Is it to late to catch up?

Wow over two years and so much has happened.  I find I have two blog sites that have sat idle, so if I write something probably no one will ever see it but me.  I have been using this one to just post my monthly column on.  I may try to do that again.

In the mean time I have closed my book store down.  I liquidated all my books and tore out all the center book cases.  The shop has been converted into my private weaving studio.  It is up in the air now if I will even keep the business that evolved from my book store.  I took the name Weaver Birds Rugs.  I based the name on the little weaverbird that weaves an intricate  nest. I have taught quite a few folks to weave,  I have bought and sold several looms and now have become a fabric/yarn hoarder.  I do try to be organized but realize that I probably will never be able to weave all the materials that I have on hand.  I have mostly done my local farmers market for an outlet for my many rugs, runners, mug rugs, and bags that I make.

In the last two years a lot has happened to me in my personal life that has made it hard for me to find time to keep up, but I love my little studio.  I like to call it my She Shed.

For now I will post the column that I write for a little local paper monthly for Feb.  Maybe I can keep up each month and write a bit here and attach my column.

Feb column

As I write this on Ground Hogs Day, I am hearing that no shadow was seen so spring will be here soon. I look forward to that, even though I can't complain about our winter when you see what the rest of the country has had to deal with. I am preparing for some down time probably till spring as I am having some surgery on my hands. I say hands because if my left one is successful I hope to do the right one. It is a small bone that sits at the base of my thumb that will be removed, as my longer thumb bone is grinding away on it and I finally said enough is enough. Wish me luck.

My winter event that I always look forward to at Stella for the Eagle watch day, a week ago was a success. It was a beautiful day for all those who gathered in this tiny town to view the eagles and photograph them. A great learning experience for the kids too. I am fortunate to be asked back each year to set up in the FEMA building where they have their annual quilt judging. I love meeting folks from all over and many go home with my hand woven rugs.

My stack of books I have finished is piling up so thought I better get busy and report on a few. So many books, so little time.

Two Rivers

by

T. Greenwood

I definitely marked this author down on my list to see what's available at the library. I Liked it very much. The main character, Harper is a man who carries such a sense of guilt from an incident from 12 years in the past. The story line goes back to that time, giving you bits and pieces, and then back to his presence of 1980. It is quite clear that he is not only haunted by this tragedy but also still grieving for his wife, who died in childbirth. It seemed that everlasting happiness was always just out of his grasp. He ends up devoted to a 12 year old daughter and working in the same small town he grew up in, and mired in his grief. A big train wreck in Two Rivers, brings a young pregnant black girl into his life, as she begged shelter he is somehow feels that by helping her he can make amends for his past mistakes. Soon he begins to suspect that this girl, Maggie is not a simple case of happenstance as it first seemed. Harper lives in fear of what she may know about his involvement in a murder 12 years in his past. In the end what he suspects her motives are gets turned on its ear and it has one of the best endings I think I have ever read. If the library has this book please check it out.

Tumbleweeds

by

Liela Meacham

I found Meacham to tell a tale that kept me wanting to read more. The main character is Cathy Benson who becomes an eleven year old orphan when her parents die. She has led a very privileged life in California, was very popular and destined to attend the best college. She is forced to leave this luxury life to live with an aunt in a small town in the Texas Panhandle. Her aunt is smart enough to know that Cathy will have a hard time adjusting so she enlists a couple young inspiring foot ball players who are her classmates to befriend her. John and Trey both have histories of being orphaned in different ways. With this common bond the book follows this trio thru school and as no surprise into a love triangle that will shape the rest of their lives. Thru tragic events they are torn apart and then later reunited when they are forty years old. With many twists and turns to the plot I found this to be a very good read.

Out of the Dark

by Sharon Sala

I have carried many of Sala's books over the years in my book store and was told she was a good author but I just never got around to reading her. I saved several when I liquidated my books and am glad i did as she is a good author and I hope to read a few more of hers. Here are two that I read back to back. In doing research on her other books I found that she writes under the name Dinah McCall also.

Out of the Dark is about Jade who was stolen by her own mother when she was a small child. This was during the Hippy Era and her mother had taken up with a cult group. Later her mother dies and Jade endures years of horrible treatment and abuse by the cult members who control her. She finally escapes and lives on the run, in fear that they will find her. She lives on the street with another young boy who escaped with her and they survive by selling her art. In the mean time her father Sam has never stopped searching for his daughter. His first clue to find her was a painting of her mother that a friend of Sam bought while on vacation. Ultimately he is finally able to find her and takes both her and her young friend to live with him in New York. Just when she starts to feel safe, a news paper carries her story and picture in the paper and the cult will be able to find her. Good ending, just leaving it at that

September column

Got Fiber Daze on my mind! Our Fiber Guild puts on this event every year so if you love any kind of fibery stuff then mark your calendar for Sept. 16^th and 17^th. It is in Mt Vernon at the Marc Center. Admission is free to come in to look and shop for your knitting, crocheting, spinning or weaving projects. There is still time to sign up for a class or two. We have quite a wide variety of classes. Check them out on our website: fiberfolksofswmo.com Then just click on Fiber Daze.

