Dear Friday....

http://smidgensbitsandsnippets.blogspot.com/  - joining up for Friday Letters.....

Dear New Breathless Shalimar Yarn - you are so yummy - you look like a creamsickle - I need to figure out what you are going to be when I get you on my needles.

Dear Magazine People....why can't you find a way to encase the perfume samples you put inside the magazine pages!  Even when I tear them out, I can still smell the perfume and it ruins the whole reading experience for me!

Dear Really Cold Weather...even though I much prefer you over really hot weather, you sure are making my arthritis flare up and my body ache all over.

Dear Facebook...even though I sometimes have issues with you, I'm so glad you exist.  My sister has joined up with you and now she and I can instant message during the day and share photos of our knitting...  That makes us draw a little closer - even though we are over 500 miles apart.

Happy Yarn!

One of the blogs I read was talking about yarn that just makes you happy. Well, this is mine right now!!

I almost didn't get it, because in real life, it is quite "in your face"!  But then I realized how happy it made me every time I looked at it. So it is now "in my house"!!  I have plans for some of it already! 
What is your "happy yarn" right now?

First Chapter, First Paragraph Tuesday Time!

Linking with http://bibliophilebythesea.blogspot.com/ for First Paragraph Tuesday....

My book for today is The Threadbare Heart by Jennie Nash....

Love was the one thing Lily always thought she did better than her mother.  She believed that she knew exactly what love took, what it cost, and what it meant, and she thought of her long marriage to Tom as proof of it.  But in the short period of time between Christmas and the start of fire season, everything she understood about love unraveled, the way jeans do at the hem, the way tweed does so that it reveals the intricate relationship of the warp and the weft, and she realized how very little she knew about the way love worked.  People naturally assumed, after everything that happened, that it was a bitter revelation, but they were wrong.

So...do you want to grab this book and find out more?

Dear Friday - aka Friday Letters

I'm linking up with Smidgens, Snippets & Bits and trying my hand at this...
http://smidgensbitsandsnippets.blogspot.com/  (link if you would like to try it too)...

Dear Friday....thanks to my electric company for getting the electric back on yesterday in 2 hours in lieu of the 4 that was quoted. And thanks (sort of) for taking awhile, as I got to go out to dinner - LOL!

Dear Friday...Mother Nature dropped a bit of snow on us Wednesday - but it melted quickly.  The weatherman was right for a change and it snowed when they said it would. I'm sure hoping they are wrong about the new snowstorm coming tomorrow...

Dear Friday...why do strangers that I try to chat with in my local bookstore or yarn shop look at me (most of the time) like I'm crazy for talking to them!

Dear Friday....why does it seem that all I do is empty and carry out the trash over and over?

I really didn't want to....

go for a walk today that is. After doing things around the house this morning, and then going out grocery shopping, and then putting it all away, I was feeling lazy. But I forced myself to go and by the time I got partway, I was glad I did. There was a chilly breeze going, but it perked me up!

I saw a bit of the leftover snow from yesterday. To me, it looked a bit like clouds (clouds with leaves in them that is - LOL!)...
And a tree that seemed to almost be reaching for the sun....

What is age anyway....

I read a lot of books of various genres!  I gravitate towards book that have certain themes. I especially love books where an old house is featured.  I really love it when the house is almost like one of the characters in the book!  I also love books that center around food!  Some of these books feature a young woman who is in her 20's or 30's or even 40's.  I'm 65 now.  But I've always gotten along well with people younger than me.  So I will often give these books a chance. I don't say - oh, the character is much younger than me...so obviously this book will not appeal to me.  Because many times they do (and some times they don't).  But I can say the same about books where the character is my age or older!

One of these books that is working for me (quite well actually) is "A Second Bite At the Apple"...  I have to say that at times I want to smack the character upside the head - she gets a bit annoying at times.  But then again, there are times when I want to smack me upside the head - because I get annoying - LOL! 

What about you? Do you sometimes enjoy a book where the character is much younger than you (or even much older than you)?

First Chapter, First Paragraph Tuesday....

Linking to bibliophile by the sea blog for first paragraph Tuesday!

http://bibliophilebythesea.blogspot.com.es/2015/01/first-chapter-first-paragraph-tuesday_13.html

This week I am using a book I'm re-reading for at least the 4th, maybe 5th...time! And every time I read it, I always re-read the sequel "Pigs in Heaven".  The book is "The Bean Trees" by Barbara Kingsolver....

"I have been afraid of putting air in a tire ever since I saw a tractor tire blow up and throw Newt Hardbine's father over the top of the Standard Oil sign.  I'm not lying.  He got stuck up there.  About nineteen people congregated during the time it took for Norman Strick to walk up to the Courthouse and blow the whistle for the volunteer fire department.  They eventually did come with the ladder and haul him down, and he wasn't dead but lost his hearing and in many other ways was never the same afterward  They said he overfilled the tire"..

So... what are your thoughts? Would you keep reading?

A to Z.....

I moderate two bookgroups via email through yahoogroups website. One is an all genre group called ontheporchswing.  The other is an all mystery group called mysteryreadercafe.... Each year I set up "themed" challenges for both groups.  Along with those challenges, many members do other book challenges, including an A to Z one.  You try to read books with titles that start with each letter of the alphabet - and no, you can't use a, an, or the! LOL! The one challenge I saw gives you a bit of an easier time with Q, X, and Z - by letting you have the letter anywhere in the title! I'm not going to search out books specifically to make my goal.  I'm just going to read the books I would normally read - and then see how I've done at the end of the year! After all, it is just for me and just for fun!  I realized the other day that I already have my "Q" title! Woot!

Ten On Tuesday...

The Ten on Tuesday prompt for this week is 10 intentions for 2015. I like that description. Not resolutions - not goals per se - but things I intend to do (or should say - I hope to do)....

1.  Be more giving - in my time and my pocket book...volunteer more - donate more....

2.  Be more patient....

3.  Be still more....

4.  Laugh more...

5.  Be braver...try to worry less about what might happen - and live instead....

6.  Be more open....to whatever might come my way - say the word "no" or "not today" less.... (see number 5)

7.  Read more. I read... but not nearly as much as I used to before I started knitting!  I miss my reading time!

8.  Start cross-stitching again. I put this aside when I got sick last year. And then I wasn't doing it as much even before that (see knitting comment above).  I find that I miss the quietness and anxiety reducing feeling that I always get when I stitch...

9.  Call my parents more... My Mom used to call me a few times a week (since we live 500 miles away from each other). But since she developed alzheimers about 7 years ago, she doesn't call anymore.  I need to call them and chat with her - even if she can't sustain a conversation, I can....

10.  Be more spontaneous (sort of in line with number 6).

First Paragraph Tuesday....

I'm joining this weekly challenge for the first time (I spotted it on a blog I read).....http://bibliophilebythesea.blogspot.com/

Take a book you are reading (or re-reading in this case) - post the first paragraph - and then ask...would you keep reading?

If Claire had to look back and decide why she had the affair in the first place, she would point to the missing boy.  This was in mid-June, during those first humid days when the air in Virginia hangs thick.  School was coming to an end, and from her kitchen window Claire could see the bus stop at the corner and the neighborhood children, sweaty in skirts and blouses, khaki trousers and damp cotton shirts, pile out of it like a lazy litter of puppies.  Their schoolbags dragged along the sidewalk; their catcher's mitts drooped.  Jump ropes trailed behind a small group of girls, as if even they were too hot.

So... would you keep reading?!