Goodness, it’s gray and cloudy out there – both yesterday and today, with rain coming this evening. I started to work outside yesterday, but I was only out there for about 2 hours. I’m not used to working outdoors as I tend to be sedentary in the winter, and the air was that kind of damp that cuts right through you. But, I made a start.
We’ve been watching a groundhog who isn’t Henry. I see him on our property daily; he’ll investigate the places in which Henry and that scamp, Nigel, have resided. He’ll dine on some grass. He’s the same guy who periodically jumps up on the overturned wheelbarrow to see what’s going on. And invariably, he runs around the chicken wire fence at the back of the ‘corral’ and heads toward our neighbor’s shed. Does he live there? Does he live here? We’re not sure. But we’ve named him Joe.
My latest treasure from Vintage by Crystal arrived yesterday. Here it is:
She’s called Bedazzler. Talk about whimsical! I love everything about her; the base with the glitter, crepe paper and flowers, the egg with gold ‘grass’ inside, the little girl wearing lavender and yellow, holding a wire hoop of chicks and stars, sporting a hat with a little yellow chick.
Isn’t she the best? I’m in love with her.
On book reviews: I never answer comments on a book review post. I have to count comments in order to determine the winner, so any extra comments, like those that don’t have anything to do with the review itself, or a reply from me (which also counts as a comment) confuses the issue and makes it much more difficult to get a count. So if you have a question for me, please send it in an email. The address is under the envelope icon at the top of the sidebar. Or leave it on another post other than the book review. Then I can respond. In the future, I would appreciate you limiting your comments on these posts as they are meant to indicate whether you want to be part of the giveaway. Thanks, my friends.
Yesterday’s egg cup theme:
Wooden egg cups with faces. The man and woman on the left were sent to me by a reader of this blog. Those eggs are salt and pepper shakers. The sailor in the middle was a birthday gift from my girl, Scout. And the little girl on the right with the knitted cap was also a gift from a blog reader.
I’m surely blessed by all of you!
I’m reading another Ian Rankin mystery, Rather Be The Devil. I ended up liking my first venture into Rankin’s books very much indeed. I’m reading these out-of-order, which isn’t ideal, but for now, it’s the best I can do.
We watched The Florida Project last night on Amazon Prime. A simply stunning movie. We were initially interested because we like Willem Dafoe and he was nominated for an Oscar for his performance. But we really had no idea what it was about. I put it right up there with Roma. It’s so real and the performances – mostly by people who had never acted before – are so honest that it seems like it’s a documentary. It’s an important film.
And Dafoe is amazing.
We couldn’t stop talking about it afterwards. I’m still thinking about it this morning.
Beverly Cleary is 103 today!
Happy Friday.
I loved that movie, so interesting and real. It was warm here yesterday and the sky was so clear. Cloudy today but still warm. Spring in Georgia. Sorry I left a comment yesterday on the book giveaway, honestly forgot about the random draw thing. My cold is better, still coughing some but finally feeling better. Wishing you a good day my friend.
I haven’t done reviews in so long, it’s easy to forget about the comments, Linda. So happy to hear you’re finally feeling better, my friend!
Omigoodness! I had no idea Beverly Cleary was still alive! I grew up on Beverly Cleary books. In fact I would go so far as to say she is who gave me my love for reading. Happy Birthday Beverly!
I agree. She was a big, big part of my childhood!
hooray for the start in your garden! hope joe, nigel and henry leave your gardens alone. what do they eat?
love seeing people’s creativity: crystal’s art, another movie and book that sound great (books, actually … beverly cleary’s books are worth reading at any age), the eggcups that people designed and gave you … very inspiring to me. thanks for sharing!
cold and not quite so windy here today. the sky was full of thick, grey clouds on my way to work this morning and i just wanted to stay home (still do). hope it’s like that all weekend!
also hope you all have a nice weekend, too.
kathy in iowa
They are vegetarians, so everything in my garden looks good to them. To his credit, Henry never touched the garden. Nigel, on the other hand, did! I was so frustrated!
