Final Classic

I'm squeezing in the final book of my Classics Challenge, and it turned out to be quite a delightful one at that.  When I was in high school I went to go see "Little Women" in the movie theater.  I didn't know much about it, but I was promised that if I loved Jane Austin I would love this.  Well, my teenager heart could never forgive Winona Ryder for actually choosing some old German man over Christian Bale.  How could she do that?!  I was fairly certain no woman on this planet would do that, and it basically ruined the movie for me.  I decided the book was most definitely not for me. 

It's a bit crazy that it's taken me over 25 years to decide that maybe I oughta, sorta give it a try.  You'd think I'd know by now that the movie is almost never as good as the book, and usually gets it all wrong to boot.  I've also always felt that since I've read every Jane Austin book multiple times that maybe it was high time I finally read Little Women.  I'm so very glad I did, because it was absolutely delightful.  I loved all 4 girls instantaneously, and their mother is so wise.  I liked the book even more when I realized Alcott based the book on her family.  It brought more depth to it for me.  

I dearly loved Laurie and confess that the romantic nonsense side of me would have still liked to see him with Jo, but at the same time the more realistic side of me saw how they weren't a good match.  I was happy for him and Amy.  I still didn't love the German tutor as much as "Teddy," but that didn't mean I enjoyed the book any less. 

This book fit under Category #1: A 19th Century Classic.  (It was first published in 1862).

A Riley Blake Christmas

Several years ago someone gave me a Riley Blake "Alpine Wonderland" charm pack, but I never knew what to do with it.  Every Christmas I always thought about it, but never used it until I saw a fun Zig Zag Table Runner Tutorial from the Missouri Quilt Company.  I have a "Favorite Things" party I'm going to this week and I thought it would be fun to stuff my stocking with a Christmas table runner among other treats. 

Sewing charms together is incredibly fast and simple, but I had a bunch of other things I (cough) was supposed to be doing instead of starting a new sewing project, so I didn't get around to layering it and quilting it until the following day.  Technically speaking I didn't have a whole lot of time to spare that day either, but I really wanted to work on it, so my home just remained a little dirtier yesterday, and my to do list got a little longer.   

 The stitching is just stitch in the ditch, so it's nothing fancy, but it's still really cute.  I made the backing a bit more traditional, so that if you just wanted the normal Red and Green it would look nice flipped on the back as well.

Now it's time to conquer that To-Do List!!

Cookie Exchange

This morning I had my 8th annual cookie exchange party.  This year I was looking for a molasses/ginger cookie that wasn't hard.  I love ginger snaps and I like regular molasses cookies, but I wanted to find one that was soft and chewy.  These guys fit the bill!

Recipe here.

I always like to try new cookies.  I was searching for another fun cookie to try when I came across Texas Sheet Cake Cookies.   If you like the cake version you'll enjoy the cookie version.  Yum!!

It was a wonderfully low key time talking with great friends while eating cookies.  That's my kind of a party!

Ornaments for 2017

This year the ornaments were so much fun to come up with for the kids. 

Little Man:  It had to be Harry!  After the awesome Harry Potter birthday party and Harry Potter Camp, and then Halloween costume...again, how could we not get him a Harry Potter ornament?!

Little Lady: She's always got a stack of library books sitting next to her bed.  She reads all the time, and almost always has a book attached to her if she's not talking to someone.

 BB: His most beloved object is his Polar Bear.  It goes everywhere with him.

Little Guy:  There is much weeping and wailing when Little Guy's blankie has to be washed.  He hates being without his blankie and he most definitely won't go to sleep without it. 

These are our ornaments from our vacation out West this past Summer: Albuquerque, 4 Corners, and Mesa Verde.

 

November Stitches

This month Steph asked us to make 2 low volume plus blocks for do.Good Stitches.  She wanted us to chose two different colors for the pluses.  I must have Christmas on the brain, because I chose green and red.

Caring Kits for the Homeless

Over the last couple of weeks I have noticed a woman with a shopping cart outside the library and another homeless man walking up and down Classen as I drive my daughter to cello. I’ve been feeling that nudge again that I should be doing more.  Quite a few homeless migrate down to Oklahoma because of the milder winters.  I decided I wanted to put together some Care Kits, so that I could have something ready in my car to give them.  A friend from church saw my post on Facebook about it and asked if I would be willing to coordinate a get together to make kits.  I agreed, and this morning we came together and in about an hour we put together 70 Caring Kits for the homeless and another 10 hygiene packets.  It's amazing how much you can accomplish in such a small amount of time when multiple people come together to accomplish something.  We had 12 ladies donate and help out this morning.  Here are a few of us at the end.  

