Another four-word week, with 75% repetition

I am just going to write a brief post. It's already getting late, and I'd like to go bed early and try to catch a little bit of extra sleep. It's been a long week with several poor-sleep nights, and I'm tried and a tad grumpy. Plus Baby Girl's is 13-months today, which means I need to write her a letter. So... now that I think about it, I'll be lucky if I manage to get to bed on time, even.

Four topics: Report, Garden, Girl's Day, Books

My report was published! You can check it out at: www.qualityinfo.org/pubs/skills/fabmetals.pdf. I spoke with at least half a dozen reporters this week. The report was picked up in one of the evening news segments, and in a couple of newspapers. Neat. Meanwhile the uber boss is sharing the report with people all over the nation and I may have to give a few presentations. It's cool that my work is getting some traction, but I don't like to be personally in the spotlight.

The garden had a good week. The weather was hot (in the 80s all week) and many of the plants thrived. My zucchini is especially happy, and by happy I mean huge. I will definitely pick the first "fruits" in just a couple of days. Here's a picture from Monday, in which he seems only big, not huge, given how much he's grown this week:

And here are some other garden pictures:

Today I attended my family's annual "Girl's Day at the Farm" and took Baby Girl, too. Every summer my great Aunt Marge hosts the little get-together for the women on my maternal grandfather's side of the family. (My grandpa was Marge's brother.) Some of the family members come from 5 hours away, and they actually spend a night or two; it's more like "Girl's Weekend at the Farm" for them. Those of us who live closer just come down for the day. I only made it for about three hours, since I had to wait until Darling was up from her morning nap, and then she got pretty cranky and clearly needed an afternoon nap. BUT since my kid doesn't like to sleep in the car, the ride home actually consisted of her complaining for 15 minutes, screaming for 10 minutes, and then sleeping for 10 minutes. Blarg.

In any event, we had a very nice three hours on the farm, sitting under the apple trees and eating sandwiches, poking fun at each other, telling stories. It was great. Several second and third cousins who are my age were in attendance, and everyone was in good spirits. I just wish I had more time!!! Next year, hopefully, we'll make a WHOLE day of it.

I finished reading The Loom last week. I didn't like it. The story starts out well enough and at first you like the main character, but then she makes some poor choices and she gets annoying. The storyline disintegrates at that point; I lost interest and started doing skip-a-page reading. The ending, which I don't really remember specifically, was disappointing. (I remember how I felt about it, even if I can't exactly remember what happened.)

I then read a book called Heiress by Susan May Warren. Overall I definitely liked it, though it had a couple of moments when it got bogged down in explaining minutia. (It's cool that you did research on how a hand-operated printing press worked in 1900, but I don't need to know all the nuances, it doesn't help the story line!) There was a sub-theme about God (how He works, what it means to have His blessing, etc.) that appeared in the middle of the book, suddenly and for several pages, then disappeared for awhile, only to repeat itself two or three more times before the end of the novel. The author's note after the end of the story clarifies the purpose of the sub-theme, but in context, it actually detracts from the story. It's abrupt, not persuasive, and doesn't tie in well with the overarching themes. But again, I definitely liked the book. I'm planning to check out some more of SM Warren's titles -- she has one called Duchess that I suspect I will like. Ha.

I wanted something easy and familiar after the density of Heiress, so I read the second and third Hunger Games books (just finished book 3 an hour ago). The second one was better than I remembered. The third one was also slightly better, but that only means it was elevated from being really bad to just plain bad. I don't blame Suzanne Collins for the deficiencies of Book 3; I think it was the pressure of popularity that forced her to squeeze it out and perhaps meant her editors didn't do a sufficiently careful job. In any event, it's still disappointing. I did get a better perspective on the Gale-Katniss-Peeta love triangle of annoyance. The first time through, I was always rooting for Gale, and I disliked the constant uncertainty of the story line, and I hated that Katniss-Peeta is the resolution. On my second pass, I understand the relationships better and the conclusion makes more sense.

Finally, Nate is getting into a good reading habit, too. This week he read the first Harry Potter book. (Finished it about 10 minutes ago, proudly declaring he was Done! when he snapped it shut.) He wants to read through the whole series. Good for him! I'm thinking about following his head and re-reading them too, but I better let him get at least 4 books ahead of me first. So maybe in a month I will start reading them. :)

For now, I'm going to try and tackle a couple of he classics.