Yeah, I know. I read a book. Big deal. But I’ve had some serious reading issues lately.  Since reading The Hunger Games and Catching Fire, I have found nothing to catch my interest.  Okay, I also read  The Life of Pi, but I have mixed feelings on that one.  Sometime, I think of it, and I’m just like “Oh puke, what a stupid book.”  Other times, I’m like “Oh that Richard Parker!” and I tilt my head to the side to appear to look reflective and mutter “well, it wasn’t that stupid if I pretend the ending didn’t exist.”

There were 2 books that I attempted to read since Life of Pi, but bailed on.  I can’t even remember both.  I  know that one was The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie.  I guess, it is not a bad book, but I just didn’t care and it went on and on and on.   The other book?  I’m sure it will come to me later…  I did  just remember that I also read The Lake Shore Limited by Sue Miller.  That was just okay too – as I wrote on my “Reading” page – certainly no Senator’s Wife.

Okay, I remember now, the other book where I jumped ship – Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand – another book that just seemed to be going on and on and on before getting to the point.  I stopped when Major Pettigrew just seemed to be hung up on this pair of guns that he thought he should have rightly inherited instead of having had to share them with his brother and I was just like” get over it already Major Pettigrew and grow up!”  This book has 4.5 stars on Amazon so it is probably a fine book, I just needed to jump off and find something with a better start.

So, what kind of books have the best starts?  Young Adult.  The good ones always start strong probably to keep the interest of the young adult who is being pulled in by so many other things like texting and facebook and hulu, etc…  This book is good albeit not quite as good as Harry Potter or Hunger Games, but it appealed to my younger self in its similarities to The Little House on the Prairie.  Like the Hunger Games and many other books it is set in an “alternate USA.” In this one there is a frontier which is occupied by both regular and magical wildlife such as mammoths and steam dragons.  The people all posses the ability to do magic which I bet would have helped the Ingalls very much when their crops were eaten by grasshoppers.   This seems to be the plot that this book replicates in its magical way – these crazy grubs which eat everything in sight and threaten to destroy all the settlements on the other side of the Great Barrier Spell which cast by Benjamin Franklin and  Thomas Jefferson many years earlier.  The book is called Thirteenth Child by Patricia C. Wrede  I finished it last night which will delight Agent B as when she stumbled across it I had a hard time prying it away from her.  The very likable main character, Eff, as you can probably gather is a thirteenth child which in her culture means that at some point in her life she will “go bad.”  Her twin brother, Lan, however, is the seventh son of a seventh son which is  the most honored, respected, and magical position in their society.  The book follows them from the time they are little until just about 18 years old and I can’t wait for the next book to see what happens next!

My next book club book is called Look  Again by Lisa Scottoline.  I’ve read the first chapter, but I’m already preparing for potential derailment because just from the short first chapter is starting to look like it has the potential for great sadness as the mother discovers the photo of her adopted son on a “have you seen this missing child” flyer.  Has anyone read this? Do you know if there will be tears?

I don’t really have any irresistible knitting projects going at the moment.  Mostly right now, I’m knitting dish cloths for the summer reading program adult incentive baskets this summer.  They are fun and quick, but I keep forgetting to capture their images before they leave  my house!

I also have a couple of traveling knitting projects which live in my Stitched by JessaLu bags…

The first one is Hedera by Cookie A.  This was the project I started for my trip to Michigan during April vacation.  I’ve been on the heel flap for a while.  The yarn is Merino/Tencel blend from my shop.  Yup, product research, lol!  I wanted to test this yarn on a sock to see if it would be stretchy enough as the blend is more drape-y than spring-y.  The result is that I think these are going to be lovely socks to wear. The yarn is soft and smooth and there is definitely enough stretch in the fabric so that they will be comfy socks too.

The second is some kind of Summer Waves pattern that Cheryl was knitting when we went to Spa: Knit and Spin in Maine in February.  The yarn is Oasis by The Woolen Rabbit which is SO soft! It is silk and Camel in the colorway Ribbit (which I do think is a rather unsophisticated name for a yarn with elegant fiber and spectacular depth of color.).   I confess that I haven’t knit on this one too much lately either.  Maybe I need to do some more traveling?

