.

Mary, you are going to laugh at me getting my knickers in a twist when I have months to go. We will probably be in possession sometime in June, and even then we are planning on taking our time and move slowly. I am hoping to be all squared away by July 1st.

Room sizes in the UK tend to be tiny so I am expert at a) over estimating what will fit and b) rethinking and rejigging things very quickly! I hope you can get the layout to work for you, and that everything carries on going fairly smoothly.

>69 DeltaQueen50: No, Judy, no laughing on my end. Remember, I started in January. Heh. It's great to be able to move out/in slowly. I paid for two weeks in both places because I wanted that ability. In fact, I'm driving down to Pueblo again today with another load of stuff to put away before moving day, which is in *eeek!* a week. If I lived closer, I'd have been doing that every other day, rather than just once a week.

>70 lunacat: Haha, Jenny - we Americans are so spoiled! Except New Yorkers. Most rooms there tend to be small, except in penthouses where billionaires live. My daughter once told me her bedroom was huge, but when I saw it I couldn't help thinking "closet." Glad you are having such a great time in Spain! I've been enjoying your trip vicariously through your pics.

Drove down to the new house today with another load of boxes. Listened to music on the way down (a guilty pleasure: Passion Play by Jethro Tull) and the first CD of the audio of The Whole Art of Detection, read by Simon Vance, on the way back, making the 4-hour round trip fun. I've got the kitchen mostly organized; all that's left are the staples, which I am relieved to say I've found a place for and which will be brought down probably on moving day.

Hooray for Jethro Tull!

Hi, Mary! Hope the move is going well. I wish I lived closer to you, I would give you a hand and then we could listen to some Aqualung. Grins...

Hey, Mark! A fellow Jethro Tull fan! Yay for Aqualung! (Though their album Passion Play will always be my favorite, except for that silly bit in the middle about The Hare Who Lost His Spectacles.) If you lived closer, I'm sure I wouldn't get much done because I'd be too busy hanging with you and Sue (and Joe and the rest of the Chicago crew) too much of the time! But thanks for the sympathy. It's one week to the day until I will be loading all the rest of my stuff onto the moving truck (with the help of my lovely nieces and their BFs) and driving away from this place for the last time until Saturday when the cleaners are coming and I will need to be back to deal with them. But then Saturday night, I'll be sleeping in my new house, the birds will be sleeping in their new room, and all will be right with the world!

Just learned that Within the Sanctuary of Wings, the final *sob* book in the Lady Trent series, will be out April 25 *happy dance*!

http://www.tor.com/2017/04/05/excerpts-marie-brennan-within-the-sanctuary-of-win...

WHAT!?!? I thought the last one was the last one--it wrapped up so neatly. *happy dance* *off to pre-order*

ETA evidently I didn't because I purchased it back last October already. Have no memory of it.

I knew you would have already known about this, Roni! Even if you had forgotten you knew. lol

Four days left until my move. And I started preparing for the move in January. And I am only 2/3 finished packing. Eeeek!

I drove down to Pueblo (again) yesterday to drop some stuff off at the Earth Day Household Hazardous Waste Event: a bunch of old batteries and a bin filled with bottles and boxes of old photography darkroom chemicals that I've been lugging around with me for a decade or more. (Of course I also brought more boxes to drop at the house.) I'm just about ready to give up my dream of having my own darkroom to process and print film. Now to get rid of my enlarger (wah! I don't want to!) and then that will be it. Digital all the way. (Wah!)

Dreams are so hard to let go.

Saw this March for Science sign on FB and Twitter and thought I'd share it here. Happy Earth Day!

>79 Storeetllr: I love it, Mary!

>79 Storeetllr: Yes, I saw it too, good one!

Yup, that's the best I've seen! :)

Hi, Roni, Anita and Jim! I saw some other good signs from marches around the country, but this was definitely the one I liked most!

Joining the chorus, Mary. I love that one in >79 Storeetllr:. As you say, there were other good ones, but this one is a cut above. :-)

Hi, Joe! It's especially wonderful because it references dystopian novels. Just perfect.

>76 ronincats: Amazon's "you bought this already" is a lifesaver, isn't it?

>79 Storeetllr: Love it! I'm going to Baycon at the end of May, and the theme is Utopia/Dystopia. I'll print that out and bring it - it'll fit into one or another panel I'm on, I'm pretty sure.

I grew up moving every 3 years or so - but most of the actual moving was done by pros. We did have to pick and pack our stuff, but then it went away and showed up at the new place (Foreign Service brat - government movers) when we did. Since I went out on my own, I discovered a) I feel weird if I live in one place for more than 3 years - I usually deal with it by rearranging the furniture, and b) moving is _hard_! No big wooden lift-bins appearing, disappearing and reappearing - I have to get stuff into cars/trucks and put it in the new place.

And yet - I've been in this place (condo, one-bedroom) for 12 years now, almost exactly. And without the required culling of frequent moving, I have a tendency to pile my stuff up, and up, and up...Not just books, though they're a major component, but stuff in general. I'm in a "it's been 3 years, change things" mood right now, and my change is (hopefully) to get rid of stuff! I will discover entire halves of rooms I haven't been able to get into for ages.

So I'm reading all the comments about the horrors of moving, and realizing this is yet another thing I don't share with the majority of Americans...

Good luck, and keep the end result firmly in view - your lovely new house!

Just stopping by to say good luck with your move this weekend! I hope the weather is just cooler and not rainy or, god forbid, snowy. We'll be heading to Las Vegas in a few days. Also, hopefully, not in snow through CO and UT!

And, since I know you're a big fan, is it necessary to read the Bosch books in order? I can get them on kindle through the library but I have a couple in paperback that are mid-series. I've only read the first two.

>75 Storeetllr: I have not read any of that series. I am going to have to rectify that!

I hope the move goes well, Mary!

Hi, Mary! The suspense is building, huh? Don't get too stressed out, my friend and don't forget your reading time.

>86 jjmcgaffey: I think I'll print out that picture of the Science March sign and frame it, I love it so much.

I don't mind moving; it's the culling, packing, and getting my stuff from Point A to Point B that is painful. Like you, I get antsy if I am in the same place for longer than a few years. When I owned a house, I used to redecorate some part of it every 4-5 years. I lived there for 18 years, so I redecorated a number of times. My favorite was when I tore the carpets out in the living area, had the concrete floor painted different whites and the walls rough plastered with a lovely off-white with peach and blue undertones. My daughter who was around 12 at the time said, "Mom! They left cracks in the floor!" I told her that's how I wanted it, and she looked at me like I was crazy. The cracks were sealed, but they were still there. I loved it!) Also like you I tend to accumulate things (aka hoarding). I'd hoped to get rid of more stuff this go-round, but it wasn't to be. :(

>87 Copperskye: Thanks, Jo. Have fun in Vegas!

I'd strongly suggest reading Bosch in order. Not only because the later books reference earlier events but also for the character development of Bosch, which is (for me) a big part of the charm of the series.

>88 alcottacre: Roni turned me onto the series. I love it and hope you will too! Thanks for the good wishes on the move, Stasia!

>89 msf59: Thanks, Mark! Suspense? More like freak-out stress! In fact, I haven't really been able to read the past couple of weeks because of the stress. Just no concentration. This has seldom happened to me before. I've been listening to the same audiobook over and over again. It doesn't take any concentration, and it calms me down and helps me fall asleep. Once this is over, there's a long backlog of books to be read. I may spent my entire summer just sitting in the garden reading. :)

I've run out of boxes again, and I don't want to go out and buy more, so I'm improvising - tossing stuff, cleaning up the back yard a little, making necessary phone calls. I've kind of reached a stopping point anyway until my sis gets her stuff out on Thursday. Once her stuff is gone (a storage unit that I was using down here and all the furniture on the main floor), I'll have room to do the last of my packing. Also, on Wednesday I'm taking the birds to birdie camp along with 3 boxes of newspapers (with 700+ parrots, you KNOW they go through lots and lots of newsprint every day!). I'm going to ask for the boxes back, so that should help. I've emptied out every cupboard, closet and cabinet, so though some rooms look out-of-control messy, I know what is left to pack and nothing is hiding behind doors.

Mary, I hope the thought of "spending the entire summer just sitting in the garden reading" gets you through your move. I'm sure you are getting tired of the drive from Denver to Pueblo and back, too. You deserve a good long rest from your labors! Crossing fingers for decent weather on Moving Day!

