The Book Corner 2018 #1

I finished my second book of the year. I use Goodreads to keep track all of my reading. Last year I set a goal to read 75 books, based on the prior years books read and now be retired. I missed the mark by 4 books. This year I set my goal to 65. I read a lot of classic literature where the page count is an average of 400 pages. I thought that missing 4 books last year just might be because I read books that are much longer and, I think, should count as 2 books! So this year I'm also counting pages read. I don't know if it will make any difference to me or how I will quantify how many current book pages vs classic books. Oh well, it may be interesting or a waste of time!

The Lost City of Faar (Pendragon #2) by D.J. MacHale 
 

My first book read this year was a young adult novel. I read quite a bit of young adult books. Those books that I read are usually fantasy and dystopian. The book I read was "The Lost City of Faar" by D. J. McHale. Pendragon is a series about a character who becomes a "traveler" and visits many other worlds besides earth in order to save them from the antagonist. It's fun to read about the different worlds that the author imagines.

Book two is this one:

The Year of Living Danishly: My Twelve Months Unearthing the Secrets of the World's Happiest Country by Helen Russell

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I'm about one-third Danish; my last name is Christensen. I discovered this book on happy accident and wanted to read it to learn more about my ancestral homeland. The Year of Living Danishly gave me a close-up look of day-to-day life in modern Denmark. Helen Russell, the author, was immensely readable and witty in her account of her first year in Denmark. I found traits that I have that define the Danish, such as love of tradition, family being the core of hygge which is a Danish word for contentment, togetherness & family. I almost wanted to move to Denmark just because the author's narrative from distrust to fully embracing Denmark. The pastry that she described had my mouth watering and would almost be enough of reason to move! However, I would have to pass because of the darkness for 8 months of the year! That's too much for me to survive!

Looking Ahead and Looking Back #1

When I got up this morning it was raining. It was coming down pretty hard. It's scheduled to rain today and tomorrow. YAY! I like rain. We need rain. I like rain.

Ain't it purty? I relish the rain! I open my slider and listen to the sound that I adore: the sound of rain on the patio aluminum roof. I don't mind going out in the rain. I don't have a hairstyle to ruin and I'm not worried about that. Can you ruin a ponytail? Hmmm. When I have the right shoes on I love to jump right in the puddles!

Putting my Gene Kelly aside, here's the lowdown on how I did last week:

Crum...it's hard to start with a red letter C or a negative, but I'll just dive in. I didn't do anything on Actually, I did very little quilting at all. 

I worked on my block for the BOM challenge at Jo's Country Junction. The challenge is to pick up an old BOM that you abandoned and go forth making a block each month. I picked out my very first BOM I bought. I had just starting quilting and, in 2006, I thought I'd buy a Block-of-the-Month to teach me how to quilt. I picked out a quilt that I thought looked easy (no snickering yet). I bought it from Keepsake Quilting. I managed the first block, which I messed up so bad I had to call and ask if they had any more fabric to replace what I'd messed up on. Bless their little pointy heads, they had some and sent it to me FREE. Over the years, I've done some blocks: six, to be precise. Here's the almost finished block I worked on this week:

Next up, I started sorting out all the scraps I've been saving for a string quilt. I am very excited about this little baby. A few years ago, I saw a picture of this quilt. I named it The Spaghetti Quilt. There wasn't a pattern, but it looked relatively easy to reproduce.

I chose a color palette for this quilt. I chose purple and green with orange as a punch of color. I got out my 3 bins/boxes of strips and fabric I had collected and started to sort them into a big box for green and purple and a shoe box for orange. Right at the git go, I had worried that I wouldn't have enough orange. I made sure to buy oranges when I saw them. I outdid myself...I have too much orange. My ratio that I'm planning is 3 parts purple, 3 parts green and 1 part orange. It's somewhere to start...

Purty!

Camera didn't capture the orange-ness

Looking Forward

One thing I forgot on my 2018 Goals, was Poppet's birthday coming up in January, which is if you didn't notice is this month. I'm making her some Alphabet Letters for the Fridge. I found a good tutorial online. It's from Twin Talk Blog, which has moved to Parenting in Moments.

That's where I'm heading today.

Work on finishing the BOM block.

Finish RSC Green Block.


Nyd din dag

Enjoy your day, in Danish. Just don't ask me to pronounce it. I'm about 1/3  Danish and my linguistic skills aren't that great!