Since it has been awhile since I have last posted, just a couple quick updates…

Reading: I’ve also  been stuck on the same book for awhile too!  I’m trying to read The Lake Shore Limited by Sue Miller. It is good, but, well, it is just not The Hunger Games, you know?

Gardening:  Today, I need to do some soil prep to plant the wildflower seeds that I just bought from New England Wildflower Farm.  I’m going to plant these along the edge of our new field. In the middle, the baby grasses are coming in nicely, but the edges are sparse and we also need to reduce the mowing area.  Everything in my yard so far is growing like a maniac with the early warm weather we have had.  We have had full size leaves on most of our trees since the beginning of May.  This is very unusual for where I live!

Spinning:  I’ve been spinning some yarn as R&D for my Etsy shop.  I’ve started to use Greener Shades dyes on some of my rovings and I’m going to be launching a new fiber by the end of May!  Stay-tuned for more info…

My Etsy Shop:  I had closed my shop during the month of April for travel and to catch up on home maintenance (which never, ever ends, btw).  I have plenty of great items in there now and have more to list so here is my shameless shop promotion – please go check it out!

Well the sun is out, and the Earth is calling.  I’m off to play in the dirt!  Have a great day and thanks for reading!

It has been too long since I’ve been here and I just have way too much content slewing around in my brain trying to gush out in a not-so-becoming-manner.  How to even start…  What about a quick and to the point summation like maybe a bulleted list?

So dear blog readers, it has been 66 days since I have last blogged. In that time I have:

• read 3 books. My favorite was The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Murial Barbery.
• driven more carpools than I can count.
• scrapbooked 24 pages.
• completed knitting at least 3 items.
• reached a thousand hearts on Etsy.
• logged at least 99 hours on Facebook.
• started a Facebook Fan page for Spincerely yours.
• started a mailing list for Spincerely yours.
• met with 12 teachers during parent/teacher conferences.
• not yet seen New Moon.
• presented my first library program (yarn construction).
• seen a play (Avenue Q) with my husband for our 19th anniversary.
• had 3 children and a husband home sick for a week with the flu.
• cheered-on  my daughter through her never-ending field hockey season.
• watched a few disks of Mad Men.
• vended at my second fiber event.
• stuffed a bunch of envelopes for the Land Trust.
• driven back and forth to the school a million times.
• stacked a bit of wood (though not as much as my husband).
• urged my new baby grassies to start growing before winter comes.
• returned to the Great Escape with my whole family and rocked their water slides!
• sent out 60 some-odd samples to the November Phat Fiber box.
• wished for a year with better weather oh-way-too-many times to count.
• driven a bunch of carpools (did I mention that yet?)  So did my husband. He drove a lot too.
• been away from home for 3 weekends in a row.
• begun making holiday plans with my husband to try to find new things to do to keep it fresh.
• vowed to jump back on the blogging wagon.
• been thankful for my wonderful family, nice home, healthy children, and a wickedly excellent husband.

‘Til next time…  let’s hope this *confession* of sorts makes the way for it to be sooner, rather than later…

Second blog post in a row!  I have such a back load of yarns and fibers to blog about.  I’m starting to think I’m just going to have to move forward and not try to blog retrospectively.  I spent some time on Picnik tonight.  I’m considering upgrading to the Premium version.  It is only $2.00 a month. Has anyone done this?  What do you think?  I think that my girls would really enjoy it so I think I will show them and see if they would use it. Summer is coming and they are going to need things to do.

Etsy Stuff: I participated in my second Phat Fiber box. The May theme was “showers and flowers.”  I was in “shower denial” so I chose flowers.  The fiber samples are in a colorway called “Chloris” and the yarn samples are in “Narcissus.”  I hope to get some Chloris listed in my shop tomorrow, and the Narcissus is already there in case you were wondering.  Feel free to go check it out!

