Blogger to Wordpress?

One of my plans for the New Year is to get my own website. I understand that the easiest way to do this is to switch from Blogger to Wordpress, which I hear is better anyway. But I know nothing about what to do - including anything about this web hosting thing. Is it ok to just buy a package from one of the hosting companies that Wordpress recommends? Will everything else be simple?

Advice from anyone who has done this would be appreciated!

Random thoughts... and a delicious cake!

I lost my voice. And am home sick for the rest of the week. I could have done without tonsilitis during this particular week, I have too much going on at work, but that's the way the cookie crumbles I guess. I had a Christmas concert yesterday, it's only afterwards that my voice went completely, but I have another next Saturday so I hope it comes back!!!

We had our first Christmas celebration on Saturday! Joe's daughter Helen was over for the weekend and we did Christmas because we're not seeing each other for the 'real' one. It's really amazing what you can accomplish when you put all your energy into it; we were all really surprised at how Christmassy it was! Everything was exactly as it should be, with the tree, the presents, the yummy Christmas dinner, the drinking starting in the afternoon...  We are Irish and Polish after all! ;-)

Helen gave me a gorgeous cook book - all cakes and other sweet stuff - that I'd never heard of. Red Velvet Chocolate Heartache by Harry Eastwood. Do any of you have it? It's a beautiful, beautiful book with lovely photos and wonderful writing. Clearly, Harry loves her food. She (yes, she) also loves creating healthy versions of things we love to eat, like brownies and cookies and cakes. The recipes in this book all have some strange ingredients, such as grated potato, butternut squash or parsnip. And they use rice flour or spelt flour, plus ground almonds, although you can use the same quantity of regular flour if you prefer. I was intrigued that I immediately made the Banana and Toffee Sticky Cake and my oh my is it good! If the rest of the bakes in here are this yummy then we'll be living on a strict diet of cakes for a long time!

I leave you with a photo of my cake - sticky and moist and very, very more-ish. This book makes a brilliant present, maybe one of your family friends would appreciate it?

The Odyssey - Check-in the Last

And here we are. I can't believe I finished. I was even on time, it's just been a really hectic week so I didn't get a chance to do this post till now.

The last books were mainly about the preparation for the slaughter, about the slaughter itself and about the aftermath. I think that, of those, the slaughter was my favorite... though slightly gory. What I REALLY didn't like is the last book, where nothing really happened except a visit to Ody's dad and even that seemed kind of pointless.

A few random things that struck me:

• Ody, when still playing the stranger and lying to Penelope about how he'd seen Odysseus and all that, says to her: "In fact Odysseus would have been here beside you long ago but he thought it the better, shrewder course to recoup his fortunes roving through the world." And Penelope just accepts this. Seriously? You don't see anything wrong with this Penelope?

• Athena's meddling pisses me off in these last books. At one point she actually makes the suitors laugh uncontrollably. Even laughter is no longer their personal choice?

• The way Penelope listens to Telemachus gets to me. I mean I know he's the man, but she's the Mom, shouldn't she get some respect from him? Honestly.

• And last, but certainly not least, when the suitors try to get Ody to forgive and forget, they offer to pay him back for all the stuff they used up at his house by 'laying a tax upon the land'. Now, is that really fair? The saddest part is that nothing's really changed...

And that's it. I can't say that The Odyssey is going on my favorites list, but I am soooo glad I read it. Thanks, Trish. And I was thinking of reading Ulysses next too, so I'm totally in for that!