>92 Donna828: Thanks, Donna. That thought is about all that keeps me going, besides the anticipation of NO MORE STAIRS! :) And you're right. Once I'm all moved and have taken care of all the move-out business up here on Saturday, it's going to be awhile before I am ready to make the trek up to Denver again. Although, by the time you're back in Denver this summer, I'm sure I'll be rarin' to drive up for a meetup.

Moving update as of this morning: my sister now wants ME to move on Thursday and her to move on Friday, so I've got to rethink all my strategies. I also need to shift some of the boxes - boxes that I was keeping down here in order to leave room upstairs for them to maneuver my sister's furniture out to the truck - upstairs to give ME room to finish packing up down here. I think there's only enough stuff left down here for a few more boxes (I managed to scrounge a few more boxes/bins by tossing some stuff and repacking a few boxes - I feel like I'm an expert at Tetris now), but I've run out of room to maneuver. Anyway, I texted my niece to ask if she could give me a hand for an hour sometime today to move boxes upstairs where there's now plenty of room and am awaiting her reply. In the meantime, I'm going to pack up what's left in my bedroom, where there is a little room left. :)

Lots of stress around this change, but the silver lining is I get to sleep at my new house on Thursday night! Yay!

Yeah, so, the weather gods must be having a pint with the moving gods and laughing their butts off.

>93 Storeetllr: Sorry you have to rescedule, Mary, hope you get some help.

>94 Storeetllr: It that the weather where you are going?

Thanks, Anita. My niece and her boyfriend are on their way.

Centennial is where I am moving from. Pueblo, my new home, is only 100 miles south of Centennial, gets less snow than here, is dryer than it is here, and is usually 5F warmer. However, this week, the weather forecast for Pueblo is almost the same as here. :( I'm not too worried, no one's going to melt in the rain, but it's an added hassle. Saturday, though, is a bit troubling, because I have to drive to and from over a pass in the snow. I've got all-weather tires on my little car, so I should be okay, but it's not my idea of a good time.

>96 Storeetllr: Sorry the weather gods are being unkind during your move, Mary. Monument Hill almost always has the worst weather when driving south of Denver on I-25.

Not fair! I hope your sister at least has a good reason. But yay to being in your new home earlier and keeping fingers crossed that the weather gods are kind.

Within the Sanctuary of Wings arrived at my house today. I'm going to start it tonight.

It's the big day, Mary. Hope everything goes smoothly and that you get everything done that you want to!

Thanks for your kind wishes, Donna and Roni! I'm more or less moved in. It was, as expected, a nightmare, but we got it done. I've got the best nieces, and their boyfriends are incomparable. Without them I don't know if I could have done it. Anyway, I picked up the birds today they are getting used to the house. They were little nervous at first, but they ate a good lunch so I think they'll be all right.

Now the hard part: getting everything put away. Hahaha.

Happy Sunday, Mary! Yah, for getting moved in. I saw a couple photos on FB. It looks like the birds settled in quickly.

Hopefully, the hard part is over. Sorry, to hear about your cruddy weather.

I'm so glad your move is mostly over now, Mary. It must be such a relief to have that part done and dusted. And I'm glad Nickel and Rosie have settled in. I suspect as long as you are around they would be OK, but I suppose you never know.

The weather has been horrid here as well — cold and rainy and windy. Yuck! I miss the sun.

Morning, Mary! Happy putting-things-away! Always a challenge, I know.

I am glad that the move is done - I saw the photos of the snow, what a greeting for you! I hope it warms up soon. Glad to hear that the birds are beginning to settle in.

>100 Storeetllr: Glad the move is done, Mary, and the birds are home.
Good luck with getting rid of the boxes.

Congratulations on finishing the move, Mary. I hope the weather is starting to cooperate.

Hi, all. Thanks for keeping my thread alive while I fight to get Internet service at the new place. I'll respond to everyone once I can use my laptop rather than my smart phone.

I wondered if you'd managed Internet service yet. Tell them to hurry up! We want to hear all about how you are settling in.

Glad to hear you're settled in, well, except for the internet issues. Dang those telecommunications companies!!!!!! 🙂 I agree that they can be frustrating.

Oh gosh, good luck getting your Internet service squared away. I will read LT on my phone in a pinch but I never try to post from there — can't stand pecking away at that tiny keyboard!

I hope that the internet gets sorted for you quickly as I have really been enjoying your thread, Mary.

Moving is tough isn't it? I am worried about trying to do it across several continents.

Have a lovely weekend.

Hallelujah! I'm back online! After over a week of no internet. Needless to say, I have been online all afternoon since service was activated. :)

>101 msf59: Hi, Mark! The girls are so happy here! So am I, except it's taking me longer to get my stuff unpacked and put where it belongs than I would like. Oh, well, I've got time now.

>102 rosalita: Thanks, Julia! Yes, SUCH a relief! I don't want to even think about moving again. We're having some crazy weather - thunder & lightening and light rain, interspersed with brief moments of sun. I don't mind and have even been enjoying seeing the lightening out the front window. Of course, it helps that I don't need to be out in it. Plus, it's been warm.

>103 scaifea: Hi, Amber!

>104 lunacat: Me too, Jenny!

>105 FAMeulstee: Thanks, Anita! I'm keeping most of the boxes after I break them down, though I am hoping I won't need them for packing again for many, many years. :)

>106 DeltaQueen50: Thanks, Judy!

>108 ronincats: Hi, Roni! It's been hard being without internet and having to rely on on my smartphone just to check LT and FB and Twitter. So happy to finally have service!

>109 Copperskye: Haha, Jo! I knew you'd understand. :)

>110 rosalita: Exactly, Julia!

>111 PaulCranswick: Thank, Paul! I can't even imagine how moving across continents is going to be for you!!!

Hurrah, Mary, for internet service. Looking forward to seeing more of you now.

Glad you are all hooked up now, Mary, and that you and the "girls" are settling in nicely.

Thanks, Roni and Judy! I'm looking forward to visiting all the threads I haven't been able to keep up with!

Just saw that The Rat Catchers' Olympics, the next Dr. Siri book (#12). is due out in August! Can't wait! That series never disappoints!

Yay! Welcome back to the Internet, Mary!

Congratulations on a successful move and Internet hookup, Mary!

Thanks, Julia! It was a long, hard week without it!

Thanks, Lori! Not sure yet how successful the move was, as I am still unpacked and still can't find things I thought were in boxes I unpacked already. lol At least I've got an internet connection.

So glad you've got internet connection again, and hope you're beginning to get properly settled and sort things out. At least you can decompress online when you're fed up of hunting for things!

Thanks, Jenny! I felt so disconnected without the 'net. Now, of course, I'm wasting too much time online when I should be unpacking and putting away.

>122 Storeetllr: The unpacking will wait I'm sure!

I hope that you are getting settled, Mary. Any photos?

Happy Saturday, Mary. Hope all the unpacking is going well. Do you have your feeders set up yet?

Hope you are also finding some time for the books.

Mary, you can put all that moving angst behind you now. The birds are happy, the weather is probably beautiful by now and You SURVIVED! I know you want everything in place but it will happen in its own good time. Thanks for keeping us updated...and take time to enjoy the weekend.

Hey, Paul! Yes, I'm taking it slow and trying not to panic when I can't find what I was SURE I put in a specific box. Yesterday, I decided to make some new toys for the birds, but the little bins where the toy parts are kept were nowhere to be found. I spent a frantic half hour looking before I decided to let it to, stop at a pet store and buy a couple of new toys, and wait until more boxes get unpacked.

Ugh, no, Mark. *hangs head in shame* I need to get to a store to buy a feeder, and to buy a hummingbird feeder, though I haven't seen any hummers around yet. I'm still in the reading slump - nothing looks good. :( I started listening to A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking. I have the book somewhere but never could get through it. Although I understand about 1% of what he is saying, I am enjoying it.

Thanks, Donna. It is a beautiful day! I'm on my way out to the library to see a film being put on by The Sierra Club about global climate change, and then plan to get my library card and see if the library is willing to donate their used newspapers to the bird place. Then maybe a few stops for shopping, and home to do more unpacking. :)

Started listening to We Are Legion last night, planning to listen for just an hour or so, and ended up listening until 2 a.m. So far, this scifi novel is brilliant.

>127 Storeetllr: Ha! I had a blast with We Are Legion, Mary. Go Bob!

It's great, isn't it, and thank you, Joe, for recommending it! I've already got For We Are Many in the queue to buy from Audible.

I haven't taken a lot of pics of my new place yet, partly because there are boxes everywhere. There's one thing, though, that gives me a lot of pleasure - a little window on one end of the laundry room. It just looks out on the neighbor's house, but it catches the light and is the perfect place for a few small treasures.

