Books of the Week: Steampunk!

Cover of The Court of the Air

Okay, I got a little bored and began browsing through some of my favorite steampunk websites and forums until I was able to assemble a modest list of highly recommended novels. I have peeked at a few myself (though unfortunately I do not have the time to commit to reading them right now), and I must say I can't wait to read more!

The Difference Engine – by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling

Airborne – by Kenneth Oppel

The Court of the Air – by Stephen Hunt

Annubis Gate – by Tim Powers

Dr. Eckner’s Dream Machine – by Douglas Botting

Nomads of the Time Stream – by Michael Moorcock

Perdido Street Station – by China Miéville

For some more ideas on Steampunk fiction and authors Extraordinary Engines is a book filled with those.

Unfortunately, none of my usual sources seem to have these books as a free download, so you're on your own if you wish to find a copy to read. For a preview of the first few pages though, you can try Amazon.

Kittens!

For some time now we have known there was a cat living in our shed--today we discovered her kittens! My dad called me out to help him catch the three kittens he had seen when he went out there to do some (very late) spring cleaning, and we ended up finding four, as you can kind of see by the picture to the left. There are two orange, one of them lighter than the other--they're hiding out in the back, as well as a gray and a brown one. All four are girls, and the brown one is very protective, she always is watching me and hissing if I get too close.

When I was picking them up and putting them in our cat carrier (from our previous cat, Pippin) they were scared and feisty, but the orange ones were noticeably cuddlier, though they are all cuddly when they calm down.

Right now they are curled up together protectively, the cat carrier is on the deck table, and my nephew is running around squealing and meowing, too excited about the cats to sit still, but always running back to peek in and giggle whenever little miss brown hisses at him.

Right now the current plan is to get some kitten formula (which my parents are on their way to do now) and then take them to the Animal Shelter within the next few days. Would be the Humane Society, but we've had bad experiences with them in the past (I still miss my Pip!)

Of course I would love to keep one, well, all of them, but half the family is allergic, and I must admit--deep breath, here it comes--I have some responsibility issues. Very forgetful I am, especially when all I want to do is curl up with a book and cuddle with my little fuzzball.

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I have just paused to venture to take each of the kittens out to photograph them separately. In reality, the light orange one is much closer to an off-white, and is much fiercer than the brown, she snapped at me when I tried to take her out, but she was so curled up and shivering I decided she was terrified and let her be. The brown one I've noticed only hisses when the white one does. And now they're meowing! Oh how adorable!

So here are each of the kittens separately. The orange:

The gray:
The brown one:and the white one (only 1 pic):
My favorites are, well, they're all my favorite but if I had to pick I'd choose the brown and the orange. They're all cute and cuddly and love-able, but the orange one is the most adorable and had a beautiful color, and the brown one has such big eyes, and seems very loyal to her sisters.

Well, before I go I'll leave you with one last photo of the four of them together. Aren't they cute?

I do intend on taking more photos, so keep an eye on my flickr account for those.

Feedback Friday!

Image by websuccessdiva via Flickr

Okay, I've seen a few blogs do this before (most notably Hope Studios), and I'm ready to give it a try.

What do you want to see here? In this little area where you read a post. What would make my blog something worth coming back to?

I'm taking requests, leave your order in a comment below, and I'll do my best to serve up. What would you, as a reader, like to read?

While you're thinking, I'll give you a quick and easy recipe I half made-up yesterday.

5-minute Tuna Melt (aka Super Easy)
Ingredients:
2 cans tuna (chunk, solid, doesn't matter)
1 egg
salt and pepper
olive oil
4 slices of cheese

Directions:
Open and drain both cans of tuna, and empty into a bowl. Add the egg (minus the shell!) and mix with a fork. Add salt and pepper to taste. Form into patties about the size of your palm, and drop into a pan over medium heat, being sure to add olive oil to keep them from sticking. Cook until golden brown, then flip and repeat. Place one slice of cheese on each patty, allow to melt, and remove from heat. Tastes great on toast or pita bread, and by itself. Makes about 4 patties.

