Succinctly Yours – Week 19

Using the photo as inspiration, write a story of 140 characters or 140 words. It doesn’t have to be exactly 140, just not more.The added optional challenge is to use the word of the week in the story. Then post it here.

A tongue flicks to bug
Lizzie's lunch is on the way
One delicious meal.

My FATHER AT 100 by Ron Reagan

My Father at 100 by Ron Reagan

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


After listening to the audio version of this book, I think I could enjoy listening to Ron Reagan read the phone book. Reading the printed book would have been a far different experience than hearing the son, author, and reader render the events in a voice reminiscent of his father. His voice makes the events even more personal and touching. Interweaving events from different time periods is smoothly executed and quite effective in that the author is calling upon the reader's memories of his father's public life while imparting more obscure and personal events in the life of the President.

The book discloses the strong similarity between Father and son: brio,arrogance, a certain sense of entitlement. Ron doesn't come off well in his gleeful recounting of an immature rejoinder to then Vice-President George H. W. Bush. The immaturity he describes in his father's early adulthood echoes in the immaturity of the son. Thinking that he is staring down Gorbachev at a meeting with his father is just silly. His self-revelation is a surprising secondary story line.

I recommend this highly informative book of a son's reflections about his outstanding father. If possible, get it on audio.

View all my reviews

Yarn Along Wednesday -- Rich Boy - And On To Friday Fibers

It's Wednesday! What are you reading? What are you knitting?

Join in at Yarn Along and let us all know!

I finished Rich Boy by Sharon Pomerantz today with a sigh. What a story! The elegant writing flows so easily that I just had to keep reading long past bed time. The story is not particularly unique and the main character resembles Don Draper on TV's "Mad Men", yet the writing makes this book eminently enjoyable and readable.

I've shifted gears on my DGD's blanket request to a mindless, though boring pattern. I had set it aside in favor of a patchwork pattern, which I like but am not in the mood to knit at the moment. So, I picked up the crochet hook and the banished blanket to continue and to finish, I hope!
Are you, like me, a moody knitter?

Teaser Tuesdays -- Rich Boy

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly book meme, hosted at Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along!

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page 
• Share two “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page along with the title & author so other TT participants can add the book to their TBR lists if they like your teasers!

• Ready for a tease? Here it is:

"The air conditioner trilled loudly in the shop on Sixth Avenue just off Twelfth Street, as the elderly man with a twirled mustache, in a shirt and bow tie, cut Robert's facial hair with scissors getting it short enough to shave....Robert enjoyed being shaved and washed and taken care of more than he'd expected---for the last three years, he had wanted just the opposite, but now he remembered how people lived, could live."
---Rich Boy by Sharon Pomerantz

What are you reading?

Succinctly Yours: Microfiction -- Week 18

Using the photo as inspiration, write a story of 140 characters or 140 words. It doesn’t have to be exactly 140, just not more.The added optional challenge is to use the word of the week in the story. Then post it here.

 

 

Gepetto made an arbitrary choice to carve a boy.
Would he be able to complete this novel project?
 Why did he keep thinking of strings?

:::::

Yarn Along - The Sea House

It's Wednesday! What are you reading? What are you knitting?

Join in at Yarn Along and let us all know!

 The Sea House by Esther Freud is set on an English coastline with desirable beaches and a sleepy village. The main character, Lily, is translating a set of letters circa 1930 from German to English. The author is slowly revealing Lily's life and introducing an interesting set of supporting characters.

So far, I have to say it's an OK read. Perhaps it will become more gripping as I continue along.

This little cottage is coming off the crochet hook in sc based on a half-remembered pattern I used to make a "house tote" for my daughter and her friends in the late 70's. Using a G hook and WW I Love This Yarn from Hobby Lobby, I've made pieces for the window and door to be sewn on to the yellow part.

The scalloped trim is pinned in place and a few stitches created flowers and grass. The door knob is a white bead and three tiny green and blue beads are the center of each flower. This will continue to be a WIP for a while as I add little touches, windows on the back, vines and flowers, and a butterfly. This is for seven-year-old DGD's November birthday, so I have plenty of time to play with it! Fun!

 

 

 

 

Teaser Tuesdays

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly book meme, hosted at Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along!

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page along with the title & author so other TT participants can add the book to their TBR lists if they like your teasers!
  Ready for a tease? Here it is:

• p.125  "From now on the letters were all typed, and Lily found she missed the grandeur of the writing, the swirls and loops of the black ink. She was used to straining for meaning of a too hurriedly drawn words, missed the satisfaction that came to her when she'd deciphered something she'd first thought impossibly unclear."         ---from The Sea House by Esther Freud

 

                                                                                             

What are you reading?