I’m also participating in the June Phat Fiber box.  The June theme is “oceanic.”  The colorway that I’m dyeing for that is called Sandpiper.  I had some out in the sun today–to be rinsed tomorrow. I can’t wait to see how it comes out!   I had dyed a couple of rovings in this colorway a couple of months ago, this version is very similar – just a couple of tweaks.  We’ll see…

Children Stuff: The other day when the Swine flu was on the news continuously, Dave said that he hadn’t realized that so many people had died due to the Spanish Flu in 1918.  Agent B said, “Yeah Daddy, that’s how Edward’s parents died, don’t you know?”  (And you didn’t know that Twilight was educational, did you?) When we commented on her connecting the two things she said “Well, you know, that is how I learn everything I know, from reading…” And if you know Agent B, you would be able to insert the proper tone and eye rolling to go with these statement (of course, don’t you know???).

Since we are on Agent B, I can bring this whole topic back to yarn (of course, don’t you know???)  When she went to Sturbridge last week, she thought of me when she saw this:

I think I would like to make her a little case to hold her Bella Sara cards.  It is a very nice handspun and natural dyed yarn.

Reading: I read a couple of memoirs for my book clubs during the last couple of months.  Now, I’m not really one for non-fiction or biographies and I started these with such an attitude that I was NOT going to like them, but I was SO wrong!  The first is  The Tender Bar by J.R. Moehringer I was convinced that there was no way that I was going to like a book filled with sports and gambling references that takes place in a bar on Long Island, but I loved it!  It was interesting and funny and there were nights that I couldn’t put it down.  The second is The House on Sugar Beach by Helene Cooper.  I didn’t finish this one in time for the book club meeting (which was weeks ago and I just finished my reading last night), but once I started, I wanted to finish.  I thought that I would never like a book about war and politics in Africa and that it would all just go over my head, but Helene Cooper has a clear and concise writing style and she explains the history of Liberia from the beginning and in a way you really feel like you understand.  These 2 books are similar in that both authors are about the same age (Moehringer b. 1964, Cooper b. 1966) and they are both reporters for major newspapers. They are different in that in J.R. Moehringer grows up poor in a wealthy society whereas, Helene Cooper grows up wealthy in a country full of poverty.  I recommend both books and even reading both books together, as I did, as I could go on and on with the compare and contrast.

What’s next: Oh-so-much to write about when the weather rocks!  I have fiber, yarn, and  upcoming knitting projects. I have some nature photos including an audubon trip to Bartholomew’s Cobble and a Jr. Audubon trip to the Livingston Ripley Waterfowl Sanctuary.  I have tons of gardening photos especially now that I have a super-addicitive macro lens…  Oh so much to photograph and so little time!

We are going to be on last-chance-for-summer vacation for a while and when get back, this one is turning 10.

Yes, not only did we both hit 4-0 this year, but our youngest child is also a decade old.  No wonder we are falling apart left and right.  Literally.  Just as we are about to leave for our longest driving vacation ever, IHA had a lower back incident.

I bet you are wondering where we are going on vacation.  I may have alluded to this trip previously.  This is no mystery trip, but a long planned journey to Michigan to visit Crops-a-lot and her family.  On the way, we are stopping in Geneva, NY at the top of a finger lake (Seneca Lake?) and in Niagara Falls.  I am so organized that I already have our calendar up on the fridge for the week we get back (and believe me, it is a busy one!).  We have all our summer appointments done. We have been to the doctor, the dentist, the orthdontist, and the candlestick maker. We have been to tell the king that the sky is falling.  We have figured out how to get K’s “blue card” from the nurse to the field hockey coach without us being around on the proper days. We have have spent oodles of money on school supplies.  We have even bought new sneakers.  We are so ready!  The only hitch is that our main driver (and usually our only driver) is not up to par.  It will work though, right? We will just take one hour at a time and eventually we will get there.