That is indeed lovely, Mary. The nice thing about unpacking is that you can do it in fits and starts and maybe pick up a book in between.

Aw, sweet little window! I love it!

>130 Storeetllr: Ooh, that's lovely.
Congrats on the move and the new place. (I feel too embarrassed to say 'new thread'!)

>130 Storeetllr: That is so pretty!

Hope all is well!

Sweet window arrangement! I hope other than the relentless packing that you and the girls are settling in well.

>131 ronincats: There have been more fits than starts so far, Roni! ;-D But I love being able to take my time in the hopes of "getting it right" this time.

>132 scaifea: Thanks, Amber. It is a sweet little window. I forgot to mention that it gets the morning sun.

>133 charl08: Hi, Charlotte! Thank you! Not to worry - there are so many threads to visit, and I haven't been very good at visiting everyone this year either. In fact, I don't know where your thread went and think maybe I haven't visited you in, um (talk about embarrassed), months.

>134 Copperskye: Thanks, Jo. It's going well. I'm still all at sixes and sevens, as my Brit mil used to say, but the important things are in order (birds' cages, perches, and food - and I found the toy parts! - and my bed are all set up).

ETA post numbers.

Hi, Julia! We are settling in very well, thanks. The girls seem quite comfortable with their new digs, and happy to have a number of different places around the house to hang out, most of them with line of sight to me, which seems to be important to them. :)

I keep changing the window arrangement as I unpack various little gewgaws that I think might be good there. This is I think the fourth iteration and one I like a lot. I've got three small colored bottles (red, purple and yellow) that have yet to be recovered from the boxes that I THINK I'm going to put there, maybe with the butterfly (which is made from recycled plastic bottles, btw), but, in the meantime, I'm enjoying this look.

Ran some errands today. First, signed up at Pueblo Athletic Club with my Silver Sneakers membership (which means it's free). It's really a nice place - besides the usual machines, weights, racquetball and basketball courts, indoor track (important in Colorado in the colder months), and exercise class facilities, there are huge indoor and outdoor pools, a really big jacuzzi, and a dry heat sauna that looks like it could fit 25 people. Clean and large locker rooms, nice staff, and the guy said it's almost never crowded between noon to about 4 p.m. My kinda place! Orientation is tomorrow at 5 p.m. It's only about a half mile from where I live. You think I'll be able to get there at least once a week?



Then I had to drive clear across town (took me a whole 10 minutes - I love that about Pueblo!) to drop off a couple of boxes. Anyway, in the strip mall, a couple of doors down from the UPS Store, was this pho place. I asked the woman at UPS if she ever ate there, and she said she liked it, so I tried it because I was kind of hungry. Best bowl of beef pho I've ever had! Still surprises me to find great food in unprepossessing restaurants in strip malls.



Also stopped at the ARC thrift store and bought a large glass pot lid for $1.99 and a small plate - white with cobalt blue edge - for 75 cents. Then grocery shopping for three items (haha, turned out to be two bagsful of stuff). Now I'm home and ready for a nap.

Hi, Mary! Hooray for the Athletic Club! Boo to a book slump. Has that improved any?

Hi, Mark! Yes, the Bobs seem to have dragged me right out of that darn slump! Am really enjoying We Are Legion on audio and The Hanging Tree on Kindle.

Hooray for Bobs!

Sounds like a productive day, Mary!

Sounds like you are settling in to Pueblo. Good for you! I like your window arrangement.

>141 msf59: :) BTW, I finished it and really liked it a lot. My mini-review follows.

>142 ronincats: Very productive, Roni. Today, on the other hand, looks to be shaping up to be a do-nothing day. Ah, well, we all need those kinds of days occasionally.

>143 dallenbaugh: Thanks, Donna! I am really liking Pueblo, even more than I expected I would. The pace is so much slower here, which is taking me some effort to get used to, and nothing is very far apart. I also like the neighborhood - not wealthy or fashionable, but comfortable and quiet.

46. We Are Legion by Dennis E. Taylor. 4 stars. Audio. They say there are no coincidences, so I wonder at the serendipity of my having read A Brief History of Time just before I picked up this strange but intriguing scifi adventure, because what I learned from Hawking helped me grasp some of the concepts Taylor uses, and vice versa. Can't wait to read Vol. 2 of the Bobiverse.

I forgot to mention that I bought a used cassette deck yesterday. When I was cleaning out the garage in preparation for moving, I "found" a box full of old cassette tapes, some of them old music albums, some family history, and some that aren't even labeled. (Very bad form, that, I know.) Anyway, I'm going to listen to them and decide whether I want to digitize them or toss them. Or maybe I'll just listen to them as cassettes, at least until the tape deck dies. The tape deck will look right at home next to the turntable, though the nearby iPod docking station might look a bit anachronistic. What do you think? (Please ignore the boxes and other unpacking mess.)

I was just getting ready to post a pic of Nickel and Rosie hanging with me in the living room, when all of a sudden the sun disappeared and there's thunder, lightning and hail pounding down like a kettle drum! Whew, things change awfully fast around here.

>147 Storeetllr: Hey, that was us last night - until it started SNOWING around 4 am! And it hasn't stopped. Ugh!

Love your pictures and so glad to see that you're settling in!

Heh, Colorado. I was just over to your thread, Jo, and saw what you posted about the weather. Crazy doesn't begin to describe it.

I like your little music alcove! I so wish I still had a turntable. And a cassette player, too, for that matter. I have so many old albums of my mom's and mine that I can't play. :-(

We had a doozy of a thunderstorm last night, too, but thankfully no snow! That's just crazy.

I've seen some new turntables that have cassette players and CD players/recorders, as well as thumb drive/USB slots, so you can digitize your LPs and tapes as you listen to them! I wanted one of those, but I got this one as a gift for Christmas. It only has the thumb drive/USB slot. I've yet to use it, but I plan to.

I guess spring weather everywhere can be crazy, but mid-May snow is just too much, although I saw a weather report the other day that said June 12 was the record latest snowfall in the Denver area.

I'm glad to hear that Pueblo is a nice, relaxed place to live. And it sounds like you're getting some lovely areas sorted in your home, and the girls seem happy. Hurrah :).

I'm currently listening to We Are Legion (We Are Bob) as well. I suspect I shall have to listen to it again, as I seem to be getting a little confused at times. I'm still enjoying it, I just need to focus a little more than I am!

Parts of it were confusing to me too, Jenny. I plan to reread it and Hawking's book, maybe in tandem again, probably in print as the audio version went so fast I had a hard time keeping up.

So, my retro world is now complete. I went to a garage sale over the weekend and bought a 13" TV/VCR combo unit so I can look at the VHS tapes I have from my daughter's birthday parties (starting in 1984) and continuing through her high school musical performances. Mainly I want to consider whether it's worth it to digitize them and, if so, the best (and least expensive) way to do it. Yesterday, I watched her senior year performance as Anna in The King and I. Really brought back memories!

ETA that tonight I watched my daughter's first birthday party tape. She was so cute. And bald. And I was so thin. And young. And pretty. (And I remember back then thinking I was fat and anything but pretty.) Here's a pic I took of a scene in the video that proves my daughter was a reader even at the tender age of one.

>154 Storeetllr: - It is interesting, and lucky, that TV/VCR combo units still exist (granted, your find was at a garage sale), but how wonderful that you made that find and are able to watch your daughter's party tapes and other family memorabilia that gets challenging with the technology shifts we have been experiencing over the past 10 years. As one friend noted recently, "Just 20 years ago we'd cluster around a computer marveling over the very notion of burning CDs. Weird that this is now obsolete tech." So true. I am still stunned that our family has boxes and boxes and boxes of print photos and some 3,000 slides to document our family history. Looking forward to a rather marathon slide "trip down memory lane" show next trip home. Now my siblings and I just need to figure out how to load and reload the slide carousals in an efficient manner. ;-)

Hi, Lori! Yes, technology sure has changed over the past decade. And I know what you mean about the boxes and BOXES of print photos and slides. I've got a few bins of them myself. I figure it will take me a year sitting at the computer five days a week for 8 hours a day to get all of them scanned to digital.

And thanks for the reminder to look for the slide carousel. I know I saw it somewhere when I was packing...

I fully expect to see a wind-up Victrola the next time I visit your thread, Mary!

Hahaha, Julia!

I wonder where I could find one of those. ;)

So, I spent some time making the living room pleasant and thought I'd share my effort with you.

Starting to look like home, Mary!

Love the look of the living room, Mary. Nice job. Always like seeing the bookshelves. I also like the vinyl. I gave away all my albums years ago. Sighs...