Now taking orders

Camping; Books of the Week

I've just gotten back from the craziest school function ever. 3 days, 2 nights of camping, hiking, and biking. 16 kids, 2 chaperones. Fun time, and a disaster.

Our first day started at 10 AM at the campground parking lot. We all unpacked and set up, and three hours later, after some bike repairs, we went on our first ride. The trip to the trail was five miles alone. Once we were on the trail one boy flipped over his handle bars, and the group was separated. One boy was left behind from his group and lost in the woods for a few hours, through two large thunderstorms. During said storms I was with the three other girls and one of the chaperones, dogding hail stones after clambering out of trees.

Yeah, it was pretty insane. And that's only the short version of the story. By the morning 3 campers had already gone home, surprisingly the one that was lost in the woods decided to stay. Good thing he did, we ended up having an awesome time the next day. We slept in, went for a hike. It was nice.

And at night we built a huge fire. Teen guys screwing around. We found some racoons raiding our camp, so the guys took a huge branch that had been the fire poker, set the end on fire and tried lure the racoons into the camp with hot dogs, and chase after them with the branch. It was crazy, and hilarious.

Oh well, enough of that. Because it started early Monday morning I was unable to post the books of the week, so here they are:

The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien (it had to happen eventually, and you knew it)

A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett (link)

Loss of Breath by Edgar Allen Poe (short story)

Gulliver's Travels by Jonathon Swift (link)

The Inferno by Dante Alighieri (this is the first part of Divine Comedy)

Well, that's it for now. Read and enjoy!

Books of the Week: 6/1/2009

I have assembled here a short list of books that I recommend or have been recommended to me. I have added links to where you may read them for free, if I have found such places. Hope you enjoy them! (These are all young adult through college reading level)

-Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte (link)

-Atherton: House of Power by Patrick Carmen

-Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne (link)

-Of Mice and Men by Jonathon Steinbeck

-The Angel of the Odd--An Extravaganza by Edgar Allen Poe (link)

-The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde (link)

-Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (link)

The Climb

I have decided to do a bit of dabbling in the writing field, and thought I might post on of my short stories. Thank you for taking the time to read this, I really hope you enjoyed it!

I present to you:

The Climb

Once there was a girl, who lived with her parents in a small village at the foot of a mountain. This girl was not exceptionally beautiful or smart, but she knew that she wanted to be happy and successful in life.

One day, her father took her aside and, pointing to the top of the mountain far above them, told her that if she could reach the top of that mountain, she would go far in life, and be happy and successful. “You see,” he told her, “when you reach the top, you will be able to see just how beautiful the world and your life is, and how great and wonderful your future will be.”

Now, in the village where they lived, it was customary that each boy and girl, upon reaching that point in life where they are no longer a child but not quite an adult, should climb the mountain, and this girl was at the time where she was ready to start climbing.

So she announced to her father and mother that same day that she was going to start the climb. As they watched her begin to hike into the woods at the foot of the mountain, they felt a sense of pride, for they knew that she was determined enough to reach the top.

Not all of the boys and girls who climbed the mountain made it. Some got bored and stopped; others just gave up because it was too hard for them. But not this girl, she was determined to reach the top of the mountain, to see the beauty in life.

So she began to climb, and was so focused on what she was doing, that she never really looked around her. She just kept looking at the peak of the mountain, imagining how beautiful and spectacular the view would be, and then back at her hands to make sure that she had a good grip on the rocks.

For days she went on like this. She never bothered paying attention to the forest that grew up the side of the mountain and its inhabitants, she just kept climbing. Day after day she climbed, until she was almost halfway up the mountain.

But then one day, as she was looking up to the top of the mountain, a bit of rock that she had grabbed on to broke off, and she slid back. Fortunately, the ground wasn’t too steep and she soon stopped tumbling, but she had scraped up her knee and her palms rather badly, so she had to stop.

As she wiped the dirt from her wounds, she looked up in frustration, expecting to see the peak and be encouraged by the sight of it. But instead, she found her view was blocked by the boughs of a great beech tree, and sitting in the branch directly above her was a male robin, preening his feathers as he prepared to woo a female.

