raquel of the ranch country is finally on line, and other details of normal life

I finally got some pictures taken today.  A STACK (well, actually, THREE precariously piled stacks ringing my desk --woe to anyone who sits down and puts his elbows out the tiniest bit ) of pictures taken today.

I moved boxes.

I re-piled boxes and reduced my solid WALL of boxes behind my desk by TWO!!!!

I'm feeling enough better to start to worry about what's coming up in the next few weeks -- which means that my nerves start to go, even though my body is just beginning to feel normal.  Darn.

However, feeling a little better means I can start to DO things again.

Like clean.  When I don't feel well, I don't get the cleaning done ... and when you have colds / viruses, etc. you need to CLEAN the house well so that you don't just keep re-infecting everyone, right?  But when you're feeling bad, you don't have the energy or brain power to clean.

So.  Doorknobs have been bleached.  Keyboards ditto. etc. etc. etc. around the house to get all the places where germs lurk and laugh.

I pulled another box off the pile in the front room to re-do after the Sacramento Fair.  Now I'm down to THREE boxes left.

Then I signed up for Pasadena today AND booked my hotel room, so no going back now.

(Now I get to quietly freak that I don't have enough  GOOD STOCK....wahhhh.....)

I have books to mail out (which is always a good thing).

Now I get to plow through some data entry, and some taxes.

Getting back to Raquel of the Ranch Country (see the book picture at the top there, right?)

I picked this book up one day (reasons are many and too long-winded to mention, but I felt that HUM I sometimes get. I don't question it. I just pay my money and THEN figure out why).

This book is the first book by Alida Sims Malkus.  She wrote a number of books for young people (especially women) during her writing career, most of the historical in one form or another. This book, however, is a loosely based autobiography. (She must have started with that old saw -- write what you know....).  One of her later books -- The Dark Star of Itza -- became a Newbery Honor book.   From what I can piece together of her life, she sounds like a fascinating woman.  If I ever get time, I'll try and read this book, just to see what her life must have been like.

Now that I've got my picture for it, the book is FINALLY going up on my website. 

The country of Damar... oh, to be there.

This is another one of my very favorite series / authors from when I was younger. I don't know if I mentioned it yet, but my addiction to SF / Fantasy stemmed from my junior high years when I first came into contact with Lloyd Alexander and his Prydain series (see my previous post on a that subject) , and C. L. Lewis and the Chronicles of Narnia (which I read in jr. High, but didn't really scope out ALL the meanings behind the fun adventure story at the time). By high school, I was fixated on SF / Fantasy and that's when the two books about Damar by Robin McKinley were first published. I had found a copy of Beauty (her first book) at the library and gotten hooked. The Damar books, however, were fantasy that made me dream I WAS Harry Crewe (the heroine of The Blue Sword), or Aerin (The Hero and the Crown) off saving Damar from encroaching baddies by wielding my sword and making magic happen...

I never got to the point of dressing up in costume and pretend whacking at my sister with verve (though there were lots of times I WANTED to whack my sister during our high school years...) but this series was one I read over and over again and never forgot, no matter what other reading material I went on to. It is one of the first books I recommend for younger SF / Fantasy readers (especially girls just starting out with the genre) and it's a series that I'm going to foist on my sons (number one son already got handed a set of Andre Norton paperbacks that he actually read when my back was turned....) when I get a couple of cheap copies. (Heaven forfend that my sons get anywhere near my first edition copies.)
I just got this pristine set in two days ago and yes, they are going on the website ( I have a set already, you see).

If you haven't read the series --- DO.

Yes, the books are generally considered Young Adult but Phooey to that. They are both wonderfully written works of fantasy and it doesn't matter if you're old or young.

PS: I know I've mentioned Robin McKinley here before and posted a link to her blog, but I'm going to do it again.

I read her blog nearly everyday & enjoy it immensely - Be warned. Robin McKinley's blog does read somewhat like her novels (how can she not?) but she is a PERSON just like any other, not a book. Robin McKinley's Blog

Enjoy!
(I'd say I was going to sit down & read both of these again soon, but I just finished the series last December for my article... I think I'll wait to read them again til next year).