New Floors

We have had our kitchen and dining room floors resurfaced. They are now a lovely unfinished "old pine" color and texture. I love it. We used the Traffic Master Allure from Home Depot and are very pleased so far. I do hope that it can manage our wavy floors better than the square vinyl tiles did!

5 red cotton bags, 4 for sale

These fun and wonderful bags were the result of a commission by Liana (hers is the first bag in the set). They were woven using a double weave technique to create tubes and then cut apart, sewn up along the bottom and hemmed at the top to create a wonderful little bag to sling over your shoulder or around your body.

They sell for $30 a piece.

Book Review: Miss Julia Speaks Up by Ann B. Ross

A delightful book about a widow who must learn to take care of herself and does so through learning that her husband wasn't all he pretended to be. When his mistress shows up on her front door and leaves his illegitimate son and then drives off, Miss Julia must face the fact that her life has changed forever. Unable to confront the author of her anger, she begins to confront all the confining actions and behaviors that she had dealt with all her life.

I found the book hard to put down even if I did find it hard to believe that Miss Julia would be quite so dependent and silly. Still she cares and learns to love herself and her husband's second family after much trial and tribulation.

Highly recommended.

Book Review: Restoration by Rose Tremain

Restoration by Rose Tremain is a novel that will stay in my head for a while. I highly recommend it to anyone who likes books that make you think...especially when you're finished and have to wonder how much of the story can be trusted.

Restoration follows the life of Robert Merivel over a couple of years during the 1660s. He's brought into the court as a Fool and physician to the royal dogs, almost by accident and ends up being married to the King's mistress. What follows is a descent into dispair as low as his highs had been, and then a shallow creeping out of the mess he made of his life.

The novel starts off very funny, bawdy and enjoyable. The character is very likable and the writing clean and enjoyable. I actually couldn't wait to get home to read everyday and felt "tried" by the fact that my days and evenings were so busy lately.

I'm looking forward to reading other novels by Tremain.

What's Up...

I hope everyone has been having a wonderful mid-May. The weather is spectacular here, if hot, but sunny most of the time with afternoon popcorn thunderstorms. We've even had fog this week.

I've been busy with work and not doing a whole lot else lately. I'm thoroughly enjoying my job. Lots to learn and figure out but it's all good. I've even found that the drive isn't as bad as I anticipated. Having done it before (and hated it) I'm not quite sure why it doesn't seem odious to me now, but I'll take it while I can. In June and July we are going to a 4 day work week which means the work day will be longer, and I'll have to leave my house at 6:45...still trying to figure that out...but I will have Fridays off, and a couple of 4 day weekends, so I don't suppose it will be all bad. Looking forward to the fall when the students come in and we start working with them directly. I think it'll put meaning to all the work we are doing now setting up policies and putting together space. In the meantime, there is lots of training the plan and conduct.

I also have a wonderful, big office with sunny windows and lots of light. It makes the day go by so quickly and I don't get tired, which is very nice. I do miss my Lochi kitty as she and I had become quite good buddies, but she seems to be adapting ok to me not being home all day. I honestly don't think that Oliver has noticed.

On the home-front, we are getting new flooring in our kitchen and dining room next week. It is being delivered to the house today so that it can adapt to the temperature and humidity of the house. I can't wait for it to be "in" so that all looks polished and nice. I'm really excited about that.

And other than that, there really isn't much to report. I'm hoping to have some time this weekend for weaving. I still need to make the quilt bee quilt. I certainly hope we have something to work on: I'm beginning to seriously worry about that! (yikes!) And I've been dying to sit and read my book which is really really quite good.

Another great day!

2 really nice work days in a row can hardly be beat. I've been organizing, learning, and re-organizing. Getting used to a schedule, signing contracts and other paperwork. The general beginning a new job stuff, but it's SO nice. I hope to have pics of my office up next week after I get it all set up...it may just be the biggest, nicest office I've ever had :)

Great Day

I had a great day at work today. I'll hopefully have pictures of my office tomorrow and a few other wonderful things. I think it's going to be a terrific job working with some really nice people. Looking forward to tomorrow.

