book report

Packing up for a vacation always involves choosing a mini library to have on hand!  

I already told you about The Girl In The Spider's Web, that was my first start and first finish for this trip.  

Then, I moved on to Stolen Prey, from John Sandford, a favorite Minnesota author.  This is another Lucas Davenport crime spree thriller, and, of course, Lucas triumphs over all!  Well, I don't want to spoil this for anyone, but Lucas' adopted daughter, Letty, really shines in this story, too!  In fact, she's kind of like my other fave heroines, Lisbeth and Pippi!  

I've started on a new Jodi Piccoult story, and it's too early to know if it's going to be as captivating as her other novels.  Give me a little more time and I will tell you what I think about Leaving Time.

Bob has been engrossed in the pages of this epic--

and it's perfect to learn more about the history of our vacation spot.  This is a really long book, and typical of Michener's in-depth historical novels.  Last night I mentioned that we would have to watch the movie made from this book, and he was sort of miffed that I hadn't told him that there was a movie and saved him all that reading!

And for good measure, some easy-reading romance novel fluff!

It's always good to have options!

embroidery fun

I am learning some great new things for my sewing machine functions.  I think this all supports my sewing habit, and further justifies the purchase of fabric and notions!

I have started embroidering some designs on the machine that will go into a little "quiet book" for the grandson(s).  This is called R is for Robot and comes from the OESD company via embroideryonline.com  The very best part of this project is the 3-D glasses that come with it!  When you look through those glasses the thread colors seem to come to the front or recede to the back, giving that 3D look.  Maybe it will be more fun for the grown-ups than the little boys, but that's fine by me!

And down below is the collection of stars that I have embroidered to make a wall-hanging size project.  There is still quite a bit of finishing to do, but the star embroidery is all done.  I have to trim down and then sew together all of these blocks, then decide whether to continue on with the embroidered border blocks, or just call it good and but on a binding!  I am leaning towards the latter, what do you think?

I am spending the rest of the week at Bridge Creek Cottage in August, WI, for the Bear Patch retreat for machine embroiderers.  They are arriving soon!  I am part worker bee and part sewist on this trip, so I can help with serving the meals and clean-up.  It's a good group of women, mostly known through our connection with the store.  Very fun to spend the time together, and last year I learned so much from everyone here.  I am fighting off a cold and experiencing some laryngitis, so not much of a conversationalist.  I am not normally know as a jabberjay to begin with, but having this squeaky voice that comes and goes doesn't help at all!

Did you catch the reference to The Hunger Games?  Bob and I finished listening to the recorded 3 book series of this story, and have watched the first 2 movies.  Although quite "dark" and tough to listen to in some sections, it was overall a good read.

Two other books recently finished:

Micro by Michael Crichton

and Roadside Crosses by Jeffery Deaver

Micro is an intriguing story of science gone wrong, just like other Michael Crichton books.  This one is set in Hawaii and involves miniaturization of people.  Itty bitty people that become prey to bugs and spiders that dwarf them!

Roadside Crosses is a mystery novel set in Pacific Grove, a town on the Monterey peninsula of California.  Since I had the good fortune of visiting there last spring, it held names and descriptions of some things familiar to me.  The mystery is wrapped up in the world of online fantasy games and blogging!  Not this blogger!

Both books were enjoyable but not great works of literature.  Right now I am reading Lord of the Flies by William Golding, supposedly a great work of literature.  I heard it was sort of like a precursor to the Hunger Games.  But it has a lot of references to things that don't make total sense to me, either because it was written in another time and place, or because it is bedtime and I keep falling asleep!  I will have to look up the Cliff Notes!

one turkey bit the dust

 We had a lovely drive down to "home" in Iowa last Saturday, and a Thanksgiving dinner with my parents, brother and sister-in-law on Sunday.  It was a very good dinner and afternoon.  Mom cooked a turkey roast instead of the whole bird, and that was just the right size.  Plus, she cooked it in the crockpot so the oven was free for the side dishes.  We (Bob and I) will celebrate the actual Turkey Day at our place so Bob can be handy to his computer and troubleshoot problems that might arise at work.  Somebody's gotta' do it, and this time it's Bob's turn.

I will be finishing up this quilt while Bob is tuned into whatever football marathon he can find!  This is for Laurel, who will be teaching a class on it at the store.  An update on the traditional Dresden Fan blocks.

