The Friends Fur Life Blogathon

The Friends Fur Life blogathon is here!  Check back all weekend for more and more posts -- I will add them to the roster below as people submit their links to me in comments here or to Quiggy at The Midnite Drive-In.

The Roster

A Fish Called Wanda (1988) review at Reelweegiemidget Reviews

Tribute to Orangey, the move cat, at The Midnite Drive-In

101 Dalmatians (1961) review at Hamlette's Soliloquy

Alligator Loki musings at She Who Seeks

Greyfriars Bobby (1961) review at Elisabeth Grace Foley

Man's Best Friend (1993) review at Diary of a Movie Maniac

That Darn Cat (1965) review at Critica Retro

Buddy (1997) review at The Stop Button

Rocket Raccoon musings at She Who Seeks

Dog (2022) review at Taking Up Room

All Finished with My Winter To-Do List for 2020/21

February is over at last.  Whew.

Although spring has not yet sprung, I've finished everything on my winter to-do list that I'm reasonably going to finish, so I'm going to wrap it up and begin afresh.  Let's see how I did...

~ Finish writing a short story  Check! I released my new short story "Run, Run" in January as an e-book here for Kindle and here for Nook.  It's free!  (In the US, anyway -- it should be free for Nook everywhere, but the Kindle version may cost you a small amount in other countries.)  "Run, Run" retells the story of The Gingerbread Man, and is a sequel to my book One Bad Apple.  I've included a recipe for 1800s-style gingerbread in the e-book as well, in case you get as hungry reading it as I got while writing it.

~ Finish the first draft of my Beauty and the Beast retelling  Fail.  I'm not quite half done with this first draft, I think.  It's already at 30K, so this is going to be another longer book, which is fun!  But I have a lot to write yet.  I absolutely love these characters, though, so I'm not complaining about having lots of time to spend with them!

I still don't have at title for it, though.  It'll come.

~ Finish re-reading The Lord of the Rings  Fail.  That's okay, too.  This is my ninth time reading it, and I'm really in no hurry.  I've been enjoying Heidi's read-along of it a lot!

(This and the following book pictures are from my Instagram account.)

~ Read 3 Christmas books  Check!  In fact, I read six!!!  I think that's the most Christmas books I've ever read in one season as an adult.  I read:

• Christmas with Anne and Other Holiday Stories by L. M. Montgomery 
• A House to Let by Charles Dickens, Elizabeth Gaskell, Wilkie Collins, and Adelaide Anne Proctor
• Yuletide: A Jane Austen-Inspired Collection of Stories edited by Christina Boyd
• A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (reviewed previously here)
• Hercule Poirot's Christmas by Agatha Christie
• Holiday by Gaslight by Mimi Matthews

~ Read 6 other books off my TBR shelves  Check!  I read ten.  It was a great winter for reading!  I read:

• Code Red at the Super Mall by Eric Wilson
• The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins
• Jewel of Persia by Roseanna M. White
• For the Sake of the Game edited by Laurie R. King and Leslie S. Klinger
• The Lone Ranger by Elizabeth Rudnick
• Further Chronicles of Avonlea by L. M. Montgomery
• Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass
• Faces to the Sun edited by S. J. Lasko
• In League with Sherlock Holmes edited by Laurie R. King and Leslie S. Klinger
• Black Orchids by Rex Stout

~ Read 3 books from the library  Check!  I read:

• We are the Ship by Kadir Nelson
• Black Heroes of the Wild West by James Otis Smith
• The Color of Compromise by Jemar Tisby

~ Read at least 1 book each month about/by someone who is not white Check!  I read four:

• We are the Ship by Kadir Nelson
• Black Heroes of the Wild West by James Otis Smith
• The Color of Compromise by Jemar Tisby
• Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass

~ Host a pirate-themed blog party in February  Aye, aye!  We had so much fun.  Go here for the wrap-up post with links to all the different posts people contributed.

~ Watch 3 Christmas movies  Check!  I watched:

• Holiday Affair (1949)
• The Man Who Invented Christmas (2017)
• A Muppet Christmas Carol (1992)
• White Christmas (1954)

~ Watch 4 movies off my TBW shelves  Check!  I watched seven*:

• Call of the Wild (2020)
• The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (1976)
• Calcutta (1946)
• Much Ado About Nothing (2012)
• Virginia City (1940)
• Sleeping Beauty (1959)
• Against All Flags (1952)

*I had watched two of those before (The Seven-Per-Cent Solution and Sleeping Beauty), but so long ago that I didn't really remember them, so I kept them on my TBW shelves until I had a chance to watch them again and decide if I liked them enough to keep them or not.

~ Go see Wonder Woman: 1984 (2020)  Check!  It was okay -- you can read my thoughts here.

