On Friday we went to South London to stay at Harriet’s, laden with fancy dress, in anticipation for her birthday party on Saturday night. Her birthday party was fabulous and we all had a really nice time. Photos are the best way to show the fun that was had on the boat – which went up and down the Thames for 4 hours!

Shows our outfits well but not exactly flattering. Look at my elbow!!

This is one of Coleen’s photos — much better!

Sarah and Luke

Kingston-upon-Thameside

Kat and Craig and Orwell Bear

Me and Kat

Harriet with her mom

Let’s do the TIME WARP again!!!!

Me and Coleen

Harriet with 2 Sams! (One is her boyfriend the other is her good friend)

Sarah and Richard

Craig and Richard (look how low the ceiling is in the lower floor of the boat — Richard reaches the lights!)

Signature pose.

Me, Craig, Steph, and Sarah

Everyone from the Vet Nursing course and their significant others! (Except hostess Harriet who was very busy with her other 80-odd guests!)

Well, I can’t really tell you the actual F because I don’t think that would be fair to the family… F is the first letter of the last name of the family I want to talk about. I babysit for them (back in Vancouver) and I have done for nearly 8 years. They have three kids now – 10, 8, and 2 – the girls are older and the baby is a boy.

My babysitter from when I was a kid still remembers my birthday and we chat by email. So while I’ve been in England, I sent them cards and small presents for their birthdays and a nice long letter. My babysitter used to write me letters and I’d write back — I was hoping the girls would do that, but they are so busy! The girls both play 2 instruments each (piano, violin, cello, double bass) and now that their brother is walking & talking, I’m sure he’s up to everything. They also go to gymnastics and field hockey. They are certainly action-packed and it’ll be nice to be back in Vancouver and play with them again. I certainly miss their smiling faces, their stories, and them jumping up and down excitedly when I arrive at the front door.

They didn’t have time to write back, but their mom sent me a nice email with some photos attached:

And here are some photos from earlier (excuse the quality, they are scans):

Halloween 2006

Booking Through Thursday this week is about book’s covers:

While acknowledging that we can’t judge books by their covers, how much does the design of a book affect your reading enjoyment? Hardcover vs. softcover? Trade paperback vs. mass market paperback? Font? Illustrations? Etc.?

As a designer, I have to say that covers are very important to me. The cover is part of the book — they create an interesting and exciting prospect in one entity. I like to see an attractive design, perhaps slightly abstract but not crazy-out-there-indistinguishable. Font is very important to me, again as a designer and editor. I like it to be attractive, have the right feel, style, and tone for the novel’s topic, genre, and title. When there is a book that has been made into a movie, I try not to buy the movie-poster cover, although sometimes it is unavoidable.

Hardcover vs. Paperback is an entirely different issue (already covered by me as part of Booking Through Thursday).

I usually dislike mass market paperback because they tend to be riddled with errors and often very uninspiring. I find the covers to be quick-n-dirty designs and not as creative as trade paperbacks. In fact, Nathan and David can attest to this as they recently had a copy of To Kill A Mockingbird delivered to their new flat (part of mail-order books offers). The only way to show my distaste is through the images:

You NEVER hyphenate a title… muchless on the COVER!!

Can you spot the 3 errors? They’re dead obvious if you actually read the text!

Did you catch them? How could something like this actually make it to print?

ETA: Well caught Danielle & Jessi! I was so pissed about the hyphenation on the cover, I didn’t even see “oversease”. I updated the images to reflect it!

Instead of joining Once Upon a Time II, I decided to join the Spring Reading Challenge, as I can set my number and pick books off my TBR list! The Spring Reading Challenge was designed to pick books for March, April, and May. But I decided to use the dates for Once Upon a Time II and go from the First Day of Spring (March 20th) to Midsummer Night’s Eve (June 19th) the day before the First Day of Summer.

These are on my TBR Shortlist as they just caught my interest:

• The Shakespeare Secret by J.L. Carrell (finished April 4, 2008)
  
• Runemarks by Joanne Harris
• Pay it Forward by Catherine Ryan (finished May 9 ,2008)

These ones are some “classics” that are on my TBR Classic List.

• The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells (quit April 28, 2008)
• Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

I’ve owned these ones for some time and still not finished them (started several times):

• She’s Come Undone by Wally Lamb
• Watership Down by Richard Adams

These are some “easy reads” that were recommended by some girl-friends from camp:

• Twilight by Stephenie Meyer (finished April 19, 2008)
• New Moon by Stephenie Meyer (finished May 11, 2008)
  
• Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer (finished May 14, 2008)
  

So that’s 10 books that I can read in any order or not at all, but I hope to finish a few. The last three are if I get too “bogged down” by some serious stuff. I’ve already started The Shakespeare Secret and it reminds me very much of The Da Vinci Code, which I enjoyed very much. I might finish up the reading with A Midsummer Night’s Dream just to bring the ideas full-circle!

