Books I read in September

What a busy reading month I seem to have had!!

1. Counterpoint – Rachel Haimowitz
2. Crescendo – Rachel Haimowitz
As a bit of a fantasy junkie I’m not really sure what took me so long to get round to these two but really glad I did as I really enjoyed them... Though I did read the reviews from those that read the first long before the second came out and laughed at the wailing.... for me it isn't at all unusual for a multi book fantasy series to take several years to complete - I remember waiting for most of the books in the Belgariad/Mallorean and other fantasy series by David Eddings taking forever... mind you it wasn't as bad, or so my mother tells me, as waiting for the final book of The Lord of The Rings to come out.....

3. Hoarse Play – Sean Michael
4. Lord and Master – Jules Jones
5. Texas Heat – R.J. Scott
6. Heaven – Jet Mykles
7. Bear, Otter & the Kid – TJ Klune
8. Of Being Yours – Anna Martin
9. A Serving of Love – Andrew Grey
10. With Love – J.L. Langley

11. Rocking Out – Emily Veinglory
I had reasonable hopes for this story, but whilst it was good premise for a story but it doesn't work if your mc’s are only on the page together for about 1/8th of the book .... that and it might win awards for how many things can you put and mc through in one not very long book....

12. Chaser – Rick Reed
13. Spoils of War – Kari Gregg ..... so want there to be a sequel to this short story
14. False Colours – Alex Beecroft
15. Keeping Promise Rock – Amy Lane
finally read this one, enjoyed it though the middle dragged... but it’s official, I still don’t get “angst”

16. Mind Magic – Poppy Dennison (r)
17. Body Magic – Poppy Dennison .....roll on early 2013 for Soul Magic – really enjoyed this one and looking forward to the next

18. Inherit the Sky – Ariel Tachna (r)
19. Chase the Stars – Ariel Tachna
20. Russian Bear – C. B. Conwy (r)
21. Happily Ever After – C.B. Conwy
22. Unacceptable Risk – Kaje Harper (r)
23. Unexpected Demands – Kaje Harper (r)
24. Above the Dungeon – SM Johnson
25. Gemini – Chris Owen
26. The Good Fight – Andrew Grey
I have a very hit and miss relationship with this author, whilst I enjoy The Range series most of the others I am not that bothered about. For me, this was probably the best book of his that I’ve read

27. Dark Horse – Kate Sherwood... took ages to get to grips with the tense this is written in

28. Letting Go – M. J. O’Shea .... a disappointingly pro-forma type story that this genre seems to churn out more and more frequently

29. Beyond the Edge – Elizabeth Lister.... I should have enjoyed this more than I did but the characters and situations just didn’t work for me

30. The Good Thief – James Buchanan
31. Gasp! – Z.A. Maxfield
whilst I enjoyed the book, as I do most of this author's writings, as someone whose musical tastes really evolved in the Britpop era that was supposed to have spawned one of the MCs I struggled to relate to him as he bore little resemblance to those British musicians who I am very familiar with from the time and have followed since.

32. Power Exchange – A.J. Rose.... aside from the rushed ending a good combination of mystery and kink in this story

33. For the long run – Elizabeth Noble
34. The Hot Floor – Josephine Myles
probably the best book of this month (though it gets extra points as I am a sucker for UK based books with correctly done local accents and a good sense of locale)

35. Switch – Sean Michael
36. Bound: Forget Me Knot – H. B. Pattskyn ....what  is it with rushed endings... am beginning to think some publishers are putting word/page limits on authors

37. Pressure Head – J.L. Merrow

Hum, I wonder if I can make 40 books in a month next month...... well I have to avoid revising somehow!

Right, off to go see how much hair dye I spread around the bathroom whilst I was applying the chemical concoction and sniggering to myself as my mind rolled into the gutter at the rather mysteriously kinky (well in my mind) black plastic gloves they now supply.......

To NaNo, or not to NaNo, this is the question...

So last year, for the first time, I decided to try my hand at the whole NaNo thing... I had an idea, a drafted plot and even lots of inspiration I'd bought together.... and then life, or rather work, de-railed everything by throwing at me a couple of cases to do some drafting of legal documents on that involved historical child abuse.... and that was it, the muse shut down, because my mind could not write a fictional story (which on route to a happy ending did have some abuse in it) when I knew it was horribly real for some people.

