Wacky

People had recommended Janet Evanovich's "Stephanie Plum" novel series to me before; my hairdresser being one. I'd resisted them, mainly because when I read the jacket blurbs they sounded so wacky, and I'm not really a fan of wacky. Or, I don't know, maybe I am, but I think maybe the sounded like the kind of southern-fried wacky that I'm definitely not a fan of. Like Fannie Flagg, maybe, or the cozy mysteries that are just too far off the top, and reading the jacket copy of the Plum series--Grandma Mazur and Lula and Ranger and Diesel--makes them sound awfully silly.

I guess, like anyone, I have my own standards of what kind of things I read, and what I would consider wacky. I'm sure my reading style would be considered very wacky by a lot of people. I like vampire or werewolf novels that don't take themselves too seriously--I love Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse "Southern Vampire" books, and I used to love Laurel K. Hamilton's books until they turned into softcore porn. A recent favorite is Patricia Briggs' Mercy Thompson series. Mercy is a werewolf (actually a "walker") who owns an automobile repair business. Another favorite series is Kim Harrison's "The Hollows" series about Rachel Morgan, a witch who, along with her living-vampire partner Ivy and sidekick Jenks the pixie, runs a private detective service in Cincinnati.

Oh, and Julie Kenner's "Demon Hunting Soccer Mom" series about a woman who gave up her demon hunting vocation to become a suburban mom, but is dragged back into that world again and again. I've also read a couple of Kenner's young adult books, "The Good Ghoul's Guide to Getting Even" and "Good Ghouls Do," both dealing with a teenage vampire and how she deals with her day to day existence.

And I guess I should mention the Twilight series, of course, although really, those are more teen angst than vampire novel, although I confess I still haven't made my way through the first one. I have all four of them on my iPhone in both ebook and audio book form, I just need to get through them . . .

Anyway, Stephanie Plum. It's one of those times when I'm truly happy to never have read a series, because of the run I'm having going through it now. I've been listening to the audio books of the series all summer. I started with "Seven Up" in June, just finished "Finger Lickin' Fifteen," and am currently listening to "Plum Spooky," a "between the Plums" book, all of which have been devoted to specific holidays ("Plum Lovin'" for Valentine's Day, "Plum Lucky" for St. Patrick's Day, and "Visions of Sugar Plums" for Christmas). Being a huge fan of fiction set at Christmas time, I had listened to the Christmas one a year or so ago, and enjoyed it, but just never got into the whole series until now.

Reading some of the reviews on Amazon, I see that a lot of people criticize the novels, saying that they're "all the same." Frankly, I kind of like that. I like the familiarity of the characters, and the comfort of knowing, more or less, what's going to happen. You can be pretty sure that one or more of Stephanie's cars will either catch fire or blow up, that she'll either move in with Joe or move out, that Grandma Mazur will cause a scene at the funeral home, and that Ranger will come to her rescue at least once, and she still won't sleep him.

I still have the first six to read or listen to, but they're not narrated by the same person (Lorelei King), so I'll probably just read them rather than listening. After three months of non-stop Lorelei King as Stephanie Plum, I don't think I could listen to someone else.

I was looking at the Audible.com website tonight and see that Ms. King also narrates the Mercy Thompson books, which was a nice surprise. Maybe I'll spend my next Audible credit on one of them.

Here are the release dates for some of the series books that I'm looking forward to in the coming months:

• Rough Country - John Sandford - 9/29/09
• A Touch of Dead - Charlaine Harris - 10/6/09
• Demon Ex Machina - Julie Kenner - 10/6/09
• Evidence - Jonathan Kellerman - 10/6/09
• Nine Dragons - Michael Connelly - 10/13/09
• Grave Secret - Charlaine Harris - 10/27/09
• U is for Undertow - Sue Grafton - 12/1/09
• Black Magic Sanction - Kim Harrison - 2/23/10
• Silver Borne - Patricia Briggs - 3/30/10
• Changes - Jim Butcher - 4/6/10

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Happiness: Media

I have quite a few productivity blogs in my blogroll, and I also have a few that are mostly devoted to happiness, the major one being The Happiness Project. I've been doing a lot of work in that realm lately, i.e., happiness, visualization, that kind of thing. It's been on my mind a lot. This morning when I was catching up on my blog reading, I made some notes about the things that I've been doing lately that help keep my spirits up.

