I got an ipod shuffle

I go the shuffle last week at Target. It was almost $49 and I had a $5 off $25 coupon. It is very small! My pinky is larger than the ipod.

I have been busy selecting songs from my over 200 cds to put on it. Depending on how long the songs are it may fit 240 on it.

I have Queen, Beatles, Supertramp, U2, Peter Gabriel, Pink and others on now. Gotta get some Stones and Police on today.

Yesterday I used while I was riding my exercise bike and it was great! I just clipped it onto my shirt. I didn't realize it had a clip until we opened it.

I have not used the earbuds yet. They seem a little large. Maybe today.

Do you use earbuds or headphones? What music is on you ipod?

Weather

With the wacky weather this summer I want to lodge my complaint. I feel like I am living in the tropics or maybe a swamp. It is so humid. It has rained every day for like 2 weeks. Right now we are havin' a bit of sunshine but I feel so sticky! Yech!!
What's your weather like? Is a dry heat really different??

The latest

On Tuesday, Litle P and I went to see the latest Harry Potter movie with my mom. It was very good. But the book was better. The books have so much that they cannot include in the movies, I guess.
Yesterday we did some quick shopping and a trip to 2 libraries. Then home to babysit a friend's little boy. He is such a dear!

On the sale of our home...Quite a few months ago we thought that we had a buyer but after quite some time it turned out that they could not get a large enough loan. So we had to start again.
More Waiting.....

Then at the beginning of July, my mom decided that she will buy our house if she can sell her place. Great, now I don't have to worry about my mom having to fix things on her place. The house she lives in was built in like 1843 or so.
The King called the couple that were interested in our house and told them Mom wanted to sell. They were very excited because they are more interested in her land (they are farmers). They went and looked at Mom's and got back to her the other day (after MORE WAITING).

They want to set up a meeting with the realtors. My mom is going to visit my sister and will be back in a week or so. Now we are back to MORE WAITING...
Everyone out there say some prayers for all of us that this will happen! PLEASE>>>

Working Weekend

This weekend The King finished off the painting in the living room except for the trim around the windows. i think he needs to do one more coat. So Saturday morning we had to move everything out and push the big stuff to the center. No computer all weekend!

Today we moved the sofas back in place so I hooked up the computer in another place in the room.
I read The Moorchild by Eloise McGraw. It was very good. The story was about a girl named Saaski who was a little different, pehaps a changling. This is a juvenile book but it kept my interest. It is one of the selections from Read It and Eat.
I also read The Eagle Catcher by Margaret Coel. It's another of the Father John/Vicky Holden series. The book was large print. I have a hard time reading those but it was the only copy in my library system. I need to order the next one!

Brimstone by Robert B. Parker

I read this book yesterday. As many of you know I like reading books written by Robert B. Parker.

Brimstone is the third installment in this western series, Appaloosa and Resolution are others. The main characters are Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch. They are lawmen.

In this book, Virgil and Everett are searching for Allie French. a woman that they met in Appaloosa. Virgil fell in love with her. But she is trouble. They search through some towns and roll into Brimstone and get hired on as deputies. The town is getting in between two powerful men: Pike, a saloon owner and Brother Percival, a minister.

Everett spies Allie working as a prostitute in one of the town's saloons. He tells Virgil and they rescue her. But things are not fine and dandy between Allie and Virgil. This figures into the main story in this book.

The first book, Appaloosa, was made into a movie with Ed Harris as Virgil, Viggo Mortensen as Everett and Renee Zellweger as Allie. I liked the movie but did not care for Renee as Allie. She didn't seem to bring the part alive. I didn't think she was pretty enough. Maybe it is because Allie is not a likable character. If I knew her in real life I would not be friends with her.

I just finished this book.

I absolutely loved it!!! But I love everything Cecelia Ahern writes.

The story starts with Joyce Conway who just fell down the stairs at her home. She is hurt and is losing blood. Thankfully her father finds her and gets her to the hospital in time....