Now, the time is fast approaching when I have to decide whether to try again.........I possibly should, because I need to get myself back into writing to build my own confidence with it.  Then again I possibly shouldn't given that my finals are on 16th November.... and I will have to revise.

I'd just about talked myself out of not bothering when I came across this picture...

which started giving me some thoughts and ideas, at which the dreaded bunny pricked up his ears and joined in.....

Then over the last couple of days the radio has kept playing me this song.... which seems to want to lend itself to the story ....

And when I looked closer at the lyrics gave me even more ideas ..... and now I am not sure whether to just give in (with as little grace as possible) and start plotting much more seriously .... and *gulp* a proper f/f story.... 

Sirens by Nell Bryden

Last night I dreamt I was floating with you
The river so deep and the sky perfect blue
If we leave behind the dust in the sky
From the sound of Sirens the city will rise
Hold your hand in mine, we’ll swim against the tide
From the sound of Sirens love will survive

And when your heart is on the run
When its chains have come undone
I will always be the one to carry you home

Streets lie so empty, the lost avenues
The lights of Saint Vincent are too much to lose
If we leave behind the dust in the sky
From the sound of Sirens the city will rise
Hold your hand in mine, we’ll swim against the tide
From the sound of Sirens love will survive

And when your heart is on the run
When its chains have come undone
I will always be the one to carry you home

If we leave behind the tears in our eyes
From the sound of Sirens the city will rise
Hold your hand in mine, we’ll swim against the tide
From the sound of Sirens love will survive

And when your heart is on the run
When its chains have come undone
I will always be the one to carry you home

It appears to be Autumn....

My walk in the park of a morning involves
kicking up lots of leaves, much to Gretchen's
annoyance when they land on her....

So, we have passed the Vernal Equinox and are official in the dark side of the year.....

The weather is getting colder and the trees changing colours and losing their leaves..... though there is a stunning amount of berries on some which makes me concerned we are in for another really stupidly cold winter (okay, by British standards that is - I know in other parts of the world you just think we all moan and gripe when really we have it easy in winter.... but we still aren't used to it and there are parts of the country that go into complete melt down if it gets below about -2 or there is an inch of settled snow)

So, I am back to dog walking in the dark in the morning and it's now dark by 8 pm..... (in fact today it's been dark all day .... and we've apparently had a month's worth of rain in 24 hours).....we have had our first frost of the year .... I love walking the dogs when it's frosty and a whole story line once evolved from meeting a family of foxes out on the park in the very early morning light with frost and fog about.....

I've broken out the winter foods and by default am back to baked potatoes and macaroni cheese (no not together)..... and crumble, I have a craving for crumble.... though still definitely not apple!

The temperature dropped massively over the weekend .... I did however have pre-warning of this..... as the pilot light went out on my boiler and refuses to re-light...... no, I was sensible, I didn't start taking the boiler to pieces I called the boiler man..... but until he makes an appearance I am without central heating....

Which meant tonight I lit the gas fire in the lounge for the first time in about 3 years...... erm.... the sparky ignition thing appears to have died... .which meant matches......I thought long and hard about it, removed the dogs from the room, held my breath, lit the match and switched on the gas flow....... and what do you know it lit.... okay, on the third attempt...... there might have been some minor burning of stray dog hairs that I'd missed when cleaning....... and perhaps a little popping banging sound on the 2nd attempt........ and it smelt a bit of burning dust for a while......... but hey it got us all warm again .....and didn't set anything alight that wasn't meant to be... which is probably a record for me!

My weekend has plans....

Hugo keeping his beady eyes on the yarn stash and
waiting to make a stealth attack...

My mission this weekend appears to be mainly to knit! The first of the three pregnant people in my life phoned in work today to say she was in labour... some three weeks early..... which begs the question why do I leave things to the last minute.

So I have looked at the stash, scratched my head a bit and then decided on an Itty Bitty Sock Yarn Bits Blanket....(basically a mini log cabin type blanket) cos I appear to have a carrier bag full of odds and ends of sock yarn waiting to be used for something or other....