Here's an awesome link that gives great ideas if you've ever wanted to do something similar, but weren't sure what would be the most helpful and/or needed.  We're headed downtown to Little Lady's cello lesson this evening, and I'm hopeful we'll be able to hand one out.

Granny's Suitcase

This October block for do.Good Stitches is "Going to Grandma's."  Kristen asked for one suitcase in pink and lime green and another in blue and cherry red.

This is the first time I've sewn anything in almost 2 months, and it felt good to pull out the sewing machine.  I have a number of projects that need to be worked on, so I'm going to try to squeeze more sewing into my life.

An Awesome Doctor

My husband doesn't talk a whole lot about his work, because of all the patient confidentiality, and plus, when he gets home he wants to enjoy his family.  Recently I have had several individuals approach me about a friend they know that was talking about what an amazing doctor their child has and how much they love him, and each time they realized their friend was talking about Joel.  This week the head of the nurses mailed a kind thank you note to our home.  Joel doesn't like any special attention given to him, but I want his children to know what a special Dad they have.  He puts his whole heart into everything he does and that includes his job as a Pediatric Oncologist.

 

A Gothic Novel

This month I decided to tackle #7- A Gothic or Horror Classic.  I put off this category, because I kept thinking of Frankenstein as my only option.  When I finally looked at the Goodreads list, I was surprised to see some of my favorite books on the list.  I think the definition in my head was a bit different from reality.  I chose to read Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca.  I've been kind of busy, so I thought I would spend the whole month slowly reading it, but I got sucked in and couldn't put it down.  I loved this book!

Can we just talk about the second Mrs. De Winter for a minute?  She's so painfully awkward and backward.  Normally a character like that would drive me crazy, but I rallied around her and desperately wanted to help her gain her footing.  I was thrilled with her evolution as a character.  I loved her almost as much as I couldn't stand Mrs. Danvers.  Creepy, anybody?!  How'd you like to have the head of your house staff in love with your husband's dead first wife?  No thanks!

The mystery of the first Mrs. De Winter and her shadow left hanging over Menderley is so interesting.  The description of Menderley is so vivid that I could picture the grand estate with the beautiful gardens, the field and forest, and the foreboding ocean and bay.  The imagery was stunning.

The book was interesting all the way to the very end of the book.   I'm so glad I gave the Gothic books category a try and read this book. 

These Boots Are Made For Running

Today I participated in the OK Kids Korral 5K.  I have not consistently ran for over 10 years.  I've either been pregnant, nursing, and/or doggie paddling for survival while Joel was in medical training.  Now that that part of my life is over I decided I wanted to do something that's I've wanted to do for a long time.  I wanted to run in an official 5K race.  I ran Cross Country in high school, so I used to run that distance quite often, but as an adult I've never done it.  10 weeks ago I started getting up early in the morning to go running.  I had to be back before Joel left for work, so going to bed early enough to actually be able to get out of bed became my first goal.  I'm not much of a morning person, so it was a bit painful, but I was determined to do it.  I quickly found that I don't love running long distances all that much, but I had already signed up, and I had a goal, so I wasn't going to give up.  This week was the most painful, because Joel was on service at the hospital, so I had to get up even earlier. I trained all by myself and I ended up running all by myself.  The kids had soccer and Joel was coaching them, so I drove downtown and ran the race by myself. 

I chose this particular 5K, because it benefits the kids that Joel takes care of on a daily basis.  The Kids Korral is very similar to the Ronald McDonald House, but it's specifically for the families of children with blood disorders and cancer.  It's maintained through the Toby Keith Foundation.

Before the race I was thinking, "What have I gotten myself into?"  I'm not much for selfies, but since it was just me my options were few.  The weather was perfect.  You can probably walk faster than I run, but hey, I still completed it, so I'm proud of myself.  Visual proof that I survived!

