Lest I be accused of click baiting you, here is the situation to which I refer in the title:
My two cats are Bert, the darker one who's a tiger, and Murray, the white one. Bert is 12 years old, Murray is 4. When I introduced Murray to the household (at the time I had two cats, Murray was the 3rd), it went well. No one fought. Murray, being the stray from outside, never really merged fully with the other two, who were rescued together as litter mates (not brothers) since 8 weeks old. But they got along.
Luke passed away three years ago. Sadly Murray had coronavirus, which is extremely infectious with other cats, and eventually turns to Feline Infectious Peritonitis, which is fatal. Now, with just Bert and Murray in the house, Murray has still been kind but a bit standoffish.
During the day I have a cat bed on the table near me which Murray likes to leap into and watch me as I type. Bert does not leap. He likes the floor. So his bed is at my feet in the summer, and in front of the fire in the winter.
I got up last night to turn out the lights and lock the door for bed, and I turn and see this sight. Murray and Bert together in Bert's bed. Well, then.
It finally stopped raining and I have the front door open to let in light and a little fresh air. I was watching Instant Hotel on Netflix (a type of Australian AirBnB show that rates rental properties) and at one property they kept saying how much like an old person's house ti smelled. I dont' know what that smells like no having the sense of smell, but I sure don't want my house to smell like that. By the looks on their faces no one liked the odor.
I don't use any products like Ben Gay, just deodorant and toothpaste and occasional shampoo. I cook, but that would be a cooking smell and not an old person smell. I assure you, I do use Fabuloso on my counters (which reportedly smells great) and Lemon Pledge on my wood furniture when I dust. So I dunno. I wish smells weren't a mystery to me, but then again, folks tell e I'm blessed. Maybe I am, at that.
Anyway, the fresh air has gotta help.
This is January in Maine:
This is January in Georgia:
Clover, green grass, no snow boots, no coat. I took a walk down the lane hoping to catch some bird pics. I heard so much birdsong, it made me happy. I'll go to the Cornell ornithology website later to listen to various calls and try and figure out which birds I was hearing. For now, I caught a blue jay, two mourning doves,a woodpecker, and a mockingbird.
I've been reading book Gilded Lives, Fatal Voyage, by Hugh Brewster, about Titanic's first class passengers. To me, maritime disasters are compelling: I've read Wreck of the Whaleship Essex, (the true story of the 'Moby-Dick' ship), the foundering of the SS Central America, (sank in a hurricane in September 1857, along with more than 420 passengers and crew and 30,000 pounds of gold, contributing to the Panic of 1857), the tragic loss of the Bounty replica in 2012 off North Carolina, taking the captain and one crew member with her, the grounding of the Costa Concordia in Italy in 2012... But Titanic remains most haunting.
Last night I decided to re-watch 1958 movie A Night to Remember. It's on Youtube. There are many comparisons to Cameron's 1997 Titanic, even several scenes are almost duplicates of each other, but I think ANTR is the better movie, though Titanic is more visually stunning, as befits that ship. They are both good movies, each in their own way.
I went to a Nature Conservancy event in Naples FL in late '90s, & where the speaker was Titanic discoverer Bob Ballard. Ballard described how he found the ship, (look for the debris trail, which was bigger than the ship, and let the trail lead you TO the ship), & his career in oceanography in general, which is very interesting. His was one of the top two lectures I ever heard, simply thrilling. I remember the feeling of inspiration and fascination I felt to this day, 20 years later. To hear it first hand just as the movie came out was amazing! It really was one of the top moments in my memory bank.
The James Cameron movie, I remember how I felt leaving the theater, also. Sitting there and then emerging from the darkened theater into the Florida sunshine you felt like you had gone through it. Watching the 1997 movie Titanic was an experience, not passive entertainment or a mindless diversion. Watching Titanic in the theater was an event.
So I've been drawn in, reading this book exclusively and obsessively. I finally had to quit last night around 11:30 as my eyes wouldn't focus any more! I've only got about 40 more pages so I expect to finish it today. I found another documentary on the Titanic called Ghosts of the Abyss, a behind the scenes look through James Cameron's eyes of his own journey to the spot in the cold North Atlantic. I'll watch that tonight.
I am almost finished with Rachel Janovic's book You Who? which I'll review on The End Time. I am also reading Barbara Hughes' Disciplines of a Godly Woman, and I've got one more devotional to go on Sinclair Lewis' Love Came Down at Christmas. Yeah, I'm a little late on the Christmas advent devotional.
