What's In A Name 2014 #3 and Where Are You Reading? Wyoming

What's In A Name 2014 is a challenge that is hosted by Charlie at Worm Hole. You can click on this link to get to the sign up post and learn a bit more about this favorite of mine challenge. This books fulfills the # 3  part of the Challenge, a title with a number written in letters.

I am also linking this review to the Where Are You Reading Challenge hosted by Sheila at Book Journey.You can either click the link above to check out Sheila's blog or here to see Where I have been reading.

One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd by Jim Fergus
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Though I have read other reviewers say this book was unlikable or unbelievable, I liked it. I also found that although I know the story is fiction, I could believe the events. Maybe it stems from growing up in the region. I know the Black Hills, Ft Laramie, Ft Robinson, the Tongue River, the Big Horn Mountains. I have visited museums and historical sites that show that the Cheyenne, the Sioux, the Crow all lived in the place I call home.

I grew up listening to the Dakota Sioux at Pow Wow in the Black Hills. I have seen the native dress and watched the native dancers.

I loved the pictures that Jim Fegus painted of the wildlife and the landscape. The descriptive words of the Indians and the treatment of the very real emotions that the White Women experienced.

This book was recommended to me by several friends and they did not steer me wrong.


View all my reviews


Until Next Time
Stay Busy and Stay Happy

One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd

is set in the late 1800 in Nebraska and Dakota Territory. The places mentioned in the story are in what is now Wyoming. 

Saturday Snapshot Amaryllis #5- #9

Saturday Snapshot is hosted every Saturday by Melinda at West Metro Mommy Reads. 

To participate in Saturday Snapshot: post a photo that you ( or a friend or family member) have thaken then leave a direct link to you post in the Mister Linky at West Metro Mommy Reads. Photos can be old or new, and be of any subject as long as they are clean and appropriate for all eyes to see. Please don't post random photos that you find online. 

Last Saturday I posted pictures of my amaryllis that was starting to bloom. Today here are 5 more photos taken  every other day. A couple are the same day, a different view. 

These were taken at night, against my front room sheers. I didn't realize how wrinkled the sheer curtain was til I saw this photo.  Yikes, I need to get the steamer out!

As the bloom starts to open, it looks a little like it is from outer space. Or maybe a tad bit X-rated!

It is nearly 18" tall now and I think it will be a red flower. I wish I knew the variety name.  Usually they are so descriptive. 

I am writing this on Friday night. If it blooms in the morning, I will post another picture before linking this to Snapshot Saturday. Otherwise I will post a photo on the first day it blooms, even if it is Tuesday. 

Until Next Time

Stay Busy and Stay Happy

Wondrous Words Wednesday #1

Wondrous Words Wednesday is hosted by BermudaOnion each week. It's an opportunity to share new words you've encountered in your reading, or highlight words that you particularly enjoy.

These words I found while reading The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith/J.K. Rowling. This book is on my kindle and I highlighted a lot of words as I read. 

desultory    adj 1) lacking a plan, purpose or enthusiasm.

                        2) occurring randomly or occasionally

"From time to time there came outbreaks of desultory clicking as the watchers filled the waiting time by snapping the white canvas tent in the middle of the road, ......"

This passage was referring to photographers or paparazzi, so I think the author meant the 2nd definition, but the first would apply too. 

inscrutable   adj  impossible to understand or interpret

"The boyfriend fled into a rehab facility, but the police remained inscrutable; those who had been with her on the evening before her death were hounded;...."

Schadenfreude  n., pleasure derived by someone from another person's misfortune. 

"She became a morality tale stiff with Schadenfreude, and so many columnists made allusions to Icarus that Private Eye ran a special column."

 In addition to many new words there were also unusual words for familiar objects, as is usual when the settings are in Britain or Australia.  I 'rather' like seeing those words. 

I recommend The Cuckoo's Calling if you haven't read it yet. I will probably share more of the new to me words next week. 

Until next time, 

Stay Busy and Stay Happy

Where Are You Reading? and a Book Club finish - The Cuckoo's Calling

Where Are You Reading is a challenge sponsored by Sheila at Book Journey.  She also sponsors a Monday meme title It's Monday! What Are You Reading?  Both of these events compliment one another. I have been participating in the It's Monday meme for the last weeks of 2013 and will continue in 2014. I have decided to join the Where Are You Reading challenge because it seems a fun way to see all the settings of the books I read all year. Sheila suggested a Google Map and I set one up, but may not be able to share it. If I cannot, I will add a page to my blog and keep a list going there.  I have my fingers crossed that I can link up the map. We will see.

I just finished my first book of the new year The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith. This book is set in Britain. Here is my review from Goodreads.