I cast on this evening and have managed a couple of inches so far - small needles (3.25) do not make for fast growing projects..... I have also had to speak sternly to Gretchen regarding the edibility of the points of my interchangeable circs....... ie... go away, stop eyeing them up, they are not for you to chew on....

I do have some other plans, though they mainly involve things like housework, laundry and other such boring stuff..... oh and I planned chilling out with some of the books I'd managed to load on the Kindle (this time on purpose, I've not repeated the other night's adventures of buying 3 books in my sleep.... mainly by not taking the phone to bed with me)

I fear that by lunch time on Sunday I will be out knitted and might actually find my writing inspiration again......we shall see.... in the meantime, I must knit for there may well be a recipient for the blanket within the next few days......

Oh... and said person going into labour means *gulp* I've been promoted to Deputy Team Leader at work....

Friends.....

I have been reminded over the last couple of days how wonderful friends can be.... I've not been a very positive person lately and some of my friends, none of whom are on the doorstep (usually anyway but we'll come to that) and none of whom I see on a regular basis (or in fact at all) have all be fantastic in the last few days in helping me find some good things to focus on and giving me encouragement

My last post mentioned that my beta readers, if they saw the post, would probably administer a cyber slap upside the head for being so negative and, sure enough, last night the phone rang and when I picked up the phone the voice said, "consider this your cyber slap upside the head".... we then proceeded to natter for a further 90 minutes or so generally putting the world to rights, talking about our families, work and trivial things.... okay and not so trivial things as we got onto the subject of bullying in schools and how it had affected us but that is a topic for another post.  When I got off the phone I was actually smiling, which has been a bit of a rare occurrence here lately.

About half an hour before I left work this evening, I had a text notification that read "I am sitting on your doorstep", now my first reaction was 'huh?!' because being something of a techno numpty and despite having my lovely smart phone for approaching a year I have still not got round to programming the names to the numbers and I couldn't for the life of me work out who the hell was sitting on my doorstep.......... after all, my mother and sister are still in Turkey (and mum has a key), I'd spoken to one friend yesterday and she was safely 600+ miles away, the other friends it was likely to be, well one I knew was at home as I'd spoken to her earlier and the other was on a course somewhere..... oh and I'd not ordered anything from my friend who runs a mobile pet shop...... So I hastily scrabbled through the phone directory and eventually worked out it was my friend who was on the course.... which is in Lincolnshire .... apparently today is there day off and she was bored so she drove over to mine.....  We've had a lovely evening, and even a Chinese take away (I don't eat take away food unless I have visitors as it's a slippery slope of convenient if unhealthy eating) whilst we've gossiped and reminisced, we've known each other over 20 years and spent 5 years house sharing as students and afterwards.... Though we speak, or text, most days we don't see each other regularly - in fact the last time I saw her was at the beginning of the year - but she's one of the only people that can usually get through to me when I am not thinking particularly straight so it was fantastic to catch up.

Even if I don't see my friends everyday, or in fact even if I've never met them but we have become friends through cyberspace, a solid friendship, where there is give and take on both sides, where we can support each other, cheer each other on and just listen are immensely valuable things and things for which I am incredibly grateful.  I am so lucky to have friends like these in my life.

Confidence crash....

Meh, I appear to have lost all confidence in my ability to write.....

Which is stupid.  There is no reason for this.  You'd have thought this would have happened, if it had to happen at all, whilst I was trying to write my LiAW story.  After all, that was the first thing I'd written in the genre, the first thing I'd put out there for people to read (save for some very short YA stuff and fan fic that was posted on friendly sites).... but no, instead, it waits till after that story has posted.... and got nice comments...

It's not that Rupert isn't still having ideas about stories.... hells no, I've got the beginnings of four short YA stories from the prompts all with about a quarter written, I've three longer M/M stories with plot out lines and even some work towards them, and then there is book 2 of the YA fantasyish thing that has about 2 chapters done....... but every time I look at any of them I just end up thinking, nope, tis all a load of gumph, then I give up looking and go read something else.