The reading slump is finally over, thank goodness

Sometimes I find myself reading several really great books in a row. When I do this, I'm so excited about reading that it's all I want to do in my free time. However, every now and then I get to reading some books that I don't like at all, and I think "is something wrong with me?" Then I'll go read the reviews of the books on amazon.com and sometimes see that I'm not the only person who has had particular issues with a book. Always, when I'm not enjoying a book, or find myself avoiding reading, I give myself permission to put the book away. Time is too precious and there are too many wonderful books out there to force myself to read something I'm not enjoying.

And I've been in an awful reading slump lately.

It started out with Douglass' Women by Jewell Parker Rhodes. I wrote on this one last week, but I was really looking forward to it because it came as a referral from one of my favorite authors. I absolutely hated the writing style. Couldn't get past it and decided that in addition I hated every single one of the characters and found the historical components of the novel to feel flat and uninteresting. So, back to the library with that one (glad I didn't spend my money buying it!)

Then I started Like unto Like by Sherwood Bonner. Here was a book a bought a while back, written in the 1880s, highly recommended by the literati of the day. Oh my! I could (somewhat) ignore the overt racism as a product of the time period and Bonner's Mississippi upbringing, but I found the STORY so difficult to get into and the prose so stilted that I had to put it aside after about 50 pages. That book was donated to the library today as it was a book I'd purchased some years back.

Next I started reading Karen Robard's Irresistible. Again, looking forward to this one because it was recommended by an author I like...also it's a romance, historical at that, and I generally LOVE romances. After 80 pages of kidnapping, near rape, and the protagonists ogling of each other, I just couldn't take another word. Quit it mid-sentence in fact. I returned it to the libraray today (again glad I didn't waste my money on it!).

I started Restoration by Rose Tremain on Monday. It's funny, bawdy, and well-written. The main character is lovable in his shabby haphazard way and I'm looking forward to seeing his growth and development. The author has already demonstrated to me that he will grow and develop and that there is a plot in the book. In fact, I'm hooked and all I want to do is sit down and read...looking forward to some time with it this evening and during lunches (now that I'll be working again). So, thankfully the slump is over.

p.s. I have been challenging myself to read books I wouldn't normally pick up, which is why the slumps are a little more frequent than before. I don't mind, really, because I've also found some wonderful gems along the way.

I have a new job!!!

I start Thursday, yes, this Thursday! I will be the Learning Specialist for a Title III grant at Pearl River Community College. I'm very excited!

The Constant Bass by William Gillock

A fun little jazz piece to get you ready for the weekend!

Book Review: Douglass' Women by Jewell Parker Rhodes

I don't usually review books that I was unable to finish simply because I think it's unfair to the author of me to do that. However, I will review this one because I thought there were some interesting and compelling points to the book that other readers might want to look at...I simply found the writing too annoying to want to continue.

Douglass' Women tells the story of Frederick Douglass and his wife Anna Murray and his mistress Otillie Assing. Assing was a German-Jew who immigrated to America and became interested in the abolitionist cause upon arrival. Anna Murray is a free black woman who helped secure Douglass freedom and then married him shortly thereafter. The women are polar opposites in race, education, and personality but both love the man Frederick Douglass for their own reasons.

That was the interesting and compelling part of the book. This is the seed of the book that I think could have flourished (and did for a lot of readers as the reviews are typically very good); however, for me, the writing styles between the two women's narrative/diary sections is so similar that I couldn't get a feel for either of them as an individual person--I guess I felt too strongly Rhodes coming through her characters rather than the other way around.

Recommended to readers who like historical fiction and 19th century American literature.

Happy Mother's Day Indeed!

Slippin' Around by Martha Mier

Teague Lion Fans, Take Notice!

This orange bamboo and cotton scarf will be perfect to show your Teague Lion pride at the season's games--from football to baseball. This scarf is made of light-weight bamboo and cotton so is perfect for the south's warm weather. Get it while it's "hot."

The scarf measures 7.5 x 62 and sells for $50. Fringe is twisted.

Red Rose Rendezvouz by Martha Meir