this little life of mine

This week's Booking Through Thursday asks: What are your favourite books from the past year?  Well, I read a total of 42 books this year, so I have a LOT of favourites, most of which were part of trilogies or series, which is why there were so many. I couldn't even pare the list down to just 10 (and believe me, I tried!)! Here's my list, pretty much in the order in which I read them from earlist to recently finished:

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

1. Grab your current read

2. Open to a random page

3. Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page

4. BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)

5. Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

My teaser this week comes from page 20 of Maximum Ride: The Angel Experiment by James Patterson (and hopefully Typepad won't eat my post this time ... grr!). Enjoy!

I started to fall toward the road.

Then I unfurled my wings, fast, catching the wind.

And I began to fly.
  

Fifth Christmas card design I hand-stamped this year. Angel is by Acey Ducey and Medium Photo Frame is by Stampa Barbara.
 

Merry Christmas to all my family and friends! Mom and I are getting ready to have Christmas dinner with my grandparents (her parents). It's just a small gathering this year as everyone else is spread out all over the state, country, even the world! I didn't do any decorating this year, so aside from Christmas cards we've received, all we have is our festive Christmas tablecloth. Mom has had this tablecloth for a very long time - I remember many childhood Christmas dinners being served atop this tablecloth! It's nice to have the opportunity to use it again!

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

1. Grab your current read

2. Open to a random page

3. Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page

4. BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)

5. Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

My teaser this week comes from Gone by Michael Grant. This book sucked me in from the very beginning and here is why:

One minute the teacher was talking about the Civil War. And the next minute he was gone.  

See? It just jumps right into it! The teacher disappeared! Just like that! In fact, ALL the grown-ups disappear, leaving only teens and children left (some of whom have special powers), and a big, inpenetrable wall appears, and the animals are mutating, and OMG, it's just exciting and well-written and I'm nearly done with it already!
 

My fourth Christmas card design was created by layering decorative paper on a plain white card, then stamping the girl ("Hannah with hot chocolate" by Elisabeth Bell for Whiff of Joy) and potted Christmas tree and decorations (Lisa hindsley for Stampourri!) on glossy white, deckle-cut post card and attaching it to the decorative paper.

Yard work? In December? Why, yes! Here on the Central Coast of California, we don't get snow (we get rain, if we're lucky!), and even though we might get a freeze (which is NOT good as it can kill the citrus and avocado crops), it's generally very mild and sunny and therefore the lawn doesn't go dormant. In fact, since our recent vicious rain storm followed by a week of sunshine and nice temperatures, our lawn was quite tall and straggly, so today was Yard work Day!

Firstly we had to rake all the leaves blown off by the storm, then did the usual edging, trimming and mowing, as well as weed pulling. Yes, we had to pull weeds, too! I also trimmed my Midas Touch rose bush out front - can you believe it's still blooming and there are new buds on it?!? Well, it is:

 It was hard work, but luckily we had great weather - sunny and warm! - and had everything done, including clean-up, in just a couple hours. Now our front and back yards look great, and we're ready for the next big rain storm!

It's time to renew my driver's license. le sigh. I guess I shouldn't complain, though. It's been a really long time since I got my California driver's license; long enough that instead of just mailing in my renewal fees, or renewing online, I had to go in to the DMV for an eye exam, fingerprinting and - *shudders* - a new photo. I tried unsuccessfully to have this all done Tuesday when I already had to drive over to SLO for a doctor appointment (optometrist; exam went quite well, actually!!). Unfortunately, the DMV camera was down and they wouldn't renew my license without a new picture, so I ended up having to drive again Wednesday (sucks!! i hate driving!!). I stopped by the DMV after my other doctor appointment (rheumatologist; this appointment also went quite well), and luckily their camera was fixed so I was able to get it all done. And my wait was actually only about 15 - 20 minutes!

(Festive winter border by picnik.com. Note the TV monitor showing the numbers of the customers being served at that time. It's actually a really efficient system they have at the SLO DMV! I was very impressed!)

(Nail polish is "Wicked" by essie.)