Maritzia’s Thoughts

The next Blogging Chicks Carnival is about Favorite Things.  I thought about doing a generic favorites post, but I just like too many things, so I’m going to stick to favorite books, since there more than enough of those.  In fact, this won’t come close to covering all of my favorites, but selected favorites in the hopes of brevity.  So…without further adieu…my favorite books:

Dune is absolutely one of my all time favorite books.  There’s just so much depth to it.  The characters are well written and thoughtfully drawn.  The cultures of the peoples are complex and finely detailed.  The story is about political intrigue, economics, war, social mores, religion…all set in a sci/fi setting.  Honestly, if you haven’t read it yet, put it on your must read list.  It is easily one of the best novels ever.

 Next must read is Lucifer’s Hammer.  Written long before the rash of asteriod hits the earth doomsday novels, this novel is the classic.  The cast of characters is so large they had to put a listing in the front of the book so you could keep track of who’s who (at least the first time you read it.  By the 4th or 5th time, you’ll know them all well).  Really, I have to recommend any novel by the Niven/Pournelle team.  I like them both as individual writers (Niven wrote the Ringworld series, and Pournelle is known for King David’s Spaceship, among others), but together they strike the right balance between adventure and science.  Their topics almost always have an underlying theme about societal evolution, and they don’t take the route many authors have that everything in the future is sunny and good.  They see humanity for what it is, and that is often dirty and less than laudatory.  Again, if you haven’t read their novels, I recommend them.  The best of theirs, after Lucifer’s Hammer, would be Oath of Fealty and Mote in God’s Eye.

Now, let’s move on from Sci/Fi and head to romance.  Yes, I said romance…I’ve always loved romance novels.  My very favorite romance author is Judith McNaught.  Her books will have you laughing and crying all the way through them.  Her characters are well written and wonderfully flawed, and her writing is just what you want on a rainy Saturday afternoon when all you want to do is lay in bed and lose yourself in a story.  The very best of her books is Kingdom of Dreams.  The plot is pretty basic, Scottish daughter is forced to wed English noble to secure peace.  If you like historical romances, this one is a winner.  However, McNaught also writes modern romances, and they’re just as good as the historicals.  You know their good because they are hard as heck to find in the used bookstores.  People keep them to read again and again.

On to a new genre….I guess you’d put this in contemporary fiction….The Earth’s Children series starting with Clan of the Cave Bear.  In Clan, a young girl named Ayla is orphaned and adopted by a tribe of neanderthals.  I love this book because of the strength of the main character.  She’s a woman who, while trying to fit into a society so different from her own, learns to be true to herself regardless of the consequences.  I also like it for it’s discussion of Ayla’s spirituality, which is very deep.  I’ve always been attracted to shamanistic cultures, so this spoke to me a great deal and had a profound impact on my own belief system.  Probably, above all other books I’ve listed here today, this is my number 1 recommendation.  Buy it…read it…ponder it…read it again…repeat several times.  I usually read this book at least once a year, and the rest of the series at least every 2 or 3 years.

And now I’m tired from doing that much, so I’ll give you a reprieve on the rest of the list.  Maybe one day I’ll do another list with additions to.  Until then, enjoy this little glimpse into My Favorite Books.

The Blogging Chicks blogroll has it’s 2nd carnival up.  Be sure to check them out.  There’s a nice cross section of women bloggers there, including your’s truly.

Another blog I’d like to offer up for your perusal is Joseph’s Left One.  He’s an ex-mormon who writes of his disillusionment in such a way that you feel everything that he feels.  I highly recommend it if you like good writing.

We ran the roads a good bit yesterday.  We went to Marilyn’s Yarn Store (if you’re in the Bellingham area, I highly recommend them.  Very helpful and informative, especially if you’re new to knitting), and I got a nice skein of blue lambs wool with a skein of red silk for accent for a project I’m planning to felt.  I’ll let you know how it turns out, since I’m pretty much winging this.  There’s not really a pattern so I have to figure it out as I go along.

Then we went to the bookstore where I picked up The Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, as well as some gardening/cooking/crafts book that were on the bargain shelf.  After all, you can never have too many books.  And to underline that concept, I stopped into the library to pick up 6 books I reserved.

Really, isn’t the internet a wonderful thing?  I can go on-line, search the library’s card catalogue, reserve the books, and when I go in, the books are sitting on the shelf waiting for me, and I can check myself out at a self-checkout station.  I love technology, especially when it makes it easier for me to get books!

Lastly we went to a Futon store, but my goodness is their stuff way overpriced.  If I’m going to pay $1500 for a sofa that turns into a bed, I’ll go buy a reallly nice hideabed sofa for that money.  We’ll keep an eye out on garage sales to see if we can find a futon cheaper.  I’d really like to get something better for the mother-in-law to sleep on when she’s visiting us.  At the moment, all we have are a couple of foamies that we put on the floor for her.  But since we actually like for her to visit, we’d like to encourage it with a better place for her to sleep.   Hence the search for a futon.  Someday, we’d like to have a small house out in the country with enough land that she can have her own little cottage right there.   That would be our ideal.  I’m very lucky that I have such a great mother-in-law.  I’ve heard so many MIL horror stories, and mine is just a doll.  Her lifestyle and ours really mesh well, so that when she’s here, it’s not much different than when she isn’t, except that we get to play Canasta!  Which, unfortunately, she usually wins *laughs*.

