Summer Reading List for You

I've been listening to a lot of books recently because of my work. I thought I would make a summer reading list for anyone who comes across this by accident and wants a nice book list. Most of these books are for young adults, because that's where the best fantasy books are from, and because I want to write young adult fantasy books that's what I read.

1. Wee Free Men By Terry Pratchett. Genre: Fantasy/comedy A story of a young girl who's brother gets taken by the Queen of the Elves. She then asks for help from a group of small blue men (no they're not smurfs), called feegles who are famous for fightin' and drinkin' and stealin'. This is a hilarious book, a great plot and full of Terry Pratchett's famous satire. If possible, get the illustrated version. I totally love the feegles. The pictures are really good. Sequels to this novel are "A Hat Full of Sky", "Wintersmith", and "I Shall Wear Midnight." I've read the first three, and they're all very good, but I haven't read the fourth.

Other books by Terry Pratchett that I liked and would suggest: Mort, Wyrd Sisters, Eric, Moving Pictures, Reaperman, Witches Abroad, Maskerade, The Hogfather, and, Truckers, Diggers, Wing (Last three is a trilogy).

2. The 39 Clues by multiple authors. Genre: Action. A story about a family separated into teams racing around the world to gather the 39 clues. I found these books surprisingly good and very informative about world history. I also found it interesting that different authors write different volumes. The first book of the series is called "The Maze of Bones" by Rick Riordan.

3. The Cat Who series by Lillian Jackson Braun. Genre: Murder Mystery. If you like the old fashion mysteries back when there were no cell phones, no C.S.I. Miami stuff or any kind of large technology that helped solved crimes. If you like the mysteries where the main character had to us their brains and sleuthing to find the criminals, then this is the series for you. Although I wouldn't suggest reading the whole series because they can be a little slow (especially in our TV watching, 5 minute attention span era), so I would suggested listening to them on tape. I love the narrator's voice, his voice is very soothing and he did an excellent job. Also, this writer has the best description of a Siamese cat I've ever read. The first book of the series is "The Cat Who Could Read Backward."

4. Sabriel by Garth Nix. Genre: Fantasy. Sabriel is a story of a young woman who has been trained to be a necromancer who banishes the dead instead of raising the dead. She is unexpectedly called to risk her life when her father get in trouble. Her only defense against an army of the dead is her father's old sword and the seven bells of the necromancer. This is a very dark story, and very well written. It is not gory, it is just dark. I really liked Garth Nix's writing style, and his idea to use bells to fight the dead I really liked. Sequels to Sabriel are "Lariel" and "Abhorson". Number four should be released soon.

5. The Keys to the Kingdom series by Garth Nix. Genre: Fantasy. A very creative story. It's a kind of Alice in Wonderland type style. It has the fun nonsense that Alice in Wonderland has, but it has a real plot. And just like Alice in Wonderland, it involves a few well known fairy tales, and objects brought to life. But as I said it has a plot and a very good one. The first book of seven in the series is called "Mister Monday."

I would also suggest any book from Garth Nix. I am very impressed with his works.

6. Books from Eva Ibbotson. Genre: Fantasy and Historical Fiction. I came across Eva Ibbotson by accident, and I've found that I love all her books that I've listened to. She has a very unique writing style, her stories are adorable, well thought out, and very charming. Her characters are very interesting. I would suggest any books from her. The ones I've listened to are "The Beasts of Clawstone Castle", "The Star of Kazan", "The Dragonfly Pool", and "A Company of Swans."

7. The Circle of Magic Series by Tamora Peirce. Genre: Fantasy. It's a story about four kids that are learning about their own unique magic, how to control it, and how to work together to cast even bigger spells. It's a fun book, and I love the characters. If you get the chance, listen to it on CD. They have a whole cast of people reading the book, and it's really neat. The first book is called "Sandry's Book."

8. The Tortall Universe by Tamora Peirce. Genre: Fantasy. Another series from Tamora Peirce that involves twins switching identities. Alanna was meant to go train to be a lady at a convent, her brother was to go train to be a knight. However, her brother was adept at magic (Which they teach at the convent, go fig.), and Alanna was a tomboy. The best solution was to forge their father's signature and switch places. It's been done before, but I still like it enough. I'm only on book three in the series, so I'm not sure how great it is all the way through. The first book in the series is called, "Alanna: The First Adventure."

