Something Different

Now that the puppies are a little older and house-trained I have a bit more time for leisure reading. I decided to try something different and ordered a "blind date with a book" box that came with these three titles: Into the Jungle by Erica Ferencik, The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins, and The Goddesses by Swan Huntley.

On the plus side these are all used books, and I haven't read any of them or their authors. I've already started Into the Jungle, which may be one I put aside fairly quickly (my life is still too short to waste on books that don't engage me at all) but I'm giving the author another couple of chapters to win me over, so we'll see. I've never gone on a blind date with anyone or anything, but I'm fairly sure walking out after a few minutes is bad manners.

I know the Hawkins book was a monster bestseller and ended up being a movie, too, I believe. Probably why I never read it. The Huntley book (Swan? Really?) looks like high-brow womance. I'm so jaded, I know. It's really impatience more than anything. I want to be wowed by books the way I used to be when I was younger, but I think I've read too many (and so many are derivative these days it feels like every reading experience is one I've already had.)

I should be able to knock out one per week, so I'll write up recs or nopes on them during the month November. Wish me luck.

Comments

nightsmusic said…

I'm a day late, full plate. My 95 year old, Navy veteran (today is the 11th so...Veteran's Day) father-in-law has covid so we've been dealing with some things. I'll be back...

November 11, 2021 at 1:37 PM

Downsizing

This was my fabric stash once I sorted everything -- 22 full bins. I spent a day taking out and boxing up what I could part with, with the goal of trying to reduce it by half, so I'd have 11 bins. I was very strict with myself, and removed everything that for one reason or another I was sure I wouldn't be able to use. This is what I ended up with -- 12 bins of fabric that I'm keeping. It's not quite half, but close enough. Half of what I took out went to a local quilter friend, a school and Goodwill. These four tightly-packed bins will be going to the local quilting guild once I make arrangements with them for a drop-off place. I am relieved and a little sad and now determined to control my impulses to thrift more fabric. I don't want to do this again, so until I use up six bins, I can't for any reason bring any new fabric into the house.

In Progress

I promised myself I would show you the good, bad and ugly of my cleaning this year. This is what it looks like when you dump thirty years' worth of stashed fabric on the floor -- and oy, what a pain in the butt to pick up again! This is what it looks like after it's been sorted, folded and placed in containers, which took me about a week. Now the hard part is to downsize my stash by at least half, I think (that's my goal, anyway.) I've already e-mailed the president of the local quilting guild, a local friend who is a quilter, and a public school art teacher I know to see if I can donate some of the excess to them. The rest will go to Goodwill. Already I've reduced my vintage textiles from two bins to one, and my scraps from three bins to one. It's probably the hardest clean-out I've done, which is why I saved it until last. I know I have too much fabric, more than I can use in my lifetime -- but at the same time, I love it. So I have to

Other Stashes

Along with clearing out the spare bedroom and tidying my office and our guest bedroom, I decided to reorganize some of my stashes. This is all the yarn I have on hand, sorted by color. It looks like a lot, but lately I've been using up a minimum of half a bin every month, so this is approximately a year's supply. All of my solid color cotton perle thread. I go through a lot of this every year, too. I need a container in which I can fit all of it together, but I haven't found the right one yet. I won't show you all of my fabric -- I'm still reorganizing this stash -- but I went through everything and donated two bins of fabric I won't need to the local quilter's guild.

Valerean

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