Do You Have Books You Love-so Re Read Them?

   Good morning Monday, I am waiting for it to warm up this morning so I can get more grass cutting done. Hoping once I get through all of it-I won't have to do this again til next year.

 I wanted to share a book that I really enjoyed and am reading it again now. Back when covid began another friend from  Wisconsin was going through her books and offering them for free. She would leave them out on her porch to be picked up-so no people contact back then..  One of her books was a paperback The Oregon Trail a New American Journey by Rinker Buck.  This one intrigued me so I asked if she would mail it to me. She would not let me pay the shipping.

  I loved the book very much and suggested to Larry he might enjoy this too-as it was very informative with lots of history and the brothers journey was just so interesting. 

    I loaned it to another Wisconsin friend that saw it and wanted to read it-he lost the book before he read it. I was Not happy So I bought the kindle version so I would have it.  I started to re read it last night, and thinking for this book I want to read as an actual physical book.  So I browsed on ebay and found a hardcover with free shipping for less than 6 dollars-I grabbed it haha

  This is about two brothers that grew up with their family taking road trips in a covered wagon with their mules-so this adventure was not entirely new to them. They have totally different personalities and life styles so that was a big challenge for them on this long journey.  I loved all the history thrown in.  So I am anxious to read this again. I will wait till the hardcover book arrives to re read.

 

 We bought a book again recently that Larry loved and loaned it out and never got it back. We were talking about it again last month so I ordered a copy. and we loaned it out to our nearby friend. sigh why do we do this?. I asked him about the book-he hasn't had time to read it so I asked for it back. 

  We need to stop loaning out things as most times they do not get returned frustrating. Does this happen to you?

Erika recently shared her book list and Catherine the Great sounded like a good read. I found a hardcover book for around $5.00 no shipping so that was a good find too.  I am happy to get back into reading more again.

   We are getting lovely sunny days here with very cool nights so it takes awhile to get warmed up in the mornings. I am not ready to pay for heat just yet-since we are warming up during the day with sunshine

 I am enjoying a hot decaf coffee with a slice of my pumpkin bread while I write this.

 Happy new week!

Books?

   Those of you that make your own journals-do you have this book or have you seen it?

      I don't have a library nearby-never have lived close to one since we always have lived rural so if I have an interest in a book I buy it.

    I am more careful now and really think about it before I buy a physical book now-then I search the net for the best price.

  

  

Thoughts on this book if you are familiar with it.

  Also I am intrigued with this book too.

  I could not find much information about this one, it's a new release.

   Thank You

T Stands for Still Spinning

 Happy T for Tuesday. We all meet up over at Bleubeard and Elizabeth's blog to visit friends with a drink related photo to share. Find link in my sidebar.

  In my area of Missouri we have had spring like weather this past week. Lots of wind and rain, still pretty cool at night but some days warms up to the 60's and close to the 70's-so no complaints here-except I have not been able to clean up the yard and burn leaves with the high wind.

 Quite a few fisherman on the lake over the weekend with the sunshine and warmer temps. Larry and his friend went out fishing today early in the morning (Monday) as the weather is changing tonight into rain and cold. So happy Larry can finally get out and go fishing. Update: well bummer, Larry has the worst luck at times, never did "get that" as He is someone that is always helping others etc. He came home about an hour after he left-problems with the very expensive Garmin set up that controls his trolling motor etc-so they have no way to control the boat- now that it is not working properly. He hurt his back in the process ugh  Takes hours on hold to get a Garmin tech person.  

  I am still spinning. Mostly going pretty well and then I get back to my too thick and uneven yarns-ugh. I did find another video on how to make a very long roving from the blending board. The first time I tried it I messed it up but this morning it came out perfect-loving this method so much more than the other two I tried out and shared.

Here is mine

  This is what it looks like when finished tearing it to make one piece-this will get drafted out-made thinner-for spinning

and stretched out a bit

I took a couple different spinning classes at Fiber U over the years when we lived closer to this event at the woods house.  I mentioned to one of my teachers that I get so frustrated that I have not improved my spinning although I keep trying. She says you must spin every day-at least that is what she needed to do. Others just jump right in and make nice yarn right away-it has been a struggle for me over the years. I love it so keep trying to make better yarn

I dug out a couple of my spinning books and have been trying out other ways to work with my spindles. I do want to get my spinning wheel out one day too and see if I can figure out the issue why the wheel won't stay turning.