The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book was the selected read for January of my F2F book club. I wasn't sure what it was about, but the other members were all atwitter with it being written by J.K. Rowling. I have not, nor do I intend to read the Harry Potter series, so I wasn't impressed one way or the other.

Cormoran Strike, is an injured veteran of the war in Afghanistan, returned to Britain to heal and get on with his life. Now he is a "homeless" ( having been kicked out of his super gorgeous girlfriend's apartment) and trying to make a living as a Private Detective.

Recently hired by a prominent lawyer to investigate the death of his sister, a supermodel, Cormoran proceeds in unconventional ways to gather facts and talk to witnesses. His recent temporary secretary is of great help to him. Robin has always secretly wanted to be a detective, since stealing her brother's Hardy Boys books as a child.

This book kept me interested and on the edge of my chair for the entire read. There was good character development and I never figured out what really happened to Lula Landry until the very end when Cormoran reveals his theory and conclusion to his client.

Although the language was a bit rough at times, the vocabulary in general was interesting. I looked up a lot of words I did not know prior to reading this. I like books that teach me new words.

I would recommend to all my friends who like mysteries and crime genres.


View all my reviews

Until next time
Stay Busy and Stay Happy

ps I am linking this to 2014 Ebook challenge hosted by Sarah at Workaday Reads.

First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Into - 1000 White Women

Every Tuesday, Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea posts the first paragraph or maybe two of her current read. Anyone can join in. Go to Diane's website for the image and share the first paragraph (or2) of the current book you are reading.

[NOTE: the following entry, undated appears on the first page of the first notebook of May Dodd's journal.]

I leave this record for my dear children, Hortense and William, in the event that they never see their loving mother again and so that they might one day know the truth of my unjust incarceration, my escape from Hell, and into whatever is to come in these pages...


23 March 1875

Today is my birthday, and I have received the greatest gift of all ~ freedom!


Would you read on?

Based on actual historical events, this novel follows the indomitable May Dodd as she travels to the Cheyenne, becomes the bride of Little Wolf, chief of that tribe, and struggles with living in and being loyal to two different worlds. 



I have had this book on my TBR list for over 2 years. It was first recommended to me by a friend. I have since heard several other mutual friends have read it and decided that I would pick it up in the new year and that it would fulfill one of the parts of the What's In A Name Challenge sponsored by Brit at The Worm Hole

I am extra excited, the actual book that I checked out of the library this morning is signed by the author, Jim Fergus.  It says" To my readers at Campbell County Public Library - Jim Fergus."  I don't know how they acquired this copy or if he was actually here in Campbell County Wyoming but I want to find out!.  He lived in Northern Colorado when this book was published, so it is not out of the question that he may have actually been here to sign book copies. We are only about 4 hours from the border between Wyoming and Colorado. Now he lives in southern Arizona, so I am assuming they have had this copy for awhile.

Anyway!

Until next time
Stay Busy and Stay Happy

Saturday Snapshot Amaryllis

Saturday Snapshot is hosted by Melinda at West Metro Mommy Reads . 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 (at West Metro Mommy). 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.

I haven't posted here for awhile. Seems there were no noteworthy photos that I wanted to share. But since Christmas the amaryllis that was in my mother's hospice room when she passed away in July 2012 has decided to bloom. I was hoping it would bloom Christmas 2012, but guess it needed some time to gather it's strength. I followed all my sister's directions this year in getting it to bloom. Fed it heavily in the summer, set it outside on my deck, brought it in in the fall, cut back the foliage and covered in the dark basement for 4 week. I brought it out at Thanksgiving and set it in a sunny south window that has a light covering so it is not intense light. When we got back from our Christmas trip there was a bloom stalk emerging. I decided to start taking pictures. The pictures here are approximately 2 days apart. 

 Taken December 28th

Taken Dec 30th

 Taken Jan 2nd

Taken this morning Jan 4th. 

 I will continue to post pictures here until it blooms. 

Until next time

Stay Busy and Stay Happy

Welcome 2014 Another Chance to Get it Right!

I found this image on the internet and immediately was attracted to the sentiment. It is a quote from Oprah Winfrey. I think it applies to all aspects of my personal life and maybe to lots of aspects to our lives at inhabitants of this world.  Guess it is a goal we should all strive for ...."to get it right!"

I am challenging myself to a more attainable goal in my reading.
I am challenging myself to complete 6 UFO's in my quilting hobby ( this one is shared by one of my quilting groups, we are all committing to finishing 6 UFO's this year)
Also, my personal goals are to use fabric from my stash, as Jenny of Elefantz says to "let it shine".
And I am going to try to be or maintain calm. I am looking for the perfect KEEP CALM and ??????????  sign or poster or greeting card or image. I'll know it when I see it.

So though not really NY Resolutions, they are personal goals to 'get it right'!


Until next time,
Stay Busy and Stay Happy