When we got home yesterday, I set Wiebke up with a blog on my domain.  She’s always wanted to write, and I thought this might help encourage her to do so.  I don’t know if she’ll make it public or not, but I do hope she writes *nudge, nudge* (yes, I’m pretty sure she’ll read this *laughs*).

Well, that’s all that’s fit to print.  Have a beautiful and blessed day, all.

Woohoo…my hemoglobin is in the normal range for the first time in my adult life (and I’m 44 *rolls eyes*). Just barely in the normal range, so it’s still got a little ways to go. I’ve got 4 more infusions scheduled, and then I should finally be done. The doc said that I might require a yearly infusion if I don’t get enough iron from food, since I seem incapable of taking even tiny amounts of oral iron. I tried to go back to the multi-vitamins with iron, and within a week my stomach was eaten out again. I eat a pretty high iron diet, though. We love pinto beans, and we eat red meat at least a couple of times a week. All in all, I don’t anticipate it being a problem. I guess that shows all those ob/gyns who didn’t want to do a hysterectomy. I should have had it done 10 years ago!

The weather has been really nice here the last few weeks. A couple of rainy days, but overall just gorgeous. The highs are hitting the 60s (we had on day at 70 last week), and Mark and I are back to taking the dogs to the off-leash park most evenings after work. I’ve lost about 15 pounds since the surgery, which is really good. Another 5 or 10 pounds and I’ll be able to go off of the CPAP again, which I’m looking forward to. And, my PCP happily agreed to HRT, which means the hot flashes should soon be a thing of the past (woohoo!). I had about 5 hot flashes last night, and every time the puppy was just plastered up against me. Every time I’d pull away from her, she’d just snuggle closer *laughs*. Poor thing is always so cold, she just loves my hot flashes. Hopefully the estrogen will also help my sleep quality, which has been quite poor for the last month or so.

Mark is working hard on a project that might actually bring some money into the house. He has a friend at Canadian National that he’s working on a project for (something about tracking the trains going in and out of their yard). He’s hoping to be able to sell the project to the different rail yards at CN when it’s done. He’s happy to be working on something, and whether or not he sells it to them, it’s a good project to put on his resume using .net and xml.

I’ve really had a hankering for potato soup recently. I need to find a really good recipe and make a big batch for the freezer. That way I can have it whenever I want. Oh, and cornbread! I really need to make some cornbread. Maybe I’ll pick up some buttermilk on the way home this evening. I could make some this weekend. I even brought some cornmeal from back home when I was there in November. I don’t like the cornmeal you get up here. The grind is way too fine. The cornbread has kind of a cakey texture. I like it a bit coarser.

I’ve been reading The Twelve Wild Swans again.  I’ve got a bit to say about that, but I need to think on it some more before I post.  Maybe I’ll do that this weekend if I’m not too tired.

In other news…did I mention I'm thinking about going back to school to finish my degree? I've been thinking about it for some time, but now that I'm getting my energy back, I'm sort of getting excited about the idea. I figure since I'm working for a university where I can take classes for just $30 each (on a space available basis, granted, but still, it's just $30), I should take advantage of it. So, I applied to enter in the fall. I can take classes without being accepted into the university, but I can't work at a degree unless I'm accepted. So, keep your fingers crossed that I'm accepted. If I'm not, I'll still take classes, because they'll eventually transfer to wherever I end up, but I'd like to have a clear idea of what I'm headed for.

Had another iron treatment this morning, and they drew blood. My hemoglobin is up to 11.2! That's just a little below normal (which is 12), so I think I'm going to be coming to the end of these treatments soon. I see the hematologist next week, and find out where my iron reserves stand. Since those test aren't as fast to run, I didn't get the results this morning. I get the CBC results in about 15 minutes *laughs*. Isn't technology great?

I started a new book this week. It's an Ann Bishop book (thanks for the recommendation, Traelle). Haven't gotten very far into it yet. I'll let you know what I think when I'm done with it. It's not part of the trilogy, but one that was written in, I think, 2001. I just finished the 2nd book in Terry Goodkind's series, but I'm not quite ready to move on the the 3rd yet. I have to have a break between them. They're good books, but very long.

And now, I really need to get some work done!

I've been busy so far…but it's getting on to 11:00 and I'm starting to get pretty tired *laughs*. I'm not used to this much thinking so early in the day. I guess it will take me a while to get back into the swing of things. And I'm *really* hungry. I mean, really hungry. That bowl of Frosted Mini Wheats I had this morning is long gone. I can't wait for lunch.

I've been perusing my friends' friends lists. I always enjoy finding new people to read the journals of. I like to live vicariously through them. Anyway, I ran across one thing that was talking about spirituality, and it dawned on me that I never really talk about that here, even though it's a pretty big part of who I am. So, look forward to my occasional spiritual musings in the future. At the moment I'm too tired to write much (*laughs* damn them for actually expecting me to work for a living).

Oh, and a new link for the day: http://www.whatshouldireadnext.com. I've thoroughly enjoyed the site this morning. I'm always on the lookout for new books to read. Thanks to airforcebrat for that one.