Archive for December, 2005

Books 43-46

Dec 31 2005 Published by Wendy under 50 books

I’ve been neglecting ye olde blog because I haven’t had the inspiration to write highly interesting things about the last books I managed to get through in 2005. So I take the easy way out with a quick bulleted list and a backdated entry so I can move into the new year without blogging baggage…

  • Book 43: FoxTrotius Maximus : A FoxTrot Treasury
    I’m not sure what it says that I identify so much with the pre-pubecent geeky Jason which makes this my favorite comic strip.

  • Book 44: The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America
    Highly fascinating real-life story of the Chicago World’s Fair and a notorious serial killer.

  • Book 45: Shopgirl
    I continue to enjoy Steve Martin’s writings.

  • Book 46: Visions of Sugar Plums
    A Christmas present from TracyA and a short and entertaining holiday read.

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Book 42: The Innocent

Dec 21 2005 Published by Wendy under 50 books

Several years ago, while visiting my cousin Becky in St. Louis for some concert or another, she passed along some books that she thought my mom and I would enjoy. I come from a long line of book passers. One of them was Seabiscuit which was excellent. The second was a book I’d never heard of written by an author that ditto on the hearing of part. The book was No Second Chance by Harlan Coben. It was of the thriller/mystery genre that I so enjoy. I was under the impression it was the author’s first book and for some reason I never looked to see if he had written anything else. Rather odd for me since I found the book so completely compelling in that great “you just can’t put it down” way.

Fast forward a few years and I’m wandering around on amazon.com looking at new releases and I see “Harlan Coben” and the name sparks some recognition. I read on to see that it is the author of the book I had enjoyed. Delighted with a new book possibility, I headed over to my library’s online catalog to see if they had the book. And they did.

The Innocent was another fast-moving page turner. The story revolves around a man who gets involved in a stupid fight at a college party where one person ends up dead and the main character goes to jail. The story continues after he is released and has seemingly put his life back together and is about to enjoy becoming a father for the first time. But that’s just way to neat and tidy for a book of this genre. So there are secrets revealed and police investigations and man-hunts and people running for their lives. Its a fast moving read. A bit James Patterson in that respect, but not nearly as creepy.

The worst part was that I started reading this book about three days before I moved while I was on Thanksgiving vacation. I so didn’t have the time to want to keep reading it every night, but I did. It was the first book I finished after moving into my new place.

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Two Concerts, a Move, and a Cat

Dec 19 2005 Published by Wendy under Cats, Friends, Living Spaces, Music

Coming for your mid-season replacement delight from FOX.

Nevermind. Fox already cancelled that.

I was nearly ready to just cancel this whole thrice-attempted post, but I decided to give it the “pictures are worth…” treatment since I’d already cropped, resized, and uploaded.

Way back over Thanksgiving weekend, I left Coralville on Wednesday night and headed to Bussey for Thanksgiving with the family and to leave MacGyver for the week. Tasty. Friday was spent working on the current home project. Saturday, my mom and I went to a wedding and then drove to St. Louis to see Bonerama. Also: video clip. Sunday, I drove my mom back to Bussey, then headed back to my apartment in Coralville. I got back around 5pm Sunday night. Did I mention that the piano movers were coming at 10am on Monday morning followed by the regular furniture mover dudes at 1pm? Did I also mention that at that point on Sunday I hadn’t done much packing yet?

When Mac left on Wednesday, the place was still semi-together:

Since the time between my “I think I should move before I kill my neighbors” realization and the “hey, I’ve found a place to live and I can move in now” point was rather short, I did not have time to do the thorough sort and purge process that I had planned on doing. It was more of a purge for some bigger items. Including the stereo that I got from my grandparents in 8th grade. It had stopped working at all without kicking awhile back and had just been used as computer speakers for years.

RIP childhood stereo:

There was packing and moving.

I hadn’t moved my TV since I got it in the fall of 2000. The dent in the carpet was at least half an inch. ew.

Packing and cleaning was a blur of two days. Many thanks to Sara (with the assist from Jerry) for being a kitchen disassembly and cleaning machine. Though I’m still not sure the logic of my piggy bank ending up in the container with all my kitchen stuff. Adrienne was a labor rock star who showed up with at least four people in tow to help load and unload stuff into my new place. I didn’t even know half of them. They have cookies coming to them. And last, but not least, my mom came up on Tuesday and helped me clean out my old place all day. In the end, I know I left some nails in the walls. There had to have been a at least a hundred through out my apartment.

I will admit, it was with a mixture of relief and sadness that I left my keys behind and locked the door for the last time on 960B Boston Way. I almost cried when I called my landlord to tell him I was officially moved out.

Tuesday night, I collapsed onto the floor in exhaustion, surrounded by boxes, to watch The Amazing Race. When I stood up to try to go to bed, I could barely walk I was so sore from all the trips up and down the various flights of stairs over the previous two days.

So of course it made perfect sense that the next day, Jewels would come over and we’d go stand at a Keith Urban concert for a couple of hours (her birthday present from me). Thank goodness for Rock Star energy drink. Cheers!

Jewels and Wend

The concert was really fun. Keith did not disappoint. He is one amazing guitar player and just gives off the vibe that he’s having the absolute time of his life whenever he’s on stage. Signs seem to be a thing for Keith concerts, at one point during the show, he stops and reads out the ones that he likes or catch his eye. A funny one that that he read and was shown on the big screen: Play your 1 courd song!. He has a hidden track on one of his albums that is “One Chord Song” which is just what it says. A song based on one chord. But so funny because he pointed out the misspelling. Heh. The one that I thought was hysterical was one he, not surprisingly, didn’t read: Nicole is TOO TALL. HA! Earlier in the evening, I saw a woman walking around with a sign that said 5 concerts in 6 months! All I could think, knowing how many times he had played in the midwest and that his concert tickets were usually way less than $50/show was: amature. *wink*

We had decent floor seats and I got a couple of decent photos that allowed for cropping:

I also took a little bit of video and the audio turned out not too bad considering the conditions (everyone singing along) and that its just my little digital camera.

I wasn’t going to do much Christmas decorating, if any, this year since I am still getting settled and don’t have the room for my whole live tree needs. But I gave in and got a little artificial one at Wally World. I didn’t have my decorations, so I improvised.

Finally, my mom brought MacGyver back after her week and a half vacation to Bussey.

I think she’ll allow us to stay:

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