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The Good Thief by Hannah Tinti is a rough story about a young boy growing up as an orphan in the late 1700's in New England. It's rough because no holds are barred and the territory covered by the author through these characters is distasteful and unrelenting. Still....it's a story about love. It's magical and imaginative and clever. I could have kept on reading if the author had kept on writing. If you've been waiting for that next great book to grab you from the first sentence and hang onto you until the last, then this might be your next read.
The Seafarer - Last night my friend Nancy and I ushered this play at the Steppenwolf Theatre. I was lukewarm to the idea of a dark brooding Irish play about the characters' demons. It is an Irish play about the characters' demons, however, I didn't find it to be all that dark and brooding. The ensemble cast of 5 men including John Mahoney were wonderful in each of their roles. The serious moments were juxtaposed with the light ones and those juxtaposed with those moments that just make you plain uncomfortable. I could listen to those irish brogues forever, and will always love the way the Irish can turn a phrase. Wonderful to read, and even better to the ear.
A Good Day: A good day is looking forward to my bead group, thinking I'll spend some time with some beads or a crochet hook or other little project, but ending up playing a game called Mexican Train. 
Sitting in Jenny's sunny breakfast nook figuring out a little strategy for the domino tiles. I think it's that we're still doing something with our hands, and multitasking. Yes, the multitasks are playing the game, eating and talking, but still, it's better than any one of those activities done on their own. Like playing the game in total concentration without the chat and food. Or just eating without the game and chat. Or just chatting without the food and game. Sometimes we play Rummikub.
This time I got some videos about hoarders on the screen as I went through my stuff, and it did the trick. I don't want to be like them! So here is the after picture of the sewing room, looking at the freshly vacuumed carpet and the chairs back in place. A sweet Freecycler unburdened me of a couple of piles of fabric and scraps, and another one is supposed to come for a bag of poly-fil and some more scraps. Yea! Notice there is no picture of the hallway yet; although there is a marked improvement in that space, my mission will not be accomplished until the hall is completely empty.
While watching and organizing I treated myself to some M&Ms. Aren't they lovely for Valentine's Day?
There is a new snack in town, supposedly healthy; I'd read about it in the Trib months ago, and it's only just now appearing on the shelves. The brand is True North, made by the Frito Lay company (I once knew someone who worked for Frito Lay, and she said that at the headquarters you could eat the snacks all day long.My kind of job). Anyway, I'd tried the True North Pistachio Crisps last week and they were wonderful yummy. This week the Jewel was out of the Pistachio so I tried the Peanut Crisps. 
The Peanut Crisps are good but I won't buy them again. Think those little packets with cheese crackers with peanut butter, and you'll know what these tasted like. I can't wait to have more of the Pistachio Crisps, though. I'm off to watch The City and Nip Tuck on the DVR. It feels great to know that soon I'll be sewing and sewing, and that tomorrow my group will come over and we'll chat and craft and eat and maybe play RumiCube and have some laughs. Life is good.
Remember how I thought that I wouldn't have to see another movie to know that Slumdog Millionaire was the best picture of the year? I spoke too soon. I sawThe Curious Case of Benjamin Button and it was the absolute most wonderful movie in ages, and possibly one for my list of all time favorite Top Ten or Top Twenty movies. I was careful not to read the short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald first, because I didn't want to have any expectations going in. Especially because I already knew which film was the best of the year, right? Anyway, the Screenplay, the Acting, the Cinematography, and all the rest that goes into making a great movie is demonstrated in this remarkable story about a person who is born elderly, and grows younger as he ages. Now I'm reading the short story, and it's as great as it always was. (I'm a big F. Scott Fitzgerald fan, and for many years, he was my favorite favorite author - I read all of his works as well as all of the biographies written about he and his family - this was in Junior High and High School - pretty nerdy, right?) Just see it. And then watch the Academy Awards, because this movie is bound to win some awards, and if not, it's only because the field was so incredible this year.Leatherheads - Then the other night I rented this George Clooney flick and it was sweet and had some good laughs, and we learned a bit about the origins of professional football. A great little movie to watch at Superbowl time.