Breaking Dawn.  What did you think?  Are you done?  Did you love it? Hate it?  Have no idea what I’m talking about?  As the fourth book in the Twilight series, I would have to say that if you were playing “which of these  things is not like the other,” it would be the one that stands out as a bit different.  It does follow the typical Stephanie Meyer trend of a lot of build up (that goes on and on and on) to get to an action (though not quite as much as The Host).  I did enjoy much of this book, but what I am enjoying most about Breaking Dawn is watching Agent K as she reads it.  She is loving it.  She is just so excited over every little thing and dying to find out what happens next.  Since at almost 14, she is a lot closer to the intended age of the target audience, I would say the book is a winner.  I can’t wait until she gets to the end and we can talk about it all.

Well, I better continue on my packing way and tie up any loose ends I shall encounter. Hope you all enjoy your mid-August. “See” you when I get back!

We’re back! And once again I’m low on time before I have to leave for work. I guess it is the typical Monday morning thing. I’m having a hard time drumming up the motivation to get myself to go. Does that ever happen to you?

So, would you like some clues before the big Mystery Vacation Reveal?

Clue 1: There were waves. There were even surfers riding the waves. I’m assuming with the presence of surfers, I can actually upgrade my claim and say that there were indeed big waves.

Clue 2: There was a carousel. This was a rescued carousel from an old-time amusement park torn down to make way for condos. (Carousels remind me of high school freshman English class. You too?)

Clue 3: This is the view from our hotel room balcony. There was beach, pavement, and lots of eating establishments.

Clue 4: There were boogie-boarding lessons. Oh yeah, and the air was HOT and the water was like ICE!

Clue 5: Huge difference from low tide to high tide. At high tide the remaining beach area was very tiny and compact, but at low tide, it felt like it took minutes to walk down to meet the water. This was a huge beach and even walking along the beach, we never reached either end.

Clue 6: The girls stayed in the water so long that I read an entire book in 2 days — The Society of S, in case you are wondering, and it was excellent; a cross between Twilight and Special Topics in Calamity Physics.

Clue 7: We rode a ferry and saw this skyline. I actually still feel like I’m riding on the ferry and that was yesterday morning. (Does this ever happen to you?) I wish this darn computer would stop swaying back and forth.

OK, that is all the clues I have time for right now. It took about 4 hours to get there. It could have been shorter but as IHA’s usually very efficient and helpful navigator did not know where we were going, we had some rotary issue problems. (Oh wait, that could be Clue 8: Lots of rotaries!)

OK, I’m off to get ready for work, but please feel free to go ahead and guess. I think it is only LFG who knows where we went…

Introducing Spring Forward One… the first of a pair of socks from a pattern that will steal your heart away.

My first new sock in a long long time. The pattern is Spring Forward by Linda Welch from the Summer 2008 issue of Knitty. The yarn is MadelineTosh Sock in vermillion. It is a very pretty colorway although I think it is starting to pool. With this pattern and this color it should not matter too much. So far this is an excellent pattern. Even though it is lace, it is easy to memorize and it has quite a few just knit rows. I’m excited to be knitting socks again. It feels like it has been awhile.

The Host turned out to be really good. It is 619 pages and took me over 3 weeks to read it. The pace picked up at the end — probably about two thirds of the way through. The middle went on a bit like the middle of New Moon if you have read that one. I don’t want to write anything that would be a spoiler, but from the previews you already know that there are 2 beings living in one body. The story turns out to be quite the love quadrangle. It is classified as adult fiction, but don’t let that fool you as there is nothing more than kissing here. I think it would be just fine for perhaps 8th grade and up to read if they were so inclined. I think perhaps this book is a bit of a reversal of the Twilight Series in that it starts out more Scifi and it is toward the end of the book that there are more “human-y” interactions (in Twilight it starts off very “human” and gets more scifi as you go). Whereas in Twilight my favorite part is the beginning of the first book, my favorite part of this book is the end.

It did take me a while to get into The Host, but when I was through, I was sad for it to end. Out on the internet, I encountered some groups chatting about the book and it seems that one of the favorite topics of discussion is casting for the movie. I don’t know if there is a movie planned or not, but I hope not. I can’t quite imagine how a movie can capture so much dialog that takes place in ones’ (plural possessive intentional) thoughts. I also don’t really know why all books need to become movies. Sometimes I just like to keep them separate, don’t you?

