Succinctly Yours - Week 8

If you just get new glasses, Ansel, you won't have to carry that contraption around all the time. The ocean is to your right. So it began.

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Teaser Tuesday + One Day

From The Edible Woman by Margaret Atwood:
When I went out to the kitchen to get breakfast Ainsley was there, moping: she said she had been to a bad party the night before. She swore there had been nothing but dentistry students, which depressed her so much she had consoled herself by getting drunk.

What are YOU reading?

.....

Microfiction: Succinctly Yours

Unheralded work continues at Ground Zero as the world devotes hours of attention to the aquatic burial of the evil master mind. Seek peace.

(Word Of The Week: aquatic)

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Simply Stated Book Review

They Did It with Love by Kate Morgenroth

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

The mystery plot was well-developed,though the story line read like an episode from "Desperate Housewives". It is an OK read.

View all my reviews

Chaos!

 When I first saw these knitting dice, I thought that they would be so easy to make with some cubes from the craft store and a Sharpie. As you can see, I eventually did order them via http://www.knitivity.com/diceyKnitting.html.

The kit includes a pattern for a "Chaos Scarf", but I chose to make a square for my crazy afghan. The ivory colored cube is the Master Cube that indicates knit, purl, slip, increase, decrease, or cable/twist. The other cubes are used based on the ivory cube.

Well, you can end up with chaos bordering on disaster, so I occasionally adjusted stitches to avoid extreme ickiness. It is fun to use the dice for a strange, unique variety in knitting! I can imagine doing this with a set of regular dice by assigning specific stitches to the numbers on assorted colors of dice. Fun? Silly? Why, yes it is!
What are you knitting?

on disaster

Yarn Along Wednesday

These squares are parts of the crazy ghan that I am knitting. I hope to begin reading Noah's Compass by Anne Tyler tonight. I've enjoyed her work in the past and have read so many positive comments about this one.

Click on the "Yarn Along" pic to see what others are reading and knitting. Perhaps you would like to join the fun!

Teaser Tuesday

"He knew that this room—sometimes called the Tank or the Vault—held presidential secrets, national secrets, and pine-box secrets, as in, the kinds of secrets that came with coffins.

But as he stood in the back corner of the small, plain beige room, swaying in place and flicking the tip of his tongue against the back of his front teeth, the archivist with the scratched black reading glasses knew that the most vital thing in the room wasn’t a classified file or a top-secret sheet of paper—it was the polished, rosy-cheeked man who sat alone at the single long table in the center of the room."

from The Inner Circle by Brad Meltzer

What are you reading?

Succinctly Yours



"These glasses are perfect for my lop-sided view of life." After treatment for his crab-like walk, Pablo knew that things were looking up.

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Teaser Tuesday ~ Morganroth



"In fact, she didn't love any of the classics. Everyone knew that she preferred the modern serial killer mysteries -- anything that had a string of gruesome deaths and outrageously psychopathic murderers."  page 69

From They Did It With Love by Kate Morganroth

What are you reading?

Succinctly Yours

"She is so brash! Bessie always hogs the camera! What a cow!" said Daisy, not a contented cow. The friendship ended on a sour note.

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Embellishment

Moving along with the crazy knit afghan, I embroidered two neutral colored squares. One has a diagonal pattern while the other is basket weave stitch. With DK weight yarn, I stitched a bit of color along the seam. While I am anxious to see the completed work, I am enjoying the process so much that I may just take my sweet time with this gratifying creation.

Last Leg ~ Santa Fe

During our few days stay in Santa Fe, I made my second visit to the peaceful Georgia O'Keefe museum and gallery. The display consisted of her city scapes and the simple beauty of her surroundings in Abiquiu, New Mexico. The contrast is striking, so much so that I purchased a city scape, a theme that had not previously drawn my interest. The stark beauty caught my eye as well as a print of the above poster displayed at the entrance to the museum. I decided I want to have a portrait of the artist as an elderly woman, though it is made from a photograph. (I just had to evoke "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man".)

Because I love the O'K logo, I simply had to buy an earthen ware mug featuring the logo, which is displayed beside a grandly, large O'Keefe poppy in my office. After three wonderful weeks of travel in Arizona and New Mexico, we returned home to Colorado. We are blessed.

Succinctly Yours – Week 4

Our next invention will be a zero gravity folding chair. These canvas & wood ones are shoddy! We'll chat in comfort and appear less grumpy.

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Sumptuous Sedona

 The RV Resort in Sedona was absolutely stunning in its natural beauty with trees and wildlife abounding, clever birdhouses offering shelter

 and fantastic sculpture throughout the park.

Even the strip malls and grocery stores reflect the natural beauty of the surrounding area.

 While enjoying a trolley tour, we saw this multi-million dollar summer home with its own dome and telescope for gazing at the amazing Arizona sky. Note the "cathedral" mountain formation in the distance. Praise God for the beauty of this land.

 These formations are called the "two nuns" on the right and "Madonna and Child" on the left.

A four-hour train trip took us through the inner canyons around Sedona in a 1937 train car

 still sporting the original interior painting. The amazing artistry is something to behold along with the glorious natural beauty outside the windows.

 Here is a section of thousands of years old cave dwellings that have been compressed over time.

 The train is entering a tunnel

with a last glimpse of light before our car entered the darkness within. Along with sight-seeing and shopping, we enjoyed our time among the red rocks of Sedona.

Phoenix

Leaving Scottsdale after five days, we drove to Phoenix for a week's stay. These grapefruit trees were just outside our door! Fresh, ready-to-pick grapefruit greeted us every day!

We spent the most wonderful afternoon at the Phoenix Desert Botanical Garden which includes cacti and succulents from around the world and a beautiful Butterfly Dome.

 

From low-growing ground cover

to these towering old plants,

the desert offers breath-taking and unique beauty.

 These feeding stations in the Butterfly Dome enable visitors to see how the butterflies feed through the proboscis.

 This beauty landed on DH's hat and rested their for quite a while as people stopped to look at this lovely creature.

 Then, this plus-size butterfly landed and scared everyone away!! hee-hee

Succinctly Yours – Week3

Succinctly Yours
Word Of The Week: procrastinate

Without time to procrastinate he wore an orange jacket to meet her at baggage, sure that only he could save her from herself. She smiled.

Friday Prayer Shawl Update

I've picked up the prayer shawl again with the hope of finishing it before wandering to of my other WIPs. This James Brett "Marble" yarn is so nice to touch and knit. This is my first experience with it and I quite enjoy it. Fortunately, I have another ball of it in tans and brown for a prayer shawl that I might use to crochet a triangle shawl. The current pattern is the Bernat "Mosaic Wrap" though I plan to omit the pom poms.

What are you creating?

Wednesday Microfiction Muse

Luscious Lula, bearing the burden of broken promises and misplaced trust, felt more alive when she wore her ruby hat to visit his grave.

The Microfiction Muse #1 at http://dianeestrella.com/?p=5129