Our new NAS (Synology DiskStation DS1522+) is now up and running. It took a while to transfer everything from the old NAS(DiskStation DS1511+) and do a restore, but now we have things running on it easily that I was struggling with before.
I’m excited!
#Synology #NAS
Good news! Covers don’t count against Whamageddon, so hearing it performed at a middle school choir concert is safe. #Whamageddon #LastChristmas
We got a new NAS! It’s a Synology DiskStation DS1522+ to replace the DiskStation DS1511+ we’ve been running for over 13 years(solidly and beautifully).
I’m swooning over the stack of 22 TB hard drives we’ve installed and can hardly contain my excitement at seeing 100 TB of hard drives in my server.
I decided to try some photos taken with a Nintendo 3DS XL for the challenge( #ShittyCameraChallenge ). I exported the jpg with both frames next to each other and two separate photos so you can swipe between them.
If anyone wants to view this on a 3D device, the original photo is linked here: www.shannonkay.com/3dsphotos You can even use the Nintendo 3DS web browser, follow the link to the file, and view in 3D. (SSL doesn’t work, but you can press “accept” recklessly)
“Hide distracting elements” in Safari is beautiful.
It’s giving… thanks.
In the #GoodReads Choice awards opening round, if I have read a few books nominated in a category that I’m considering, I’ve decided to give my vote to the book with the fewest ratings. My intention is to vote for the less popular book in that category.
So, #Mastodon / #ActivityPub is like Twitter around 2008/2009(with some forum energy) and #BlueSky is more like Twitter around 2013.
This gives them different tones, and makes them valuable for different things to me.
I got a Sigma 18-50mm 2.8 lens a month ago, and it hasn’t left my Fujifilm X-T5 since! I use mostly prime lenses, but wanted to get a nice zoom lens for my kids' performances.
I’ve shot a school play, Halloween, a choir concert, and headshots. It’s fast, sharp, and beautiful.
#Fujifilm #Sigma
Here’s a photo of my three kids at the Blizzard Halloween party this year in the traditional photo spot in front of the orc statue. I shot this photo at 1/15s on my Fujifilm X-T5 handheld and I’m really impressed with how it turned out. There’s some motion blur where my son is flapping his Ender Dragon “wings”, but besides that it’s quite sharp. The lens used was the Sigma 18-50mm 2.8 if you’re interested in that sort of thing.
First day of 7th grade for Guinevere. (Like 8 weeks ago).
Itâs October and I never posted the first day of school pictures? First day of Kindergarten and Second Grade.
Books that I might want to read this fall. This is not a reading plan or a goal, but just some of the books I’m considering for this season’s reading.
📚 This book is a sequel that I will drop everything to read as soon as it arrives. 🎄 These are Christmas/Winter Holiday books, so I plan to read them later.
I’d like to read at least one “witchy” romance in October
This weekend was the dance recital for my daughter, Guinevere. Guinevere is now thirteen and has been dancing since she was three. Guinevere has been en pointe in ballet for almost two years, and this recital was her first performance en pointe.
When I got to the theater and an usher handed me a program, I was surprised and delighted to see that it had a picture of her on the back from 2015 when she was four!
The picture from the Alice in Wonderland recital she performed in was there to promote this winter’s recital for the younger dancers, which is the Alice in Wonderland theme again. I was so excited when I saw her picture that I immediately told the usher “That’s my daughter when she was little! Now she’s big and en pointe!” I also told pretty much anyone that was standing nearby. I started to tear up a bit, thinking about how much she’s grown in nine years. When I got to my seat, I told the person sitting next to me all about it. When you put your three year old in a dance class, you don’t know how long they’ll want to dance. Sometimes they love dance, try lots of styles, work hard for ten years, and start doing ballet en pointe. If you want to see how far she’s come, here’s the video of her pre-ballet Alice in Wonderland dance at age four.
Nine years later, this is her pointe duet to the Pink Panther theme.
I still have this photo of four-year-old Guinevere from her Alice in Wonderland recital hanging on my wall.
Look at her now.
After the show, I was careful to take a picture of her with the program. I told a few more bystanders about it too.
Reading this book was like hanging out with friends and exploring New York with them for the summer.
There is a romance, but mostly this is a story about a group of friends figuring out what they love and what they want to do next. There’s also a really nice theme about books and writing, with the main two characters having bonded over a beloved(fictional) children’s fantasy series as kids. This is realistic YA fiction that touches on how people can use fantasy stories to navigate the real world and their relationships. There was also a theme about coding and app development that I was surprised to discover.
