Gate of Souls: a Familiar's Tale

I received my copy of Gate of Souls last night. I am quite excited and cannot wait to read it. Probably will sit down Saturday morning with a pot of tea and some scones and really enjoy it. I was a beta reader for this book when my friend Verna was writing it. It was great then, I loved it and was thrilled when she thought she had it published. That promise fell through, and in retrospect it was a very good thing it did. Since I first read the book, my friends Rick and Verna have moved so I haven't seen the changes in this book. Verna published several short stories in e-zines and in this way was 'noticed' by a book publisher. A Familiar's Tale was dusted off and has been through some serious editing. The title of the original, A Familiar's Tale, has become the series title. The story is told through the eyes of the sorcerer's familiars. The first time through Mellypip was the main character along with his sorceress Runa. I expect this hasn't changed any. As sweet and endearing as these two characters are Belwyn the owl -- and Mellypip's tutor -- was a favorite of mine, and everyone in the writers group. To a person, in our imaginations Belwyn had the voice of Edward Woodward. No one tried to give actors or voices to the other characters, but try giving this book a read and see if any voice other than Woodward's comes through for Belwyn.

I hear the 2nd book in the series is almost done. I wonder how much chocolate I'll have to mail out to Verna in order to see a rough draft of this book ahead of time?

Ramblings

Last night I finished another book club book, just in the nick of time. It was a library book - due today - and book club is tonight. The book was "Water for Elephants". It was a very good book. I had sworn, or rather promised myself not to do another forced read for book club, but somehow life keeps getting in the way. Well, life and procrastination.

Tonight, between work and book club I'm hoping to get some tatting ironed, and also iron some muslin while I am at it. I haven't posted any new tatting over at my other blog for a while and that needs to get done. I'm about 2/5 through the challenge and I need to get the last five items posted and get 'credit' for doing the work. The challenge is to create 25 tatted motifs in one year. I currently am at 9 motifs, the last 5 needing posting.

I started the other blog to be just tatting and leave this blog for everything else. Well, the lines have become blurred and now I'm wondering how to blend the 2 blogs into one and change the name to reflect the whole. I know other people have moved blogs so it can be done, it is just finding out all the mechanics behind it.

Catching up with requests

In the comment section, I got a request for some crazy quilt links. I don't have a lot yet, but the blog that got me all inspired for crazy quilts was Honey Bee's Bliss. Hers is the only one I currently have linked over at the tatting blog. She has some great links on her site and when I'm looking for information on stitches or quilting, I usually stop by her blog to find the sites she uses. I'm sure as I actually start working on my own projects I will develop my own list of sites and blogs that I find helpful.

Several months ago a co-worker asked for a list of the 100 best books of the century and pictures of my cats. Those many months ago I did get the best books list blogged, but I never posted cat pictures here. So here are a few piccies that are different from those posted on the tatting list. The black cat is Banichi. He is named for a lawyer/assassin from the Foreigner series by C.J. Cherryh. Leo still has the name is rescuer mommy gave him for Leonardo DaVince. He likes to shred things artistically. And Motoko is named for the beautiful yet scary Major Motoko Kusanagi (better known as shousan) from the Ghost in the Shell movies and books, and series. Unfortunately the pictures are all a year or more older. I need to get one of my friends with their digital cameras over to take some updated pictures for me.

Naming confusion?

I realized that I have a naming confusion going on here in my blogs. So I'm taking a moment to sort it out. My blog name is listed as Kelly, my tatting blog says it is Catherine's tatting attempts, the online Tarot community knows me as Catherine, at one job they call me Kelly at the other they call me Catherine, and no I don't have 2 personalities. At least I don't think so. My mom and my aunt both loved the name Kelly for girls. Whoever had the first girl got to name her Kelly. I was the first girl and so that is what my family calls me. My legal birth certificate name is Catherine Marie, after my grandmothers. I use the names almost interchangeably, and you all can too. But please use Catherine and not Cathy. Oh, and dear Peter in Oz, you and you alone are allowed to call me Cate. ;-) The only other person to do so was my Master Sergeant when I was in Junior ROTC in high school.

Endless possibilites with Fibres, & a videogame mention

I was going to try and post at least once a week here, oh well. I have been posting a bit more regularly on my tatting blog -- link is to the side. Life is seeming so disjointed for me at the moment. I did finish another video game. I think this brings me up to about 24 or 25 % of games finished. This one was Final Fantasy XII. In general, I love the FF games. For me they have a great deal of replay value so I really get my money's worth out of the game, especially since I usually buy used games.

