Kylie

Happy reading, Abby! I've read Divergent but haven't seen the movie yet, and I'm hoping to read the second book this year.

Great review, Laura. I'll have to go back and find your reviews of Patrick Rothfuss' other books. I've been seeing his name around a bit lately and have been slowly getting interested (I'm always a bit late to the party!)

Thanks Frankie! With all my talk of blenders and smoothies, I hope it didn't come across like I'm doing some sort of 'juice' diet. For me, the smoothies/juices will be my breakfast (as opposed to the breakfast I usually have: nothing ), and I'll have them as snacks during the day when I get hungry or start craving junk food. You're right about the exercise, Frankie. I don't want to change too much to start with, as I think that would be a definite recipe for failure (although it would probably work for others). I think changing in increments is the way to go. Cutting junk out of my diet is a huge step for me, so I think that's enough change in one go! However, even then, I'll have to allow myself the occasional treat or I know I'll break down completely and binge eat for a week or something. My ex-personal trainer once told me that losing weight is much more about eating habits than exercise, which I thought was an interesting thing for her to say given that her whole business is about exercising! Hopefully the weight will start to drop off a bit with the changes to my diet, and then I'll start adding in exercise. I've found a few local groups that get together and do bush walks and stuff, but with the way my fitness is at the moment, I don't feel like I could join any of their activities because I would be so embarrassed if I couldn't complete the walk. But if I can do a bit of exercise myself and get my fitness level up a bit, then I could go out and do stuff.

I thought I'd start a new thread for health and fitness, seeing as the old one hasn't been used for a while. Despite my long ramble below, this isn't my own thread; it's a general thread for everyone to give support and advice to each other and provide updates on how we're going. So, about me: I have some pretty terrible eating habits and I never exercise. I get so ashamed of myself for being lazy and eating unhealthily, but I'm determined to change. When I last had a relationship that ended, I fell apart, started eating badly and put on quite a few kilos. But this time around I'm determined not to fall apart. I want to be stronger and improve my life. I've been in two minds about starting this thread. On the one hand, I know that you all will offer me a lot of support and encouragement as I start on my journey, but I'm also scared because if I fail, it won't be just me who knows about it! But I think it would be good for me to be held accountable for any slip-ups and bad days. So don't go too easy on me! My top priority is to change my dietary habits. I'll worry about exercise later. Around a year ago, my doctor told me that I have pre-diabetes. That should have been enough to scare me into changing my habits, but it wasn't. I haven't had any further tests done, but I think I'm still OK for now. I want to turn my life around and surprise my doctor the next time he tests me. I'd also like to lose a fair bit of weight (I need to lose at least 20 kg!). This week I ordered a top-of-the-range blender with money I received at Christmas. I'm expecting to receive it early next week. From the reviews I've read, it's a really whizz-bang machine that can do smoothies, juices, soup and sorbet. I'm planning on having loads of fresh food delivered to my door every week and having healthy juices once or twice a day. Having the fruit and veg delivered has several benefits: I support a local businessman and growers rather than large corporations, my produce will be fresher, and I won't have to go to the supermarket as often (where all the evil, naughty foods are). I made a trip to the local health food store yesterday and spent a small fortune on various bits and bobs that can be used in smoothies (according to the recipe book the blender company sent me). These include things like grains, chia seeds, goji berries, cacao nibs and dates. A good thing about spending so much money on the blender and food is that I definitely won't want my purchases to go to waste! I plan to make a lot of 'green' smoothies in particular, as I've always had low iron levels (so low that I was't allowed to donate blood the last two times I tried). I also don't eat enough fish and red meat, so I'm going to aim to have at least one steak and one fish meal per week (and fresh fish—not the frozen stuff I usually use!) When we start getting into the colder months, I'll start using the blender for loads of yummy soups. So, that's my plan for the short term. Any advice, recipes and encouragement are welcome.

I think it's quite an underrated book. Maybe it's just a classic to me and no one else. I can't remember how I originally heard about it, but I think it might have been through another childhood book. I seem to recall having the title lurking at the back of my mind for a long time before I finally got around to looking it up. Yay! I hope you'll like it. This is the point where I start getting scared about talking up the book so much. I'd hate to overhype it and have you all be disappointed! But thanks to Frankie and Dtr for backing me up.

I've jumped on the bandwagon and made myself a reading jar. It looks like fun, and it adds another little exciting element to reading. I've only put in 77 titles from my TBR pile, which are on my priority reading list. This means that no matter what book I choose, I'm bound to be very excited by it. I badly want to choose a book now, but I'm already in the middle of two, so I should wait...oh, to heck with it...here goes! *Drumroll* And the winner is...Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond. This is actually a pretty good choice, as the non-fiction will go nicely alongside my two fiction books. Also, given that it took me many months to read The World without Us, which is a similar sort of book, I guess this will be a longer-term read too.

Ooh, interesting pick! I bought this when I saw it cheap a few years ago, and I remember that I thought about getting it for you (I think you were reading Murdoch's fiction around that time), but I decided to check first whether you already had it, and you did. Luckily I hadn't bought it! The jar has certainly thrown up a challenging book to start with. Well, maybe it won't be 'challenging' as such, but I always think of letter collections as being slightly more 'difficult' books—I think because they're non-fiction, and perhaps reading letter after letter might get a bit tiring. That's probably just me though. I would need to choose another book to read alongside it.