I started reading The Getaway List on the perfect day for me. I had just been to my youngest daughter’s preschool graduation and it was the last day of school for my older two kids, with my oldest daughter singing in the choir at the promotion for her middle school’s 8th graders. It had a perfect vibe for the end of the school year and looking forward to summer, and was a nice easy read for my tired mom brain.
Just some books that I think I might want to read this summer. This is not an exhaustive list, or even a “To Be Read” list, but just a selection of books that I think I might read during the next season for a variety of reasons.
I’d like to read at least one of these
Books listed total: 24 -1 ARC read -1 Summer Romance read = 22. Book Math.
Preschool tea party.
My daughter’s sixth grade class was reading Holes by Louis Sachar. I decided to read it too since I had never read the book, but liked the movie.
This is a really wonderful book. It touches on so many important themes in really accessible ways. It’s easy to read, but still compelling. I love the way everything works together in each character’s backstory for a really satisfying connection.
My daughter, who is usually an all-fantasy reader, really liked it too.
It occured to me that this book might be considered magical realism. It’s mostly realistic fiction, with interspersed historical fiction, but the element of the “curse” could be a bit of magical realism. It also has a stealthy historical romance in it.
The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery is one of those backlist classic books I’ve meant to read for years. I’ve loved the Anne of Green Gables book series since I was a young girl, but I haven’t read many of her other books. I read this mostly from an actual paperback book.
I think The Blue Castle is as good a classic romance as a Jane Austen book, though it takes place about a hundred years later. It’s one of the few adult novels that L.M. Montgomery wrote.
This book has social commentary, humor, tears, romance, and a wonderfully written cast of characters. Plus cats! This is a cat-friendly book. The chapters are short. There are 45 chapters in this book that’s about 250 pages long. If you’re looking for short chapters, this book has them.
“Fear is the original sin,” wrote John Foster. “Almost all the evil in the world has its origin in the fact that some one is afraid of something. It is a cold, slimy serpent coiling about you. It is horrible to live with fear; and it is of all things degrading.”
The beginning of the book is slower with lots of social commentary and introductions to Valancy’s family and her expected societal limitations. The social and religious commentary alone was riveting.
In many ways, I’m glad I read this book for the first time as an adult married woman and mother. I think I appreciated the nuance more than I would have ten years ago. I thought and talked about The Blue Castle intensely for days after I finished reading it.
The last 25% of the book is packed with reveals and emotional excitement.
I thought that the rose bush Valancy “attacked” at the beginning of the book would be blooming at the end, and it was.
I cried big tears at Cissy Gay’s story of her baby’s death, then for her own death a few pages later.
The only problem with this romance is that Barney Snaith is perhaps the worst name for a romantic lead I’ve ever heard.
I’m interested in how much detail is on the page compared to what we’re supposed to understand is going on off-page. In my experience, intimacy is rarely mentioned in a book like this. A “respectable” book published in 1926.
To “make love” means romantic speech or “sweet nothings” and seems to have no “bedroom” implications. I’ve read this in “older” books before, but it was especially noticeable here that this was still accurate. On the drive home after they get married, Valancy says she doesn’t “want him to make love” to her, and suggests that she just wants him to talk to her like usual. Then as soon as they get to the island, they have their first kiss. I think we are to understand from this first kiss, that they have an intimate physical relationship.
But I wanted you to talk. I don't want you to make love to me, but I want you to act like an ordinary human being.
Barney lifted Valancy out of the canoe and swung her to a lichen-covered rock under a young pine-tree. His arms were about her and suddenly his lips were on hers. Valancy found herself shivering with the rapture of her first kiss. "Welcome home, dear," Barney was saying.
And a bit later, this line.
And that little kissable dent just between your collar bones.
That sounds quite intimate to me. Interestingly, none of the “marriage of convenience” style tropes such as sleeping apart happened. That’s not where the romance is. A sweet and wonderful relationship is described for them, from companionship to implied physical intimacy. The conflict comes from the unknowns in his past as well as her assumed quickly approaching death.
All this, and still Valancy does not believe he loves her. She truly thinks he’s just been pitying and humoring her. This is frustrating to the reader but is not unbelievable given her emotionally abusive upbringing.
Thankfully, they sort it all out in the end.
The hypocrisy of her family! Ugh!
Links
Did you know that you can put photos in your GoodReads reviews? If you’re a “bookstagrammer” and also use GoodReads, adding one(or more!) of your photos to a review can let even more book lovers enjoy them.
Here’s how to do it.
Upload your photo to an image host. Some choices include Postimages, imgur, and Flickr. I normally use SmugMug because I have a paid account there for my photos, and embedding is allowed. I’ll use Postimages for this example.
