Between the leaves reading list #4

 

Between the leaves……the leaves between a book cover or the leaves of the trees, they have been exceptionally pretty this year.  My latest sweater is the same color as the ash leaves and elm  leaves and cottonwood leaves.  And my lack of blog posts since August……I must have had my nose in a book.

1. Another View by Rosamunde Pilcher a temperamental artist, his daughter trying to build a relationship with him, a step brother who is an actor and the father’s business manager a love story takes place in England.
2. The Persian Pickle Club by Sandra Dallas an audio book I read this years ago and as good this time.
3. The Mistletoe Mystery by Nita Prose audiobook a short story about Molly the maid
4. Hemingway’s Girl by Erika Robuck for book club fiction about Ernest Hemingway’s house keeper.
5. Choral Society by Prue Leith contemporary story about friendship, thee women get acquainted at a choral class,  a tough single business woman, a widowed food writer and one who just needs to grow up. Pretty spicy and not just the food. A side of Prue you don’t see on the British cooking show.
6. My Friends by Fredrik Backman about friendship, art, and being different.  Very good story I will read it again someday.
7. The Girl in His Shadow by Audrey Blake re read 2023 book club orphan girl is taken in by doctor and his housekeeper the girl learns from the dr, she has a mind for science and medicine but women can’t be doctors in 1800’s in England.
8. The Surgeon’s Daughter by Audrey Blake for book club read in 2023 as good the second time the story continues she goes to Italy to study medicine because it is not illegal there. 
9. God’s Country by William Kent Krueger another great book. I read it in a day and a half. Adventures and misadventures in the boundary waters of Minnesota. 
10. The Lonely Hearts Book Club by Lucy Gilmore just for fun a contemporary story about a young librarian and a cantankerous old man it’s about friendship, loneliness, acceptance and using your talents. 
11. Theo of Golden by Allen Levi for book club everyone loved this book and said they are going to read it again. It was slow to get into at the beginning and was easy to read a chapter and put it down until later then it became very intriguing. I will be reading this again. 
12. The Big House by George Howe Colt it didn’t get bold letters because I couldn’t finish it. It’s about the big house the extended family summered at Cape Cod. I thought it would be interesting because I’m going there this fall. The narrator is remembering every little detail about the house, relatives and family tree…..there is nothing more boring than listening to someone tell about their genealogy. I quit reading in chapter 3, there were no reviews on amazon that should have been a warning.
13. Samuel Adams Father of the American Revolution by Mark Puls Sam Adams was the force that kept liberty and independence 
14. Becoming Mrs. Lewis by Patti Callahan for book club about Joy Davidman and C. S. Lewis. Historic fiction very good but it was a slow book to read. 
15. The Nantucket Inn by Pamela Kelley just for fun takes place on Nantucket and Boston a couple characters meet at the Black Rose Irish Bar near Faneuil Hall I was there a couple weeks ago and had a Guinness.
16. Nantucket Neighbors by Pamela Kelley another short fun book that takes place in Nantucket. One of main characters gets Lymes disease I had that 10 years ago she didn’t have the giant bullseye rash either. I had a perfectly round spot on my leg that I could have covered with a quarter maybe a nickel and I didn’t get sick—achey, extreme tiredness, sleepiness until at least a month after I had the spot on my leg. Two doses of the doxycycline I was better as in feeling completely normal but I took the doxycycline for the full 3 weeks. 
17. Nantucket White Christmas by Pamela Kelley book 3 of the series light romance
18. Saturday Night at the Lakeside Supper Club by J. Ryan Stradal thoroughly enjoy his books multi generational story of 4 women and how they came to own the Lakeside Supper Club in northern Minnesota. 
19. My Travels with Mrs. Kennedy by Clint Hill memories and photos Jackie Kennedy told by her body guard. 

Off the needles and 6

Look who had a birthday 6 years old from two little 4 pound peanuts!! I let the little girls try them on the day before their birthday party so I had time to rip the hem off and make the sweaters longer but they were just right. And someone is missing her first tooth.  They like to look at photos on my phone and tablet, they found the videos and two videos of our foreign exchange student singing back up with Arrival From Sweden……ABBA songs. We must have listened to 3+ minutes of Fernando for over an hour. Then daughter found them on u-tube and eventually the battery on my tablet went dead.  They will be getting Mama Mia for Christmas.  A very fun weekend—Ann—

Pour myself

A cup of ambition…….. in honor of Dolly

Off the needles

 

Like I said I just love pastels a cotton and bamboo blend called Illusion from Lang Yarns. The pattern is After the Rain that I have knit several times. And it goes in the washer and the dryer!!  Our days are cooling a little here. —Ann—

I just love pastels

 

I was searching the boxes for activities for five year olds since we were spending a few weeks with the twins one week at a time and I found a doll bed that my cousin had given to me when her daughter outgrew it for my daughter. I had forgotten all about it, my cousin has a granddaughter the right age for it…..so sew make a new doll quilt and send it back to her along with the mattress and sheet. Most of the parts were cut and waiting  I just love pastels especially pinks and yellows together. —Ann—

Licking the bowl

 

 

 

 

Grandma duty this week yippee!! We made freezer jam with fresh raspberries from the local you pick.  The berries were few and far between but I persevered and picked enough for one recipe of jam. (The berries were thick on the canes just not ripe another week or two…..)  They helped wash the berries and crushed the berries and measured the sugar the added the sugar and stirred and stirred.  Wait 10 minutes for the sugar to dissolve add the pectin and lemon juice and stir for 3 minutes then into the container and lick the bowl. Just that slick.  I have been using the recipe in the pectin box forever and I do mean forever.  It was my first 4-H demonstration when I was 9 but back then it was powdered pectin and had to be cooked for a minute or two but still super easy.  —Ann—

New fur baby

“Hey!  How come we are all bunched in here again?!?  It’s not Christmas.”    “ The girl came with the furry thing like us but it moves on its own”

“ Yeah I remember it from a couple weeks ago, it had sharp teeth  my leg still hurts!” “ You’re still in one piece.”  “At least we are all together and got to bask in the sun room for the weekend.”   “I miss sitting on the shelf where I can see the dust bunnies playing under her chair where she knits—are they ever going to turn into real bunnies?”       “ He had his own toys too, I thought he was going to take the head off poor Lambchop.”  “The mom did surgery on Lambchop when they arrived.”  “He sat on command and laid down too but he still had to do time out a couple times, he he.  And no sock was safe until it was securely hidden in a shoe.”

Darling daughter and her new best friend a standard poodle.  He’s learning and she’s a very patient trainer.