The parade was my kind of parade. Your basic small town parade: be there by 8:30, line up with the other 99 Girl Scouts and their leaders, fall in at 9 behind the 18 year old with the deely boppers who is shepherding this gaggle, between the fire engine and the Cub Scouts. (The Vets, the American Legion's Ladies' Auxiliary, the marching firemen and the high school marching band have already gone). March around the block (wave at the folks on the front step and at the people in the window at the retirement home) and head down (up?) Union Street to the cemetary. Wave to everyone as you go by, arrive at the end point at 9:30. The Mayor makes a speech. The Assemblyman makes a speech. The Memorial Day Volunteer Middle School Band (seated at the end point from the beginning of the parade) plays God Bless America. Two recitations by veterans (Flanders Field and Gettysburg Address). The bugler plays taps, a bagpipe band plays Amazing Grace and we head back to our cars. I'm home by 10:27. A little hot and sweaty, but a nice start to a holiday morning and not a problem that I parked in a 2 hour parking space.

The rest of the day was quiet. The younger offspring managed to fry himself in the sun the day before when the neighbors opened their backyard pool for the first time. (We've since had a few discussions on "I'm not treating you like a baby if I tell you to put on sunscreen" and he's now had a lecture by the dr as well.) He needed to hibernate from the 95 degree weather and I was not loathe to accomodate. I got spinning done and knitting. My mother got me Gathering of Lace for my b-day and I spent some time leafing through that. Lovely stuff.

Thanks for all the good wishes about my birthday. It was one of the nicest in a long time.

Happy Birthday to me, Happy Birthday to me!

I'm off to go march in a parade. Have a good day!

Pictureless blog for a while - the camera is dead. It's been eating batteries for a while but yesterday it just flat gave up the ghost. Pity about that - I was all set for a picture taking orgy, catching up on everything I've been working on.

So, your imaginations will have to go into overtime for a while...
Item 1 - I've reached the end of the upper fan section on Hyrna Herborgar in the extended mode, which means I've gotten to row 62 (227 stitches) and am about to move into the diamonds. In a not-overly-blocked state (stretched but not as it will be in final blocking) the upper fan section spans my shoulders so I think it will be enough to add 3 repeats in the upper section and 3 in the lower section for 13 fans total. Sylvia, I can't thank you enough for the spreadsheet you sent with the numbers all worked out - for as far as I've gotten, they're bang on the money.

Item 2 - I've been spinning the black cherry and have plied the first batch with the yellow/orange/red and I like the way it's coming out. More on that later.

Item 3 - I've been spinning the cherry end of the multicolor ball on the spindle and I really like the way that's coming out as well. It's a subtly variegated red and in such nice matte shade. It makes me want to spin a compatibly colored silk and weave a scarf so that it came out in blocks - one block all wool, one block all silk and two blocks wool/silk. Small blocks, about 1 inch or so, all over the piece. I can picture it, I just haven't figured out the best way to get from here to there.

I dunno when I'll get the camera working again - I may have to borrow a friend's.

Falcons

The falcons at the Kodak site have had a rough start this year - six eggs laid, three viable eyases. The female parent (Mariah) had an accident early on and her leg is still not "right", but they are fun to watch and the kids are big enough that mom isn't always on top of them.

Weaving?

Sara has posted a series of very interesting commentary and questions on the state of weaving, weaving guilds and conferences. There is no particular doubt that weaving is on the wane at the moment, the guilds are growing somewhat older and the conferences available are consequently in danger of falling to the ax of an aging, tiring membership. I have absolutely zero answer to any of her questions. (Except as a sidelight to one comment she made, that only 20% of the subscribership to Handwoven is estimated to actually currently weave, and that is just to say that that would strike me as typical of any endeavor - that catch phrase of 20% of the people do 80% of the work has truth behind it no matter what the field. So what are the total numbers of subscribers to Handwoven and are they going up or down? 20% of 100,000 is a lot larger than 20% of 5,000)

Her posts have given me furiously to think, however, and have made me pull my head from the sand to some extent. I'm not a weaver. I am not exactly sure I want to be a weaver. But in view of the cost/time/space/effort thing perceived to be involved with being a weaver, I have been doing that metaphorical sitting in the corner, fingers in my ears, La la la I can't HEAR you. So I haven't really explored what I need to do in order to be able to do what I want to do. And if someone came up to me tomorrow and said, you have 3 weeks to live, I would be kicking myself big time for wasting time and that's just plain stupid. I may not want to do what I think I want to do, but not finding out whether I do or not is idiotic.