  The pretty tweed finished This is one of my favorites so far.

I am very happy with this one that I shared last week on T  There was a couple long rovings of striped colors in one of the mixed art bags I had purchased-so I blended it up on the blending board-very pretty

 I subscribed to the Winsor Newton newsletter about a year ago, and have found it very interesting. They share different artists' works and also from time to time history of colors. Last month they shared a book that sounded really interesting, so I searched online for a copy. So far I am loving the author's writing, and this will be packed full of information. I learned so much about Van Gogh already that I didn't know before. Have any of you read this one?

I made gluten free brownies over the weekend-yum I had a taste for them I bake them in a square cast iron pan lined with parchment paper

Went well with my tea

Happy T everyone and new week

Today's sunrise (Monday)

Art Practice This Morning

   I am working on doing something creative every day. Usually early mornings are perfect after we enjoy the sunrise and bird watching with breakfast.

  At the moment I am back to working with the Chinese Brush Painting book, it's a good inspiration learning book for me.

My first attempt was really bad-so I painted on the back of the same page in my watercolor notebook.

  I worked with the bird first and then decided to add iris's from the same book-it's so so. The biggest thing I need to learn with watercolors-Must wait til dries before going back in next to a wet area. That messes up more  of work-not waiting, which shows up in that orange area of the flowers. That was suppose to be mostly yellow with orange highlights-will keep practicing.

The Winsor Newton watercolor inks-I really love working with these

  I am hoping to finish reading the book My Dear Hamilton today. An excellent read if you enjoy historical fiction-so well researched, I have learned so much more about that time period that I didn't know.

Books & a Journal Page Just for Fun

   Hi Everyone, Yesterday morning (Monday) began our string of extreme hot and humid days here in the Ozarks. It's close to 80 f degrees already by 6-7 am so just not healthy for either of us to be working outdoors.

  I got out my watercolors and tried again for a mountain scene in the back with a meadow in the front. I made the mistake of adding in a wide path with rocks that just really ruined my painting.  I used my black walnut ink for the mountains-and I loved it-will work with that again for sure. I need to remind myself all the time that I Must let it dry first before I can move on.

  So this morning instead of tossing the whole piece in the trash, I cut out what I liked and made a mixed media journal page with it and stamped on my only fish-I need to look for a smaller fish stamp.

  I decided to add on the opposite page a few other components of my painting to remind me about using the black walnut ink. The back of this journal page is a sheet of textured paper.

These rocks are not quite the right shape, will be working on that I did like my sky this time, I stamped the fish on a piece of the sky

 I am not going to share this one on AJJ, I mostly put a page together because I love those black walnut ink mountains.

  With being "stuck" in the house all day I got out some books that I bought over a year ago and had gotten side tracked with other books to read.

   I enjoy the 1700's-1800's period of time in our country. When I had finished reading a book about the Oregon Trail-a modern day adventure, I started looking for a few other books. This 3 book series includes actual letters written that were sent back home or diary entries. Before each actual writing the editors give us the history of the person and time period.  I have finished the first book and started on the second. This was a real eye opener for me of what really happened on the trail to Oregon or California. Hadn't realized all the deaths that occurred so many babies and young children lost their lives. Also the living conditions one doesn't think about during bad storms etc. they had to deal with. At the close of the first book one of the daughters later married John Muir. I recommend these if you are interested in this history.

In one of my last posts I mentioned sashiko and boro slow stitching.  I got two books in last week.

  If interested in the history (rural Japan mending clothing)  and how to-I highly recommend this one. I had to search online a bit to find a price I would pay.  This book really covers everything about this subject. I knew this was for mending but hadn't realized the history that was involved-the book is worth reading for that alone.

  The two authors go into detail about the supplies and how to's with projects at the end of book

This next book I just got in yesterday. There are quite a few books out on this subject. This one got really good reviews, the bad reviews-the readers just didn't "get it" haha.  I haven't started reading it yet but looking through it I love it already-lots of photos.  This is another one I needed to search around for a lower price-I ended up winning with a low bid and free shipping on Ebay.

  Years ago when I was much younger I would do allot of mending with patches on my jeans-I wish this book would have been available back then

  I have a cotton piece of fabric that was a skirt that I had already taken off the waistband and opened up all the seems.  It was a patchwork of India type prints or hippy era prints-so I think I will play with the stitches on that piece. I am waiting for marking pens that will wash out of fabrics and a stencil to get started on that. more later.  I am thinking of adding patches to it, turn it into a shawl or pillow, we'll see what happens.

