The Deborah Crombie arrived at my local library yesterday, so off I went to pick it up.
Current reading pile – and I am reading all three at once.
Oooh, how lovely! Three excellent books and I get to read them. I’m close to finishing Underland and I can’t say enough about how wonderful it is. Of course, three hours after I went to the library, I received an email saying that two books I had also reserved had arrived. I think I’ll wait to pick them up tomorrow, so the two weeks we get for ‘new’ books starts a day later – giving me some wiggle room.
Also, Galaxy Puzzles (based in my old neighborhood in Michigan) is the online company I used to order my very first jigsaw puzzle at the start of lockdown. The owner is closing down because it’s been so successful that it’s become too much for her to handle. So she’s going out on a positive note. She’s discounting all the stock in her warehouse. I ordered 3 puzzles. I think they were discounted at 20-30% off. She ships quickly. I ordered on the weekend and I received them yesterday.
Anyway, the discounts are even deeper now; most, I think, at 40% – just in case you’re interested. I saved some money and I have some on hand.
Sophie:
It’s a rainy morning here with another storm headed our way tomorrow night. There is some disagreement on the actual forecast and my favorite local weather guys say it’s too “fluid” at the moment. So, something’s coming, we just don’t know exactly how much. Unlike the pretty snow of earlier this week, this one will have some sleet and ice in the mix. Not good.
Stay safe.
Happy Thursday.
I was sorry to hear about Galaxy and even though I have three puzzles to do (and am not nearly so fast as you) may well be sending an order. I love the three you picked — Luncheon of the Boating party is a particular favorite of mine, as is the Klimt, and the other Renoir is beautiful too.
Happy puzzling and reading!
Well, I’m at least relieved to know she wasn’t going out of business for money/income reasons.
Stay safe, Jeanie.
Well with the books and puzzles, it looks like you’re set! Great things to do with the weather the way it is! Sophie looks cute today!
She is darned cute!
Thanks, Barrie.
Stay safe.
Books to read…puzzles to work…fun…I am reading Netgalley, of course. At the same time, reading again an A. Christie. Have a good good day.
You, too, Brenda!
Stay safe.
glad you have favorite things to do anytime and especially when faced with disagreeable-to-dangerous weather. hope you can stay home if you get that awful sleet-y stuff. and stay safe!
i know everyone has their own preferences and abilities, but i don’t understand how some people can read more than one book at a time (my brain doesn’t work that way) … but i applaud you all!
looks like the “spoiler alert” movies were all sold by the time i got to the store last night (too bad for me, but good for others). will find it elsewhere … am sure looking forward to seeing it.
need to get some stuff done around here, will then go spend time with members of my family. :)
hope you, don and everyone else have a good, easy day.
kathy
Sorry you couldn’t get the movie. I bet you could order from Amazon and have it in no time.
We’re planning on staying in and not even messing with trying to shovel. Too slippery, I would think. We may just wait it out.
Stay safe, Kathy.
Thanks for the info on Galaxy puzzles. Since the pandemic we have become jigsaw puzzle ‘addicts’ so I will be checking out the sale.
Have a wonderful day!
You, as well, Cathy.
Stay safe.
Love Sophie’s red hair bow and pretty spring dress. I was at Michael’s this morning and bought a pretty turquoise wooden chair for Jesse. It was $20 but then I didn’t have to pay for shipping or the exchange rate and I beleive it’s cheaper than the ones I can find on-line.
A heavy winter storm is headed our way Friday into Saturday so we wanted to get out this morning to run some errands. The sun was shining and it was quite mild.
Enjoy your books. Isn’t the library great? I worked at our local library for 11 years part time after I retired. It was the perfect job and we lived close enough to walk to the library. I miss seeing all the new books come in.
Stay warm and cozy. Hugs, Elaine
PS Don’s apple pie was so good I plan to make another one tomorrow during the storm.
I should stop in at Michael’s. But not for a few days, as a winter storm is headed our way as well. A messy one. Today we hit 53 degrees. The weather is crazy.
So glad you like the apple pie!
Stay safe, Elaine.
Thanks for th drip on Galaxy puzzles. I may order a couple.
You’re welcome!
Stay safe.
Yep, get those errands done and tuck in out of yucky weather indeed with a stash of great puzzles and good reads!
I thought about, yesterday evening, of how I’ve felt cold for three solid months. I know that must sound ridiculous because I live in ‘warm’ Southern California which, yes, has been getting its share of ‘wintry’ weather but I’m well aware we’re not New York or Wisconsin or any of the other cold-weather states across the U.S. where the weather is TRULY frigid. Either my skin is thinner than I thought, or hormones uncontrolled are getting to me at this old(er) age; something; but I can just never warm up. True, I have an old house with a lot of little leaks by now as we’ve had so many tremors and quakes and just plain ‘ol ground settling over the house’s life of 67 years; I don’t even know how we’d go about caulking it all up. I thought maybe our ancient furnace had stopped working efficiently. My husband says, no, ‘it’s you, Vicki; you’re the problem’.
