I love to read!

My library website has a great feature that lets you make a list of all the books you would like to read in the future and then gives you the option of requesting them electronically. Then you will be notified via email when your books are ready to be picked up. It's great!! So I am adding here the books I have recently read, with some extra comments. This week is Harry Potter week so I have planned to read one Harry Potter book per day until the grand release! I read HP 1 on Saturday and I will read HP 2 today. One more bit of news . . . yesterday we went to Bakersfield to see my cousin Diego who is back from Iraq! It was so wonderful to see him and he looked great. He is alive, which is the most important thing of all! It was really good to see him and we met his little girlfriend Natalie. I quizzed Justin with his flashcards all the way there and back. He is worried! By this time next week we will be driving to Sacramento and on to our destiny! More about that later.

1. Jenna Starborn by Sharon Shinn. It is basically the story of Jane Eyre but set in a futuristic space setting. It sounded great to me and I was really excited to read it. I liked it okay but Jane Eyre is better of course!

2. The Grand Tour or The Purloined Coronation Regalia. It is the second tale in the lives of Cecy and Kate, the magical cousins I have come to love. They are on their honeymoon doing a tour of all of Europe and solving magical mysteries all the way there. I love the idea of honeymoons across Europe!

3. Darcy's Story by Janet Aylmer. From reading the description of the book I was desperate to read it. It is Pride and Prejudice told from Darcy's perspective, which in the original novel is almost non-existing. Naturally I was quite piqued! However, I perhaps had too high expectations because it ended up being very close to disappointing. Let me know what you all think about it.

4. Old Friends and New Fancies by Sybil G. Brinton. It is the first Jane Austen sequel ever created. Written in 1913, I felt the language was closest to the original than any of the other PP offshoots that I've read so far. The most intriguing part of this book is that it pulls together the characters from all six Jane Austen novels into one story. It might have been bad but I really liked it. It was a great read for me!

5. Mr. Darcy's Daughters by Elizabeth Aston. I loved this book!! It was great! Did it depend heavily on the same PP formula that Jane Austen made so famous? Yes of course it did, but I still loved it. The Darcys have 5 unmarried daughters and wreak havoc all over London. Very exciting to read!

6. The Mislaid Magician or Ten Years Later by Patricia Wrede and Caroline Stevermer. Kate and Cecy now have a bunch of magical kids and more adventures. It was a little convoluted but I still loved it!

7. Deep Waters or Many Waters by Meredith Ann Pierce (I can't remember the name now). It was a compilation of short stories that I read a while ago but had forgotten to put on this list. It was okay, I read it fine, but the fact that I had forgotten about it tells you I didn't really like it all that much.

Thanks for reading, let me know what you think!

It's almost Harry Potter time!!

Moving!

Moving was tough even though we only had a small apartment worth of stuff. Justin had to be in Fresno 2 weeks before I would be done with work so we had to do all the loading of the truck the Monday after his graduation. Those were really busy days! I had lots of help though. Jessica was nice enough to come help me with the glass stuff even with her baby and new job. I had help cleaning: Julie, Luz, Piedad, Erika, Alba. And yet I still couldn't get it all done. The day I had to turn in the keys and have the inspection was the same day I was going to Salt Lake and leave Ogden forever. It was literally the worst day of my life. I was super behind because the day before had been my last day of work and I was there until about 7:30 p.m. trying to finish cleaning out my office. So Friday morning I got up really early to finish what was left. I thought it was just a little but it turned out to be so much work. I kept finding drawers with stuff still inside, and I didn't have anywhere to put the suitcases and other things I was taking with me. Then the worst of it was the hoarder in me that just couldn't throw any useful things away. Poor poor Julie was my savior and the savior of my stuff that hopefully can be put to good use by someone in Ogden. We went from house to house delivering vacuums, microwaves, running errands and a thousand other things that I hadn't done yet because I didn't have a car. I forgot to mention that! The last week and a half I had no car which was okay in the beginning but then disastrous in the end! I had so many things I wanted to give away but no way to get them to the people who needed them, who unfortunately also had no transportation to my house either!
Now for the piece de resistance (that is supposed to be French but it just looks like bad English!) . . . As I was helping someone from the branch, that had come to pick up a desk that day, down the three flights of stairs, it crumpled in our very hands and fell right apart! The pull-out shelf for the keyboard flew out with increasing velocity and the edge of it landed right on my pinky toe. Oh the pain! The terrific, colossal pain! After he left I started crying and crying, wondering how I would ever finish it all. I called Hermana Milla and left a message telling her I needed help desperately. Where were my visiting teachers? Was the Spirit prompting them to come help me but they were burning lunch or packing meat so busily that they couldn't come? Anyway, I continued my work between sobs, going up and down the stairs with trash and more trash and my foot throbbing. By the time Julie came I was a little more composed but within 5 minutes I had started crying all over again. Talk about stress! Nobody could get pregnant this way! The apartment lady came to inspect everything and of course busily scribbled notes of things that they would deduct from our deposit after making us pay almost a whole extra month's rent!! Ahhhh! Sure enough we just received the check and they gave us $78.00 out of $200!!!!! What a rip-off! They totally cheated us and they'll do it again and again to other unsuspecting tenants I know! It is all part of their evil plan! So frustrating! Oh well. That's life, la la la la la la. Or asi es la vida, a veces triste a veces color rosa. Well, I'm off to continue my present project known as "Organizing pictures so they aren't destroyed by heat and dust in the garage". Good news . . . I have been called as secretary in the Primary. I'm excited! I get to sing all the songs but with a lot less responsibility than before! Hooray! Beijinhos a todos! Ate logo!

More books to read!

I have checked out and read so many books that I can't seem to remember them all. I logged onto my account at the library trying to find a history of everything I have ever checked out, which I could then conveniently cut and paste here, but there are already too many conveniences in this life, and this sentence has gone on long enough! Here are the ones I remember now, I'll add more later. I just remembered another two: "Listening at the Gate" and "The King in the Window" which I never finished. Too bad. :(

1. A Northern Light by Jennifer Donnelly. This is a great book and so well written but very sad at times. I really loved it. It is a murder mystery based on a real case from the early 1900s.

2. The Truth-teller's Tale by Sharon Shinn. Very very fun to read. Let me offer some tantalizing tidbits: twins, mistaken identities, a dashing dancing master and his more dashing apprentice!

3. A Raging Quiet by Sherryl Jordan. This one is okay. I'm not good at reviewing books because I usually like them all well enough. This one had a racy page at the end but I survived it. :) It is about a deaf boy and reminded me of "Signing time with Rachel and Leah".

4. Twilight Child by Shelly Warner. This one was okay too. I liked it but maybe I've read too many of these fantasies set in Finland and Scotland in ancient times, and so I'm beginning to become callous to the plot intricacies.

5. No Shame, No Fear by Ann Turnbull. Quakers being persecuted for their religious beliefs with a Romeo/Juliet love plotline in the mix.

Hasta luego!
P.S. I have to give a talk on Sunday. The topic is "Gaining Knowledge". Let me know if you have any ideas! Gracias!