A Promise to Ourselves - by Alec Baldwin with Mark Tabb - I saw it on the new arrivals cart at the library, and since I love 30 Rock, thought I'd see what Alec had to say. This Journey Through Fatherhood and Divorce is no doubt all true, and it is a suggestion and a plea to the Family Courts in our land to be fair and conscientious to all the parties in Child Custody matters.
I still haven't finished up in my office, but will do so now. I have inspirational messages to myself everywhere, and I am determined to not let this project interfere in my life for one more day. This is IT! I will be so relieved to have this finished. I'm also trying to figure out why I reserved a CD by Jamey Johnson...it's country music; I like his voice, but there must have been a certain song. When I finish this organizing project, I'll be able to make Scrabble Pants for my niece, make my black lined skirt, make my tweed skirt and jacket, also lined, make the black and white tote and the pink canvas tote, and maybe even make some dress up clothes for my nieces, as well as the ironing board cover to match the skirt on my sewing table, and the list goes on.....I hope to post after pics later this afternoon, but for now,Here's what I'm still dealing with:
Just to add some icing onto my cake, I've offered to have my Bead Group here tomorrow! Which means some Dining Room and Kitchen attention as well as a menu of some sort which can be really simple, so that's no problem. With dreams of posting the After pics in a little while, it is now 1 :15.
Raunchy, inappropriate, juvenile and really really funny. We enjoyed this. How can you go wrong with Will Ferrell lately? Here's a clip from Step Brothers
Watch the clip for a little taste, but if you watch the trailer, then you've seen the clean short version of the whole movie!
Then we watched House Bunny, a very cute little movie that can wait for free On Demand, meaning you don't have to rent it. It was a bit of a letdown after Step Brothers.
I Freecycled a few things and have been spending more time with our own little Pretty Bird after reading Alex and Me. I'm going to try to teach Pretty Bird to count to three, and then I'm going to try to get her to understand one, two and three items. I know that this could take years, and figure that we've got nothing but time. She's a big part of my life and I do appreciate having her company. Here's a photo that my friend Susan took a few years ago:
So now we know. Instead of plowing through that organizing job that is now necessary to perform on my office/sewing room (all the stuff from the back bedroom which shall remain inviolate from now on), I've been reading and watching stuff. This afternoon I went to see Zombie Prom, a junior high stage production in which my goddaughter had a part. It was fun, energetic and best of all, the kids were excellent actors, singers and dancers. Diana (my goddaughter) had a small part which included a few lines, and she did a great job. She has a real stage presence and is fun to watch. Her brother was part of the crew, and was visible to the audience in almost every scene change. After the play, Diana's mom Valerie, and I took a nice little walk to Blockbuster since the weather was almost 60 degrees today. We returned
Vicky Christina Barcelona - a Woody Allen picture that was most pleasant. Typical Woody storyline and characters set against beautiful backdrops in Spain. I especially liked the narrator voice.
Today I beaded with a new friend for a while, and made a coin pearl bracelet with 14K gold beads and clasp. If she and I bead more often, I think I am going to try to use up my beading supplies, so that I can be wearing the beads rather than storing them. Before that, I finished a book, which is why I made a bracelet instead of a necklace. The book was wonderful, and made me cry and gave me inspiration:
Alex and Me is written by Irene Pepperberg who you may have seen with her African Grey Parrot, Alex at some point during the past 20 years. Irene is a scientist who set out to prove that Parrots have cognitive brains that they use to learn in a thoughtful way. In other words, they don't only mimic, they make connections.