I've received two Amazon gift cards for Christmas gifts and I am withstanding the temptation to buy more books. So far...
The weather guys are predicting a massive amount of rain coming. We're supposed to get absolutely drenched for the next week, sigh, so I will be using the oven to warm the apartment and make granola and roasted broccoli, and on top of the stove, chili.
Here are the Titanic and other shipwreck resources I mentioned:
Father Browne's story: Photographer of the last days of the Titanic, and his providential recall to shore in Queensland, this saving his 1000 photos of the passengers and shipboard life we'd never otherwise know about.
I hope you all had a marvelous holiday. We celebrate the coming of Jesus into the world, in the flesh as the sacrificial Lamb to the Father.
Even people who do not know Jesus or His Father's plan of salvation still celebrate the day. Why? Why do people sense their need for "peace on earth" and "goodwill to men"? Because intrinsically we all know what cretins we are and that at root, we are evil. We are rebellious. We know we need peace, and rest, but do not know where to find it. I'm grateful that Jesus saved me and now I know from whence all Good comes, including peace and goodwill.
I spent a quiet morning at home, where it was pleasant and sunny. I had been invited to a friend's parents' house to have dinner with their family, so that was where I headed at around 2:00. I was to drive to their house and they would carry me to their parents from there. It was almost eerie, driving on the highway with almost no cars. The exit where I get off was barren, as well as the stretch approaching the usually busy strip mall where another Kroger grocery store is. All four lanes, just me and one or two other cars. My usual 35 minutes driving time was shaved by ten minutes, so I stopped in a cul de sac and cleaned out my car and then listened to some Christmas carols before arriving at my destination, so as not to be too early. Nothing worse than a harried mom trying to get two small children ready for the car and having to deal with an early arrival!
We had a wonderful dinner with laughs, then a gift exchange, then some photos in the front yard. I returned home at around 6:00, just after dark, and settled in for some reading.
I am in the middle of a very interesting book, Gilded Lives, Fatal Voyage by Hugh Brewster. The author examines the gilded Edwardian era by looking at the lives and times of the first class passengers of the doomed Titanic. Brewster puts his selected passengers' lives in context off the boat and on it, as well as giving lots of information about the boat itself. It's obvious he put so much research into the book. It's not pedantic, however, but a woven story with interesting characters.The reader is drawn into that world almost immediately.
It was a quiet Christmas night here at Casa Prata. After reading a while I watched a few episodes of Blue Bloods, I'm binging my way thru 8 years of the show. Then I turned in, concluding Christmas 2018, but continuing my two-week school break! One more week at home!
Man, Kroger was nuts! LOL, after church I stopped to pick up a few groceries, and it seemed that everyone in the world was there. Church ends at 4:30 so it was a peak time, I suppose, and everybody wanted to get their stuff so they could get home, cook and prepare tomorrow on Christmas Eve. The bakery aisle looked like Attila the Hun and his army had swept through. Or the Grinch who left crumbs even too small for a mouse.
I scored some goodies, though. I got another jug of creamer for my coffee. I absolutely love drinking coffee slowly in the morning, creamy and strong. I got two packages of cranberries. They were on sale for a dollar! Have I mentioned I love cranberry sauce? I have a marvelous recipe for cranberry-walnut sauce that uses brown sugar and mustard. So of course I picked up some walnuts. And a roasted chicken. I'll have chicken, baked potato and cranberry sauce tomorow for my Christmas Eve supper.
I'm heading to a friend's house and their family gathering on Christmas Day and having their Christmas lunch meal with them, so that should be nice.
My day was spent quietly. I did take some time to try and add some good shows to my Netflix queue. I was looking for G, PG, PG-13 films or shows. It was a struggle, but I found some and over the week I'll try them out. The animated film Bolt, the upcoming premiere of the new Watership Down, a documentary called The Nineties, and The Iron Giant made the list.
I watched the Crazy Russian Hacker on Youtube and he demonstrated 5 kitchen egg gadgets. I liked them but what I learned most is how to peel an egg- put it in a mason jar with a bit of water and shake it up. I'm going to try that the next time I hard boil some eggs. I HATE peeling eggs and I am bad at it. My eggs come out looking like a pockmarked moon with craters.
Church was sweet and great, full of insights on the 12th chapter of the Book of John, some great standard Christmas hymns, and a super confessional time made the worship time so wonderful. Then it was on to Kroger.
The sunset was stupendous, with pinks streaming out from behind some rain clouds and crepuscular rays shining out. Then I got home in time to just beat the rain. Don't you love that?