Thanks, Roni! It's starting to feel like home. :)

I know you do like seeing bookcases, Mark! I love listening to records. It's so different a sound (feel?) than CDs and streaming. I lost a lot of albums over the years and wonder what the heck happened to them. Sergeant Pepper's and Beggars' Banquet both went missing, as did Cheap Thrills and Safe at Anchor by Kate Wolfe, which was one of my favorite albums. I still have the album cover, but the LP is gone. I'm actually thinking of getting a copy, if I can find one that I can afford.

So, I happened by chance to see that The Green Mile was on TV tonight and, though I have the DVD and watch it every year or so, I decided to watch it. Such an amazing film adaptation of Stephen King's great novel! I cried like a baby all the way through it.

>159 Storeetllr: Looks lovely, Mary, home is where the book(case)s are :-)

>159 Storeetllr: Nice! I'm sure it was a lot of work, Mary, but it sure turned out well.

I'm a fan of wooden floors. Looks great - and that's a beautiful rug back there.

Oh, your living room looks lovely!

Thumbs up for your living room setup, Mary! I am in awe considering how recently you moved — you have been working hard!

It looks like you are nicely settled in, well done! What a relief it must be to have some of it done. I love the way it looks, and hurrah for bookshelves up and full.

>164 FAMeulstee: Thanks, Anita! And, yes, it is! Books and bookcases and, in my case, parrots. :)

>165 jnwelch: Thanks, Joe! I love wood floors too, and these are real wood as opposed to laminate and feel so much nicer. They're in need of refinishing, and, if I were owner, I'd have it done, but even with all the scratches and stains, it is a lovely floor!

>166 scaifea: Thanks, Amber!

>167 rosalita: Don't be in awe, Julia. Just to the left of the picture is a big pile of boxes of books, some loose books, papers and other detritus that I haven't gotten to yet. lol But the main part of the living room is more-or-less set up now, which makes me happy.

>168 lunacat: It is a relief, Jenny, thanks! I put up the books helter-skelter and am now in the process of going through them (again), deciding which are staying, which are being donated, and which are going into the other two bookcases in the spare room. I do love a house with books and bookcases, but I still have too many books I either don't ever intend to read, that I've already read and don't care to reread, or that I read and actively didn't like but that someone else may. Once I get down to only the books I love and/or intend to read/reread, plus, of course, my reference books, I think everything should fit in the four bookcases with room for a few treasured knick-knacks and pieces of art. (Before I started culling, I had about a dozen boxes of books that didn't fit in the four bookcases.

I wonder if there are any Free Little Libraries in Pueblo.

>162 Storeetllr: I had a couple of Kate Wolfe albums also and gave them away plus all my other vinyl when I found I could make a playlist of them on Spotify. The sound is different but I knew I wouldn't listen to them on a turntable plus I am slowly trying to whittle down my possessions. I also have boxes and boxes of prints.

The living room looks very good. I wish I had those beautiful wood floors.

Thanks, Donna! The floors look a lot better in the picture than they actually are, but I prefer them to any other flooring, dinged an stained as they are.

Wasn't Kate Wolfe wonderful! I didn't know you could get her stuff on Spotify. I'll have to go check that out.

I know what you mean about whittling down your possessions. It's my goal too, but there are some things that give me too much pleasure just now to cull, including listening to my collection of LPs. My goal in the next year is to digitize as many prints/negatives/slides as possible, as well as the VHS and Hi-8 videotapes. I also want to digitize my LPs and cassettes at some point. Then will come the painful process of *sob* getting rid of most of them. (Already having anxiety attacks just thinking about it.) I know I will be able to find takers for much of what I have - like family members who don't "do" digital - but some of it will be going to a landfill, I'm afraid.

>159 Storeetllr: Nice! I love your floors. And your bookshelves. That goes without saying.

And I note the prominently displayed copy of 11/22/63. It's so huge - it can't help being prominently displayed! 🙂

I've got a stack of vinyl on a basement bookshelf. Nothing to play them on, though. I also recently noticed that I have some of my older siblings albums - Jefferson Airplane, Beatles, Beach Boys, etc, from the 60s. Mine are mostly from the 70s and 80s. I can't get rid of them - mine or theirs!

Aw, thanks, Joanne! This is about the only room that is mostly put together. This and the birds' room. My bedroom is currently piled with clothing that I am deciding whether to keep or give away and, if keeping, where to store the winter stuff. The dining room is full of empty, broken-down boxes that I'm keeping there until I can make a place for them in the garage, which is filled with stuff I haven't gotten to yet.

Yes, I'm displaying 11/22/63 so I don't forget about it.

If you want to loan those LPs to me so I can make digital copies, I can also make copies for you and your siblings. :)

Hi Mary, it's great that you are getting settled in and are loving your new location. In our sorting marathon I've come across a huge pile of CD's that I must have burned and then for some reason set aside. I am trying to listen to them to see why they never made it upstairs to the CD player. We also have come across piles of VCR tapes that we recorded over the years and now have no VCR player to watch them. I need to find a second hand VCR player as well!

It's great to see that there is light at the end of the tunnel!

Oh, Judy! I feel your - if not "pain," then maybe "impatience" to be done with the move and be settled. Yes, there is light at the end of the tunnel. I'm still in the tunnel myself, though, sorting through the boxes and organizing my new house, but the light is getting brighter!

How fun that you've unearthed CDs and VHS tapes from years past. I found that little color TV/VCR combo for $20, so they are out there.

Speaking of music from the late 60s through, well, recent years, though I don't have any of their LPs, I saw that Gregg Allman passed away today. Eat a Peach is one of my favorite old albums, and One Way Out my favorite cut on the album.

Taking a page from Julia's (rosalita) book and posting this "clickbait" for your listening pleasure: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/gregg-allman-20-essential-songs-w480242

>162 Storeetllr: Your living room looks great! As for vinyl, my husband just bought a record player so we can pull those records off the shelf. I remember those days when the first thing that got set up when you moved was the hifi.

Your living room is so homey thanks to all those books, Mary. Now you have a piece of Calm amongst the piles and boxes that need to be sorted. Maybe I'll bring a few of my favorite albums along when I come visit!

>177 witchyrichy: Hey, thanks, Karen! I really like the living room too. It's big and light and those wood floors! Oh! How fun you got a turntable! Yes, you better take those old records off the shelf! You can sit and listen to them by yourself - or with your hubby! (Apologies to Bob Seger.) As far as order of unpacking, the turntable was the third things I set up after I moved. (My bed was first, the birds' cages second.) I had already set up the iPod docking station when I was just coming down to drop off loads before I actually moved in.

>178 Donna828: Hi, Donna! Yes, books really make a house a home, you know? And you are most welcome to bring some music with you when you come. We can have a dance party. :) What are some of your favorite LPs?

I read only 7 books in May, which is down from my average of 15 but up from April's sad one book for the month. Listed in the order I read them:

Silence Fallen by Patricia Briggs. 3.5 stars. Audio. Latest Mercy Thompson. Okay, but not my favorite, perhaps because not many of the usual supporting characters are around.

Darkover Landfall by Marion Zimmer Braley. 3.5 stars. Reread. Read this back in the last century and felt like refreshing my memory on the series, as I am culling all the Darkover novels from my bookshelf and donating them to the library.

A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking. 3.5 stars. Audio. I don't claim to understand most of what I heard, but what I did comprehend was fascinating. I plan to reread this in print to try and understand more. I wasn't thrilled with the narrator, who not only stuttered occasionally but spoke so quickly in places that, even if I could have comprehended what Hawking was saying, I couldn't understand what was being said.

We Are Legion by Dennis E. Taylor. 4.5 stars. Audio. They say there are no coincidences, so I wonder at the serendipity of my having read A Brief History of Time just before I picked up this strange but intriguing scifi adventure, because what I learned from Hawking helped me grasp some of the concepts Taylor uses, and vice versa. Can't wait to read Vol. 2 of the Bobiverse.

The Black Echo by Michael Connelly. Audio, narrated by Dick Hill. 4 stars. The first in the Bosch mystery series. This wasn't the first Bosch I read back in the day. First was Concrete Blonde, then I went back to the beginning. I think if I'd read this one first I might not have continued, or not as eagerly. Yes, it was well written and gritty, but why Bosch had to fall straight into bed with Eleanor Wish, and how he somehow just intuits things so miraculously, and the almost over-the-top melodrama, would have turned me off if I hadn't had a taste of a later Bosch. The Vietnam flashbacks were fascinating, though, and the way the war directly impacted events even 20 years after its end was intriguing.

