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A random set of things....
I finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows a little less than 11 hours after it arrived on my doorstep (I had no trouble with my Amazon.com preorder). I have some thoughts on it, but I'm waiting to really discuss until I've reread it, which won't come until I've reread the other six books (I'm on Chamber of Secrets right now). It took me about 3 pages into DH to realize I'd forgotten A LOT - I'm hoping the rereads will allow things to make sense. Overall I'm satisfied.
I stumbled upon this New York Times article sometime last week, called, "101 Simple Meals Ready in 10 Minutes or Less," and it's GREAT. Lots of recipe ideas (uhh, 101 of them) and it's perfect for the humid weather we've been having (hello, August and July). I wish I'd gotten a chance to write about it before it went into the NYT archives, but if you don't have a Times Select account and are REALLY INTERESTED in this, I might have printed it to a pdf. :-) I've been trying to both cook and stay out of the kitchen, which is a difficult task (uhh, I wish I'd remembered to NOT make risotto in the heat), and this helps a lot. Mmm, food.
My roommate and I have been watching a lot of Law & Order this summer, while nothing much else is on (which is of course entirely a work of fiction). And I'd like to think I care about women's rights without being fanatical. So I'm both fascinated and appalled by this case out of Nebraska, where a woman who was sexually assaulted was forbidden to use the words "rape," "victim," or "assailant" during the trial. I want more information before give any more of an opinion on it (and I haven't had much time to hunt down the information), but wow, everything I've heard so far makes my stomach turn.
I don't talk a lot about knitting here anymore, because I've moved all of that content over to my knitting blog, but there are a couple of things going on that I think might interest other people. One of them is Ravelry, which, while still in beta, is going to be this HUGE knitting community/resource, where participants can input all of their projects/yarn stash/needles/knitting books, search for ideas/help/other local or faraway knitters, and of course network and discuss knitting to their heart's content on their message boards. I got my invite (because it's in beta and everyone wants to be a part, there's a waiting list) last Friday, and have already spent many hours inputting all of my stuff. This is interesting to me not only because it's my hobby, but also from my perspective of working for a company very interested in word-of-mouth marketing and social media. As far as I'm concerned, this site is a marketer's DREAM and I'm interested in seeing where it goes. And this site is big enough to have made some waves over at TechCrunch.
The other knitting-related thing is something called "Mystery Stole 3," hosted by a knitblogger and designer, that has more than 6,000 participants (yes, I am participating and it's a lot of fun - you get a set of "clues" or instructions to knit, and you don't know what it is your knitting other than that it will be a stole and there is a theme). The "knitalong" is being hosted on Yahoo Groups, and apparently there are so many of us that we managed to temporarily "break" Yahoo Groups when we all tried to download a clue at the same time. I wish I could find an article on that, but I know that someone at USA Today interviewed Melanie, who is hosting the knitalong, so if I ever stumble upon that, I'll be sure to post it. Apparently it's a BIG community. :-)
July ended up being a big baking month for me. I made two batches of cookies, two blueberry pies, banana bread and sour cream blueberry muffins (and I still have a ton of blueberries in my fridge from blueberry picking with Kim and Patrick - which means more baked goods and probably some freezing this weekend). This is ironic, given my desire to stay OUT of my kitchen, but oh well. Baking was very comforting. And here's a nice blueberry pie picture:
I saw the Commonwealth Shakespeare Company's performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream on Sunday. Now, I've gone to Shakespeare on the Common every year since I moved here (this my fourth performance), and while it's always a good time to some extent - you have to get there early to get a good view, so bringing a blanket, food and knitting/a good book makes it more enjoyable for me - this was not my favorite performance. It was just.... weird. This is a little disappointing, because last year's performance of The Taming of the Shrew was phenomenal. Still, I hope it continues, because it's one of my favorite summer activities.
My passport came on the same day as Harry Potter, and I paid for my trip last week, so now I can really get excited about Italy. I need to start thinking about things to buy for the trip (comfy shoes, clothes, etc...). At some point I'm also going to solicit addresses for postcards. :-)
I started my Christmas shopping a few weeks ago. I know, I know, it's early, but it turns out this way it's more fun - I actually have time to consider what people might want and what would make a great gift. Plus, I can spread out some of the cost. I've been doing quite a bit of shopping on Etsy, and I'm going to have to leave it to another post to go into some of the fun things I've found on there. It's hard not to buy a ton for myself, but I already have a bad yarn habit and I've got this trip coming up, so I'm trying to have some self control.
I've now been to five Red Sox games this year (my roommate and I went to the game against the Orioles on Tuesday). Despite their stellar record, I've now seen them lose 4 out of 5 games this year - depressing - and this is after they won all 5 games I saw last year! At least, as of this moment, the Cubs are tied for first place in their division, so I'm not terribly upset. :-)
I think that pretty much sums up what's been grabbing my attention the last few weeks, while I've been overwhelmed with work. I'm really hoping August will be busy with things other than writing reports (which might make for a less gloomy Liz). We'll see.
- Lizzardie, at 12:23 PM
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