Of This and Other Worlds

Janet Ursel, a fellow fantasy author who was kind enough to accompany me to my first school visit in Ottawa last week, posted this on her blog and it is well worth watching -- if for no other reason than to find out how a book gets put together. But really, the idea of books-on-demand is simultaneously thrilling and harrowing, don't you think? Behold, the Espresso Book Machine:



And here's a couple of pictures of me talking to the crowd at that school visit -- 200 kids at Knoxdale Public School, on April 27th:

( Under Me )

When I looked at these photos my first thought was, "Wow, that's a lot of kids," and the second was, "Man, I have really terrible posture." Do they still have those charm schools where you learn to balance a book on your head?

Okay, so this isn't something that made me happy TODAY, exactly, but I still treImage by rj-anderson via Flickrasure my many fond memories of that late August research/anniversary trip to the south of England and Wales. Waaaaaaaales. Oh, Susan Cooper, how I blame you for writing The Grey King and kicking off my passionate love affair with all things Welsh.

Anyway, I will just shut up and let you enjoy the pretty pictures now. First off, me looking understandably happy in front of the National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth. WhichImage by rj-anderson via Flickr was, not surprisingly, a thoroughly brilliant place.

Then, since I am rambling around in no particular order, we have the gardens at Powys Castle, Welshpool, which are utterly stunning and have probably been used for the setting of any number of Regency-type movies. Tier upon tier of gorgeous blooms and immaculately trimmed hedges, and magnificent architecture all around.

Oh, and did I mention the view? Yeah.
Image by rj-anderson via Flickr
Also, the back roads in Wales are made for midgets driving incredibly tiny cars, which we were not (and were not driving) so we had to get used to the glorious fun of driving very cautiously around all the blind corners just in case we happened to meet somImage by rj-anderson via Flickreone coming head-on the other way. Fortunately, as we were travelling deep in the Welsh countryside, this hardly ever happened.

I have many more pictures from the UK trip to share, but I'll save them for some posts in the New Year...

Anyway, that's it for me. If you'd like to do the "Five Things That Made Me Happy Today" meme, consider yourself tagged; otherwise, never mind. :)

My oldest son, who is 8 years old, has been studying seasonal traditions at school. He became fascinated with Hanukkah, and on his own initiative went back into our shed and built a menorah -- all by himself. All my husband did was the spraypainting afterward.

He took it to school, and his teacher displayed it in the library for the month of December. I'm really proud of N's talent with woodworking.

shoebox2 tagged me for this meme, and cesario tagged me for a similar one a few days ago, so I guess it's time to pony up... but I'm going to do it with pictures.

Here's #5: the Bookshelves of Awesome.

Basically, I told my husband I would like another bookshelf because the ones we had were overflowing. He took this as a personal challenge to get rid of the old, mismatched bookshelves we'd accumulated since our marriage and make some new ones from scratch.

Next project: a new desk. Because he's just that crazy, yes.

Up next, #4.


ETA: Link to the large version so you can see the spiffy detail work.

There was no way I could resist this one:


more cat pictures

I heard on the radio that Canadian figure skater Jeffrey Buttle had won gold in the World Championships this year. I'd never seen the guy or even heard of him before -- I've been out of the skating (toe) loop for quite a few years now -- but I figured hey, this is what YouTube is all about, so I went and looked him up.

And not only does it turn out he skated his winning long program to music by a lifelong friend of my brother's, soundtrack composer Mychael Danna -- it also turns out he's the closest living resemblance I've yet seen to my male MC from Knife, Paul McCormick. (Yeah, I know I said that about Alex Pettyfer, but even though he's the right age, he's a little too pretty to be credible as anything but a model or an actor. Whereas Jeffrey, though about eight years too old for the part, looks more like a human being who might actually not have spent his entire life posing for pictures.)

Anyway, for my fellow skating fans, here's the long program:



( Plus some rather nice stills )

Though unfortunately I don't have any stills of him large enough to make a good icon, so I'll just stick with The Prettyfer for now...

Seriously, this is getting old fast. This is the view from our front window, as of about half an hour ago:

( Unfortunately my camera couldn't quite capture the thick cloud of horizontally blowing snow )

Note the cars half-buried in snowdrifts, the nonexistent front walk (it ought to run diagonally down to that brick post) and, if you could only see it, the completely impassible street (unless you are armed with a very large plow, which I hope will be coming this way soon).

We took the kids out this morning for a "Family Fun Day" being held in another city an hour away. Driving was slippery and the visibility wasn't that great when we left, but all I can say is, I'm glad we got back when we did.

Baby Paul, who just celebrated his first birthday two days ago, is exceedingly active these days. Here he is doing one of his favorite things, ( hanging around my desk and trying to bash the computer keyboard )

I have discovered to my chagrin that having two other children has apparently taught me nothing useful as far as the care and feeding of toddlers is concerned. What works with the first, or the second, turns out to be completely useless with the third. At this point, in spite of all my efforts to introduce him to a wide variety of fruits and vegetables early on, Paul refuses to eat anything other than the following:

- crackers
- yogurt
- toast
- bananas
- cake
- guinea pig poop

The latter is most regrettable, I agree, but try as I might to keep the cage clean, he always seems to find them. Here he is ( on the hunt for more tasty goodness )

Why he should chow down with enthusiasm on pre-digested cavy leavings and yet refuse to eat peaches or scrambled eggs is beyond me. And any kind of protein -- even cheese, or lunch meat -- is just hopeless.

My mother-in-law says that my husband refused to eat anything but bananas and oatmeal until he was four. I never quite understood how that could be, especially as he was her sixth child. Now I know.

Cross-posted from rjanderson_blog, because yahtzee63 said she wanted to see some baby pics. What's a mother to do?

And baby Paul is now thirteen weeks old: ( Picture! )

Tonight I'm going to try and get a couple more shots of him, nicely dressed up this time, and see if I can print them as 8x10s in time to give to my mother and my MIL for Christmas.

First, happy birthday to avarill, an all-around splendid person and one of my oldest net.friends. Hope your day's been a good one, and that if you haven't had a chance to celebrate properly yet, you're able to do so soon!

And second, ( as promised, Liz )

Finally, I hope to get the chance to watch the Lost season premiere tonight, and so far I have remained unspoiled therefor, so it should be rather exciting and all that. Not to mention a much-needed break from present reality...