The Greater Journey

The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris, 1830-1900 by David McCullough

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


David McCullough presents a luscious book of words and images to tell the interwoven stories of the life and times of creative Americans between 1830 and 1900 as they were drawn to arduous journeys to inspirational Paris. The historical perspective is enormous and magnificently rendered as the humanity of great American artists and little known details of their lives unfold. French history flows through the story in a most engaging way leaving the reader full and satisfied at the end of this delicious book.


View all my reviews

Succinctly Yours: Microfiction--Week 17

Using the photo as inspiration, write a story of 140 characters or 140 words. It doesn’t have to be exactly 140, just not more.The added optional challenge is to use the word of the week in the story. Then post it at here.

 

After Devon made an obscure reference to her inability to swim, Ann stood slowly. Are the rumors about him true, she wondered. Fear reigned.

BOOKS!

I'm so excited that I just have to share this with people who "get it"!!
My order from Book Close-outs just arrived and WOW!! I am not affiliated with them and don't order often, but when I do, I DO!!

The nice tall stack of books on my desk includes

DIVAS DON'T KNIT -- Gil McNeil
THE SPINSTER SISTERS -- Stacy Ballis
THE HOUSE ON OYSTER CREEK -- Heidi Jon Schmidt
THE SCHOOL OF ESSENTIAL INGREDIENTS -- Erica Bauermeister
RICH BOY -- Sharon Pomerantz
THE WEDNESDAY SISTERS -- Meg Waite Clayton
DAUGHTERS OF FORTUNE--Tara Hyland
THE ISLAND -- Elin Hiderbrand (Loved BAREFOOT.)
JULIET -- Anne Fortier

Have you read any of these? What are your thoughts on these titles/authors?

I don't know if I can calm down enough read right now!!

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeee!!

Rainbows and a Grandaughter

 These are colors that seven-year-old DGD would like in her requested blanket. She was thinking of rainbows, she said. When asked if she wanted a blanket with rainbows on it, she told me she wanted the colors all swirly. Swirly colors with her name in quite large letters and a dolphin and...ummm...one other thing. I can't remember now. So, armed with many colors and this pretty pattern, I tried using all of them in the lovely cascading effect. My eyes were in shock, so I just had to do something different!

 Since a different pattern might help, I searched through Ravelry , through my favorites lists, my notebooks, my files, my books and magazines finding some "maybes", a few "possibilities", yet still searching. Then, as I sleepily browsed my email one morning, lighting struck!! And blew my computer! No, not really, sorry. I did see an email from Caron yarns with the perfect pattern for this blanket. It uses several colors. There are patches were I can add her name and the dolphin and the other thing I can't remember. And I was moved to scale down the color palette according to an approach I learned from Laura Bryant in a class at Stitches West.

 With my charts and yarns and other necessities, I repaired to the deck to enjoy the summer day and crochet this cutie-cute blanket. Nothing could stop me now!

 Nothing...except...

 Tangled yarn!! Having come this far after my trial-and-error, my searches, my color sorting, my prepared table on the deck--one word came to mind:

 BOBBINS!!!!

 As I sat plumping the bare bobbins with each color of yarn, I looked around at the beauty the Lord has made: right petunias to cheer the day,

 Clumps of greenery to bring color to a dark spot,

 Even a cute ladybug to give me a smile. See her there, right by the lantana bud? Yes, to me, all ladybugs are "she". Certainly there are some manly guybugs around, aren't there? Bring on the entomologists!

And my sweet Lailah to ward off all the squirrels. All is well. The plan is set. The crocheting has begun and a day on the deck is just as uplifting as it can be.

Happy knitting and crocheting to you!

Teaser Tuesdays -- The Greater Journey

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly book meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along!

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page along with the title & author so other TT participants can add the book to their TBR lists if they like your teasers!

Ready for a tease? Here it is:

"As robust a walker as any of them was James Fenimore Cooper, who in earlier years had been known to walk from New York City all the way to his country home in Westchester County, a distance of twenty-five miles. No sooner had Cooper settled in Paris in 1826 than he decided to the entire circumference of the city on foot, taking with him an old friend, a retired American naval captain with the memorable name of Melancthon T. Woolsey, under whom Cooper had once served at sea."

From a glorious nonfiction book by David McCullough,
 The Greater Journey Americans in Paris.

What are you reading?
 

FO is spotted!

I can hardly believe it! I have, right here, an official FO!! I wanted to make a wrap suitable for a man for our church's prayer shawl ministry. It’s a boring pattern, but I decided to press on and complete it! It took me quite a long time because I was more inclined to work on other WIPs. It's made with two skeins of James C. Brett Marble Chunky yarn and size 10 needles.

What have you been knitting?