The girl tilted her head, looking in wonder and amazement at the beautiful bird. Her eyes traveled down, and her breath caught in her chest. What she saw was beautiful, like she’d never seen before. The forest was filled with pine, beech, birch, maple, so many old and majestic trees. In the deep shade, spots of green and gold light filtered through the leaves; moss and ferns grew everywhere. She could hear the voices of many birds. A squirrel scurried up a tree not far away. She had no idea how she’d been able to climb so far, through all of this without seeing it. She couldn’t imagine how anything could possibly be more beautiful.

The robin above her chirped, and fluttered down to the ground in front of her. She sat still, watching it, hoping it wouldn’t leave. It was just too beautiful. Another robin, a female, swooped down from somewhere, and the first one began hopping after it, until it was almost out of sight. The girl felt kind of sad that it was leaving, watching it as it hopped in circles with its potential mate. The female flew into a tree, and the male followed it. Gradually, they made their way back over to where the girl was. The female robin seemed to grow bored, and left the male. He did not try to follow.

Then the robin began hopping in front of the girl, watching her, before sticking his head into a hole, and pulling out a worm. He ate it up, and began hopping up the mountain. The girl followed, wishing that she too could hop and fly like this wonderful bird.

As she walked up, she looked around her. She saw streams, flowers, birds, squirrels, all as the robin led her up the mountain. And she saw the beauty in the world, in the journey. But all the time she never lost sight of the robin. It fascinated her, and she felt that if it left, she would no longer be able to see her surroundings. She was afraid that if he was gone, she would become too worried with reaching the top to see the wonders around her.

And so she went on for weeks like this, never going fast, always following the robin and enjoying the mountain forest around her. They spiraled around the mountain, the robin not seeming to take notice of her. Sometimes he flew, sometimes he hopped along the ground, and sometimes he stopped to flirt with a lady bird, but always he went up, as if he, too, had to reach the top to fulfill his duty.

Meanwhile, down in the village, her parents became worried. What was taking their precious daughter so long? Had she been hurt? Had she given up? Gotten lost? Their oldest daughter had failed to climb the mountain because she met a boy who was too lazy to continue his climb, and had moved away with him, not caring to try to succeed, shaming the family. And now the girl’s parents were worried that the same thing had happened to their youngest.

After a month, the girl finally reached the top. The robin had reached the peak before her, and as she clambered out of the trees, she saw that the robin had disappeared. She sighed, wishing it was there, and turned to look at the world around her, the sight that her father had promised to be wonderful and fulfilling.

What she saw, I do not know, for I have not reached the top of the mountain yet. I am still following the robin, enjoying that which, up until now, I have missed.

No, I'm not dead...

...I've just been extremely busy! As the end of the school year draws nearer, I'm am laden down with last minute projects, exam prep, graduation ceremonies and open houses: the list goes on and on!

My life as of late--when not overrun with school--has been revolving around my backyard garden, and adding more steampunk elements to my life.

I took some lovely photos in my backyard last weekend, and wish to share them with you!

experimented with my new photo editing program on this one

Aren't these photos lovely?

I've reading quite a bit for school lately, and so have expanded my library quite a bit. I've decided that in order to help keep my posting frequent and on a schedule, I'm going to start posting books (and perchance movies) of the week, as well as reviews of books I've recently finished and movies I've recently seen. Hopefully this will help relieve my erratic posting.

For those of you who read/have read (past or present, you chose) my RP blog, I'm finding it rather difficult to accurately describe the battle of Helm's Deep. I've watched the movie countless times, read the script, and still I struggle. I will get that blog up and running ASAP.

Summer is looking busy as well, what with band camp, arts camp, biking camp, perhaps other camps as well, and then I still have to fit in vacation with my parents and perhaps drivers training as well. Sigh.

Before I finish up this post I'd like to say happy Memorial Day weekend! Day of I will be at a parade and then a Picnic, though if I get a chance I will most certainly drop in to say hello to all of you!