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman. 5 stars. Audio, narrated by Neil himself. Reread. I know I listened to this within the last few months, but lately I have been feeling in need of comfort reads, though I'm sure it says something about me that a story about homeless, displaced, grungy, and very very strange people living under the City of London and a girl who is running from two of the most gruesome, creepy and well-drawn monsters (Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar, see image below) ever to stalk their way through time and space and who just murdered her entire family, is one I consider a comfort read. Anyway, it never disappoints and just keeps getting better every time I read/listen to it. I also seem to pick up more allusions to classic mythology each time I reread it. Cannot wait for the sequel!


The Old Firm by Jeff Lee Johnson

Dusk or Dark or Dawn or Day by Seanan McGuire. 3.75 stars. Audio. Coming of age ghost story set in NYC and featuring ghost Jenna who died when she was a teenager before her time and who has been aging slowly to the age she should have been when she died by doing volunteer telephone work at a suicide prevention center. Weird and without a lot of character depth but another intriguing take on ghosts by the author of Sparrow Hill Road. Wasn't thrilled with the narrator, Emily Bauer.

First book of June is one I "won" from Penguin's First-to-Read program. It will be released later this month.

Silver Silence by Nalini Singh. 4.25 stars. Well, I gobbled this book up pretty darn quickly! First in the new Psi-Changling Trinity series, a spin-off of the original Psi-Changling series.

Silver Mercant is assistant to Kaleb Krychek, reputed to be the most powerful and most dangerous man on the planet (and hero of my favorite Psi-Changling book to date, Heart of Obsidian). She's been pretty much in the background for much of the original series (the Silence arc). Now Silence has fallen, and Silver has taken up the reins of the newly formed worldwide emergency response network (EmNet) under the aegis of the Trinity Accord. In this first novel in the spin-off series (the Trinity arc), Silver emerges as a powerful and surprisingly dangerous woman in her own right. I especially enjoyed the slow-building romance between her and Valentin, a romance that is handled with lighthearted good humor that sometimes had me grinning like a loon.

One example from early on in the book: "Valentin could be obstinate himself. He needed a mate who’d refuse to take any of his shit. She’d also drive him insane, of that he was certain, but bears were lunatics anyway. It’d be fun."

Being an early review copy, there were a few grammatical errors and missteps in wording that I hope will be rooted out of the final published book, but even with those little problems, it is a really fun installment in the Psi-Changling universe. I took off .5 star off the rating for the little glitches and gave it an extra .25 star for the delightfully different, sweet and amusing romance. And the characters.

Stopping by to wish you a wonderful weekend, Mary!

Sounds like I need to check out the Psi-Changeling series? How is the settling in going? Are you going to try to garden this year? Has it stopped snowing there yet?

>180 Storeetllr: I love Neverwhere, too, Mary. Made me smile to see your comments. I've re-read it three times, and am thinking about another.

I had fun with the first Bobiverse book, and I'm also looking forward to reading the second one.

>182 lkernagh: Hi, Lori! Thanks, so far I've done nothing except watch the weather change. Woke up to sun, then it got cloudy, then it rained, then the sun came out, then it got cloudy with thunder & lightening (and I was hoping we wouldn't get hail), then the sun came out, and now it's cloudy again - all in the first 3 hours (I slept in today). I thought Denver weather was cray-cray. Pueblo's the crazy weather champion!

>183 ronincats: You haven't read the Psi-Changling series yet, Roni? It seems right up your alley, though I admit there are more sex scenes than I prefer; I skim right over them. Fewer & shorter in the more recent books, thank goodness. Have you read her Guild Hunter series yet? I like it even more, though, again, I end up skimming over the sex scenes. As for gardening, I planted only a container garden this year. So far, I've potted a regular tomato, a cherry tomato, basil, lavender, and various flowers. Right now they are right outside the patio door in a place that gets the most sun. Snow's all gone (thank God!), but see my answer to Lori to see what the weather here is like.


Container garden so far...as of June 3, 2017


As of June 21, 2017 - Summer Solstice!

>184 jnwelch: Hi, Joe! There are only a few books that I can read over and over again and enjoy as much or more every time. Neverwhere is one. Just now, there are too many library book holds that just came available, but as soon as I get those under control, I'll be getting the audio of For We Are Many. Have been enjoying your pictures and posts about your wonderful time in Spain!

I know that feeling of being way, way behind on the threads, Mary. I just caught up with your move and setting up in your new place. Sounds like you and your feathered friends are making it home. Now that you are getting back to reading again it must be starting to feel comfortable.

Hi, Meg! Yes, the girls and I are getting settled and enjoying the new place. We spent some time yesterday out on the back patio - me tensely watchful in case either of them decided to jump off their perches and fly away (though Nickel's wing feathers were clipped back and Rosie, well, Rosie's a perch potato and can't fly two feet) and the birds enjoying the breezes and dappled sunlight as they watched me pot new plants. Before we went inside, Nickel started chirping like a wild bird that had been chirping from somewhere nearby.

Here's a pic of the sunset from the dining room, which looks out over the back patio:

Really excellent news: LT has "fixed" the Touchstones (http://www.librarything.com/topic/248035#6069108) so they don't come up with completely off-the-wall results. I tested the fix with March: Book Three, and that is the book that now comes up! (Using just "March" without the colon and "Book Three" results in a lot of entries, but all of them have the word "March" in them!) Woot!

I took a few pics today. The first is of the tree in front of my house. I was driving home and as soon as I turned the corner, there it was, a monster tree looming over everything.



The next are some pics of the birds on the back patio hanging out. Literally, in Nickel's case.

I bet that tree is beautiful in the autumn, Mary! And the girls look very at home on the patio. I'm impressed that you are able to have them outside without them flying away! I would be a bag of nerves.

What a beautiful tree! Do you know what kind it is? I was thinking the same thing as Julia about Nickel and Rosie. I know their wings are clipped, but I'd be so nervous! They must love being under the open skies though, so it'd be worth the worry.

>180 Storeetllr: I'm dutifully (and happily) reading the Bosch books in order and just finished The Concrete Blonde. It was my favorite so far.

Wonderful pictures. It looks like you are all enjoying the new place.

>190 rosalita: Not sure about the kind of tree* that is, Julia, so not sure about how it's going to look in the Autumn, but, however it looks, I'm not looking forward to cleaning up its leaves. ;D As for the birds, you're right. Even clipped birds can fly, given the right conditions, but Rosie is a perch potato and would rather be carried than fly, walk, climb, etc. Nickel is problematic, but she's never been a flyer and, even when she was fully flighted for that couple of years, took off on her own without my tossing her in the air only 2-3 times. So I am always on full alert when she is out there with me, and don't take them out when it is windy (updrafts are a good way for a clipped bird to gain flight). I did toss her in the air outside the other day to see how far she would go (holding my breath the entire time), and she made it a good 10 feet, but it was a downward trajectory, so I feel relatively confident that she won't fly away.

ETA it might be a locust tree*.

>191 Copperskye: Hi, Jo! The girls don't like the open sky (think hawks), but they do like to be outside under a patio roof, umbrella, on my shoulder under a the wide brim of a hat - anything to shield them from predators! Nickel is fascinated by the wild birds. Rosie just wants to be wherever I am. Concrete Blonde is great, isn't it! I'm going to read it as soon as I get around to reading the second in the series, though it wasn't my favorite of his either.

>192 Familyhistorian: Thanks, Meg! We are enjoying it, well, at least the parts that are relatively put together. There's still a pile of books in the corner of the living room, framed prints propped against walls all over the place because I can't find my hammer, and the spare room is a mess of full, half-full and empty boxes. Also, I'm not satisfied with how I organized my bedroom and my kitchen. I'm thinking of redoing them, but then I think I should get the rest of the house organized first. Aargh! I want so much to never have to move again!

Howdy, Mary. Loving the sunset photo, along with the other house pics. Looks like you & the girls are getting comfortable in the new digs.

And hooray for Neverwhere! I am due a reread on that one. My very first Gaiman.

Hey, Mark! Yeah, we are getting comfy here! It's so peaceful, though it's a street away from a main thoroughfare and with houses close to each other.

Neverwhere was your first Gaiman? That was quite the intro! I don't recall what my first Gaiman was - not Neverwhere. I think it was Stardust, then maybe The Graveyard Book, and then Neverwhere.

Copying Julia (rosalita) today and offering clickbait that I thought was amusing and might interest LTers. This week's A.Word.A.Day is about nouns used as verbs: https://wordsmith.org/words/showboat.html

Wow! Sitting inside watching (and listening to) a huge thunderstorm! Sounds like the cell is right over us - less than a second between lightening and thunder. Rain coming down in sheets (seriously, sheets!) and there's a stream of water running down my driveway toward the street. Nice to have all the rain since my sprinkler system is turned off for repairs, but the high wind, booming thunder & lightening strikes, if awe-inspiring, are a bit frightening. And I worry my power will go out.

