New Layout

Well, I changed my layout...because I wanted to have a labels listing in my sidebar. So now, if you look to your right you will notice that all my posts are labeled by topic for your convienience. What you also might notice is that my cute little row of artwork thumbnails is gone. See that was a deviantart pastie that showed my top 5 most popular pictures on deviantart. It was so cool because I never had to update it. However, in the super "easy" Blogger-not-beta template world for some reason when I make a section for my pasties it causes the white background part of my layout to shrink until it's just around the header. So Annoying! It has taken me 2.5 hours just to get my layout working with the header and everything and I can't figure this pastie thing out. *Beats head against monitor*

Anyone else had a simillar problem? Any suggestions?

Winter Wonderland

These are some pictures I took on a walk on Christmas Day. It was nice and snowy all the time we were there, but we still had good roads for our driving days, so it was about perfect!

My-Tea Mouse!!

We're back, I had a wonderful time and I am not oh so stocked to be back to work tomorrow, but it's only for one day and then I get a long weekend. So I shall survive.

I have about a million pictures, and I don't want to bombard you with all of them, so today I will just introduce you to the mice. You see, my grandmother hates mice. Hates them. In a related story, when my dad was a kid he brought a mouse into the house. My gramma said "Get Rid Of That THING!" So he put it on the floor a stepped on it.

Ew!

Anyway, when I was four or five I thought it would be hilarious to draw a mouse on my gramma's christmas card. I think I thought she would be scared of the card? It was a great preschooler joke anyway, I thought it was hilarious. So did she. And now I've somehow ended up giving her a mouse for christmas every year. For twenty years. That's a lot of mice. Luckily I am a gypsy princess who can do anything and I had a fantastic idea this year. I bought loose leaf tea in little silver bags...and made the bags into mice.



And then the mice somehow got loose and attacked George!



And this is Jen(my S-in-L) and I, being crafty.

Merry Chrissymas!

Well, we're at my parents, and they have dial-up. And not just any dial-up, but the absolutely slowest dial-up in the history of mankind. So I have not been a good blogger, and I have some very nice photos that you don't get to see till I get home because it's tooooo slow to upload photos here.

I got some very very cool presents including a cuisinart blender/food processor, a speaker system for my ipod and pretty pretty handmade paper from india. I have eaten too much good food, gotten not enough sleep and played a lot of card games.

So life is good for my and hope it is for you all as well. Merry Christmas!

Cookies!

I also made two kinds of shortbread (cinnamon and normal) and chocolate truffles. Now I need to get rid of them all before I eat them and get fat!

Also, I am sick.

Also, I have an interview tomorrow to be a pool supervisor.

Also, I AM ON HOLIDAYS!

Book Review: Talyn by Holly Lisle

Hanna Stars (out of a possible 5): * * * * *

Thoughts:
First off, I loved this book. Loved it. It goes in my top ten list of favourite books of all time. It's a fantasy set in a world where Talyn's country has been at war with their neighbours for over 300 years. Talyn is a Sheilder, so a magic user who protects the army against the magical attacks of the enemy. Suddenly another country sends in a peacekeeping delegation and the war is over. It's crazy, and no one knows what to do and plots and madness ensue. Also some romance ensues. But mainly plots and madness.

The book was only around 600 pages but it felt a lot longer...there was a lot of book in that...book. And the plot is great, it's kinda like, you have an idea of what's going to happen and then all of a sudden it's like "holy crap, how did it get so bad so fast!" That doesn't really explain it, but you just have to read it to see what I mean.

Also, go buy this book. Seriously, do so at once, before christmas. I don't care if you've used up your monthly budget or you've never heard of it. Go buy it. Because she will only get the contract to write the third book in this series if Talyn sells well in MMPB during the first month, which started Nov 29th. So go support her and buy her book, because I want to read more than just a two book series. And if you read it, you'll want at least a third book as well, I promise.

Here's a link to her site where she explains about that: The Tonk Needs a Rescue

Look at the pretties!

Because I know you've all been dying to know how I'm wrapping my presents this year. Yes all my presents match. Yes I spend as much time planning out my wrapping theme as I do planning out my presents. Yes I'm a nerd.

But I don't care!

So today I plan to do my christmas baking, finish wrapping and label another 60 postcards. Which will be the end of all those things....hopefully....I have wednesday off at home just in case. So two more days of nasty pool maintance and then it's Christmas holidays for me!

I'M SO EXCITED FOR CHRISTMAS!!!!

I know some people have been having trouble commenting due to blogger beta being the devil, so I enable anonymous postings...so if you can't post as yourself just post anyways and put your name at the bottom. Because I feel like I'm typing into a void here!

Don't worry mom, the bows aren't stuck on, I'll take them off so your cat doesn't eat them all when I put them out.

Visiting Tokyo

Haha, not me sadly.

ah well...I spent all day playing with vats of acid.

no joke.

Trackers Day 2: In which I actually tell you about the book

From The Publisher:
Far from home in a ravaged world, the Birthrighters struggle for survival.

