Health stuff and hey I read some books

See here: http://justaddbooks.blogspot.co.nz/2014/04/readathon-and-health-thingies.html

And now, the sequel. (This gets TMI for anyone who's a bit delicate about discussion of interior ladyparts).

I went back to the doc, and I'm anemic (which, I had my period for three weeks, NO SHIT SHERLOCK) and I have an infection. So I have iron tablets and antibiotics. Yay.

Anyway. I'm waiting to hear back from the hospital about an ultrasound, and after that the doc said the next likely step would be a Mirena coil, which is apparently a tiny magic piece of plastic that gets fitted inside your ladyparts, lasts for five years, and reduces/stops your period.

I AM VERY ON BOARD WITH THIS. But nothing can happen till after the scan. Doc said getting the coil fitted wouldn't be my best day ever but honestly after the period of doom, I don't care - lol.

I also learned that, at the tender age of 42, I'm not menopausal. So, there's that.

And that's what you missed on Glee!

Now, reading. I'm a bit behind with the goodreads challenge now - six books apparently - but I have finished a few since I last did a mini-reviews post. I'm not going to do another one now - I'm too lazy - but suffice it to say I'm keeping up with my challenges - Women Writers, the TBR challenge and also Once Upon a Time, so there's that at least.

Most recently I've finished
A Storm of Swords part 1 by George R R Martin
Victory of Eagles by Naomi Novik
Adaptation by Miranda Lo
While We Run by Karen Healey.

I've had a good run because I did enjoy all of those books a lot. Especially Adaptation, and While We Run, which is the sequel to Healey's novel When We Wake. I'm going to hand-wave writing reviews because I'm lazy and still kind of recovering.

Now I'm re-reading One Hundred Years of Solitude for the fourth time (RIP Gabriel Garcia Marquez) and reading A Natural History of Dragons by Marie Brennan which is taking me ages to finish for some reason.

:D

On not buying books

I've made one of those impulsive decisions that seems  like a good idea.

I have decided - from now and for the whole of next year - to not buy any books.

Any books at all.

Not a one. Not from bookstores, or book depository, or amazon, or charity book sales, or the library sales ... well, you get the idea.

We're saving for a big move, probably at the start of 2014, from where  we are now to near where Jeremy's parents live. I'm simply transferring offices rather than jobs, so it's going to be costly, which means that sacrifices have to be made.

The good thing is that we have an excellent library here, and I have more than enough books on my own shelves to keep me occupied for the next year.

For MORE than the next year, let's be honest.

So. No new shiny books for me for a year or so.

That'll be challenging. :-)

Disco inferno?

Well not quite an inferno, but quite enough to be going on with, thank you very much.

If you follow my twitter/have seen my tumblr, you’ll know I had a bit of a cooking mishap on Monday night. I was careless putting mince into a frying pan with hot oil, and the oil splashed back and burned my arm.

Off to A&E, where I was duly bandaged and sent home with instructions to go to my doctor the next day to get it re-dressed. Luckily, after Monday it had stopped hurting and “only” one blister formed. So I went to the Dr yesterday and the nurse rebandaged it, and back again today for more of the same.

The nurse today (different to yesterday’s) re-dressed it with some kind of magic liquid, magic netty stuff and a pressure bandage, which is MUCH easier to deal with than a normal bandage. The frustrating part is that I have to keep the bandage on for another week.

So, I did what any sane and sensible person would do. I went to the Warehouse and bought books and coffee mugs.

I bought a pretty-sounding French cookbook, even though I don’t cook much, The Fault in Our Stars, Never Let Me Go and The Snow Child. The coffee mugs are for work. I have this weird quirk where I don’t like to use the mugs that are available in the cafeteria to anyone – I prefer my own. They’re just $2 mugs from the Warehouse, but I like them :D

I finished Railsea at the weekend, and now begins the back-and-forth between myself and Jodie at http://bookgazing.dreamwidth.org/ while we fangirl/discuss the novel. :D

In my cross stitch rotation at the moment, I’m working on Circe by Jill Oxton, but haven’t got much done lately – see: burned arm *sigh* and I’m reading The Night Circus, which I’m not very far into but is very promising so far.

In between books I’m reading a little P G Wodehouse – his Jeeves and Wooster short stories, mostly.