I am glad to see that you are settling in nicely to your new home, Mary!

Thanks, Stasia! We are settling in and enjoying it. Still a lot to do, though. I can't turn around without tripping over another box that I've half emptied before getting distracted by something else, or seeing another pile of things I have to figure out what to do with.

>197 Storeetllr: I do love a good thunderstorm, I have to admit. So much power coming from the sky! Here's hoping you don't lose power (and even worse, the Internet connection), though.

Yeah, all is well, thanks, Julia. Power stayed on. Internet stayed up. I sat and watched the drama from the comfort and safety of my little sofa. It was pretty exciting, truth be told. I haven't experienced such a strong thunderstorm for quite awhile.

Awesome! Maybe I need to move to Pueblo when I retire. :-)

You'll have to come visit first and see how you like it, Julia!

I love to sit and watch thunderstorms blow through! Don't get very many in San Diego, though. The thing about the pace with the unpacking, Mary, is that there is no one to please but yourself. So please do so!

The line of Thunderstorms you experienced visited me also (45 minutes south of you). Quite a show alright. One dog was terrified. The other dog was Ho Hum.

>203 Storeetllr: Now there's an idea! I'd love to meet the girls.

>204 ronincats: Hah! I wish I could take my time, Roni, but I'm hoping to have overnight guests in the next month or two. So I sort of have to get it together sooner rather than later. At least clear a space in the guest bedroom and set up a bed there.

>205 dallenbaugh: Hi, Donna! I'm glad you're okay and that your dog has gotten over the fright. My birds didn't mind as long as I was in the room with them. If I stepped out even for a minute, they were squawking and calling. But then they do that anyway. It's just that the loudest squawks seemed to come right after the thunderboomers. Say, we need to make a plan to get together soon!

>206 rosalita: I look forward to it, Julia!

So, I've decided that I'm going to start posting my mini book reviews on my thread as I go along.



51. Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire. 3 stars. Audio. Very strange, very dark little YA story about teens who have gone through doors to other worlds and have, for one reason or another, been rejected by their worlds and returned to the real world, willingly or not, and how they cope with it - or not. I liked the premise, and the writing is good, as always, but I couldn't get a feel for any of the characters, all of whom seemed two-dimensional to me. I admit, I'm not a fan of YA, so take my 3-star rating with a grain of salt if you do. This just isn't McGuire's best effort, imo.


China cover, because I think the U.S. cover is boring

52. The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu. 3.5 stars. Audio (Luke Daniels, narrator). Hard scifi/China's Cultural Revolution historical fiction/first contact. I'm sure it's only coincidence that, within 3 weeks, I have read three books the subject of each being theoretical physics, one nonfiction (A Brief History of Time) and two scifi novels. All were, in places, difficult for me to comprehend, but all were fascinating. The Three-Body Problem starts out like historical fiction set in China during the Cultural Revolution and features a female graduate student in astrophysics whose scientist father is murdered by the Red Guard on a public stage after her mother betrays him and testifies against him. The violence was pretty graphic. The girl is sent to work on a deforestation project at a reeducation camp near a SETI facility. There she is falsely accused of wrong actions and might have been executed if she hadn't been drafted to work at the facility in her capacity as an astrophysicist. Then there is a jump to the present, when scientists are committing suicide for no apparent reason, and one man - a nanomaterial expert - is tagged by the military to help figure out why this is happening. He becomes addicted to a strange VR computer game titled Three Body. Actually, the scenes in the game are some of my favorite parts of the book, especially the part about the human computer. If my mini-review is a bit scattered, it's because so is the novel. We go back and forth in time, and the behavior of the characters isn't always clear. The characters, in fact, are mostly unsympathetic, even the brash cop who seems to be the favorite of a lot of readers - I mostly found him obnoxious, though he may be the most sane of all of them - and the dialogue wooden. I'll probably read the second and third books in the trilogy, but I don't feel compelled to jump right on it. Also, I don't think I'll want to read them as audiobooks - I wasn't thrilled with the narrator.

Yay for more mini reviews! I liked your review of The Three-Body Problem. It is very much not my usual fare, and I ended up liking it pretty well even though I know a lot of the hard science went straight over my head. It's interesting to me that some more hard-core sci-fi readers like Roni have not liked it very much at all.

>209 rosalita: I didn't hate it, Julia, but it was flat and read like 1950's hard science fiction to me. I do appreciate character-based science fiction more. Obviously a lot of people liked it more than I as it won the Hugo for its year.
>208 Storeetllr: Yeah, novella length just is unsatisfying for me in general. And this one is definitely dark. Yay for mini-reviews, Mary!

>210 ronincats: I was wondering if the split was due to your being a much more prolific sci-fi reader than I — in other words, you've read plenty of the good stuff so you can recognize when other books like this aren't quite up to snuff. To me, it was hard-core sci-fi and I maybe didn't see the flaws as clearly as you because I have less to compare it to. I don't know if that makes sense?

>211 rosalita: Makes sense to me. I know I've loved some books (Catherine Coulter historical romances) when I first came across them - but then after years of historical romances and Heyer, I reread and they were awful. Greater experience equaled greater discrimination. Same for Tom Swift and Rick Brant - loved them as a teen, but couldn't reread recently.

>209 rosalita:, >210 ronincats:, >211 rosalita: Yes, The Three-Body Problem wasn't the best hard scifi novel I've ever read, but then I don't read a lot of hard scifi. Most of the characters' actions were incomprehensible to me, but I thought it was because the Chinese culture is so different from American culture. The dialogue was stilted, though, and the storyline jumped around a bit more than I liked. I had thought perhaps the translation was the problem, but apparently not, according to those who read the original Chinese and also the translated version. On the whole, though, the story was interesting and I enjoyed it enough to continue to the end - at times even compulsively - and I no longer finish books that do not please me in one way or the other. Too old to waste my time.

>208 Storeetllr:, >210 ronincats: Perhaps the length of Every Heart a Doorway was the problem, though other novella-length stories I've enjoyed more have been able to do a better job fleshing out the characters. It wasn't bad, just not her best. And it could have been better with just a little more effort.

>212 jjmcgaffey: I've noticed the same thing! Some books I thought were wonderful when I read them a few decades ago are flat and badly written when I try to reread them now.

Original post: June 10. Edited to try and get touchstones to work.

Our very own Jim (drneutron) is featured in a Baltimore Sun article about the Parker Probe, aka the solar probe. http://www.baltimoresun.com/health/maryland-health/bs-hs-parker-solar-probe-2017...

Besides being excited to count Jim as a friend, I'm beyond excited about the solar probe. As a child, I would gaze up at the night sky and dream about flying to the stars, at the same time the plan for this probe was first set in motion in 1958.

1st Edition Cover

53. Dissolution by C. J. Sansom. 4.5 Audio. Historical mystery. Reread. I read this a decade or more ago, and have read every new installment in the series as soon as it is published. Lately, I have been thinking about rereading the series, and this seemed a good time to do so. Interestingly, though I remember the broad outlines of the story, I had forgotten many of the details. Anyway, for anyone who's been living on a desert island since 2003 (when it was published), this is an historical novel with a murder mystery set in the time of Henry VIII, a few years after Anne Bolyn's beheading when Henry and Cromwell were busily destroying the monastic orders in England and appropriating the monastery lands to enrich themselves and their followers. Sometimes it seems that 2017 is the most corrupt time in American history, with the greediest, most destructive ruler ever, but Henry VIII's era rivals this one. As I read, I was depressed at various times by the fact that we, as a species, haven't advanced much in our humanity in the 500 years since the Dissolution and sad at the loss of so much history and culture when the monasteries were destroyed and the books burned. As literature, though, it's wonderful.

Original post: June 10. Edited to try and get touchstone to work (it did!).

>214 Storeetllr: Thanks for the shout-out! It's fun to see how people get excited by this mission of exploration.

>215 Storeetllr: Very good writer CJ Sansom - I need to catch up that series, but I really liked, as you did, Dissolution.

Hi Mary! I saw in my daily ebook bargains email that a book called Alex & Me: How a Scientist and a Parrot Uncovered a Hidden World of Animal Intelligence and Formed a Deep Bond in the Process is on sale for 99 cents today. Have you read it?

>216 drneutron: It is my pleasure and honor, Jim! Congratulations again!

