One Hundred Books Later

He says:

Two years ago I became increasingly more horrified by the amount of books that I owned, but never read. This spurred me on to make a New Year's Resolution to read 52 books, a monumental goal considering that in previous years I would read maybe 10 books a year. Since I was able to meet that goal without too much exertion (see 'Shoot For The Moon' blogpost), I decided to up the count to 100 books.

Completing this goal really gave me a sense of accomplishment plus I made some great headway on my "to-read" lists.

I figured I would share some of the books that stood out the most for the second half of the year:

Best Book: Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury
My first experience with a novel by Bradbury instead of his short stories did not disappoint. Set against the backdrop of a traveling carnival that has sinister effects on the townspeople, the story revolves around a young boy, his best friend, and his father. This book dealt with true evil, innocence, the love between a father and his son, and friendship but was never overbearing. Plus Bradbury's imagery was outstanding.

Best Feel Good Book: White Fang by Jack London
Who doesn't like a good dog book? The last third of this book is where it really shines. White Fang is saved from a dog fighting ring from a man. This man is the only one who has ever shown compassion to the wolf-dog and their interactions as White Fang learns how to accept and eventually love this man are heartwarming.

Most Surprising: The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
I had been hearing about Hemingway's style for years before I actually picked up this book. It was extremely refreshing. Clever dialogue peppers the book which is on one of the best examples of actual conversation I've come across.

Presenting...

She says:
   One of the things I wanted to do during my winter break was catch up on craft time that I have greatly missed while being busy with school and work and more work and homework. While I still have a ridiculously long list of things I want to craft, Jason and I were able to meet my crafty needs by making our own Christmas cards and the presents we gave to our friends.
   Here are the things we made:

A "dilly" of a homemade card.

 

 

See the resemblance?  The dog on the card was made from the silhouette of an actual picture of Dilly.

 

 

A "local time" clock for a friend who loves traveling. 

 

 

A music clock for a friend who teaches band and orchestra.  The quarter note is for a quarter of an hour...

 

 

A tooth clock for a friend in dental school.

 

Etched tumblers, personalized for the drinker, including the rebel alliance symbol from Star Wars, MU logo, an airplane and a bass. 

 

 

P.S. This is "Dillzilla" destroying Geometry Town--the only "crafty" thing I made during the past semester.  Can you believe that was a final project for a graduate level class? 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy Two Year!

She says:
   A year ago we started our blog so that we could tell our friends and family how cool our life is.  Ha!  We're so happy that 12 months have passed and our blog is still going strong at all.  We hope to keep up with the sporadic posting or do even better in the blog's second year of existence, and we hope that you will read along and think we're interesting.  :)