New Books!

Well ... they're new for us, anyway. I've mentioned before how I collect Great Illustrated Classic books. My mother-in-law got me hooked on these books after she kept buying them for the girls. They are obviously abridged versions of the stories, but I've found they're great introductions. We've read many of these books in school, which lead us to reading the original full versions later on. I found both of these copies at a thrift store locally. I paid only a quarter for each one. You certainly can't beat that kind of deal.

I also found this book called I Love You, Mommy! It's a newer book from 1999. I guess that's not too new, but it is for me because I usually search for the vintage ones. It's a cute story, and definitely geared towards single moms who are involved in their kids' lives. I didn't see a father in any of the illustrations, aside from the picture frame on the cover. That got me curious, so I did a search and found the same author (Edie Evans) has a similar book called I Love You, Daddy! I imagine it's the same type, geared towards fathers who are actively involved with their kids. They seem like they'd be great books to read to kids of single parents.

I'm a huge Little Golden Books fan, and I've been working on my collection for years now. Just the other day I printed up a title list of Little Golden Books. I printed it in three columns, and it ended up being ten pages long! Sometime this week I want to get all my LGBs out and check them off that list. I doubt I will barely make a dent in it. Perhaps I'll post a photo with my results when I get around to going through them all. I'm curious how many LGBs there are in all. The Poky Little Puppy has sold over 15 million copies alone. One of my dreams is to have a story published as a Little Golden Book. Until I get an agent to get my submissions seen, that just won't happen. I'm not going to give up. Having a LGB is one of my goals in life.

Happy Easter!

Holy Saturday

I hope everyone is having a nice weekend. For those who celebrate Easter, I hope your week has been a good one. We don't have any big plans for Easter Sunday. I'm thinking of going to the Sunrise Service with Nichelle. It starts at 7am, so hopefully I can get myself up early enough. She said she wanted to make us all waffles for breakfast too, so that will be nice. The boys are too old for the whole Easter egg hunt stuff, so we don't do that anymore. I miss those days sometimes. I loved this Holy Saturday image that I found online. I'm not Catholic (I was for a very short time), but Easter is still a big deal to me. I was just watching Watters' World where he interviewed people on Easter. Most of them had no clue what the holiday was about. I realize not everyone is religious, but still, not knowing is kind of sad.

Happy Easter to you all!

Another "DUH" moment ...

So, today I decided to read a little from my Kindle. I've been downloading books for free, mostly classics and other things I wouldn't normally buy in a bookstore. Right now I'm reading Wuthering Heights. I was looking around the classics for a bit and thought The Picture of Dorian Gray sounded interesting. It was free, so I decided to download it as well.

A little while later, Nichelle came home from work and we were discussing books. I mentioned the free classics. Then I remembered I had bought a Great Illustrated Classics book at the thrift store the other day. For the life of me, I couldn't remember where I had set it down. I went out to the car, and sure enough, it was on the back seat. Guess what it was ...

Duh! Now I don't know whether to delete the one on my Kindle, or just read it, and then read the abridged version to the boys in school. Considering I got the Kindle one free and paid a quarter for the hard copy, I'm not really out anything. It's just typical of me, though.

Pinky-Bird!

This little beauty sat still long enough for me to snap a couple of pictures yesterday. There are some blurry marks, but that's because it was snowing at the time. A long time ago, the boys nicknamed them "pinky birds" after their pink colored beaks. Whenever we see one, it's always called Pinky or Pinky-Bird. We have them year-round where I live, but lately I've been seeing a lot of them at my feeders. I'm thinking this one is a female. The males have darker hoods that are almost pitch-black in color. Click on the link below to learn more about them. 

Pinky-Bird ... aka ... Dark-eyed Junco

Remember this?

The other day we received a free Reader's Digest in the mail. I haven't read this magazine in years. As a kid, I often sat around hospitals and nursing homes waiting for my mom to get off work. Magazines were all over these places, including Reader's Digest. I remember reading it quite often. Over the years, I have really gotten out of buying magazines all together. When my girls were younger, I used to subscribe to Family Fun magazine. After awhile, Disney bought it and started making it smaller with more ads than articles or projects. I guess the Internet was partially to blame for killing the allure of magazines. The boys still get a few, but only ones their grandparents have given as gift subscriptions. Anyway, back to Reader's Digest ...

I sat down yesterday and went through this magazine. I was really surprised how little it has changed after all these years. It's still the same small size, and still filled with interesting articles, comics, how-to tips, and a few ads. It's *almost* made me want to subscribe to it. I'm curious how many people will actually subscribe after receiving a complimentary issue. Would you?

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

I hope everyone has a wonderful St. Patrick's Day, whether you celebrate it or not. I know some people go out to Irish pubs to drink green beer. Other people like to cook corned beef and cabbage. I guess that's technically an American-Irish tradition, and not something they do regularly in Ireland. We cooked it last night. It's especially cheap this time of year. I cooked it in the crock-pot for the first time and it turned out pretty good. Thursdays have become "pizza night" for us, so right now I'm waiting for Rick to get home with my green olive & pepperoni pizza. I have to stick with my green theme for the day. I think I'll skip the green beer, though.

I made this picture on that PhotoGrid app that I mentioned in my last post. I have this habit of running off when we're in line at the supermarket. I'll help Rick unload the groceries, but while he goes through the process of paying for them, I tend to scout out things to photograph. Flowers are my favorite, which is how I got this picture of the green bouquet. It's a fun app. I can't believe it took me so long to realize I could do scrapbook pages with it. Too cool.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!