Now I originally started writing original fic about 4 years ago.... after having read a series of really really badly written books and thinking to myself 'I can do better than this'..... and it's not like I'm only reading masterpieces now... I am still occasionally picking up books and thinking 'sheesh, and this got published!'.... I just can't translate it into having confidence in my own work.

Now should my beta readers see this post I can just about guarantee that I will get a cyber slap upside the head and be told to pull myself together....... oh heck, just realised, I am being visited by both of them... together.. at the same time.. next month... oh this isn't good.....  I need to find my writing confidence asap.....

Today has mostly been about apples.....

So on Friday, my mother and sister headed off for Turkey for ten days, leaving me with my usual obligation of feeding the The Mavis.... though luckily my duties are lessened by the fact that sister's other half is picking up some days when he's staying there... my hands and ankles are grateful...

My mother left me with a small challenge..... in the shape of two shopping bags full of apples....and the instructions "can you do something with these please"...... and the woman only has one miniature apple tree...

Yesterday, after having my hair reduced from somewhere around my waist to back up to a sensible length just above my shoulders..... colour change imminent, when I can decide on what colour........ I spent several hours trawling through recipes trying to work out what on earth to make with the damn things....

So today, I have stewed (with cinnamon and with cloves) two huge batches of the things, I have baked mini apple pies and Norwegian apple cake, I have cooked up apple chutney and even attempted apple curd.....

I never ever want to see, smell and definitely not peel another apple again...... ever....

Though I am quite pleased to say I managed all this without burning myself, blowing anything up, destroying anything or having alarms go off (which is quite an achievement really for me)

The internet ate my blog post...

I wrote a blog post whilst I was at work today... not an important one... just a general mumble about all sorts... but it appears to have disappeared into the ether between my work computer and my home computer..... I hope I didn't write any naughty words in it that the censoring demons that work in the IT department will be jumping up and down about.

Anyway, having been kidnapped and taken out for a rather nice meal, and, erm not had to drive, I shouldn't really be anywhere near the blogsphere just in case I say something I shouldn't whilst under the influence of, erm, some alcoholic stuff.....

So now I am going to meander off and do the whole medicated moisturiser thing before I go to bed... being careful tonight to turn on the light and not pick up and slather my poorly leg in hair minimising cream by mistake....... cos I learnt from experience last night after an hour or so that burns like hell and is a bugger to get off again balancing in the bath at 1 am when you also discover you've no hot water....

So whilst I do that..... have a picture

In Hope's world there is always something to smile about 

A sudden craving....

Having been vegetarian for over half my life I have learnt that sometimes I really have to listen to what my body is telling me when it suddenly demands certain foods.... I think I learnt this the hard way when after 2 years of being vegan I ended up with a serious vitamin deficiency that landed me in hospital being treated for severe anaemia....never again will I go down that route....

Whilst I am not brilliant at the whole healthy balanced meals things.... I am crap at breakfasts - which unless I'm bullied happen at about 10.30 am and involve a pot of yoghurt.... and when I am just cooking for me I tend to be quite lazy ... added to which I have a love of dairy products, from cheese to ice cream....Though I am pretty good generally at the whole moderation thing....

Anyway, my body's usual demands are for pretty normal things.... marmite... which thankfully I love ... when it needs salt.... or raw peppers and bananas when it wants potassium.....  Okay so it also demands roast chicken on a regular basis but that is a hormonal thing and easily cured by a packet of roast chicken crisps (though I do curse the rotisserie chicken counters they have in supermarkets these days)... and four months on it still demands caffeine at regular intervals but I am ignoring that....

So, imagine my surprise when I am just about to stop work and have lunch this afternoon my body suddenly tells me that it really really wants a bacon sandwich.... on white bread... with brown sauce..... Now here's the thing... I hate brown sauce and as for bacon *shudder* even the smell of it cooking makes me nauseous.... even when I did eat meat I never liked bacon.....but for five minutes today I looked at my pita bread with hummus and salad and all I wanted was this blinking bacon sandwich......  