Audible.com

I don't watch or listen to the news, especially local news. My days are tremendously improved now that I listen to audio books on my commute rather than listening to the radio. I've noticed that when I'm between books--when I've finished one and don't have another on deck, or if I have a bad CD, so can't listen, I start out my day in a bad mood. This is HUGE for me. It may sound silly, but I think if you figure out something like that, you go with it.

I get audio books on CD from the library, and I put myself on waiting lists for the ones I want. But sometimes I can't find anything I want, and none of my requested ones are available. I can't make myself buy audio books on CD from the bookstore, they're WAY too expensive. So I sprung for a one audio book a month subscription to audible.com. It costs $15, which is much less than audio books cost in the stores, and considerably less than the regular price for a downloadable audio book.

I still agonize over the choice of what to spend my credit on, and sometimes, if I've had good luck at the library, a few credits will build up. I try not to use them for books that I know I can get at the library, if I just have patience, but sometimes I'll use one for a book that I just don't want to wait for.

I used to burn the audio books onto CD, but my laptop doesn't do a very good job on audio CDs lately, for some reason, so last weekend I bought an iTrip. It's a gadget that allows me to listen to audio from my iPhone through the car's speakers. Sometimes it's a little difficult to find a good frequency ("What's the frequency, Kenneth?"), but overall I'm very happy with it. It was a little bit of an outlay in the beginning, but I'll save money by not burning CDs.

I'm currently working my way through Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series. I started on 7, I think, and I'm listening to 15 right now (Finger Lickin' Fifteen). I have Plum Spooky to listen to next. I haven't decided if I'm going to go back and listen to the earlier ones, since they have a different narrator, one that I don't like as well. Maybe I'll take a break and listen to the Twilight books, then come back to the Plums.

Netflix

I used to have a Netflix account, and I loved it, but I started feeling like it was an indulgence that I couldn't justify, so I cancelled it. I don't watch much television, and I don't really watch many movies, but I love them. When I have an evening with no commitments, and Bob is out of town, I'll often go to Blockbuster and browse through the new release movies, and rent a couple. But then what sometimes happens is that I'll get home, get involved in something else, and end up not watching them. Then I have major guilt for not watching them, and feel pressured, and watch under deadline (the due date/time), which is horrible, since watching a movie is supposed to be a treat, and relaxing.

But I still love movies. I usually buy the ones I want (if I can find them on sale), but sometimes I'd like to see something that I'm not sure I actually want to own. So I recently re-enrolled in Netflix. The plan I got is about $15 a month for unlimited movies, with two out at a time. And I just discovered that they have certain movies that you can watch on your computer immediately. I stayed up until 3:00 a.m. last night and watched Beverly Hills Chihuahua and I'll Be There, two movies that were on my queue. This is included in my subscription, and it was wonderful! All I had to do was look at the list of available movies (in my Netflix queue, they're marked "Play") and choose one, and after a brief browser plug-in download, it started playing.

Tonight the plan is to watch Saving Grace, one of my favorite British comedies.

Books

I love books. I love to buy books. I love to browse in bookstores. I love Amazon.com, GoodReads, Library Thing, etc. I hate to pay full price for books, though, so if I'm going to buy a book, I try to use a coupon or Amazom credit. For some reason, even though I'm enrolled in their frequent reader program, Borders has stopped sending me coupons. I've written to them several times, and they say everything is set up correctly, but I just don't get them. So I looked around, and found DealsPlus. You can sign up for the coupons you're interested in, and get a daily email with available ones. They're posted by regular people (i.e., not by the stores), so they don't always work, but I do at least feel like I've made an effort to save some money by using a coupon if there's a book I can't get at the library, or don't want to wait for.

Also, I do like to support authors and bookstores, and don't allow myself to feel guilty about buying books. There have to be some limits!

Ebooks

With eReader for iPhone, Fictionwise, and the Kindle for iPhone app, I can have an entire library with me all the time. Right now I'm reading Good Ghouls Do, by Julie Kenner, on my iPhone. I read the first book in this series, The Good Ghoul's Guide to Getting Even, on it, too, and was able to get the second book immediately.