~ Try making cookies with my new patterned rolling pin  Check!  As you can see, it has a very ME design:

~ Help my daughter make a playground for her hamster  Check!  You can see him playing in it here:

~ Repaint the main floor bathroom  Check!  Very happy with the results.  Especially this border I put up:

~ Get back to regularly reading the blogs I love Check!  I've been keeping up reasonably well, I think, and I love spending a couple afternoons every week just reading and reading and reading them.  I'd rather be reading them every day like I used to, but right now, this is what works for my life, so I'll try to keep it up :-) 

I'll figure out a new set of goals in a day or two, for the spring!  Meanwhile, happy Friday to you.

Wrapping up my Winter 2019/20 To-Do List

I guess winter is over.  I guess we're not even having a real winter.  We got .2 inches of snow this year.  I am really disappointed.  What is the point of it being cold for months if we don't have snow?

Anyway.  Time to weigh in on all the things on my winter to-do list that I did and did not accomplish.  Titles of books and movies linked to my reviews where applicable, as always.

~ Finish the second draft of One Bad Apple and be editing it  Check!  In fact, I'm on the third set of revisions, which I HOPE will be the last major ones.  I expect to send it off to my sensitivity readers later this month.

~ Read 3 titles for my Classics Club list  Check!  I read and reviewed these four: The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus by L. Frank Baum, All the Mowgli Stories by Rudyard Kipling, Up from Slavery by Booker T. Washington, and Old Ramon by Jack Schaefer.

~ Read 6 books off my TBR shelves  Check!  In fact, I read ELEVEN!  That's largely due to joining #TheUnreadShelfProject2020 on Instagram and setting myself the goal of reading enough books this year that those books piled on the floor can have a home on a shelf instead.  I've read most of the ones on the floor, but have run out of room for them in my library, so it's time to get serious about reading through all these books I own but haven't read, and start making those shelves work for housing books I've already read and want to keep.

Anyway, the books I read off my TBR shelves this winter were:  Blessed are the Cheesemakers by Tricia Goyer and Cara Putman, Murder on the Moor by Julianna Deering, The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus by L. Frank Baum, Dear Author: Letters from a Bookish Fangirl by Laura A. Grace, The Number of Love by Roseanna M. White, Old Ramon by Jack Schaefer, January Snow by Hayden Wand, Till We Have Faces by C. S. Lewis, The Secret in the Tower by Charity Bishop, Hawksmaid by Kathryn Lasky, and Hello, My Name is Single by Adriane Dorr Heins.

~ Read 3 books from the library  Fail.  I only read two, mostly because I'm concentrating on getting books off my TBR shelves now.  But I did read The Undertaker's Assistant by Amanda Skenandore and The Bones Will Speak by Carrie Stuart Parks.

~ Watch 5 movies off my TBW shelves  Check!  I watched The Man Who Invented Christmas (2017), Santiago (1956), Ophelia (2018), The Brothers Karamazov (1958), and Touch of Evil (1958).

~ Go see A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood Fail

~ Go see Frozen II  Fail

~ Go see Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker  Check! Here are my thoughts on it.

~ Go see Little Women  Fail 

~ Go see Dolittle  Fail

~ Go see The Call of the Wild  Fail so far, but I might manage to see it this month yet.

~ Go see An American in Paris (1951) on the big screen, via TCM & Fathom Events  Fail, and I'm REALLY bummed about that, because it's one of my top favorite musicals.  But life intervened -- I think one of my kids was sick?  I can't even remember.  I just know I couldn't make it, and I'm sad.

~ Finish decorating for Christmas  Check!  And because I was a couple weeks late putting everything up, we left it all up an extra week :-)

~ Get my Christmas cards sent  Check!  They went out before Christmas!  Most people probably got them after, but hey, I did get them sent.

~ Finish wrapping gifts in time for them to get opened  Check!  Whew.

~ Finish the Christmas skirt I started making last year  Check!  I want to change it a bit, as I'd like to try adding side slits to it so it fits a little more like I was envisioning, but at least I had it done in time to wear to church for Christmas.

~ Make Christmas dresses for my daughters' 18" and 14" dolls  Semi-check -- I made them Christmas skirts instead.

~ Host a Ukrainian Christmas shindig at our house  Check!  And it was super-fun.

~ Repaint my kitchen  Check!  It took us three days to paint, and the rest of the week to get the whole place put back to rights, but it turned out really well, and I am very happy with it.

And check this out!  We got a hamster!  Our middle child has been asking for one for over a year, and she turned ten this winter, which I think is old enough to care for a pet and be responsible for it, so we surprised her with the cage on her birthday and finally found a hamster last weekend.  Its name is Squid, and we thiiiiiiiiink it's a boy.  It's a long-haired Syrian, and completely adorable!  We haven't been able to pick him up yet, but he lets us pet him a little.  Expect to see more about him in the future.  Also, I have a highlight reel of videos of Squid on my Instagram profile if you want to see him in action.

I'm already working on my to-do list for this spring, so expect to see that up in a few days!