Angels & wolves

The nice thing about going to a medical center that's located in a mall is, you can treat yourself any number of ways after being a good girl and going to the doctor for your check-up. So after this morning's visit, I ended up in a bookstore (yet again!) to get my treat.

I found a copy of the fourth book of Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel series, "Kushiel's Scion." I have the first three and I loved them, and it seems that there's a fifth book out too. What if angels came to earth and had children with humans? Their descendants would be beautiful and would inherit the traits which made the angel perfect for it's role. Kushiel was the angel of justice and his descendants like to hurt and be hurt. They can be very compassionate, but they can also be cruel. Love, spirituality, intrigue, quests, eroticism—wonderful reading.

I also got Carrie Vaughn's "Kitty Takes a Holiday," also part of a series, but thankfully, each book seems to be independent of the others. Thankfully, because it'll be my first, yet it's the third of the series. Kitty's a werewolf, but very much a female—she has a crush on her lawyer and the werewolf hunter. Definitely light reading, I hope it's as funny and entertaining as it sounds!

She's not home

For someone who likes hibernating, I've been going out much too much recently. During the past two weeks, I attended two work-related evening events, watched two musicals and three movies, went to a lunch party, and spent two days getting medical check-ups. This coming week's schedule includes a play, a dance performance, a jazz band, and one more day at the medical center.

I'm not really complaining. Well, okay, I am a bit. I don't have much of a choice about the doctors, and everything we've watched (except one movie which was godawful!), has been great. But I am getting tired. And the weather's been perfect for hibernating!

Christmas cards

Last night, I finally started addressing Christmas cards (late yet again). Out from storage came several boxes of cards I bought after Christmas last year, green and red pens, Christmas-themed return address labels, and my index box of addresses (I'm so old-fashioned and low tech in this, and I actually plan on keeping it that way). I can usually do only a few pieces every night—I have to stop when my fingers begin cramping up and my handwriting gets wobbly. Hopefully, I'll have composed our Christmas letter—a summary of the year just past laid out with photos which accompanies each card—by the time I get to Z.

Whee! It's almost Christmas!

Like brand-new eyeglasses

If you wear eyeglasses, and use metal frames, you probably hate how the nose pads get green gunk (corrosion? fungus?) and eventually turn yellow. A quick and cheap solution: change the nose pads.

I got this tip from an office mate who told me that replacement nose pads are actually available in optical shops. I never thought of replacing them, though I totally detest the gunk and yellow color. So when we ate out last Sunday at a mall restaurant, I went to an optical shop and got two pairs. Just make sure you get the right kind for your eyeglasses—turns out that there are several types depending on how they're attached to the frame. I guess you can ask the shop to change the pads for you (I'm so DIY it didn't occur to me to make them do it because I knew that I would).

When we got home, I changed the pads of my distance glasses. Suddenly, my black frames look so much newer than my gold ones (my reading glasses) when they're actually two years older. (I used the second pair for my husband's frames and I completely forgot to count my reading glasses—next time.) Anyway, my friend said that the pads turn yellow in about a year's time so an annual change would be fine. But for the green gunk, you really just have to remove the pads every couple of months to clean them thoroughly.

You get what you pay for

Not always, really, but in the case of shoes, this adage is so, so true.

A few blogs ago, I mentioned buying three pairs of office shoes for the price of one pair of Naturalizers. After just one day of wearing one of them, I was reminded, with much discomfort, why I stopped buying cheap shoes in the first place.

The worst of the poor construction seems to be in two spots:
1. The topline at the back
With good shoes, the leather at the back is rolled over and stitched inside so there's a little cushioning. The cheap pair I got is just stiff leather there so it rubs against the back of my ankle and leaves a dark, sore mark.

2. The vamp
The cheap shoes taper too much! The spot about an inch from where my toes begin feel like it's been crushed by a rock by the end of the day.

Never again to cheap shoes, I say. Never again.


The image I used above is a pair of Naturalizers. I'm going back. To Aerosoles too.

What kind of chopping board?

Yesterday, when I Googled "chopping board" to get an image for my post (there was bound to be one on the web, so I didn't bother taking out the camera and boards), I came across an actual article (not just sales and supplies) about chopping boards. The title was "Which chopping board is worse for spreading germs?" With a title like that, I just had to go to the ninemsn (an Australian media company) website to read it.

I suggest that you read the entire article, but essentially, their reporter got a microbiologist to find out which material is best for chopping boards—plastic (polyethylene), marble or wood? The answer: wood. Tight-grain hardwood, to be exact.

Yet another item to add to my shopping list. And I have to do some research about hardwoods first.

One for animals, one for plants

I use two chopping boards in my kitchen, one for meat, chicken and seafood, and one for fruits and vegetables. A friend said it showed my OC-ness, but it makes perfect sense to me. Meat contains more bacteria than plants, and no way can anyone chop meat on my fruit and vegetable chopping board! The other way's alright, especially if the vegetables are meant to be cooked. But for salad vegetables and fruit, meant to be eaten raw, I will only use the chopping board that has never been touched by meat.