#24in48 post two

So yeah, not so much with the nonfiction. A couple of weeks ago, I started rereading Larry Correia's excellent Monster Hunter International series. It's urban fantasy at its best - inventive villians, brave, if slightly unlikely heros, lots of guns and things that go boom. Perfect summer reading.

The reread was prompted by a recent read of two books set in the Monster Hunter universe, but co-written by John Ringo and Larry Correia. Fun reads, both of them.

What I didn't know until this morning, when I finished the fourth book in the series, and went to pull up the fifth (MH:Nemesis above) is that the sixth book is due out...on August 1st. Hurrah! My preorder is in.

Tomorrow I'll switch over to the nonfiction, both of which are actually paper books, rather than pixels in the kindle.

Time read to date: Roughly four hours.

#24in48 post one

The #24in48 Readathon is off to a blurry start in the quiltbabe household. Ironically, it's because I'm tired to due staying up too late last night...reading.

Need for coffee: Caffeine level five.

The plan, assuming things don't get derailed (and the train of my life never, ever runs on new, smooth track) is to get some coffee and breakfast into me while reading for about an hour. There is still housework to be done, but even that has a reading strategy: clean for twenty minutes, read for twenty minutes. Off and on until the housework is more or less done, or I get so deep in a book I forget to clean. (I know which of those two things is more likely)

The two books I'm trying to finish this weekend:

Giddy Up, Eunice, by Sophie Hudson
This is a simply delightful book on women's mentoring relationships among believers. If you are familir with Sopie's style from her previous books (A Little Salty to Cut the Sweet and Home is Where My People Are) you know that her books are much like sitting down with a good friend and letting the conversation flow.

This book is a bit more structured, as she shares what she has learned both from Scripture and other women on the importance of us mentoring one another. It's worth noting that unlike a lot of other books on the subject, she is not pushing a program, but promoting relationships. I think I'm over halfway through (nonfiction is not my usual jam; it may have been over a month since I last read any of this book.)

Mindshift: Break Through Obstacles to Learning and Discover Your Hidden Potential, by Barbara Oakley
A couple of years ago I took a free online course called Learning to Learn, for which Dr. Oakley was one of the teachers. The course went through the science of how we learn, and why certain strategies for learning were effective/ineffective. This book carries those ideas a bit further. Through stories of people who have successfully made radical career changes or discovered passions they did not know they had, Dr. Oakely explains the shifts in thinking needed to make those changes.

Interestingly, most of the people whose shifts are documented here have moved from a more creative or less structured realm into the areas of math and science.

I'm slowly making my way through - I'd say I'm about a third of the way done.

I suppose I should wash my face, put in the contact lenses and get to it, huh? Will come back and post the updated hours read periodically.

Total hours read: Zero.

31 days....oh, who am I fooling? It's Read-a-Thon time!

Eh. So much for 31 days of posting, huh?

The October Read-a-Thon is fast approaching. Saturday, October 22, if any of you are interested.

There are a myriad of good reasons to participate in this semi-annual festival of all things book-related. After all, a serious reader jumps at any excuse to spend an entire day focused on nothing but the printed (or pixilated) word.

Alas, I lost my mind and scheduled a craft day with a friend for that Saturday. Since it is at her house, and transporting the sewing machine is always a pain, I'm thinking I may be able to bend the craft day rules a bit to make things fit into the read-a-thon.

I "collect" three main types of books: mystery novels, cookbooks, and...quilting books. In addition, I subscribe to two three two quilting magazines. Rather than take a project to work on for craft day, I can load up the car with quilting magazines and books.

The herd of magazines needs thinning, anyway. Every couple of years, I go through the stack (one magazine publishes every other month, the other one per quarter), pulling out articles and patterns of interest. Then, every four years or so, I go through the accumulated pulled-out articles and thin those out. Yes, it sounds like busywork (why not just read, then recycle the magazine instead of pulling things out, to not be looked at again until they are on the way to recycling years later?). But every minute spent looking at other quilts, other techniques is a valuable aid in your own future quilting.

And thus, I won't feel guilty counting those hours towards my reading goals.

The best thing about the fall event is, frankly, the season of the year. How can you not want to curl up in front of a fire, with a good book and a cup of hot chocolate (or glass of wine) close to hand? Or prop a book up to read while you have a thick beef stew (cooked in the crockpot, so you can continue reading) for dinner?

Even if you cannot commit to read for the full 24 hours (I'm not that crazy, personally), consider signing up. That simple act of committing guarantees you will spend more time in a book that day than you would otherwise.

Later evening

I cannot tell a lie: I never intended to even try to read for the entire 24 hours. For one, at some point around hour fifteen (or earlier, given how much I'd be using my eyes) I would have to take out my contact lenses. Now, I have two pair of wonderful no-line bifocals, but I've discovered that once the contacts are out, I'm pretty much done seeing anything. My poor eyes figure removing those hard pieces of plastic is the signal to relax.

It's been difficult to focus today. Once I came home, I read at the computer upstairs for a bit, then wandered downstairs about one o'clock with a vague idea of making that pumpkin soup for lunch. Well, I sat down in a chair and picked up the kindle...