Gray here – rather depressing! I’m going to go upstairs to the studio and work on the dollhouse.
Loving Bedazzled! That’s because I like quirky anyway! Naming your groundhog reminds me of my next door neighbour. We have grey squirrels living in the woods at the back of our houses. I don’t really like them but she has named them Beryl, Cheryl and Cyril Squirrel! They come creeping along my back fence and then leap on her bird table taking all the birdie food!
This is a bit random but I went with friends to the cinema last night to watch a live screening from one of London’s West End theatres. It was All about Eve with Gillian Anderson as Margo Channing and Lily James as Eve. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It’s such a good idea as they screen throughout here and Europe and to some cinemas in the States depending on the time difference. It allows you to see a top show at a fraction of the price and you feel like you’re actually there, you even see the audience settling into their seats before curtain up!They were advertising previous events and one of them was King Lear! I have seen others but missed that one.
Have a good weekend.
Yes, I know they did that with King Lear with Ian McKellen. It’s a great idea.
Bedazzler is quite the stunner, isn’t she? I love her colors…I remember seeing her when I checked out Crystal’s website. Glad you were able to add her to your collection.
Well…at least you got a start on your gardens. It’s been miserably cold and windy here the last two days, but thankfully, we missed most of the snow. I know the calendar says spring…but really, who believes that malarchy with weather like this? Hopefully next week I’ll be able to get out there and do some more clean up.
Enjoy your day! ;)
She’s so Easter-y in her colors!
So glad you missed the snow, but I agree. It’s coldish here and I want to get going outside! So frustrating!
Read sister of the bride and fifteen last month for the millionth time
My copies from
School are long gone
Borrowed the ones I bought my daughter years ago! They r in her bookcases along with others. Love Cleary!
Loved Fifteen so much when I was young. I read it over and over again!
The detail on your Bedazzler is just incredible. Such unique creations!
Oh, Beverly Cleary; one of my heroines. She is SUCH a part of our boomer childhoods, right? As a kid, you could always read her in the school library or the community library, even if your family (like mine) could rarely afford to buy books for the home (although Mom tried, scrimping and saving, utilizing discount offers or store promotions, etc. – – back then, we didn’t have the secondhand stores where I live; there weren’t used bookstores; we didn’t have Friends Of The Library sales).
My gosh, it had escaped me or I’d forgotten already that Beverly Cleary she was still alive. You prompted me to refresh my memory (look her up online) and I think it’s lovely she can still be in her long-time town of Carmel in Calif although it looks like, no doubt expectedly due to her age, she’s in a care home/retirement place. God Bless her. I still have several of her books. Thanks for mentioning this today; I loved revisiting her.
We almost never had new books. Maybe as a gift from my grandmother, but our family didn’t have the money for books. That’s why we were such fans of our library and our local bookmobile. We borrowed books and then went back and got some more.
We didn’t have a bookmobile! I wonder why? Was it a Midwest thing? Didn’t see them then, don’t see them now. How curious. Is my world that small?!! (I’m surrounded by schools where my house is located. They all let out at the same time, when I can find myself trapped on my block, unable to pull out into the street! Cars, van pools and busses; no bookmobiles. Only thing like that I can recall from my own childhood is when a big utility-style truck would come and they’d test our hearing; had it set up inside with booths.)
Do you think, too, that just more books are available these days to ‘regular’ people in all kinds of sizes/types, all kinds of income levels, all kinds of ways? I do recall paperback books for kids thru a school program in like maybe 1966-68 (Scholastic book program; ordered them thru the teacher, like 50 cents tops, others 35 cents; I still have several although they’re dog-eared; not the finest of paper but, again, a cheap way to amass some books; I loved them) but when I was older and could go to another city to a real bookstore, I seem to only recall hardbound books.