When someone tells me that a certain book is the best one they ever read, I usually pay attention and I put that book in my stack to read. This book has been on my self in the shop for a long time, I was looking for something different to read so I picked up and read it this month. It is quite different and quite unique.

The Shipping News

by

E. Annie Proulx

You have to feel sorry for Quoyle as he appears to be a big clumsy man who has had the short end of the stick his whole life. But for all his short comings he has a good heart and seems to find the good. He falls in love with a woman who has no intention of being a wife and mother. She is killed in a car accident and leaves him with two young daughters to raise. He is a loving father and in his grief he hooks up with an aunt and moves to the bitter cold island of Newfoundland, Canada. This is the area where their ancestors lived and the aunt reclaims an old house for them to fix up to live in. Quoyle has somehow fallen into the newspaper business even though he isn't very good at it. In the end he learns the business, has many misadventures and finds a love in an unexpected person. The story seems a simple one, but so well put together that you shiver with the cold. I did feel rather lost in much of the terminology for the ships, harbors, coves, and food. Now I did not find it to be the best book I ever read, but I did enjoy it very much.

The 13^th Hour

by

Richard Doetsch

Have you ever thought of reading a book backwards? I ran across this one recently that caught my eye. The first chapter is the last one and the book ends up on chapter one. Well I said to myself, this sounds like my kind of book so I had to start reading. It seems that this guy Nick Quinn finds himself being held in jail for the murder of his beloved wife. The evidence is very incriminating. In walks a strange man who gives him a letter and a beautiful pocket watch. Then left alone, Nick reads the letter and grasping at straws he follows the instructions. He is in possession of a watch that will take him back two hours to relive the past hour. Each time he makes the jump back in time though he changes things and ends up seeing his wife die again and his best friend also. Then there is the plane crash that happened at the same time with 212 people on board that die because the bad guy he is chasing escapes in a plane that plows into the big jet. This is an action packed book with many twists and turns and Nick tries to stop the person who will murder his wife and his own life is held in the balance. Quite an interesting book.

The Forgetting Time

by

Sharon Guskin

I really like books that make you think outside the box. What if we really do live many lives and what do we ever find as proof. This is a story of Noah, the young son of a single Mom who has had a struggle with him since a toddler. He is terrified of water, and at bed time cries for his Mama, and wants to “go home” Also as he gets older has night terrors. After exhausting medical, and psychology visits a Dr. finally says this four year old may have schizophrenia and wants to medicate him. Just not able to believe this diagnosis she finds an article by Jerome Anderson who is a professor of psychology and has spent his life in research about life after death. The problem is that Jerome now has a major health issue and is loosing a portion of his brain that deals with speech and it will eventually end his life as it progresses. So they end up finding each other and find out details from Noah that lead them to solving a huge mystery for two families and in the end for Jerome. This is a really good book even if you do not believe in reincarnation.

Thought for the day: Our life is frittered away by detail....Simplify, Simplify. By Henry David Thoreau

August column

It seems that by the end of each month when I start writing this column, I seem to look back and wonder where the past month has gone. July has been not only hot but very busy. My new sign on my shop door now says: Open: Tue. Maybe, Wed. Maybe, Friday Probably That is just the way it is. I am always glad to have someone walk in and find me open.

I am ready to spend a weekend at Fiber Folks of SW Mo. Weaving retreat in mid Aug. Going to learn some fancy pattern weaving and use of colors, and spend some time with come great people. I actually have read a lot of books lately, but feel that I have reported enough on the Harlan Coban novels. I think I have read about 13 of them in all. This month I will report on a couple of my favorite authors, that I can always count on for great reads.

Over a year ago I promised myself that I would re-read the Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series before I read the 8^th book. I finally did get them all read and have now finished the 8^th book. I understand that she plans to write at least two more in this series but it takes her about three years to complete one book. So now I look forward to the next one. Since the first book was made into a mini series on TV this last year there are many fans of her books. When I finished this last one I felt like I was saying “so long” to old friends and cant wait to meet them again soon.

