You'll love this one...!! A book club & more discussion
Off Topic Chat
>
Watcha Doin'? 2025
message 1:
by
Sandra, Moderator
(new)
Jan 01, 2025 07:56AM
Our corner for chitchatting! What is happening in your corner of the world? How is the weather? What have you been doing? Do you have news? Let us know!
reply
|
flag
Happy New Year to one and all 🎉 I am happy to admit that I went easy last night and only stayed up to just after 1 am, so now I’m up (comparatively) early, well rested, and without a hangover 😁 So now while the rest of the house sleeps on nursing their wounds, I get a nice quiet house to read in 😉
Sounds lovely, Jenn. :) Here half of the house is awake and the other half still sleeps. I plan to take it very easy today.
I was up late last night working on creating new 2025 threads for one of my groups. The 3 per hour limit did me in, so I wasn't able to go to sleep until 2am or so and someone woke me up at 6:45am. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to fall back to sleep, so I'm dragging today. My hubby took the dogs out for a while so I could nap, but here I am again on GR. lol I can only blame myself.
The 3 per hour limit is a pain. At least moderators should be allowed to create more threads in the groups their moderate.
Awe, that’s horrible Kristie, and you’re not wrong about the self-inflicted, but it is bookish so it could be worse 🤷♀️
Sandra wrote: "The 3 per hour limit is a pain. At least moderators should be allowed to create more threads in the groups their moderate."I agree!
Jenn wrote: "Awe, that’s horrible Kristie, and you’re not wrong about the self-inflicted, but it is bookish so it could be worse 🤷♀️"Yes, instead of thinking, "oh, a quiet house - I can nap," I immediately went to "oh, a quiet house - I can get things done." lol
There were 3 separate sets of fireworks last night. The city set them in different locations throughout the city, extensively to allow access to everyone. The were set 7:00, 10:00, and midnight. I could barely hear the ones at midnight so they may have been at the further end of the city. I can see them from my deck, but it's piled with snow so I didn't even attempt to go out. Grace, who is generally afraid of loud noises wasn't even bothered by them. She did pay heed, but didn't go hiding in the basement.
A couple of days ago we chatted about culling our bookshelves so I started on my wishlist shelf. I went through all 630 books that were on there and now have 402 left! It still is a lot, but I did remove 1/3rd of the books on there which I think is not bad at all! :)
In the Netherlands we're allowed to buy and set off fireworks ourselves. I hate it, stupid idea to let people who have been drinking all evening do that.. plus it's loud and it means days before the 31st teens are already going at it. Not using the nice stuff, but just the ones that give loud bangs. Every year people lose hands, eyes and lives, especially because some people buy illegal and unsafe fireworks.I like it only from a very far distance (like just far away in the sky on the other side of town).
That is great, Peggy. It also helped me to remember what it's in there, so I think there are books I will read sooner now just because they came into my radar again.
@Janice, I miss fireworks on New Year's Eve. We don't do them here in central PA. I know it is not good for pets, people in the autistic spectrum, etc, but it is so linked to my childhood that it makes me nostalgic to think about them.
Those are the best kind of midnight fireworks, Janice. You can see them from your home, but not really hear them . That would be perfect for me (and my pets).
I had the same with the books Sandra. It will be especially helpful when I start on my shelf with books I own.
We actually had a couple of people in our neighborhood setting off fireworks last night, and I was watching him but my dog was totally unconcerned to the point of stopping playing ball to watch them with curiosity
We used to be one of the only places in Australia that you could buy fireworks legally, and had the same injury issues, Peggy. We used to sell them in May/June for the Queen's Birthday which was our fireworks night. But people would obviously save them for new years too, and those in the dry Australian summer is another layer of fun. They stopped this about 10 years ago after there were some horrific pet injuries, along with all the above and just the amount of issues the domestic services had with lost pets. We still have Government fireworks displays that you can usually see around our place (so you don't have to battle the crowds and parking and sitting in the dark for hours and hours waiting) if you go up/live up the hills. I find fireworks displays interesting for about 20 secs and get bored... But there are still rogue fireworks all the time. Only had 3 fires start this week from bored teenagers setting of fireworks.
That said, we were talking with some friends yesterday and we were all pretty nostalgic for backyard fireworks. However, mainly the stories of when they went wrong and no one was hurt.
Peggy wrote: "In the Netherlands we're allowed to buy and set off fireworks ourselves. I hate it, stupid idea to let people who have been drinking all evening do that.. plus it's loud and it means days before th..."Same here. It used to be illegal but someone decided it was a good idea to lift this interdiction (if i ever find who this was, he better run). i hate it and, worst, my cats hate it. There is someone in my neighborhood who lit some almost every week during the summer months. Did I mention that I hate it?
I would hate that too, Esther.
Happy birthday to your mom, Christine.I'm enjoying my last days of vacation. I'm resuming all my activities next Monday. I'm actually looking forward to it.
I'm done cleaning up my TBR shelf! I went from 1770 to 1003. Very happy that I finished before my vacation days ended. Has anyone noticed that books in their shelves are now a different edition that the one they added? I am sure I had saved a different edition of many of the books I have in my shelf. In some cases I couldn't remember which book it was and why it was there until I noticed the cover I was familiar with was a different one. Some examples:
I saved this edition
but this one was in my shelf:
, and I saved this edition
but this is the one was in my shelf
. I noticed a few more, all of them added to my TBR before 2022.
