Knit Nite Saturday Morning

Sounds like a movie, or at least a song title. Thanks to Susan for inviting us into her home to work on our crafts, visit, and enjoy some refreshments. Susan is an amazing knitter and showed us a number of pieces she has knit – AND shared a pattern or two!

Vicki worked on embroidering pillow cases. She says they're great to have on hand when she needs an impromptu gift.

Jackie is working on a cheerful yellow and white dishcloth. She says she likes the simplicity of the pattern.

Kathy T. is sewing the binding on this VERY CUTE snowman quilt. She likes sewing on binding. She's different like that. :)

Judy is making slippers. I've seen the finished product and they look very comfy.

I was swatching for a cowl and decided to just go ahead and cast on the 208 requiured stitches after two swatches didn't come up to gauge. Wish me luck. Cast-ons don't make for great pictures.

Kathy K. wasn't working a craft, but showed polite interest in all of ours. Sort of like oohing and ahhhing over someone else's vacation photos, I suppose.

I thought it was great fun and hope we can do it again some time.

Wild follow-up

I sent this in an email but thought I'd post it here as well, re: Wild by Cheryl Strayed. It's an article that appeared in the St. Paul Pioneer Press on 10-24-14, featuring an interview with the author. She states, "I had decided to be present and awake in my own life." and "I think it wasn't a heroic hike. I think I was in a heroic battle to get back to myself." She concludes, "The greatest gift to me in writing 'Wild' has been that -- being a voice that contributes to a conversation [about grieving] that I think we need to have."
http://www.twincities.com/Lifestyle/ci_26786224/Wild-author-Cheryl-Strayed:-Minnesota-is-absolutely-sacred-ground-to-me

PS: The book has been adapted into a movie starring Reese Witherspoon and will be in theaters Dec. 5.

The Witch of Belladonna Bay

This is a book that I picked off an NPR list of summer romance + magic stories. Well. It’s set in the south. The prodigal aunt Wyn, who has been living the Yankee life for 7 years, comes home to take care of and team up with her niece Byrd to solve a murder and exonerate Byrd's father (Wyn’s brother). Both aunt and niece have the “shine” – magical power that allows them to read minds, see and talk with ghosts, and do some healing.

I saved it for October, being about witches and all. But, truthfully, it is more of a light and fluffy beach read. The magic and the solving of the mystery was a bit haphazard as far as I was concerned.

The Witch of Belladonna Bay: A Novel by Suzanne Palmieri

Werewolfs, Vampires, Fae, and Shapeshifters

If you like urban fantasy fiction with a twist of romance, mystery, and non-stop action, the Mercy Thompson series by Patricia Briggs is for you. I just finished reading all 8 books in the series while recovering from sinus surgery. Mercy is a shape-shifting VW mechanic with a talent for getting into trouble with all the wrong supernatural characters. Helped me forget all about my pesky sinuses!

I do recommend you read the series in order since each book builds on the last story. The first book is Moon Called.

Savage Beauty

I just finished reading Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St.Vincent Millay. I guess I didn’t realize it was 600 pages when I started. It certainly felt like it by the time I was done. I couldn’t say it was boring, but it was long.

Vincent, as she is called, is a fascinating character. How she practiced her art and made a living as a poet in the 20’s, 30’s, 40’s is pretty amazing. And, she is unconventional, to be sure.

The book was chosen by USA Today as one of the top ten books of the year (2002?). It is thorough and events are often presented through letters of those involved. Ah, for the age of correspondence! And, her poetry is sprinkled throughout. I have to say that because of the poetry, I wish I had read the book in hardcover (vs. Kindle) – the lines did not break as they should have, which detracted a bit from the flow of the verses.

Do I recommend it? Um, yes.