When Mother was single and had just begun to work a conventional 8-5pm office job although still in her teens, she did subscribe to Book of The Month Club (early 1940s; no softcover, only hardcover books to choose from, or so she told me once; often a degraded paper due to shortages of EVERYthing during WWII) to start building a small library for herself (all they had at home when SHE was growing up in The Great Depression was The Bible).
Now, of course, there’s all kinds of ways to read via the web and devices, a huge availability of cheap mass-market paperbacks; I’ve even found some really nice, brand-new hardcover books at my dollar store (and they had lots and lots of books for kids of all ages, and softcover/hardcover [also board books]); so, you know, in today’s times, no reason not to have a few books in the home for children but, sigh, I see all too often that even the tots just out of strollers have a phone in their hand (maybe it’s loaded with creative, brain-stimulating games?) – – yet I’m hopeful when I still see elementary/middle school kids with BOOK BAGS/knapsacks. (It’s still very popular where I live, for some of the service clubs to distribute [to every kid going to school in the new school year] a softcover dictionary as well as a thesaurus; a little helpful something all their own.)
(Also didn’t use BOOK BAGS when I was that age. Wouldn’t have been cool. [It’s gotta be better on the neck/shoulders, though! The backpack variety.] I can remember our heavy textbooks and changing them out in short breaks between classes, back & forth to the hall lockers assigned to us. Especially the high school was so spread out, up and down hills and stretching out over three north-to-south streets, bordered by two west-to-east ones; I got so tired of lugging around books [in the wind, rain, heat, cold] although I treated them well, making covers for them out of paper [brown paper] grocery sacks [they held up remarkably well!].)
(We got a lot of exercise! Walk, walk, walk. All those years ago, only a small [really small!] handful of teens actually had a car; now, they ALL seem to have one and our town/school district has actually torn down houses to make room for more student parking [they seriously have to buy the house, tear it down, just to have the acreage for parking; drives me insane; most of the houses were historical, not in bad shape; to me, it’s a tragedy].)
(It’s such a diff world; we barely had enough money to buy bubble gum after school. Fast-forward 50 years, and I see ‘way too many kids going to Starbucks, age 12, getting expensive, large-tall [heavy-caffeine, with sweeteners and whipped cream], specialty drinks at 3pm [talk about being wired til bedtime or thereafter!]; I’ve had a conversation more than once with a barista or two, with them telling me not only are a lot of kids ‘regulars’ but they, too, question children of that age being allowed to purchase triple espresso shots or the like, with parents apparently not caring{?}; it’s not just ‘where do young kids get the money’ for that kind of daily expense, but where’s the food value in that for a growing child, not the least of which would be the ‘argument’ of whether or not caffeine is a legal drug/addictive]. Believe me, I’m not against coffee [LOVE coffee!], which is why I allow myself an OCCASIONAL visit to [expensive] Starbucks; but I’m an old lady, not age 12 or 13…or, God forbid, younger.)
Ooops, I’m rambling and ranting off-subject. Sorry!!
If you look up bookmobiles, I think you’ll find they were an ‘all over the country’ thing. But it depended on the library system, as they were not independent but a mobile extension of the library. Ours traveled throughout our city, and was in the parking lot of my elementary school – just across the street – once each week. I couldn’t wait to go there!
I also got Scholastic books – the first paperback versions of books that I ever had. I loved the day when the orders came in. It was the best of presents! All those books to read!
And yes, I carried all my books back and forth to class, and walked a mile to and from high school carrying a big load of books. No backpacks then. No tote bags. I’m not sure how we did it! Thanks, Vicki!
Hmmm. I’m going to investigate, just because I’m curious about the bookmobile. Our library has always been a stand-alone community/public library independent of a county library system. They rely heavily on an endowment fund and memorial contributions, book sales, other donations, or if the townspeople support them at ballot time when a measure is created for a new tax. There’s a board of trustees. The library does struggle and it has for many years although they try hard to stay relevant and helpful.