...two and a half hours later, I decided I'd better get something in me quickly (once my blood sugar starts to go low, it drops pretty quickly, and while I could just eat a granola bar to get it up, I much prefer eating something tasty), so I headed off to the local Albanian-American restaurant.

Yes, Albanian-American. We have lots of local places run by the Greeks, but to my knowledge, this is the only Albanian run joint. They carry a few ethnic dishes, but I've yet to try them. Today, it was a chicken philly sandwich with french fries, all of which I ate with a fork because 1) messy, messy sandwich with lots of slide-y peppers and onions covered in very hot cheese, and 2) I needed one hand free to hold the kindle.

Back home again, another hour or so of reading (while watching the last couple episodes of the last season of The Walking Dead - not exactly the best reading environment, but I tend to do this a lot). I finally decided around six p.m. I should take care of some of the cooking stuff I've been putting off.

I made the pumpkin soup detailed here. It's my go-to pumpkin recipe, one that highlights the taste of the squash without being overwhelmingly pumpkinish. As I went, I washed dishes. No matter how efficient you try to be, you still end up with two saucepans and the food processor to wash.

While the soup was on the final simmer, I trimmed and cleaned a couple of leeks. They are in the onion family, though considerably milder. They look much like a green onion, though one that has been eating its Wheaties and bulking up for the season. I ate (and read, and watched Call the Midwife) while they drip dried. After dinner they were sliced and put away for tomorrow, when the plan is to finally make up the salisbury steak (in a wonderful mushroom gravy) and a potato-leek gratin. Between that and the soup, I won't have to cook for lunches or dinners until at least Thursday.

I'm going to read for a little bit yet tonight, but my eyes are rapidly approaching the state where I would do anything just to take.the.contacts.OUT.

From the time I learned to read my first word (C-A-T, which is a bit ironic considering I'm deathly allergic to them)(and by the way, we didn't start to learn to read until we entered first grade) I've been an avid reader. No pocket of time is too small not to dip into a book for a bit. Since the advent of the kindle, and the availability of reader apps on the phone, I'm never without dozens of books from which to pick. Heaven.

Midmorning update

It is a rainy, dreary day in southeastern Wisconsin, perfect for reading. I began the day at Panera, where my order (placed on-line just before I left home) hit the pick up rack as I walked in.

I've put a couple of pictures up on Twitter (@quiltbabe). It's too complicated to post from the Kindle Fire to the blog, and I didn't want to bring the laptop with me this morning.

First book up was Holley Gerth's What Your Heart Needs for the Hard Days, the devotional I'm working through.

Moved on to Sadie Hudson's A Little Salty to Cut the Sweet, a charming, delightful set of stories about growing up in the South, or as the subtitle says, "Southern Stories of Faith, Family and Fifteen Pounds of Bacon". This would be a reread, but as wonderful as it is, I only made it through a few chapters. Not quite the right "feel" for the day, if you know what I mean.

Took a small break, and opened up Cottage Journal Seasons' Christmas edition, which landed on the Kindle early this week. Oh my, the eye candy (words, too - there are articles to read!). Such beautiful "cottages" decorated in creative and inspiring ways...well, inspired if you have the cash to buy the decorations and the time and decorator's eye to put them out. Still, I did get a few ideas, if only of what I can't do, given my space, current decorating style and budget. What I will take away from the magazine, though, is a wonderful recipe for chocolate and almond topped home made caramel squares. Yum. Too bad I can't whip them up for a snack for this afternoon.

Moved on to Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes. Most years, I reread it about this time. It is, quite simply, the perfect read for a rainy October day.

"It seemed when the first stroke of nine banged from the big courthouse clock all the lights were on and business humming in the shops. But by the time the last stroke of nine shook everyone's fillings in his teeth, the barbers had yanked off the sheets, powdered the customer, trotted them forth; the druggist's fount had stopped fizzing like a nest of snakes, the insect neons everywhere had ceased buzzing, and the vast guttering acreage of the dime store with its ten billion metal, glass and paper oddments waiting to be fished over, suddenly blacked out. Shade slithered, doors boomed, keys rattled their bones in locks, people fled with hordes of torn newspaper mice nibbling their heels."

See what I mean?

Since no yardwork can be done in the rain, everyone else in the city decided to go to Panera to meet some friends for breakfast and coffee. That's wonderful - but the volume of talk rapidly increased to the point where reading was difficult, no matter how good I usually am at tuning out background noise (my favorite place to read is a fairly noisy coffee place). So I'm back home, since, judging by the parking lots, Starbucks is just as crowded. I didn't have the patience to try some of the independent places, and at the time, Barnes and Noble wasn't open yet.

I'm at the computer in the loft, on the too-messy-to-photograph desk, with a small snack and several hours before I need to start thinking about making lunch. If you want me, I'll be running with Jim and Will in Green Town, Illinois.

And - we're off

Still predawn around here. It's 5:20, and I'm about to get dressed, with the idea of being at Panera when they open at six. Starting my personal read-a-thon a bit early.