So. What do I want to do? I'll start by thanking Sara for outlining some of the ways to be a weaver on the cheap, to see if you like it. That's a most excellent start, because I look at all of those and say, No, that isn't what I want to do. And so for me, the answer is No, I don't want to be a weaver. Weaving for the sake of weaving is not what pulls me in. I admire the heck out of 99% of the woven stuff I see but it doesn't grab me and say come play.

What I want is something different - I want to play with silk. I adore silk. Playing with silk cocoons doesn't interest, I don't want to reel silk, particularly. It's fun to watch but doesn't draw me in. I like spinning silk, on the wheel and on spindles. I like needlepointing with silk. I like knitting with silk, and crocheting with silk, but while silk in any of these options is fun, it doesn't show the silk to its absolute best advantage, such as here, or here. So. What I want to do is make silk fabric. Which then leads back to: weaving. I don't want to be a weaver; I want to weave with silk. A distinction without a difference some might say, but one that I'm finding important in the clarification of my thoughts on the subject.

And that 's about as far as my coherent thinking has gone on this topic. I've more ideas rolling about in my head, but mostly what I have is questions. All of my other fiber activities involve miniaturization - itty bitty needlepoint and cross stitch, lace knitting on #2 or 3 needles, filet crochet with a #3 hook, spinning laceweight on a lightweight spindle. I'm not an ultraminiaturist but I like the fine stuff. How does that fit in with weaving silk fabric? What sort of weaving equipment will let me produce what I want and where do I get it and how best to learn how to use it? Can I start with a rigid heddle table loom and get to where I want to go, or is that a dead end. Much to ponder. Even more to research.

So, Sara, I don't have any answers to your questions. I do know that the items mentioned to lure knitters into weaving through Big Yarns just make me shudder. Not to say that they won't work, but I didn't get into knitting through Big Yarns either.

Grist

I finally calculated grist on the alpaca/silk lace. It's just about 4123 ypp. And since Sylvia tells me the Icelandic is 2234 ypp, my eyeball feel that this was a finer yarn has been confirmed. It doesn't really affect what I'm doing except to agree that I'm going to go with the expansion module on the shawl. And oh, by the way, I'm going to have finish spinning the last bit of silk hankie and ply the last skein or I won't have enough yarn. On the other hand, I'll get back the two bobbins that are being held up by my dilatory nature (or rather, by my unwillingness to spin the hankie - it was making my hands hurt).

Dyeing can be fun

My favorite kind at the moment is dyeing when you don't know precisely what you're going to get. As with many things, this may progress to the stage where one is happiest being able to reproduce exactly what one wants, but at this point in time, randomness is good.

This started life as a black and white spotted fleece (from Whitefishbay Farm, so it's Corriedale, but I didn't order it myself so who it was is a mystery). I washed it by hand and flicked it with a dog comb then grabbed random bits of white or grey or black for spinning. This was then dyed once and I didn't like it (too dull pink) and dyed it again. I'm now a happy camper. Red is good. Dark red is even better.

I did say I was working on the Hyrna Herborgar and I now have pictoral proof.
I'm up through the first fifty rows and am going on for that next three sets that will give me a larger shawl. I had vaguely worked out that this is what I thought I wanted and Sylvia says yes indeedy and went on to say I want three more sets of the next pattern too without my having to figure it out at all. Thanks Sylvia. This is being knit in a silk/alpaca laceweight I spun up last year. I've still been a complete slob about figuring out the grist. I promise I will. Soon.

Dyeing and spinning: I'm spinning up the dark cherry first - I'm putting it with some more of the red/orange/yellow which is currently hogging the bobbins. The blue/red bump will have to wait its turn. I think I'm going to go for a graduated look from one end to the other but I'm not going to try to preserve the colors with a Navajo ply. More thought is required before I start.

Books: Robbing the Bees is a history of honey and bee keeping. Makes me want to run right out and get some bees to keep, or if not that, at least to start buying exotic types of honey and comparing them. Half the types in there that were mentioned as special are things I've never heard of. I like alfalfa honey and buckwheat honey and wildflower, but there are any number of other types I need to check out. Most excellent reading.

All of My Patients are under the Bed. Somewhat dated, but still interesting story of a vet in New York City who came to specialize in housecalls on cats. If you like amusing stories about cats, or stories of life in NYC in the 50s, it's a good book to dip into.

