9/26/1913 – 07/31/2009

I have been reading like a mad woman for the last month or so. I made it through all of the books that Brian bought me for Christmas and had to buy another $100+ worth from Amazon. I only have four of those left so I’ll be ordering more soon. What I do is try to pick out 4-1/2 or 5 star books on Amazon or I read the reviews for Pulitzer Prize winners (or other kinds of prize winners). I’ve bought a few of Oprah’s books (but typically find them too depressing). And, a couple of years ago, I bought most of the Today Show book suggestions.

I looked up my order history on Overstock.com and Amazon.com, and these are the books I’ve read over the last couple of years:

The Memory Keeper’s Daughter by Kim Edwards: a good read with an interesting plot though it’s sad.

The Kite Runner by Kahlid Hussein: I put off reading this for two years because it takes place in Afghanistan, and I thought that would be too depressing. I finally picked it up, and (I hate to admit this, but…) it’s a really good book. It’s also very sad (WHY are they all sad?), violent, very disturbing, but worth checking out.

Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett: this is another one I put off reading simply for the sheer volume of the stupid thing. It’s almost 1000 pages long! GREAT book! It’s a real page turner. I couldn’t wait to find out how that monster (Richard, I think–I forget his name) would meet his end! This has almost 1400 customer reviews on Amazon.com!

Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez: Ugh. That’s all I can say about this AWFUL book. I managed to trudge through it, but I was NOT impressed. It’s a piece of garbage.

Foul Play by Janet Evonovich. Anything by this author is a fun, light read!

The Brief Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz: 2008 Pulitzer Prize winner. This is another sad one. It is laden with Spanish phrases. I sat in front of the computer with a translator website for some of it, but for most of it I was left in the dark. That said, though, it is a really good book.

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See. Wonderful book. It takes place in 19-century China and is an interesting peek into the culture of China–the excrutiating practice of foot binding (“golden lillies”) where a 3″ foot was desired; nu shu; laotong; arranged marriages… great read!

The Road by Cormack McCarthy: OMG! What a very, very sad and freaky book. Really makes you think. Odd for sure. 2007 Pulitzer Prize winner.

Empire Falls by Richard Russo: 2002 Pulitzer Prize winner. Enjoyable read! I’m surprised it won a Pulitzer, though, since it’s just a regular ol’ fiction book.

Cane River by Lalita Tademy. This is a really good book about four generations of black French-speaking slaves in 1800s Lousiana. It is a piece of fiction based on the author’s family. I liked that it has pictures of the real life characters. Slavery is very difficult for me to read about, but this is an excellent book.

The Many Aspects of Mobile Home Living by Martin Clark. This is touted as being the “drinking man’s John Grisham” and got lots of rave reviews on Amazon.com and from book critics all over the place. After reading so many sad books, I wanted something funny! Well this is a piece of crap. There is NOTHING funny about it. The plot is stupid (what is up with the “white tears” part???) and the characters drink and drive. Dumb, dumb, dumb. Total waste of money.

The Book Theif by Markus Zusak. LOVED IT!!! Okay… this book takes place in Nazi-occupied Germany (which is also hard for me to read about), but is such a wonderful book I couldn’t put it down. The publisher is Knopf Books for Young Readers, and is recommended for grades 9 and up. Hmmm…??? I really don’t think of this is a book for high schoolers. It’s narrated by Death which is very interesting.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows: this book takes place on the channel island of Guernsey after World War II. Guernsey was a strategic location for the Germans to overtake Europe, and the island was occupied for five years with no contact with the outside world. The islanders formed a book club during that time, and the main character of the book (Juliett Ashton) travels to Geurnsey to write a book about the occupation. This is a really good book.

The Book of Bright Ideas by Sandra Kring. Great book! Hmmm… I think of the 1950s as a bunch of prudes for some reason. Maybe because my mother always tells me that the 1950s were the “perfect” times which makes me think of innocence and, well…, PRUDES! Not the case in this book; Freeda’s got the mouth of a sailor and they don’t go to church on Sunday! Loved it!

Some Things that Stay by Sarah Willis: five star book with 51 reviewers on Amazon.com. Another great read, but (again) it has an air of sadness: the dad is an idiot, the mom has TB, the cow gets killed, and the family is moved to every year (because the dad is an idiot). It is a really, really good book, though.

What Comes After Crazy by Sandy Kahn Shelton: Okay… this one has a quote on the cover by People that says “Plenty of laughs here.” Again, after reading some many “heavy” books, I wanted a light read. I liked it, but I didn’t think it was funny at all. I thought the Madame Lucille character was flat out TRAGIC (why is everything SAD, SAD, SAD???) and Maz (the main character) is totally spineless. If somebody stole my kid, I would at least make SOME effort to get her back (call the police, you big idiot!!!).

Cold Rock River by J.L. Miles: This is just a great book. It’s a story-within-a-story; half about slavery, half about 1960s Georgia.

Whistling in the Dark by Lesley Kagen: it’s about that bitch (!), Troo (funny I could think that about a 9-year-old, but I did!), and her sister, Sally (the narrator). Another good book. (P.S. I figured it out as soon as the bad guy was introduced!).