9. ANYTHING FROM BRANDON SANDERSON. Genre: awesome Brandon Sanderson is my favorite author, and for good reason. I seriously have no complaints with anything's he read. He has some great ideas, his characters aren't sterotypes, very unique in everything. I love him. Right now I'm reading "The Way of the Kings." I do not listen to his books on CD. They deserve to be read. This is the author who's finishing Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series. I haven't read everything he's written yet, but I'm working on it. What I've read so far and I suggest: "Elantris", The Mistborn Trilogy, "Warbreaker" and "The Way of the Kings" (The first of a trilogy he's working on).

10. The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaimen. Genre: fantasy. A boy's family was killed when he was a toddler. As his family's murderer goes searching for the young boy, the toddler makes it to a graveyard and the ghosts of the cemetary adopt the boy. He grows up in the graveyard, and is often warned he must not leave. It's an interesting book. It isn't the best, but I don't think Neil Gaimen is the best writer, but I liked this one.

11. The Underland Chronicles by Suzanne Collins. Genre: fantasy/adventure. Gregor is an ordinary boy that gets sucked down a hole in his apartment building's laundry room, along with his baby sister. Down there, he meets the Underlanders, giant roaches, giant rats, giants spiders, giant bats, and, well, giant everything. It's very interesting, and very well written. I was pleasantly surprised by this gem, especially since I didn't like Collins more famous books series The Hunger Games. The first of this series is "Gregor The Overlander."

12. The Last Apprentice series by Joseph Delaney. Genre: Fantasy. This series takes place in early colonial times. Thomas becomes the last apprentice of the county's "spook", a man who takes care of ghosts, boggarts, witches and other things that go bump in the night. This series had gotten me very excited. I really liked these books, there isn't anything like it out there. They're really fun, and kind of creepy. It's very dark, but not very gory. The first of the series is called "Revenge of the Witch."

13. "Airman" by Eoin Colfer. Genre: Fantasy An interesting book of a boy born in a hot air balloon, and grows up wanting to fly. However, in his youth, he happens to see a conspiracy going on in the king's castle, and there his life goes awry. I love Eoin Colfer, and found it very different than his Artemis Fowl series, which I also suggest very much. Great writer.

14.Fablehaven series by Brandon Mull. Genre: Fantasy. An interesting book, but a little slow. Two kids get stuck at their grandparents' house for the summer, and they start to notice strange things, like why isn't their grandmother around or why milk is laid out in dishes around the house. My husband and I are currently reading the series together. He has some great ideas. The first book is called "Fablehaven."

15. Inkheart by Cornelia Funke. Genre: fantasy. Have you ever wondered what it would be like to meet a character from a book. Well, that's exactly what happens in this story, but it's not as great as you might think. Sequels are "Inkspell" and "Inkdeath". Also from Cornelia Funke, I would suggest reading "The Thief Lord" and "Dragonrider". She also has another book out, and I want to read it. This is another writer I do not want to listen to on CD. She's good enough to spend the extra time to read myself.

16.The Cronus Chronicles by Anne Ursu. Genre: Fantasy. A novel that tells what happens when greek myths get mixed up in modern day. I know it sounds like the Percy Jackson series, but I think this is better. It's very interesting, and I believe it's a better thought out plot. It's a trilogy, and the first one is called "The Shadow Thief."

17. The May Bird series by Jodi Lynn Anderson. Genre: Fantasy. May Bird has always been a weird child. But most of all, she has never felt comfortable being near the forest by her house. After a few ghost sightings, she takes a walk by the lake, and falls in, with her cat coming in close behind to save her. She wakes up to find that she is in the ghost world. Interesting storyline, I love the characters and the cat, I love the way the ghost world works, and have been very surprised with how good it is. The first of the series is called "May Bird and the Ever After."