That’s … as interesting as it gets today.

Look it's a post!

Ahhhhhhhh I’m on holiday for two weeks. Hooray.

Next week is the second week of the school holidays and then when Patrick is back at kindy/school I have another week off.

I have no plans at all for next week because I imagine that my time will largely be taken up with entertaining a certain nearly five year old. Hence the week off after he goes back to kindy/school – lol.

For THAT week I have plans. Nothing extravagant – they mostly revolve around reading, getting some stitching done and catching up on some shows. My poor MySky harddrive is nearly full and Game of Thrones Season 2 starts here on Monday.

I have a feeling something may have to give before then.

We took Patrick out to the beach last Sunday, for an outing. The beach here has no shelter but it’s only about 10 minutes’ drive from town so it’s handy.

He got all up in the sand dunes and had a great time.

It was so windy, though, that sand got everywhere. There were so many seabirds on the shore – gulls mostly but some … oystercatchers I think? The wind had obviously blown in some delicious treats. :D

I got a few photos but no good ones of Patrick because he was so busy running here, there and everywhere.

I’ve been reading but slowly, because I’m mired in A Clash of Kings. Not mired in a bad way but it’s LONG and the print is teeny-tiny.

The last book I finished was Iron Council and Jodie of http://bookgazing.dreamwidth.org/ and I will be doing another co-review. We’re still word-vomiting our feelings  at the moment so the review itself is a little while away.

What else. Oh! Book Depository!  My last Book Depository order finally came and I am now the proud owner of The World of Jeeves which is basically an omnibus of short stories. I’ve read it many, many times because I used to get it out of the library all the time but I don’t think my library has a copy any more and so I decided I needed one of my very own.

It’s good for in-between reading. And a joy to behold. J

I finished season 2 of Luther this week and much like Sherlock, now I’m hanging out and waiting for season 3. There HAS to be a season 3, right? My only complaint is I wish the season was a bit longer. Season 2 was four hour-long episodes and it really just wasn’t enough.

My library has a very eclectic range of movies and TV shows on DVD, so I’m poking at those. I rented Captain America (the only pre-Avengers movie I haven’t seen) and season 3 of Supernatural  this week. See how I go – lol.

H’m I should do some book reviews or something or I’m going to have to change the name of this blog to just add …. Anything.

But I’m not feeling the review mojo at the moment, so you’re stuck with me rambling. Sorry about that.

And readathon is next weekend! That’s come around so fast!

Who’s in?

Miscellenae

Been a few weeks hasn’t it? Hrm.

I haven’t been doing anything out of the ordinary that I can think of …

Let’s see. What in-the-ordinary things have I been doing?

Well, reading, obviously, although I’ve only finished a couple of books lately and I’m not feeling the reviewing mojo at the moment.

I read 11-22-63 by Stephen King which, for me, wasn’t up there with his best. It was readable and the premise was interesting but I found it very easy to put down and walk away.

I also read Engines of God by Jack McDevitt – I seem to be entering a sci-fi reading phase which happens once in a while. It’s the first in a series of books featuring pilot Priscilla Hutchinson (Hutch) and I really loved the premise, which was about finding alien artefacts on long-abandoned worlds and what responsibility do human beings have to long-lost alien cultures?

I really enjoyed that one and I have the second one in the series out of the library.

What else.

Patrick is enrolled in school. Which is a huge shock to my system and he’s not even starting officially until May – lol. He’s having school visits twice a week from now until then, though, which I actually think is a really good idea. He’ll get to know his little classmates and it won’t be such a shock to the system.

His first one is meant to be Tuesday but he’s got an ear infection at the moment that seems to be coming and going so we’re keeping him home tomorrow and Tuesday and taking him to the doctors as early as we can get him in. I’m probably being over-protective but that’s how it is. I’m the mum, therefore what I say goes. :P

I saw Midnight in Paris at the movies on Thursday and oh my gosh what a lovely movie! Even before it had finished I knew it had to be mine because as soon as it was over I wanted to start watching it again – lol. By virtue of Invercargill being a large cultural wasteland, it’s already out on DVD and therefore it is MINE ALL MINE.

