shanra

As you may (or may not) be aware it's National Just Read More Novels Month this month!

Enjoy!

Which of the books I read in 2008 have you read too*? Be warned this is a list of nearly 200 books.

* You don't have to have read them this year.

( Cut for Length )

Somewhere in the world, it is now the 15th. I know this is slightly like cheating, but I'm not good at suspense.

So, about two weeks ago, I came across a post in the GD, which made me very sad. It was on the terrorist attack in India. About fifteen minutes later that day -- I guess it was fifteen minutes. I'm not sure. -- I came across a story about this wonderful little boy whose dying wish was to feed the homeless.

It inspired me to do this, although I admit that my timing was rather lousy and my organisation leaves a lot to be desired. Anyway, that's not the important thing here. As my friends know, one of the reasons I stopped giving them presents for Christmas is because I'm not Christian. It's not my holiday and participating in the commercialised version of it feels Wrong. You can think of these as Christmas presents, though, if you want to. ^-^

Anyway, so there I was with this wish to do something for everyone and then with me not feeling like I had the time to figure it out properly before Christmas would hit and everything that involves. So I looked at my finances to see what I could afford, picked myself seven things which I thought would give everyone something to feel happy about in terms of what the gift went towards, assigned numbers at random, and made a post asking people to pick a few so I could jot down their name as being a recipient for a present. It set myself December 15th, 2008 as a time to reveal the presents because I wanted it to be a surprise for people. I certainly hope it'll be enjoyed as much by everyone who felt like being surprised (and by those who didn't) as it was by me to create! ^-^

Anyway, the presents are as follows:



"Ah!" You might say. "Where is the seventh magnet you mentioned?" As I write this, it's probably lost in the post somewhere, but it's heading towards someone else. I felt like throwing things around just a little due to one of my friends going through a pretty rough spot in these two weeks and I hoped it'd cheer her up some to get a present already. That was this present. I apologise for this bit of cheating, but I hope you'll all understand why I did it. ^-^ She'll know who she is.

Anyway, now that you've seen all those magnets and presents? Who got which? Well! There's a nice table I made for that. ^-^ I divided the cost of each item by the cost of the lowest value item, so I knew how many people could 'receive' each present.

2. Mother & Child Animal Package	annarti, cheery_idiot, nihiriki, psychodrake
3. Protect the Forest	bethalice, Dameon, El, eruiel, moonplanet, woventhread
4. Teach a Teacher	drazzi, paantha, rosiphelee
5. Plant 25 trees	taram_42
6. Animal House & Food	silvanime, tasllyn
7. School Books	A present for all the lovelies at the Green Dragon over on LT who partially inspired this to begin with.

Furthermore, I'd like to present the GD and the whole of hsp_women with the remaining 'slots' in that/my table. I'd also like to gift hsp_women with the donation I made to bring the total up to a nice round number.

Hope you've enjoyed finding out what this whole spiel of random numbers was about and that you enjoy knowing where everything went! I'm not entirely sure what to do with the magnets (I'd have declined them, but then I wouldn't be able to take pictures of them for everyone), but it doesn't seem right to offer them up to people when most of those items have more than one giftee. I'm open to ideas!

I'd love to do this again next year sometime, though I'd like to make the charities a little more varied and have it organised a little better. (Tips on that are welcome too. ^-^)

ETA: Aaaaaah! Leave it to me to forget someone! I'm really sorry about that, woventhread! You're listed where you should be now, though!

Help Vera or join the CBLDF. (Why support the CBLDF? Here's why!)

Or, do what I did, and spread the word.

To Live by the Pen

Tying in with the writers' strike over DVD royalties, but a good recommendation for anyone who writes, published or not, script writer or not.

...

I may hate Dickens' style and stories, but we need more people like him in this world if you ever just read what he's gone through to get the foundations for copyright and the ability to live off writing laid down.

(Cross-posted.)

 

Friends Only Banner by lecollage Artwork by Belle and Boo

The Cloths of Heaven Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths, Enwrought with golden and silver light, The blue and the dim and the dark cloths Of night and light and the half-light, I would spread the cloths under your feet: But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams. ~ William Butler Yeats