You may recall that I signed up to proofread scanned pages from Project Gutenburg last week. I believe I have received most if not all of the feedback for the pages I read last week. I am encouraged that it was presented in a friendly manner, lots of helpful advice and invitations to continue to participate. I’m not sure quite sure why I received from of the corrections, but there are methods for comparing my changes to the changes the second level proofreaders made. It’s difficult for me to take criticism, but I am learning so I will not quit. I will visit the site later today or possible Monday to better understand the proper methods of correcting scans.

One of the online communities I visit frequent has a book club forum or two. I haven’t participated in a book discussion yet because I’m not always proactive about finding the book. This time I found the book and requested it from the library hoping it would be in by mid-December in time for the discussion. It came in two weeks ago and I finally picked it up from the library this week. I meant to read a chapter or two a day, in between Christmas knitting. Well, there aren’t defined chapters and it was a quick read. I am planning on reading it again as I have the book until Dec. 9 but so far I’m rather impressed.

The subtitle is A fable about following your dream and is written by Paulo Coelho, translated by Alan R. Clarke. It is a quick read under 200 pages with large print on smallish pages. The illustrations on the copy I borrowed are absolutely wonderful. The entire story is told in a series of overlapping pictures. The meanings of which are a mystery until the book is completed. Without getting into the author’s head as to deeper meanings, we follow a shepherd boy named Santiago as he makes life altering choices. He is in the dark about some choices and has unique guidance for others. Santiago is promised a great treasure if he goes to Egypt, which seems like a far-fetched idea. While he attempts to reach Egypt he learns life lessons that many of us fail to learn until we have a great many more years under our belts. In life, should a person follow a dream, a passion, a heart’s desire even if the obstacles seems insurmountable? Should a person take the first easy path that crosses the difficult one? What about the third easiest path that crosses the increasingly difficult one? Should a person listen to counsel from strangers, friends, family?

In my opinion, I have never written a book report that would cause another person to pick up the book and read it. I hesitate to tell too much and ruin the adventure to the point where I don’t tell enough. Let this little paragraph serve as an invitation to read a book that may not change your life, but will certainly entertain you and possibly steal a piece of your heart.

Fish count Friday?

It’s still not Friday, but it is time for a fish update. As previously stated, this post is protected until after Christmas so the recipient won’t accidentally spoil his surprise.

This week’s progress: 29 fish for a total of 61 fish completed at this time, not quite the halfway point, which concerns me. I needed to be at least halfway through the fish making process by now. I need to find my muse earlier in the year or choose quicker knits. On the brighter side, I have the fish pattern memorized and I almost doubled my total. After 52 fish one would hope so.

New Fish (29)
1 more limelight green, 6 lemonade yellow, 6 dark sage green, 6 forest floor green, 6 mango orange-yellow, and 4 truffle heather (brownish-purple)

Previous Fish (32)
2 red from stash, 6 orange from stash, 5 yellow from stash, 1 chocolate brown from stash, 1 purple from stash, 6 cream/off-white from stash, 6 watermelon pink, 5 limelight green.

when public add tags: tessellate, fish, blanket

(a la Laura Numeroff style)

If you give a girl some yarn, she might stare at you questioningly, then ask for a pattern to make.
If you give a girl a pattern, she will most definitely ask for needles or a hook.
If you give a girl some needles or a hook, she might need instructions (to learn how to knit/crochet).
If you give a girl instructions, she may ask about videos to better understand the technique.
If you give a girl the url to videos, she’ll see others working on interesting projects and will ask if there are free patterns online.
If you give a girl pattern urls, she’s bound to discover a podcast or two about yarn and ask for an mp3 player.
If you give a girl an mp3 player, she’ll download podcasts and is bound to learn about Ravelry. She’ll ask for an invite.
If you give a girl a Ravelry invite, she’ll probably ask for more yarn.
If you give a girl some yarn . . .

When we visited Mackinaw in September, there were several turtles scattered throughout the island. I am sure there were more that we didn’t find. Here is one we did, we found it outside a gift shop/ butterfly house, though we did not visit this butterfly house.

I have started listening to CraftLit podcast. Crafts are spoken of and stores are read to us. Currently, we are listening to Little women, I still own it, I just don’t know where it is exactly. I only started listening a month ago but felt that I should at least start at the beginning of Little women to see if I liked the reading style or even the book. I am getting into the book, but I was under the impression that the podcast author was reading the story, not so. It is the version posted at Librivox. There are pros and cons about that. The easiest two are free and it’s already in electronic format. The con, it’s free, no one was paid to record it, nor was quality proofed. There are some chapters that are redone as the CraftLit author determines it’s necessary, I think that’s an interesting idea. I am getting a sense for “voice” readings, where each character needs a unique way of reading. I need to listen faster as new episodes are rolling in and I’m still on the older ones.

I also started reading The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. The story is a “fable about following your dreams”.

