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Sunday, August 29, 2010

Goodbye August, hello Fall

It seems like forever since my last post - well, because it has been. What used to be a weekly event, my blog has taken the backburner - work #1, tennis with the boyfriend #2, and everything else (mostly just sleeping and eating in between). Lots of long days this past week - it felt like forever since I had picked up the needles. So this weekend, with the man out of town, I did.

Yay! Another finished object - the Baby Bamboozle Hat, rainbow style:


This will be a gift for Alexa to help her catch up on her knitting she missed during her morning/last-all-day/all summer sickness. It will also match Kirsten's little booties she received also. This baby knitted up in 4 hours - while watching a marathon of Dog, The Bounty Hunter until 2 am. Fun!

My knitting goal for September: finish my mom's Shibui Cable Wrap I am planning to be her Christmas present:



Although it is a lot of repetition, the softness and the flow are totally worth it. September is my favorite month out of the year, and it's starting this week. I am determined to keep it that way and enjoy the pleasures of fall.

Also this month, I managed to fit in several more books:

1) Orange is the New Black - another Heather's Pick from Chapters. It was slow to start, but soon evolved into an eye-opening relatable book about an upper-middle class woman and going to jail. Definitely not as bad as a lot of woman have it in life, but there was a lot of times where I said to myself "I could see that". I liked that you need to get a special "knitting permit" for jail due to the needle risk, but the craft of choice is crochet. Boo on crochet. Definitely a worthwhile and recommended read by me:



The second book was Secret Daughter - a simplistic yet educational look at life in India as a woman. A recommended read - definitely a little emotional:



Bring on September!

Monday, August 2, 2010

Ashley's Perfect Book

Well - by the subject anyway. It took me just one day to finish my latest read - The Guersney Literary and Potato Peel Society - everything I was looking for in a book yesterday. A touch of easy island life, war history, the Holocaust, a reading club with fabulous characters, and of course, a love story. Now normally, I am not one for a book of letters (which this is) the flow of the book always seems way to choppy. But the correspondance between different people gives you a sense of the 40s, and as the storylines intermingle with each other, I found myself wondering when the characters had time do anything else but write.

Ahhh, island lifestyle.

There were numerous great quotes in this book worth sharing:

The first - so true for me right now:

"Reading good books ruins you for enjoying bad books."

From one of the characters:

"At first, I did not want to go to any book meetings. My farm is a lot of work, and I did not want to spend my time reading about people who never was, doing things they never did." - Definitely a fresh perspective.

From one best friend to another about her love life:

"Now, about Markham V. Reynolds (Junior). Your questions regarding that gentleman are very delicate, very subtle, very much like being smacked in the head with a mallet. Am I in love with hime? What kind of question is that? It's a tuba among the flutes, and I expect better of you. The first rule of snooping is to come at it sideways". - Freaking hilarious sarcasm.

"hale" - my new favorite word (healthy, strong).
"henbane": (an herb/noxious weed)


"dolmens": A Neolithic tomb of flat rocks:

"I had a small supper party for him - cooked b me alone, and edible, too. Will Thisbee gave me 'The Beginner's Cook-Book for Girl Guides'. It was j".ust the thing; the writer assumes you know nothing about cookery and writes useful hints - 'When adding eggs, break the shells first.'"

"Isola doesn't approve of small talk and believes in breaking the ice by stomping on it."

"Mrs. Winslow Daubbs read a chapter from her autobiography, The Life and Loves of Delilah Daubbs. Audience attentive - but silent afterwards. Except for Winslow, who wants a divorce".

"Also, contrary to what Sidney thinks, she isn't an angel straight from Heaven, she's from an employment agency."

Overall a bloody fantastic read for a lazy August day - I couldn't put it down to even go the libary.

Up next: Orange is the New Black.

Sunday, August 1, 2010

Yet Another Project

I am currently reading (and recommending to everyone) The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin. After researching for months and months, this author felt she had everything but was still missing something. Don't we all. This book was written as a best friend's conversation with tidbits of advice, from the simple to the profound, making it an interesting yet easy read. A lot of these ideas are common sense, it's just re-emphasizing what you already know and finding ways of doing it. Day one I devoured the first chapter, and although I still haven't finished it, I can say that I am responsible for spreading some happiness when I recommended it to friends:

1) Buying it for Laura
2) Buying it for Andrew
3) Forcing Heather to buy it, who in turn bought one for her best friend
4) Getting Viren to buy it, who in turn bought 4 copies for all of his "unhappy" MBA friends
5) Getting Nadia to buy it at work as well

You never know where a little happiness will go.

You can check out her Happiness Project blog at: http://www.happiness-project.com/.

In one of the chapters, she recommends Lulu a self-publishing website. Where I could go and print off one book. I thought to myself - how cool would it be in five years to print off my reading project into a volume? Well, first I need to get back to the list, but I love books, and to make one for myself would be the perfect way to complete the achievement.

Speaking of not being on the Top 100's book list, I picked some more easy summer reads under Heather's Picks - starting with The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrow. It looks like it will be another World War II associated novel about a secret society, letters and 40's goodness. The name, and the cover are what have always drawn me to almost buy it, so I decided to take the plunge this August.

For anyone needing to know, here are where the Guernsey Islands are:

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