  Another new book I bought as a suggestion from one of my blog and slow mail friends is about Soups. This is a huge book by Reader's Digest. I don't have a soup book so thought I would do a search. The price was all over the place for this one too, but I found one for $4.00 free shipping in like new condition-amazing for a very old book. Scanning through it-everything about soup I think is in here. haha

When I search online to buy books I compare prices on Ebay-which usually has free shipping, and Amazon.  I usually do better on Ebay for most books I am looking for.  I do a search at other online book sites too but they usually have shipping costs added.  I buy books since we live so rural, no close access to a library. I do love books though so it's ok.  

  I got one more book in that was suggested to me from Amazon. It is an historical fiction about Hamilton's wife. I hadn't realized that I have the author's other book in my library to read yet. This got really good reviews, and I have read a few books already on Hamilton.  Again the price was all over the place on this book too, but I found a really nice soft cover (not the cheap mass produced small print paperbacks) for $4.00 free shipping. I am excited to get into this book, but will finish the covered wagon women books first and then dig out the other historical book by this author.

I will close with "diamonds on the lake" a quote from our dear friend Eileen 

     

Food Wednesdays

 Hi Everyone,

   I wanted to thank all of you that commented on the post asking about your thoughts of continuing Food Wednesdays last week.

   Many of you mentioned that you really enjoy the food posts, and I have really enjoyed visiting everyone too and learning new things. The participation has dropped over the last two weeks so that is why I put it out there if you all were wanting to continue with our Food Wednesdays link up.  

   I do know that there are several art link ups already and other link ups many participate in so it was hard to choose a day. Wednesday can be rough after  T for Tuesdays, but then other days have link ups too, and there is only so much time we all have to participate in these link ups. 

  I have decided after May to set up Food Wednesday for the first Wednesday of each month, especially during these summer months and see if we like this and also if we can get more interest of others linking up and sharing food posts. We will decide this coming fall if we like posting once a month or if we would like to post every week again, and/or if you want to continue.

  OK enough of business and on to the Food. If you are a new visitor this link up is all about the Food-so no rules except to share anything about food and to be kind to one another.

   I didn't bake anything this past week and also we ate pretty simply last week. I did make a goulash one day. Larry has never been crazy about this dish but I have always liked it once in awhile.

   Very simple ingredients browned up a coarse ground hamburger and seasoned with below

Cooked up this gluten free pasta, drained added to the meat, and stirred in this sauce.  Simple and good tasting. I made us each a fresh salad as a side

  I ordered a new book that sounded interesting that came in the mail last week. I am really enjoying reading this book. Lots of gardening ideas, and many ideas for drinks either with a little alcohol or none  Amazon had this in a spiral book which would have been nicer to use-but high priced and I didn't find another one online, so i bought this paperback version

The author covers allot of topics, the plants with recipes, she even had garden layouts, and covered tea plants too-that may be interesting to look into for adding to my garden.

   Below is the table of contents-click to enlarge for better viewing

Now it is your turn to share your Food Wednesdays post.  Please share the url for your Food Wednesdays post and not your blog's url thank you  and have fun

Just Dropping in to Say Hi & Spring Gardening Plans

   Hi everyone,

     Winter is returning late today into tomorrow with 3 inches or so of snow and low single digits-brrrr   Which of course will end up with ice under the snow again-but good news a warm up will start up late Sunday with a nice warming  next week.

   I will be planting lots of seeds in my water bottle "greenhouses" soon-will probably start that this weekend, and then put them out after the very cold spell.

  I also just ordered a pound of shade growing wildflower seeds. There is a small section of grass under a tree near the rock project-that I am going to kill off as soon as I can, and then plant some of these seeds in that area. My husband found a nice online site with different wildflower mixes-no fillers, and this one is 50-50 annuals and perennial seeds.  Also I had saved a seller on Ebay and just ordered his plants of bloodroot, goldenseal, and wild geranium which are all medicinal plants. I have an area around the little garden shed and down the hill on that side of the house-that I am going to kill the grass as well and plant these along with the shade wildflower seeds.  It stays pretty shady in that area. There is a small section of grass-weeds up on the side of our garage and the neighbors property line-that I am also going to kill off and plant perennial flowers of some sort.