I'm going to settle in with a salad, and my book about the first class passengers of the Titanic, "Gilded Lives, Fatal Voyage," The author has a real great way of setting you smack into their lives.
I've always loved Youtube. You can find a wealth of things to watch, on a variety of topics. I've enjoyed 'getting to know' the Maas family on Fathering Autism, Simon's Cat, and Kathryn, who hosts her own channel called Do It On A Dime.
She shops deals at the Dollar Tree, Wal-Mart, Target and other places, and shows you unique ways to use the items. I like this because I'm so linear, if I see a cookie sheet, it will always be a cookie sheet. I cannot re-imagine it as a picture frame or a doohickey or thingamajig. See? I'm so linear I can't even make up other uses for the cookie sheet. It's a cookie sheet.
Anyway, Kathryn will teach how to find deals and how to use the stuff. She is married, a Christian, suffers from anxiety and PTSD and is cheerful and informative. Her Q&A video below is concise without extraneous filler. Podcasters and Youtubers, please take note. Editing is important.
Anyway, Kathryn's video here is only 5 minutes and she answers various questions. It's a good get to know you vid, she answers while wrapping presents. If you run out of wrapping paper and have a 4 inch wide gap the paper won't meet, Kathryn has a solution for this. ;)
The day dawned cold and bright. The pinks coming up this morning were pretty! I took a walk down the driveway in the pre-dawn chill to snap these pics
Venus
I bought another teapot a couple of weeks ago I'd seen it on the shelf at the vintage store for several months, but I had thought it was a run of the mill pot so even though the price was only $4, I had not picked it up. After all these months of looking at it every time I came into the store, I finally bought it. In researching the pottery mark, I discovered that it was a unique Russian make, a Gardner, but I have not discovered its age as of yet.
In any case, it is likely mid-century. When I installed the pot on my tea cabinet shelf, I noticed that over time, I'd balanced my china designs of the flowered early century patterns with an equal amount of mid-century ware. This surprised me. I had not realized I'd developed a taste for mid-century design.
I think it began when I'd read an article about the Los Angeles Case Study #22 house, also known as The Stahl House, here.
The Stahl House (also known as Case Study House #22) is a modernist-styled house designed by architect Pierre Koenig in the Hollywood Hills section of Los Angeles, California, which is known as a frequent set location in American films. Photographic and anecdotal evidence suggests that the architect's client, Buck Stahl, may have provided an inspiration for the overall structure. In 2013 it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
I've always gravitated to fashion that was more lean and spare, like Chanel as opposed to Laura Ashley. Lean and spare style of the mid-century modern, with its elevated couches, straight edges, and minimalist interiors suit me. Here is the famous photo of the famous house:
Here are a couple of pieces of Christmas wrapping paper a friend gave me, mid-century era. She said it was in her attic and ranged in age from the 1940s to 1970s.
Here are some pics of my walk down the road this bright and sunny afternoon. The air is chill but the sun is warm, something I always love about a Georgia winter.
How wonderful it is to sleep through the night, and awaken refreshed! The common graces are surely praiseworthy.
Though it was supposed to be sunny today, and it still may turn out to be, it's currently rainy and windy and dark. We received a lot of rain yesterday and there are massive standing puddles and leaves blown around.
There is a controversy as to why the tips of the Hershey's Kisses are missing. I hadn't noticed, I unwrap them and eat them too fast to notice the niceties like a well-formed tip. I'm usually gunning for the chocolate explosion on my mouth. But this morning as I opened one for dessert after having cheesy tomato scrambled eggs and a pineapple sour cream muffin, I noticed it.
The minor malformation did not deter me in the least. Chocolate explosion coming up!
The afternoon was filled with a movie, Mrs. 'Arris Goes to Paris. It stars Angela Lansbury in 1993 movie set in 1953. A char-woman (Lansbury) sees a Christian Dior dress on a dress stand owned by the Lady she works for. Her Ladyship was planning to wear it to Queen Elizabeth's Coronation Ball. The charwoman fell in love with it and determined to go to Paris and buy one. She scrimps and saves for three years goes to Paris, as the title says. Adventures ensue.
The movie would be G-rated, if it had a rating (I could not find one). It's warm and just plain nice. Lansbury is outstanding in it. It's a little known, forgotten film that is just a gem. It is on Youtube so it is free.
The day never did brighten, but only darkened and the wind increased. I've been sipping Earl Grey tea for most of the afternoon and not doing much of anything. Ahhh, vacation.