While I'm all about instant gratification, I don't buy ebooks books on impulse. If I'm interested in a book, I usually get a free sample from Amazon first, and only rarely buy full price books. If I'm going to buy something full price, I try to hit a Fictionwise sale--they quite often offer a 100% rebate on new releases, so if I pay, say, $9.99 for a book, they give me back $9.99 to spend on something else. I also download almost all of the free ebooks that I run across. I have a huge library of unread books and magazines, plus a few of my favorite books, so I never have to be without something to read.

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Saturday

Today I was an errand-running machine!

• Bank to make a deposit
• Post office to mail off a couple of Ebay orders
• Franklin Covey to get a planner hole punch
• PetSmart for cat food
• Library to pick up a book that was on hold ("Cat Sitter on a Hot Tin Roof," by Blaize Clement, which I spent the early evening reading)
• Beauty supply store for shampoo and conditioner (they're having an $11.95/liter sale)
• Lunch at Schlotzsky's (not an errand, but lunch out is a Saturday must)
• Frozen custard and strawberries at Sheridan's (ditto)
• Watch repair shop to get the battery replaced in my watch
• Blockbuster to rent "Knowing" and spend a coupon for a free previously-viewed DVD (I got "Nights in Rodanthe," a sappy film that I probably wouldn't buy, but free is free)
• Half Price Books to sell some old paperbacks and a stack of magazines

I think that's the last time I'm going to do the Half Price Books thing. I lugged a banker's box (the small size) with a layer of paperbacks, then filled with magazines. I came in right after a family with about twenty boxes of books, so I waited a half hour or more, then they paid me $5 for them. You never can tell--I don't know whether it depends on who's evaluating them, or what--and I'm always disappointed, of course, but I think that was probably the lowest offer I've ever gotten. I could have said no thanks, and carried them back out, but I didn't. Next time I'll take them to the library or a hospital or something.

I camped out at Schlotzkey's for awhile with my notebook, making notes for a couple of iPhone apps that I'm working on. My company, Propaganda3, partnered with Bazillion Pictures to make our first iPhone app, Swine Flute. You can get it at the App Store for $.99 here. We'll be submitting a second app, Venues, for approval probably next week, and we have several more in various stages of completion. Exciting stuff. (Roll over the pig to see a picture of the app screen.)

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The Dogs

We had five dogs in the office today--Dave's two, Jojo and Connor, Dano's Takoha, Cello's Sunny, and Shane's Clark. I love them all, they're all great dogs. Jojo, Connor and Takoha are there pretty much every day, but I don't get to see Clark very often.

He's huge, but a total softie. In the photo he's looking up through the spiral staircase, waiting for Shane to come back down.

And this is Sunny, completely bereft because Cello went to lunch.

Here are Connor and Jojo on a day last week. Dave's wife was coming to pick up the dogs, and he had gone to a meeting, so I took them out and sat and waited for her. They're waiting, too, obviously.

This is a picture of Takoha, and Dexter, who belongs to Cameron.

I love having the dogs at work, it just makes things so much more lively and interesting. Jojo hangs out in my office quite a bit.

Sometimes she just needs a break from the big guy.

And sometimes she just needs a tummy rub.

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The 4th

I don't normally have a lot of stuff scheduled for the weekends. Bob is usually working, and I usually do errands and all the stuff that I don't have time to do during the week. But sometimes it works out that I have a really busy weekend. The 4th of July fell on a Saturday, so I had Friday off to run errands. On Saturday there was a party out at John's house in the country; Bob was going to go out early in the morning and go fishing, but I didn't really want to spend the entire day out there. I had talked to one of my friends who was also going to be out there, and she offered to pick me up later in the day

She picked me up sometime in the middle of the afternoon and we drove out together so Bob and I wouldn't have two cars out there and have to drive home separately (which would mean I wouldn't have been able to sleep on the way home!). We got there in the late afternoon, sat around and talked, had a nice dinner--we'd all brought things, so it was kind of a pot luck, and the guys cooked brats and burgers on the grill.

Then we had fireworks, and went home.

As it happened, I had just finished up a website for the friend who drove me out to the party. She sells handcrafted items at several locations, and had decided she needed a website, so I built it, and it went live that weekend: kbellboutique.com

The next day, Sunday, was a family reunion in Sedalia, about an hour and a half away. I picked up my parents around noon and drove down, had a nice lunch and a good visit with relatives that I only see about once a year, and drove them back home in the late afternoon.

It doesn't sound like a lot, but it was a very full weekend for me!

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