What I'm Up To

Listening To: Loser by Jerry Spinelli (narrated by Steve Buscemi) Cute "Young Adult" book.  I'm seeing correlations between this and some of the messages in the Coelho book I'm reading at the same time.  "YaHOOOOO"

Looking Forward To: Family Turkey day on Saturday.  My family never seems to celebrate the holiday/birthday/etc. on the actual day.

Reading: By The River Piedra I Sat Down And Wept by Paulo Coelho

Watching: Degenerate Art - The Art & Culture of Glass Pipes 
Some of the glasswork is AMAZING!!!
I've been watching a lot of Documentaries lately on a wide variety of topics.

Working On: Remembering to attempt to see the world through a child's eye...and getting back to crafting/creating/blogging, etc.

What I'm Up To

Listening To: Bergdorf Blondes by Plum Sykes

Looking Forward To: Stuffed Zucchini lunch.

Reading: Shelter by Harlan Coben

Watching: The rain

Working On: Researching vehicles for the November auction.

Banned Books Week

In celebration of Banned Books Week I've decided to read at least one banned book a month this year. Wikipedia has a list of books that have been banned by various governments either currently or at one time or another in the past which seems like a good place to start. In an attempt to "ease" myself into this project I've decided to start with a classic that (I'm not exactly sure why) I have never read, Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all. ~ Noam Chomsky

We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people. ~ John F. Kennedy

What I'm Up To

Listening To: The Innocent by Harlan Coben

Just One Look by Harlan Coben

Looking Forward To: Seeing my nieces and nephews this weekend.

Reading: The Weight of Silence by Heather Gudenkauf

Aleph by Paulo Coelho

Watching: Dolphin Tale (Is is a bad thing that Rufus reminds me of some people I know?!?!?)

Working On: Getting invoices out for the Columbia Basin Junior Livestock Show.

Bridges & Traffic

We here in the Tri-Cities area FINALLY get the bridge work done and then I read this. I have to say I'm really glad I don't live in San Francisco right now!

The truth is that I didn't mind the delays so much as I minded the other idiots on the road. The signs say for miles to merge left and so like a sane person I do and then just as I'm ready to get onto the one lane open on the bridge here comes some moron racing up in the right lane and dang near pushing me into the divider as he cuts in front of me. Everybody knows that there is a lane on the left coming from Pasco merging into the left lane on the bridge right there!

The other incident that didn't really put me in danger but scared me a bit was on 182 between TRAC and the other bridge. I'm driving along noticing there's a lot more traffic due to the blue bridge being closed keeping a close eye on everybody when in my rear view mirror I see a jacked up brand new pickup behind me swerve into the left lane cutting someone else off. The scary part was that he swerved so hard the entire truck was tipping sideways. I thought he was going to end up rolling over and causing a major pile up.

Really glad our bridge construction is done and I'm not in SF. At least we didn't have pieces of the bridge falling on us! :)

What I'm Up To

Listening To: The Final Detail by Harlan Coben

Looking Forward To: The weekend! I will probably end up having to work most of it again just to get as caught up as I can but at least I won't have to answer the phone and deal with 15 interruptions an hour. Never did get to the movie last Friday, as the coworkers bailed at the last minute, so I might head out to one sometime this weekend.

Reading: Cut to the Quick by Dianne Emley

Watching: The vehicles pour into the yard. Thank God the cut off day is Friday!

Working On: Vehicles, vehicles, vehicles. I still haven't touched a crochet hook. I know this auction is good for business and that it's job security but I hate getting slammed. We're up to 243 vehicles. Help!!!!

Sunday in K-Town

Sunday we all went out to K-town for Mom's birthday. Meg brought baby Alli who looks just like her daddy who couldn't come because he had to work at the hospital.

Jennifer with Meagan and Alli.

Amanda, her two boys (Trent and Tyler) and husband Chris with baby Alli.

Chris and Alli

Tyler with his new Bakugan toy.

Trent with his ever present Nintendo!

We all helped carry mom's new greenhouse from the shop (where they assembled it) to the yard. Dad is inside anchoring it to the ground.

Three of mom's five cats. Only the momma of these three is a house cat now as she's kicked the four babies out to the cellar. Her furniture was taking a clawing!