School let out at noon yesterday, after a sweet program of awards, a few Christmas songs, and lots of hugs from and to the little ones. It's fun to see how excited the kids are for Christmas to come. They love all the trappings: the trees, bows, gifts, Santa, the Elf on the Shelf, decorations, and even crazy Christmas Sweater or Christmas hat day.
I was glad to be home after stopping for some errands, namely, gas and food. The grocery store at 2:00 on a Wednesday was strangely quiet. That didn't stop me from getting in the world's shortest checkout line that earned the world's record for taking the longest time. The lady two customers ahead was doing a complicated checkout split into three piles. Oh well, I was on break, no need to worry about how long it was taking.
Today the day dawned rainy and cool, which was just fine. A quiet day at home suited me after all the hubbub and noise leading up to the school break. I woke up at my normal time, 5 am, and I got up then and didn't snooze. I've always been a wake up-get up kind of person. I never had a snooze alarm. I've always enjoyed (and made use) of the fact that if I got tired later I could just go back to bed. Isn't that what vacations are for...my own schedule? Yes indeed.
I've spent the day writing, reading social media, answering emails, and reading my books.
My goal this vacation is to finish:
How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler Disciplines of a Godly Woman by Barbara Hughes Love Came Down at Christmas by Sinclair Ferguson Gilded Lives, Fatal Voyage by Hugh Brewster
I really like the Disciplines book. I'm learning a lot from it and taking many notes. And Gilded Lives I just started today but I got right into it. The account of the first class passengers on the Titanic, their lives in the context of the gilded age, is fascinating.
Two other books just delivered today include The Life of Moses by James Montgomery Boice and Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens, part of my book reading plan this year.
I did nap, it was needed I enjoy the growth that Murray has evidenced in affection. He has grown to enjoy being near me and doesn't skittishly run off every time I reach for him. He purrs and stays near, even when I reach out to pet him. He sleeps near my head or under the covers curled at my side. This is relaxing, and adds to the comfort and refreshment of my nap.
I don't usually watch tv or have videos or music on during the day, though I did listen to a couple of sermons this morning. As the morning progresses into afternoon, I love just being quiet and listening to the cats snore, or the hiss and pop of the gas heat. The rain on the metal awnings gives a steady unsteady beat, and even the occasional bird outside and the vigorous chicken next door add to the atmosphere. Natural sounds, quiet sounds. The neighbors next door decorate their yard with beautiful lights and I like seeing them through the window when the sun goes down. They make a pretty glow.
My dinner tonight was simple but good: a few pieces of roasted chicken smothered by sauteed mushrooms, and a green salad with orange tomatoes, spring greens, and goat cheese. The Calendar Tea of the Day is, 'Mother's Little Helper', containing hibiscus, rosehips, chamomile, valerian root. I received a lot of goodies from the kids or other teachers at school that I brought home with me yesterday, so I'm trying to pace myself. No dessert tonight.
I don't anticipate tomorrow being much different, though one of these days soon I'll throw crafting into the mix. I'll have a crafting day and make some collages, stencils, bookmarks, and maybe a book or two.
For now I'm going to watch an episode of Blue Bloods and then return to the gilded era of the first class passengers on the Titanic. I hope your lead-in to the Christmas holiday is filled with what you want it to be, and if it isn't, then at least prayer and praise to the Lord for the good that is in the week, namely, Jesus. Have a good one, everyone.
One thing I love about school breaks is that I can let loose on the internet. I can spend time just browsing, and I'm so glad I do. I found some very interesting new things to learn about and love.
There is a British channel on Youtube called Gardens & Homes. Update: I thought it was the official channel. It wasn't. It's been deleted. But the show is called Grand Designs and it can be found online here.
I watched several of the full length videos and enjoyed them all. They feature home makeovers and renovations, but of the uniquely British kind. Renovating an 18th century Shropshire farmer's cottage, or renovating an East London 1900s dairy, or an ancient Welsh chapel into a living space. The British Isles are dotted with crumbling farmer's crofts, castles, estates and other historical buildings we just hate to let dissolve into the ground. People do buy them and the channel follows their journey into either sanity or insanity in attempting to make habitable, compliant living spaces out of them. The writing is good and the photography is beautiful too. Check them out. I especially loved the east London Dairy renovation I posted below.