I’m a new soul
I came to this strange world
Hoping I could learn a bit bout how to give and take
But since I came here, felt the joy and the fear
Finding myself making every possible mistake

La, la, la, la (21x)
La, la, la, la (21x)

See I’m a young soul in this very strange world
Hoping I could learn a bit bout what is true and fake
But why all this hate? try to communicate
Finding trust and love is not always easy to make

La, la, la, la (21x)
La, la, la, la (21x)

This is a happy end
Cause you don’t understand
Everything you have done
Why’s everything so wrong

This is a happy end
Come and give me your hand
I’ll take you far away

I’m a new soul
I came to this strange world
Hoping I could learn a bit bout how to give and take
But since I came here, felt the joy and the fear
Finding myself making every possible mistake

New soul… (la, la, la, la,…)
In this very strange world…Every possible mistake
Possible mistake Every possible mistake
Mistakes, mistakes, mistakes…

by Yael Naïm , released 2008

I’m almost done reading The Host. Just a few pages left actually, but I have to return it to the library today so I think I’m going to just copy them quickly so I’m not late. Why am I taking the time to write this blog post? Well, I just wanted to share this song with you. Every time I hear it, I think of Wanda/Melanie (the main character) and how this song could be her theme song. The only difference is that Wanda is a old soul in a new body, but she is a new soul to the planet Earth and human emotion so it can still sort of work. I’ve been reading The Host for 3 weeks now and trying like crazy to finish it, but now that I’m at the end, I find myself not wanting it to end. I don’t know if I’m ready to recommend it yet until I see what happens as I’m just not sure how this is going to go. I guess I’ll have to let you know later!

Well, life has just been a whirlwind lately, hasn’t it?  Where are those lazy, hazy days of summer when you need them?  I keep putting off blogging so I don’t bog you down with the craziness of my life.  An in an effort to make this a more tranquil post than how I really feel, I have a couple of photos from my yard this morning…

Foxgloves covered with rain droplets. 

I have a few little random foxgloves growing in my yard this year as remnants from when we planted wildflower seeds the summer we moved in (2000!).  I love surprise flowers, don’t you?

Deer  Problems

To say that I have deer issues is an understatement.  When I was planting my garden this year, I had a conversation with the deer and we came to an agreement that I would plant extra stuff and they would be careful to just nibble on the plants a little and go on their merry ol’ way.  Apparently they were not listening and they gobbled up 7 of my 8  tomato plants, and yes, I did cry a bit.

Do you see how they eat the whole thing?  What happened to a bit of nibbling and sharing with me?

Deer are mean.  Do you see how they ate everything?  They only left one plant untouched.  And they helped themselves to some lettuce and peas while they were out there.  Then they moved to the front yard.  These next 2 plants are less than 3 feet away from my house.

This lily only flowers once a year and they ate the blossoms right off.   So much for this flower.

This are some variety of echinacea and will probably grow back and still flower this year.  I hope it is not my new coconut lime!  Freaking deer.

Well, thanks for listening to my annual deer rant, now onto some good stuff…

Knit Start

I cast on for my first Summer of Socks sock! Ok, so it may be my only, but I started!  I love knitting.  I should do it more often.

Baaa Baaa Black Sheep

Have you any wool?  I have plenty (40+ pounds)!  In my last post, I talked about having a ton of goals for the summer. Well, most of them are dyeing related and they have to do with this pile of wool…

It Came Back

A few months ago, my little scale just stopped working.  I was so sad that I actually sent it back with the warranty to try to get it fixed/replaced. (This is very atypical for me to actually follow through on something.)  I didn’t think it would actually work because it took so long to get in touch with someone at this company to find out where to send it.  Last week, however, I got a package and look what was inside; a brand new Vector Fuzion Xtrme XTR-500!!! And it works too!