New Rules. Political satire and social commentary; screamingly funny.

Why is the Foul Pole Fair? A trip to a baseball game with the history of the different parts of the game, ballpark, and people explained. Very readable even for this non-baseball fan.

Baseball an Illustrated History This goes along with the PBS series on Baseball from some years ago. I enjoyed that and I enjoyed this also, even though, as mentioned previously, I'm not a big baseball fan. My interest lies in the historical commentary and there is lots of it here. Wonderful collection of pictures and personal vignettes. It's a huge book and you'll get a hernia.

Feminist Fairy Tales. I keep meaning to check the copyright date on this. I liked most of the stories, but it falls into a category I've come to avoid: stories or books that are written just to emphasize that girls are just as good as boys. There's got to be something more to the story than just that, or why bother? It's readable but not something I'll bother to keep.

The Big Over Easy. Funny, but a lot harder to read than the Thursday Next stories. It took me a while to figure out what the problem was. One of the main characters had to decide if she was going to betray another or not and I couldn't decide for a while if she would or wouldn't. I hate that kind of thing and had a hard time making myself keep reading it till she got past that decision. After that I buzzed through the rest of the book and enjoyed it quite a bit.

Fun with Color II

Take one bump white top (lovely soft stuff) and dye it as is; i.e. don't unroll it, just soak in water with detergent, then add to dye pot (Cushing's Navy Blue) in its now soggy state. Watch the outer layer drift apart and wonder about the inside. Once it has been through the bring-up-to-temperature and let-cool-down stages, drain it out.






Rewrap so the outside (now very dark blue) is on the inside, and the inside (now still mostly white with large flashes of pink and some blue) is on the outside. Don't bother soaking it again, it's still soggy. Make up a dyepot with Cushing's Cherry (that bluish red aforementioned in the previous post) and plop it in to repeat the heat and cool cycles.


Result:

I found the way that the various portions of each dye mix penetrated the bump to different depths interesting. I think if I were to do this again, I would pick colors that were variations of the same rather than two different colors so that the range of color would not be quite as extreme. For this experiment I did want to see the effect of the two different colors. Now to spin it up.

Fun with Color
This week, in odd moments, I've been playing with the dye pot. I don't really have space for a full dye kitchen and I don't have a good scale for weighing dyes with and, at the moment, I'm satisfied with playing with premixed colors, so Cushing dye it is. Take one pound of brown heathery Falkland Islands Rosemary wool. Add Cherry dye (a blue tinged red) and voila -

Black Cherry!













Moving on then to white roving (Bump A) I used Crimson in order to come up with this:
I'm not sure what I did differently between the two dye sessions but the second set of top is significantly less levelly dyed than the first. If I were going to use this as a standalone I would redye it and even it out but I'm not and the color variation will work well for what I have in mind.

There is a bump B of white but that is currently in the dyepot and will have to wait to take its turn on stage in due time.

A-dyeing we shall go, a-dyeing we shall go...

I've got the dye pot simmering. Light brown Rosemary wool top with Cherry Cushings. It didn't all strike on yesterday so I'm bringing it up to temp again and adding more vinegar. Waiting in the wings is white Rosemary wool top and Crimson Cushings. Should be fun.

Last week was a whirl through spring break with the kids - Easter with the PGrandPs for two days in Pennsylvania, then 3 days in MD with the MGrandPs and my nephew (age 4) and a visit with my brother and his wife (who rented a Cesna for the day and took the kids for rides), and evening visits with my sister who was too overwhelmed at work to stay and play much though she would have liked.

Taking a 4 yo to the National Zoo was fun, although I didn't remember the zoo being on a hill. You can go uphill or down - we started at the up side, so of course it was all uphill at the end. A good time was had by all and he slept all the way home.

I'm actually making decent but slow progress on the Herborgar. Part of the problem is I need to switch to wooden needles - the Addis are too slick for the yarn I'm using. Sylvia, I appreciate the offer on the walk through, but I think I'm past the setup part now where I was losing myself and into the part that's going to be much more mindless knitting. I need to take a hard look at the yarn grist I've got and the recommended grist and make an assessment of whether I need to follow your lead and lengthen the shawl a bit. My gut feel is that I do need to.