The couple featured in this episode spent an inordinate amount of money for a small space are interior and graphic designers who are mightily attracted to the aesthetic concepts of rough spaces, industrial grunge, and the like. I love industrial also, and I enjoyed watching the host's amusement as he drew out of the couple their plans for a tasteful reno that included keeping or reusing the peeling paint and rusty metal joists. In the end, the space turned out spectacular as the show astutely depicted their aesthetic sojourn from hopefulness butting up against code enforcement reality and achieved a delicate balance of honoring the space's history, usability, and beauty.
For inspiration at one point in the show, the wife went to a place called Model Market. I was immediately in love with this new approach to using abandoned cityscapes. The developer uses spaces that have been bought and are awaiting development into offices or apartments, and instead creates a family friendly, open air pop up food market featuring lights, music, and a plethora of different restaurants.
Wow, talk about creative.
Traveler photo submitted by KateL1710 (Jan 2016)
Here is an article about it
Street Feast London - Model Market Last summer Street Feast London took a disused 1950s indoor and outdoor market in Lewisham and transformed it into a weekend street eating destination, breathing new life into the local community.
The other photos at the link above are equally enchanting, beautiful, and cool!
Whatever you want to call it, micro-diners, street food, or pop up restaurants, the business model is one I love. The concept showcases chefs, their dishes, and their restaurants. The venue brings in customers to unloved city areas. It's a safe and clean business, family friendly (as long as the ratio of bars vs. diners stays appropriate). It helps turn negative reviews of a disused area of the city into one with possibilities and hope. It gets chefs out of the basement or the rear of the restaurant, slaving away in anonymity, to interact with customers and into the fresh air and not last, showcases their talents. It provides a free spot for families or anyne to congregate to on a Friday or Saturday evening in the warm season.
Recently London celebrity chefs Nigella Lawson and Jamie Oliver teamed up with other chefs to invest in the model, which is the brainchild of Street Feast owners-developers Jonathan Downey and Henry Dimbleby of Street Feast. The new company is called London Union.
The aim of London Union is to find areas across the capital that are economically inactive – often waiting for planning permission or for work to start on a new development – and build pop-up markets that create local jobs and provide opportunities for new, up-and-coming street food traders to establish themselves without requiring large amounts of capital.
I've always been a fan of creative ideas for using space in a city. The 1994 Greg Brown song Boomtown and Robert Putnam's 2000 book Bowling Alone have stayed with me all this time.
On another topic, still on Youtube though, I like to watch videos of tours of tiny houses. I have been ahead of the curve with this tiny house movement. I owned a new 2500 sf three bedroom raised ranch in the excessive and consumerism 1980s. The culture taught me to acquire, live high, and show it off. That approach to life turned out to be expensive and enslaving. I dumped the house, met and married a man who was about to embark on his own tiny house approach, and we were off. We moved into a 900 sf homne, then a 37 foot sailboat, then a pop up WV camper van. I did draw the line at the camper van, lol, that was as small as I wanted to go. To this day I live in a 425 sf apartment and I love it.
But the tiny houses all seem to me to lack one thing: comfort. I've been watching a lot of tiny house tours on Youtube, and they just do not appeal to me. If you're a starry eyed 20 year old, maybe you don't mind sitting on a box. But I don't want to do that. Tiny houses just don't have couches. (OK, I know some do, but then again, I don't want to haul my tired carcass up a ladder to go to bed, either).
I love the idea of cities allowing zoning for this kind of alternate living, it makes sense and it's eco-friendly as well as budget friendly. I read that one northwestern city has 0% unemployment but homelessness is skyrocketing. Why? People work there but can't afford the housing prices.
Anyway, in my week-off Youtube browsing bonanza I found this video of a tiny home the man built in a silo. It's a little over 300 sf and it's contemporary, stylish, functional, and adheres to the tiny home notion. It should be noted that the couple who own and live in it abide in Phoenix and they do make use of the outdoors for much of their living space. The shower is outside as is a lounge area. But I did spot a daybed in the circular home and the bedroom is aloft but accessed by a circular staircase, not a ladder.
Which reminds me, my first apartment in University was a small place that had a galley kitchen, tiny living room, and a loft bedroom accessed by a circular staircase. I guess I've always liked living tiny.
Tomorrow I plan to head into the city of Athens to Small Business Saturday at Avid Bookshop for their Book Swap. From 2-3 pm, if you bring a bag of books and have $3, (which puts you into a raffle for a prize) you can browse others' books and they can browse yours. You can take back home any books that aren't chosen or leave them for a donation to a charity they fund. Win-win!
So that has been my week of aesthetic pursuits- renovations of alternate living spaces, alternate and creative land use, and design!
