Wendy DeCora.com

Trying a post from my phone

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Ever have that book that you just can’t seem to finish? And there is no good reason why you haven’t finished it? You like the characters and the subject and yet you just can’t seem to get to the last page?

This book was that book for me. I started The Curse of the Pharoahs : An Amelia Peabody Mystery by Elizabeth Peters on my plane back from NYC in March. Finally finished it two days ago. Sure I read a couple of other books in between now and then, but man, it was like this book was generating new pages after I put it down every night.

I finally prevailed.

This is the second in a series of seventeen (so far) mysteries with the same character, Amelia Peabody. Despite it taking so long to get through, I thoroughly enjoyed the book. Its so many things I love rolled together: a good mystery, an independent female protagonist, and Egyptian archaeology.

I look forward to my next visit with Peabody and Emerson. However, I’m not sure how excited I am for their young son, Ramses, to have more of a role in their future adventures. In this book he was left back in England with an aunt, but I suspect he’ll end up in Egypt with his parents in the future.

Via Lisa:

Name four books on your bookshelf:
Rebecca
A Year at the Movies
Camp Foxtrot
And Then There Were None

Name four DVDs Movies in your collection:
Schindler’s List
The Mummy
The Princess Bride
Ghostbusters

Name four things on your walls:
Orpheuscapade 2003 Lithograph
Hawkeye Marching Band group photo
That Darn Cat original 1-sheet
my spoon collection

Name four things in your wardrobe:
Gap jeans
VS pajama pants
HMB sax section t-shirts
black sheer shirts

Name four artists in your music collection:
Harry Connick, Jr.
Bonerama
Neal Caine
Paul Simon

Name four real life stores you shop at regularly:
Target
Barnes & Noble
Hobby Lobby
Hy-Vee

Name four things in your bag:
sunglasses
index cards
inhaler
cell phone

Name four things in your cupboard that are in cans:
peaches
cream of shrimp soup
that’s it, and the shrimp soup is old and I don’t know why I have it.

I highly recommend this setup.
What a lovely way to enjoy the first day in weeks I did not spend at work.

Words of wisdom I just gleaned from a commenter on Wil Wheaton’s blog. The full comment is:

That clock is pretty insane. Kind of makes you realize that the reality we exist in is only one moment in time. And no matter how hard you try, you can’t hang on to a moment longer than it is here. Once it’s gone, you can only remember it, but really it will never be back again.

That’s my problem with blogging. I try to hang on to every moment and want to record it and share it, but then actual life invades and when I don’t have time to document things in minute detail, I just completely stop blogging about daily thoughts or life. All I can hear in my head is, “I can’t post anything else until I catch up from the last trip/wedding/knitting project.” This isn’t a phenomenon that I’ve just encountered since I started blogging. I’ve always had this problem. The amount of journals that I stopped writing in simply because I hadn’t written for a week or so and could never catch up with numbers at least six or seven.

There are only two times in my life where I ever journaled regularly no matter what happened: senior year in high school and my semester abroad. My senior year it was part of my composition class and we had time to journal in class everyday as well as assigments (such as “write in a mall” or “write at a sporting event”) to complete throughout the year. If there’s a grade attached, I’ll do it. I’m just one of those kind of people. When I went to Wales, I had received travel journals from my mom and Min (more on her in a bit) when I left and was inspired to use them. Due to my lack of socialness, I spent a lot of time documenting my adventures. I’d spend hours in my room writing about the previous weekend. I filled nearly 3 journals while I was abroad, not to mention the giant binder of emails I wrote. But there again, I was obsessed with not forgetting anything, and despite the amazing times I had, I wonder how many other times I missed because I was writing, writing, writing. Ah well. C’est la vie. At least I have the journals. They’re entertaining, funny, and painful all at the same time. At least I learned to lighten up somewhat after I got back. *chuckle*

I tried to keep writing when I got back, but it just never took. I started another journal right after 9/11 thinking it was this turning point in history and I should document my life and think about my place and blah blah blah. Yeah, that lasted about a week.

I started this blog nearly two and half years ago. Good grief. I’ve posted nothing of substance except my crappy book entries since… *looks* I’ve posted nothing of substance since sometime in 2004.

Alrighty. I’m going to be anal-retentive and just do a list of what I’ve been doing since mid-March, since that’s what’s hanging over my head blogging-wise. Excuse me while I purge my mind:

• Bonerama in Baltimore/NYC : I flew into Baltimore, met up with Lisa and lived like a rock star for 3 days. Amazing music? Check. Fabulous musicians? Check. Good times with rock star girls? Check. Heading back to your hotel when the sun is coming up? Check. An insane amount of pictures? Check. I also stayed an extra day in NYC and visited my cousin Martha Marie. Had a piece of Lindy’s cheesecake, a fabulous homemade spaghetti dinner made by her wondeful roommate, Gilbert Baker.
• My rock star caught up with my reality and I was sick for nearly three weeks with the worst head cold ever.
• My 200GB hard drive at work crashed.
• Kirk and Ann got married. Jeff visited. I wore my fabulous hat. We took 450+ photos. Jeff showed restraint (or a lack of hard drive space) and only posted the 175 best.
• It took 3 weeks to get a new hard drive at work.
• The Dirty Dozen Brass Band played at City High. Real actual NOLA music right here where I live! I was so excited I danced on stage out of sheer joy.
• I attended a dessert reception for Campus Crusade for Christ that my friend Adrienne emceed.
• Because of the hard drive calamity, I got way behind at work and have worked the last three weekends to catch up. Those who know me well are gasping in shock.
• Other than working, I’ve been going to the movies. I’ve seen The Sea Inside and Fever Pitch with Doogie. As well as, House of D, The Interpreter, and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. More on those to come…

So that’s what has been happening.

Here’s what’s upcoming:

• Spending this Mother’s Day weekend in Bussey with my mom. Doing website building and wallpaper scraping and laundry and enjoying visiting my mom and not being at work.
• I think I’m getting a roommate at the beginning of June. My work has interns in the summer and this guy is a Ph.D. student in cognative psychology.
• I FOUND MIN! Google has the answers to everything. We’ve been emailing and have talked on the phone once. She’s insane and is working full time and going to law school. Some things never change. We’re trying to figure out a time to actually get together in person. I’m so excited to have found her!
• I’m getting a piano. Jenniffer and Donor are moving and I’m going to babysit their piano while they’re in Ireland. I’m looking forward to getting to take lessons and have something to practice on. I hope MacGyver doesn’t mind.
• Star Wars: Episode III opens on May 19th and I’m taking the day off to go see it with Wil and Stacey Harrison. I’m managing to stay away from all reviews and spoilers. Only 13 more days to remain in the dark.
• D and I are working on a trip to Dallas to visit my Uncle Ron and see some baseball and ride some rollercoasters.
• No. Harry’s not on tour this summer. But he does have a new album coming out in June. Duets with Branford Marsalis. Can’t wait!

That’s what I can think of for now.

One other new thing, I created a mobile blog at blogger. I can post from my phone. Text and pictures. Ah fun things from google.

Hopefully you’ll be hearing a lot more from me. I can’t promise good content. I’m going to work on quantity, not quality for right now…