I’m working – slowly but surely – on my room; turning it into a kind of escape from the boys/cats where I can just come and kick back and read. It’s getting there, but I have a couple of corners that still need to be cleared out. I cleaned off my dressing table and I now have only seven things on there so my brain is going “hmmmm … minimalism” (that’s very minimalistic for me. I have crap everywhere).

I’m musing on whether I can pare everything down and just have three bookcases – two for books and one for DVDs/cross-stitch stuff/sundries. I’d really really like that but it means getting rid of a fuck-ton of books.

My cross-stitch rotation is going well although I haven’t done much lately – mostly lately at night I’ve been mooching on twitter and watching crap TV. They both have their place but you can overdo it and I do believe I have.  I have Stuff To Do.

I started Clash of Kings and I’m loving it – just waiting for the body count to start tallying up. It can’t be long now – I’m already about 100 pages in. I’m still picking away at Bleak House on my eReader and it’s still fascinating, even though I truly have no idea what’s happening. I’m also about to start Taken by Robert Crais – it’s a review book for work so that’ll become my lunchtime read. 

I do believe that’s all I have. How’s it hanging, blog-world? :D

Things and ... things ;p

I have random things colliding in my head, and since this is my space, I'm going to share them with the interwebz. ;p

I went to Rise of the Planet of the Apes last Thursday after work. It wasn't bad. Certainly no Planet of the Apes, circa Charlton Heston but it was better than the remake with Mark Wahlberg. (I'm sorry, Tim Burton, I love you. But Planet of the Apes was a mistake.)


Anyway, I went on my own about 4pm (was parolled from work early because of working overtime a couple of days before that) and there were hardly any people there. Just the way I like it - lol. Except when I want to be in a theatre full of people, like for Harry Potter. I love movies, and it's something I want to dig more into, if that makes sense. My backlog of unread Empire magazines would agree with me ;p

I managed to get through reading Order of the Phoenix - it's not my favourite Harry Potter  - it's too long, for one thing and it's a little ... indulgent? I mean, I understand that teenage boys can be angry but seriously OotP gives me a headache.

Anyway. Recently I also finished The Shattering by Karen Healey, which was fantastic. I'd do a review for it, because it's a Kiwi YA novel, and I still have my challenge in the back of my mind, but ... eh. I can't be arsed. It's really good, though. You should read it if you come across it. :D

I also read Elfland by Freda Warrington, which I loved. I randomly remembered, when I saw the book in the library, how much I loved The Court of the Midnight King, which is an alternate history/fantasy novel set during the reign of ... Richard II? III? Anyway, I loved it. Elfland was really good too, but I could have gone my whole life without ever seeing a penis described as a 'wand'.

I came home from work early yesterday, because I thought I was going to pass out at my desk. Somewhat embarrassingly, it was simply exhaustion: I went to bed, crashed for a few hours, and felt rather better. That'll teach me to think I can go to bed at midnight, get up at 7, work an 8 hour day and be there for Patrick at the end of it all ... I'm not Superwoman, who knew?

So when I got over what I call my Jane Austen vapours, I picked up A Game of Thrones. And. Like. Why didn't I know? I mean, I'm not even quarter of the way in but holy shit. Holy shit. I'm loving it. Loving loving loving it.

You know how every single fantasy novel ever gets compared to Lord of the Rings for no good reason? Like ... for me, Lord of the Rings is in a class all of its own. Yet, the comparisons happen over and over again and by now they're just ... tired. But. A Game of Thrones is the first fantasy novel I've read where the comparison is valid. And I'm so very late to the party.

All I want to do is lie down on my couch with a cat or seven and snacks in arm's reach and read. I love that feeling.

Randomness of the day: I checked my cellphone at lunchtime. (That's not the randomness, obviously.) I had a text from my brother and sister in law saying they had the share of  the money from the garage sale of Mum's things. I had no idea the garage sale had even been held. I'm fine with it; I got what I wanted of Mum's things before the funeral, so it's not that I'm upset about that. I'm  ... amused that I heard about it after the fact. And slightly surprised that my share was $200. Nice, no? And yes. This is how my family communicates. When we communicate - lol.

Work tomorrow, and lunch for a co-worker who's going on maternity leave. Then I'm going to Cowboys and Aliens. :D

... Wow. tl;dr I went to the new Apes movie and had a Jane Austen moment. Read some books, got a little money.