podcast

I get so many wonderful emails from people who are fans of my audio books and often they express concern that I have fallen off the face of the earth as far as my website and audio books are concerned.  So this is a quick post to let you all know that I am just fine.  Better than fine, even.  I'm a mama to this beauty:

Well, it only took me two years but I have finished recording Anne of Green Gables!  It's a bit embarrassing that it took me so long but I've had a busy two years with meeting Stephen, finishing my master's degree, battling Meniere's Disease, getting engaged and married, and buying a house.  I feel somehow like I became an adult in the last two years if that makes sense.

Anyhow, I've podcasted chapters 36 and 37 and 38 will be up tomorrow.  I thought about spacing them out a bit more but figured I've made folks wait long enough!  Cataloging at LibriVox is in the works and a complete Zip file of all chapters will be available soon.

So as for what is next with the podcast, I'd like to get a good chunk more recording done before I start releasing more chapters.  Once I'm confident I can release on a regular basis, the podcast will start up again.  I'll continue with the next Anne book by L. M. Montgomery - Anne of Avonlea.  I've also begun recording a duet with Kara of Emma by Jane Austen.  We will trade off chapters and I will likely podcast that at some point as well.

Life in general has settled in which is really nice.  My health is the best it has been in years.  I found out that I had a bad Vitamin D deficiency which was likely causing a lot of my fatigue and weak immune system and once I had supplements for that I started to bounce back.  Our new house is beautiful and I'm really enjoying the yard and learning how to do some gardening. 

One of my favorite things about the house is this beauty who came with it:

Her name is Tasha and she is a Keeshond - a lovely arctic breed that I hadn't heard of before.  We bought the house from a nice gentleman named Bill and it turned out he can't have dogs in his new apartment.  We had been planning on getting a dog as soon as we had a house and fell in love with Tasha when we first saw the house.  We wrote in the contract that if Bill couldn't keep Tasha that we'd love to take care of her.  We were half joking but when it turned out that he couldn't keep her, everything fell into place.  She is the sweetest, most loving dog I've ever known and I think we are good for each other.  We get out and walk every morning and she is constant company and entertainment. I haven't been knitting a whole lot lately with the wedding, move, and summer heat but I think I'll have more time now to devote to knitting and knit-blogging both.  So stay tuned and thanks for your patience to my podcast listeners!

Some evil spammy thing wormed its way into my website and seriously messed up my blog.  All of my pages are GONE.  Podcast page, Pride and Prejudice page, Huck Finn page, Poetry Page, About Me page, all gone.  I was unable to post or edit anything until I finally got in the WordPress support forums and found this thread which contained the problem and solution.  Many thanks to those people more tech-headed than I am who figured this out.  Problem fixed, WordPress upgraded, plenty of stuff wiped out but for the most part the blog itself is fine so that's a relief. 

My theme and all the modifications I had made to it got wiped out in the upgrade but I don't mind, it's kind of like the chance to try out a new look.  So I'll probably be fussing with it for a bit until I settle on the theme I like best.  In the meantime, bear with me as I rebuild the lost pages of audio files and put everything back together again!

P.S. Wedding pics and Anne of Green Gables coming soon.

ETA: Yea, my pages weren't wiped out, they were just mysteriously transformed into posts!  They're back as they should be now.

Many thanks to all of my podcast and audiobook listeners who send me such encouraging emails and comments - I can't tell you how much it means to me. And thanks especially to the Anne listeners who've been nudging me to get on with it already! I am truly sorry to leave you all hanging for so long. Life has been busy and my motivation seemed to wane for a while. But I miss recording and LibriVox and plan on making it part of my routine again. So, without further ado, Chapter 29: An Epoch in Anne's Life is now available. I have already recorded Chapters 30-33 for an earlier group version of AoGG so those are ready and waiting in the wings. I plan on releasing a chapter a week and by the time Ch. 33 is released, I should have the rest of the book recorded and ready to continue on that schedule.

One of the things keeping me busy these days is wedding planning! Stephen and I got engaged the night before Thanksgiving and will be married May 10th.

Chapter 28 of Anne of Green Gables is ready for all my anxious podcast listeners! An Unfortunate Lily Maid is an awfully fun one - Anne ends up in a catastrophic situation, she and Gilbert have a testy exchange, Marilla despairs of Anne ever acquiring some sense, and Matthew, a man of few but wise words urges Anne not to give up on romance completely.

Here is a photo of The Secret of the Stole with Clue 2 finished:

I finished my Sockina Cotton socks:

Holy cow, I'm behind in blogging. First off, a new chapter of Anne of Green Gables is available. Click here for Chapter 27: Vanity and Vexation of Spirit.

Now, on with the knitting! Here are Stephen's birthday socks being modeled:

So my new podcast goal now that things have settled a bit in my life is to record and release one chapter a week, with the release on Sunday evenings.  So, without further ado, here is Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery, Chapter 26: The Story Club Is Formed.  Enjoy!

Anyone who lives in the St. Louis area knows about the construction on highway 40 (aka I-64) that began earlier this year and will continue for the next four years. It's a huge project and it needs to be done but man is it an inconvenience for people who live near or commute via the highway. My man and I are lucky, we both work close enough to home that we can get there without the highways but we do live very near the highway. In fact, if you walk one block down our street, it dead-ends at the highway.

I meant to post before I left but things got crazy so now of course I have all kinds of catching up to do. In any case, Chapter 24 of Anne of Green Gables was released before I left and I plan on recording another chapter soon.

I started the Kauni cardigan and am actually quite a bit farther than this now but here is the most recent picture: