Tuesday Intros.

When summer comes to the North Woods, time slows down. And some days it stops altogether. The sky, gray and lowering for much of the year, becomes an ocean of blue, so vast and brilliant you can't help but stop what you're doing - pinning wet sheets to the line maybe, or shucking a bushel of corn on the  back steps - to stare up at it.  Locusts whir in the birches, coaxing you out of the sun and under the boughs, and the heat stills the air, heavy and sweet with the scent of balsam.

This is the first paragraph of "A Northern Light" by Jennifer Donnelly. It is the June read from Ladies & Literature on Goodreads. I need to start this soon, but am in the middle of "Love in the Time of Cholera" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. This is a good story, but translated from the original, and is sometimes cumbersome.

Today, I will attend my local quilt guild. I hope to have pictures of "Show and Tell" and of our "lesson" - Attic Window. I am needing the camaraderie today.  

Snapshot Saturday 6-9-12

Snapshot Saturday is hosted by Alyce at At Home with Books

To participate in the Saturday Snapshot meme post a photo that you (or a friend or family member) have taken then leave a direct link to your post in the Mister Linky. Photos can be old or new, and be of any subject as long as they are clean and appropriate for all eyes to see. How much detail you give in the caption is entirely up to you. Please don’t post random photos that you find online.

This is Fish Creek Falls near Steamboat Springs Colorado.

During the Memorial Day holiday, we camped with family  in Steamboat.  It was between  seasons there, so lots of shops were not open, the Gondola ride was still. So we hiked to see the falls. Waterfalls fascinate me. Such power, such beauty and never ending flow of water from snowfall. God is Amazing. 

First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday 6-5-12

It was inevitable: the scent of bitter almonds always reminded him of the fate of unrequited love. Dr. Juvenal Urbino noticed it as soon as he entered the still darkened house where he had hurried on an urgent call to attend a case that for him had lost all urgency many years before. The Antillean refugee Jeremiah de Saint-Armour, disabled war veteran, photographer of children, and his most sympathetic opponent in chess, had escaped the torments of memory with aromatic fumes of gold cyanide. 

This is the first paragraph of a book I have been wanted to read for a very long time. It was originally recommended by the Oprah Book Club. The title caught my attention, and I have no idea what the story is about. But, I checked it out at the library yesterday, so I will begin.  The title is Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. He lives in Mexico City, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1982 for his international best-setter One Hundred Years of Solitude. 


Hopefully today I will finish How to Eat a Cupcake by Meg Donohue and get my SUMMER wall hanging ready for binding, then I can start this new book.

I was in the water this morning at 5AM, walked the Lazy River, attended my water aerobics class. I came home, ate breakfast and mowed the side yard, then watered and weeded my Hosta bed. I am pooped and it isn't even noon yet.  YIKES!

Armchair BEA

I am a newbie Blogger. So here goes. 

1. Please tell us a little bit about yourself: Who are you? My name is Judy
2. How long have you been blogging? I have been blogging regularly since October 2011.
3.  Why did you get into blogging? I first started about 5 years ago when I was going through some really hard times and I thought a blog would just be a personal diary. I did not continue as it became too painful. So when I retired from my job, I started again. I intended it to be just a place where I recorded my new life as a retired lady.As I explored, I happened on Quilting Blogs and then by chance Book Blogs.
4. What are you currently reading, or what is your favorite book you have read so far in 2012? Right now I am reading "How to Eat a Cupcake" by Meg Donohue. It is for a challenge on Goodreads. My favorite book so far this year was "The Secret Garden"
5. Tell us one non-book-related thing that everyone reading your blog may not know about you. I'm not sure that there is something you all don't know about me, I'm pretty much an open book.  But I also quilt and do needlework. I live in a small city in Wyoming, and I do not have an e-reader or often listen to audiobooks.  
6. Have your reading tastes changed since you started blogging? YES How? I have read  and want to read, many different genres since beginning to read others book blogs. I never would have re-read, White Oleander by Janet Fitch, or The Secret Garden by Frances Hodges Burnett. I probably would have just continued reading the romance chick-lit that I had been reading

You will notice as time goes on, that I am exposing myself more and more. I have a few followers( other quilters) and have participated in more memes.  I am learning new words,  BEA, MEME, HTML, all kinds of fun new stuff.  I will continue with my quilting blogging too. So my blog still is mainly a diary of sorts about my life as a retired lady. 

Snapshot Saturday

Saturday Snapshot

is hosted by Alyce of At Home With Books.

Photos can be old or new, and be of any subject as long as they are clean and appropriate for all eyes to see. How much detail you give in the caption is entirely up to you. Please don't post random photos that you find online.

This is my Bridal Veil Spirea  as it looked in early May. Some years it is prettier that other years. This year was a good year, but not the most awesome.  It has since faded and is not nearly as pretty. Nothing else is blooming as yet and I have not created anything in my quilt room to take pictures of. So this is it for this Saturday. Have a great week.

Today is our 48th anniversary. We are going out to dinner with friends. Tomorrow I will sew with my friends at our regular Sunday Sew.  Maybe it will have something to photograph for next Saturday.

Until next time:

Stay Busy/Stay Happy
Judy

June - Summer Feels Near

Today we finished putting in the garden. I will post pictures as soon as Mr. Busy gets the irrigation system up and running. I finished reading

I really enjoyed it this time.

Now I have started reading How to Eat a Cupcake:

Spent part of Thursday with Thursday Stitchers. We had a good visit. Diana brought an amazing wall hanging or bellpull done in counted cross-stitch. It says WELCOME with Bunnies and beaded flowers.  Really pretty, wish I had thought to take a picture with my cell phone.  :(

Until next time,

Stay Busy, Stay Happy 

Judy

May is at an End

It's the last day of May. We had a glorious time camping with our Colorado family. We ate well, our grandson-in-law did most of the cooking. Our SIL cooked the first night BBQ chicken on the grill. It was great. The rest of the time, we had sloppy joes, fish tacos, hamburgers, potato salad, baked beans, watermelon, chips, trail mix etc. We celebrate the granddaughters' birthdays, so there was even 2 birthday cakes and ice cream. WOW.

We hiked to Fish Creek Falls.
Do you recognize it?  It is the falls on the Coors Beer can!  LOL.  It really is beautiful. The big kids played in the water-





Don't look too closely, there is a sign that says, "Stay on the Trail"









I am still reading White Oleander by Janet Fitch. I am enjoying it this time. When I tried to read it several years ago, I just couldn't.  I am in a different place in my life now.

Til next time.
Stay Busy, Stay Happy
Judy