I’m knitting a cuddly bunny.

This yarn just screamed Easter, and I know that I’ve missed Easter but shut up I don’t care. I wanted to use it to knit those Easter Eggs too (I have the pattern that Michelle knitted)… but I don’t have any DPNs. I’ll share the pattern when I’m done the bunny… if I finish it. Remember the Penguick (penguin/duck)? I threw it in the garbage — didn’t even bother unravelling. I just wanted it out of my sight.

Everyone scoot over to Nannybird Crafts and tell her why your blog is titled what it is… and tell her I sent you! She has been running weekly contests for her entire blogiversary month!! WOW!

I told her that my nickname is Monnibo and that used to be my URL (back on WordPress.com). The blog used to be called “Still Thinking” because I couldn’t think of a good name back when I moved from DeadJournal & subdomains. But Nathan who stalks me via the blog (he lurks and has only ever left one comment) began calling me “MONNIBLOG! whenever he saw me. So I bought the domain and moved!

As the banner explains: Monnibo + blog = Monniblog

Since I found Anne & Martina’s blog last summer, I’ve been enjoying weekly editions of Sunday Bloglines by Anne. We all lead busy lives, and Anne especially (she tells us how long her work days are!), and sometimes you can’t spend the time searching for new blogs that you like.

In light of this fact, Anne is having a contest — go tell her your favourite blog to read. Don’t forget to say I sent you! It does not have to be a KnitBlog, in fact, I shared a BookBlog! Enjoy!!

…there was a Fantasy / Folklore / Mythology Book Challenge. I found out about it at Stephanie’s blog – The Written Word - which I’ve really been enjoying. Between Booking Through Thursday and my general book reports (I wouldn’t call them reviews) I’ve also been attracting a number of book-bloggers to the site. In turn, I’ve been visiting their sites. There are a lot of book challenges going on this year – click here to see a list at Books ‘N Border Collies’ blog. I had seen a few of those before, but I wasn’t particularly taken by them, as I usually like to read what I like, when I like… it’s a hobby!

However, I just found out about Carl’s Once Upon a Time II Challenge over at Stainless Steel Droppings. I really want to join — it started yesterday but I have until March 25th to sign up. I’ll have to do some research into the books I want to put on my list, but the bonus is it finishes on Midsummer Night’s Eve and to mark the occasion (part of Quest the Third), Carl suggests that you read Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream, which I absolutely love! I think I even kept my annotated copy (I hope) from studying it in High School. There are Three different Quests – I haven’t decided which to do, or all of them. I’m leaning towards Quest the First which involves picking 5 books that fit into the “Once Upon a Time” genre: Fantasy, Folklore, Fairy Tales, and Mythology. I think that this one allows for me to change my list (if I do it) as I can decide on some “back ups” when my fancy changes.

I’m still debating… what do you think? I don’t want to feel guilty when I don’t want to finish the challenge. That’s why I don’t really join KALs or Knitting Wars.

For many years, my birthday also marked the First Day of Spring. This year, being a leap year, the first day of spring was not the 21st but the 20th.  Today however really felt like Spring – warm sun and windy weather.

Yesterday I received lots of lovely messages online from friends back home, and online blogging friends. Thank you everyone sooo much! It means so much to me! (And thanks for Facebook!)

I also got a host of lovely things from Craig’s family:

(Not shown: pyjama pants which are already in bed!)

Yesterday for my birthday, Craig took me to see The Other Boleyn Girl in theaters and we went to dinner afterwards. The Printworks in Manchester used to be where all the publishing houses were, and now it’s got the theaters and a number of restaurants – we went to “Old Orleans”. I thought that The Other Boleyn Girl was a great movie, I definitely prefer the book, but I think that the movie was very well done. I really liked the cinematography – the shots of all the castles with wide-open skys to set the scene. All the actors were really good, I was very impressed with Natalie Portman as Anne Boleyn. Incase you are wondering about the historical accuracy, it is accurate – all the characters are based on real people – but there are some incidents that are disputed such as George’s sexuality, the ages of the Boleyn siblings, and the charge of incest against Anne and George. Check out the wikipedia article.

Today we went into town (Manchester) to go shopping and it was dead packed. I kept getting bumped into a walked into and once a kid ran straight into me and pushed me to the side, and kept going!

But when we got back I had a slice of cake and a cup of tea (in my favourite cup here at Craig’s Grandparents’).

CinnamonGirl is having a contest on her blog – celebrating the first day of Spring with a mmmmalabrigo giveaway! Let her know I sent you and happy spring to everyone.

She also asks for fun, to share your favourite spring flower — I love tulips! We’ve had red and yellow bulbs in my front garden for as long as I can remember. I just think their shape is so attractive and the colours are so vibrant. I’d love to see a turqoise tulip! That’d be amazing.