Catching Up – Books

Books

Authors: Jennifer Haigh / John Grisham / Marie Bostwick

 

 

Mrs. Kimble

Ken Kimble died alone in his $60,000 car waiting for a drawbridge to be lowered. His driver’s license was new and there were no next-of-kin listed. There was half a million dollars in his bank account. Mr. Kimble left a string of ex-wives, two sons and a daughter. His life is revealed through the eyes of the various Mrs. Kimbles and one of his sons. Mr. Kimble is not a nice man.

Goodreads Rating * * * (I liked it)

 

 

 

 

The Associate

I hadn’t intended to read a “real” book before my trip but my Kindle was packed and I needed something to read before bed on my last night at home. I finished the book in a day – as with all Grisham novels it wasn’t easy to put it down – but I was disappointed in the ending. Is there a sequel? I need closure.

Kyle is a student, almost ready to take his bar exams. He plans to work in legal aid for a few years before moving on to something more lucrative. But before that can happen an indiscretion from his past makes him a target for blackmail.

Goodreads Rating * * * (I liked it)

 

 

The Promise Girls

After a successful book tour by their mother, three young prodigies are appearing on a talk show when the eldest makes a decision that will alter all of their lives. The story picks up again several years after that incident, when the adult girls are moving on with their lives although still damaged by their past. The mother of the girls has secrets that won’t be revealed until near the end of the story but even her past isn’t the only surprise left at the end of the book.

Goodreads Rating * * * (I liked it)

 

 

 

 

 

I really should be packing

Journal

Wednesday, October 10, 2018

It is well known that I am a last-minute packer but this time I’m leaving it longer than I should. I’ve had a stack of projects sitting out for quite awhile, just waiting to go into the suitcase. In fact, some of them made it into the suitcase yesterday. But what was I doing this morning? I cut out an “extra” project to take along with me, I picked out a pattern and some fabric for a second “extra” project, and then I went through some patterns to see if I should take any to share with Stacia and Deloise.

I had some errands to run this morning and I needed to vote in the advanced poll today. I stopped at the bank, I stopped at the drug store to pick up a prescription, I stopped at the post office to mail a package, I stopped at the Rec Centre to vote and I dropped in at Cranberry Hall to check the mail and pick up a deposit. Everything was going so well. But on the way home the traffic lights were out at one of the major intersections and when I pulled into the Credit Union everything was shut down because of the outage. I knew there would be no sense in stopping at Safeway so I came home.

We have a House Concert the day after I get home so in order to have the beds ready before I leave there was laundry to be done. While I was stripping one of the beds I thought I should wash the quilt that I was using on it. It is an old one – remember the quilts we tied after Mum died? I had noticed that some fabric had worn away around the binding so I thought I should repair it before it went into the laundry. Once I got started I noticed a few other spots in the same condition so I stitched around all of the binding. There were a few other minor repairs that were needed before I finally got it into the wash.

I made another trip out this afternoon and got the rest of my errands taken care of. I’ll attempt to do a quick clean-up of my desk and sewing areas and then I’ll get busy with that packing.

 

the birth house

Books

Author: Ami McKay

I loved this book. If you follow CBC Canada Reads, this was a finalist in the Book of a Decade debate. It’s Canadian and it will stay on my bookshelf. The story of the author is almost as interesting as the book. It wasn’t until Ami McKay was pregnant and looking for a midwife that she learned that in the past, her house had been used by a midwife.

Dora lives in the remote Nova Scotia community of Scots Bay, the only daughter in five generations of the Rare family. At a young age she aids the local midwife and soon begins helping at births. When the midwife dies it is Dora that the women of the community come to for help. But a new doctor has come to the area and is encouraging women to give birth at a maternity hospital. The opinions as to which is better, midwife or doctor, splits the community. An early and unhappy marriage inspires Dora to continue her work but when she is accused of murder she leaves Scots Bay for a period of time. Will she return?

Goodreads Rating * * * * * (I recommend you read it; this book will stay on my shelf)

What to do with all my photos

Journal

Tuesday, October 9, 2018

I still haven’t resolved my computer issue – my backups to my external drive aren’t working but one of the partitions on it contains some photos from several years ago. There was no way I could get them from the external drive back onto my computer but they were old and I thought I could probably live without them.

But just before I went to bed last night I found a couple of files from an older photo program. I did some research and found a way to load them into my current photo application. I went to bed while that process was still running.

When I checked on it this morning the photos appeared in my photo library, but none of my current photos showed up. I headed off the quilting thinking that I had destroyed all my newer photos (from about 2009 onward), including all of the Guild bee photos. But through the day I talked myself into being okay with losing them. I have a physical project book that I keep my quilting photos in, I often post other photos to my website and I don’t really have a need to do anything with all of the Guild photos I’ve collected. By the time I came home I was quite pleased with the notion that there wouldn’t be any work to do sorting through all my digital photos – the bins of “real” photos are more than I can handle!

But after I got home I had another idea – and it worked. When the old photos were imported they created their own library and the newer photos that I thought I lost were still their in the original library. I am so lucky – or am I? Now I’ll have to deal with all of the recovered photos as well as trying to keep up to date with the current ones.

Carrie Nation Quilt (from Quilters’ Block A Day Calendar)

Orange Hands

But I did go sewing today and I got a couple of blocks done. The monthly Guild block will be due shortly after I get back from my trip so I was glad to get it done today. And I got the extra orange block (based on the Hands Across the Water block) done as well; I guess I’ll call it my Hands project from now on.