This is my favorite time of day. The house is a little bit chilly, it's quiet outside, everything holding its breath in anticipation of the day.

I'm still not up to snuff (last night I was watching the clock, waiting for it to be after 7 p.m. so I could go to bed without feeling like a ninety year old), but I'll give it my best shot.

Besides, any time spent reading is a true pleasure.

Better get moving. I've just put in my order on-line at Panera. Don't want it to get cold!

Survival prepper

No, not the end-of-days-is-coming-apocalypse-now-hoard-all-the-cans-of-beans-and-ammo kind of prepper. Survival of the autumn Read-a-thon.

To read some of the posts about participants' current and past preparations for a twenty-four hour marathon of reading, you would not be faulted for thinking they were, indeed, the other kind of prepper. Lists of books, stockpiling of snacks, pre-read-a-thon house cleaning, clearing of schedules, announcements to family, friends and work not to interrupt and all sorts of other things are on the agenda for quite a few participants.

Me? Eh.

Last spring, my first time, I settled in with a quintet of books - the Fire and Ice series from George R.R. Martin on which the series Game of Thrones is based. Five books, even though I was already almost through the first one, would surely last me the day in spite of my lightening fast reading pace for fiction. I spent most of the day in various coffee shops, because a) didn't have to look at the not-clean house and feel guilty, and b) people brought me food and drink without me having to do anything except hand over my debit card.

This time I'm doing things a bit differently (no, the house will still not be clean for this event).

1. Reading material - I've been saving up the kindle editions of Real Simple and Cottage Journal Seasons for this event. They are both holiday editions, feasts for the eyes as well as fairly decent reading material. I've one other holiday magazine, a Better Homes and Gardens picked up at the grocery store a couple of weeks ago, that I will also use for light reading.

The Mitford Bedside Companion, in paper form, is in the stack. Jan Karon's series of novels about a country town Episcopal priest are sweet, light reading full of memorable characters. This book excerpts some of the novels, but also includes new essays and reflections from the author. Again, it's perfect for those times my focus wanders and my brain needs a break.

Embracing Obscurity is my current non-fiction read. It's highly doubtful I'll be done with it before Saturday; it will be first on the nonfiction stack.

Holley Gerth's What Your Heart Needs for the Hard Days is the devotional I'm currently using. This will most likely be my starting point for the day.

But what to use for a sustained fiction read? Someone posted a link to NPR's list of fifty of the books on the list for the 2014 National Book Award. Much of the list is politically correct twaddle, but one caught my eye.

According to Amazon, "An audacious, darkly glittering novel set in the eerie days of civilization’s collapse, Station Eleven tells the spellbinding story of a Hollywood star, his would-be savior, and a nomadic group of actors roaming the scattered outposts of the Great Lakes region, risking everything for art and humanity."

Actors, the apocalypse (caused by a raging flu decimating 98% of the world's population in days), a character with a line from Star Trek tattooed on her arm ("Because survival is insufficient") - what can go wrong?

Well, a whole lot. We'll see - this is currently on my Amazon wish list, and I've yet to decide whether or not to buy it.

There's an unread Elmo Jenkins trilogy (picked up for free some time past) on the kindle that may provide some sustained reading time. We'll see - so many choices available in the backlog on my kindle, plus so much temptation available at the click of the "buy now" at Amazon.

2. Food and snacks - I'll most likely begin the day at Panera, as I love breakfast but hate to cook it (really, hot pans and grease before I've had my coffee?). Move to Starbucks midmorning or earlier, for a second dose of coffee. Back home for lunch, which, if I get myself moving after work today, should be leftover salisbury steak and either maple/brown sugar acorn squash or potato-leek gratin. Lots of water in the afternoon, along with some popcorn, maybe, upstairs at my desk. Again, if I get myself together the night before, I'll have had a soup simmering in the crock pot to have for dinner along with some rolls purchased whilst I was at Panera that morning. Evening reading in front of the fire with a carafe of hot chocolate and home made apple crisp.

3. Naps and other responsibilities - Not that naps are a responsibility...though one may happen. I find that I can only spend so long sitting and reading before I really, really need to move for a while. Audio books are not my thing (I can't sustain focus on them - my mind wanders and I'm constantly rewinding to hear what I missed), so listening while walking isn't much of an option. But it only takes ten minutes to vacuum the living room, and less to empty the dishwasher. Once I'm home after lunch, I expect to be doing some of that to keep the blood flowing.

It still strikes me as funny that we are making "preparations" to read all day. While I admit the time frame is longer than is usual for some, it shouldn't be this big of a deal. If you are a true reader, you squeeze it in any time, any place you can. Standing in line. Waiting for  dentist appointment. On the bus. At lunch at work. While you are waiting for the pasta water to boil.

In the days before electronic readers, my one undying requirement in a new purse was that it had a handy, exterior pocket big enough for a paperback book. I had one on me at all times.

So, less than 48 hours to go until the start. I certainly won't read for 24 hours - I like my sleep - but I'd like to beat my spring total of about 14 hours.