Now one of my closest friends, and the full mother to my half daughter, is pregnant again and we've always joked that we have some sort of weird psychic connection.... so as a joke I texted her and asked her if she could tell the alien duck she's carrying (alien cos it's growing in her stomach, duck because her 3 year old declared that this is what the scan picture was of) to quit craving things that I really didn't like..... the text I got back about an hour later made it all a bit surreal, because for the first time in weeks, at around the time I suddenly was craving this damn sandwich, she was sitting down to exactly that for her lunch...... I am not sure exactly how half motherhood works... but it looks like I may have a connection to the latest spawn already :)

It's definitely been a Monday....

Today has been one of those days where I wished I'd never bothered to get out of bed in the first place.... okay, so that never happens in reality as I am usually half way down the stairs throwing on clothing of some sort by the time the first early warning whimper is issued by the dogs....

Today did start reasonably well.... I was organised enough to make a proper lunch and clean the kitchen before work.... only for Hugo to turn his nose up at his own breakfast and go raid the veggie chicken sandwich I'd made and spread the contents across the hall.... by the time I'd cursed, quite a lot, at him and cleaned up I was five minutes late and lunchless...

I have a huge long list of files I need to draft documents on .... so did I spend my day getting on with them... no instead I had to hand hold a fully trained and allegedly competent solicitor through a task which usually would be left to an admin assistant to do... but no he wanted to do it himself.... I think I had about 30 e-mails or telephone calls, all in a tizzy about what he should be doing..... okay, so not entirely his fault as the person who supervises him was in court in the other side of the country.... I gave up on trying to do my own work in the end...

I did go on a bit of a spending spree at lunch time though... that is to say with no opportunity to purchase shower gel I found myself logging onto Amazon and through the joy of their one-click option... and my ability to demonstrate a highly possessive kleptomaniac when I am pissed off... bought, erm, a few, books.... thank goodness I am well enough trained to stay in budget or the mood I was in I'd have a to read list sat on the Kindle that I couldn't get through before next March.....

That said, the first one I want to read, Body Magic, means re-reading Mind Magic first to refresh my memory.... but I can start that tomorrow as I finally got round to reading Keeping Promise Rock (as recommended in my quest to work out what exactly angst is)...... I really enjoyed the book (though the middle dragged a bit).... but alas I am still none the wiser as to the whole angst thing..... I will trawl through some reviews of other books and find more books people say are "angsty" and try them .... I might work it out one day......

And to round the day off.... it is tipping it down with rain and none of the dogs want to go out which means I shall be up at midnight when they remember that there was a reason I kick them out before bed time......

Because I am a good girl....

No, honestly, I am..... well, okay, most of the time I am....other times I might possibly be not quite so good, but I would never admit that if questioned....

Finally! striped husband socks...
no not for striped husbands...

anyway.... I have completed part of my homework....see the completed word!!  Yep, I finished a project that's been hanging around for about a year (okay, I've done other projects in between but this was one of those I just couldn't for the life of me finish..... but today I have and the husband socks are finally done... (I even kitchenered without having a hissy fit).... and no I have still no idea why it took me so long to get round to finishing this particular project

Now I have to hope that the husband they are intended for likes them and that they are the right size!  I shall pass them to the owner of the appropriate husband when she comes to visit in the near future...

So, one down, one to go before Wednesday......... erm.........

Tomorrow I get to go be social, as we are having the usual run of fantastic weather because everyone has gone back to work/school my sister and her other half have invited me and mother to a bbq .... though I feel my invitation my have something to do with the 10 days she is about to go to Turkey for and Mavis the Cat feeding duties.....

Right, well, as the dogs have gone to bed and the cats are on their third meal of the day I think I am going to go play on the interwebs for a while .....

Updating by numbers....

1.  I finally discovered Hugo's special hiding place for my socks....... I mean, why didn't I think to look inside the cover of the duvet on the guest bed??  It wasn't just my socks I found... there was also a selection of cat toys that he's obviously hoarding from his mother (she's the one that likes to wake me in the middle of the night to play catch with the blue sparkly mice) and a piece of liquorice root (which I bought for my father and then lost a packet... I found what I thought was most of the packet - it had been hijacked out of my shopping by the cats - almost immediately, but I'd obviously missed this bit!