18. The women of Genesis Series by Orson Scott Card. If your Christian, and like to read historical novels, then this is the series for you. Orson Scott Card writes three different books about the lives of Sarah, Rebekah, and Rachael and Leah from the Old Testament. It's an interesting insight into their lives and their story. The only problem I have is Card has been working on book four for about seven years. He's been slackin' off.

19. Dealing with Dragons series by Patricia C. Wrede. Great series. They're an old time favorite of mine. My paperback are so hashed from me reading them over and over. It's about a princess who volunteers to work for a dragon because she's sick of being a princess. There are four books in the series with the first one called "Dealing with Dragons."

I'd love to have an even twenty books here, but I'm out of good stuff for you.

The Tender Voice of Men

This evening as my husband and I were working on our computers, I heard a very tender sigh from him. Before now, I had only heard him give this tender of a sigh in regards to me. So I was wondering what he was looking at.

He was on KSL, looking up cars. And not just any car, or for that matter, not any sports car. He was looking up an old, Saturn which was the same model and year he owned a few years ago.

I laughed.

Men only have kind voices for three occasions. Their wives, their moms, and of course, cars.

I don't get men.

Another Strange Dream

I have had yet another strange dream, which seems to happen to me a lot.

In my dream, I was at a restaurant with my little brother. We were sitting on a terrace, you know, one of those things that is kind of outside. Anyway, I was just given my food, when a giant squid started attacking. The owner of the restaurant wanted us to get rid of the squid, so we agreed. I threw a shrimp at the squid, and it ate it. Then I gave it the rest of my dinner, and the squid was happy, so it went away. However, the restaurant owner was mad at us because he thought we were going to destroy the squid, and now the squid is going to come back and expect to be fed.

I liked the squid.

Maybe I'm just a nutshell.

Strange Dream Last Night

Last night I had a really weird dream. I dreamed that I wrote a book that was about three princes that dressed up in Masquerade-like costumes of three birds. A sparrow, a raven and a thrush. Then they went to a princess's party and danced around in a circle dance. It was really weird and non-explanatory. And there was this guy named Jaccobo who looked like a cuter version of a goblin. He went around and picked locks and stole people's cars. And then he was turned into a cat that looked like my pet cat, Tay. An orange stripped tabby. Anyway, my book was published, and this girl in my neighborhood read it and then wanted to marry my cat because she thought it was Jaccobo. So her parents arranged a marriage with my parents, and my parents thought she wanted to marry my brother. But I knew better. So while my family was preparing for this wonderful wedding, I was trying to keep this little girl away from my cat and trying to convinced her that he is just a cat. He's not a person-thing in disguise.

Yeah, and that was my weird dream. I like to make my dreams into books, but I think I may leave the most of this one alone. But the three princes that dressed up as birds sounded really good, and I think I may use Jaccobo in a story.

Don't ask me where any of this comes from. I was all asleep when it happpened.

Well, that's my head in a nutshell.

Updates on project and life.

I'm just going to update what has been happening in my life so far.

As those who read this blog know, my last post told about how my crab escaped and scared the crap out of me. Well, for those of you who don't believe in Karma, here's one for you.

My crab died soon after posting on my blog. The universe does not want you to scare me.

On the my little pony front, I've just received all the bait ponies in the mail that I bought on line. I'm very excited about fixing them up. Today I received my last box, and got a carousel pony in the batch. I was very excited about that. But what I've done so far is cleaned up about four of them, and I started painting one. It doesn't look very good because I had too big of a brush, but I bought some smaller ones. So I'll be painting again today.

I'm also on another project. Bot-con is coming up soon, and I'll be going this year. I started working on my transformers hats. I have enough material, and I just learned how to use my new sewing machine. It's all fancy-shmancy with an LED screen and different buttons to press. I was so scared I would break it or that I wouldn't know how to use it, it's so high-tech. But it's not too bad if I just want to do a simple stitch. I'm not going to touch anything else.

As for my book, I believe that I'm a fourth of the way through my novel. I'm kind of stuck on my next chapter, but I'm going to try real hard to work on it today. I'm going to try to write two chapters a week. In fact, I should be working on it right now. Opse. Anyway, I also started another writing project. I started writing a church story that's a parable. It'll only be about three pages long, but I'd like to make it into a short picture story like those one books with the wooden puppets that Deseret Books always sells. I hope anyway.