Our school district calendar always allows for the full Thanksgiving week off. I'm grateful for that. It fits, somehow, to have the full week off to prepare the meal and receive family, or to travel and go see family. In any case, I'm glad.
Friday was pretty hectic. The kids had pretty much reached their limit and came in to school loud and boisterous. Teachers were tired, and we were all just looking forward to a good week off.
So here I am, inaugurating the week at 5:30 am, in the dark and quiet, with a fancy coffee I made with whipped cream and cinnamon.
I'd mentioned a few days ago about the Classics Club, an online reading club that blogs about what classics we are reading. Every once in a while the Club moderator puts forth a 'game' called Classics Spin. You list 20 classic books you always wanted to read but haven't yet. Maybe they were too intimidating, or to long, or too intellectually demanding, or you just have put it off and now it's 10 years later and you still haven't read that book you always wanted to. . So you make a list of 20 and number them. The Club 'spins' an imaginary wheel and lands on a number. They publish the number. You read the book you listed at that number by December 31 and post whether you met the challenge or not. It's very casual and lots of fun.
The number yesterday was 4 and that was Lady Audley's Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon published in 1862. It was Braddon's most successful and well-known novel. Critic John Sutherland (1989) described the work as "the most sensationally successful of all the sensation novels". The plot centres on "accidental bigamy" which was in literary fashion in the early 1860s. Thanks, Wikipedia, for the summary.
Cover of an edition of Lady Audley's Secret
pre-1900.
I've got a few things to read this week. My Biblical Doctrine study, a detective novel called Blind Justice by James Scott Bell, start Lady Audley, and TeaTime Magazine.
For now I'm sitting in the pre-dawn, listening to Pandora Christmas Hymns, sipping my sweet and hot coffee, hearing the coffee pot tick, the gas hiss, and cats snore, and all's well on the first moments of Thanksgiving break.
I work 190 days per year, not 350. My salary reflects the fewer days worked, but what I love about my schedule are the frequent breaks. At this point in my life, I appreciate the time off very much.
The school year's first break is happening this week. On Monday and Tuesday we have two half-days with the kids. In the afternoon and early evening after the kids have left, teachers will meet in conference with parents and hand out report cards. As a parapro, I won't be meeting with parents. So I'll catch up on work my teacher wants me to do, such as cleaning, correcting, preparing, copying, etc. The different schedule makes the kids wild, but on the other hand, we will only be with them until noon.
On Wednesday we have a full day of teacher workday. Kids will not come to school at all. More work, cleaning, catching up, getting ready for the next quarter of school, which is 9-weeks long. We also have a Blue Cross meeting to prepare us for Open Enrollment, and other meetings as they come up.
Thursday and Friday I will be at home. No school for anybody. Fall Break begins! I normally use Fall Break as an opportunity for the gas heat guy to come and turn on the gas and clean the pilot light. Since one needs to be at home to let him in, Fall Break is good timing for me to get the heat on without having to take a day off work. It's been hot this fall, though. The temps are still in the 80s. Friday it was 90 degrees. I can't wait for the heat to break. I've scheduled the heating guy for Thursday but for sure I won't need to use the heat for at least another week, according to the weather predictions.
Hurricane Nate is going to make some impacts to North Georgia. We are going to receive 2-4 inches of rain, probably today. I hope driving to church later this afternoon is safe enough. We'll get winds, too, with some gusts that may down power lines or trees. The tropical air will make things sticky, humid, and warm. Sigh. Fall, please come!
I went to my favorite store Friday after school. Lamps, art, mirrors, and dish sets were 75% off. Can't resist. I need a new lamp and I am down to one bowl.
I found a great lamp for my living room. I LOVE my art glass lamp, but I've had it as the prominent living room lamp for 13 years. The lampshade was looking brown and the lamp itself was tottering, as the top where the bulb holder comes out was separated from the lamp itself. I bought a white lamp with a delicate pattern, for only $10.
My art glass lamp was brown and I liked how it picked up the glow of the wood from the bureau beneath it. However this white one brightens up the space with its eggshell appearance and actually it illuminates brightly. I think it is because the lampshade is whiter. The other one had turned pretty brown now that I look at it. Isn't it funny how you don't notice things in your home after a while. When you look at old items with new eyes you go, 'Whoa! I didn't realize how dingy this had become!'
I also bought a new shade for the reading lamp I have next to my reading chair. It's embroidered, and it also glows nicely when the light is on. The old shade had browned also.