2.  Daddy long legs season has begun.... whilst sitting reading in the kitchen this evening I was visited by a couple of said creatures.... now I don't mind them.... and it's great exercise for the dogs who spent a good 90 minutes trying to catch the daddy long legs ... eventually Hope managed a death defying leap and brought one down (it involved her leaping onto the top of the freezer then halfway up the wall)... but she lost it to Kammi who for all her small, white, cute fluffiness you don't want to mess with.... well not if your Hope anyway... Ivan did a bit of chasing....... Gretchen didn't stir from her spot on the floor between my feet save to raise her head and glare that they were all disturbing her sleep and would pay for it later.....

3.  Tonight was my "talk about myself" session.... and cos I am a good girl (no honestly, stop laughing, yes, you) I had done my homework from last week.  We, well I with some prompting, have come to the conclusion that I do have a fear of finishing things, but this is because I have difficulty finding a focus on what I am going to do next so I put off reaching the end of things.... This week I have to finish two of my unfinished projects (apparently finishing reading a book does not count, dammit!)....There has already been a vote for the finishing of the husband socks, and I think the other thing I ought to do is finish one of the 4 outstanding short stories I started but then didn't get to the end of for the Goodreads YA GLBT group's monthly photo prompt... mind you that involves making a decision as to which story... and decision making is my other big "fail" area....

4.  In a fit of organisation (possibly brought about by the fact I have visitors to stay in just over a month) I have obtained a new electric shower ... erm, that makes it sound like it fell of the back of a lorry... it didn't... my sister purchased it for her house, then had a new boiler put in and her bathroom redone, including a power shower so she never used the electric one and I have been gifted it.... being even more organised I have arranged for a plumber/electrician (well, I have asked my mother to phone the family plumber/electrician) to come and fit it.... oh and to fix the scarily dangerous hanging down wire that was a light fitting in the lounge at the same time (yeah, I know, it's only been waiting to be done for, er, about 3 months)

5.  I have had an official summons from my sister and her other half to go to Sunday lunch.... apparently it's going to be a "family meal"..... I am suspicious.... (well, my mind goes into overdrive sometimes)

Erm... ah... oops?

Well it had been a while, in fact almost four months, but I suppose it had to happen sooner or later....

yep my magical powers struck again ........

Saturday night I was up far too late (well into Sunday morning really) because I got sucked into a chat room on a new website I joined (though I didn't actually join in the chatter, I just lurked with intent)..... So, being a bit tired after the 5 am dog walk and feeding routine I decided sod it, it's Sunday, I am going read for a while, so I made myself comfortable in my corner of the sofa and must have drifted off because the next thing I knew was that there were protest songs coming from the stairs where the cats had wondered if I expected them to somehow feed themselves....

Having apologised to them profusely, well, filled their dishes up after which they promptly ignored me I decided it was actually time to get my backside into gear and get organised.....

Now, here I should explain, I live in a reasonably modern house, that is to say it was built in the 1980's, but it has the original boiler/heating system and a horrible electric shower which goes over the bath .....  So this morning I switched on said shower, got in (after having my feet attacked by Hugo who likes to wait for me to get one leg into the bath before attacking the other foot.... it's strange what amuses a cat)... there I was midway through my ablutions (shower gel of choice this morning was tea tree and mint) when suddenly, there was a bang, quite a loud bang, from the vicinity of just behind me on the wall, where the shower unit is... and then the water went cold.... the dogs started barking and the house alarm went off...

Now the house alarm going off like that signals that the electricity trip switch on the fuse box has switched itself off.... so I tentatively reached out and switched the water off .. before legging it downstairs to tell Ivan that the world wasn't coming to an end (bless him, he doesn't half over react at times) and to switch off the alarm, once I'd flipped the trip switch...... could I remember the alarm code as I am standing in the cupboard (which doubles as the downstairs toilet) staring blankly at the alarm panel.... whilst naked and dripping water and soap all over the place......

At which point my neighbour's teenage son knocks on the front door... his mother having sent him round to check I was okay.....

Luckily, I managed to remember the alarm code, reassured the child through the closed door that I was fine, and get myself organised enough to go finish washing..... albeit without using the shower...

Seems I'll be calling the plumber this week to get myself a nice new shower..... but why do these things always happen to me?