Written in My Own Heart's Blood

by

Diana Gabaldon

This book picks up from the previous book An Echo in the Bone. The general story is about a combat nurse, Claire, in 1946, steps thru these stone in Scotland and finds herself in 1743. The first 7 books account her adventures, loves, and losses. This book finds her and Jamie in America in 1776 and being drawn into the battles that establish our independence from Great Britain. Many of the key players in the prev books seem drawn together at last and manage to work out some major issues. The story goes back to 1980 as Brianna (their daughter) is having her struggles as she and her families deal with problems in their home in Scotland and they are forced to go back thru the stones again, as they believe another time traveler has kidnapped their small son and taken him back thru the stones.

Ashley Bell

by

Dean Koontz

This is a new book by Koontz written in 2015. As with many books by Koontz the bizarre becomes the expected. A young woman named Bibi Blair is an aspiring author, engaged to a military guy serving over seas. She is very fierce and funny at the same time. When she suddenly developed stroke like symptoms she knew something was seriously wrong. It was the worse news possible, a brain cancer that is incurable and she is given less than a year to live. She smiled at the Dr. and said “we will see”

That night in the hospital she is visited by a mysterious man and a golden retriever who licked her hand. She woke up and felt totally well. Her parents are so thrilled they set her up with a massage treatment that also has some mystical tricks that leave her feeling like she is in another world and she know she must save Ashley Bell or her “cure” would be taken back. So the reader is taken on a wild ride with many twists and turns to find Ashley Bell before it is to late. I won't spoil it by revealing to much, but you know you have fallen in Koontz land for sure.

July column

I have become a SomeTime shop keeper. You will only find me in my Weaving Studio/Book Store some times. The month of June was very sketchy due to health issues and a fun get away to Iowa for a few days. My back is letting me down which makes me very sad because otherwise I feel very healthy. Sciatic pain is not for sissies for sure. So my goal is to seek the safest treatment and take care of myself. Again if my flag and sign is out, come on in. I still have books around the wall and they are still half price.

My fiber guild is gearing up for our big September event. It promises to be bigger and better this year. I will be teaching a class called Get Your Warp On. So check out this Web site.

Fiber Daze 2016 is a weekend filled with classes, vendors, and fun related to all types of wool and fiber craft. Whether you knit, crochet, weave or just want to learn we will have something for you. Please check out our list of classes, vendors, speakers and activities on our website http://www.fiberfolksofswmo.com/fiber-daze.html Registration is open now and classes fill up quickly!

Since I have spent so much time "taking care of myself" I have read several books this month. In fact I wont review but one or two of them. I did get hooked on all books by Harlen Coben and after exhausting all I had in my shop, I have now checked out four from the library. Each one is different with new characters and plots (except for the Myron Bolitar series). The setting of all his books is the New Jersey and New York area. I like seeing a few characters carry over from one book to another.

The Woods

by

Harlan Coben

The first paragraph grabs you: I see my Father with that shovel. There are tears streaming down his face. An awful, guttural sob forces its way up from deep in his lungs and out through his lips. He raises the shovel up and strikes the ground. The blade rips into the earth like its wet flesh.

Wow, couldn't put it down after that, could I. Paul Copeland is a county prosecutor and his sister walked into the woods 20 years ago and was never seen again. He is trying a case that ends up being linked to his sister's disapearance, could he finally find answers and if so will it tear apart everything he holds dear. A very good book and as I said before, I became a big Coben fan and have not been disapointed with a single book. He just gets better and better.

The Seventh Unicorn 

                                                                                    by

Kelly Jones

What a great book and great read. I even found it educational to boot. Alex Pellier is curator of the Cluny Museum in Paris. She is very passionate about her job and is an expert in medieval tapestries. She is especially drawn to a set called the Lady and the Unicorn series. She steps into a mystery when a nun invites her to an old convent, that is being shut down, to look at some old items for her museum. The nun can see that Alex is special and shows her a tapestry that was found in the wall when workers had started demolition. Could this be the seventh in the series? Alex ends up hiding the tapestry and working with the local Bishop to get it on auction to raise money to help keep the convent open so that the aging nuns will be able to stay. There is mystery and romance involved. I really enjoyed this book.

Altar of Bones

by

Philip Carter

The cover of this book has a comment by Greg Iles (another favorite author of mine) "Dan Brown meets Robert Ludlum....Gripping, Incredibly fast-paced". And yes I did find this book to be exactly that. This is an international thriller. Some day I will need to read this one again. The Altar of Bones is a legend that came from the Siberian frozen terrain a century old and finds its way to Paris. There are guardians of this religiou icon even though the ones trying to find it and capture its power don't even know what it looks like. With people from Hollywood to the KGB to the US government, the secret is allusive. Quite an action packed book. As you may know I always like to find serendipity in things. I read these last two books back to back. I was surprised to find reference in this book to the Cluny Museum and the Unicorn Tapestries.

