February Stuff

Rusty this morning. His hind legs won't bend anymore.

 Hibernation at this time of year seems to fit the bill.  I'm feeling a little overwhelmed right now.

Books I have read or am reading? I couldn't put Magic Hour by Kristin Hannah down. This one is set in the Olympic forest on the Washington State coast.  This winter, I've been gravitating to Pacific Northwest writers.

Teresa got me started on Sara Donati - ordering me to read her books in order. I've checked out all of them except the pesky first one which is checked out by someone else. Shhh....don't tell Teresa, but I started in on her Queen of Swords.
Bill Brysons' new book came up in my library queue so I switched over to Road To Little Dribbling which re-visits his treks around Britain. I'm at the part where he mentions Chertsey and I suck at geography anymore but I'm wondering if that's near  where Benta lives?

It's gray and rainy and windy right now. I brought the sunny weather back to Oregon when we got home from Oahu in January but it only lasted a week. At least we aren't buried alive in frigid snow drifts like the midwest and the east coast. I love Oregon and it's soft seasons. However, dreary takes it's toll.

My 14 year old yellow lab, Rusty, is dying. I've always had to put my other big dogs to sleep because of pain, seizures, and incontinence. I am hoping Rusty will die naturally. It's a delicate balance to watch this which is more difficult than I thought it would be. 

Balancing how much pain he is in, making comfort care  as good as I can make it in his last days with the possibility of too much pain, nausea, not being able to take care of his business. Being humane.

My snowdrops last week

His hind legs don't much work - we have to help him get up. He is able to manage his business by himself. But he isn't eating as much, or when the nausea is a bit too much, not at all.

I've stuck another balance point by giving him one pain pill every 8 hours - which  means they overlap a bit in dulling the pain. He's been eating a bit more and walking a bit more but his care is using a lot of my brain right now - thinking of ways to make him more comfortable.

Valentine plant from my Mom & Dad

I can usually create and sew despite living in my typical chaos. UFO's are UnFinshed Objects. WIPs are Works In Progress. I think I've reached my personal limit because I walk into my sewing room and walk right back out.

Today, I walked in, walked back out, but came back with several ziploc bags. I proceeded to bag up five projects from my sewing table where my machines are.

I hid them in a corner.

I dusted down my table and instantly came up with a pillow project that I finished. Mostly. 

 Rusty always has his ball nearby. 

The ball he 'borrows' from FauxPas - the poodle, three houses away.

After I finished two pillow covers, I found some small stains on the upcycled hobnail bedspread that I had not noticed when cutting them out. I had been focusing on the hobnail pattern and didn't think to look on the other side.

So - a little soaking in the washer was in order. I'll see if the stains 'disappear' or are at least more faint and then pronounce them done.

Back to work tomorrow plus a lovely doctor visit to discuss what else I can be doing for my SIBO auto-immune.

Last summer on the patio

The Dressmaker

My favorite of the same titles

I'm always on the search for good books to read. Sometimes, I only read for 6.7 minutes before zonking out. I do like to read. When I get a good book, it's very difficult to put down and I must finish it. 

Somewhere, I read online that The Dressmaker was good and going to be a movie. I plugged the title into my county library system and found four (4!) books with that title. It turns out that I have yet to read the book that inspired a movie but I did read these four.

* This first one by Alcott is, ummm, bad - don't read it. It starts out promisingly but than needs to be drastically edited down to 34 pages. We get to re-live the sinking of the Titanic and the cliched Unsinkable Molly Brown for a while before we finally land in New York. Maybe one page {all together}  was actually about sewing.

*** This one by Elizabeth Oberbeck was interesting. About a small town talented tailor who finds his muse in a younger woman who comes to him to design her wedding gown. And their little romance. Some sewing. A little unexpected story twist - not what you would predict.

**** This title by Posie Graeme-Evans was a great romantic with a little thriller mixed in. How our dressmaker grew up poor, her father the rector, dies, her mother has long-lost RICH relatives who have problems of their own. Then she and her mom flee, find succor with an acquaintance, then the friend's son has a plot of his own. She marries him, has a baby, discovers somehow, overnight, she is the dressmaker to the rich and famous. I liked this one. The story flowed predictably and had a lot of sewing stuff inside. 

***** This one by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon was my favorite. I could not put it down. It tells a story of Afghanistan when the Taliban took over and women were forced to stay inside their home unless a male relative could escort them grocery shopping. When women were forced to wear the chador - completely covered up. All the men were off fighting and women had little means to support their families. They were not allowed to work.

This story tells of a very young gal who manages to find a way to earn money by sewing clothes for the clothing stores. Her entire family helps out as well as relatives. Her dad and older brother were forced to flee to avoid Taliban retribution. This gal came up with several business ideas to support not just her family but others as well. Lots of sewing.

A few years back, I was involved in a soldiers scheme of helping out Afghanistani and Iraqi women by sending over bundles of sewing supplies. The idea was to provide women with something of usefulness from the American's in order to turn the tide on the war.

This book was an extension of that aid and the resiliency of women to figure out ways to survive.


My library system doesn't have the Rosalie Ham version, The Dressmaker, yet.
I can see if Minnesota public library has it. I have my sister's library card #.  That's the secret of my kindle success. Oregon has very few e-books and only lets you check out six at a time. Minnesota lets you check out 50 (I dare you!) and has the most current titles and best-sellers.

I really enjoy the Kindle on trips but at home, I like turning pages in real books. Looking back a few pages when I get the plot confused, dog-earing the page to mark a recipe.

Right now I am finishing up Jenny Lawson's  Furiously Happy . I read her first one: Let's Pretend This Never Happened a week ago. Her journey through mental illness - she is a hysterically funny writer. Apparently, she writes a big-time blog. Her books contains some of her blog stories.