Being the compleat lemming when I finish a project, I often wind up starting the next project by picking the thing up from my to-do pile that I have most recently seen someone else doing. In this case, that is the Hyrna Hergorbar from the "Three Cornered and Long Shawls" from Schoolhouse Press. Yes, I'm using the translation also. I got the book last fall and have been drifting back and forth through it, trying to decide what first. What first has now been decided, thanks to Claudia, and I cast on two nights ago. I have quickly determined that this is not a shawl to knit while doing much of anything else. Classical music on the stereo is ok. Nothing else. I have gotten to row 21, 75 stitches, and am about to tink it back since I have made a mistake in row 20. I have enough of the pattern down visually that it doesn't take a whole lot of careful scanning of the chart for every stitch, but the middle and ends are where the action is and I've goofed it up.

This pattern is not amenable to my standard methods of keeping track of what I'm doing with lace. So far, I'm counting each side of the midline, but that will become cumbersome quickly. I'm still pondering the problem.

Sadly, pictures will have to wait until I have access to the camera again. I'm using some handspun I made with no particular aim in mind except "probable shawl". It's wheel spun, one strand alpaca and one strand tussah silk hankie. I've no idea on weight, wpi, ypp, or anything as I was a total sloth when I did this and just winged it. I'm pretty sure I have enough yardage available. Anyone want to take bets?

Well, the cold became bronchitis but the antibiotics are kicking in. I did finish and wash and block the striped one and that's much more interesting to think about. The finished measurements were 6 ft x 23 inches.






I took a picture on the Eldest Child (she has a black shirt to wear under it) and while she doesn't care for the colors, she admitted it was a. light and b. warm. Now all it needs is a shawl pin.

I hate having colds. I hate it particularly when everyone around me has a cold and expects me to do that motherly shtuff when I just want to climb in a corner and be left alone. I'm not even getting any knitting done. I did finish a book, Eyes of the Dragon, by whatsisname. Stephen King (yes I did have to get up and go look. I'm really that out of it.) It was good. I might even read another book by him if I could be sure it wasn't a horror story, not being into giving myself nightmares.

I'm almost through tucking in ends on the stripey one and will post pics as soon as it is blocked.

I don't get it. Really I don't.

I may have mentioned before that I don't really see eye to eye with many of my neighbors. Not in the sense of not getting along with them but in the sense that I don't understand them.

I went to an open house for the family of one of Sean's friends - they were moving away. I dropped in just for a bit to visit and then to collect my son who'd been there all day. Several people had brought along goodies to share and we were awaiting the pizza that was anticipated at any moment. My next door neighbor wandered by with a plate that looked tasty and I asked him what it was - eggplant casserole. Yum. Never mind the pizza - just let me have some of that.

I was enjoying it and another neighbor from down the street, whom I had been chatting with, was also digging in, when she commented that it was extremely difficult to make, it just took hours. I was startled and made some comment to the effect that I really didn't think so. I hadn't made it for a while, but it wasn't that hard. She was rather offended (why? she didn't make it, I knew that) and started explaining just how it was made and how complicated it was. I nodded along and when she was through, mentioned a variation that I liked to make with it. This apparently was sufficient to feel that I wasn't belittling the dish and she soothed her feathers and we talked of other things.

I hadn't made it for a while and I do like it and the eggplant looked good at the store today and I'd cheese left over from the weekend, so I made it this afternoon.

2 eggplants (the larger ones, fresh and not woody)
milk
bread crumbs
romano cheese
mozzarella cheese (asiago cheese, parmesan cheese, as available)
1 can tomatoes
1 can tomato sauce
oil

Peel the eggplants. Slice into 1/4-3/8 inch slices. Dip in milk. Dip in bread crumbs mixed with grated romano cheese. Saute in oil. (Eggplant drink oil. Use a nonstick pan, but they are going to drink the oil up). Blot on paper towels.

Blend the tomato sauce and tomatoes in a blender. Grate the cheese(s) (about 3/4 cup grated cheese).

Layer eggplant slices, tomato sauce and grated cheese in a casserole dish, beginning with eggplant and ending with cheese. Bake at 350 F for approximately 45 minutes or until lightly brown on top and bubbling at the endges. A fork should go in easily.

It took 35 minutes from start of the peeling to putting it in the oven, and another 45 minutes to bake.

I just don't get the 'it's really hard and complicated' thing.

Children's books

The answer to Devorah's question is that of course Dr. Seuss's books are on the eternally wonderful list. My personal favorites are And to think that I saw it on Mulberry Street, Happy Birthday to You and Horton Hatches the Egg. oh, and The Butter Battle. and the Grinch. and The Sleep Book. Ok, so almost anything he wrote. But those are the top three. Umm, six.