>217 PaulCranswick: Hey, Paul! Thanks so much for taking the time to visit my thread! I know you've got a lot on your plate these days. Yes, the Shardlake series is one of my favorite historical mystery series. Dissolution was good, but Sovereign (the third in the series) is my favorite, so I'm looking forward to getting through Dark Fire (second in the series and maybe my least favorite) so I can reread it.

>218 rosalita: Hi, Julia! I haven't read the entire book, but I have read some of it. Fascinating stuff! I'll go check it out! Thanks!

I seem to be having trouble getting the Touchstones to work. Not sure what is going on, because I see that Paul had no problems.

Edited to see if touchstones would work. They did. Not sure why it's taking my editing posts to get them to pick up. Oh, well, at least they are working now

Coming by to say hello! Love the pictures of your new home. Seems like you and the birds have settled in nicely.

>180 Storeetllr: And...a sequel to Neverwhere? I can't wait!

Hi, Mary! Happy Tuesday! Hope you are staying cool in Pueblo.

I never did read the Sansom series. Someday?

>220 witchyrichy: Hi, Karen! Yes, a sequel! It's tentatively titled The Seven Sisters. I imagine Lady Serpentine is going to be featured, and maybe Hunter? So exciting!

>221 msf59: Cooler than Sunday, but I think today is going to get pretty hot. Oh, well, it IS summer. Or near enough. Yes, if you like historical fiction, the Tudor period, mysteries, and really good writing, you should try the Shardlake series. I enjoyed the audio when I recently reread Dissolution, but I think I liked it better in print. Someday. :)

ETA argh!!! Touchstones not working!

Hanging on the back patio this afternoon, trying to catch a breeze, and took a few snaps of the girls.


Rosie


Nickel

Then I was fooling around with the editing program and thought this was a fun rendition:

Finally, this month's free Tor.com’s eBook of the Month Club is Old Man's War by John Scalzi. Check it out here.

Lovely photos of the girls. They pose very nicely, don't they? They look like models on the red carpet. :-)

Edited to add: I can't get your Tor link to work, sadly. Looks like a good book!

Hmm, I thought I tested it. Sorry, Julia. I went back to the webpage and redid the link. Try again? If you can't get there, because maybe the link only works for one day?, here's the main page for Tor and you can navigate to the free ebook page from there by going to the Highlights section at the top right of the page: www.tor.com.

>226 Storeetllr: That one worked! Thanks for the tip. I don't read a lot of science fiction but I've heard this one is a good one.

The girls are lovely and I like your pencil sketchy version. My small dog does not like to pose at all but last night I saw the perfect tool: a gizmo you hook onto your phone that has a clip where you dangle a biscuit or other treat. I may try to hack my own and see if it works!

Thanks for the tip on Old Man's War. I also don't read lots of science fiction but was intrigued by the note that it is the perfect gateway to science fiction and space opera.

Hope you are having a lovely Sunday. Stay cool!

Hi Mary. I am taking advantage of a "spouse-free" weekend to get caught up with reading and threads. Glad to see you and "the girls" are getting settled in your new digs. Love the pictures you have shared of the new environs. I am a huge sucker for outdoor patios and balconies. I love outdoor living, until the temps drop top the point where I need to bundle up in winter gear, that is.

>223 Storeetllr: - Love the pics of the girls! They look very happy.

Great photos of Nickel and Rosie, Mary. THEY look all settled in...

>223 Storeetllr: Rosie and Nickel both look happy.
Editing photos can be fun, I did it a lot years ago, when I got my first photo editing computer program.

>227 rosalita: Yay! I do read scifi - not as much now as in former years, but I do enjoy it. Being a Star Trek fan, I enjoyed Scalzi's Redshirts a lot when I read it a couple of years ago and have been wanting to read more of him.

>228 witchyrichy: Thanks, Karen. My girls don't pose so much as I manage to catch them at the brief moment they are not in motion. For one decent shot, there are a dozen more I delete. I hope you enjoy Old Man's War when you read it and let me know what you think of it.

>229 lkernagh: Hi, Lori! Thank you for visiting my thread on your free weekend! I think the girls are comfortable here, as am I, though I still have too many boxes left unpacked. Outdoor living is great, but I've had to cut back a bit as, the first time I spent a lot of time out back - a few weeks ago in mid-afternoon - I got devoured by mosquitoes. I live between a golf course, the zoo, and two reservoirs, and apparently there is a large mosquito population in spring. The city usually does something in June to ameliorate the problem, and I think they probably did it last week, because there seem to be less mosquitoes out there, but it was unpleasant for awhile.

>230 ronincats: Thanks, Roni! As you say, they are all settled in. I may never get all unpacked...

>231 FAMeulstee: Hi, Anita! Yes, one can get all caught up in that creativity and spend hours! I know I do. What photo editing program were you using?

My latest thing seems to be minimalism, so now I am removing tchotchkes from shelves and tables and repacking them for use when my mood changes or for a trip to the local thrift store. So there are boxes being unpacked next to boxes being repacked. I'm also cataloguing books to be donated to the library, so that's another mess. AND I've been making bird toys, so there are boxes and bins of toy parts in another stack in the living room. At some point, I hope to have a craft area set up in the spare room where I can do stuff like that, but for now that room is packed with boxes to be unpacked. lol

Today, I need to go out and buy a lawn mower, notwithstanding the fact I have a push mower and a gas mower already in the shed. The push mower is mine, bought for a small backyard about 1/4 the size of my current backyard, and it didn't work very well even on that size lawn. The gas mower was left by the former tenants and looks like it was left outside all winter. I'd take it to a repair place, but there doesn't seem to be one near me.

Since I've moved, I feel like I'm spending money like a drunk sailor on shore leave after being on a ship at sea for 6 months. :)

ETA that my neighbor helped me get the gas mower going! Unfortunately, not before it got too hot out there (100F+) to do any mowing (although the wash I hung out on the line dried extra fast). Tomorrow morning...

Just read that The Handmaid's Tale is being adapted as a GN!



https://www.reneenault.com/comics

>232 Storeetllr: >231 FAMeulstee: It was (and is, as I still use it) Ulead Photo Express 2.0 SE, Mary.
I haven't found any other free photo editing program that crops jpg pictures so well.
It came free with my first scanner in 1999. I played around for hours and hours editing and altering photos, as I barely could read at that time.

Huh, I think I have that program somewhere, Anita! That or another Ulead editing program. I just "found" a bunch of old disks and will look to see if that's one of them. Not sure if it will work on my Windows 10 laptop, but I also have an desktop with an earlier operating program. Thanks!

The first photo editing program I used was Photoshop 7, which I bought back in the early 90s and which has been through a number of iterations since then. (I think it's now up to Photoshop CS423.) :) I've also used Photoshop CS2, which is free to download from Adobe.

Hi Mary, looks you and the girls have settled in nicely. I hope it doesn't get to hot for you, the TV has been showing pictures of Southwestern U.S. burning up. I love that adapted picture of Nickel, it looks like it could be the cover on your own graphic novel!

>236 Storeetllr: Hi, Judy! It's pretty darn hot around these parts, that's for sure. I keep the spritz bottle full and nearby so I can mist the girls often during the day. Nickel used to hate it, but now she asks for it and fluffs up her feathers while she's being misted! Rosie just screams whenever I mist her. I also make sure to keep water bowls full of cool fresh water wherever are during the day, not only in their cages. Isn't that a fun rendering of Miss Nickel! Coincidentally, I've been thinking of doing a GN titled something like "Life With Parrots," so yes, maybe the cover!

The container garden has taken off like weeds. I took another pic this morning and posted it in >185 Storeetllr:, under the one I took on June 3, for comparison.

ETA just hung out the freshly laundered sheets and a few towels. Of course, it immediately clouded up. lol Not too worried, though. They should be dry in just a few minutes in the 99F dry heat and wind, and rain is NOT in the forecast. (1:33 p.m.)



ETA HAHAHAHAHA. Within 20 minutes of posting (at 1:33 p.m.) that rain is not in the forecast, it began to thunder and the first brief shower started. I just brought the drying inside. Sheets and pillowcases are dry, but I had to put the towels in the dryer. They were just a little damp. Colorado.

>236 Storeetllr: If it doesn't work under Windows 10, Mary, you can change the settings to run under an earlier Windows version. That is how I keep it going.

Thanks, Anita!

The last two books I finished:



54. Within the Sanctuary of Wings by Marie Brennan. 4.5 stars. Audio. Quite satisfying ending to the delightful Lady Trent series. I absolutely loved the newest characters. :) I'd have given it a 5 star rating, but it dragged a bit in the middle. Will Brennan write a spin-off series about Jack now, do you think?