The Ballard of Frankie Silver by Sharon McCrumb: I got this book in the library on Johnston Island before I left. It’s a good book, but (once again) SAD! It’s about the first woman to be hanged in North Carolina.

The Old Fox Deceiv’d by Martha Grimes: Another one I got on JI, but didn’t get around to readying for 8 years! Okay, for once, NOT SAD! It’s a good little “who-done-it?” mystery.

A Traitor to Memory by Elizabeth George: Funny thing is: I read this once before, but I must have only made it partially through because I totally didn’t remember the ending. It’s not bad.

The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde: LOVED IT! LOVED IT! LOVED IT! How very, very original. The burbing, farting bookworms are just too clever. And best of all: NOT SAD!!!

The Dogs of Babel by Carlyn Parkhurst: Hmm… I read it… I’m not sure I liked it. The guy tries to teach his dog to talk–but “ruff” isn’t good enough; he wants human language. I know I’m supposed to use my imgination, but I just wasn’t that inspired. And, I thought the wife was a total nut-case. She made love to the husband while wearing a papier-mâché mask she made from a dead girl’s face. Too damn creepy!

Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende: I really enjoyed this book. It takes place during the California Gold Rush of 1849 of which I know nothing. It’s a great story of an unlikely friendship. What I really want to know is how people could write letters back and forth across the country to each other, and the letters actually made it to intended recipient…??? NOT SAD!

That Quail, Robert by Margaret A. Stanger: Okay… out of all of the sad books I’ve read this year, this one absolutely takes the cake. Despite being a WONDERFUL book, this one made tears stream down my face.

A Fraction of the Whole by Steve Toltz: I guess if you like laughing at schizophrenics then you’d think this is funny, but otherwise, IT’S SAD! There were some really good philosphical-make-you-think parts, but as a whole, I had to trudge through this book because it didn’t really hold my attention.

Okay… the LLBean Subaru Outback that we bought in 2001 with 189,000 miles on it finally bit the dust. I’ve been nervously holding my breath every time I drove it for the last month. I wouldn’t start in the Walmart parking lot three weeks ago. And two weeks ago–at a busy stoplight–it started to chug and buck and shake before totally sputtering to death. Not good.

 

RyverChyld made this cool quilt for me!  She did alot of neat quilting techniques:  the sky is crazy-pieced with silver embroidery;  the grass is pleated;  the trees are appliquéd;  the corners have folded fabric roses;  there are little plastic mice sewn on the tree trunks; and “live” “laugh” “love” is embroidered across the top!  There’s lots going on.  It’s bigger than the one I sent her; I think she said it’s 20 x 24.

I hope she’s not disappointed in the one I sent her!

I haven’t posted in awhile…  I finally finished RyverChyld’s art quilt and got it in the mail to her!  I’m pleased with how it turned out–pleased enough that I’m making one for myself, too! 

I didn’t measure it, but I think it’s about 14 x 18.  The minimum size had to be bigger than 12 x 12 and smaller than 24 x 24.

This is the first time I’ve tried quilting.  Usually, I send my big quilts out to be quilted professionally.  Well…  I discovered that quilting is NOT my strong point.  I just quilted straight lines on hers.  I’m going to be a little more adventurous on mine and try to echo quilt around the flowers and then adding the straight quilting afterwards.

I’m really pleased with the binding.  I added rick-rack to the edges, and then bound it with 2.5″ wide strips.  I glued the rick-rack down with glue stick first. 

This is also the first time I’ve sewn the binding down by machine.  On the big quilts I hand sew the back down which is time consuming and boring–my least favorite part of quilting.  Anyway, I flipped the binding over to the back and then used Elmer’s glue (!) to tack it in place so I could use my stitch-in-the-ditch foot on the front.  I was worried that the stitches wouldn’t “catch” on the back, but they did, and it looks great! 

I will DEFINITELY be trying this technique for large quilts from now on!  WHO CARES IF THE BINDING IS STITCHED BY MACHINE???!!!  It’s not like I’m entering any of my quilts in competitions.  And, machine stitching just seems more “substantial” than hand stitching.

The hardest part of this little art quilt was sewing on the hanging tabs.  I had no idea how to do this so I kind of winged it.  They look AWFUL!  And when I received the art quilt that RyverChyld sent me, I saw the “real” way to do it.  I hope she’s not too disappointed in how stupid mine look–they look like a kindergarten project compared to how she did hers!

Anyway, here’s what I made her.  I’ll post hers to me next.

I’ve been working on the mini art quilt for the Craftster swap that I’m in.  I stripped white-on-white pieces for the background, and then I stripped pinks, blues and yellows for the appliqué flowers.  I got the flowers cut on Monday and started sewing them down to the background.  It’s pretty slow sewing because of all of the curves of the flowers.  The stems look really cute.  I straight stitched the stem part and zig-zagged the leaves.

My partner pm’d me yesterday and let me know the quilt she made for me is finished, but she’ll wait to send it until the 1st because she wants to show it off some more before she sends it.  I told her I hoped to send early, too, but I’m not sure when that will be.  We can wait and send at the same time if she wants.

