Very late wishlist

[doranwen.livejournal.com]

I guess this is more of a New Year's wishlist now than a Christmas one, but I got so busy last year I never posted one, and I was determined this year to have enough time to at least mention it.

I must have been difficult for people to get me things this year, because I really don't need anything. I have more clothes than will fit in two dressers AND a closet, I have the basics that I need, my computer still works great, and I have a wonderful fiancé who's actually building me my very own music player software. But I guess I still have a few wishes, so here goes (in reverse order 'cause I saw someone do it and think it looks neat):

10. Although in the past I've usually posted a link to my Amazon.com wishlist, I think it's about time I posted a link to The Original Really Useful Gift Catalog 2009. This is a catalog from ADRA, where instead of buying a present for yourself, you save lives, send children to school, or improve an entire family's welfare by the money you spend. If you've got any extra money you can afford to spend, even as little as $1 can send children to school or pay for hot meals so they can grow and learn.

9. I'd love it if you could recommend me a good book collection manager. I have over a thousand books on shelves in my room and need to keep all the info on them in one place. The program I'm currently using does not have a working method for obtaining book data online using the ISBN (it previously did, but I have more books that need to be entered and manually entering it all is way too slow!). I need one that will, given the book's ISBN, retrieve all the information it can on the book and dump it into a database that I can later browse, search, sort, etc. I'd prefer something on my local computer but an online database would work great too. I can't afford to spend money on it, though, so suggestions for something I can get free would be welcome.

8. Consider adopting a pet from a shelter, particularly a no-kill shelter! If you've already done so, I'd love to hear about your pet. :) Thank you all for your comments and stories below!

7. Relating to #8, we have an older kitten (lovely tabico--very sweet personality) in our house that someone dumped in our neighborhood on Christmas Eve or Day. The poor thing was hungry and cold for several days before a kindhearted neighbor took her in. We went to visit and decided we'd have to try to find a home for her. Currently we haven't found anyone who wants her (I'd love to keep her but not sure that can be managed at our house--we already have two cats and two dogs). My wish is that either we're able to keep her, or that we find a good home for her. A cat rescue lady contacted us, paid for her to get spayed, and found her a wonderful home! :D

6. I wish I had a good mp3 player or mp3 CD player, even. I used to have a great mp3 CD player I took everywhere and played music, but it quit suddenly, and now I don't have any way to play my music in the car so that I'm the only one who hears it--unless I go to all the trouble of booting up a laptop, plugging it into the power converter, and popping a CD into that. So I'd love one that I can use to listen to music on long car trips when I'm not the driver. Thank you, violetxfires!

5. I need a good flash drive, preferably at least 2 gigs. I've got a small one I use to play music in my car (I have a USB port plug-in spot on my car stereo) and a 1 gig that carries documents and stuff--and which I managed to crack the case on, so who knows how long the thing will work. I also don't have one with enough room on it to put a movie on (if they're the double CD size), or anything, and that would be handy.

4. I would love it if someone would give me some credits on PaperbackSwap: I would LOVE to be able to request a bunch of books that I've been wanting! I'm currently hoarding my tiny few trying to decide which books to get and which to give up on getting. A few more credits would give me the freedom to get a few without constantly reviewing my choices and wishing I'd gotten something else.

3. If you're a fan of the X-Men movieverse, and you dabble in writing, I'd love it if you wrote me a fanfic! I would love either a Scott/Ororo or Scott/Rogue fic, mainly because those are incredibly rare yet there's so much possibility to those ships.

2. I wish I had the opportunity to get training in the Lindamood-Bell method of reading remediation. I have heard from multiple sources that it is truly effective, and I would love to be able to start making a difference with struggling readers.

1. Any help you can give me on my latest project. I'm creating a curriculum to teach reading to children, starting with the basics of learning to read. It's based on synthetic phonics because that is the only 100% effective method. I'm going to be releasing it under a Creative Commons license so that it's free for everyone to obtain, use, even tweak and re-release as they like. But I need help, in the way of people who can draw pictures (I have to use public domain line drawings for illustrations, and clker.com doesn't have everything I'd like to be able to use), teachers/tutors who are willing and able to test this on young children or remedial students (the part I'm working on currently is the very first level, for those who can't read anything), and anyone who can find said people to help me out with this. I'll be happy to give you more info on the project or the philosophy/method if you're interested. I'm a teacher, and I just can't stand seeing how much illiteracy we allow in schools here in the US, and I want to do this to help correct that, plus provide a program that can be used across the world in English-speaking classrooms.