Another project I've been working on is a puzzle that has been sitting on our coffee table for over two weeks. I started working on it during General Conference because that's the easiest way for me to listen to the speakers. Anyway, I usually can finish a whole puzzle during Conference, but this one was really really hard. There's only about fifty pieces left, but I still can't get myself to finish it.

That's whats going on in my life. That's me in a nutshell for right now. More later.
See ya.

I was so freakin' scared.

Okay, my husband and I like to shop at DI, and I usually get books when I'm there. Well, a few days ago, I bought some books, and I left them on the floor just because I was lazy this week. Just a minutes ago, I decided to clean up a bit and pick them up. I pulled out a My Little Pony I bought there, and put it in my pony basket, then went into the bedroom to put my books away when I felt something that wasn't a book and was moving. I look down and saw this black round shape with many legs.

I did what any girl would do.

I screamed my head off, threw everything on the ground and backed away. Then I screamed again.

My husband, being a good husband, was washing dishes. He heard my terrified screams, stayed at the sink and yelled if I was okay.

My reply was something like this: "HOLY CRAP!"

Yes, I too believed what was in my hand was a giant spider. No, like you I was wrong. It was in fact, our red claw crab that lives in our aquarium's filter. Yes, you heard me. The crab lives in the filter and not the aquarium itself. He crawled up there two months ago, and we just left him there since he liked it. Well, today he decided to get out and go for a walk. And that's where I found him.

Once my husband knew what I was screaming about, he retrieved the fish net, caught the little sucker, and dumped him in the tank. And for a while now, we've been trying to figure out how to keep him in there, because crabs will die within two hours of being out of water. Right now, we've saran wrapped around the filter, to prevent him from just getting out of the tank. To prevent him from getting into the filter, we've put a vase in the tank that's tall enough to fit over the bottom of the filter. We're not sure if it'll work, but it's the best we can do for right now.

This is me in a nutshell, keeping an eye out for eight legged house guests. See ya later.

ponies and ebay

It's been a while since I blogged, and a lot of stuff have been happening.

First off, as the people know who read this (hopefully there's two of you *eyes audience*) know that I'm into My Little Ponies. It's really silly of me, but kind of fun. In the past week, I bought a lot of bait ponies, and I've gotten some in the mail. Right now, I'm washing them, and plotting what to do to them.

My first pony that I started working on had marker and pen marks all over her, and her mane and tail were cut. I had to soak her in hot water so that the glue around her head would melt a little, and that I could cut and remove the head. Once I did that, I pulled out her mane and tail. Her tail had rust and mold growing on it, as did the mane and all inside the pony. I then cleaned out the inside, which was not very easy or pretty. It involved Q-tips, cotton swaps, tooth picks and all sorts of cleaners. Once the insides were clean, I started on the outside. Using nail polish remover, I was able to get everything off except one color of the cutie mark (aka, the butt tattoo on the pony's flank). I did everything to get those marks off. I tried all sorts of cleaners, I tried soaking it in the cleaners, I tried gasoline and scrubbing it as hard as I could without trying to scratch the plastic. It's still there. Grrrr.

So, I'm going to try some peroxide next, and if that fails I have to find some acetone. Yay.

Now, I have about five more ponies in line that I want to try and clean up and custom make. There is one that I don't want to custom make. She's in really good condition, except for her mane. If I just replace it, she'd be in great condition. So I might just do that. Her cutie mark is painted all the way to her neck.

Plans for the ponies, you'll have to wait and see.

On another note, I've been learning to sell on ebay. It was totally exciting. I can't believe how much time I spent checking to see if I sold anything. But it's nice to get rid of a bunch of my stuff. But there were a few problems. One of my favorites was that I specifically said that I don't ship internationally, and someone from Japan bids on my stuff. Yeah, that was interesting.

It'll be fun tomorrow to go to the post office and show up with a basket full of packages to send them off. Fuuuuuuuunnn.

We'll that's my week in a nutshell. I need to blog more often.