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Merry Christmas everyone! I’m still sick but not miserably so; my throat is fine and it’s just leftover runny nose, cough, and fatigue. The rest of the family seems to be nearly well. It just takes me a lot longer to recover.

Here’s a little Christmas treat for you: my recording of Barbara Robinson’s wonderful “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever“. I treated myself to a hardback copy this year (and you should, too) and recorded it especially for Elli, but I’m sure she doesn’t mind sharing. :)

The Best Christmas Pageant Ever Chapter 1
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever Chapter 2
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever Chapter 3
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever Chapter 4
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever Chapter 5
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever Chapter 6
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever Chapter 7

I’m starting to feel a bit better. Yesterday I was well enough to knit, and today my throat is a lot better and I’m coughing less. I’m still really fatigued, but at least I can make tea for Henry, who has caught the bug and is miserable. Poor lad. I stayed far away from him ever since I got sick, trying not to give it to him, but he got it anyway. Dan had it first (he brought it home from San Francisco) so now none of us have to worry about getting the others ill and we can all sit together cozily in the living room and recover.

I made a double batch of gingerbread cookie dough the day before I got sick and it’s still in the fridge waiting to be rolled out, cut, and baked. Maybe today I will see if I can make a tray of cookies…

Ugh. I’m sick. I think I’ve got the flu. Started out a few days ago as just a mild sore throat but now I’m achey all over and so fatigued that I can’t even knit or read or watch movies. Little cough, stuffy head, delicate stomach, etc. No symptom is very dramatic but I still feel like I got run over by a moose or something. All noises are too loud. I felt really horrible all day but now at bedtime the achiness is a little better and I managed to watch a BBC documentary about Vikings invading Scotland. Not recently, hundreds of years ago. Why did the Vikings stop raiding the British isles?

Miso broth is good when you’re sick. Hot and salty.

After I upgraded to Mountain Lion, I noticed that the save dialogue in Pages and TextEdit defaulted to iCloud every single time. I don’t use iCloud so this behavior was driving me completely insane. (It doesn’t take much to drive me completely insane, I guess.) Anyway, this morning I finally snapped and googled for a solution and there is one and it is easy and it works!

Here’s the link:
http://www.cultofmac.com/187553/change-from-icloud-as-default-save-location-in-text-edit-mountain-lion-os-x-tips/

In case the link breaks and you’re going to commit suicide if Mountain Lion wants to save to iCloud ONE MORE TIME, here are the instructions:

Launch Terminal and type or paste the following command in (My blog is showing it on two lines. You might want to paste it into a text document first and get rid of the carriage return if there is one):

defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSDocumentSaveNewDocumentsToCloud -bool false

Quit whatever app is pissing you off, run it again, and try saving something. Voila.

You’re welcome.

Letterpress. If you have an i-device and are a fan of word games and/or strategy games, you’re got to try Letterpress.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/letterpress-word-game/id526619424?mt=8 (Free download. If you want to play more than two games concurrently, you can pay $.99 for the full game via IAP.)

Gameplay is simple: You have a grid of 25 letter tiles. Your color is blue; your opponent’s is red. (There are other color themes but they are, er, too linuxy for me.) You take turns creating words using any of the letters on the board; letters don’t have to be adjacent. You get one point for every letter that you use. When you submit your word, the letter tiles you used are painted your color.

But wait, there’s more. A white (unused) letter gets you a point, and so does using a letter that is painted in your opponent’s color, and in both cases the letters are changed to your color. Using your opponent’s letter not only gives you a point, it also subtracts one from his score. You get nothing for using one of your “own” letters.

But! Surround one of your letters on all four sides with other letters of your color and it turns a darker blue. A darkened letter gives your opponent no points, if he uses it, and does not change to his color! It is critically important to capture as many letters as you can.

The game ends when every white letter has been used. High score wins. I often get carried away, play a really cool word that colors all the tiles, and lose because I have the lower score :)

Not only is the game extremely fun to play, but the interface is a joy. Clean and uncluttered, with tasteful animations and sound effects that beg you to get your fingers in there and start rearranging letters.

The only drawback is that the game relies on GameCenter. You match up with your opponent via GameCenter and there’s no “rematch” button, so after every game you have to go back to nasty GameCenter to start the next match. And when GameCenter is having ISSUES, Letterpress won’t load. Oh well. Nobody’s perfect.

Oh hey, here’s a good detailed review with screenshots and stuff:
http://www.imore.com/letterpress-atebits-review

If you try it, start a game with me! (KaraShallenberg on GameCenter)

I found the most wonderful podcast recently: The British History Podcast. Here’s the iTunes link:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-british-history-podcast/

And here’s the website: http://thebritishhistorypodcast.com/

Click the “get involved” link to find the forum.