I have been intending to share some books with you, since I know many of you like to read something new.  And we are coming up on a good season for giving and receiving books, so maybe this will give you some ideas:

Brita suggested this one to me--

It is a murder mystery by an Irish author, Tana French.  It is set in Dublin, and the reader that I am listening to while driving and quilting is British, so the accent really gets me into the story.  And it is a good mystery, not something I can figure out yet and I am on disc 13 of 18.  Plus, she has written 3 more books that I believe are all about the same police detectives.  This is the first in the series, so you should start with this one.

Here's a book that my sister-in-law, Jean, recommended:

Secret Daughter by June Cross.  This is a memoir of a bi-racial woman who grew up in a divided world.  I'm not very far into it, but am curious about how it plays out.

Then, a reliable writer that always comes up with some good lawyerly story:

I am about halfway through The Litigators, and am continually amazed at the treachery and trouble that lawyers can get involved in!
So, between recorded books, actual paper books, and Kindle books, I have a good assortment.  Plus, there's a stack that have made the cut and moved from the basement bookshelf to my suitcase for my upcoming vacation reading!  What are you reading???

summer reading

Even though it's hard find much time to read, I try to keep a good book on hand most of the time.  And now, with the options available through my library and Kindle and recorded books, there is no excuse to not have a story to get caught up in.  Here are my most recent reads:

Driftless came to my attention because I was looking for a book title Jewelweed by the same author.  That title was not available at that time, but this looked intriguing and I'm glad I chose it.  It is a novel about the people in and around a small community in southwest Wisconsin.  A little intrigue, a little scandal, a little love story, and a whole lot of local flavor.  

Gone Girl was a hard one to get my hands on, I was on the waiting list for the Kindle edition for weeks.  It is a story of the disappearance of a woman.  And a tangled web of interwoven lives.  It left me wondering if the wait was worth it.

Pirate Latitudes by Michael Crichton is a big departure from his typical work.  This is historical fiction about seafaring and swashbuckling at their best.  The usual damsel in distress was involved, but not a key element of the story so I liked that.  I would rather read about the hunt for treasures and the heroics of a bunch of misfits!

Currently, I am listening to a new novel, A Wanted Man, about Jack Reacher, the hero of a series of books by Lee Child.  I'm right in the middle, so still a bit to go to know what's going to happen, but Jack is up to his old tricks.  This character is the basis for a recent movie starring Tom Cruise.  The Jack Reacher of the books is always described as a real big, forbidding kind of guy.  Kind of the opposite of Tom Cruise!

signs of spring (finally!)

I think this might be the latest springtime I can ever remember!  One of the big spring events in this state is the opening of fishing season, usually on Mother's Day weekend.  I did learn that it isn't required that it happens on that weekend and leave a bunch of fishing widows behind on their special holiday.  It actually is scheduled according to a certain Saturday after some phase of the moon or something like that, but it does seem to interfere with either our wedding anniversary (5/16) or Mother's Day every year.  Anyway, this year a good number of the lakes were still iced over, so many plans of those dedicated fisherpeople were altered.

But today I had a chance to walk outside with my camera while the sun was shining, and was so happy to see things actually growing again!

apple tree

wild grape vine

hosta that haven't been eaten yet!

old-fashioned bleeding hearts

another variety of bleeding hearts

wild plum tree, I think

Such a welcome relief from the cold and snow! 

I have wanted to share some info on books I have recently read/listened to.  First, a series of 4 books by Richard Paul Evans.  The first in the series is The Walk, and I don't have the other 3 pictured in the correct order but you can find that out easily.  I got all of them from the library on CD's, and they were read by the author.  It is the story of a young man's journey on foot across the country, with many valuable lessons learned along the way.  It is fiction, but seemed like it could be real.  I heard about them from my brother-in-lay, John, so I thank him for pointing me in the right direction.

While I was searching the library files for The Walk, the book below also came up in the search.  It is just about the opposite of the heart-warming stories by Richard Paul Evans!

I used to read Stephen King novels regularly, but stopped at some point.  But I thought I would give this a try.  I nearly didn't finish it, because it was so grim and creepy!  A huge contrast in novels!  I wouldn't recommend it unless you are prepared for a typical Stephen King gruesome fest.

So there's some summer reading for you!