Have you seen it in action? I find them completely fascinating! I nearly believed you for a moment...Nice try! *Groan* Actually, I found a few books on my TBR that I read last year but forgot to cross off, so the total came down to 1993, and now it's 1991 because I've read two books. Speaking of books and books lists, I forgot to mention that I've copied your idea of including pics for my challenges, if that's OK. I made sure I chose a different 'Rory reading' picture for that challenge, but I hope you don't mind that I chose the same image as you for the 1001 challenge because I also own that copy of the book and I'm pretty sure it's the first one that was published (also, it has a nicer cover than my other edition). I've been thinking of starting a new health/fitness thread to track my progress with the smoothies etc. If I do, I'll include my recipes there. Yes, I'll definitely do that. I'm sold on the book jar idea. It looks like so much fun! But I think I'll be lazy and type out my books and then print the list. Actually, I won't even have to do much typing because I've already made my priority lists, so I can just copy and format them properly in Word and then print them.

Janet, it's an absolutely wonderful classic children's story. It's full of clever wordplay and puns, and it's very fun to read. I read it for the first time a few years ago and fell head over heels in love with it. I'm now trying to convert Sari and Kay, and maybe you too, now that you've shown a bit of interest.

Ah, goodo. I won't nag you then. That means I can focus all of my nagging on... They have a 3D printer? Awesome! I'm pretty skint too, but I'm sure I could rustle up a few euros to wire to my friend. Ooh, I have another idea—one that you don't need a printer for! Just enlarge the image on your screen, close your eyes and wave your pointy finger around the screen. On the count of three, tap somewhere on the screen and then open your eyes. Whatever book your finger has landed on is the book you must read! Bored after two? Oh dear, it's going to take you a while at this rate! I would need a rather large jar to put my (nearly) 2000 books in. Maybe I could make a mini jar using just my 'priority' books. There's only around 30 of those. I even bought some cute jars yesterday, although they're supposed to be for drinking (I've ordered a fancy blender and plan to start drinking healthy juices/smoothies every day). The jars come with lids and straws, which go through the middle of the lids. Maybe I could use the straw to 'suck up' my selection.

Poppyshake, feel free to print it out for your own jar.

I'm sure there's a printer at the library, missy, so don't try to pull that one on me! I assume it costs money to print, right? I wonder if they give a discount if you print in bulk.

I made something for you. You just need to print it out (100 times), cut them up and put them in the jar. You're welcome!

We're so predictable, aren't we?

That sounds like a great idea! Hopefully the excitement of picking a book from the jar might inspire you to read more books from your TBR pile.

The Phantom Tollbooth

Thanks Athena. I'm glad you agree!

Chrissy, I can see by your new avatar how much you were taken with Guardians of the Galaxy. Groot was so cute at the end! Glad you enjoyed it.

Wow! Another amazing example of your creativeness! I love the labels you've made and how you've attached them. You go above and beyond! As soon as I started reading your post, I wondered if you had included Carter Beats the Devil. Go Alan! I love that he wouldn't let you see what colour paper he used. Would you think I was awful if I said that I'm really hoping you choose it? It would just be so, so funny. Heh, I would never have thought of writing it on several slips of paper. Will Alan be present each time you choose a book so he can make sure you don't cheat?

I can just imagine Alan walking into a room to find you staring intently at your bookshelves, trying to memorise each book's location. Sometimes I fancy the idea of taking all of my fiction books off the shelves and putting them back in random order. It would then be a lot of fun (or very frustrating, depending on my mood) trying to find a particular book! And then I could just add new books to the end of the line rather than having to shuffle everything along. That's because I push all the mess to the side so it's just out of the shot. But yes, you're right about the library being the most important room!

I must admit that I temporarily lost a couple of friendships because I turned down invitations to parties (an engagement party and a 21st). Not that they said anything at the time—it took me years to work out why they weren't talking to me! Luckily I've regained those friendships, and I've actually improved a lot socially—I don't turn down invitations now; I just grumble a lot (to myself) and go anyway. I even make small talk with strangers (which I hate doing). Tut tut, Alan! That's a very good idea though, to have small gifts on standby! I was going to say that maybe we're the normal ones and everyone else is weird, but let's face it: it's much more fun to think that we're weird. It's no fun being normal!

I bought The Martian by Andy Weir today. I intend to give it to my ex, but I'm going to read it myself first. I'm yet to decide whether I have to add it to my 'books acquired' list or whether I can create a loophole because it's technically a gift.

I read a few chapters of The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie today, and I started (and read a few chapters of) The Martian by Andy Weir.

I don't know if 'enjoy' is the right word for such a strange book! I remember it remarkably well considering I read it quite a few years ago. That's the mark of a good book to me. I remember it being difficult and confusing, but overall I thought it was very clever. And I've since bought volumes of Kafka's collected stories and short stories, as well as his diaries and letters, so I guess that means I enjoyed it!

Aw, you're sweet. My books are the only things that give my place any character. I love spending time to keep my library and books in order, but the rest of my house is a huge mess!