Thursdays have become my most and least favorite day.
I spend every Thursday with my two year old grandson Jack. It is great fun and he's such a sweetheart. We play games, read books, and he graciously takes a two hour nap so I can rest up from our morning of revelry.
What isn't so great is that I have to be in Dublin by 8 am which means I have to leave my home by just a bit before 7 am and drive through rush hour traffic on Interstate 270. Lisa or Jeremy arrive home about 5:30 or 6 pm and I get to reverse my drive on Interstate 270 to Rte. 161. Route 161 is a breeze so the trip would be fine without the exact time I am on the road. When I retired, I decided the shop wouldn't open before 10 am so I wouldn't have to get up early any more.
Oh, well, Jack makes the trip worthwhile, and I do it for totally selfish reasons as I want him to know his Grandma which he has turned into "YaYa." So tomorrow, Jack and YaYa one more Thursday!
Recently things changed and I didn't have to be in Dublin until 10 am! Hurrah! But tomorrow again I will be on the road at 7 am one more time. I have decided that getting up at 6 am one day a week is well worth it and makes all the other mornings even more delicious! See you tomorrow Jack. YaYa is on her way.
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Not All Winners
I may have given the impression that I unerringly cull the best reads from the library shelves. That is not the case as this last two weeks can show. I have tried to read six books recently and only two have been read all the way through so far.
I finished Fear by Grant, the fifth book in the Gone series. I did like it and he managed to reel me in once again to the world of the FAYZE. There is a sixth book and I've been promised by my daughter Lisa that it will be the last one. It's her responsibility that I'm hooked on this series as she buys the books and passes them on to me.
I also completed Born to Darkness by Suzanne Brockmann. It's a futuristic novel of Greater Thans, Less Thans, and Fractionals referring to the individual's integration of his brain functions and therefore superior abilities. I found it a little silly and too much instant gratification for the characters on the sex part but I read it anyway. It was definitely an entertainment read, no serious value.
I am still reading two others: Beautiful Sacrifice by Elizabeth Lowell and Wicked by Gregory Maquire. I am sure I'll finish Beautiful Sacrifice as it has enough plot hidden in the endless descriptions of Mayan culture and artifacts that I do want to know how it ends. I was fortunate enough to see the musical Wicked at the Palace Theater in Columbus, and so thought I might like to read the novel it was based on. There is quite a difference in tone or perhaps I am just missing the music but I may not struggle though the whole novel. I think I will be picking and choosing and reading parts just to see the development of the characters that interest me. Reading a book doesn't always mean reading every single word.
The other books, Margaret Coel's The Perfect Suspect and Monica Ferris's Threadbare were non starters. I thought I'd like them when I picked them off the shelves but was never able to get beyond the predictable plot and boring, at least to me, characters so I read about two chapters each and was done. Perhaps if we were trapped in a snow storm and unable to get back to the library, they would seem more appealing. It's been known to happen.
I finished Fear by Grant, the fifth book in the Gone series. I did like it and he managed to reel me in once again to the world of the FAYZE. There is a sixth book and I've been promised by my daughter Lisa that it will be the last one. It's her responsibility that I'm hooked on this series as she buys the books and passes them on to me.
I also completed Born to Darkness by Suzanne Brockmann. It's a futuristic novel of Greater Thans, Less Thans, and Fractionals referring to the individual's integration of his brain functions and therefore superior abilities. I found it a little silly and too much instant gratification for the characters on the sex part but I read it anyway. It was definitely an entertainment read, no serious value.
I am still reading two others: Beautiful Sacrifice by Elizabeth Lowell and Wicked by Gregory Maquire. I am sure I'll finish Beautiful Sacrifice as it has enough plot hidden in the endless descriptions of Mayan culture and artifacts that I do want to know how it ends. I was fortunate enough to see the musical Wicked at the Palace Theater in Columbus, and so thought I might like to read the novel it was based on. There is quite a difference in tone or perhaps I am just missing the music but I may not struggle though the whole novel. I think I will be picking and choosing and reading parts just to see the development of the characters that interest me. Reading a book doesn't always mean reading every single word.
The other books, Margaret Coel's The Perfect Suspect and Monica Ferris's Threadbare were non starters. I thought I'd like them when I picked them off the shelves but was never able to get beyond the predictable plot and boring, at least to me, characters so I read about two chapters each and was done. Perhaps if we were trapped in a snow storm and unable to get back to the library, they would seem more appealing. It's been known to happen.
Saturday, May 19, 2012
Four Books
The four books that I have read this week are Mary Balogh's The Proposal, Patricia Briggs' Cry Wolf, E. L. James' Fifty Shades of Grey, and Lisa Scottoline's Come Home. One thing they have in common is that I intend to read other titles by these four authors because I liked all four books.