You always get me to thinking about things, Claudia! Leaving now to go read about the bookmobile…
Miss McHenry drove our bookmobile and was the librarian as well. I remember her so well!
Love that! Almost sounds like a Beverly Cleary kind of thing!
xo
Dear Claudia, As an immigrant to Florida from the northeast, I can vouch for this fact: it’s different. We do get a lot of garden time. I hope that you have some milkweed in your garden for monarch butterflies. I don’t know if I’m preaching to the choir, but I think butterflies are some of the most beautiful things you can cultivate. And they are friendly to people. They will fly around you if you’re not moving (as in sitting in a chair or standing to observe) and they will climb on an offered finger. Milkweed is the ONLY food that monarch caterpillars eat. That’s where the adults lay their eggs.
The caterpillars will eat it right down to the stem, but it regenerates immediately. It used to be in plentiful supply alongside agricultural land, but with demise of so many small farms, butterfly habitat as dwindled precipitously. Milkweed will grow in a pot as well. “If you build it, they will come.” It is native to the northeast and into Canada.
Hi Leslie – maybe you’re new to the blog, I’m not sure, but I talk about the milkweed that grows wild on our property fairly frequently. It grows on the back part of our property and has now started growing in the front yard and on the edge of my big garden bed. I know all about it, having researched it when I first noticed it growing here many years ago. There’s a lot of milkweed around my area and I certainly encourage it to grow, making sure I mow around any new shoots coming up in the yard.
I am a newcomer, over the winter months. I am very glad to hear about your milkweed, and that you are on the bandwagon about it.
So glad you’re here, Leslie!
I saw the Florida Project awhile ago. So real, so close to home, so like the lives of kids I know. And we wonder why they can’t just do well and got to college.
I know. Very moving and very troubling. Thanks, Kay.
Bedazzled is lovely. Thank you again for some book suggestions. Perhaps my local library has these. Here it is a blustery day but the sun was out and it was warm without too much humidity. I’ll see if I have or can find milkweed. Our tomato plants are in and our fruit trees are in full leaf and they have already bloomed. I am trying to train our grape vines so that they do not climb up the high ham radio tower that my husband used in childhood.
I hope the dreary cloud cover passes.
We have cloud cover right now – it rained all night long – but it promises to be fairly warm today, so I’ll take it!
Thanks, Mary.
103! She’s brought me many a smile!
I’m looking forward to mild weather this weekend and a bit of gardening, I hope. Then preparing for more of the weather roller coaster next week, alas.
Spring is so crazy, Roxie! The weather is all over the place!
Dafoe can do anything, I think! Love your face cups! And I especially love your Crystal selection. I’m eagerly awaiting the arrival of mine — maybe today! I can see why you love her; I would too!
Hope it arrives today, Jeanie!
Okay, for the first time, I looked up Vintage by Crystal and, well, I’m just floored. How can I not buy one now? How can a person even choose which? (It’s like walking thru the door of a candy store.) The creativity and originality of each little piece is simply amazing. I think I’m hooked. (At least they don’t take up much room!)
She is so talented and her understanding of vintage combined with whimsey is second to none. They’re small – they’ll take up no space!
I loved going over her site and she offers more than one way to pay (I’ve managed to stay off Etsy although it kills me). When I decide what I want to get, I’ll put in a word about you; otherwise, I wouldn’t know she existed and even though I actually had a couple of tiny, old spun cotton gift ties/ornaments (Christmas) in my parents’ things from 75 years ago, I really didn’t understand or know what spun cotton was all about until you talked about it here on the blog quite a long time ago. I say again, Claudia, your blog is an ‘education’ for a lot of us readers out here in cyberland!
I can’t even comprehend how she does it. But I love her creations.
Agree with you on both movies, like watching it all happen in real time in real life. How real is real? I got carried away there😘
Uncomfortable but engaging. Have you read Educated? I listened to it. I think that is the best way to experience this book. You really get her emotions.
I haven’t read Educated, Gayle. I’ll have to check it out!