Carey Family

Sue

2011 Reading

by 2 Comments

Instead of joining online reading challenges in 2011, my book club girls decided to something different this year, inspired by a blog idea discovered by alisonwonderland. We’re doing our own list swap reading challenge!  The idea is for each of us to generate a book list of five books for each member of the club that we think that person would enjoy reading.  That means each of us will have 30 books recommended to us by people who know what we like to read.  It was actually very fun to come up with the lists for other gals as I looked through their goodreads lists and thought about books I had read that they might enjoy.  It was also interesting to see the book lists they came up with for me.  Quite an eclectic list I’m excited to start on next year, and all but six are in my personal library or my local library.  The entire swap list is on our book club blog but here’s my list:

For Sue from Alison

  • Small Change: The Secret Life of Penny Burford, by J. Belinda Yandell
  • Doomsday Book, by Connie Willis
  • The Historian, by Elizabeth Kostova
  • Beauty, by Robin McKinley
  • The Tale of Despereaux, by Kate DiCamillo

For Sue from Karen

  • Faro’s Daughter, by Georgette Heyer
  • Charles & Emma: The Darwin’s Leap of Faith, by Deborah Heiligman
  • Charms for the Easy Life, by Kaye Gibbons
  • Manhunt: The 12 Day Chase for Lincoln’s Killer, by James L. Swanson
  • The Help, by Kathryn Stockett

For Sue from Holly

  • The Thirteenth Tale, by Diane Setterfield
  • The Red Tent, by Anita Diamant
  • Persuasion, by Jane Austen
  • Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, by Robert O’Brien
  • Jonathan Livingston Seagull, by Richard Bach

For Sue from Leslie

  • David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens
  • The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio, by Terry Ryan
  • The Magic of Ordinary Days, by Ann Howard Creel
  • The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, by Alan Bradley
  • East, by Edith Pattou

For Sue from Natalie

  • Each Little Bird that Sings, by Deborah Wiles
  • The Poisonwood Bible, by Barbara Kingsolver
  • The Magic of Ordinary Days, by Ann Howard Creel
  • Emma, by Jane Austen
  • Founding Brothers, by Joseph Ellis

For Sue from Linda

  • A Walk in the Woods – Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail, by Bill Bryson
  • Ender’s Game, by Orson Scott Card
  • The Autobiography of Parley P. Pratt
  • Flowers for Algernon, by Daniel Keyes
  • The Blessing Way, by Tony Hillerman

Walker Christmas Party

by 4 Comments

This year my parents and siblings decided to have a holiday party.  We had a great time with a soup buffet and an ugly sweater contest won by my brother, Scott, for his Pittsburgh Steelers sweater.  My sister posted pictures of the ugly sweaters on her blog.  Mark played guitar and sang and my nephew, Taft, was mesmerized by his guitar playing.  We had a dessert buffet provided by my sister, Stefanie, and a viewing of “Small One”, the Disney short that my Dad worked on when he was at Disney Studios.  We also had a Nativity play.  I borrowed costumes from my mother-in-law and showed everyone a scrapbook page from my Christmas book illustrating the last time we did a Nativity play in 1999.  Mark and Kylie reprised their roles of Mary and Joseph, Brady was the baby the last time but this time he was a donkey.  The other little cousins weren’t around.  Brian was a shepherd that time but he was absent this year on his mission.  We had a great time and lots of fun together.

Click on a photo to see them larger in a gallery.

Filed Under: Sue

wrap-up on Fall into Reading

by Leave a Comment

The Fall into Reading Challenge has ended and I changed and added to my list a little bit.  I had planned to read 14, deleted 4 and added17.  I posted my original list on the sign-up post and here’s what I ended the season with:

  • Shanghai Girls, by Lisa See
  • The Serpent’s Children, by Laurence Yep
  • Mountain Light, by Laurence Yep
  • The Cross-Country Quilters, by Jennifer Chiaverini
  • Summer on Blossom Street, by Debbie Macomber
  • Red River, by Lalita Tademy
  • Love Comes Softly, by Janette Oke
  • Prayers for Sale, by Sandra Dallas
  • Buster Midnight’s Cafe, by Sandra Dallas
  • The Hourglass Door, by Lisa Mangum
  • Love Comes Softly, by Janette Oke
  • Love’s Enduring Promise, by Janette Oke
  • Love’s Long Journey, by Janette Oke
  • Love’s Abiding Joy, by Janette Oke
  • Love’s Unending Legacy, by Janette Oke
  • Love’s Unfolding Dream, by Janette Oke
  • Love Takes Wing, by Janette Oke
  • Incarceron, by Catherine Fisher
  • Harry Potter & the Sorcerer’s Stone, by J.K. Rowling
  • Peter and the Starcatchers, by Dave Barry & Ridley Pearson
  • Kingdom Keepers III: Disney in Shadow, by Ridley Pearson
  • Harry Potter & the Half-Blood Prince, by J.K. Rowling
  • Harry Potter & the Chamber of Secrets, by J.K. Rowling
  • Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban, by J.K. Rowling
  • North and South, by Elizabeth Gaskell
  • The Heroes of Olympus Book 1: The Lost Hero, by Rick Riordan
  • Skipping Christmas, by John Grisham

My love/hate relationship with technology

by 2 Comments

“I love technology”, as a famous movie character says, and we are usually pretty up to date with techy stuff here.  But that poses its own problems for me.  Scott recently purchased me a new laptop to replace my faulty old one, which is wonderful.  However, I am not anywhere near figuring out all the cool stuff on Windows 7 that is available at the click of a mouse, and now I have a new Droid phone to figure out.  This is not as easy as it seems, because it’s basically a small computer with its own operating system that differs from any large computer I’ve ever owned.  We spent the evening going through tutorials and manuals and haven’t even scratched the surface, I’m afraid.  I can call, text, and manage my contacts and email, which I feel is a great accomplishment at this point.  But I want to do the awesome stuff without being frustrated.  Of course, this applies to my computer and I’ve had that for a couple months.  But honestly, how many lame tutorials can a person stomach in one day and remember any of it?

The up side of all this is that soon I’ll be doing cool stuff with both machines.  The down side is that once I get them both figured out and am comfortable, there will be new technology to own and learn.  It’s a vicious, worldwide conspiracy designed to make techies happy and normal people crazy.

Filed Under: Sue