Showing posts with label just life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label just life. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 02, 2009

A Quick Update

Mike & Cherie & their new home I'm still here! LOL My recent cross-country move from Massachusetts to California really chewed into my reading time and I only just finished the book I started back in July: Breathers: A Zombies Lament by S. G. Browne, a review of which will be forthcoming in the next few days.

If you followed my travels via Facebook and/or Twitter, you know that we just moved into our new house in California at the end of October, having spent the summer living out of our RV (and the last 4 weeks previous, in a furnished apartment as the lack of space was driving us crazy). Anyway, if you want to catch up on any of that now, you can find links to my Facebook profile, my Twitter feed, and my Flickr photostream in the sidebar links. (If friend requesting and I wouldn't recognize your name, please mention you follow my blog as I don't necessarily approve all friend requests since my Facebook friends list has grown quite large and somewhat unwieldy.)

So though we've still got half a garage full of boxes left to unpack and sort through, I feel settled enough to start resuming some of my former activities again. So watch for that review shortly. And in the meantime, feel free to find and friend me on any of the aforementioned social networks. :)

Sunday, May 03, 2009

A quick "me" update

To all who follow my blog and/or book reviews, I wanted to take the opportunity to fill you in on what's been going on in my life and explain the lack of updates out here in case you weren't already aware.

Over the last year, Mike and I have been prepping and preparing to sell our house here in the Boston suburbs and move out west to the San Jose area of California. Once we get there, we'll definitely be living in a much smaller place—and possibly even living out of our RV for up to six months while we house hunt—so we've been working on a major downsizing by going through all the "stuff" we've accumulated over the past 40 years, deciding what to keep, sell, or just throw away! I can't lug all this crap out there with me. It's time to simplify and lighten the load!

Anyway, over the last six months, this effort has picked up steam and the clearing out process has taken away from much of my reading time. It's no wonder I've only managed to read 10 books so far this year! =:-o

I already have some family out there: my sister, mother, and two nieces, and we investigated neighborhoods and different areas when we were out there previously, doing a few drive-bys and such, though we weren't prepared to make an offer on any place without having sold our house here first.

So, as soon as our house here is sold, Mike, the bunnies, and I are hitting the road in the RV for a cross-country road trip, while the rest of our stuff is shipped out via movers and whatnot. We'll probably take about three weeks to travel from coast to coast, exploring many parts of the country we've never seen before. I'm actually really looking forward to that, and plan to take and share many pictures along the way. Keep an eye out for those... if I don't post them here, I'll definitely mention where they are. You can also follow me on Twitter, or friend me on Facebook, to keep tabs on me. I'm looking forward to the journey and hope you'll join me, at least virtually. ;)


On a side note, all this clean-up has obviously stirred up quite a bit of dust, aggravating the heck out of my allergies, already piqued due to the pollen. With stupid Blue Cross Blue Shield canceling coverage for my prescription allergy medication earlier this year, I've taken the opportunity to try out some all-natural remedies like Oregano Oil and Butterbur while switching my body over to Zyrtec-D. But what a pain in the ass all this is! Because the sale of over-the-counter decongestant is used in the production of crystal meth, it's sale is quantity restricted, and I'm only allowed a two-week supply at a time, presenting my license at the pharmacy in order to even get that! Grrr....

But on the good side, I've been quite happy with the Oregano Oil. It hasn't completely replaced the Zyrtec-D (or the Nasalcrom and Naphcon-A which I also take), but it has supplemented it quite nicely. I haven't had nearly as many migraines as I usually deal with this time of year, especially with all the dust and pollen coming into my system at once. Sometimes I even forget that my 12 hours are up and it's time for another pill, something I never experienced before when I used to start getting stuffy again after about 10 or 11 hours. For the Butterbur, I haven't been taking that long enough to form an opinion one way or the other yet.

Monday, January 05, 2009

2008 the Year in Review

Hi everyone! And Happy New Year!! I hope you're all having a wonderful 2009 so far.

2008 was an especially slow reading year for me as I only managed to read 37 books! =:-o That's less than half of what I usually read, which is generally somewhere in the 80s. Granted, five of those 37 were "chunky" books, chunky books being those over 350 pages. And it would've actually been six chunkies if I'd managed to finish Witch Ember, which itself is 489 pages. But alas, with all the house stuff going on, prepping in preparation for putting it on the market, plus going through 40 years of accumulated "stuff" (I never used to throw anything away but I am NOW!)... all that really hasn't left as much time this past year for reading.

I suspect I may still be a bit slow for the beginning part of this year, depending on how quickly the house sells and whatnot since it's now officially on the market, but I hope to get back into the groove of things once I get settled out west. :) We're actually planning to drive our RV cross country—3000 miles Boston to San Francisco—while the bulk of our belongings will be shipped and held in storage. But we figured this would be an ideal time to see all those parts of the country we've never seen before as we're primarily a coastal tribe. ;) And this way the bunnies, who also like to go camping, can join in the fun along with us as we become a gypsy caravan for a month or so (longer if we can't find a place to live once we get there)! LOL

Speaking of Witch Ember which I mentioned above, I'd been reading that since the end of November, but long book that it is, I had to temporarily put it aside so that I could squeeze in a few other things I owed and needed to get read in a particular time frame. Fortunately, I left off at a major break point—the beginning of Part 3—so it shouldn't be too difficult to pick up again soon. But for now, I'll be bringing you a few reviews on some books I needed to read for... well... ummm, I can't rightly say right now, but suffice to say, someone will be blowing out birthday candles this month and these books will be joining in the festivities. ;)

Alrighty, so now that all that's outta the way, I can get back to the review I was working on for Charmed & Ready, and update my Currently Reading list with the other book I'm reading now. So look for all that later today. Ta ta! :D