Wednesday Hodge Podge

As promised, my chocolate cluster! We’ll see if chocolate falls from the sky today. :) Now, let’s get on with the Hodge Podge, shall we?

1. William Shakespeare's birthday is celebrated on April 23rd...When did you last read Shakespeare? What's your favorite Shakespeare play?

I have a little Shakespeare Treasury book of verses that I use for scrapbooking sometimes and I was just reading in it yesterday, but I last read a full play at Christmastime in 2010. I’d just finished the semester and wanted some lighter reading. Yes, I just called Shakespeare light reading. I read A Midsummer Night’s Dream. See? A comedy; light reading.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream is also my favorite Shakespeare play followed closely by The Tempest. The Tempest was the first Shakespeare play I saw in Stratford Ontario when I had just turned 16.


2. What food(s) would you recommend a foreign visitor try when they visit your home country?

Pizza and Southern Barbecue, two of my favorite totally American foods.


3. What's a lie you often tell yourself?

If there’s a lie I’m telling myself, it’s a pretty good one because so far I’ve got me fooled.


4. What's something you're good at that might surprise us? Remember this is a family friendly blog!

I tend to boast a lot, especially on my blog, it’s a Leo thing, so I don’t know how much I’d surprise anyone.

I used to sell my scrapbook kits under the designer name Digitalegacies Designs at Scrapbird in the first half of 2009. Today’s cluster was made with Digitalegacies Designs elements.


5. Who is your favorite animal character from a book?

Saggy Baggy Elephant


6. April showers bring May flowers...do you have a green thumb?

It’s not natural, but if I put my mind to it, that is as long as I remember, my plants don’t die.


7. Speaking of rainy days...which one of the following activities would you most want to spend time doing on a rainy day-

sort photos and create albums
bake cookies
read a good book
hold an all-day movie marathon
organize closets, cupboards, or bookshelves
try a new recipe
fix something that needs fixing

It depends on my mood and what needs done around the house. Biggest thing is rain makes me want coffee. I mean middle of the summer, driving in the rain, stop to get a cup of coffee. I’ve done that before one afternoon in Tennessee, rain pouring down in buckets and waterfalls on the walls cut through the mountains to make room for the Interstate, I just had to stop and get soaked to get a cup of coffee for the rest of the drive.

So from that list, organizing, baking or reading, but definitely with a big cup of coffee.


8. Insert your own random thought here.

I am likely in the market for a new e-reader. My Kindle seems to be on its last legs, again. The first Kindle I had for about 2-1/2 months still under warranty. It died when the screen froze up and started turning on with blank spaces and parts of several pages combined. Amazon replaced it with a refurbished Kindle that I’ve been reading since November 2010, almost a year and a half. Now it’s freezing and going ahead or behind multiple pages and ever three I read, I have to turn it off and on again to get it to move. I’ve been on the phone with tech support and they’re at a loss too. Of course, it’s not under warranty now and It’s going to need replaced.

My opinion, fewer than 2 years for a $140 purchase is a dismal return on the investment! So I’m looking for recommendations. I am hopelessly addicted to my e-reader, so it must be replaced, but I’m not committed to replacing my second Kindle with another Kindle.  At least the 25 pounds lost that I got the Kindle to reward myself for has lasted much better!

The only real “requirement” I have for an e-reader. is that I want a black and white one with the pale gray screen. That was the most amazing aspect of my Kindle and why I’ve read so much more than I ever have for pleasure. My Kindle was the first time I’ve ever been able to read without concentrating on overcoming my dyslexia. The difference in contrast between the background and words pretty much fixes it. I still see the white background first and have to work to see the words in a regular book, but on the gray background, I turn it on and see words! I buy my books on the computer and transfer them and I don’t use the keyboard, so WiFi/3G or a keyboard aren’t necessary, but the gray background is essential.


I am totally open to suggestions!