Warning: List-like post ahead

Notes:

Cheri, there's something for you here.

I've decided to start a Book Blog of sorts. Rather than starting a whole 'nother blog account to keep track of, I'm just building a web page and will update it periodically with what I am reading and a few notes here and there of what I thought of each book. Last August, I started keeping a list of those books that I was reading and I was fairly shocked to see all the re-reading that I do. (There are certain books that will just get re-read every year because they are so great, though . . . I can't help it!) I also want to up my non-fiction reading and start trying out some new authors. I am not very brave about reading someone that I've not heard of or been referred to by a reliable source.

I think I'm catching a cold. Stuffy head, sneezy, the works. Seems like today is a good day for staying in and bundling down. A cold front is moving in and I'm ready! :-)

Tuesday evening I finally put my wedding photos in my wedding scrapbook. I now just need to spend some time journalling on certain pages. Most of the album is completed as far as layouts and pages, I just had stashed the "official" photographer photos on a shelf and hadn't gotten around to putting them in the album. Like I said, I now just need to do some journalling and it will be finished.

One thing that I have realized recently is that, in my quest for simplification, I need to simplify my recreational activites. Hopefully this makes sense here, but I love doing all sorts of crafty/art things - cross-stitch, scrapbooking, making cards, stamping, writing, and I would really enjoy learning how to knit or crochet some day. However, over the last year, I made little to no progress in any area because I spent time dabbling in too many areas. This year, I am going to work (and invest my finances) on catching up my scrapbooks, journalling regularly and making cards. I am going to try not to spread myself so thin so that by December '05 I look back and am even more behind on chronicling our family's history in photos.

Am reading A Woman's Call to Prayer. I am already so encouraged by this book and am only into the first 3-4 chapters. Elizabeth George points out at the beginning of the book that if a woman is interested in learning the discipline of knitting, she spends time doing it, practices, and works at the skill. I should look at prayer similarly. There is a reason why I am uncomfortable praying and don't feel like I know what I am doing . . . I've never taken the time to learn and study prayer. Light bulbs were going off for me as I read this. I'm dusting off my prayer journal and am going to get down to the business of learning to pray.

I'm so behind on my housecleaning. While I have enjoyed the extra time with my neice and nephew, I am ready to get back into my routine of keeping up with things around here. Things are picked up for the most part, but I need some days to get ahead. My poor dogs have been inside for several days because it has been pouring here - they are desperate for some time to get out and run and burn off some of their insane amount of excess energy.

I don't think I ever wrote about my kid-less night last Friday . . . it was so needed and wonderful! Travis and I had made plans to go see National Treasure with some discount movie tickets that we had. (More on the movie in a moment). However, about 45 minutes before he got home from work, I got a call from the church treasurer telling me that I was going to get a bonus check for my job from 2004! It wasn't much, but it paid for our dinner out, a trip to the bookstore for us and some popcorn at the movies. God was so kind to provide that bonus for us. Anyway, we went to Borders first and spent about an hour at the bookstore just wandering around and drooling over looking at books. Travis got a couple computer books and I got Miserly Moms. I had checked this out at the library several months ago and knew it was one I wanted to add to my library. Then we went to dinner at Carraba's (I ate Eggplant Parmesan) and to see our movie. National Treasure is fabulous! The movie didn't have a single bad word in it (I can't even remember any instance of taking God's name in vain) and the story was very cool with all the different aspects of American history tied into it. (We also got a kick out of the fact that Boramir from the Fellowship of the Ring was in the movie.) Anyway, I highly recommend it. It's one that I would like to have for our own home library when I can pick it up used at the video store.

Off to get a few things done . . . have a wonderful weekend and I'll catch up with everyone next week when we get back from Ohio. :-)