I don’t remember how I discovered it, but when I did, I started listening from the beginning and after only a few episodes I was hooked on Jamie’s intimate, casual, lively style, and bought a membership to support him — $5/month via Amazon and TOTALLY worth it, not only for the membership extras (a special section on the forum, show transcripts, and extra members-only podcast episodes) but for the good feeling of being able to help a guy make a living doing something he really loves. He’s an attorney by training, but when he became unemployed he started this history podcast because he loves British history. His enthusiasm is what makes this podcast so very special.

There came a point last year when Jamie either had to go back to work as an attorney (yuck!) or get enough subscriptions to allow him to continue to work on the podcast full-time. So glad he achieved his goal.

I should tell you that Jamie is not professorial in his delivery and he works from his own notes, not a script, so there’s a fun, improvisatory feeling to his recordings and the occasional stumble or mispronunciation. However, the content is, as far as I can tell, carefully-researched and accurate, and Jamie has a way of synthesizing and explaining that really clicks with my brain.

If you want a Teaching Company lecture series, go buy one. That’s not what this is. But if you want to hear a friendly fellow sharing his passion for history in a memorable, enjoyable way, give this podcast a try. And buy a membership if you love it as much as I do :)

New episodes come out on Mondays, barring unforseen circumstances. Last week we had a wonderful episode about Anglo-Saxon healthcare with a companion members-only episode about the development of western science. Great stuff! I can hardly wait for the new episode tomorrow.

Homeschoolers: This is a great resource. I would have let Henry listen to this podcast at any age and he likes it now at 17 even though he’s not quite as fanatical about British history as I am; however, there is the occasional mild curse word when Jamie gets all worked up about something and of course there are some unsavory historical events mentioned. Jamie doesn’t dwell on the gory details, but squeamish parents might wish to pre-screen.

Someone asked in a comment how to find my recording of the Sherlock Holmes story, “The Red-Headed League”. I link to my solos (and duets) on the “Librivox Recordings” page here on my blog, but if you want to see a list of all the individual chapters and poems I’ve ever recorded for LibriVox, go here:

http://librivox.org/reader/19

“THe Red-Headed League” is part of “The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes”:

http://librivox.org/the-adventures-of-sherlock-holmes/

There ya go :)

Dan and I are in Julian for a little two-day getaway! We’re staying at the Eaglenest Bed and Breakfast, which is just wonderful. So comfortable and pleasant. Highly recommended! I can’t wait to come back here again.

Eaglenest B&B in Julian, California.

More later, time to go upstairs for home-cooked breakfast!

Dan retweeted this cartoon and it made me laugh so hard!

Every day I can’t do anything until the 10am NASA news briefing is over. It’s all so fascinating and exciting. Tune in tomorrow at 10am Pacific for the latest updates and photos from Curiosity!
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html

Watched NASA’s live stream from the control room as the Curiosity rover landed safely on Mars.

SCIENCE!

A quote from the press conference afterward: “Tomorrow we are going to begin exploring Mars.”

I just listened to this week’s episode of This American Life, show #470: “Show Me The Way”. Act 1 was a wonderful long story about an unhappy teenager who ran away to meet his favorite author, Piers Anthony. Near the end of the story was a quote from the author’s notes in one of his novels:

“One thing you who had secure or happy childhoods should understand about those of us who did not. We who control our feelings, who avoid conflicts at all costs, or seem to seek them. Who are hypersensitive, self-critical, compulsive, workaholic, and above all survivors. We are not that way from perversity, and we cannot just relax and let it go. We’ve learned to cope in ways you never had to.” — Piers Anthony

Beautiful.

You can listen to the episode online here:

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/470/show-me-the-way

Good news, everyone! I’ve got a brand-new audiobook for you. It only took four years to make :)

Emma, by Jane Austen http://librivox.org/emma-version-4-by-jane-austen/

I started this as a duet with Annie in 2008. She drifted away from Librivox before we finished and the project lay dormant until I asked Laurie Anne if she’d finish it with me. It took us about a year but we did it! I read the even chapters and then when I got to the end I worked backwards for a while, so the end of the book is just me. So — three different readers but all excellent (if I say so myself) and most of volume 3 is just me.

I’m so happy this is finished because I’ve been wanting a new book for my all-night audiobook playlist but I have strict requirements: it must be a book I already know really well, and it must be read by me or a reader with a similar style.

Many thanks to Aravis for proof-listening and cataloging!

Hope you like it!

Photo time!

