Monday, January 11, 2010

This and That....


Folks, it's cold here in South Carolina. Damned cold! This morning we woke up to 18 degree temps, and that's just not right.

Lately I've been full of thoughts and ideas for what I'd like to accomplish in 2010. I'm already headed towards my big goal of reading more this year after finishing a book last night. My review boss will be proud of me - it was one of my last reviews for 2009! This book (FORTY-EIGHT X by Barry Pollack) forced me to step out of my comfort zone and read something different, something that I'd normally not pick for myself. It was so cool being totally engrossed in a book, enough that last night I couldn't be bothered to do anything more than reheat some cold pizza for supper. Doing anything more than that would've taken me away from a book that I just couldn't put down.

My other big goal is to take control of the clutter around here and continue throwing stuff out that I have held on to for years. Our loose rule of thumb around here is, if we haven't used or worn it in the past year, then it's gone. That led me to filling up three more outdoor garbage bags of crap from our office closet. Hell, I found a hand vac that I'd forgotten about. And it's a good Black and Decker one! John came running into the office yesterday afternoon, panicked because he thought I was ditching hidden treasures of his. Uh, no, honey... This is stuff that I've had since college. There, I've confessed it to the public at large. Hi, I'm Amy, and I'm a pack rat.

I've joined two challenges this year: Keishon's TBR 2010, and Kmont's Year of the Historical challenge. While I was working on cleaning up my blog yesterday and trying to fix labels so I could group '09's TBR challenge posts together (no luck) I discovered I dropped the ball three times. Not this year - if it hurts, I'm still going to keep up with these challenges. The book I'm about to finish up now qualifies for the historical challenge (SOMETHING WONDERFUL by McNaught), so who knows, maybe I'll use that. I've got a bit of time since that challenge requires posts in the last week of each month. I like the flexibility of it.

This year I'm also thinking about trying out Netflix after so many of my friends have vouched for it. This after John just showed me his latest trade...three Harry Potter movies. Oy vey. That's just a bandwagon I can't jump on yet...

5 comments:

Lori said...

Oh, I loved Something Wonderful when I first read it. I can't wait to hear what you have to say about it (all good, I hope)

Wendy said...

The Harry Potter movies are good - but they pale in comparison to the books. Specifically the audio books, which rock the house.

OMG - you forgot you owned a hand vac?! LOL. I don't feel so bad now when I uncover long forgotten treasures in my kitchen cabinets.

Amy said...

I'm more than half way through, Lori, and really enjoying it. It's a bit old-school, but it's the kind of book I fell in love with years ago when I first started reading romance. Dukes, gowns, balls, the Ton!

Wendy, see how bad I am with the clutter? Forgot a hand vac. Sad sad sad.

We have all of the Harry Potter books because John loved them so, but I just haven't cracked one yet.

CindyS said...

I have tons of stuff in our house that I would pitch in a heart beat except Bob has more 'need' than I do. That said, he can be brutal when he feels trapped in his 'work shop'. For me, if I put something away and forget about it then I'm guessing I never needed it. I would throw boxes out without opening them but Bob can't.

And I can't read YA so never read the Harry Potter books and haven't bothered with the movies either.

There, there's three of us in the world! (Bob's not a reader and he only watches movies I rent so, yeah, him neither ;))

CindyS

CindyS said...

Oh! I do have to admit that when we had dogs, gifts we hated had a way of leaving our house in pieces. Our wild out of control dogs were the perfect accomplices to our need to get junk out of our house!

Yep. Bad we are.

CindyS