Category: Books
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And Now She’s Gone
No comments on And Now She’s GoneJust want to drop a recommendation for the book And Now She’s Gone by Rachel Howzell Hall. It’s a gripping thriller that made me laugh as I tried to solve the mystery within. Grayson, our protagonist, is trying to move from writing reports for investigators to solving her first case. It starts as a simple missing person case. Over time we realize that both Grayson and the…
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Yoga revisited
I never really stopped stretching, but now I’m starting to do a few yoga poses again. I stand in a “warrior” pose and marvel at how my mat holds my feet still, and I remember being able to have my feet further apart without any of the balance wobbling I’m doing. I remind myself I used to spend 30 minutes on the treadmill and when I started…
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Review: The Relentless Moon
The newest Lady Astronaut book from Mary Robinette Kowal is fun. It features a 50ish woman, Nicole Wargin, who finds and defeats bad guys in an alternate world where the space race started in the 1950s; by the early 60s, there’s a moon base and a mission to Mars. Nicole is an ex-WASP who admits she was probably only accepted to astronaut training because her husband, Kenneth…
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Quotes: Persist
“It is not enough to be well-intentioned; one must strive to put those intentions into action in a capable way. One must consider the effect his actions will have on others. Looked at like this, to persist in ignorance is itself dishonorable.” — Andrew Cohen “It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.” — Carl…
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I Read This And It Changed My Life
Readers like to talk about books they’ve read. And one thing you’ll hear about sometimes is “this book changed my life.” Maybe it was a book that made you feel less alone, or changed how you see the world, or inspired you. But sometimes they’re more mundane than that. Dealing with my father’s finances reinforced for me how differently I deal with finances than my parents did.…
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Thankful Thursday
Things that I am thankful for: 1 The man of the house packed a yummy lunch for me today. He also cooked each night I was home this week. 2 AC. Most houses in Seattle don’t have AC. I don’t regret installing ours, even if we barely used it last year. 3 A job where showing up in shorts one day and a dress the next is…
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Thankful Thursday
[an occasional exercise in gratitude] My father has been in his new Adult Family Home for over a week and is doing well. The political-bloggers-with-zombies novel Feed that I’ve been compulsively re-reading for the last year did not win the “Best Novel” Hugo but it came in second. Feed and its sequel Deadline are by Mira Grant aka Seanan McGuire. While I did not get to Worldcon this year, I do get to enjoy this ustream of…
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Music Monday: Tanglewood Tree
…featuring New York Times Bestselling author Seanan McGuire (blonde) with Vixy (redhead) & Tony (guitar), Betsy Tinney (cello) and Amy McNally (violin). Recorded at a bookstore event for Seanan’s first novel Rosemary and Rue. (Music starts about 30 seconds in. A studio recording of Tanglewood Tree with many of the same performers is also on Seanan’s latest CD. Song lyrics and chords are here. Late Eclipses is…
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Happy Labor Day, y’all
If you have not already discovered Two Lumps, check out their site. Or the books, which include bonus commentary from the writer & artist: I Would Lick It For Hours: Two Lumps Year One We Must Be Gods: Two Lumps Year Two Today I Hunt…Humankind: Two Lumps Year Three They Still Suspect Nothing: Two Lumps Year Four Vengeance Tastes Tingly: Two Lumps Year Five Hope you have…
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Fat Acceptance Quote for Parents and Teachers
If you exercise as “punishment” for weighing too much, how can you learn to enjoy being active? If you eat salads only as a way to change the body you hate, how will you enjoy the wonderful tastes of fresh vegetables? Besides, if hating one’s body effectively motivated change, do you really think there would be many heavy people in the world? Accepting yourself as you are…
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Quote of the Day
From an Alternet article focusing on Linda Bacon’s book Health At Every Size, Jamie Oliver’s new show, and Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” campaign: [R]esearch shows that people of all sizes have similar diets, but it only manifests as weight gain in some of us. People today eat more calorie-dense, nutrient-poor convenience foods than Americans did in the past. How we eat also plays a role, as eating while…
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Music Monday
…I spent the weekend running around a fan convention.* Today is my “recuperation” day before I return to work. One would think I could write a great article today, but … no. I can’t brain today, I haz the dumb. So instead, here’s a sweet song about fandom. Sung by: Vixy & Tony Written by: Tom Smith and Ron Balder. *…and if you are curious about fan…
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Time for what?
This year I was able to take off one day a week from work in December, along with the time between Christmas and New Year’s. Which means this is my first full work week in over a month. I happened to run across this last night, in Kathleen Norris’ book The Cloister Walk: In our culture, time can seem like an enemy: it chew us up and…
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What would you put into a Fitness for Life class?
Everyone’s talking about Lincoln college requiring students with a BMI of 30 or larger to take a “Fitness for Life” class. What I’m wondering is, what would you like to see in such a class? Not what is usually in such classes, or what Lincoln is including — what would rock your socks to see? Here’s some ideas: Topics: Fitness isn’t necessarily thinness Why fitness is useful…
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Fun: Two Lumps: Fat & Furry
The left leg (which has traditionally been the “good” leg) has decided to give me pain and occasionally not want to work. I’m not thrilled with this. I am exercising carefully and taking ibuprofen and trying to not freak out. In the interest of not freaking out, I’m reading They Still Suspect Nothing: Two Lumps Year Four which came in the mail today. (It’s the 4th year of…
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Book Review: Ultimate Fitness by Gina Kolata
“Exercise is my obsession,” states Gina Kolata on page 3 of her book Ultimate Fitness. Why does Kolata love exercise? “I discovered that if I work out really hard and for at least forty minutes, I can sometimes reach an almost indescribable state of sheer exhilaration.” By the end of the book Kolata admits to belonging to three gyms. The book is nearly a love letter…
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Spotted at the Bellevue Barnes & Noble
Sorry for the crappy cellphone photo, but I was thrilled to see it FACING OUT. :) Yes, it was in the diet section. I reviewed Lessons from the Fat-o-Sphere here.
Living ~400lbs 