Raised in a new ark beneath polar ice, delivered by whales to a blighted surface, the young men and women of the Birthright Project have pledged their lives to a risky and redemptive mission--perserving God's original creation from the ravages of the Endless Wars and human depravity.

They've roamed the earth tracking original species.They've successfully battled sorcerers, warlords, and armies of mutants. But now a twisted new enemy is on the march.An explosive old secret lurks beneath the glitter of a decadent city. And the mysterious darkness that swallowed a mountain spreads toward an innocent mill town.

Before they can prevail, the Birthrighters must confront their most difficult challenge: overcoming their individual desires that threaten to betray the group.

The adventure draws to a dramatic close in Book Two of Kathryn Mackel's imaginative and absorbing Birthright Series...a fantasy thriller with a heart of faith.



My Thoughts:
I have to admit that the main reason I like this book is for the ideas behind it. I find the story to be interesting but I'm not really all that attatched to the characters in it, and I do prefer a character driven book. Just personal preference. So I find Trackers to be enjoyable, but putdownable. I don't lay awake nights wondering what will happen to them. Which could be a good thing...

Blog Tour: Trackers by Kathryn Mackel.

So today I am here to tell all you good little boys and girls about the book Trackers by Kathryn Mackel. First off, it is a sequel. You really should read Outriders first. It was supposed to be the middle book in a trilogy but the third book got cancelled! C'est tres tragique! That's a little poor french to tell you how I feel.

Now I'm only halfway through the books, so today I'm not going to tell you about how much I love the book (although I do) or the premise of the book (although it's quite orginal) but how much I love the process behind the premise of the book.

Are you still following me here?

See it seems like people try to hard when they come up with plotlines for science fiction books, and it especially seems like people try way too hard when they come up with plotlines for christian science fiction. They run around in circles going "what should I do? how do I make this christian? how?" A great example of trying too hard is the book "The Dream Voyagers" by T. Davis Bunn. Now this would be a great sci-fi book except that the author (while running around in circles going "how? how?") decided that the main character would be from our present day and get to the sci-fi world by a magical park ride.

Why would you do that? It's ridiculous! Now Kathryn Mackel did the smart thing (ie, what I would have done). She first thought "what could the future be like?" and then she thought "what would christians and the church be like in a future like that?" Maybe she didn't, I'm sadly not telepathic. However the point is, the characters seem like normal christians in a very strange setting, which is how I think it should be. No magical park rides needed, because really, do you think there would be a future with no christians at all? That seems like a sad, and completely unbiblical starting point for a book to me.

Okay, tomorrow I'll actually tell you something about the book itself, if you can't wait till then, check one of these guys out:


Jim Black
Jackie Castle
Valerie Comer
Frank Creed
Gene Curtis
Chris Deanne
Janey DeMeo
April Erwin
Beth Goddard
Todd Michael Greene
Karen Hancock
Elliot Hanowski
Katie Hart
Sherrie Hibbs
Sharon Hinck
Joleen Howell
Jason Joyner
Karen and at Karen¹s myspace
Oliver King
Tina Kulesa
Lost Genre Guild
Kevin Lucia and The Bookshelf Reviews 2.0 - The Compendium
Terri Main
Rachel Marks
Shannon McNear
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Caleb Newell
Eve Nielsen
John Otte
Cheryl Russel
Hannah Sandvig
Mirtika Schultz
James Somers
Stuart Stockton
Steve Trower
Speculative Faith
Chris Walley
Daniel I. Weaver
Mark Goodyear

Cuddles the Hedgehog

What, that's not enough? You want a real post too? I'm afraid I haven't got much for you, I paint bunnies all day and make postcard labels all night. It's super fun.

hanna-sandvig.com

It's up, it's good, it's ready.

Now go and check all my links and spelling please!

http://hanna-sandvig.com

artywork

The one (and only) good thing about blogger beta is that my upload time and posting times are faster.

So my pen was acting super weird, like the button kept jamming, making it impossible to draw because it would select EVERYTHING all the time...not useful. I put up with it for a couple days (and by put up with I mean I didn't draw anything) and then borrowed Lance's pen...the tablet worked fine with his so I ordered a new pen for mine.

Now my pen works...and has worked for two days. So either:
A) I gave Lance my pen by accident (in which case, I'm sorry Lance...test yours and tell me if it works!)
B) It was just a random glitch and I wasted $50
C) It's dying but not yet fully dead...like a flickering monitor.

I'm hoping it's C, because really, I don't need two pens. Well back to labeling for me!

Hair and other stories

Look, tis me, thinking deeply about art, and life, and what I'll wear to Craig's christmas party tonight. Red shirt or chocolate brown? black pants or grey? These are the questions!

So I spent all day yesterday "finding" Office 2003 so that I could get the templates set up for my labels, which I hope are the right size for postcards...can you put normal labels on postcards? Anyone know? If any of you would like on of my postcards, just email me your addy and I'll send one over...I do have 500 after all. (email: hannasandvig(a)gmail.com).

I did some art yesterday but I must run to church, I'll post when I return.