Time off - which usually doesn't mean much

I have been having a terrible time convincing myself to sit down and blog, this week, and whenever that happens I consider jumping ship (but I've just ended up slowing the boat). Is that poster perfect, or what? Instead of jumping ship, I'm going to try to make every minute count by stepping away. Often, the moment I say I'm going to take time off, the pressure is lifted and I start writing up a storm. Weird, but true. We'll see what happens.

Before I do, though . . . an update and some miscellaneous jazz:

I am about 245 pages into The Reconstructionist by Nick Arvin. It's an oddly captivating book that I think I'm going to have a bear of a time describing. The protagonist is a mechanical engineer. I've been around engineers for so long that I get the way they think, so I'm enjoying that particular point-of-view. I think it's partly the weird relationships and not knowing how they'll end up, partly the math and the descriptions of how the "reconstructionists" go about reconstructing accident scenes that I find compelling. At any rate, it's an interesting book and I will probably finish it tonight.

I'm also reading Learned Optimism by Martin Seligman, a psychology/self-help book about turning yourself into an optimist (you probably figured that out from the title, right?) that is pretty fascinating. I considered skipping the introductory part and jumping right into the how-to, but decided not to and I'm glad I didn't. There's a self-test that was really quite interesting. I tested hubby, as well. I haven't added an image of the book to my sidebar because I have a tendency to stall on self-help books but . . . well, that was an interesting statement. The whole point of the book is not to tell yourself things like, "I tend to stall on self-help books," and learn, for example, to expect to finish. More on that, later.

Last but not least, I've started Play These Games by Heather Swain. Even though I misread the information about the book and expected something totally different, it's a book about making your own games for rainy days and such, which is something I can really get behind. As a kid, I used to do a lot of what is now referred to as "repurposing" -- making games, toys, desk shelves, etc. out of simple things like boxes, pipe cleaners, foil, paper . . . you name it. So, I'm hoping I'll find a few things to do, just for a change of pace. Besides how-to instructions, there are some terrific nerdy factoids thrown in. It's a really fun book.

The miscellaneous jazz:

I read Baby Shark's High Plains Redemption by Robert Fate (<---my review) in 2008. I can't believe it's been 3 1/2 years since I read it! I still remember several particularly vivid scenes. Anyway, Robert Fate's Baby Shark books are now available as e-books and Baby Shark is free for Kindle till the 22nd of May. I highly recommend grabbing a copy.

Kiddo will need to learn to cook a bit more (he's not afraid of the kitchen) because there's no room in the dorms at the university he'll be attending in the fall and that means he'll have to live in an apartment or rental house. So, we bought him a crock pot and I went hunting for crock pot recipes at a few favorite bloggers' websites. I failed miserably, but ended up looking for a recipe similar to a favorite restaurant pasta dish and found this:

Creamy Shrimp Artichoke Fettucine (there's no image available, so this link takes you directly to the print version)

Husband whipped it up in nothing flat and it was every bit as good as the restaurant recipe.

Feel free to share if you have any easy, delicious crock pot recipes. We have not used a crock pot in eons, so we have none.

The trouble with using available light when photographing cats (hand-held) is that they really like to move. But, I managed to snap a few nice images of Fi on a bright green background. I thought the green really brought out the color of her eyes:

Can you tell I've been in a super-close-up cat photography mood, lately?

Meanwhile, I started wondering what had become of Isabel when she disappeared for a nap, tonight. I like to know where my cats are hanging out because they have a tendency to end up in odd places like linen closets, but this is where I found her:

The cat carrier has been sitting out between vet visits for a couple of weeks and I just hadn't still haven't put it away, yet. Oddly, in spite of its association with a horrible place, both cats have been in and out of it the whole time it's been sitting in the living room. Dark, cocoon-like places are always favored retreats for cats but it still surprised me to find Isabel happily sleeping inside the carrier.

That's all for now! I'll be back when I return. I never know whether it'll be a day or two weeks, when I take time off, but I do tend to walk away from the computer as thoroughly as possible. So, don't freak out if it takes me a while to approve comments and/or reply to them. I will at least drop in daily and I often approve messages from my iPad but don't respond till I get to the computer (since my wonderful, hard-shell iPad case with full-size keyboard broke).

Happy Reading!

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