While wandering around tatting blogs to get ideas and inspiration from other tatters, I have discovered some very interesting sites on embroidery and crazy quilting. Just what I need, more UnFinished Objects or UFOs. However looking at the crazy quilts, this looks like a possible way to incorporate some of those other scattered projects into a coherent whole. A way to use those purchased materials - yarns, threads, ribbons etc - in one piece. I had never tried a crazy quilt before because it looked like so much work. But looking at what they are doing with them nowadays, it is incredible. I've already started scavenging through my supplies, and racking my brain to see what I might have on hand. I have a list of people that I hope to hit up for nicer scraps of materials. It still looks like a lot of work, but it doesn't need to be a whole quilt. Throw Pillows, Christmas Tree Ornaments, Wall Hangings, Christmas Stockings and more ideas if I keep reading those blogs.

I did buy a dictionary of embroidery stitches earlier this week so I could learn some more stitches. I've done crewel work, cross-stitch, and other embroidery projects over the years, but they have all used the same basic set of stitches, maybe 10 different stitches, 20 if I'm being generous. I thought that made me somewhat accomplished at embroidery. What a laugh, this book has 234 different stitches. 72 are for needlepoint alone. Now instead of somewhat accomplished, I will place myself at rank amateur. I don't see this as a bad thing at all. It gives me permission to not be perfect, and then all the things that I get the joy of learning how to make. The possibilities have left me unable to start at the moment. I'm finding myself wanting to design and make a lovely needlepoint sampler, showing off all 72 stitches. Not realistic at all is it? Plus 3 of the stitches are just 3 ways of making the same stitch, so now we are down to 70 stitches. Still not realistic to expect to get 70 stitches into one sampler and have it look planned and coherent.

So, trying to be realistic, trying to be sensible, I have dug out my sampler kit, looked over it and will work on finishing it. I've only had it for 25 years now. I've never counted it as unfinished though, it has always been a long term project.

More Games

No, I haven't bought any more, just been playing them in all my spare time, and time that should be spent more productively. Once again, poor Ghost in the Shell is languishing in its case unfinished. I dug Final Fantasy XII back out. Like a few of its predecessors that I have it it has seen a lot of game play. Definitely pennies per hour by now. Other than that, work at the 2nd job and allergies have taken up much of my off work time. On my full time job, I've been living in Wiki land. I love special projects and was totally engrossed. Now I'm afraid I must surface and deal with what wasn't getting done for the last week, and seriously think about training issues.

Another Game Finished

I finished another video game last week. Radiata Stories. It is a RPG with a fair amount of replay value as a choice is made 2/3 of the way through the game, and the hero will follow totally different paths depending on what you choose. There is also supposed to be a fair amount of after-game material. I have not explored that yet, but went on to try and work through Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. I've started this game many times, but keep getting frustrated at it. RPGs are much more forgiving than Shooters. Anyway, I have now officially finished about 22% of the games I own. For folks my age I hear that is a really good percentage. For younger people that is a really bad percentage.

After reaching level 6 of GitS, I got distracted by my tatting -- if interested see my tatting blog, link is on right side of this page.

More from my Book Club

I belong to a book club started by several ladies I work(ed) with. It is called Discriminating Women. I was a faithful attendee for several years, then I went back to school and couldn't keep up with classwork, social life, and reading a book from outside of my comfort genres. I had a list from one of the founding members, it was on a computer that crashed. Because of that I am posting the list of books that the Discriminating women have read. Now, hopefully that list will be safe from crashing computers, and maybe I'll get some of those missed books read. And I realize now that our next meeting will be our 10th Anniversary.

This post will probably be edited over a period of time as I look up books to add links. As I link them to the find libraries with copy pages in OCLC's Worldcat Beta, I will try to double check and correct typing and spelling and add authors where needed.

