Catching Up + 50 in '17 #8-9
May. 23rd, 2017 09:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sakon76Hot weather arrived and with it, flea season. Yech. The cat has been Advantaged and I'm working my way through washing the everything-that-can-be-washed and vacuuming the everything-that-can-be-vacuumed. And squashing every flea I can catch. :/
I've also been working on quilts in a dual-purpose sense. Firstly, going through my vast collection of Works-In-Progress/UnFinished Objects (WIPs/UFOs) and getting some of them done (I'm aiming for one a month) and simultaneously targeting those which will neatly become Christmas presents. For further details, see my quilting blog.
Jazzy is now crawling forward and pulling himself to a stand so I'm having to go through the house with an eye to re-babyproofing it. Squiddle continues to be a bit of a threenager and had a wonderful meltdown at a Chinese restaurant the other day over wanting soup. Which we were ordering for him at the time! Fortunately the waitress also had a three-year-old and went and put in the order for the soup first and then came back to take the rest of our order. (And it was really good soup, too.)
And I've been working my way through rereading Marie Bostwick's Cobbled Court and Too Much, Texas books. So, quick book review time!
Title: Yarn Harlot: the secret life of a knitter
Author: Stephanie Pearl-McPhee
Length: 219 pages
I picked this one up because of the title. I don't knit, but what crafter could resist a title like Yarn Harlot? And generally it's amusing, with one moment of heartbreak. But I fell rapidly out of love with the author during the chapter where she refused to believe that a friend was allergic to wool... to the point of actively lying to her about the fiber content of a pair of socks. I'm sorry, but if someone did that to my husband? "Oh, you're not really allergic to nuts, you just haven't eaten the right kind!"? He would be dead. Allergies are not funny. And while a contact allergy like wool isn't generally a deadly one, I was not seeing the humor in it. And that kind of spoiled the whole of the book for me. So, a mixed bag.
Verdict: Not sorry I read this, but I can't recommend it either.
Title: From Here to Home
Author: Marie Bostwick
Length: 351 pages
The newest book in the Cobbled Court/Too Much, Texas series, this is set nearly thirty years after Between Heaven and Texas. I was kind of disappointed by a number of secondary characters from the first book being just killed off. The ones who fell victim to old age made sense; the three who had died in an accident felt kind of like "the author needs to get rid of extra characters; how can she do it?" But overall I liked the book. Though I do have to say that in rereading the entire series, I've noticed slight holes and gaps in Mary Dell's narrative, obvious artifacts of the author developing her story in more depth after the publication of previous versions. Whatever; I am still entirely charmed.
Verdict: Recommended.
I've also been working on quilts in a dual-purpose sense. Firstly, going through my vast collection of Works-In-Progress/UnFinished Objects (WIPs/UFOs) and getting some of them done (I'm aiming for one a month) and simultaneously targeting those which will neatly become Christmas presents. For further details, see my quilting blog.
Jazzy is now crawling forward and pulling himself to a stand so I'm having to go through the house with an eye to re-babyproofing it. Squiddle continues to be a bit of a threenager and had a wonderful meltdown at a Chinese restaurant the other day over wanting soup. Which we were ordering for him at the time! Fortunately the waitress also had a three-year-old and went and put in the order for the soup first and then came back to take the rest of our order. (And it was really good soup, too.)
And I've been working my way through rereading Marie Bostwick's Cobbled Court and Too Much, Texas books. So, quick book review time!
Title: Yarn Harlot: the secret life of a knitter
Author: Stephanie Pearl-McPhee
Length: 219 pages
I picked this one up because of the title. I don't knit, but what crafter could resist a title like Yarn Harlot? And generally it's amusing, with one moment of heartbreak. But I fell rapidly out of love with the author during the chapter where she refused to believe that a friend was allergic to wool... to the point of actively lying to her about the fiber content of a pair of socks. I'm sorry, but if someone did that to my husband? "Oh, you're not really allergic to nuts, you just haven't eaten the right kind!"? He would be dead. Allergies are not funny. And while a contact allergy like wool isn't generally a deadly one, I was not seeing the humor in it. And that kind of spoiled the whole of the book for me. So, a mixed bag.
Verdict: Not sorry I read this, but I can't recommend it either.
Title: From Here to Home
Author: Marie Bostwick
Length: 351 pages
The newest book in the Cobbled Court/Too Much, Texas series, this is set nearly thirty years after Between Heaven and Texas. I was kind of disappointed by a number of secondary characters from the first book being just killed off. The ones who fell victim to old age made sense; the three who had died in an accident felt kind of like "the author needs to get rid of extra characters; how can she do it?" But overall I liked the book. Though I do have to say that in rereading the entire series, I've noticed slight holes and gaps in Mary Dell's narrative, obvious artifacts of the author developing her story in more depth after the publication of previous versions. Whatever; I am still entirely charmed.
Verdict: Recommended.