I had to lay on the sofa last night, watching TV, with three layers of clothing on my bod, wrapped in another three blankets and with a heating pad on my feet; this is not normal and it’s ridiculous. My hair is really pandemic-long, ‘way past my shoulders at present, so it keeps me warmer over my ears, but I’ve thought maybe to wear a woolen hat pulled over my head, inside my house and also when sleeping, as I’ve remembered somebody telling me once that if your feet are cold and your head is cold, you’ll be unable to warm up. Even my big nose is cold! I need a nose-warmer. Sometimes I’ve been turning the furnace up to as high as 76 degrees which is a bad idea with our very-high natural gas prices and it must be not good for energy efficiency. (And probably just two or three months from now, I’ll start grousing about the hot summer weather and my higher electric bill when running the central air conditioning; seems to be no pleasing me!)
One thing for sure, if I can’t even take temporary/unusually-cold weather in Southern California, I could sure never take it in other parts of the U.S. like the rest of you (hardier) folks! And to think from 2020 thru 2022, all my husband could talk about was moving to the Upper Midwest! (I can’t tell which he fell more in love with, Wisconsin or Michigan. I look forward somehow to visiting those two beautiful states but it’s clear that moving there would have been difficult for us, at least at this later age; neither my husband nor I could shovel snow like you and Don, Claudia [I know you have to watch your back, but you two are in amazing shape for your age].)
Our teeny home office is built into the attached garage and my husband says my dad (was his house) didn’t put in proper insulation although I doubt it because Dad had hired a professional, licensed contractor to make sure he did things the right way in the early 1960s. It’s where my work area is, with the desk computer I prefer. I need to be writing my limited series for the local newspaper and there’s never a time that’s right; first, it was too much noise and distraction; now, it’s always the cold, no matter what time of day or night, where I want to be keyboarding. My husband says we can’t even plug in a space heater because it’s too much pull on the electrical we have in the room. And the computer has to stay where it is. I’m trying to write with a notebook (pen, paper) in the car during the day since the car warms up from what little sun we’ve been getting; the sunshine is more abundant today and hopefully for the next few days until March 10 when we’re to get more rain again (the threat of another atmospheric river; oh dear).
I know these are repetitive first-world complaints and I need to quit feeling grumbly. But it was 34 degrees again this morning when I got up and I’m getting tired of it (grumble, grumble, grumble). Old, drafty house! But I have to remind myself to be grateful of the roof over my head in my old, drafty house (which, so far, thank goodness, blessed old roof has yet to leak in the oodles of rain we’ve been getting here [oodles, how ’bout BUCKETS of rain]). One thing that is almost like a miracle: I saw a drought map this morning on early TV news and it sure looked to me like my area, my town, is finally in zero drought. We’ve been fighting drought for SO long. It’s almost ten years of it here. While a lot of the rest of California did improve over the last years, my sliver of Southern Calif never entirely was free of drought when everybody else here was; so, this is good, good news for us. Thankful.
If it’s cold, Don routinely wears a knit cap on his head – in the house. Sometimes, I do, as well. It’s a good idea.
Hang in there, Vicki.
Stay safe.
I was remembering the Victorian fairytale illustrations when a male character in the story wears a stocking cap. Well, what am I saying, isn’t it the ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas’ poem where the narrator is saying the children were nestled snug in their beds while visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads … what was the rest … mama in her kerchief and I in my cap had just settled down for a long winter nap (I know I didn’t quote that right!).
Thanks for the encouragement, Claudia. I’ve been up all night writing, freezing my tush off and it’s currently approaching 37 degrees so it’s slight improvement over yesterday. We only have frost/ice on the cars this Friday morning and not the roof. Again, I know it’s nothing like what you endure in the Hudson Valley of NY. I’m gonna go look for a knitted hat; I know I have a beanie type somewhere around here. Understand that I usually live my year ’round life in Southern California in a sleeveless sheath dress of lightest cotton/rayon, my legs are never covered and I wear clogs/crocs-type shoes with open heel to the back. That’s my uniform to what others might wear as jeans or yoga pants and a tee (which is usually how you find my husband; he lives in Levis and sweatshirts). I have a few lightweight, three-quarter sleeved cardigans I hardly ever wear (not wool!) although my arms these days really are pretty ugly to be exposed and I should wear something/anything with a sleeve rather than be so bare. Last week, I dug out a coat I bought a dozen years ago which I’ve only once worn when we had the hurricane-force winds the night of the wildfire which sent us packing with recommended volunteer evacuation which was in 2017 December 4. But this right now is the weirdest weather ever in my neck ‘o the woods. We begged for rain for a decade; we got it! (And much more.)
I remember the weather there. But I kept my winter coats, especially since I visited family and had to tour the country in January auditioning prospective students for the program. And I’d come there from Boston. Like you, once I adjusted, I wore t-shirts and jeans/shorts or simple cotton dresses.
xo