Silent Sunday

Musical Monday

My little (well not so little now) brother was born on February 22, 1962. According to Billboard magazine this was the #1 song on that date. I don't know if he even likes this song but I thought it was more interesting than a Happy Birthday song! Anyway:

Happy Birthday Stephen!

Silent Sunday

Happy Valentine's Day!

This week

I haven't posted much as I've been kind of busy. Finally! my daughter & her boyfriend came up to visit me! We've been to bead stores and book stores and Old Sacramento and I'm tired! Today it's the Indian museum, back to the bead store & I think the cemetery. Not as strange as it sounds - it's a historic cemetery and has some gardens in it. So here's a few pictures, mostly of the Railroad Museum in Old Sacramento which is a very cool place. The first picture is my daughter Jill. I think she's kind of cute!

Musical Monday

Silent Sunday

2 cat walk

I made two new friends on my walk today, both of them four-footed. The first was the black cat you'll see below. She came running across the street to see me, rolled over to be petted and promptly bit me. A little later in my walk I heard a loud meowing and looked up to see a cat on the roof of an apartment building. We chatted a few minutes and I assured him it looked like he could easily get down. He seemed disbelieving and I started to get a little worried. I wandered around the building and knocked on a couple of doors but no one answered. Finally as I was trying to figure out if I could climb up there, a guy came out and asked if he could help me. I pointed out the cat and explained that I was worried he couldn't get down. He said the cat belonged to someone in the neighboring building and was up there all the time. Thus assured, I continued on my walk feeling only slightly silly. Given that my cats meow like they are being murdered when nothing is wrong, I should have realized the cat was fine and just figured I looked like a gullible human.

I also went to a new library today! The Arcade library is a nice branch and I found a movie and a couple of good books. They have a nice computer room set-up and I liked the way you walk down into the entrance.



Just some bare trees I saw. I thought they looked nice.


Lots of camellia bushes are blooming all over. These are two pretty ones.


This was kind of like walking through a forest. It's hard to tell from the picture but you feel kind of isolated from the street when you walk through this area.


My cat friend trying to convince me he was stuck.


A close-up of him.


Isn't she pretty!


I posted a picture of these trees when they were full of leaves. They are really pretty now with the branches bare. I thought the color on them was beautiful.


The Arcade library entrance.

Walking, Sculpture & Trees

About a month ago I found a very cool blog, the Newton Booth Neighborhood Blog. The reason I like it so much is because it's the neighborhood I live in and I thought it was incredibly cool that my neighborhood has it's own blog! A short distance from where I live there is a traffic circle in the intersection. I'm fascinated by it and usually go that way when I drive because I like driving in a circle. It reminds me of roundabouts in England! I read in my neighborhood blog that they were going to be installing a sculpture in the circle on Monday. I checked Monday afternoon when I walked but they were still working on it so I went by again yesterday and took some pictures of the finished installation. I think it's pretty neat looking. I thought the circle looked nice originally because it had a bunch of flowers in it but now it's very distinctive. I got some pretty good pictures although I had to stand in the middle of the street to do it! The last two pictures are just trees in my neighborhood. I loved the way they looked when I first moved here covered in beautiful leaves but I like them like this also. A time for everything I guess. Goodness, words of wisdom I need to listen to!

January Reading/Libraries

I decided to keep track this year of all the books I read and how often I go to the library. Pretty exciting isn't it? I got this idea from another blog I read - librarian.net. I thought that at the end of each month I'd share my list. Admittedly this is a couple of days past the end of the month but that's ok. It's my blog and I can do anything I want.

For January I read nine books and visited the library four times. I know, neither one are very impressive statistics. In my defense I should point out that four of the books were over 300 pages. I didn't visit any new libraries in January. The McClatchy branch 2x, Belle Cooledge once and the Central library once. I'll do better in February. I want to visit all the Sacramento libraries this year - there are 28 - so I need to get busy.

Here is my list of books read in January:

Fall of the Templars - Robyn Young
Talking About Detective Fiction - P.D. James
Brethren - Robyn Young
Faithful Unto Death - Caroline Graham
Necessary As Blood - Deborah Crombie
Crusade - Robyn Young - 2nd in the series
Richard & John: Kings at War - Frank McLynn
Library: An Unquiet History - Matthew Battles
Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson

One Small Change Update

My One Small Change for January was to walk to the store and use cloth bags. I did pretty good but not as well as I could have. Where I would normally have driven, I walked to the store three times, to the post office once and to the library once. I did use cloth bags every time I went to the store (and library). There were definitely times I could have walked and I didn't. I used rain as an excuse but it really isn't a very good one. I have a big umbrella and as my mother used to say, you aren't sugar, you won't melt in the rain.

I felt a little disappointed in myself but when I thought about it actually it isn't so bad. This was a pretty major change for me and I did do it so I think I'm mostly pleased!

February could be a disaster though. I was desperately trying to think what to do and came up with a great idea. I'm just not sure I can do it! I'm going to keep my heater off unless it gets below 65 in my apartment. I generally keep things pretty warm, partly because I have sinus problems and getting cold makes it worse. Also I think it's kind of a habit just to turn the heater up. Instead of putting on a sweater or moving around I just turn on heat. I'm sure some people reading this are laughing now but seriously this is hard for me. It's kind of weird but I get stressed when I get cold. I'm not sure why and 65 really isn't cold but it feels like it to me. Lest you think I'm completely awful, I should say that I never leave it on at night.

I think this is a very good change for me and an added benefit should be a lower utility bill. So that's February. Hopefully I won't be an icicle at the end of the month!