After uploading your photo, copy the direct link to the image. GoodReads allows some HTML formatting in reviews and we can use that to add a picture.
Here is the HTML you need to embed the photo. Replace the LINK TO IMAGE with the direct link, and put in your own alt text.
<img src="LINK TO IMAGE" alt="BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF YOUR PICTURE" />
Here’s what mine looks like.
<img src="https://i.postimg.cc/76jG8W1R/20231010-11-06-05.jpg" alt="Percy Jackson and the Chalice of the Gods on a table next to a pink mug" />
Paste this code into your review on GoodReads, and save it. You can also click on “preview” to see what it looks like before you save. Paste the code wherever you want it to show up in the review. It could be at the beginning, at the end, or somewhere in the middle. It’s up to you.
Here’s my review with the photo embedded.
These are the formatting tips from the GoodReads review editor. This tells us which HTML tags are supported. Notice that you can also include links. You could link to your blog, Instagram account, or even the direct link to a specific Instagram post.
Goodreads allows some html formatting.
well formed web urls automatically get turned into links
link: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com">my link text</a>
link to book: use the "add book/author" link or [book: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy]
link to author: use the "add book/author" link or [author: J.K. Rowling]
image: <img src="https://www.goodreads.com/image..." width="40" height="100" alt="description"/> (Width must be 0-400, Height must be 0-1000, alt is a description of the image. All three are optional, but recommended.)
bold text: <b>...</b>
italic text: <i>...</i>
underline text: <u>...</u>
strike text: <s>...</s>
exact spacing: <pre>...</pre>
blockquote: <blockquote>...</blockquote>
paragraph: <p>...</p>
spoiler: <spoiler>...</spoiler>
Note: tags must be properly nested, example:
OK <i><b>test</b></i>
Not OK <i><b>test</i></b>
Enjoy!
This year, I went to yallwest for the first time. That’s a Young Adult book festival in Santa Monica. I went by myself and had a great time meeting people and attending panels.
I brought two books to get signed, and both authors had lines that required wristbands. I was excited to get wristbands for both lines.
The first was Tracy Deonn. I brought my copy of Bloodmarked for her to sign. I was excited to receive art prints while I waited in line!
And here I am telling Tracy Deonn about my list of books with the word cariad in them while she signs my book.
My second signing line was Tahereh Mafi, whose current series, This Woven Kingdom, I read for the first time in March. I brought my copy of These Infinite Threads for her to sign.
I then rushed to catch the end of an audiobook narrator workshop, which was a fun time for me.
I also got to meet Kamilah Cole, whose debut novel, So Let Them Burn, I was currently reading and near the end of. I was actually listening to the audiobook in the car on the way to the festival!
Kamilah was a delight to talk to. I told her that I was 80-90% through her book and really enjoying it, and she said “Oh, I’m so sorry!” and I think that was the first time I’ve had an author personally apologize for their book’s ending before I’ve read it.
I didn’t have a physical book, but she signed one of the blank bookmarks that I brought, and we took a selfie.
Here are the panels I attended.
OPENING KEYNOTE: JASON REYNOLDS & STEPHANIE GARBER
BIG FANTASY ON THE BIG STAGE Moderated by Ransom Riggs with Tracy Deonn, Adalyn Grace, Marie Lu, Namina Forna, Angie Thomas, and Adam Silvera
AFTERNOON SPOTLIGHT with Tahereh Mafi, Aiden Thomas, Ava Reid, Adam Silvera, and Hafsah Faizal
THE STORY OF THE NEVERENDING STORY Reinventing the Series Moderated by Amélie Wen Zhao with Lauren Roberts, Zoe Hana Mikuta, Kamilah Cole, Alex Aster, and Hamish Steele
YALLWEST SMACKDOWN Hosted by Ryan La Sala and Angela Montoya This all-star jam brings our cast of featured authors on stage as they play games and undertake shenanigans, all for your entertainment.
Happy New Year! I truly love Rainbow Rowell’s New Year’s Eve themed short story, Midnights, and I already have it in two other volumes of her short stories. This year, I was delighted to enjoy the story in this adorably small paperback, which also has unique illustrations that are not in the other volumes.
I also enjoyed Kindred Spirits, a story about camping out to see Star Wars Episode VII in 2015. I’m now somehow nostalgic for 2015.
Reading this tiny volume of two short stories by Rainbow Rowell today has made me think that reading a short story or novella is a great way to start my year with some low-stakes, low-choice book reading. A graphic novel could also work.