Justin Hitchcock is doing some guest teaching in Dublin at Trinity and meets Sarah, who talks him into giving blood. He hates needles but sucks it up hoping to get a date with Sarah.

Joyce and Justin run into each other at a hairdresser and there's a spark and some familiarity. You must read this story to find out the rest.

Cecelia Ahern has also written: P.S. I Love You and If You Could See Me Now. She also created the TV show Samatha Who?

http://www.ceceliaahern.ie/

40th Anniversary of Moon Landing

Remember these fellows? I do! My whole childhood was filled with astronauts as was every other kid in the 60's. Did you see the moon landing? "At 10:56 p.m. EDT on July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong became the first human to set foot on the Moon. This image was taken from the telecast of the event, watched by over half a billion people around the world. Armstrong composed the quote after landing on the Moon."

I always thought that I had seen it live but I would have been asleep but I do remeber seeing a moon landing, I thinkit may have been the last one Apollo 17 in December of 1972.

Do you remember having to drink Tang because the astronauts did too? I will not drink it now!

Or these Space Sticks? I remember they came in peanut butter and chocolate. They were good!

I went to Johnson Space Center on a school trip. It was fascinating. I still love space stuff and science fiction.

Citizenship

In June I got my Italian citizenship! It was a long process in getting it. We went to the consulate to register our marriage but The King's passport had expired. They would not renew it until he proved that he had not become an American citizen. We had to reapply for his green card. His original green card did not have an expiration date so we never knew that they had to be renewed. What a long and frustrating process that was. Finally we got his new card and he could renew his Italian passport.
Then we could proceed with registering our marriage with the consulate. We married in 1985 and should have done it then but we did not know. We had to get copies of our marriage certificates from the county where we were married and have them apostillized (which is an Italian legalization) from the state. Then we gave them to the consulate who sent them to the comune that The King comes from. The comune registered our marriage and sent a paper back to us. At that same time we registered the birth of our daughters. They automatically became Italian citizens.
Then I had to get security clearances from every state that I lived in since my 14th birthday. I had to go to the police barracks and get fingerprinted and sent that to the FBI for another security check. Those documents had to be translated and given to the consulate. I tried to translate them myself but they would not accept them. I found someone in Reading that translated them and we returned to the consulate again. This time the documents were accepted. That was in May of 2007.
YAHOO! Now when we move I don't have to get a visa to stay in Italy with my family. I just have to go back to the consulate and get my new passport. They won't give you citizenship and a passport in the same day, unfortunately.

We plan to get my passport when we file the repatriation papers right before we leave the US.

I'm Back.....

My hard drive crashed....don't know why but it did.


A friend took my computer away and brought it back last Saturday. I haven't done much with it since. I didn't have a computer for over a month and kinda did not miss it. Is that bad!?!

I got this book from the library yesterday. It looked interesting. The author selects books and writes recipes around the stories. I have ordered several of the books she recommends like The Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt by Eleanor Roosevelt and The Love Letter by Cathleen Schine. I am excited to try these books. I am always looking for books to read.

I have been continuing with the Spenser series by Robert B. Parker and the Margaret Coel series.

This week I read the new one from Lisa Scottoline, Look Again.

http://scottoline.com/Site/Books/lookagain.html When did people start making "trailers" for books? Am I way behind the times???

I really liked this book. It is about a Philadelphia reporter, Ellen Gleeson, who has an adopted son, Will. One morning she gets a flyer in the mail about missing children. One of them (Timothy) resembles her son so much that she starts to wonder if it is the same child. She adopted Will when he was a year and a half old. She starts to investigate. The lawyer that handled the adoption has killed herself. Ellen tries to find the biological mother, Amy. Her family told her that she could never get pregnant. Ellen's father and lawyer friend both tell her to let it go because she could lose her child if he turns out to be Timothy.

You must get this book to find out the ending!!