It's 7 degrees out today. I'm staying in! I've just emptied out the back bedroom into my beautifully neat office/sewing room. So now all the things that were out of place in the back room are on all the surfaces and the floor of the office. I'm watching/listening to you tube videos about sewing room organizing as inspiration, and it's time for the difficult decisions and list making that go with the burden I created by acquiring all this fabric. Now we can turn off the scream music soundtrack for this room. Here's the room neat, (I even covered the bed with the lovely light-weight lace trimmed dust cover I found at a house sale) and ready for a guest:
Oh, Question: Look at the top of the curtains above the bed. Do I leave them plain or do I use the curtain rod that you can see on the left side? I thought I wanted plain, but the dark brown rod sort of pulls it together. Hmmm.
And here is the new project I just created for myself. The intent is to seriously freecycle a lot of this so that new and better things, including new time and new ideas will come into my life.
I love to sort and put things in like piles and put things away. Unfortunately there is not enough space to put away all this stuff. My ideal would be a walk in pantry type closet with floor to ceiling shelves where all the fabric could be sorted and displayed. It would be a magic closet that would never run out of room or shelf space. New space would constantly regenerate and be there. Alright, enough procrastination. Here I go...
I haven't been writing for a week because I've been out of town. To Berlin, then on a little cross USA trip to Santa Fe, then on toward San Francisco, then an interrupted trip, and I'm home again. Huh? Actually I've been living life alongsideThe German Bride, a novel by Joanna Hershon. I was absolutely lost in this story, living life right beside Eva Frank Schein, and unable to put the book down without reading one more chapter. Did I mention that I was time traveling too? Eva was a young woman in the late 1860s after the Civil War. This was a new time in America, and new experiences were still happening to Eva up until the very end of this excellent tale.
Slumdog Millionaire - I finally saw it! The best movie of the year. I don't have to see any of the others, because this was that good. The story of Jamal Malik, and how his crazy life led him to know the correct answer choices on the Indian version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire? And why can't children watch it? In the Land of Women - A sweet movie about a young presumably successful soft core porn writer who goes to stay with his eccentric grandmother in Michigan and befriends the mother and daughter who live across the street from grandma. It's on On Demand and I recommend it if you want to get lost in a little story.
Superbad - This is really really funny. And really really really inappropriate on every conceivable level that you can't even imagine. But it's really really funny. I laughed through the whole thing, and am a bit embarassed to admit I wanted more where that came from.
So I've sewn this: 
And I'm wearing it right now. The most comfy little brown embellished fleece jacket you can imagine. I put scallops on all the edges and I love it. I'll try to get a photo of the finished garment. Also finished a new fitted table covering for the piece of furniture that is under Pretty Bird's cage. It matches the dining room chairs and looks much improved. The basement clean out has begun. Freecycling and Craigslisting are underway. Yea!
Next up is (imagine a soundtrack of scream music here) this project: 
the back bedroom. How does this happen you ask. Well, this is what happens when you get great fabric from Freecycle, when you chase off to Hancock Fabrics whenever there is a major holiday weekend sale, when you go to Vogue Fabrics and find fab finds in the Remnant Room, and also decide that you are going to sew with better fabric from now on, and so you also buy in the Silk Room, when you save your scraps from upholstery projects because you love the fabric and it was sort of costly, when you think you have to have the fleece so that you can go into business making and selling the fleece bed jackets that you wear as day around the house jackets over sweats in the winter time because sweats aren't warm enough, when Hancocks sells Butterick patterns for 99 cents on those holiday sales, when you've bought new feather pillows, but the old ones are still practically new and fresh and perfectly good to cut up and sew and use as throw pillows, when you have clothes that absolutely must be given away, but you really loved them when you wore them and you didn't wear them enough, and no one will appreciate them the way you did and the way you still misguidedly do, and you have to let them go but over and over again you won't, but now this time they are going OUT THAT DOOR. This is my second favorite room in our house after my office sewing room which has stayed blissfully neat. I will feel so relieved to post an After picture of the back bedroom. Stay tuned!