I had the same! I mostly noticed it because I wanted to read a blurb, and that was suddenly written in Russian or French or other languages I don't speak. I'm sure I shelved them all in English!Thorough clean-up by the way :)
Well done, Sandra! Yes, that has happened to me before. Every so often weird things happen on my shelves.
I haven't noticed it specifically, but I have noticed that there were a lot of broken images on the book covers that I shelved. They weren't broken when I added them.
It seems it is not only me. In general the editions I added were older than the ones I found, so I wondered if Amazon was pushing newer editions or something.
Hope all members in LA area are safe and out of harms way. I've spent most of the day looking at the fires, and realising that living through bushfires threatening your home never quite leaves you. So hope you are all okay and those you love are okay. And that things get under control asap.
Yes, it is heartbreaking to see. Hoping everyone has gotten to safety and praying for it to get under control quickly.
Rusalka wrote: "Hope all members in LA area are safe and out of harms way. I've spent most of the day looking at the fires, and realising that living through bushfires threatening your home never quite leaves you...."It does have an lasting effect, doesn't it. We spent the last two summers living in the middle of forest fires with constant evacuations.
Just makes me very twitchy still. And our fires were not as devastating as what is happening in LA. Which I never expected to say, as I thought "fire tornado" was a pretty big trump card.
I saw pictures of a McDonalds, and the wind was whipping that fire into a frenzie.
MY FRIEND HAD A LITTLE BABY GIRL TONIGHT!
That's beautiful, Christine.
There's a storm (Eowyn) coming tomorrow on the British Islands. Be safe everyone who lives there.
We have the storm right now. We're almost out of the Red warning and into the amber. Under orders from the government to stay home but as usual some idiots are swimming in the sea in order to "experience the storm"! It makes me hopping mad that they think so little of emergency services who have to be at the ready to go rescue them.Many homes have lost power and some won't be reconnected till next week. The electracy repair services can't even attempt to do anything at the moment.
We, and all houses around us, seem to be fine thankfully. It's headed for the UK next. Stay safe over there.
Sounds bad, Margo. I'm glad you are almost out of the red warning and didn't lose power. Stay warm.
That sounds intense, Margo. How foolish for people to go swimming. Drowning is a good way to experience the storm.
Glad you're safe, Margo. You guys have had some pretty intense storms recently! People do stupid things like that all the time here in wild weather, it is infuriating.Hope everyone in Britain stays safe. Guessing you guys are going to get hit next now it's past Ireland.
Well, I spoke too soon about us not losing electrity - guess what happened less than an hour after I made that post? Yep, we lost power 😂It was quiet scary for a while. The storm took out a sub station so the whole of our town was down, plus the surrounding towns, plus the mobile phone transmitter. The only updates we had were on the radio. It was like we'd travelled back in time a century but without any preparation! Thank god we were reconnected saturday morning but as a taste of the possible future it scared us. We had another storm today but it's minor.
That sounds very scary Margo! I don't think we realize how much we rely on all we have until we lose it.
So true Peggy. Climate change is real, it's happening now and it's going to affect us all - except the 1% who can afford to hide in their underground bunkers. The ones who shout "DRILL BABY DRILL!!!"
Sorry for mini rant, it's been an upsetting
I remember having to dig out candles for times when the power would go out. I won a set of flashlights a few years back and I never broke open the packaging. I needed the penlight recently, so decided they didn't need to be packed away. One is like a mini camp Coleman camp light. Just pull and the globe lights up quite brightly. I thought that it would be perfect in the times of a power outage. I agree with you about climate change Margo. I'm dreading a spring and summer of fires. It's been quite dry this winter. We're to get temps of +7C (44.6F) tomorrow - in January!! We usually have -30C in January.
Janice wrote: "We're to get temps of +7C (44.6F) tomorrow - in January!! We usually have -30C in January."On the contrary, it has been incredibly cold here. We have been below freezing every single day in January. Usually we have a few days below freezing and then a break of a few days of 5C or so. Last week we were -25C for almost 3 days in a row, and that is unusual. January is cold in central PA, but this is insane for us.
Margo, I'm glad your power is back. Stay warm!
I can relate, Margo. I want to give 2025 back. It is broken. This has been the worst start to a year I've had in a VERY long time, possibly ever. My house currently has no heat (it is 48℉ inside and dropping) and no water. One of our pipes broke upstairs and flooded straight through to the first floor. We are waiting on a bunch of different repair people to come tomorrow and assess the damages. It's probably going to be quite a while before all the repairs are done. Our living room ceiling is destroyed, along with a bunch of other things.
Plus, I was recently involved in a hit and run accident (I was the one hit, not the runner!) and just got my car back only to find out that there is additional damage that wasn't repaired, so I have to bring it back to the repair shop again tomorrow.
To make matters worse, I injured my wrist when I was in the car accident and it has gotten worse over the past couple of weeks and I sprained my ankle running to shut off the water to the house when the pipe broke. So, I currently have a wrist brace and a bandaged up ankle.
All in all, definitely a bad year. And to be honest, I feel guilty complaining because I have friends who are going through worse than I am. 🤷🏼♀️
Oh my, Kristie. That is a lot. I'm so sorry! I hope your ankle and wrist get better soon, and the repairs go fast and smoothly.
Thanks, Sandra. It really is a lot. I'm sure everything will turn around, but for now it's very frustrating.
You'll love this one...!! A book club & more
Books mentioned in this topic
Bag of Bones (other topics)Cloud Cuckoo Land (other topics)
Nolyn (other topics)
Ghost Wall (other topics)
Ghost Wall (other topics)
More...
