Monthly Reading Round Up - March 2011

Sorry for posting March's round up so late.  My semester just ended for 2 of my classes and I had so much homework on top of my exams.  If you can believe it, I got an outstanding grade in my databasing class.  I only missed 2 points for the whole class because of participation.  My business math class... well lets just say I missed a few more than 2 points, but I did a lot better than I thought that I would. I only have one class for the first few weeks of this semester which is great because it's algebra and it's going to be nice to just concentrate all of my energy on that.    


Thank you to everyone for your well wishes on my birthday yesterday!  I will have Ronnie take a picture of me playing my Wii sometime this week and I also have a bunch of pictures to post from my birthday party last night. 


Without further ado, here is my reading list from March

Timeless by Alexandra Monir - Finished March 2nd

3 out of 5 stars

The Art of Tangled by Jeff Kurtti - Finished March 6th

5 out of 5 stars

Desires of the Dead by Kimberly Derting - Finished March 10th

3 out of 5 stars

The Orchid Affair by Lauren Willig - Finished March 16th

3 out of 5 stars

The Disreputable Life of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart - Finished March 17th

5 out of 5 stars add this book to my favorites shelf

Dracula in Love by Karen Essex - Finished March 23rd

2 out of 5 stars

The Forrest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan - Finished March 24th

3 out of 5 stars

Books Finished: 7
2011 book total: 24
Favorite This Month: Without a doubt The Disreputable Life of Frankie Landau-Banks was my favorite.  I wanted to make a 'book thoughts' post about it, but I just couldn't find the time.  The book is about young Frankie who goes to a prep school and meets a boy whom she eventually starts dating.  Her boyfriend starts flaking out on dates so she decides to follow him to find out what is exactly going on with him.  It turns out he is in an all male secret society.  Frankie becomes really intrigued and wants to join, but since it is a males only club she can't.  One of the members leaves for a trip so Frankie makes up an e-mail address and pretends to be him and gets the secret society to pull a bunch of elaborate pranks.  The book is a lot better than I'm sure I made it sound so I highly recommend checking it out.  I'm going to pick up a few more of E.Lockhart's books when I get the chance.

I really loved this quote from the book:
"It is better to be alone, she figures, than to be with someone who can’t see who you are. It is better to lead than to follow. It is better to speak up than stay silent. It is better to open doors than to shut them on people."


Least Favorite This Month: Dracula in Love by Karen Essex.  This book dragged SO MUCH for me.  I picked it up because I really loved the cover and I thought the concept sounded really interesting.  It's a retelling of Bram Stokers Dracula with Mina as the story teller this time.  I think the idea was to make it more realistic, but I just couldn't get into this one.  Perhaps my problem was I haven't read the original Dracula? 

Other:  As you can see, the end of this semester really slowed down my reading this month.  I added the art of tangled, although I'm not really sure if I should have.  There was a lot of actual stories and tidbits in there along with the beautiful art work too. 

Timeless.  I was really excited for this book, but it was a little underwhelming for me.  One neat thing about it though is that Michelle (the lead character of the book) writes lyrics, and Phillip writes music in the novel.  The author wrote 2 songs that are mentioned in the book and you can pick them up on iTunes. 

The Desires of the Dead.  I LOVED The Body Finder, but this one was really predictable to me so that's why I gave it only 3 stars.  The story was still good, I just knew right away what was going to happen.

The hubby gave me my birthday present early

so sorry if you never hear from me again...

Ellie

Pattern:  Lorna Suzanne by Ellen Mason (link will take you to the Ravelry purchase page)
Yarn: Patons Classic Wool Merino in Aquarium
Needle Size: 5 and 4
Dates:  February 18th, 2011- March 15th , 2011
My Project Name:  I was listening to The Third Day, the Frost by John Marsden when I started knitting this.  I really love the character Ellie Linton, so this cardigan was named after her.

Modifications:  Nothing big.  I used a backwards loop for my increases instead of M1's because my backwards loops always look quite sloppy.
New techniques learned: None however when I was grafting the underarms, I realized that a refresher couldn't hurt.  I used this article right here.
Notes:  I actually finished the knitting portion of this on the 11th but I had to go out and pick up some buttons today so I could finally wear it.  The buttons are a Beatrix Potter bunny which I got from Joann's.

I had some really bad rolling issues with mine because I knit it on smaller needles.  Blocking really fixed it but I think I'd like to re-block the collar because the right side is still looking at little funky.

I really love everything about this cardigan, it's so cute!
More Pictures:

SO BUSY!

I know my posts have really slowed down over here.  I've been incredibly busy this month and haven't had much free time to do anything.  I had midterms on Wednesday, and my windows class ended on Thursday.  Yesterday I started a database class which is going well, but it's taking some getting used to.  This semester is half way over and I'm really glad that it's been going so well!

As far as my hobbies, I did finish knitting a sweater yesterday, I'm just waiting to get some buttons before I make a post about it.  I have been keeping up with my reading.  I've been reading a little each night before bed and I do still get a lot of down time at work so that's been a great stress reliever.  Earlier this week, Ronnie and I flew with one of our good friends and he twisted his ankle at the airport.  We had to go to the emergency room with him and needless to say I got to read until 4 a.m.  I finished a book and got a quarter of the way through another one. 

My 30th (!!!) birthday is in less than a month.  I was trying to make plans for it, but I kept getting more and more ideas of what I wanted to do.  I think maybe I was carrying the leftover excitement from planning my wedding into planning a birthday party.  Needless to say I can't afford a wedding 2.0 so I'm probably going to plan something small.

Lastly, we finally hung up some wedding picture this week, it only took us half a year. :)  

Monthly Reading Roundup - February 2011

Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl (Finished February 1st)

 

Gossamer by Lois Lowry (Finished February 2nd)

Fourth Comings by Megan McCafferty (Finished February 2nd)

Perfect Fifths (Finished February 3rd)

By Royal Command by Mary Hooper (Finished February 6th)

Across the Universe by Beth Revis (Finished February 9th)

I am Number Four by Pittacus Lore (Finished February 13th)

Delirium by Lauren Oliver (Finished February 14th)

The Ruby in the Smoke by Philip Pullman (Finished February 17th)

A Killing Frost by John Marsden (Finished February 19th)

The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown (Finished February 28th)

Books Finished: 11
2011 book total: 17
Favorite This Month: This is a tough one because I read a lot of really great books this month.  I'm going to have to say it's a tie between Perfect Fifths and Delirium. 
Least Favorite This Month: Beautiful Creatures.  You can read my 'book thoughts' on it here.
Other:  I'm so sad to be finished with the Jessica Darling series!  I've saved the whole series though so that I can re-read them when I have the time.  Also, I am Number Four....  I picked up this book because I was thinking about seeing the movie, but I wasn't overly thrilled with the book.  It had a lot of action packed moments, but it wasn't what I was expecting.