Angela Law

animal lover, gardener, knitter, and gourmet cook
 
books

the passage

This was your standard issue man-made vampire zombie apocalypse and was written by Justin Cronin. It started off on a great note–the first act of the book was so good I couldn’t put it down. But, then the story skipped ahead 100 years and things slowed down. By the end, it got a little more interesting, but I kind of would have liked to know what happened during those 100 years. There are two more books in the series, so I don’t know if it will be addressed in them. I guess I will find out eventuallly.

One very disappointing thing about this book was the number of typos in it. The book was published in 2010, so you’d think those would have been fixed by now. I mean, millions of copies have been sold, so surely it’s not still on the first print run. When I say “typos” I don’t mean that a word was spelled incorrectly, but that the wrong word was used (I don’t know what else to call it). I recall seeing four instances of this in the book. The only one I remember at this point was that the word “wretch” was used instead of “retch”. Twice! It’s pretty rare that I spot a typo in a book. One series that was rife with typos was True Blood. But, if I recall correctly, this mostly occurred in the first few novels and once the series was made popular by the HBO show of the same name, the author must have gotten a better editor.

My rating: 3.5/5

volunteering

volunteer opportunities

I’ve been looking for somewhere to volunteer ever since I stopped walking dogs at the shelter, which I definitely miss. A few months ago, a couple former shelter board members, including me, joined together to start a nonprofit. So, that’s been taking up a little of my time. We’ve been meeting monthly and sometimes there’s stuff to work on between meetings. Not surprisingly, animals are the focus, but we’ve yet to decide on a mission. So, more on that in the future…

One of the ladies in the nonprofit heard about a new pet food pantry at one of the local churches, so a few of us volunteered there on Saturday. It had a pretty good turnout (40-some people obtained food for their pets). I would do it again, but I don’t know how often I will be needed, as some of the other board members would like to volunteer, and there were quite a few church members helping out.

gardening & landscaping, holidays, live entertainment, out and about, relationships

extra long weekend

I took Friday off in order to enjoy the last official weekend of summer (and mostly, to get some things done–I am woefully behind outside due to the pinched nerve I had in my neck this summer, which is pretty much resolved now).

I started off the weekend by going to a fundraiser concert at the Heritage Discovery Center. I went with a guy I met at the Flood City Music Festival (and who I later connected with through online dating). We caught a little of the first band, all of the second, and then he had to go. I stuck around for a song or two from the third and then went home. We also got lunch at the EthnicFest on Saturday. Unfortunately for me, I won’t be seeing him again. There was a bit of an age difference (12 years, but he looked a lot younger) and the more I thought about it, I just couldn’t see that working. He was closer in age to my mother than me! That seems kind of crazy. Just my opinion, though. I don’t really care what other people do.

I’ve been trying to get the garden cleaned up–it’s a mess from not weeding for a month and also some of the plants need removed at this point. I got the cold frames out of the shed and will be planting something in them for the fall/winter this week. Of course, cleaning up the garden means that I have to do something with the bounty. I made a couple batches of oven-dried tomatos and sliced and froze all of the peaches from my tree. I still need to freeze some kale and swiss chard.

I plan on working outside this evening and as much of tomorrow as I can (it’s supposed to be pretty hot). It gets dark so early now, it’s hard to get much done after work.

I cleaned out the shed and built some racks to hang the larger garden and power tools on. I was going to buy something for this, but saw some simple diy racks online and that was the cheaper way to go, so I did that. I just had to buy a couple 2x4s and some screws. I had some 1x4s already and used those, too. The shed is so much neater now. It was a satisfying project!

 

tv

barry

I heard so much about this show and I couldn’t wait to watch it, but I was rather disappointed. First off, it was a black comedy and I’m not usually into those. By the end of the show, they dropped the comedy part. You’d think I would like that, but somehow I still did not. I did enjoy watching a couple of the characters, though: Gene Cousineau (played by Henry Winkler — “The Fonz” — a long time favorite) and NoHo Hank. Notice how Barry (played by Bill Hader) wasn’t on that list? I guess I wasn’t that much of a fan of his when he was on SNL, now that I think about it. Oh well, they can’t all be winners.

My rating: 3/5

household stuff

they don’t make them like they used to

On Saturday morning, the refrigerator door alarm went off. I checked the doors and gasket and everything seemed ok, so I turned the alarm off. When I went to get my lunch, it was 50 degrees in the fridge. I did some research and determined that the one door switch wasn’t working. I ran to Krisay’s to see if they had any in stock and while they were supposed to be open until 1, they were already closed at 12:45. Thanks, Krisay’s. So I messed around with the door switch and managed to disable it by pushing it in and wedging it with a toothpick. Then I ordered a couple switches online and received them yesterday. I took out the broken one and installed the new one and now the fridge is in working order again. I got the fridge almost 4 years ago and it’s already having problems. At least this one was a simple fix.