Thinking Out Loud
So far, I have stuck with my resolution not to buy books. The local library is tiny but has a great fiction selection. I could have easily walked away with three or four when I visited earlier this week. I limited myself to just two: The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff, a tale of Mormons [...]
Despite having a wonderful library in Williamsburg, I rarely darkened the door in the past decade. I am a book buyer rather than a borrower. It hasn’t always been that way. I’ve been a library volunteer, and in my commuting days–pre-Audible and ipod–I often stopped by the library to check out audio books, but once [...]
I haven’t read Little Women for at least a decade, maybe two, but I remember it being a heartwarming novel with plucky characters. Geraldine Brooks’ novel, March, takes its basic story from that beloved novel but does not offer the same heartwarming pluckiness. It is a dark book, but in it darkness, we learn about [...]
According to Library Thing, I read 33 books this year. It’s definitely a low for me. I usually get closer to 50 and last year got close to 75 as part of a challenge. It’s a testament to two things: moving to the farm and getting stuck with a couple books. While the move to [...]
As cool days and nights move in, we are able to get beyond the confines of the master suite with its window air conditioning unit. I set up the ironing board and my new sewing machine–more later–in the upstairs room and finished up a pillow that had been half done for several years. An honest [...]
I think the irony of the Civil War is that there was rarely a time when people either North or South were very happy with their government. The Confederacy tried to unite states who were seceding from the Union because they did not want to be united, a paradox that haunted them while in the [...]
I claimed early in the year that I was taking a break from the competitive reading and photography that was part of 2010. Instead, I was going slow. I didn’t even keep up with posting an already taken picture every day. The year just got away from me somehow and buying a house and moving [...]
I started drafting an entry on July 30 but only got a first paragraph done that blamed the craziness of July for my summer silence. Three workshops in three different locations kept me on the road and busy, requiring that I take this past week to get caught up…and very much settled back in. The [...]
I am SO sorry about Spot! He really is a good dog who takes his job of protecting me and the farm very seriously. Well, maybe a little too seriously. But how was I supposed to know that when he dove into the bush this morning, he was going to come up with a baby [...]
I am always surprised when I log in and discover it has been two weeks since I’ve posted. I know I’ve been thinking about it, but life has really intruded. I guess that’s what reality TV is all about: capture people as they move through their activities because they won’t have time to write about [...]