Mine sent my grandmother flowers.

Aren’t they nice?

That doesn’t mean, however, he’s right in the head.
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I’ve spent the last month working on my PHP/MySQL skills.

Now I fully admit I’m not a master of the subject, but I’ve managed to beat my book database into submission.

There are still things I want to learn to do, such as making changes to multiple selected records, but I’m pretty sure I’ll eventually figure it out.

Meanwhile, I invite you to peruse my library database, and to make suggestions as to improvements. (Yes, I need to eventually make a single search form that includes genre with the other fields or allows you to select multiple genres, but that’s coming. Eventually.)

Walter.

Because I am a very small person.

And very easily amused.

I love baked goods with nuts in them. Heck, I love all kinds of foods with nuts. In a conversation with Tania she mentioned a nut bread a friend used to make.

She sent me the recipe and the source, which I discovered was in a cookbook that I have, The King Arthur Flour Baker’s Companion.

The bread is completely delicious–I’ll definitely make it again. However, the directions left something to be desired.

The problem is they had me roll out the dough, and then roll the nut paste on top of the dough. Unfortunately, the bread dough is very soft, so when I rolled the nut paste onto the dough, the dough became extremely thin, especially in the center.

So next time I may try and roll out the nut paste and then put it on the bread dough. That may keep the dough from getting too thin when it is rolled out.

Regardless of how it looked, it was very very delicious.

I hate my body.

No really.

I didn’t exercise once for the entirely of my vacation. In fact, I spent much of vacation on the sofa.

On top of that, I ate cookies and pie and bread dressing.

So why, WHY! did I lose four pounds since the last time I went to the gym? (And my pants feel a tad bit larger as well.)

One of the nice things about taking two weeks off over the holidays, is that towards the end of my vacation I’ve realized what a mess the house is, and am rested up enough to actually do something about it.

About Friday afternoon reached that point, so Saturday was spent not just putting away Christmas ornaments, but also organizing the disaster area that the living room had become.

One of the things I am hoping will be a huge help is I got a bin into which Michael can put his stuff. He tends to leave things all over the end tables, which in turn makes them useless as end tables. So he got a bin.

The second thing, which you probably noticed from Saturday’s posts, is that I went through the book shelves. Not only could I no longer put pictures and elephants and other things on most shelves, but most shelves were double stacked so you couldn’t even see what books where there.

Since the whole point of having the mystery shelves in the living room was so grandmom could peruse the shelves and find something to read, this was no good.

Hence the book cull.
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I’m Sue Storm! Yay!

Take the test yourself:

(via Jim)

The Great Book Giveaway continues! Fantasy novels. If I’ve read and reviewed the book, I’ve provided a link to the review. If there isn’t a review, chances are I haven’t read the book.

Why I’m a giving away so much fantasy? Because for the past several years I haven’t had much interest in epic fantasy.

Questions? Read the start of this post.
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The Great Book Giveaway continues! Fantasy novels. If I’ve read and reviewed the book, I’ve provided a link to the review. If there isn’t a review, chances are I haven’t read the book.

Why I’m a giving away so much fantasy? Because for the past several years I haven’t had much interest in epic fantasy.

Questions? Read this post.

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And the Great Book Giveaway continues. These are supernatural fantasy books I’m giving away. Now let me warn you, these are books I’ve read, and didn’t particularly like, even though some of these books are highly rated.

Questions? Read the start of this post.
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I’m clearing space on the bookshelves, so I’m getting rid of books. Here’s the first group. If you are interested in any of these books either post a comment or e-mail me. If you’re taking a lot of books, my only request is that you pay for shipping.

I’ve got several series, and I’d prefer to give them away together instead of piecing them out, since that’s far more convenient for me.

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Although it’s earlier than I like, Christmas must come to an end in hour house.

I want to spend some time this weekend going through the upstairs book cases, which are beyond overflowing, and go through the pictures and elephants that grace those bookshelves throughout the year, to decide what should stay and what should go.

This means that I need to get the Christmas decorations that are currently sitting on those shelves out of the way. And as much as I love having a Christmas tree in the house, our living room is just too small (much like the house) so it’s time for the tree to go.

So that’s what we’re going to be doing today: dismantling Christmas.

And recovering the living room.

A little late, but I’m getting it in anyway.

Humans were not the only ones relaxing this week.

I don’t think I’ve ever seriously made a single New Years Resolution. Yeah I made up some when pressed by my friends, but it was just something off the top of my head, not anything I meant.

I’ve never quite gotten the point of New Years Resolutions.

If something is important, why not just do it once you have decided it is important?

Mind you, this doesn’t always work either–I think I threw dozens of cigarette packs out the car window in the years I was trying to quit. But when I finally quit it was in July (1997, so it’s been 11 1/2 years), far from the time of Resolutions. (For those who are interested, going back on anti-depressants was the little extra push I needed to quit, to tone down my anxiety.)

I started regularly going to the gym during autumn (seven years ago I think).

Over the past several years I have slowly added more organic, healthy, and whole grain foods into my diet.

None of these things were resolutions. All that happened was that I realized I needed to make a change in my life and did it. Doesn’t mean it was easy, it doesn’t mean that tricks don’t hurt (an exercise partner is first and foremost a most useful trick).

Saying you’re doing something and telling others also helps–the knowledge that someone might ask you how things are going is a good impetus for keeping things going.

Yes, things don’t always work. I’ve been trying for years to get a regular writing schedule, but other than writing here (on my weblog), I’ve never been able to keep a regular writing schedule for more than a month and a half. But I think overall I have a pretty good success rate–at least for the important stuff.

So consider resolving not to make any resolutions this year. If nothing else, you’ll be able to enjoy January without any extra guilt.