Category Archives: Weather

July Reflections

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I look at this old photo that I took at the Salt Flats near the Utah/Nevada border and marvel at the calmness of that morning a few years ago. July has been a tumultuous month, plain and simple, but we are here at a calm spot at the end of this month, taking some deep breaths before moving into August.

Once again, I did not get much reading done this month. Too much Life happening. But yesterday I actually sat down with a new graphic novel, called Dancing at the Pity Party, by Tyler Feder, and started reading again. It felt wonderful to just sit and read on a hot afternoon!

I was also able to finish my Classics Club Spin book, so I’ll try to post my review of The Sign of the Four, by Arthur Conan Doyle,  in the next few days.

Stay cool in this summer heat, my friends!

My July in brief:

  • Heat! Although we haven’t reached the 113 degree temperatures of last summer, we’ve had too many 100+ days this month. No central air conditioning in our old home, so we spend much of our day and night managing the fans and window air conditioners so that we can keep the house as cool as possible. It’s been a challenge!
  • Our grandson and Scottie’s Drive-In.  Our precious grandboy (I probably should call him our “grandman” now because he’s over 6 feet tall and very much a teenager) helps us on weekends. He mows the lawns for us and, afterwards, we provide his current favorite meal —a hamburger and fries from our local burger joint, Scottie’s Drive-In.
  • Watching TV. We love getting caught up in a good series on TV, and that happened this month with the Netflix series, Our Blues, a South Korean drama that takes place on Jeju Island. We were captured by the intertwining lives of the various characters, and loved our glimpse into another part of Korean culture. The cinematography was especially beautiful.
  • Remembering my Mom. July 18th marked four years since my Mom’s passing, and I shared photos on my instagram account of the gorgeous sunset we experienced as we left her apartment the night we said goodbye to her. I miss her every day, but I have so many special memories that make me smile.
  • Red Clover.  You may remember my photos of Crimson Clover that fills the agricultural fields around here with brilliant red in early May. Well, the crops of “red clover” bloom in mid-July, and are gorgeous in their more subtle color. Up close, they look pink, not red. And when you look at a field of them, they look a pale lavender color! A crop that is so mis-named!
  • Studying Spanish. I just reached a milepost in my attempt to regain my fluency in Spanish. I’ve worked on it, using the program Duolingo, every single day for 200 days! I’m rather proud of my learning streak, but I’m even happier to be regaining so much of the language I lost due to not using it very much since my year in Argentina as an exchange student. “Use it or lose it” is so true!
  • Byron and his treatments. July was cruel to us. The most difficult thing about Byron’s battle with cancer is the metastases in the bones of his hip. In early July, he suffered a pain flare and after a trip to the ER and many tests over a two week period, it was discovered that he has a series of fractures in that hip joint. So being able to go upstairs to sleep has become too difficult. We now have a hospital bed situated in the bay window of our dining room area, and I’m happy to say that it’s a very workable arrangement for now!

 

 

 

It’s June Already!

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Artwork by Edith Holden…

June is here already! My husband, Byron, and I have settled into our three-weeks-at-a-time routine dictated by his cancer treatments. He is doing well with his chemo, and while not an easy time, we are grateful that the chemo is working. The “settling into a routine” is so helpful, as is knowing what to expect for each week following his infusion. Getting into a routine has relieved my worries (aren’t the unknowns just the worst!) enough so that I am back to my reading. *Big smile*

So my May reading was all over the place, but enjoyable. After I finished The Last Bookshop in London (discussed in my mid-May post), I read Named of the Dragon, by Susanna Kearsley. I’ve read quite a few of her books and always enjoy them. I enjoyed this one, too, but it wasn’t among my favorites of hers.

Then I read a book called Widowish, by Melissa Gould. It was her story of grief after losing her husband. I wanted to like it more than I did. Although there were some very good, relevant, quotes and passages in it that I copied into my reading notebook, I felt let down by her in the telling of her story. Part of it felt superficial to me, and I’m not sure if that was due to her writing skills, her chosen narrative style, or perhaps not wanting to spend too long in the deep dive into her own story. Anyway, I am glad that I read it, but it fell short of my hopeful expectations.

