books — Page 145

Potpourri on Saturday

September 10, 2016 at 9:44 am by Claudia

• I woke up too early. When I came downstairs, it was still darkish. In the shadows, I thought I glimpsed something…when it got even lighter, I saw this:

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Three morning glories!

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It’s raining a bit out there – we still need a whole heck of a lot more – and I grabbed the chance to capture the blooms with rain drops on them.

• I’ve been deleting photos from my photo library on this laptop for days now. I have to be ruthless about it. Before I transfer everything to the new computer, I want to clear the decks, as it were. I’ve deleted old downloads, no-longer-needed documents, bookmarks in various browsers. I take a lot of photos for my blog but what I am not good about is immediately deleting the ones I download but realize I can’t use. So I get a lot of duplicates, or photos of things that seemed important at the time, but are no longer relevant.

I keep every photo ever taken of the dogs. I won’t delete any. Last night, I saw so many photos of Scout as I scrolled through my library, that when I walked downstairs for dinner, I actually looked for her in the living room. I was expecting to see her. Oh, my girl.

• We are now watching Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries on Netflix and we’re really enjoying them. The first episode was a little less than exciting, but we now realize they were just finding their way and establishing who Miss Fisher is, etc. I’m glad we stuck with it because it’s very good, indeed.

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• We spent part of the afternoon yesterday setting up Don’s new laptop. He’s so excited! You have no idea how bad the other one was. The circa 2008 colors were faded, it was terribly slow, and a while back, the connector for the ear buds broke off inside the laptop. Don took it to the Apple Store to see if they could fix it, but they couldn’t. So he had no sound. None. He listened to things on his phone, which is fine, but sometimes you need a bigger screen. He spent time yesterday watching things on YouTube and listening to his CD on the laptop (“It’s really good!” he said.)

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I took a picture just now of Don with the laptop, but his morning hair is sticking up all over the place and I know he wouldn’t be pleased with it, so I’ll just show you his shiny, new MacBook Pro.

• Today may be all about the computer changeover. And reading the book I am to review on Monday. A heads up for you: I have a book review that has long been scheduled for Monday, and I just found out that a sponsored post I’ve done for BlogHer was okayed for Monday. Can’t have two posts on the same day, so the sponsored post will be up on Tuesday.

Happy Saturday.

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A Foggy Haze on Wednesday Morning

September 7, 2016 at 9:59 am by Claudia

My husband made me coffee this morning after a rather tough night for yours truly – an allergy attack that had me coughing for quite a long time. We mowed yesterday and there’s a lot of pollen floating around out there, not to mention the ragweed I found right at the end of our driveway! Do I leave it or do I pull it? Pulling it might do as much damage as leaving it, don’t you think?

This morning, in my foggy haze, this is what I saw outside the kitchen window. Keep in mind that it was shot through the window and then through the chicken wire fence:

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A bunny and a goldfinch. Both were happily eating, seemingly unaware of each other. A hearty yay for two reasons: this particular bunny that I inadvertently frightened off one day is back, and I saw a goldfinch – a bird! – when all my birdie friends seem to be flying south. I also saw a bluejay this morning. That makes me happy.

I forgot to add this photo to yesterday’s recap:

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Husband playing guitar on porch.

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Waiting for morning glory blooms. And, maybe, just maybe, moonflower blooms. I’m doubtful about the moonflowers, but never say never. Come on guys! What if we get an early frost? I need to see some blooms!

Hanging in there and still going for the time being:

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Thank goodness for phlox, which really lasts a long time!

I’m reading a bit of nonfiction at the moment, before I start a novel I have to review next Monday. After reading something as powerful and exquisitely written as A Great Reckoning by Louise Penny, I find I have to take a break for a few days. I do this partly because I want to linger on the story and world in which I was so deeply immersed. But I also do it because heading right into another novel that I have to review would be unfair. I’d be unconsciously comparing it to the Penny. I need to ‘clean the slate.’ I think I’ll be ready to start the novel tomorrow. Maybe today.

In the meantime, I’m finishing up Barbara Cook’s autobiography. She may very well be my favorite singer.

Have you seen Philomena with Judi Dench and Steve Coogan? We watched it the other night on Netflix and it was simply wonderful! Best movie we’ve seen in a long time. Beautifully acted by both Dench and Coogan.

Happy Wednesday.

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Recapping

September 6, 2016 at 9:44 am by Claudia

I’m thinking it’s Monday, of course. But it’s Tuesday. And so goes a week where I will continue to question what day it is.

Oh, goodness, I was melancholy yesterday. It was due, I think, to a number of things: the seasonal change, which seems to affect me more and more the older I get, the anniversary of my brother’s passing and the awareness that it will soon be a year since my father died. I finished A Great Reckoning. If you want to know my thoughts on this extraordinary novel, scroll down to yesterday’s post. I finished A Fine Romance by Susan Branch. And we took a little drive to shake off my melancholy.

A recap of the past several days (some of these photos were on Instagram so I’m sharing them with everyone today):

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We sent this photo in a text to Little Z because he couldn’t grasp the fact that our lawnmower is the kind you push, not the kind you sit on (as is used on his lawn).

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The den in the morning. It’s darker outside when I first get up. Soon it will be completely dark at 6 or 7 am. Not sure how I feel about that.

I had a lovely two hour phone conversation with my dear friend Christine (a fellow voice and speech coach who I met when I worked in Wisconsin five years ago). My favorite quote from Christine during that conversation: “You can’t make somebody not nuts.” It’s a quote she read a while back and boy, do I need to remind myself of this at times.

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We took at trip to Saugerties, where we had lunch at a Mexican restaurant (Mexitarian – our new word for vegetarian Mexican food) and saw this vintage Roy Rogers guitar in an antique shop. (You know I love to get Don anything Roy Rogers, but this was $200!)

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This came in the mail. Be still my heart. And it still sits on this cabinet because I haven’t decided where it should go. It’s 8 inches high and several inches wide. Am I running out of room?

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And this is complete. Sigh of happiness.

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The twenty-fifth anniversary of my brother David’s death was on September 4th. The sheer magnitude of that number is too much for me to handle. Dave gave me this brooch during his fight against the lymphoma that would ultimately take him from us. I wore it for a couple of years but I placed it in a shadow box after he died and it sits on my desk.

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We took a drive to Rosendale yesterday and ate at our favorite vegetarian restaurant. These cheery flowers were on the table.

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Of course a visit to Rosendale means a visit to my favorite independent bookstore.

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This planter is outside the shop.

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Would I love to have a ceiling like this one? Yes.

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We had a lovely chat with Jesse and Maggie, talked about books and reading, perused their offerings (I bought Mycroft Holmes by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and some pretty notebooks by Rifle Paper Co.) and watched an adorable little girl run in the shop with her dad, all set to pick out a book. Later on, she went up to Don and said, “Are you an old man?” He answered, “Yes.” And then we laughed. To that little moppet, Don is an old man. To me? Nah.

The sugar maple is dropping leaves like nobody’s business (it’s always the first tree to start the change.) I read up on bird migration yesterday because I’m missing my birds – I don’t see them anymore. But at the end of the day, my mourning dove appeared to drink some water from the birdbath. That made me happy.

Happy Tuesday.

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Potpourri on Saturday

A Foggy Haze on Wednesday Morning

Recapping

Lambs Like to Party

A Note

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