War and Peace

I bought the book years ago.  I think it was right when I graduated from college and thought of myself as an intellectual.  I was going to finally read books of my choosing and they were going to be the great classics!  Ha!  Ya.  It's been sitting on my shelf for years collecting dust.  When I saw that the last category for the Classics Challenge was A Russian Classic, I knew which book I needed to read.  I started War and Peace in February, but unfortunately, I was already reading another rather long book at the time:

I decided to focus on the book I was already reading and just read 5 or 10 pages here and there of War and Peace.  PS- The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt also happens to be an absolutely fascinating book if you like biographies.  It stands out as one of my favorites.  Anyway, since I started out just reading a few pages at a time, I got into the habit of reading it that way, so I continued on in that fashion long after I finished the other book.  On this past Sunday, I realized I only had about 100 pages left, so I decided to just sit down and get 'er done!  I didn't realize that the last 50 pages had nothing to do with the actual novel plot.  They're Tolstoy's philosophical ramblings on how history should be recorded.  I powered through those pages.

I've given myself a day to just be happy about the fact that I can finally check this book of my bucket list, but I have to say that I enjoyed the book a lot more than I thought I would.  I was prepared to appreciate it for its literary value, but I found that I actually really liked the book.  The sheer volume of characters in this book (over 500) made it a bit tricky to navigate at the beginning, but I started to really become interested in the development of some of the characters even if I didn't always necessarily "like" them.  For example, Pierre irritated me for at least the first half of the book.  He just couldn't seem to get his act together, and was always doing ridiculous things, but then all of a sudden he grew on me and I genuinely wanted to know what was going to happen to him.

I was surprised by Tolstoy's sharp tongue.  He really had a few choice things to say about military historians.  The detailed military minutia was not my favorite, but I did really like learning more about the Napoleonic War and the invasion of Russia by the French.

It's definitely not a novel for the faint of heart, but War and Peace deserves its title as a masterful classic.

Time Out For Women

This weekend I went to Time Out for Women in Dallas.  I almost didn't go, because the friend I was driving and sharing a hotel with had to back out last minute.   I knew a couple of other people from church going, so I thought I'd see if it would work out.  We had different schedules, so I ended up driving to Dallas by myself, and meeting them at the hotel.  I'm so glad I went though, because I had a lot of wonderful experiences and it was truly a much needed respite. 

Tracy sandwiched with 2 Becky's

I ran into one of my mission companions.  So fun!  It's such a small world, because I sent our picture together to our 3rd companion (we were a threesome for 3 weeks at the very beginning of my mission).  Hinckels, my trainer and the 3rd companion, found out we were in Dallas and told me that she's good friends with one of the presenters.  Her good friend, Brooke, was a member of Mercy River, a female trio.  I went up to her and said "hi" for Hinckels.  She laughed, because it turns out Hinckels was watching Brooke's children for her, so that she could sing at the conference that weekend!  It's such a small world!

For lunch break the ladies introduced me to Torchy's Tacos.  They felt it was very important to document the occasion.

 It lived up to the hype.

I had a wonderful weekend being uplifted by awesome speakers and wonderful friends.  I spent the drive home praying and pondering about quite a few things that made an impression on me during TOFW, and I came away really feeling renewed and ready to face the new challenges awaiting me in my life.

 

Quick Sews

One of Joel's colleagues was expecting a baby girl yesterday.  In their culture it's bad luck to give gifts before the baby is born, so they waited until today to celebrate the arrival.  I made a flannel receiving blanket for her. 

I have a friend who has family in Houston.  She and her husband are headed down to Texas this weekend to help with the clean up, and they are filling their car with things a local church requested.  This particular church is short on items for babies, so I made another receiving blanket and put a gift card with it for them to take.  That way there's a personal touch but it still has practicality.

I amused myself by changing the bobbin colors on the blankets - green on one and yellow on the other.  I used a turquoise blue thread on the front. 

HSTs

My first attempt to be a productive human being again now that my children are back in school was to complete my August do.Good Stitches blocks.  Kathrin asked us to cut out eight 5" squares of bright, solid fabrics, and then sew them to form eight 4.5" half-square triangles.  She's going to arrange them all together with Kona Navy for a background.

I'm in charge of September, so my next task is to figure out which block I would like all the ladies to sew for me.  There are so many options it's hard to choose! 

Quilting Group Finishes

I finally finished our April do.Good Stitches quilt.  I love the different sizes of pinwheels.

 Since it's for a small child, I used a comfy flannel on the back.

