Thanksgiving

As most of you know, Steve and I had our own Thanksgiving dinner here in England (so nice to see everyone on webcam!). We invited our friends Pete and Amanda over to share it with us. We would have liked to invited more people but unfortunately, our apartment and our dinner table aren't big enough.

I was tempted to take some pictures of everyone and maybe even bring out the video cam because the whole reason we bought it was for times like these. But as we all know, Steve HATES being on camera and Amanda is no better so sometimes it's like a battle to get some simple pictures. Add to that the fact that Amanda wasn't feeling well (the poor girl had a fever of 101 - seriously, she should have stayed home!) so I didn't want to push it.

I did, however, get some pictures of the table partially set and of Steve cooking (face not included).





Oh! I forgot to mention! It appears adventures in cooking are never complete in our home without some kind of disaster. Steve had turned the stove on to boil the potatoes - he'd turned on one in the front and one on the back, thinking he'd put the pot on the back burner and then move it forward (not sure why). Well, he forgot and while holding a kitchen towel over the stove, it brushed the hot uncovered one and started smouldering! Luckily, it did not burst into flames and we did not set off the fire alarm, lol. We quickly ran it under cold water and all was well after that - well, expect for the side of the foil roasting pan giving out and dumping hot butter, oil and turkey juices all over the oven door. But I think that's enough excitement for the day!

New Coat

My old coat was getting kind of dirty and worn - plus, since I lost a bit of weight, it was a little too baggy. So I just got a new coat:



Cute, huh?

Printer is UP and running (sort of)

So I've finally been getting my Canon i9900 up and running again. I was first delayed due to confusion about voltage (US printer in the UK, didn't want to ) but Dad contacted Canon and got it sorted out. I then got the printer drivers installed and started printing pretty easily BUT the prints had lines on them. After 5 print head deep cleans, it was finally printing cleanly - but within 5 minutes, my laptop sporadically blue screened! So I rebooted and printed off ONE 4x6 photo only to be told my cyan ink had run out! Of course it's an easily solved problem but it's just annoying. Well, at least the one photo I managed to get out of it looks great.

SO... let the print orders begin! Who wants what?

I'm SUCH an idiot!

I've just realized that the BBC TV show "Spooks" IS aired on BBC America! It's just under a different name! "MI-5"! Unfortunately, BBC America's website is terrible and I can not for the life of me find out WHEN it's aired! But that's okay because I highly suggest everyone in the US buy the DVD's to get caught up anyway:

MI-5 DVDs on Amazon!

Since I originally thought it wasn't aired over there, I figured there would also be no DVDs available in US region. But since there is, I'm half tempted to buy this as a Christmas present for all of you because it's THAT good and you will love it.

Let there be WATER!

Our water is back - not at full pressure but still, low pressure is better than no pressure. Hopefully it won't go off again!

Oh Good

So half an hour ago, someone was banging loudly on our apartment door - not just ours but obviously everyone's. It was a maintenance guy... and anyone who has ever lived in an apartment building knows that when the maintenance guy knocks on your door at 9pm, it's never a good thing.

There is another water leak. They are turning our water off again. They left it on for half an hour so everyone could fill their buckets to flush their toilets. And they said it should be back on tomorrow but we've heard that one before, haven't we? So who knows. Seriously, this is getting absurd! I thought this was all done and over with back in June but here we are again.

This, plus all the other issues we've had here, such as the paint peeling off the ceiling in the bathroom from the humidity and the lights ceasing to work whenever we replace a bulb (seriously, we're down to ONE overhead light in the bedroom). And the shower head in the bathtub will not switch off and revert back to the faucet. Oh and lets not forget the great shower leak of 2007, a result of the shower not being caulked properly. It's so obvious this place was cheaply built but it's not cheap to buy or rent. Someone has made a fortune and doesn't care that everyone else is getting ripped off.

I need to go meditate or something before I pop a blood vessel or whatever from pure rage.

Another book review

The Last Queen by C.W. Gortner


My rating: 1 of 5 stars
I know it's very early (on page 12) but I'm not impressed with this book so far. For starters, there is a sentence that ends with "a symbolic symbol of defeat". This just struck me as very poor writing - you don't need both words "symbolic" and "symbol" because by definition, a symbol IS symbolic!

I plowed on, determined to give it a chance. But then came to a point when the women of the conquered moors committed suicide and Catalina's (Catherine) eyes were covered to protect her innocence since she is the youngest. This confused me because just prior, the entire royal family rode through the battlefield where the dead and dying still lay. Surely this is no less horrific than watching someone commit suicide?

Additionally, I'm not even sure I believe that the children would be present at the battlefield upon victory. In this book, Juana described her childhood as mainly living in tents alongside battlefields. She even describes the sounds of battle as the sounds she fell asleep and awoke to and in the background of her tutoring. It just doesn't sound very realistic to me - surely the children would be safely tucked far away in a grand house or palace?

I haven't completely written it off yet, only because it gets so many good reviews both here and on Amazon. But this book has a lot to make up for if my opinion on it is going to improve.

Update: I thought if there were no more issues like this, I could enjoy finishing it. But there are. On page 17, the author actually uses the phrase "I could care less"! Not only is this an extremely modern term that has NO place in a novel set in the 15th-16th century but technically, it's not even correct grammar. I'm not even a grammar guru or anything but I still know a phrase like this in a book like this is just appalling. I'm shocked that not only would an author use this term but that it would go unspotted by the editor!

This is more subjective but not long after that, Juana is told she will marry Philip of Flanders. Despite having been betrothed to him since childhood, Juana is shocked. I just found this unrealistic. Although I'm sure leaving your home and family for a foreign land to marry a man you've never met would be distressing and daunting - but it was not uncommon so I'm confused by her shock. Juana follows up her shock with a childish whine "But why me?" I just found this really annoying and it didn't make me like her character at all.

Juana then goes on to try to persuade her father to not marry her off to a foreigner. He uses some very see-through reverse psychology and frustratingly, it works. It doesn't say much for Juana's intelligence and again, it doesn't make me like her character.

Sorry, I know I'm only on page 39 but I gave this book more than enough chances - continuing to read even after what I saw to be at least 5 major flaws. The sixth was the last straw. My husband says life is too short to read books you don't like so I'm giving up on this one.

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