50 books in 2010 challenge - 9 out of 50 so far

Books I've read so far this year:

• A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry (some audio, some print)
  
• The Darwin Awards (mini-book)
  
• Castaways of the Flying Dutchman by Brian Jacques (audio)
  
• Star Trek: The Next Generation: Contamination by John Vornholt (audio)
  
• The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton (audio)
• The Full Cupboard of Life (No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency #5) by Alexander McCall Smith (audio CD in the car)
  

• Gardens of Water by Alan Drew
  
• 13 Little Blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnson
• Murder to Go (audio)

These are the ones I remember. I hope I have not missed anything.

13 Little Blue Envelopes

13 Little Blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnson


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Nice story. A girl inherits 13 envelopes from her aunt. Each of the envelopes contains directions for her of what to do. So she travels around the world with just a backpack for luggage. I liked the fact that the story was actually believable even though this thing with the envelopes is so unusual. It even got me thinking what I would do if something happened to me like to her aunt. Could I do something special for my nephew like her aunt did for her?

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101 Go to a Classical Concert

I've been to several classical concert since setting that goal. The most memorable one was the 9th Symphony by Beethoven. It was really awesome to hear it in person, not only on CD or something.

I've also been to a few Gold Line Concerts. They're concerts taking place every first Thursday of the month at noon at Lake Avenue Church right by the Lake Ave Gold Line station. They're short so that people who work nearby can come during their lunch brake just for the concert.

101: Get Rid of the Unused Mac

We did that yesterday. I had kept it in the hopes of getting some data off it, but I wasn't able to connect it to the Internet or the local network with the other computers. And it didn't have any drives compatible with the other, newer computers we have. The data were only some old images, so I gave up on saving them.

We're doing a big spring cleaning. So yesterday, we brought all our old computers, including my old Mac, to electronic waste recycling. At first we thought we'd have to drive all the way to Pomona, but I found a electronic waste recycling fundraiser event right here in Pasadena at the First Baptist Church.

50 books in 2010 challenge

A friend on my online reading group suggested the challenge of reading 50 books in 2010. That's almost one book a week. I've decided to try this challenge as well. Counting all the books,
from the huge "Fine Balance" to a mini-book about the Darwin Awards and also the audio books I've listened to, I've read six books so far this year, so I'm pretty much on track. I'll write a little bit about it here on the blog when I finish books.

Here's the one I just finished, I'll tell you about the previous ones later. Whenever I remember, I list books I read on Goodreads as well...

Gardens of Water: A Novel by Alan Drew


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I learned more about the relationship of Turkish to Kurdish people. I learned how important it is to be really sensitive to culture, when we go to help people of a culture that is very different to ours. We don't want to destroy, but help.

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I've read this book for the One City, One Story, so you'll probably hear more about it later when I go to some of the events

Organizations that support fair trade and work against injustice

I was just looking up the sites of these organizations so I thought I'd put them here as well, very useful:

STOP THE TRAFFIK

STOP THE TRAFFIK is a growing global movement of individuals, communities and organisations fighting to PREVENT the sale of people, PROTECT the trafficked and PROSECUTE the traffickers. For example, they do campaigns for fair trade chocolate.

Oasis Global (The global Website for Oasis)

Oasis USA

Oasis is a Christian organization working against injustice by encouraging Fair Trade etc.

Oxfam International

Oganization that works to end poverty and injustice. They also have stores in some places (I visited one in Australia) where you can buy fairly traded items and get information about Oxfam.

Ten Thousand Villages

Fair Trade stores - including an online store. (There's one of their stores in my neighborhood.)

The Hunger Site - Fair Trade items

One of the categories in the Hunger Site online store is Fair Trade. With each purchase you also contribute food for people who can't afford it. The other affiliated sites have a Fair Trade section as well, in case you prefer to contribute to something else, such as Animal Rescue.

Birds on the Wires

I was just browsing on Flickr, looking at some pictures of Pasadena, when I came across a photo of birds on a power line. One of the comments had a link to this blog entry with a video (Birds on the Wires). So beautiful!
Yep, I'll be looking at birds on power lines a different way from now on as well!

101: reach 600 sent and 600 received cards in postcrossing

I reached this goal on July 20 when I received my 600th card. I just love postcrossing! It's so much fun to send postcards to people around the world and receive postcards from random places and people around the world. To find out how postcrossing works, read more about postcrossing.

For my whole list of goals, view 101 things to do in 1001 days.

101: Crochet a Potholder

A few days ago, I saw the documentary "The Boys of Baraka". One of the boys there crochets in his free time at the school in Africa. That motivated me to try crocheting, too. The last time I did this, I was in school like him, I think. So I was going to see what I could remember. A week later, the potholder on the picture was finished. I used cotton yarn. The yarn has sections of three different colors, so I didn't have to change yarns to come up with the stripes.

So I still remember enough to crochet a simple potholder. But I still want to learn how all the stitches work and what their names are, so that I can read patterns and do more difficult projects. So I feel that I reached part of my goal for my 101 goals list, but haven't accomplished the full goal.

101: Sell magic videos on ebay

My husband has a lot of videos and DVDs with instructions for magic tricks. He has some duplicates that he asked me to sell on ebay. Well, I've tried and I guess about half of them sold. The other ones nobody seems interested in. Some sold right away, some when relisted. I listed them over several weeks. I'm not sure what to do with the ones left over.