Day Five - Something you Wore

This is something I wore. It's something I wear everyday. It's important to me and sometimes when I need it, it gives me a little bit of extra focus.

It was a gift from my boyfriend for our very first Christmas together, and I've worn it pretty much everyday since the first day I was given it.

The thing I like about it in this photo is that it's out of focus and has gone sparkly.

Rowen

Day Four - Letterbox

This is our letterbox at home. It's pretty boring, pretty standard, pretty much the same as any other letterbox in the country. One thing about it is that it's much more efficient than the type of letterbox we have at uni.

It's a bad photo, but it's a letterbox, and what can you do with a letterbox??

Rowen

Our Challenge

My friend Clarissa and I decided to do something a little bit different this year. We're going to read 52 books in a year off a preplanned list. We're doing this to raise money for Charity.

Each of those books has come off the list of 1001 books to read before you die. We will each post a review of the books as we've read them to our blog-based tracking system which can be found here.

I will also be posting my reviews of the books on this blog with hopefully the added feature of a linky at the bottom of the post which will be open until the end of the year from the time I've finished reading the book.

I hope you find time to join in if just for one or two books, or even are able to donate to the Charity we've chosen to support.

Rowen

Fall of Angels - L.E.Modesitt Jr

I need to start by saying that L.E Modesitt Jr is one of my all time favourite authors, I love the way that he writes and the detail that he puts into the worlds he creates. I've only read books from two 'series' by him, but every single one of those books I have loved!

Fall of Angels is the sixth book in the Saga of Recluce. I was a little bit apprehensive about reading it because the first five books were all very much of the same mould, so much so that they were criticised for it and thereafter none of them were published in the UK, causing a bit of a palava when I wanted the sixth one and had to order it from the USA.

It's surprising, to me at least, that the sixth book wasn't published here, because it's definately something different. It's the same writing style, however this novel is set much earlier in the world of Recluce, and even contains some sci-fi elements.

The book is about the crew of a spaceship which basically jumps to somewhere it would be irretreivable. They manage to land it in the only part of the 'impossible' planet which happens to be nearby, that most of them would be able to survive on. They still get attacked by the locals because they are primarily female and are attracting abused women from all over the continent. They eventually reach a truce at the close of a costly battle in which they effectively massacre thousands of local soldiers.

It was epic and I could barely put it down.

My favourite part of the story, in a bizarre way, was a side story, in which the main protagonist has his good nature taken advantage and is used to artificially inseminate several of the women as pretty much the only male. He doesn't realise until three of the children are born and they have too many similarities to his daughter he knew about to be anyone else's.

It's definately a book or even a series I would recommend to anyone whose looking for something a little bit different in fantasy and enjoys nice established worlds.

Rowen

Winter Cushion

I mentioned a while back the Autumn cushion that I'd made as a Christmas present, and the three I intended to make to go with it, well I did make them, borrowing my mum's machine to speed up the process a little.

This Cushion is basically the same layout as the Autumn Cushion, and the tree is intended to be the same. I made a few errors while piecing so that some of the patchwork squares are in the wrong places, but overall it turned out well.

Instead of a pile of leaves the focal point of this cushion, and what makes it signify winter is the snowman. However I did the snowman using a blanket stitch, to try and imply snowy spaces, and the connecting stitches slid to the inside. 

Giving my snowman a rather spiky look.

Even so I'm pleased with it as I think you can still tell it is a snowman.

Rowen

Day Three - Something You Adore

Something I adore is the countryside. This Photo embodies my local countryside for me. It also gives me a feeling of being something very small as a part of something very big.

Rowen

Day Two - Breakfast

A little more punctual with day two!

I'm not a conventional breakfast eater, I was when I was younger, when my mum was in complete control of my dietary habits but I would definately say I am no longer. Breakfast is one of those meals which just doesn't sit well. I can stomach it if it's a cooked breakfast, if it is leftovers or if it is cake. On occasions I can stomach toast, but I need to have been up for a while and I often don't have leftovers or cake to eat, so more often than not I skip it, despite the fact that I adhere to the belief it is one of the most important meals of the day.

I always try to eat it when I'm working, because in my job we don't sit around and do nothing all day and lunch is later rather than earlier, although roughly in the middle of our working day, we start late. I also always try to eat it if I have an exam or a day which is particularly packed with lectures.

My breakfast today however was leftover lemon tart which was made for New Years Eve celebrations with my godparents, I was still there for the evening meal part of the day.

Rowen