Happy Birthday to David. It’s my brother’s birthday. I am fairly certain he doesn’t read here, but in the event he finds it, he should know I think of him often. I don’t call him on his birthday, he doesn’t give me the chance. It’s a goofy tradition we have, he calls me to ask me if I know what day it is. I am his older sister, it’s difficult I have a brother. I usually make up something about deer season or a snow day. It seems to keep us entertained for several minutes.

Opening day of deer season in MI was yesterday, which meant that the family was together for the weekend. We ladies had a wonderful day crafting yesterday, working on Christmas cards and Christmas crafts. I was quite productive considering that I ate milk-laden bread on Thursday. I was able to give Jeff his R2D2 hat, which was fun. I forgot to take any pictures of it on his head. He seemed to like it, a lot. He grinned for several minutes after receiving it.

Seven Minute Saturday
To prevent rambling on and on and on, Seven Minute Saturday limits me to typing/writing for seven minutes before correcting mistakes(editing), adding links, or images. I’ll allow myself a few extra minutes when the post needs those.

I seem to be blogging my 101 things in 1001 days for NaBloPoMo. One of my goals is to read two selections for LibriVox, but I’m not ready to do that. I just finished a proof-listening project there, fun, but difficult. There are guidelines for listening, I can’t correct pronunciation, which makes me a bit crazy. If the mispronounced word is pronounced as another word, I marked it for correction anyway. Noises are supposed to be removed if they are distracting, but my partner didn’t hear half of the background noises I could. So, I’m taking a break from LibriVox volunteering until I’m ready to record my voice for a project. Until then, I’ve decided to word at Project Gutenburg proofing text. As a proofreader, I am presented with a scanned image and the OCR text from the scan. The list of things to look for while reading is rather lengthy, but easy pages are offered to newcomers only. There are also pages per project limits so one person can’t proof the entire book. I “read” 14 pages, but want to wait for some feedback from other proofreaders before reading more. After 21 days and 300 pages I can move up to a different level of proofing. When reading the information on the site, there seems to be a lack of proofreaders for some of the upper level proofing. If my math is correct, that’s 14 pages a day until I can help with second and third level proofreading, which I have met for today. I think I’ll read again on Monday or Tuesday.

Here’s the deal, this blog is supposed to be more than a “dear diary, today a boy looked at me” thing. Yet, I understand that my personal fitness is going to be boring to most people and I’m certainly not sharing my actual weight with anyone. One of my goals for 101 things in 1001 days is to run a 5k. I mentioned that I found a nice, gently used treadmill for sale and brought it home with me last week. In an effort to keep myself motivated, I am going to try to review something slightly healthy or health related as well as a quick update on my progress.

A website I have used in the past, but no longer use is eDiets. It is a subscription based service with a large menu and fitness system. Fill out a short questionnaire and you will receive a recommended menu profile to follow. I used this site years ago, before I knew I was allergic to dairy and before profiles. The profile suggested to me was not compatible with a dairy allergy. I remembered that I could tell it what foods I wanted excluded from the menu, but it still didn’t remove enough dairy. That meant I was constantly tweaking the menus. I tried the lactose intolerant menu, but it still used dairy products and said lactose-free this or lactose free that. The coolie menu application creates a shopping list so you can take it to the store and purchase only what you need. Cookies never appeared on my list, it’s a sad thing I tell you.

With eDiets fitness profile, you set your exercise level (beginning, intermediate, advanced), click the boxes for that equipment/tasks you want and it lines it all up for you. The site provides strength training exercises based on the equipment (or lack of) and you tell it what aerobics you like or can do including yoga, dancing, running, and swimming.

The drawbacks for the site were many for me. More than once I couldn’t log into the site to get my menu for the week, so my menu date would push back and I’d be shorted days. I started the program on a Sat. and when I stopped I was on Wed. The check-in process made me crazy. I don’t mind putting my weight into the thing once a week, but I also had to put my measurements in several times a month before I could get my menu. It would kick bogus measurements, so I had to either take them or waste time fiddling numbers. It only lets you have one computer generated menu at a time, the theory is that if you don’t lose enough weight, the menu will be tweaked to the lower caloric intake where possible. If you’re already at the lowest and you try to make it remove more calories it tells you to call and discuss your options with an eDiets representative. Because I had to check-in to receive my 7 day menu, I had a horrible time trying to plan grocery trips while trying to save gas. I would prefer to shop every other week, so I would create a menu, tweak it, print it and then scratch the menu and make a new one. The other option was to make the same menu two weeks in a row. Eventually, I just gave up and started copying the recipes into a file for breakfasts, lunches and dinners. I’d print the whole thing and make my own menus. The drawback? No computer generated shopping list for me. I also struggled with food for my husband. I would make a triple batch of each shared meal hoping that would be enough food for my sweet bean-pole who is unable to climb up to 130 and maintain it.

Other than that, the menus were great, I adored the fitness piece. There were new community boards, but since it’s all subscription based, people seem to come and go. I’m still using some of the recipes, the concept is good, the check in is just too cumbersome.

Stay tuned next week for a profile on a free site.

My stats:
Minutes: 95
Miles: 3.82
MPH: 2.4
Days: 3 (Su, W, Th)