I like Pirates

I like Pirates. I love the romantic idea of pirates. The outfits are cool, the devil may care attitude, the (three sheets to the wind) bravery and the never ending bloodthirsty quests for treasure (stubborn fools) are magnetic to me. I'm a rebel. I take great pleasure in life doing what others say I can't. When I met Ken he told me he shared the same passion for all things pirate as I did. Right then I knew I'd found a potential mate. Someone to at least have fun with. That was before I met him. So our first meeting was at a bookstore after several batches of e-mails. It was not meant to be a date. We fell for each other that night. The rest is history.

I have the one photo that Ken said made him take notice of me and dare to e-mail me asking to get together.

Moving on.... I'm sharing photos from our wedding celebration. We only had immediate family members there and it was held a few days after we were actually married. But, it was PIRATE themed. Take a close look at the cake and see the story behind it. Also, Gavin, the tinniest pirate, was two weeks old in these pics.
  





Today I just happened to be looking for my scrapbook I made during this time so I wanted to post about this stuff.

The next to last picture I'm sharing is a grouping Ken and I did while I was pregnant. They are a foray into photography art for us. We wanted some memories of that time but we didn't want to pay exhorbitant prices so we did them ourselves.





The last picture is what I usually wear on Halloween, which is coming up sooner than we think. Stores already have decorations and candy out! The marketing of holidays is sad these days.

Precious Memories



Erin put her stuff in a much nicer pile



We all have kept them. Precious little bits of things throughout the years that we think we'll want to bring out and reminisce about with someone special or even by ourselves. There are also the ones we keep for our children from the time they are born until the time they are old enough to start their own collection of important junk. That may or may not include a baby book, with every little fart and giggle written in it, to clothing, such as the outfit she wore as a flower girl in some big wigs wedding  and it was a big deal so it was kept.

Today my daughter (14) is shoveling her way through a huge pile of school stuff I kept from her elementary school days. She found her stuff in a clear comforter bag while digging (nosing) through stuff in our basement. It looks like someone had taken a drawer full of paperwork and upended it into a bag, then shook the bag, then stomped on it a few times. That's how I organize things around here. I need another comforter bag for Gavin's school work. If anyone has one I'll take it.

I look at these things and think that my kids would never want this stuff. Why am I keeping it? Am I a hoarder if I keep these things? Will my kids thank me for reminding them their grades in elementary school were not as stellar as they remembered? Too late now for Erin, but not for Gavin. I can begin with his stuff in a real folder labeled by school year. If I can remember where I put the folder each time I want to put his work inside it, I'll be making a good example for him to start organizing as well. Ha! So, I won't need that comforter bag just yet. Give me a couple of years until I have several folders filled up with his work. Then I'll ask around again.

Eggs and Chickens

The other day Ken brought in a small pink egg along with the two normal large brown eggs we usually get. It was our first egg from the new batch of chicks! To day, however, we got the first GREEN egg! It  is about the same size as the other egg, extra small, but they are both perfectly formed and look great. I won't know for a while if that pinkish egg was laid by an Easter egger or by one of the Wyandots. 

The colors of the eggs are going to vary. The Easter eggers are supposed to lay pink, green and blue eggs. Truly, the eggs colors are subjective. They can all look green rather than any looking blue and the others can all look brown rather than any looking pink and such. There are a few here and there that are true blue and true pink. The colorful eggs are just cool because when someone who has never seen them before opens the box they get a nice surprise. The smiles on their faces give me joy.

Speaking of chickens, I am so glad I don't have to deal with so many bird feathers in my house now Gav's in school. Crazy beak just sheds her feathers too much when she visits Gavin in the house during the day. I asked her kindly to stop, but if she won't even stop messing on the floor what makes me think she's going to stop dropping her feathers? Gavin, thankfully is not home for her to be visiting him in the house an hour or so at a time, several times a day. Now they can't sit around and watch TV, being little lazy butts, not picking up after themselves. I feel a little sorry that Crazy has lost her daytime buddy, but she'll get over it. She really needs to make friends with the other chickens and stop thinking she's a human. I believe we've spoiled her.

Very soon we'll have to start selling the eggs just to keep them from piling up on us and spoiling. Even with 10 chickens last year we almost had that problem. I hope we have enough buyers out there willing to shell out $2.50 a dozen to help with that. The money will also help Gavin, my 5 yr. old, fill his Piggy bank. We'll only need enough to feed the chicks.

So remember this folks, nothing beats the taste of

The incredible, edible EGG

Hoarding

I am a hoarder. I have to come right out and admit it to the world. After all, that's the first step to recovery, right? In my case I have been obsessed with hoarding as many eBooks as I can possibly stuff in my cloud and on my Kindle, yet there is still more room! I can't believe it! I must fill up every megabite of space with all those precious free books that are offered out there!

Oh, hold on, let me compose myself.. You see, I have never in my life gotten to own books like this. I've had to go to the library or the yard sales and the trade book stores for all my books. Never could I dream I might be able to read a book over again. But then, with all these freebies available, when would I have time?

If you haven't guessed yet, I'm talking about the availability of tons of free indie books on Amazon and other eBook websites. The catch is, though the books are free, we may never know if the book is going to be good quality or not. We just have to read it and hope it is. I love to read books of any kind and love to read for the story. Indie books typically have more grammatical errors and punctuational errors than the pricier ones. I really like correct English, but I can overlook some problems in lew of a great story.

Another great thing for me about getting all those free books is that I just happen to be a speed reader. I can zoom through a book in an hour or so if I'm interested in it enough, depending on the genre. I recently reviewed a series of 5 young adult paranormal books that only took me an overnight reading. Speedreading takes skill. I takes dedication. It takes a person like me who has sat in bed or on the couch most of her life doing nothing but reading books! I'd never be able to count the amount of books I've read in my lifetime. But I sure can now on my cool Kindle Fire!

The funny thing about me is I rarely like to read a book twice. When I do keep a book to read twice, it's a darn good book. I have a few sets of hard back books that I will read more than once. There are lots of singles I might read again, too. The rest are eBooks now and will always be, unless someone impresses me. My house is not going to truly look like a book hoarders home.

Because I Have a Blog

I have a blog called Free Verse in Review published through Wordpress. It looks very professional and is used strictly for my book reviews. I would like to leave it as it is.

This blog is different because it is mine to verse as freely as I want without reviewing anything but my own scattered ramblings. Plus, I need a place to put a bunch of crazy stuff on my blog from the giveaways I enter.

These giveaways I enter are very interesting. They can be won as I have won a few; They can be quite involved requiring many tasks; They can also be tricky. I don't even know what some of them mean on their requirements because of the giveaway language they use. For instance, the most recent one wants me to put them on my "blog roll". What's a "blog roll"? I have a blog. I have not seen its' roll. Then it asks me to add a chatter button to my blog. Where am I supposed to put it and for how long?

This is an example of a chatter button. I really don't know what it does except take the reader back to her website. That's the main point, I'm sure. So, I just did what was asked of me. 2 points for me! Yay! I still can't get that blog roll point.