Joanie Knits...Everything

Review of The Hour of the Oxrun Dead

noreply@blogger.com (Joanie) — Mon, 30 Dec 2013 03:07:00 +0000

The Hour of the Oxrun Dead by Charles L. Grant
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Grant does a great job of building atmosphere and simply creating an interesting and creepy story.

I thought the plot really had potential. However, I just couldn't like Natalie, the main character. Every time I really got into the book she did something so amazingly stupid, it interfered with the story for me.

I thought the ending was quite abrupt, and I was left with a lot of questions.

Despite the problems, I still enjoyed the book. I'll likely try another of the Oxrun books to see how they are as well.

View all my reviews

So many projects!

noreply@blogger.com (Joanie) — Sat, 28 Dec 2013 03:21:00 +0000

First, a quick update and some pictures so that things aren't quite so dull around here.

First, I have a thing for knitting face cloths. I love the little things, and they really get used around here. I decided to get a pic of the latest one, with two of the cats.

Because we have two new kittens, we stuck with a small tree. They did manage to get to a few low-hanging ornaments, but overall, the tree survived admirably.

I'm off work until January 2, and I have a stack of knitting and reading to keep me busy. Every time I look at my Ravelry queue or Goodreads list, I realize how optimistic I must be. If I live to be 120, I doubt I'll get through those two lists. :)

Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year.

Merry Christmas

noreply@blogger.com (Joanie) — Tue, 24 Dec 2013 18:52:00 +0000

Hoping you have a wonderful holiday and new year. We had a beautiful snow storm briefly this morning. Enjoy your family and friends!

Almost ready for Christmas and winding up the year

noreply@blogger.com (Joanie) — Sat, 21 Dec 2013 04:46:00 +0000

Fruitcake: made and mailed
Applesauce cake: made and mailed
Gifts: bought but sadly, not wrapped. Happily, I have all I need to wrap. That's tomorrow!
A few straggler gifts are arriving Monday. Nothing like waiting for the last minute.
Need to ship a gift tomorrow. Yep, bit late on that, aren't we?

If feels good to be approaching the finish line. I have one more day to work - Monday - before getting a week off. I cannot express how I'm looking forward to that.

We have adopted two kittens - brother and sister. They are bringing a lot of joy, and humor, to us.

Meet Stormy (black) and Sarah Jane (grey). Both had a rough start in life. Stormy is hypothyroid, but he's on meds and doing better. That's why his hair seems so thin. Sarah Jane had a run-in with a dog. This picture was taken about two weeks ago, not long after the attack. She's completely healed and doing much better than expected.

I have several books to read, much knitting to do, and some vacation time coming up to do it in. Doesn't that sound awesome?!

Test post

noreply@blogger.com (Joanie) — Sat, 21 Dec 2013 04:05:00 +0000

Testing to see if a scheduled post will update G+ too.

Test

noreply@blogger.com (Joanie) — Thu, 12 Dec 2013 13:12:00 +0000

This is a test post.

Tree is up!

noreply@blogger.com (Joanie) — Wed, 11 Dec 2013 15:56:00 +0000

Buddies

noreply@blogger.com (Joanie) — Sun, 13 May 2012 02:02:00 +0000

Aren't they cute?

Yep, I knit this

noreply@blogger.com (Joanie) — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 05:03:00 +0000

Isn't it wonderfully tacky?

Awww

noreply@blogger.com (Joanie) — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 03:54:00 +0000

Someone doesn't feel so good. John was neutered today. I guess I can't blame him.

Molly

noreply@blogger.com (Joanie) — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 00:32:00 +0000

Isn't she adorable? She barely holds still long enough for a picture. She is almost five months old, but we've only had her for a month.

Hard to believe

noreply@blogger.com (Joanie) — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 16:38:00 +0000

It's tough to remember that it was warm just a few days ago. We have snow this morning, so I thought I'd post a remnant of summer.

Spoiled

noreply@blogger.com (Joanie) — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 18:46:00 +0000

This is our year old kitten

True love

noreply@blogger.com (Joanie) — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 03:52:00 +0000

I'm going to cuddle you whether you like it or not!

Wow

noreply@blogger.com (Joanie) — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 03:28:00 +0000

I lost track of how long it's been since I posted here. Wow, a lot has happened since then!

I got a Kindle for Christmas, and I'm crazy about it.

I had surgery in March and was off work for six weeks. I'm doing much better now and really glad to have that over with. My aunt died right before my surgery (my mom's sister), so that made the time a lot more difficult.

My husband and I went on vacation to Ohio last month.

Does it mean I'm that dull, that I can summarize over a year of my life so quickly?

