Free downloadable Suze Orman e-book

From get_rich_slowly: Want a free book from financial guru Suze Orman? Until 8pm Eastern on the evening of February 14th, the Oprah Winfrey site is giving away a free PDF version of Orman’s latest book, Women & Money. To find the download, scroll to the bottom of this page. The book is available in both English and Spanish editions. (For those not familiar with her work, Orman is a financial writer who advises people on how to handle their money wisely).

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day! We had our traditional Valentine's day breakfast with heart-shaped plates and cards and heart-shaped boxes filled with chocolate (dark chocolate, yay!) Rob got a slew of romance movies on sale this week, so we'll probably skip karate tonight and watch one of those tonight.

And as for my latest acquisition from Victoria's Secret under my clothes . . . I feel like Jennifer Garner in Thirteen Going on Thirty asking, "Can I ask you a question? Can you tell that I'm wearing underwear? Because I totally am!" *smirk*

(Click here if you want to add a message to my Valentine's postbox)

Today's wizard rock recommendations

Potter Noyz has added a wonderful new song about Snape, "The Bravest Man I Ever Knew." Now, this song isn't yet downloadable, BUT since they added it, they HAVE switched "To Fred," another great one, to downloadable status (if you have a MySpace account, that is). So check out their page, grab "To Fred" and listen to "The Bravest Man I Ever Knew." They rotate their downloadable song offerings, so keep an eye on their page, and "Bravest Man" should eventually become downloadable, too, when they add another song in the future.

( Lyrics to 'Bravest Man I Ever Knew' )

Neville's Diary has also posted a new downloadable song, "When Hell Freezes Over," which is about Neville's story in Book 7. I like every one of the songs he's posted, he's charming, but then you know I'm a big Neville fan. I believe that the people behind Neville's Diary are the same ones behind The Quaffle Kids.

As always, leave a comment if you listen and like, for my own curiosity.

A story dedicated to me!

I'm getting around to mentioning this belatedly: Aberrant Dreams published mrissa's story Water, Flesh and Stone, which she dedicates to me because of my interest in that theme. V. cool. Thanks, mrissa!

I must say

I look awfully damn good today, if I do say myself.

Happy birthday

Happy birthday to jeanineers!

Valentine's Day

We started the day with our traditional breakfast: breakfast served on heart-shaped plates, candy in heart-shaped boxes, with cards at each place. Rob had gotten a number of romantic movies to add to the mix (the girls' comment upon seeing the cover of the "Love Actually" DVD: "Ewww! Snape's kissing Trelawney!")

Valentine's Day breakfast 2008

( Delia REALLY dressed up in red )

( Fiona was sleepy, but impish )

When I came home from work, Fiona and Delia had afternoon tea all prepared:





( More pictures from the tea )

Here is the table, all decorated for dinner:

Valentine's Day dinner 2008

( The girls were very proud of their work )

( Dinner was wonderful )

Fiona with her new kamas

Fiona has her new kamas and she LOVES them.

Fiona receives her new Kamas February 13, 2008

I tried to get some videotape of her practicing her new black belt kama form. Unfortunately, another class was going on while she was practicing (you can hear sensei's voice instructing some other students) so I wasn't able to photograph from the front, and she was feeling a little camera shy and objected to my taking footage, so I only got a few bits and pieces. Here is enough to give a little of an idea. I hope to get better footage of the whole form soon. At least you can see how high she can kick now! Hope I can kick that high when I'm a black belt myself.

( Three short video clips are under the cut. )