You're welcome to either leave a comment here, or e-mail me (you can find my e-mail as a graphic--for spam prevention--on my website, which is linked to from my LJ). Merry belated Christmas and a Happy New Year to all! :)

Comments

[empressjad.livejournal.com]

For #8...I not only advocate no-kill shelters, I operate a no-kill shelter/rescue with a friend. Currently, we have 38 cats & kittens awaiting a home of their own. Several of them are special needs kitties, and very probably will not be adopted, but that's okay with us...they have our love and a home for the rest of their lives if need be.
We've been at this for three years now, and have found homes for over 300 animals, and are the only place in our wide area that deals with feral cats at all. We've also rescued (by default, when no one else would step up) pygmy goats, dogs, baby skunks, raccoons, horses, and a crow.
If you want a link to the pix, let me know.
And bless you for taking in the kitty...I hope you get to keep her if you can't find the owner.
I hope you had a lovely holiday, and have a wonderful 2010.

[doranwen.livejournal.com]

Awww, sure, I'd love to see pics! I volunteered at a no-kill shelter for a little bit once (would have done it more, but I didn't have a car then, and couldn't get people to take me). I helped clean cat pans and stuff, though my favorite thing was getting to pet the cats--through the cages, unfortunately. They didn't have a space to take the cats to yet to socialize them or whatnot (kinda rundown). I just love petting kitties--they usually take well to me, and they're just so adorable.

[empressjad.livejournal.com]

You do exactly what we need more of...people who come in to just interact and socialize our kitties. We love them all, but they need to see lots more people so they know that humans are necessarily out to hurt them. I wish you were nearby...
Here's a link to our Photobucket pix, showing a lot, but not nearly all, of the kitties we've rescued/sheltered/are currently sheltering.
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v616/empressjad/BEASTIES/Fosters/
If you navigate back to the "beasties" category, you can also see some of the other fosters we've rescued...skunks, raccoons, horses, owls, etc.

[doranwen.livejournal.com]

Yeah, unfortunately I'm out in Washington state. Or maybe I should say, unfortunately, you're not near me, lol. (I like the weather here too much to move. *g*) If I had more time I'd go volunteer somewhere around here. I'm considering doing that on Saturday afternoons, though--it's one time I might be able to. I don't know what shelters are in my area, any suggestions for where to go looking? Also, do you know if shelters tend to require a specific time schedule that you always will come, or are you free to come as you have the time? (It's not that I'd randomly drop in, but I couldn't commit to being there every week because we end up doing family stuff every now and then that would be right during that only bit of free time.)

Hmm, I tried to find the raccoons and owls and stuff, but the beasties category itself didn't have any pics under it, just other categories. Did I miss clicking on the right link?

[empressjad.livejournal.com]

The shelters should be listed in the telephone directory...or call local vets...they'd know. Most shelters are *thrilled* that someone wants to come in to help out. We don't require any time committment...*any* time someone can stop by is great with us. We don't even get upset if someone had told us they're coming in and they don't show. Things happen...
As for the pix, the skunks, etc. are in those categories shown under beasties. It all about those dumb "folder" type organizing.

[violetxfires.livejournal.com]

The image linking to your email did not show up on my computer, so I've sent you a PM here on LJ. :)

[doranwen.livejournal.com]

So I noticed when I got to it--have fixed that now! :) Sending you a PM back right away . . .

[colonoscarpeay.livejournal.com]

I think I can help with #9. I too have a lot...A LOT....of books and I use the book database. It's free and allows you to imput a lot of info for each book. You can also print out spreadsheets from it for a printed list. Also, you can imput info if you lend your books to friends (including who, when, etc). You can find info here -> http://www.spacejock.com/BookDB.html <-and there is a download link at the top of the page if you decide to go with it. It has been most helpful to me in getting my reading organized. I hope it helps you, too.

Happy New Year!

[doranwen.livejournal.com]

Oh, thanks for the reminder! I'd tried it awhile ago only to find that it wouldn't download book info from Amazon (or anywhere else), and decided I couldn't use it then. But apparently Amazon fixed itself, because I opened up that install of it and tried again, and voilà, it worked! :) The one downside I can see is that it doesn't have spots for summaries or book covers, something I was really wishing I could do (it would be nice to be able to search the summaries for keywords if I'm trying to recommend the right book for someone). But looks like it'd work great for being able to have a list of what I have or don't have (and I want to be able to go to Goodwill without bringing home heaps of duplicates!).