Me (June 3, 2012):

A hummingbird:

Cabled cardigan in progress (Ravelry link):

One green striped sock (Ravelry link):

Lace cardigan in progress (Ravelry link):

Blue-ribbon socks at the fair (Ravelry link):

Honorable Mention shawl at the fair (Ravelry link):

JUst a quick post to try to get back in the habit. Lots of stuff happened between the last post and this one… I had a small stroke in early May (I’m ok now, just a little numb on my left side), we saw the AMAZING “This American Life Live” show, I won a First Place and an Honorable Mention for my knitting at the fair, I finished recording the entire Fellowship of the Ring, I knit a lovely pair of red-and-white striped socks and started a green-and-brown pair, I started a red lace cardigan, I started a big thick oatmeal-colored bulky cabled cardigan, Henry finished his Instructor Training at his Kung Fu school and has a job as a fledgling instructor now.

Also I got a speeding ticket for driving 45 in a 35 zone. Totally my fault, was listening to music and not paying attention. Cost me $400 and I have to do online traffic school to keep my insurance rates from going up too. So I’m going to do that now before the deadline gets any nearer.

But first I need to check my Pocket Planes… ;-)

My favorite heel turn. I’m tired of trying to remember which of my Ravelry projects I wrote this in, so I’m putting it here:

Knit across half the stitches of the heel flap. Knit one additional stitch, ssk, knit 1, and turn the work. On the next (wrong side) row, slip 1, purl 3, purl 2 together, purl 1, turn. On the following row, sl1, knit to one stitch before the turning point from the previous row, ssk, knit 1, turn; sl1, purl to one stitch before the turning point from the previous row, purl 2 together, purl 1, turn. Repeat these two rows until the heel is turned and you have a nice triangle.

Whoops, while listening to The Fellowship I found that the end of chapter 7 was missing. Dunno what happened there. So I re-recorded the ending and uploaded the file again. Sorry about that!

The truncated file is about 29 minutes long. The fixed file is about 32 minutes long.

Here’s the fixed file: Fellowship1 07 In the House of Tom Bombadil

I just found some very old recordings to share — The Hobbit and book 1 of The Fellowship of the Ring! I must have recorded these when Henry was seven or so. The Fellowship was first and it’s actually my second recording of the book.

When Henry became obsessed with Tolkien at age six I recorded the whole Fellowship (and The Two Towers, I think) onto cassette tapes which then wore out with daily listening, so when Dan gave me my first iBook with a built-in mic I re-recorded The Fellowship digitally. After we did book 1 we decided to do The Hobbit, and I guess after that we branched out to other authors and never got around to book 2. But don’t worry — I want to hear it so I’ll record it soon! Recording quality will be much higher but there won’t be a little person asking questions and reading the poems :)

Links to both books are here: Kayray Reads to You, or you can download directly from my page on archive.org: http://archive.org/details/KayrayReadsToYou

Happy Easter, everyone! I hope the Bunny brought you some nice treats :)

Here’s a little audio Easter present from me:

The Velveteen Rabbit, by Margery Wiliams.

And also an English/German recording of the wonderful little picturebook, Guess How Much I Love You/ Weisst du eigentlich wie lieb ich dich hab? (Elli sent the German version to me for Easter!)

This post makes me laugh and laugh and laugh, and then laugh some more:

http://www.happyplace.com/14844/childs-drawing-serves-as-grim-st-patricks-day-warning

Hear that, Leprechauns? Looks like the luck of the Irish just ran out. Little Jack McGovern doesn’t want your pot of gold or your Lucky Charms or whatever freaky crap you have stashed at the end of your rainbow. He wants you dead, and he’s using nothing but a lasso, a spear, and an unnamed accomplice with messed up arms to make it happen. On March 17th, the dirt will get muddy with fresh, green blood. Top o’ the mournin’ to ye!

Look out, leprechauns!

I appreciate young Jack’s writing style. Terse, to the point, no-frills.

The funniest knitting pattern you’ll ever read!

http://www.knitty.com/ISSUEss12/FEATss12SIT.php

Now, you may never have considered knitting a purse in the shape of a pineapple; but in the mid-19th century, judging from the number of extant examples and the number of published patterns for making them, they were Just the Thing. The craze was only for pineapple bags, mind you, not for hand luggage knit in the shape of fruits generally.

The pattern I figured I’d use is in the only Victorian knitting book of which I own an original copy: The Ladies’ Work Table Book, published in Philadelphia in the 1860s. There is no author’s name given, possibly because she was afraid of angry readers coming after her. The patterns in The Ladies’ Work Table Book are the sort of that give the entire era a bad name.

The pineapple bag, in particular, is a doozy. It rambles like an opium dream from one page to the next without even a paragraph break, only to end abruptly with the supremely helpful phrase “…then knit the stalks and narrow [bind] off.”

Then knit the stalks? Stalks? What are the stalks supposed to look like? I grew up in Hawaii across the street from a pineapple field. I don’t remember any stalks. How big are they? Answer comes there none.

ROFLMAO! Thank you, Franklin Habit!