I’m mostly worried about the actual quilting part.  I know I want to stitch in the ditch on the background, but I’m actually not sure how to do it…  do I knot the ends?  I’ll have to figure all of that out.

I checked petfinder.com yesterday, and the Rescue Rep. has posted him!  On one hand, YAY!!!  People aren’t going to know he’s available unless he’s advertised.  On the other hand…   I’m already getting attached to him, and I wonder if anybody else can take care of him as well as I take care of him???  He’ll have to go to a very special home–where the person is home ALL THE TIME (like I am) to take care of him when he has a seizure. 

I noticed that she corrected a couple of things in the description–his history for one thing; she elaborated a few more details that I didn’t know.  And she took out the part about getting a Greenie after he gets his toenails cut and just changed it to “a treat”.  I wonder what’s up with that?

She DIDN’T change the part about him being 9 years old…  well, it really doesn’t say he’s nine; it says he lived with his owner for 9 years and then she died.  In actuality, he lived with her for 10-1/2 years and then was with her son for 8 months.  If he’s adopted, his new owner is quickly going to figure out (by his vet paperwork) that he’s older than being advertised.

She used the cute scrapbook page I made for him for his main picture, and she included a really cute picture that Kat took of him, too.

Here’s his petfinder description:

Hi, I’m Truman, and I’m a real cutie if I do say so myself! I’d like to tell you why I’m in Rescue. I’m very sad that my owner died. I lived with her for nine years. I went live with her very nice relatives, and we all tried and tried—but they had big dogs and small children and lots going on, and I didn’t do well.. We were all sad but the best thing was to release me to Rescue. I’m happy to report that Rescue is not too bad at all! Right now, I live in a foster home with four other IGs, and let me tell you, they are my pals!

Okay, okay… I admit that sometimes I need to be reminded when it’s time to go outside to potty, but I’m really good at going out with my foster siblings and taking care of business when they do. (And, I love, love, love getting a treat when I come back inside.)

If there’s one word to describe me, it’s happy and playful and goofy all rolled into one. (Ha! That’s not one word, is it?). I just enjoy life—except when I go to the vet, and that just makes me a nervous wreck. . I’ve been seeing the vet a lot recently because I have seizures, which is why I’m listed as a special needs dog. We’re working out how to fix that. Right now I’m on Phenobarbital twice a day. But don’t try to give it to me with cheese because I don’t like it. I prefer my pills be wrapped in a sliver of roasted turkey; trust me, I’d eat dirt if you wrapped it in turkey!

My foster dad is so proud of me because I don’t mind having my toenails trimmed. He gives me a treat afterwards. Did I mention I love treats? And while I’m talking about my foster dad . . . He’s my big pal. I love following him around and sitting in his lap. But most of all, I love cuddling with him. He likes to nap on the couch on the weekends, and I like to cuddle up next to him and nap, too. And at night, I like to get as close to him as possible. I sleep the whole night and don’t move.

Okay… here’s the deal: I’m looking for that special family who will take care of me when I have a seizure—probably someone who’s home a lot would be best. Fast movements and loud noises scare me so I’d really like to go some place without little kids. I really like being with my foster siblings so another little dog would be cool but I was an only for some time and I love people too. I promise I’ll be a good boy, and I’ll make someone very happy.

Well, my foster mom is chomping at the bit to say something so here she is:

Thanks so much for reading about sweet Truman. He is such a joy to be around. He cracks me up because when he barks (which isn’t often); it sounds like somebody stepped on a duck! He really is a sweet little dog and a pleasure to be around. He’s such a gentle soul that you can’t help loving the minute you meet him. Seizures can be very scary the first few times you see them, but when they happen, you just have to remain calm and comfort Truman with soft words and gentle hands. Truman is confused for several minutes after his seizure and tends to wander in a daze. He needs to be kept safe so he doesn’t bump into walls or fall and hurt himself.

Truman is being fostered in ****. Washington residents who want to begin the process to adopt an IGCA Rescue dog, please write igplaygroup@mac.com to learn about the IGCA adoption process and receive an application. We are always willing to consider placing a dog out of state, but applicants are asked to apply to and work with us through their local IGCA Rep.

Here are all five dogs:

Stuart, Truman, Iggy Pop (far left), Annie and Mylo

Just got back home from the vet with Truman.  He was scared to death the whole time we were there, and wouldn’t stop frantically looking at me so that they had to turn him with his butt facing the vet the whole time so he could see me.  Poor little dog.

#1.  She’s very concerned about his teeth.  She could barely make out a fractured tooth beneath all of the tarter.

#2.  Seizures:  he needs to have blood work done to see how his phenobarbital levels are so I have to take him back at 3:00 this afternoon (before he gets his pill at 4:00 in the afternoon).  He may need to be started on another drug therapy in addition to phenobarbital (which I think means KBr, but I’m not sure).

#3.  He needs to gain a pound or two to get up to a healthy weight.

Also, the bloodwork that Kat’s vet did is good enough for them.  In other words, they don’t need to do more bloodwork before he has a dental.