Other children's books - for the younger set I like the Sandra Boynton books, which were not out when I was young but which my children adored. Also Piggy in the Puddle by Charlotte Pomerantz, and the Jan Brett books with their wonderful panelled illustrations. The school library in Asmara had a number of the Snipp, Snapp, Snurr books by Maj Lindman and I was most disappointed to not be able to find them in libraries stateside when we got back. Amazon seems to list them so it looks like they've been reprinted. My sister had some of the Noddy books by Enid Blyton and I found some of the Mr. Twiddle books by the same author which my son thinks are wonderful. These also seem to be being reprinted and I need to look into this.

For older children: My all time list has to include Diane Duane (So you want to be a wizard, etc) and Tamora Pierce, Andre Norton, and the Narnia books. The Hed books by Patricia McKillip are wonderful. And Robin McKinley, particularly The Blue Sword, The Hero and the Crown, and Beauty.

Various comments:

1. It's quiet this morning. After three days of wind roaring through the trees, the wind has finally died down to a faint breeze. All the leaves that were on the ground in the woods now seem to be either on the fence line around the dog's yard or in a swirl around the front steps. The wind has sounded like a freight train for three solid days (which leads me to wonder what people compared it to before trains? Actually a freight train sounds like a gale running through the bare limbs of the winter trees.)
2. Somehow I didn't get the memo that the offspring don't have school tomorrow. I don't think I would have scheduled my annual poke and prod for tomorrow if I had. Maybe I can sneak in a trip to Robin's farm afterwards?
3. K is a genuine 1st soprano. This amazes me - I could never reach higher than an F on a good day - she soars to A without a stop and in an argument with her brother over who could go higher (she or his trumpet) she managed to hit an even higher C# with barely a wobble. Vocal lessons have given her the discipline and support she really needed. (He was annoyed - his highest on the trumpet was only B flat).
4. Falling downstairs is not all it's cracked up to be. The visible bruises are starting to fade and the whack on my head is almost back to normal.
5. It's a sunny day (though cold) and I want to go for a walk. Better find a new book on tape though. Hmmm. Maybe a trip to the library had best come first.
6. Animals in Translation by Temple Grandin is a fascinating book. I have to get hold of another of her books (Thinking in Pictures). Her world view is very interesting and she pulls together an incredible number of different fields in this book. I got the book out of the library because people on the dog training list were discussing it and differing from some of her opinions on dogs and I see where they were coming from, but I also see (and they acknowledged) that she has a lot of really interesting material in this book on how autistic people think and how that relates to understanding the behavior of animals.
7. The red cat has developed a habit of prowling the house when everyone else has gone. Then, having checked the perimeter, he comes in and stretches up as high as he can reach and carefully inserts his claws in my leg. Having gotten my attention, he awaits being picked up and settles himself carefully up over my chest and shoulder. One hand of mine is expected to support his rear and the other is expected to begin the patting. This doesn't leave me many hands available for typing.
8. I got an A in my latest class. I am happy.

Weather
The weather has been very... changeable. This weekend it was warm and sunny. And rainy. And sunny. And warm. We went for a hike in the woods where it was muddy. We decided to hike back along the road where it wasn't muddy, instead of retracing our steps. Some mud was (reasonably) fun, but lots would have been overkill.

Then, on Monday, it thundered and poured. It was windy and rainy. Just before sunset, the clouds broke in the west and we had the first sunshine all day.
Today is much of the same, wild winds followed by much precipitation, only it's now about 30 degrees colder and the precipitation is snow. No thunder at the moment, but we are promised more.

New spindle
I've admired these spindles at Gaustad studio for some time. I never asked questions about them; the blurb mentioned "designed for flax" and I gave a mental sigh of relief. I have no interest in flax, I don't want to spin it, don't need that spindle. Then Sylvia mentioned them in conjuction with "silk". Ok, silk. I'm paying attention now.

I have the silky oak one mentioned as "good for cotton or fine silk". It is doing just fine with tussah silk. The bottom whorl slides off and you can spin with it either way. I had to take the bottom whorl off to learn to spin on it, but now that I have the trick down, it works like a charm with or without the bottom whorl. Stephenie gave me a few tips and tricks with it which helped, but the single biggest thing after "roll it up (or down) your thigh" that makes a difference is rolling it up my thigh with just the tip end, rather than the side of the shaft. This is not how I spin other thigh rollers, but makes a big difference in the wobble factor on this one. It isn't yet habit to do it with this one so I always have a moment of "what? Oh yeah" when I start spinning with it.