They're very different of course. The Proposal is a Regency novel of class differences and love overcoming them, extremely well written and romantic. Cry Wolf is a fantasy of werewolves and pack politics with, interesting to me, a dominant - submissive role as part of the pack's relationships. Fifty Shades of Grey is being touted as porn but isn't in any way, a mature novel, for sure, of a young woman who wants to love a man who can only love her if she is the submissive to his dominant, which involves chainings and beatings. Come Home is an intense mystery that really did make me want to skip parts so I could get to the end; I actually looked at the last two pages halfway through to make sure a particular character was part of the ending.
What makes them the same is that first, each is well written and, second, each centers upon a normal woman in unique situations. Even Anna, the Omega werewolf, is basically a woman trying to figure out how to adapt to a situation beyond her control. The women are well developed characters and the plots drive them into areas outside of their usual environment.
I usually read several books a week and I'll keep you posted on what I'm reading. During lunch at the shop I'm currently reading Fear by Michael Grant. It's the fifth book in a series which started with Gone, when all the children under 15 are trapped in a bubble away from all adults. I'll be reading other books at home and that's going to require a trip to the library.
They're very different of course. The Proposal is a Regency novel of class differences and love overcoming them, extremely well written and romantic. Cry Wolf is a fantasy of werewolves and pack politics with, interesting to me, a dominant - submissive role as part of the pack's relationships. Fifty Shades of Grey is being touted as porn but isn't in any way, a mature novel, for sure, of a young woman who wants to love a man who can only love her if she is the submissive to his dominant, which involves chainings and beatings. Come Home is an intense mystery that really did make me want to skip parts so I could get to the end; I actually looked at the last two pages halfway through to make sure a particular character was part of the ending.
What makes them the same is that first, each is well written and, second, each centers upon a normal woman in unique situations. Even Anna, the Omega werewolf, is basically a woman trying to figure out how to adapt to a situation beyond her control. The women are well developed characters and the plots drive them into areas outside of their usual environment.
I usually read several books a week and I'll keep you posted on what I'm reading. During lunch at the shop I'm currently reading Fear by Michael Grant. It's the fifth book in a series which started with Gone, when all the children under 15 are trapped in a bubble away from all adults. I'll be reading other books at home and that's going to require a trip to the library.
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Interest in Pinterest
I have never believed anyone was too old to learn something new, especially me. But Pinterest may be my waterloo. I cannot get it to work consistently. Briefly, Pinterest is the use of pin boards to which you (not me) can add images of things that make sense to your collection. I've been trying to create a Pinboard of fabrics that I want and cannot afford. For example, Liberty Art Fabric is $42 a yard. Just occasionally I am successful and post the image that I want on the board. It works just often enough that I go back and try it again and again. It fails more often and is frustrating!
Other Pinterest people have nine or ten boards full of images and comments and "likes." I want to be able to do this so I'll keep spending an hour or so a day on the computer playing. Oh, yeah, I also have an app on my phone. It works sometimes also.
Other Pinterest people have nine or ten boards full of images and comments and "likes." I want to be able to do this so I'll keep spending an hour or so a day on the computer playing. Oh, yeah, I also have an app on my phone. It works sometimes also.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Hubby Tale
I love my husband but he does inspire some fun blogs out of misery.
On Monday I returned from a wonderful retreat, exhausted but refreshed. On Tuesday I went to my studio and to a Guild meeting and got back into the groove of work and activities. On Wednesday morning, Joe showed up at the studio telling me he had gone into AFib and needed to go to the emergency room. He learned that his heart was beating out of rhythm about 9:30 am when he took his pulse after exercise class at the Wellness Center. Told to call his doctor, he went out to his car, drove home (about 20 minute drive) and called his doctor who told him to go to the hospital. Not able to get me on his phone, he drove to the shop (12 minute drive), and told me the situation so I drove him to the local emergency room, another 15 minute drive. The point of this is that he started out 3 blocks from that emergency room when he was at the Wellness Center.
Transferred to the OSU Ross Heart Hospital because his cardiologist is there, he spent the next four days getting back to normal and I spent it driving back and forth, 400 miles worth. He's all better but had to add a new medicine, at least for a while, and I'm once again trying to get back in the groove of work.
Let out on a Saturday night about 6 pm, he came home starved and promptly dumped a bowl of tomato soup all over the couch. Ah, life with Joe.
On Monday I returned from a wonderful retreat, exhausted but refreshed. On Tuesday I went to my studio and to a Guild meeting and got back into the groove of work and activities. On Wednesday morning, Joe showed up at the studio telling me he had gone into AFib and needed to go to the emergency room. He learned that his heart was beating out of rhythm about 9:30 am when he took his pulse after exercise class at the Wellness Center. Told to call his doctor, he went out to his car, drove home (about 20 minute drive) and called his doctor who told him to go to the hospital. Not able to get me on his phone, he drove to the shop (12 minute drive), and told me the situation so I drove him to the local emergency room, another 15 minute drive. The point of this is that he started out 3 blocks from that emergency room when he was at the Wellness Center.