Summer Reading

This is my first year working at the library at the beginning of the Summer Reading Program.  Oh my, it is SO busy!  It makes me wonder where they people are the rest of the year, but my hours there are flying by and it has been a fun week at work.  It has been a year since I stopped working at the lys where this time of year is a major snooze fest and it was just so painful to wait for the next person to walk in the door.  The library has so far been such a better job than working at the lys and it is one choice that I don’t regret at all.  Also, if you have been reading my blog for a while or know me, you know that I had some eye allergy issues/sensitivities working at the lys and they have mostly improved since then (Though, of course, I have picked up those chronic hives…  hummm… must be some sort of conservation of annoyance out there in the universe.)
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I’m still reading The Host by Stephanie Meyer.  It is a long book! It is good, but not the kind of book where things happen very quickly, more the kind of book that you read to be “in” the story; not a good choice when you have a due date…  Agent K has started reading Twilight.  Actually, she has started reading it for a second time in 2 days while we wait for Eclipse to come back into the library.  I brought home 3 books from her High School (ack!) reading list yesterday.   I wish I had time to just read all day!  I told the girls that if they do their the jobs on their chart and clean their rooms that I would take them swimming at lunch, maybe I can read a bit then.

Coming up…

Tomorrow (if it doesn’t rain again), we are going to watch a bird banding project and pick strawberries.  On Friday night, IHA and I have a wedding to go to.  On Saturday, Agent B has a karate test to move up to the next belt.  On Sunday, they all go to camp and then we are helping at the Land Trust Art Show.  Those are all the major things, but there are a billion little things to do filling in all the cracks.  At least by writing this post, I have one of them done!  My plan going forward with this blog is to write shorter posts more often. We’ll see how that goes.

Have a great day everyone!

Wow, it has been a long time since I have been tagged (thanks Ragan)!! Here goes!!!

MEME RULES:
1. Pick up the nearest book of 125 pages or more (no cheating!)
—Ok. I’m sitting at my “desk” and it is the book I finished a couple of days ago, patiently waiting to be added to my Library Thing
2. State the title and author of the Book
—It is Unravelling by Elizabeth Graver
3. Find Page 25
Got it
4. Type in the first five sentences.

…edge, his shoulders, and all the rest of him, for he was there with his back hunched, his eyes fierce. He did not want to move, or talk, or do anything but stare at me as if he had never seen me before, had never felt my hand thumping his back, or heard my sharp tongue, or run with me in the woods.

“Go back down!” I whispered, but then I realized he would tell what he had seen, and I would be dragged from the barn and placed with my burning fingers in the church.

“Stay,” I whispered, and he inched toward me on his knees and held his hands up in the air in front of himself, trembling, as if he were considering touching something dreadful — a rotten piece of meat or a severed snake with its insides hanging out like string.

I showed him everything.

5. Find page 100 and type in the first, second and fifth word on the page.
—do, for, walked
6. Post the meme to your blog.
7. Tag 5 people. Have fun!
I’m not going to tag anyone specifically — mostly because I’m just too tired, but if you want to play go ahead and if you want to play but don’t have your own blog, you can post to my comments if you’d like:)

I just have to say that, coincidentally, my quote from above is from the pivotal scene in this book.  This girl’s whole life is changed by what happens next. It is the beginning of her “unravelling” one could say.

And now, back to Earth Day…   As promised, my Conservation District purchases:

 1 Red Twig Dogwood

2 Sarah Mountain Laurel

2 Spice Bush

1 Pussy Willow

3 Blueberry bushes

1 Coast Leucothoe (which is supposed to be deer resistant)

And 4 random perennials.

It did look like more in the car, in my checkbook, and I’m sure it will again when we go to plant them (esp. since we are planting “in the woods” where the digging is not easy).  It is sort of a test run to see what grows the best and then we will get more of the “winners” next year.

Working toward Goal #2, I watered my compost bin twice this week.  I think things are really starting to heat up in there.

And the daffodils are blooming!

I took many more photos today, but I’ll save them for later.  I went back to look at some of my posts from last April and it is fun to see the differences in when things started blooming and what the weather was like.  Last year at this time, we had a river running across the driveway and now we are super crispy out there.  Of course, this is New England, so who knows what tomorrow will bring…