~ Read Hood by Stephen Lawhead Check! My review is here.
~ Read Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome. Fail. I'm putting it on my summer to-do list.
~ Read 4 more books from my TBR shelves. Check! I read The Merchant's Daughter by Melanie Dickerson, Wizards, Hobbits, and Harry Potter edited by Mark Whitlock, and two books for the INSPY Awards (I don't want to say which ones so I don't want to seem to have favorites based on which books I read first).
~ Read 4 books from the library. Check! In fact, I read TEN. They were The Trouble Begins at 8 by Sid Fleischman, Rogue One by Alexander Freed, Black, White, Other: In Search of Nina Armstrong by Joan Steinau Lester, Jane and the Stillroom Maid by Stephanie Barron, Something Rich and Strange by Ron Rash, The Searchers: The Making of an American Legend by Glenn Frankel, April Twilights and Other Poems by Willa Cather, Superman Versus the Ku Klux Klan by Rich Bowers, I, Robot by Isaac Asimov, and one book for the INSPY Awards (but again, I don't want to name which one). It was a great spring for reading!!!
~ Watch The Great Gatsby (2013) Fail. I wanted to get it watched before I started my read-along, but that's kind of not happening, I guess.
~ Watch 4 more movies from my TBW shelves. Check! I watched Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights (2004), Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (2008), The Three Musketeers (2011), Francis the Talking Mule (1950), and Ambush at Cimarron Pass (1958) -- that's five, and a nice mix of modern and classic. I also finished season 6 of Castle and watched Alan Ladd's episode "Committed" from General Electric Theater (1954), so I got those off my TBW shelves too.
~ Start blogging about how 2017 is the 500th anniversary of the start of the Protestant Reformation Check! My first post is here, and there will be more to come.
~ Sew a skirt using a new pattern (I want to try this one) and the Jane Austen fabric I bought a while ago from Etsy shop Cute Little Fabric Shop Semi-check! I did make a new skirt for Easter using that pattern, but I used different fabric because I'm not sure the straight lines of the fabric I wanted to use would really work well with that pattern. Still searching for one that will.
~ Finish knitting my Newt Scamandar scarf Fail. It's getting longer, though! Almost 3 feet long, I reckon. As long as I finish it before cold weather sets in again, that's what matters, right?
~ Finish the rewrites of "Cloaked" and be into the pesky line-editing stage. Check! My "editing team" has the story again, and I'm looking forward to their input. Still planning on a summer release, probably in August. This has gone from a long short story to a short novel, and I am looking into releasing it in print as well as e-book form.
~ Bake myself something ridiculously chocolatey for my birthday. Check! I made chocolate-orange cake from this recipe. As you can see, we didn't wait quite long enough for the topping to set before we dug in, but it was soooooo moist and dense and delicious! And a great size for us to just have it a couple times and then be finished with it, and thus not have cake around the house for days and days.
~ Make a miniature Hobbit home in one of my flower containers out on my deck. Check! You can read all about it here.
~ Hold my annual group yard sale. Fail. But only because we got rained out -- we will have it later this summer instead! I have it all organized, and a whole passel of my friends have their sale items tagged and ready to go, so it's just a matter of there being a Saturday that works for all of us where it doesn't rain.
I had such a productive and enjoyable spring! Did you get something accomplished, read, watched, cleaned, or made?
Ambush at Cimarron Pass 1958 was for me a major disappointment. I was expecting more considering the cast included Eastwood and Scott Brady. But I blame the director for the most part.
ReplyDeleteBoy do you read a lot! I just cannot find the time to squeeze in more than a book or two a month.
Gord
Gord
Gord, I agree with you on Ambush at Cimarron Pass. It was passable, but only just.
DeleteI do read a lot :-) I average a book a week, though clearly I did better than that this spring.
I hope you get around to seeing the 2013 version off Gatsby soon! I ought to watch it again soon, myself - I definitely want to get around to it while your readalong is going on.
ReplyDeleteI have Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights and The Three Musketeers on my TBW list, except I really just want to see them for the actors in them, haha. Did you like Miss Pettigrew? I quite enjoyed it - I love Lee Pace and Amy Adams, so pairing them with 1930s costumes and singing made me love them even more. :-)
And oh my word, that chocolate-orange cake looks divine. I will have to try making that one day!