  We were very unhappy with the mowing service we hired last year. Too expensive and poor quality-every week it was something else. With Biden's attack on our gas and oil energy independence cutting grass will be too expensive. Neither of us can handle a mower on these hills around the house-so I am thinking of looking into getting a weed eater of some sort and see if I can handle that-mostly the front of the house and a bit on the side til I work on getting rid of most of the grass here on the property. Thinking it will be pretty with all the wildflowers blooming.  This will also bring in the songbirds, butterflies, and bees  If we had extra money I would check into how expensive it would be to bring in rock and stone to the front of the house down to the lake-that would be perfect. I have no idea how costly that would be. Would be easier to maintain for sure.

   The last two evenings I have been reading a book I have never read, and it's one I thought I should read. The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett a classic, first published in book form in 1911.  I really enjoyed this book and looking forward to reading some of her other books. There are so many different forms of the book now-If I were to buy a hardcover I would pick up the one illustrated by Tasha Tudor. If you have an ereader kindle- Amazon usually has these old classics selling very reasonable-under a couple dollars or sometimes free to read.

 I did not know this was made into a movie too-looking that up there are several movie versions, the best versions suggested was the 1949 (hmmm the year I was born ) and the 1975 versions

    The coconut macaroons are almost gone now, so need to decide what cookie I want to bake up next.

  Happy Thursday everyone

    

  

Sharing a Few Christmas Items & Quilting

            

  Hoping all of you that celebrated, had a wonderful Christmas

   Since we are older now, with no close friends nearby anymore, my slow mail friends have been a real blessing to me this past year, and I have become closer friends with two especially. They feel almost like sisters to me now. 

   I have so enjoyed all of my slow mail writing friends-surprises in my mail box-I really enjoy that.  So I wanted to share a few surprises found in my mail box this past week.

     My friend Debra sent me one of her fairy dolls-she is sitting on my craft room desk-watching me practice calligraphy and other craft projects Isn't she sweet? Excuse my cluttered desk it is a bit too full at the moment.

    I think she needs a name too, so I decided on Molly which for elves means "Of the sea" and her name is of English origin

I love Molly's quilted wings The little stuffed dog is happy he has a friend now too

   From another special friend I received more books. She knows me so well. She had also sent me the book about a woman living in remote Alaska that I shared in a previous post. That was a special book to read, so if you can find a copy it is a very inspiring read. Nothing in life will seem all that difficult after reading her story.

   From photo below-The book on the bottom-Billy Joe Tatum's Wild Foods Cookbook & Field Guide-is all about foraging with lined sketches and lots of good looking recipes. I will enjoy reading through this one.   The three book boxed set I was not familiar with either-the first book was excellent so on to the next.  

      From Amazon-Sam Gribley is terribly unhappy living in New York City with his family, so he runs away to the Catskill Mountains to live in the woods—all by himself. With only a penknife, a ball of cord, forty dollars, and some flint and steel, he intends to survive on his own. Sam learns about courage, danger, and independence during his year in the wilderness, a year that changes his life forever.

   I want to thank those of you that sent me Christmas cards this year-I really enjoy them-and a few of them were handmade. The pretty one to the left is from Lisca in Spain, the one to the right is from Bleubeard and Elizabeth, and the postcard in front is from my author friend Peggy Henderson that writes time travel romance novels in the Tetons and Yellowstone Park. One of her sons designs a different card each year that she hand writes out and sends to her readers. This author also writes a novella to expand the stories of her beloved characters at Christmas time. She emails out a chapter each day for advent with the conclusion of the story on Christmas Day-that was fun to look forward to each day.

  I really loved and enjoyed receiving the many cards this year-Thank yous to all of you that sent me a card-many will get reused for journaling challenges.

  This past week we have had beautiful sunrises, and all Christmas week my Amaryllis has bloomed-now 4 blooms total. photos here if you missed that post and here is a photo I took today showing the 4 lovely blooms. To be able to get all 4 blooms in the photo I placed it on the floor so I could take a photo looking down on the top. The first bloom is still very pretty too.

  

    Friday I finally figured out how I want to hand quilt the Yellowstone inspired quilt. I tried for straight lines opposed to the curvy animal motifs-as it will be easier and faster for me to quilt.  In the 4 patch blocks I thought I would like quilting two of them with diagonal lines and two down and across lines.  I am realizing that quilting all 4 blocks the same with down and across lines will be faster to do and I like the look better as well. So am seriously thinking of taking out the stitches in the other two blocks.