[colonoscarpeay.livejournal.com]

The one downside I can see is that it doesn't have spots for summaries or book covers

Really? I have book covers and imput summaries and key words on mine. Hmm Of course, I have the first version and haven't upgraded to the newest yet.

I hope it is of some good use for you.

[doranwen.livejournal.com]

*sg* I found how to do book descriptions now. But still have not figured out where book covers could be added/stored. I checked and I'm using the latest version. Did that feature get removed, I wonder?

[maika-75.livejournal.com]

For #8, meet Percival
(http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v290/starmaika/?action=view&current=Myfavouritespotwithmyfavouriteperso.jpg)

He came home with me last Christmas Day. My best friend adopted his mother the September before, when she was already pregnant from a very overcrowded shelter that would have euthanased her the day after my friend adopted her...so I think he still counts as a shelter rescue?

I do hope you can find the kitten you mentioned a forever home.

[doranwen.livejournal.com]

Aww, he's a cutie! I'm glad he was able to find a good home with you.

We may end up keeping her, but I think my dad really doesn't want to, so we'll see . . . I'm going to keep talking to people, because she's really a wonderful kitten and will probably make someone a very happy pet owner.

[glowing-dragon.livejournal.com]

I love your icon. :D

[doranwen.livejournal.com]

Hehe, thanks. It was made by labellementeuse, I think, and it's a line in the Young Wizards book series by Diane Duane.

[glowing-dragon.livejournal.com]

Books are cool. :D

[meepkitty.livejournal.com]

I am not sure if these are what you might be looking for, but check out www.GoodReads.com and www.Shelfari.com for online 'libraries' that are free. I do feel for you as my Fox is writing a Media Database for us due to our overabundance of books/movies/etc.

Pets - I have two almost 16 year old cats that I brought home from the SPCA in my hometown. They were the first pets that were mine alone. Nathan has a little bit of arthritis in his front paws and Adelaide has a little grey fur creeping into her beautiful torti markings, but they are still going strong. And, almost 6 years ago, we stopped at a chain store to get some cat food. There were cages set up outside and I found my husband mezmerized by a stripy scrap of grey fluff in one of the cages. Lucky Cat Rescue was having an adoption event. So, Fox went back in to the store and bought a carrier. Our 'Kitten' (which became his name as he answers to it) is now almost 6 and he is chatty and happy. He is leaning on my arm right now because he wants to sprawl flat on the chair arm and my arm is in the way. If/when we get another cat, it will be a shelter/rescue baby. :)

I wish you a wonderful New Year! :)

[meepkitty.livejournal.com]

I wasn't clear - all three cats were adopted when they were eight weeks old, so Nathan and Adelaide have been my companions for all of my adult life. Kitten grew up with our four now-deceased ferrets who were also all rescues, so he acts very ferrety on occasion. :)

[doranwen.livejournal.com]

So your husband's writing a program to store your books/movies in? I'd be curious to see what comes of that.

Awww, I can imagine getting mesmerized by a cat/kitten myself. *g* I'm glad you're enjoying your kitties! :D

Hope you're having a wonderful New Year yourself!

[clayshaper.livejournal.com]

#8: Go check out bboa - she was a rescued dog before she became a Service Dog! :)

#4: Personally, I recommend bookcrossing, too- sign up and it will alert you to books being released near you. good for folks who read a lot!

[doranwen.livejournal.com]

Glad she was rescued and could be a Service Dog. :)

Thanks for the rec, though I'm really looking more for something geared toward being a library of books that I own, kind of a database. I am actually not interested in book recommendations, as the issue right now is that I have too many books I'd like to own that I've already read, and the ones I do own I can't keep track of. I've been recommended BookDB, and will investigate that further.

Hope you're having a great New Year! :D

[nothingtoyou.livejournal.com]

I adopted my cat secondhand last year. He'd been a stray and was in a bad condition with a collapsed eye. We fell in love straight away. He had to have the bad eye removed, as well as most of his teeth out (leaving him with just one front fang). When I took him home and let him out of the basket the first thing he did was jump on my lap, curl up in a tight purring ball, and fall asleep. We adore each other and are very happy together. And the horror to think that he could have ended up being put down. I'd never think of getting a pet anywhere other than a rescue home.
You can see pics of my furry baby at
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=104333&id=600031279&l=df2845c4ee

[doranwen.livejournal.com]

Awww, he looks so content and happy! I'm glad for both of you. :)