1997
September
The Rector's Wife by Joanna Trollop
October
Montana 1948 by Larry Watson
November
Cannery Row

1998
January
She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb
February
At home in Mitford by Jan Karon
March
The Book Shop by Penelope Fitzgerald
April
A Lantern in her Hand
May
The Professor's House by Willa Cather
June
Deep Water Passage by Ann Linnea
August
The Diary of Mattie Spenser by Sandra Dallas
September
The Awakening by Kate Chopin
Circle of Stones by Judith Duerk
October
Zen Zele by J. Nozipo Maraire
November
Refuge by Terry Tempest Williams

1999
January
No Time on her Hands by Grace Snyder Yost
February
The Giant's House by McCracken
March
Possession by A.S. Byatt
April
The Summer of the Great Grandmother by M. L'Engle
May
Pope Joan by Donna W. Cross
June
Birdsong by Faulks
September
The Divine Secrets of the Ya Y Sisterhood by
October
Ill Wind by Nevada Barr
November
Smilla's Sense of Snow by Peter Hoeg

2000
January
Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood
February
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
March
The Mirror by Lynn Freed
April
The Ginger Tree by Oswald Wynd
May
The Glass Lake by Meave Binchy
June
The Killer Angels by Michael Sharra
September
Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson
October
Watery Grave by Bruce Alexander
November
Imagining Argentina by Lawrence Thorton

2001
January
The Poisonwood Bible by Barabra Kingsolver
February
The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. LeGuin
March
no meeting bad weather
April
The Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier
May
The Red Tent by Anita Diament
June
Mrs. Dalloway by Virgina Woolf
July
The Archivist by Martha Cooley
October
Corelli's Mandolin by Louis DeBernieres
November
Ladies Auxiliary by Tova Mirvis

2002
January
Moo by Jane Smiley
February
Confessions of an Ugly Sept Sister by Gregory Maguire
March
Hawk Flies Above by Lisa Dale Norton
April
My Only Story by Monica Wood
May
Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
June
Roxana Slade by Reynolds Price
July
Meely LaBauve by Ken Wells
September
Gone to Soldiers by Marge Piercy
October
The Road from Coorain by Jill K. Conway
November
The Fourth Hand by John Irving

2003
January
Women of the Silk by Gail Tsukiyama
February
The Tall Pine Polka by Lorna Landvik
March
Behind the scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson
April
The Death of Vishnu by Manil Suri
May
Bell Canto by Ann Patchett
June
Mr. Posterior and the Genius Child by Emily Jenkins
July
Saving Graces by Patricia Gaffney
September
The Dive from Clausen's Pier by
October
The Lake of Dead Languages by Carol Goodman
November
???

2004
January
Plainsong by Kent Haruf
February
Galileo's Daughter by Dava Sobel
March
The Passion of Artemisia by Susan Vreeland
April
The Elegant Gathering of White Snows by Kris Radish
May
Nine parts of Desire by Geraldine Brooks
September
The Lovely Bones by
October
The Day the World came to Town by
November
The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

2005
January
Middlemarch by George
February
The Amateur Marriage by Ann Tyler
March
My Antonia by Willa Cather
April
Rose's Garden by Carrie Brown
May
House of Sand & Fog by Andre Dubus III
June
Standing in the Rainbow by Fannie Flagg
September
Carter Beats the Devil by Glen David Gold
October
Year of Wonder by Geraldine Brooks
November
The Turk and my Mother by Mary Helen Stefaneak

2006
January
The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffennegger
February
Cry the Beloved Country by Alan Paton
March
Revenge of the Middle Aged Woman by Elizabeth Buchan
April
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
May
The Rich Part of Life by Jim Kokoris
June
The Year of Pleasures by Elizabeth Berg
September
The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck
October
Oh my Stars by Lorna Landvik
November
The Solace of Leaving Early by Haven Kimmel

2007
January
Twilight Sleep by Edith Wharton
February
His Oldest Friend by Sonny Klienfield
March
The Handyman by Carolyn See
April
The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
May
Pay it Forward by Catherine Ryan Hyde
June
Last of her Kind by Sigrid Nunez
And the rest of 2007 is listed in a previous post.
I have not yet read entries in blue.

Work temperatures now livable

Okay, to say they were not livable before is an exageration. But almost 90 degrees with little to no air circulation was definately wearing almost all of us down. One day they even allowed us to go home on administrative leave because of the temperatures at 90 + and OSHA rules. All this week the temperature in our office suite has been in the 70s. I think even the individual offices have been dropping into the 70s. It is heaven. The humidity in the office suite is also at a good level. The air quality is better now that they have quit excavating the basement level. So from my point of view, all is well and work is good again.

My Bookclub's Reading List

Below is the list of upcoming books for my book club.


September: Falling in Love with Natassia by Anna Monardo
October: Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See
November: Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
January: Manhunt by James L. Swanson
February: Beneath A Marble Sky by John Shors

I have not yet read entries in blue.