The striped one is making good progress. I find it amazing how different kinds of light make this particular piece look so different. The first picture available earlier was under artificial light on a cloudy day. The second picture was in bright sunlight. This picture today is under the Ott light and had to be lightened, though the flash did not feel impelled to go off.

It's now about 13 inches wide and moving along smartly. The Ott light separates the colors and make the different ones look very stark, fading out the intervening blending shades. The previous picture is much more true to what I see in person. I'll try again on a sunny day.

The Wizard of London by Mercedes Lackey was a decent book and one I will buy eventually, but not as good as some others in this series. Possibly my disappointment in it stems from the fact that I read the short stories that were incorporated in it some years ago and skimmed through those parts rather hastily. That meant that my reading was somewhat jerky, which might be why I felt the book moved in fits and starts. It might not have been the book, just me. The best book in this series by Lackey is still The Serpent's Shadow or The Fire Rose, which latter book is set in the same fantasy world although not formally grouped with the more recent books. She's done a good job of retelling fairy tales within a particular world-view context and since I love fairy tales...

Sylvia tagged me for the book meme. I will always talk about books.

1: Name five of your [many] favorite books Bridge of Birds by Barry Hughart, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein, Gilliane by Roberta Gellis, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte and Dear and Glorious Physician by Taylor Caldwell. These I read and reread and never tire of.
2: What was the last book you bought? For myself? America Knits by Melanie Falick, a book I read several years ago from the library and wanted for myself but not at hardback prices. In paperback now and the last thing I bought with the gift card my daughter gave me for Christmas. For the kids, more recently, I bought Messenger by Lois Lowry for K (related to two other books she had read and liked) and Dragon's Blood by Jane Yolen for S.
3: What was the last book you read? The last book I read... As in finished? Ummm - I'm in the middle of Martin the Warrior, reading it to S, and I started New Rules by Bill Maher and Why is the Foul Pole Fair by Vince Staten after picking them up at the library yesterday, and the Road to Underfall by Mike Jefferies as a bedtime story, but the one I finished most recently must be Desiree by Roberta Gellis which was my most recent bedtime story.
4: List five books or authors that have been particularly meaningful to you (in no particular order). Andre Norton got me into science fiction and then into fantasy and for years I read everything she wrote. Robert Heinlein was another I read everything by and has always been extremely thought provoking. Stephen Jay Gould has been my hero for explaining things in science in terms even a casual lay person could understand, particularly in putting science in its historical context. Roberta Gellis and Georgette Heyer are my favorite romance authors, in their different ways, because the serious research that underlies both their bodies of work shines through.
5: Name some books you’ve been dying to read but just haven’t yet. I dunno about this one. Most of the books that I really want to read but haven't yet aren't published yet. The last Harry Potter book comes to mind. The next Magdalene la Batarde book by Roberta Gellis, Chains of Folly. The Big Over Easy by Jasper Fforde, which is apparently out now (as I look into this) and which I need to get from the library since I laughed myself sick over his earlier books.

The 50 book challenge was something I ran into on Jarret's blog last year and had to go figure out. Technically, it seems to be a challenge to read 50 books in a year. Phah, child's play. I chose to interpret this as a challenge to read 50 new books in a year, not counting those I reread for old times sake, which adds up to many more than 50 and which were cluttering up the list. I'm doing this because I like to read, and because I like to share the books that I read with others, and because I've been losing track of some of the titles that I've read and having a list in one place wouldn't be a bad thing.

(Memory is a funny thing. I generally remember the written word. But if my mind is convinced I have another way to remember something, it cuts out duplication. What was the name of the book of cowboy short stories I read which was always on the middle shelf at eye level in the third stack back on the right in the Howard County main library before they built a new main library in downtown Columbia and shifted all the books around? I still don't know. But the stories were really good, particularly the one about the guy who had a store and could get anything you needed and another guy tried to stump him and eventually ordered a wife. Or the science fiction book that was in the center section (on the other side) of the end of children's fiction in the same library- that one I eventually tracked down mentally (The Secret of the Marauder Satellite by Ted White which sounds very Hardy Boys-ish but was pretty interesting) but so far the cowboy stories is a lost cause. So having a list of book names might not be a bad idea.)

Should I give a blurb on each as I finish them?