Books were only $1 and I found a John Grisham novel I had somehow missed. I picked it up, started it on Friday and now I'm almost done. It's called The Broker, about a power player lobbyist-lawyer in Washington who was sent to jail, got pardoned 6 years later, and is now in Italy with a new identity and protection from the CIA. What the Broker doesn't know is that the CIA is going to leak his whereabouts to the many hordes that want The Broker dead, including the CIA, because he knows too much. Will The Broker clue in before it's too late? I don't know!. When Grisham is on his game you can't figure it out ahead.
I'll finish the book before church later, I hope. If I stop noodling around on the internet, that is. I also bought a thick paperback called The Terror. No it is not a spooky Halloween book, it's about a ship called The Terror and a failed Arctic expedition. The blurb says,
The Terror is a 2007 novel by American author Dan Simmons. It is a fictionalized account of Captain Sir John Franklin's lost expedition of HMS Erebus and HMS Terror to the Arctic, in 1845–1848, to force the Northwest Passage. Most of the characters featured in The Terror are actual members of Franklin's crew, whose unexplained disappearance has warranted a great deal of speculation.
Those explorer guys always seemed to get stuck in the ice pack! Amazingly brave, they did heroic feats and returned as heroes. However not all of them always returned. Some whole expeditions did not return at all, and unlike the successive terrors that happened to Job where always one person "has escaped to tell you", this book proposes a story of what happened on a failed expedition where no one returned to tell the story of what occurred.
If I'm smart, I'll get the laundry ready and going before the rain hits. I'm blessed to have a washing machine and dryer, so I don't have to go to the laundromat anymore, but the units are in the detached garage. I should get moving with this chore before the rain and wind hit. So with that, arrivederci until next time!
Well it's the week before Thanksgiving and we are on break from school all week. I'm so grateful that the teachers and staff of our district vote every year for this week off. Prior to the school year's start, we're given an opportunity to vote on the school calendar. Options are generated by the staff & administrator Calendar Committee and they present the options to us. We vote. One of the choices is always to remain in school for the three days and take those three days and use them somewhere else, or have the whole week off. The vote is usually to take the week off. Yay.
I made a stop at the Second Hand store down the road after school Friday. I needed soap, and I like the hand made Amish soap the store sells. I also ambled over to the office and craft aisle, my irresistible draw and downfall, lol. In the past, I've found a Fabriano neon green journal, Martha Stewart scrapbooking papers and accessories I use in my own bookbinding and paper crafts, and small, magnetic notepads to make grocery lists, etc and more. I cannot resist an office or craft aisle. I've made peace with this in myself ;)
Yesterday I found a 5.5 X 8 spiral bound hard cover journal from Strathmore (Mixed media). Its cover was titled "Visual Journal" and the papers inside were 90 lb weight papers, 68 pages in all. The paper is smooth, I like the spiral binding because it lays flat when I'm working in it. The price was $2. Given the wonderful track record at this store of offering good items for a low price, I bought it knowing that Strathmore items always cost more than a mere $2!
Sure enough as I returned home I checked Amazon. It looks like I saved over $5 on this item!
Youtube is a wonderful repository for all manner of enjoyable videos. There were several art tutorials extolling the virtues of various art journals, and the Strathmore spiral journal was one. I learned a lot about what makes it a good journal. I'm looking forward to trying various media this evening as I dig out my supplies and try to create something.
Meanwhile, I have writing to do, a lot of it. After this essay, I'll write the daily blog at The End Time, thoughts today from John 11. Also I need to finish proofing the next eBook in my series, 'In Grace". It will be called Prophecy In Grace. In addition to the proofing the eBook, I need to finish making the digital cover. I want to be ready for Black Friday.
I also took some photos on these past sunny days, and I want to play with them as well. I'm halfway through the book Hillbilly Elegy by JD Vance. It's an excellent memoir of a boy from Appalachia Kentucky who "made it" and his thoughts on poverty and socio-economic odds. Reading is definitely on my vacation schedule of activities. A friend is having a baby by C-section and I'll visit her in the hospital Monday.
The weather has been warm, yesterday was a gorgeous sunny 75 degrees, as it has been for the past week- perfect in my opinion. However this morning a cold front is supposed to sweep through and the wind is supposed to kick up and stay there all day. The temps will plummet and stay there. Brrr. That's OK, it is mid-to-late November after all. I have the gas stove ticking, the cat slumbering my by side, my comfy leggings and a sweatshirt on, and chicken soup bubbling. I have the week off and a relaxing time to look forward to.
It's all good, very good. I can't believe the year 2016 has dwindled down this fast, to only mere weeks remaining until 2017 comes! Do the years really pass faster and faster?! I think so. Enjoy the good while you can and love your life.
