Finished two and I keep getting kicked off the computer

This was a great reading weekend. I finished Great Expectations on Saturday and then started Held at a Distance all over again, yesterday, and finished that up. So, yippee! I've completed the Chunkster Challenge! That's good because I would have felt pretty dismal flunking my own challenge. Here's what I read:

Finders Keepers by Linnea Sinclair - 453 pages
God is an Englishman by R.F. Delderfield - 687 pages
Earthly Joys by Philippa Gregory - 516 pages
Foreign Fruit - 483 pages
Great Expectations - 475 pages

I substituted a good bit, but actually read more than I expected, finished the book I considered the most important chunkster on my list (Great Expectations) and surpassed my goal. I didn't realize that till just this minute. Cool!

As to Held at a Distance, I enjoyed it a little more the second time around - particularly for the history, anecdotes, and descriptions of the many interesting sites the author and her husband visited. But, I think I'd get along a lot better with the author's engineer uncle than the author herself. I've turned in my review and it should show up in Estella's Revenge around the first of July.

The kiddo keeps stealing my computer because we bought a new game, so I'm not getting online much - apart from the daily webcam visit with hubby. Before leaving, he bought two inexpensive little web cameras and called me repeatedly from his laptop in the living room. That was funny. Anyway, now he's calling me from Australia, each day. I've got one of our clocks set to Australian time and now am aware that Melbourne is 15 hours ahead of our U.S. Central time zone. We just hung up a little big ago (about 2:45 p.m., Monday, here) and hubby was all freshly dressed, beginning the early part of Tuesday. This is cool. He just called me, again. I highly recommend the totally funky experience of talking by webcam. Sometimes the connection is great and sometimes it's not, but it's a very science-fiction-like experience, very "2001" (just a bit late - and where's that totally nifty rotating space station we've been waiting on?).

I cranked the air conditioner early - because the humidity has suddenly returned to normal - and actually got a little cold, this morning. So, I decided to drag the camera outside and warm up. While outside I spotted this little green fellow who thinks he's a leaf (or is trying to convince the rest of us) and was utterly creeped out when I loaded the photos and realized the blob below him was some sort of mite-like creature. . . ewww. I thought he was a lump of bird doo-doo! I prefer bird poop, to be honest.

The green fellow is very small - around a centimeter in length - so the creepy gray thing (which looks like every nasty, parasitic, evil magnified photo I've ever seen of microscopic creatures you don't want in your bed or on your skin) was tiny enough that his legs were not visible until I saw the photo on-screen. Ewwwww!

I also took photos of a green spider, a female cardinal, a lacy gray moth, a noisy robin, some nondescript little gray birds in flight, a Mississippi kite, a magnolia, and a red-bellied woodpecker sticking his tongue out (it's not very good quality, but it's definitely an interesting shot). There's an awful lot of life directly outside our front door. I came inside sweaty, of course. Don't think I'll be getting cold again, today. Oh, yes, and the sign of the day:

Out "of" the book? That can't be right. But, since I'm being instructed to read, I'm certainly fine with the concept - assuming I can read some other books, also.

Kiddo claims I'm starving him and depriving him of important game time, so I'm going to feed him and read. Wishing everyone a terrific Monday - Tuesday if you're on the other side of the world. :)