Claire, me too! It's sitting on my TBW pile, waiting for the opportune moment.
DeleteI totally watched DD:HN for Diego Luna and TTM for Luke Evans. I really, really liked MPLFAD!!! I liked Miss Pettigrew herself, and the whole cast was excellent.
Wow! You got a lot done!! How fun! You definitely read more than I did, I only read six books!
ReplyDeleteMC, I did! I'm a bit shocked, actually.
DeleteSix books is nothing to sneeze at! I know some people who don't read that many all year.
Oh. My. Goodness. That mini Hobbit hole is just perfect! I love it!:D
ReplyDeleteThanks, Elanor! It was great fun to make :-)
Delete"Cloaked" is a novel now--yayyyyyyy!!!!!!! I'm SO EXCITED to read it, I don't think you know (although probably not as excited as you are to be almost done with it, lol).
ReplyDeleteIt was a great spring for movie-watching for me, too. I also started a movie journal for myself, to record my thoughts/reactions after each film, what I liked and what I didn't. It's been quite useful :-)
Jessica, yes. "Cloaked" is about 46,000 words right now, just a bit shorter than The Great Gatsby and about the same length as Fahrenheit 451, for comparison.
DeleteA movie journal is a great idea!!! I kept one of those, once upon a time, but I filled it up and never got another.
Book journals and movie journals are so much fun! You feel so happy when you get to write a new book/movie down!
DeleteYou watched enough movies to fill a whole one up?! I'm impressed!
MC, when I was in college, I watched about 5 movies a week. Sometimes more. After I got married, that went down to more like 3-4 movies a week, but still, didn't take long to fill that book up.
DeleteNow I'm reduced to one or two movies a week, but such is life.
@Hamlette--I guess your blog is a little bit like a movie journal, though? You often end up writing posts about the movies you liked best, or just the movies you found interesting in some way; and that serves as a record of your thoughts.
DeleteJessica, that's true. I also record the movies and TV shows I watch in my journal, and the books I read. So I have a complete record of what I've watched and seen, just not always with my thoughts on it. Those go here :-)
DeleteThat is a lot accomplished! So many books read, but also so many other projects accomplished. I can see how these kind of lists could be very useful. I may really need to attempt one.
ReplyDeleteDKoren, yeah, it is. I was kind of astonished when I counted up how many books I'd read.
DeleteI print up my seasonal to-do list and hang it on my wall, and check things off as I accomplish them, as well as record the various books and movies. Having it where I see and read it every day or two really helps me remember to do stuff.
It sounds like you've had a productive spring. Wow!
ReplyDeleteAll I can say is I've finished another semester of school. Since school is done, I have been watching more movies. Here is a few: La La Land, All Quiet on the Western Front (1930), Gilda, Death on the Nile, and Queen of Katwe.
Since strawberries are in season, I've also baked a sour cream pie and cake with strawberries. Mom and I also tried oven baked fried chicken, which turned out interesting. It wasn't awful, but it wasn't like the fired in oil type of fried chicken.
I can't wait for The Great Gatsby read along! It sounds like it will be fun!
Ekaterina, finishing a semester of school is no joke! good for you.
DeleteOf the movies you watched, I've only seen Gilda. Which I should watch again sometime. I prefer The Big Heat when it comes to Glenn Ford noir.
I've baked fried chicken too, because I no longer have a gall bladder and can't properly digest most fried foods anymore. It's not the same, but it's not bad either.
Gatsby starts tomorrow!!!
"The Big Heat" is at one of my library, so I should check it out. I didn't really like Glenn Ford in Gilda. I don't know why, but I didn't connect with him like I did in "3:10 to Yuma."
DeleteThe baked fried chicken didn't turn out bad. This was the first time Mom and I made it, and I was surprised how much it looked like the ordinary type of fried chicken. I think we put too much flour on it in some places. Next time, I think the trick is to put an even layer of flour on the chicken, or not to put any corn starch in the flour mixture. Do you have any tips for making baked fried chicken?
Ekaterina, yeah, GF is not so likable in Gilda for me either. You'll probably like him better in The Big Heat.
DeleteIt's been a long time since I've baked fried chicken, but I think we never used corn starch.
Wow, I'm impressed with how much you got done! Sounds like you had a fun spring.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Abby! It was definitely a fun spring :-) Shaping up to be a good summer too!
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