Following that book, I listened to the audiobook of The Starlet and the Spy, by Lee, Ji-min. It was an interesting historical fiction story of a young Korean woman, quite damaged emotionally from the war, who was chosen to be the interpreter for Marilyn Monroe when she visited the American troops in Seoul, South Korea in 1954. In those four short days that the two of them spent working closely together, they formed a life-changing bond. It was an interesting story, but I didn’t care for the narration and would have preferred to read it instead of listen to it.

I had on my Kindle, a short story/novella by Salley Vickers, a writer I enjoy. It was called Vacation, and was an interesting glimpse into a marriage. Years ago, I read her book Miss Garnet’s Angel, and really liked it. Once again, with this novella, I enjoyed reading her work.

And to end my May reading, I read two delightful books for young people (of all ages!). I read The Golden Goblet, by Eloise Jarvis McGraw, and will be posting a review soon. And after talking with my sister-in-law about books we loved when we were children, I read Misty of Chincoteague, by Marguerite Henry. It was one her her childhood favorites and I had never read it!  My review will be posted soon, too.

It was lovely to once again focus on my reading in May, and I’m looking forward to reading on the porch again now that June has arrived!

 

 

From the Archives: A Book on Reading and Knitting

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snow-day-03We are “snowed in” for a few days with this last round of winter storms in Oregon. There are many closures again today, and Hubby and I are fortunate to be able to just stay put in the warm. I don’t mind it at all because I have my books and my knitting!

I am also spending time going through the archives of this blog, looking for posts to share with you once again. I found a post I wrote eight years ago about a pediatrician who shares two of my own passions: early literacy and knitting. The book review is still very relevant today and a book about reading and knitting fits well with my own activities on this snowed-in day.

From the Archives:  A post from January 11, 2009.  TWO SWEATERS FOR MY FATHER

“Knitting is a journey…”

 

As soon as the ice on the roads melted after the holidays, I headed for the library, and this book, Two Sweaters For My Father, was a treasure I found on the shelf with all the knitting books. Perri Klass is a pediatrician, the medical director of Reach Out and Read (“a national non-profit organization that promotes early literacy by giving new books to children, and advice to parents about the importance of reading aloud, in pediatric exam rooms across the nation”), and a passionate knitter! This book of essays on knitting was a pleasure to read, not just because I’m a knitter, too, but because Perri Klass is a wonderful writer and a delightful human being. I felt like I’d found a new friend as I read this book.

Her essays, which have been published in various knitting magazines, are about all kinds of experiences she’s had related to knitting and life, and were fun to read. I chuckled all the way through her essay on teaching her daughter to knit. Her essay on knitting after 911, called Knitting in the Shadow, described how life changed even for knitters after that event. The title story, about knitting two sweaters for her father, was a lovely tribute to her father’s unconditional love. And I loved her stories about friendships and knitting, and about having surgery for a repetitive stress injury caused by non-stop knitting and her #13 circular knitting needle! Each story is full of humor and wisdom…and knitting.

I liked this description from her essay, “Y2K—The Year 2 Knit”:

“Knitting is here, knitting is now. When I am knitting, I am knitting—no message left, no tracking who owes whom an attempted communication. The yarn travels through my hands, the needles move, and I am creating a something that was not there before. Not a virtual something that can always be altered with a single click, but a real and tangible something, which can only be altered with a heartbreaking rip and then a multitude of clicks. I think about all the jobs nowadays in which there is no something you are making, and even no someone you are really seeing and talking to, and I understand how knitting fits and stretches to fill a need.”

And this explanation from her essay, “A Passion For Purls”:

“So what is it—what do I get from all this knitting, and what is missing when I take a hard look at myself and don’t see any yarn or needles?
What is missing, I think, is a special sense of portable everyday serenity. Knitting brings something into my life that I might also get—but generally don’t—from great music, religion, or the contemplation of majestic natural beauty. When I knit, my soul is calmed, and, sometimes, exalted. But it’s an every-day exaltation, a calm domestic serenity, easily transported from place to place in a cloth bag…”

Dr. Klass writes for those of us who find daily serenity and creative outlet in knitting or in some other kind of handwork. I’m delighted to have discovered this knitting doctor who champions early literacy!

More about Reach Out and Read — “Doctors and nurses know that growing up healthy means growing up with books. The ROR program provides the tools to help promote children’s developmental skills and later school success.”