55. A Useful Woman by Darcie Wilde. 4 stars. Audio. Okay, I've found the last few books I've tried to read that had a similar protagonist and storyline boring (referenced series will be disclosed on request), but I really enjoyed this Regency mystery - I hesitate to call it a "romance," though it had elements of romance in it. Heyer it isn't, nor Austen, but it is a light, fun read nonetheless. There were a few things that jarred me, having to do with titles and the addresses of various nobility, a few awkward turns of phrases that seemed to me to be a bit anachronistic, and a plot point or two that didn't make sense, but nothing that stopped me from enjoying it and looking forward to the next in the series. Recommended by ronincats- thanks Roni!

Finally, I just learned about a new book by Victor LaValle, the author of The Ballad of Black Tom, which was weird and scary and a pretty wonderful retelling of a Lovecraft story. Anyway, this one, titled The Changeling, was just released, and I'm off to find it at the library, if I can, or on Amazon if I can't.

I just received -the changeling from my library system. Looking forward to reading it.

>242 dallenbaugh: Hope you are enjoying The Changeling, Donna! I'm looking forward to hearing what you think of it.



56. Silver on the Road by Laura Anne Gilman. 4 stars. Kindle. This is a fantasy set in the American southwest in an alternate universe in the 1800s. The U.S. Revolutionary War has been won by the Americans, and they have formed the United States and claimed the land from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mississippi, which in this world is called The Mudwater, and from The Great Lakes south through Florida. Spain, and the Church, holds the lands west of the Rockies, which in this world is called The Mother's Knife, and from what looks like Oregon or Northern California south deep into Central and South America. In the middle is The Territory, a magic-filled land that was claimed by The Old Man, aka The Devil, back before Europeans came. In The Territory, people and others are free to visit and even settle, but only so long as they agree to abide by the rules of The Devil, whose base is the saloon in a dusty town on the plains called Flood. Silver on the Road has been called a coming-of-age story, and Isobel, the protagonist, is young in years - just 16 when the story begins - but she isn't like any 16-year-old I've ever known, even taking into consideration the era this is set in, when people grew up fast, and the fact she was raised by The Devil, who doesn't take any sass from anyone. Other than that, and a few typographical errors I picked up on, this is one hell of a ripping good story, with really great characters (that include The Territory and a few nonhumans), and I can't wait to read the next in the series! Learned about this one from ronincats - thanks, Roni! You are hitting me with so many BBs! I hope you enjoyed this one too!

>243 Storeetllr: Ha, you're ahead of me on this one, Mary. I'm still working on it, 49% of the way according to my Kindle. I need to have it done for Tuesday evening and it's been my bedtime book, which means about an hour a night lately, what with all my daytime projects. But I am certainly enjoying it so far.

I really enjoyed it, Roni. It dragged just a bit at times, but overall I found myself looking forward to picking it back up. I think I finished it in three reading sessions. Anyway, thanks for turning me onto it!

Well, a bit slow here in Lake Woebegone! I have nothing much to report. On the book front, I'm almost finished with the audio of Stephen King's latest book of short stories, The Bazaar of Bad Dreams. I love many of King's novels, but short stories (and novellas) are where he shines, imo.

I know I've mentioned this before, but I belong to PostCrossing, an online group that facilitates postcard exchanges worldwide. I didn't participate in 2016 - too depressed for awhile and then too much going on with the move - but I've jumped back into the pool and have received four postcards this week: one each from Finland, Vienna, Latvia, and Eastern Bohemia (this last from a 15-year old girl). Anyway, I saw this about another online site that facilitates pen pal letter exchanges and thought it was interesting:
https://www.postcrossing.com/blog/2017/06/24/the-letter-writers-alliance

I like the Letter Writers Alliance, Mary. I've not used it to send letters to pen pals but they are also heavily involved in National Letter Writing Month in February. I like the idea of sending postcards — there are so many lovely ones.

I was thinking of you when I posted that link to the letter-writing site, Julia, because I know you like to write letters. BTW, I joined the club and am eagerly awaiting my membership card via snailmail!

Not sure if you can see my profile and postcard "wall" without joining, but here's the link: https://www.postcrossing.com/user/MaryKontrary. I have gotten a lot of lovely postcards over the years.

Thank you for posting again about PostCrossing. I think I'll sign up. The Letter Writers Alliance's pen pal letter exchange also sounds interesting but I'm not sure I'm ready for that level of involvement...

I picked up a used copy of The Bazaar of Bad Dreams at the library recently. I'm looking forward to it!

Hi, Mary. Sweet Thursday. Hope you are doing fine. I have a ticket for the Stephen King author event, here in late September. He will be joined by his son, Owen.

I have not read The Bazaar but I want to get to the final Bill Hodges mystery.

Hooray, for The Handmaid's Tale GN. I just finished and loved the Hulu series.

>248 Storeetllr: I did see your profile — that's really neat! I think I'll sign up. It's a good excuse to buy more postcards. :-)

It looks like Photobucket has wiped all your pictures! Oh no!

That is just so bogus! If Photobucket won't let me post pics without paying $10/month, I'm done with that site.



Testing. Can everyone see this meme?

ETA the meme using OneDrive:

>254 Storeetllr: No I can't see it, Mary, it says 3rd party hosting has been temporary disabled :-(

Hi, all - sorry for the inconvenience. I've got a fix, but it will entail HOURS of work to get all the pics back up, so it's going to take awhile. In the meantime...

>249 Copperskye: Hi, Jo! I love sending (and getting) postcards! It's expensive - most of the ones I send are to other countries, which is $1.15, but if I do only a few a month, I can afford it. If you sign up, let me have the link to your profile? I'm thinking the letter writing thing will be fun and also help me get back into the letter-writing groove. For $6 ($5 membership and $1 postage), it's worth it. And you don't have to actually get a penpal or write any letters. I just like the idea. Hope you enjoy Bazaar as much as I did!

>250 msf59:, >251 msf59: Yo, Mark! I am sooooo jealous! Say "hi" to the King for me! I don't think I can watch "Handmaids Tale." My daughter watched the first few episodes, and she got so freaked because what it showed as the beginning of "Gilead" is what is happening now IRL.

>252 rosalita: It is fun, Julia! If you do sign up, send me the link to your profile?

>253 ronincats: Thanks for letting me know about my lost photos, Roni. I am so angry about this that I went to Photobucket's FB page and wrote a scathing comment. Apparently, a LOT of people are angry about it. Many lost all the pics on their websites and blogs, and they are threatening to leave Photobucket. I'm going to see what other site or program I can use to get pics up on LT. How dare they do something like that without warning? (And I was on their site just two days ago but saw nothing to indicate they were going to make that change.)

>255 FAMeulstee: Thanks, Anita. Can you see the pic in >234 Storeetllr:?

>257 Storeetllr: No, it looks like all your pictures are gone :-(
It says it is temporarily... so maybe in a few days they turn up again?

>256 Storeetllr: Will do!

I use Flickr for photos, just the free version. I'm not sure how much storage you get for free but it seems like a lot.

Thanks, Anita. Not temporary, unless I cough up $120 for the year to ransom my links. Pardon my french, but screw that!

I'll check it out, Julia. Thanks for the tip. I don't need a lot of storage. I use OneDrive to store my photos. I just used Photobucket - or, as I like to call them now, Scambucket - to get links to pics to post on LT.

Can you not get a direct link from OneDrive? I use it for work but not for photos, so I don't know. It wouldn't surprise me if you couldn't though considering it's a Microsoft product. (Apologies to any Microsoft fans out there.)

So you only move photos to Photobucket that you want to link to? Then Flickr should be plenty of free space for you.

Maybe. I'll check. As for PB aka SB, yes, I was only using it for photos I wanted to put on my LT threads over the years. I'll definitely be checking out Flickr if OneDrive doesn't work.

Over on Julia's (rosalita's) thread, there was a bit of a discussion about passenger trains. I got all nostalgic and found this image on the web. It's the old Wabash Bluebird, a streamliner that traveled between Chicago and St. Louis and that I used to ride with my grandma when I was a kid, back in the 50s and early 60s.



ETA to say that, thanks to Julia's suggestion, I got this link from OneDrive, so I don't need stupid Slimebucket, er, Photobucket, anymore! So, YAY!

I edited >1 Storeetllr: - can everyone see the photos?

Thanks!

Yes!

Yes, they are showing up perfectly!

Yay! Just in time to START A NEW Q3 THREAD. lol *sob*

I don't think I'll redo the pics on this thread. I'll just start afresh on the next one with OneDrive.

Thanks for checking and letting me know, Jo and Roni!