I promise to do better about keeping up with my blogging!

Home Again

noreply@blogger.com (Joanie) — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 11:16:00 +0000

We got home Friday evening from our New York trip. My work sent me there for an IBM cloud computing conference. The conference was good, and it was interesting meeting IBM engineers and seeing some of the products they have in the pipeline.

As for New York, we didn't have time to see too much of it, but we did enjoy ourselves. The best food we had was at Epstein's Kosher Deli. That was wonderful, and very reasonably priced.

All in all, we're wonderfully happy to be back home. Neither of us are city people, so a couple of days is usually plenty of city time for us. I'm enjoying writing on my back porch this morning, sipping my coffee. I bet that not too many people in New York are enjoying a morning like mine!

Road trip

noreply@blogger.com (Joanie) — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 15:50:00 +0000

I could have gone the whole trip without this.

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Faded rose

noreply@blogger.com (Joanie) — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 21:46:00 +0000

My climbing rose, at the end of its season. It usually blooms in late summer too. I've seen in bloom during early snows too.

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Evo test

noreply@blogger.com (Joanie) — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 12:42:00 +0000

Picked up the evo yesterday. Testing using it to do a blog post.

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Thwarted!

noreply@blogger.com (Joanie) — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 23:48:00 +0000

Well, there's not an Evo to be found anywhere near here. Who would have thought that phone would have been THAT popular?

I'm disappointed. I was all set to play with it tonight. Dangit to heck.

Radio Shack came through with a guarantee to get us two by Friday. That's better than the Sprint store did. I got a blank stare and "I don't know when we'll get any more" from the guy there. What? You work in a Sprint store and don't know when you'll get another shipment of their most popular phone?! I have a feeling he just didn't feel like doing the work to put us on the waiting list.

Well, as a consolation, here's a Gizmodo article with pics. I think the reviewer would cheerfully marry the Evo. :-)

New Evo Phone, MAYBE

noreply@blogger.com (Joanie) — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 00:28:00 +0000

My husband and I are thinking about upgrading phones to the Evo. It's a touchscreen phone that runs the Android (Linux) Operating System.

I've been super happy with my Blackberry, so I'm waffling on whether to upgrade. My husband is definitely going to though, so I'll post some pics and our impression once we get it. We're scheduled to get it tomorrow evening.

Anyone have an Evo? I'd love to hear your impressions. I have to decide before tomorrow afternoon if I'm trading in or not.

Got it!

noreply@blogger.com (Joanie) — Wed, 26 May 2010 01:03:00 +0000

Finally. I finished my master's in Computer Science.

This has taken longer than I expected, what with the move and life getting in the way. I'm more relieved than anything that it's over. Is that sad, or just realistic?

I didn't go walk for commencement. I wasn't interested in doing that, and the college is a little too far away to make the trip easily.

My boss has already tossed around the idea of my going back for a doctorate. I told him I'd think about it, but I don't have any desire to do that. I'm so happy that my life is my own again, without any school commitments, that I don't know how I'd be tempted to give that up.

Yep, I'm seriously enjoying the evening. We'll go to some celebrations this weekend. Here's to all the other grads this May. Congratulations, and thank goodness it's over!

Random Wednesday

noreply@blogger.com (Joanie) — Thu, 13 May 2010 01:08:00 +0000

Wow, it's been a while since I blogged. Sorry about that, but life just gets in the way sometimes.

I've been busy at work, of course, but then again, when am I not?

I did join the Taking it to the Streets Sock Club this year from Blue Moon. I debated on whether to spend that much money on it, but Andy knew how much I wanted to do it, so he insisted. I'm about half way through the second sock of the January pair. Unfortunately it's too late most evenings when I get home to get a decent picture. Maybe I'll try to take some this weekend for the blog.

We finally splurged and got some porch furniture this spring. Nothing fancy, just a simple set from Wally World. Still, it'll be nice to get to use our front porch. It's an L-shaped porch that wraps around the front and side of the house. What's nicer is that we have some large bushes that give is a bit of privacy from the road and the neighbor.

It's been a little cool here lately, but I can see a lot of knitting getting done out there this summer!

How about a consolation picture?

Snow!

noreply@blogger.com (Joanie) — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 00:53:00 +0000

Here are some pics from our yard. Wow, it's pretty isn't it?

More Mittens

noreply@blogger.com (Joanie) — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 02:26:00 +0000

I think I may be addicted to knitting these.

I started these Monday night and finished them today, so that's a pretty quick knit. The yarn was Caron simply soft shadows. I'm not sure if the acrylic will be as warm, but that's what my mom picked out.

Notice that they're fraternal twins. I kinda like that!