 

Reading update

I've been listening to a lot of books on my MP3 during gardening season. I just finished the Frankenstein series by Dean Koontz. What a racket. He lifts some lines directly from the previous books into the later ones stretching what could have been one book into many. I guess he's not the only one that does it. By mistake, I read #5 before #4 but didn't even notice until I started 4.
That said, I listened to them all and enjoyed them as simple entertainment. He reads like a screen play... all action and dialog. Some humor and strong female characters. And lots of blood and guts.
I'm now listening to Dave Eggers The Circle. Didn't get great reviews especially from tech savvy folks. As one who worries about too much screen time in my life and too many demands by strangers for personal information, I found it interesting and a bit scary.
I read Flight Behavior by Kingsolver, which of course was good. Focuses on human relationships with nature and with each other. It also brings science and religion within shouting distance which is always fascinating.
Just finished Memoir of the Sunday Brunch by Julia Pandl about a restaurant in Milwaukee. Some interesting insights between moments of overwrought self-deprecating wit. It reads more like a series of memoir exercises tied together into a book. It was an Advanced Reading Copy so many there was more editing to be done.
Trying to get back into Freedom by Franzen which I've started numerous times. The section I'm in now is narrated as an autobiography by one of the characters. A nice contrast to the third person point of view in the beginning.
I have American Boy - Larry Watson - as my go-to-sleep novel which means I read 1/2 page at a time before nodding off so it's slow going.

Interesting non-fiction

I recently finished WakeUp Little Susie: Single Pregnancy and Race Before Roe v. Wade by RickieSolinger and Elaine Tyler May. Ms Solinger was a keynote speaker at my annual adoption conference. She was so interesting, I had to get this book and read it. I forget how engrossing non-fiction can be. And, this subject is particularly apropos in light of the most recent Supreme Court ruling regarding employer insurance and contraceptives. I also found it interesting because my birth mother was single and pregnant during the time that is studied in this book. When I read how punitive society was to unwed mothers, I can understand why she represented herself as being married when it was time to deliver my sister and me.

The book details the differences in treatment by society, by agencies, by healthcare professionals based on the race (white or black) of the mother. Chapter after chapter I found myself shaking my head. In the end she posits that control of female fertility and reproduction as evidenced in the law and social convention serve a social agenda. In the period 1945 – 1965, that agenda was trying to shore up a fraying concept of the family unit as a white, married male and female and the “legitimate” children of that union. The household was to be headed by the male, of course.
So, what do you suppose the agenda is now?

Death Stalks Door County

I am passing along the title of a new mystery series set in Door County: Death Stalks Door County: A Dave Cubiak Door County Mystery by Patricia Skalka. Great fun to read about places I've visited like Egg Harbor, Fish Creek, and Peninsula State Park. The author has a cottage in Door County so is very familiar with the area. It was a good mystery with a few twists and turns. I'm looking forward to more by Skalka.

Attention William Kent Krueger fans!

If you haven't read Ordinary Grace yet, I highly recommend it. It's not part of his Cork O'Connor series, but it is once again set in Minnesota and he demonstrates his ability to articulate thoughts and emotions many of us experience but can't or don't take the time to put into words. It's a tale of redemption and a mystery with a surprise ending.

Lost in Flight

I recently finished Angel’s Flight by Michael Connelly, another of his Harry Bosch novels. The story was good as usual with this series. Here’s the unusual part:

Michael got this book for me as a gift. I had made a list of the Harry Bosch novels I had not read and he got me three of them for Christmas. I started this book on my trip to Salt Lake City. As we waited in Chicago for our flight, I realized I had left Angel’s Flight on the plane we had just taken from Eau Claire to Chicago. I hate not finishing books. Especially this one; it was a perfect book for traveling – easy and engrossing. Fortunately, though, I had my Kindle and moved on to another book (I never travel with less than five books).

In Salt Lake City, Michael started looking at used book stores to see if he could find a copy of the book. He was unsuccessful and continued once we got to Eau Claire. Nobody had a copy. Finally, the other day when I came home from work, there was a copy of the book on the kitchen table. He had checked it out of the library for me.

It wasn’t difficult at all to find where I had left off three weeks earlier. I enjoyed finishing the book and being reminded of how sweet my husband is.