  Instead of trying to mark the lines this painters tape works out better for me. if you click on the photos they will enlarge to see the stitches better.

   These two fall leaf blocks I did the diagonal stitches. I thought it would make the blocks more interesting-but I don't care for these now.

    Usually when I hand quilt I have always stitched up the small stitches-so I am needing to remind myself to make larger stitches and also even same size stitches.

      Enjoy the rest of your Holiday weekend.

T Stands for Tuesday Book and Coffee

   Another Tuesday is upon us-Wow we are almost at mid December already. You are welcome to join us for T with our hostess Bleubeard and Elizabeth-link in my sidebar. Just show a  drink related photo.

 This past week seems like I have been busy-but not sure what I have really accomplished to share. haha I have been bouncing around with different projects.

  I did finish the book The Rise of Wolf 8 by Rick Mcintyre. So far this is a three book series of the author's observations with the Yellowstone wolf project. I found it very interesting and would recommend if you enjoy knowing about wolf family behavior.  I am going to take a break from this series and will read a book that was gifted to me from one of my slow mail and blog friends: O Rugged Land of Gold by Martha Martin-a true story living in Alaska The Foreword says it is a book about Spirit-I am anxious to get more into this one.

I have not done any Holiday baking or candy making as of yet. Have you?  We don't really have anyone to share these goodies with anymore so I am not going to bake too much. I will start this week to make up a few things for us.

   I love cut out cookies so will do gingerbread for sure and perhaps the sugar cookie cut outs as well.  I make peanut brittle and give that away to one of our workers-whom we haven't seen since early summer but I am sure he will check in.😀      I may play around with walnuts or pecan brittle too.

I did break down and buy a quart of eggnog-it was an off brand but was mostly natural ingredients, So have been enjoying a glass of that in the evenings.

  My drink share is my decaf coffee with half and half in this pretty Harley mug. Larry dug it out of the cupboard one day, it looked like Christmas with all the gold on it-which is not showing up well, so I snagged it the next day (smiles)

Do you grind your own coffee??  I have always searched for quality coffee beans and then grind up a container full. Over the years that we have been married in the past I had joined Gevalia coffee club. They always gave away really nice ceramic coffee containers-shown in photo-and also coffee makers. One year I even got a ceramic pour over coffee pot set up. We like the dark roast European style coffees and they had allot of those.  

Now I just look for quality coffees mostly online. This one was at Sam's Club and was such a bargain price wise-and it smelled really good too Last time I went to order they no longer carried this one, but I found two other brands for Larry to try

Gevalia even sent along this coffee measuring spoon one year

I wanted to share a photo of this tea bag after dried-I had shared this tea last week. As you see, these dry with lots of art possibilities

and I did treat myself to a few items from Crayola online. Around this time they have a very good sale So if I want something that is when I pick it up. Thought these would be nice for journal pages-as the few gel pens I have left have all dried up on me and are no good now.

I picked up this adult coloring book from Crayola too-I think I will enjoy this one

  I am not the greatest with coloring but I thought it might help me with colors for when I try painting again

This is a photo of what colors are included in each set

Years ago when my husband bought a very antique ladies desk for me, we also ran into two of these ink pots-Now I can finally use them.  I picked up the nib and this pen on Etsy-the pen was handmade

  I have been playing with calligraphy the last several days-this will take much patience on my part for sure. I have tried different things-I have the feather dip pen, then I found the two pilot parallel pens I had forgotten that I picked up last year. Even after watching videos online I am not doing well with the pilots at all-switching from the thin edge to the thicker side of the pen is not going well. I have given up on those for now.  

  Yesterday and today I set up my oblique dip calligraphy pen (in photo) and have been watching a lesson on Craftsy - Calligraphy 101   I love the feel of this pen allot but so far having trouble going from thin lines to thick The strokes are all mostly thick sigh.  So I am taking a break and will go back to it soon.  I know from reading and listening that I need less pressure for thin strokes but when I go to thick and back to thin-I can't get the thin line again.  The Craftsy class suggested to buy a zebra G nib to start--CJ if you lived closer I would pop over to you for a quick tutorial-hugs

I don't have a new sky photo to share so I am sharing one my favorites that was mostly purple from last month.  This one inspires me to try again at watercolor painting.

Happy T and new week everyone.