It is still vacation and it is still raining. I don't believe those two are linked together, but when we return to school Monday if the sun comes out I'll be less sure of that.
A LOT of rain has pushed through today. Temps were warm though, upper 60s
The rain has been wreaking some havoc. We are under a flash flood watch and indeed, the river down at the State Park at Comer has overflowed its banks and inundated the parking lot. Friends who ventured out tell me that Ingles and Kroger parking lots and the road approaching the two grocery stores were flooded with lots of water. I scheduled a trip to the stores on Friday then I remembered Friday is New Year's Day, and the day before that is New Year's Eve. I wouldn't make it till Sat or Sun, I was nearly out of litter as it was.
Ugh, I had to reschedule my weekly airing out and that meant going out today. But the thunder was booming and the rain was pouring so I decided to just go the one mile into Comer to the Dollar Store, and grab a few fresh things at the tiny grocery store next door. (A store I never go into). I'm glad I didn't make the trek even the 8 miles up the the slightly less tiny grocery store I usually shop at because of all the water on the roads. I got soaked just bringing the cart out to the car and walking it back. I always walk it back. I feel guilty leaving an unattended cart in the middle of the parking lot.
I am still having a quiet week. I love it. Right now I've got the Jimmy Buffet station on Pandora and listening to tunes from Buffet, Creedence, Paul Simon, James Taylor, etc.
I have watched a lot of tube. Well I don't own a TV but I watch on the internet on my laptop. I fell in love with The Detectorists, a British slow moving, quiet show about a small group of friends in County Essex who use metal detectors as a hobby to find Saxon gold, or more usually, pop tops and coins. I had mourned the loss of the 2-season BBC show called The Cafe, and The Detectorists is very much like The Cafe. Witty, understated, character driven, quiet, but sentimental and tender. British shows only have a 6 episode season so bingeing through 2 seasons is still only half as long as one American season of a show. I finished The Detectorists a few hours ago and I hope there will be a third season someday, but no one is sure if it is coming back.
I also watched a Doris Day film called That Touch of Mink, which was just OK as far as plot goes and visually stunning but had Audrey Meadows which was the best thing about it. Also the back and forth between Gig Young and Cary Grant was great.
A sweet little movie called Foster AKA Angel in the House was also a pleasant find. Interstellar was OK, I fast forwarded it and read the recap after a while just to get it overwith. Good Ol' Freda the story of the Beatles' secretary was a delight from start to finish. The HGTV show Fixer Upper was a delight too, I watched the entire season over the last ten days. Ingrid Bergman in The Inn of Sixth Happiness (story of missionary Gladys Aylward) got me to order her autobiography, which came today. Maid in Manhattan was terrible but I watched anyway, and Little Boy was terrible too.
And sermons, sermons, sermons. I love the internet.
I played with photos and banked some for my morning posts on Facebook.
This is the time of year a lot of people make resolutions, and one of those sometimes is to simplify lives. I learned a lot about living simply throughout the 1990s when I experimented with it. I had to shed the American materialism instilled in me that more is better, bigger is better, and I downsized my house, my car, my possessions. Here is a link that makes sense on how to start simplifying, if that is something you want to do.
I agree with these in the article. Especially glassware. I have three kitchen cabinets in my small apartment and two are devoted to food and half the other is devoted to Tupperware and casserole dishes. That leaves one shelf for dishes, glasses, bowls and mugs. It's plenty, believe me. I've possessed and given away more furniture than anyone I know. I have a hard time with not collecting too many books but when I buy one it's with giving it away in mind. If I end up with too many that means I'm not giving away enough. The only ones I'll hang onto are the JMac Commentaries and other commentaries. The Tiny House movement is making headway as is the Tiny Apartment movementtoo, sometimes called micro-housing. The second link mentions aPodments, which are storage containers made into apartments and when you want to move you load the whole container onto the truck and move to a different city (as long as the receiving aPodment has a vacancy). Live small, you won't hoard or possess. Live big, and you'll feel compelled to fill up all that space.
I'm on the downward slope for back to school. Once January 4 hits, there will be a long haul until the next break. We are technically half way through the year. Wow, hard to believe I've been working as a para-professional for 6 years and working for the Madison County Schools for 8. I'm proud of that. Madison County schools are spectacular and the Board, Superintendent and principals are tremendous.
Oh well no point in thinking about work when I still have 4 more wonderful vacation days to cling to! Happy new Year early everyone.