Transferred to the OSU Ross Heart Hospital because his cardiologist is there, he spent the next four days getting back to normal and I spent it driving back and forth, 400 miles worth. He's all better but had to add a new medicine, at least for a while, and I'm once again trying to get back in the groove of work.
Let out on a Saturday night about 6 pm, he came home starved and promptly dumped a bowl of tomato soup all over the couch. Ah, life with Joe.
Monday, January 23, 2012
Puzzles on Sunday Afternoon
Three weekends ago, Kai and Quinn found some old puzzles in the toy cupboard and wanted to work them. One was so old I had bought it at Drug Emporium which went out of business at least 20 years ago. It was a lovely rural scene and 500 pieces. We started working and soon Laura pitched in as well when she arrived for dinner on Sunday afternoon. We finished it in 3 weeks and discovered it was missing 2 pieces but for its age that's not too bad. That puzzle was the beginning of the mania.
Puzzles have taken over the living room. Most 500 piece puzzles fit exactly on a tv tray, but I do mean exactly so that you have to be careful not to nudge them over the edge and have pieces flying everywhere. Yes, we know that by personal experience. Thinking I was clever, I bought a piece of poster foam board to lay across the table and give more room to the puzzler and puzzle pieces. I had also purchased 4 puzzles of 500 pieces each with cats, kittens, quilts, flowers, and all sorts of backgrounds. We started the first one two weekends ago and were getting close to finishing it, especially as I had been working on it in the evenings that Joe was in the hospital (another story). So as well as the rural scene on a tv table, Quinn's Fancy Nancy puzzle on a tv table, I now have a third, one of the cat puzzles on the foam board on a tv table. My living area isn't all that big and you know what happened. I knocked the cat puzzle off and shattered it to pieces, haha. For a brief minute, I considered trying to keep parts of it together while picking it up but as they fell apart immediately, I gave up and just shoved the whole thing in a plastic bag and back in the box.
I've been forgiven and this weekend with the finish of the 498 piece rural scene, there was definitely some comfort. Currently on the board, put to the side on a safer table, is a Diary of a Wimpy Kid puzzle that Kai is working on and that I promise not to touch. I do want to start another cat puzzle but we also need to get rid of some that are together. But they take so long to do, it's almost heartbreaking to just put them back in the box. So I've purchased some puzzle saver and that will be the next adventure, next weekend.
Puzzles have taken over the living room. Most 500 piece puzzles fit exactly on a tv tray, but I do mean exactly so that you have to be careful not to nudge them over the edge and have pieces flying everywhere. Yes, we know that by personal experience. Thinking I was clever, I bought a piece of poster foam board to lay across the table and give more room to the puzzler and puzzle pieces. I had also purchased 4 puzzles of 500 pieces each with cats, kittens, quilts, flowers, and all sorts of backgrounds. We started the first one two weekends ago and were getting close to finishing it, especially as I had been working on it in the evenings that Joe was in the hospital (another story). So as well as the rural scene on a tv table, Quinn's Fancy Nancy puzzle on a tv table, I now have a third, one of the cat puzzles on the foam board on a tv table. My living area isn't all that big and you know what happened. I knocked the cat puzzle off and shattered it to pieces, haha. For a brief minute, I considered trying to keep parts of it together while picking it up but as they fell apart immediately, I gave up and just shoved the whole thing in a plastic bag and back in the box.
I've been forgiven and this weekend with the finish of the 498 piece rural scene, there was definitely some comfort. Currently on the board, put to the side on a safer table, is a Diary of a Wimpy Kid puzzle that Kai is working on and that I promise not to touch. I do want to start another cat puzzle but we also need to get rid of some that are together. But they take so long to do, it's almost heartbreaking to just put them back in the box. So I've purchased some puzzle saver and that will be the next adventure, next weekend.
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
When I was in high school, I wasn't allowed to take art class because I couldn't draw and, therefore, didn't have enought talent to take the class. I often think of the favorite things I did growing up -- I loved to color, I loved to manipulate construction paper and later fabrics. But none of this qualified as art, of course. As an adult, I edged further into art with ceramics, kind of like coloring for adults. When I discovered quilting and all its diversity, I was hooked into color and pattern and wished I had been able to take art classes that might have taught me more about color theory, etc. But perhaps it's best that I have gone my own way, making things that I like and adapting patterns to reflect my tastes as well as creating original works.
I still think of not being able to take art in high school and know that it is still just for the elite that can draw. I am certainly not an artist but I would have loved taking many of those classes.
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