Rebecca had a finish at Quilt Group this week.  She finished her Americana quilt that we each helped make a row.  I was so excited to see my little hens!  The quilt turned out so well!

The Wind in the Willows

I read this book as a part of my 2017 Classics Challenge.  The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame falls under #9- A classic about an animal or which includes the name of an animal in the title.

This book for me was a 3.5.  A lot of the classics I chose for this year's challenge are books or authors that I feel like I should have read, but for some reason have never gotten around to actually reading.   I grew up loving the cartoon movie of The Wind in the Willows, and I remember the Disneyland ride with fondness.  I felt like it was slightly criminal that I had all of these wonderful childhood memories based around the book without ever having read it.  Unfortunately, I think I prefer the idea of the book more than the actual novel.  

I loved the characters.  Rat, Mole, Badger, and Mr. Toad are all very lovable in their own special way, but I found the plot to be too meandering and slow for my taste.  The chapters with the adventures of Mr. Toad were my favorite parts, but the story sidetracked quite a bit.  

For me, the best part of this book was actually the illustrations.  Shepard's illustrations bring The Wind in the Willows to life.  They are whimsical and absolutely adorable.      

Pinwheel Fun

Back in April I asked all the Peace Circle ladies to make me 2 pinwheel blocks.  They could be 3" 6" or 9" (finished).  I thought it would be fun to piece together different sizes that mathematically could fit together.  It's on the smaller side, but it turned out really cute, and I added a border to help out with the size.  I really like the 3 different sizes.  It adds a bit of interest.

Hourglass Blocks

Gratefully, the blocks for do.Good Stitches aren't very time consuming, because I don't have anywhere near as much time to sew during the summer.  For June and July we had to make hourglass blocks- 4 pink & gray and 4 turquoise and gray.  These blocks are very simple.  The only pain is the cutting them down to size at the end. 

A Murder in Mesopotamia

#10 in the Classics Challenge is a classic set in a place you'd like to visit.  I think Mesopotamia is fascinating, and I would love to go (when it's not the middle of the heat of summer), but since Iraq and Kuwait aren't exactly the most stable of countries I think this book is probably the closest I'm going to get to visiting there. 

I took a bit of a circuitous route to reading this book for the challenge.  I had never read anything by Agatha Christie before, but of course, being a Masterpiece theater lover, I had seen all of the Miss Marple mysteries.  I decided I wanted to read from her Hercule Poirot series.  Murder is Mesopotamia is #14, so I felt it advisable to read #1 to get the setup of the whole series.  The Mysterious Affair at Styles sucked me in right from the beginning.  I could tell right away why she's the best-selling author of all time.  I loved Hercule Poirot from the very first sentence he appears.  It was the first time I'd read a book where I really had no idea how it was going to end.  I loved the book and was surprised by the ending. 

I had heard that it's recommended to read #10 Murder on the Orient Express before reading Murder in Mesopotamia, so I read that one next.  I also wanted to read it before the movie comes out this Fall.  This one was probably my favorite of the three.  I was seriously amazed at the wittiness and detail in this book, and the ending was a shock to me. 

This led me to then read the book that I needed for the actual challenge.  Murder in Mesopotamia takes place at an archeological dig, and was very entertaining as well, but I confess that I probably liked it the least out of the three I read.  I also figured out who the murderer was fairly early, so the ending wasn't quite as dramatic for me as the other two.  There was still a side event that surprised me, and let's be honest, Hercule Poirot is such a lovable personality that I still really enjoyed the book.  I still can't figure out why you have to read #10 first.  It mentions the Orient Express on the very last page of the book, but it doesn't give away anything.  Oh well.  I loved that book so much that I won't complain. 

A Little Landscaping

We have a friend who has started a landscaping business.  She actually stages front yards for realtors.  She helped us create an island around our tree in the front yard.  We had enough stone leftover that we actually could line the back flower beds, so we were really happy.

You can also see by the color of the grass that we've had a scorcher week of triple digits.  The heat has been intense.  It perhaps was not the best week to be working on the project, but it's not like it's going to get any cooler around here anytime soon.

Flowers and Butterflies

It took quite a while, but I finally finished this quilt.  My youngest brother and his wife are welcoming their first child into their family this September, and it's going to be a girl!

 The quilting is loopy line and flowers with butterflies in the border.  It's inspired by the back flannel.