June 2016 column

Maybe I have been doing to much bird watching lately. It seems like a soap opra playing out as I watch a pair of robins nurturing their two babies. They nested in an evergreen just off my front porch, and probably same pair from last year. The babies have been out of the nest for over a week but still follow the parents around begging to be fed. Yesterday a hawk hit the tree where Mom was feeding a young one, and took off with a bird in its talons. I assumed it was baby bird, but this morning I see both of them in the lawn again with Momma. I must be getting old when I find so much intertainment in watching birds pull worms out of the ground. Oh, then this morning another bird hit my picture window and didn't survive. Don't know what kind it was. Must be tough being a bird.

Neosho Farmers Market is doing very well. 15 Vendors each week so far and more to come as produce matures. Such a wide variety of things to buy. I bought a box of snap peas and ate several while I was weaving. Also took home some cinnamon rolls. I have heard some say that things are too expensive at a farmers market. Well let me tell you, these people put in many hours of hard work to get these fresh vegetables to that table. The bakers are up in wee hours baking so everything is fresh. Did I mention that all the food vendors are certified now in our market. They took time to attend classes in food handling and this all adds up to bringing the best produce to the market. So yes, it may cost more that what you get from Walmart, which has been shipped across the country and stored in boxes and sold in such bulk so that they make a few cents on a pkg. So please support these hard working folks who live in our community and are doing what they love.

I love to find an author that I have never read and find that their books have been on my shop shelf for years and I just "discovered" them. Harlen Coben is my feature author this month. He is like Evanovich on Testosterone! I am on my fourth book and really have a hard time putting them down. He did a series of books with Myron Bolitar as the main character. Myron is a sports agent and so much more. There is a lot of sports talk in his books, but not so much as to put you off if you don't really care about sports. He was a big time basketball player in his prime when an injury took it all away. He recovered, went to law school, worked for the FBI for awhile, then opened his Sports agency. He has a colorful group of associates and you just have to love them all. His best pal is a wealthy whimpy looking guy named Win, who reminds you of Bruce Wayne with his Batman, (Myron). Both guys are masters in martial arts and seem to always trying to save the good guy. The Bolitar books are so outragious with their the dry humor, yet the mystery line just keeps you hooked, and you never see the ending till it hits you.

Deal Breaker

by Harlan Coben

This was the first novel featuring Myron Bolitar, a 30 something single guy, still living in his parents basement, but leading a very successful life, with a gorgeous girlfriend, a growing sports agency and a tendency to try to save the innocent. Mryon has just landed a a deal with Christian Steele, a rookie quarterback, when Christian gets a phone call from his assumed-to-be-dead fiance. Then the mob gets involved and try to stop Myron from snooping. So is she dead or not? The plot is always believable and his associates make for very interesting reading. The book has romance, intrigue, murder, and enough humor to keep you guessing till the end.

Drop Shot

by Harlan Coben

This book deals with Myron's work with tennis players. There is of course murder, this time of a young female tennis champ who's career has been on major slide.. Another young black player who is on his way to the top has enough connections to the case to make Mryon worry and he is the agent for Duanne. Always wanting to correct wrongs Myron gets it sorted out and Win as usual adds the spice.

Promise Me

by Harlan Coben

This book was the eight book in the Bolitar series, so Myron has matured some and has a new love interest. He over hears two teen age daughters of some friends of his talking about riding with someone who was drunk. On the spur of the moment he talkes to them and makes them promise him that they will call him no matter what time to give them a ride if they are ever in that situation and he will take them home with no questions asked or any reporting to parents. He only wants them to be safe. Later one of the girls does call him but wants dropped at a girlfriends house and then she disappears. This is one of the better books Coben has done with this charactor as there is still the dry humor but the action and mystery is more believable. There is much less sports as Myron has taken up being an agent to movie stars and his colorful associate has taken over the sports part. When he gets on one of his “unofficial” cases he is like a bulldog. A great story with a big surprise ending.

May column

Yeah, its May! Think Farmers Market and fresh produce! Starts Sat. May 7th in Neosho, across from the library, 9 Am to Noon. Bigger and better this year. I plan to be there every other week this summer with my WeaverBirds Rugs.

I want to give a shout out to a new little book store in Neosho. It is called Agape Books and Gifts. It is on the west side of the blvd just down from Arvest bank. They specialize in Home Schooling books but also have good reading for anyone. They just opened and plan to have gift items for sale too. They just may have a few of my weaving items in there soon. So be sure to check them out.

I would also like to thank the Granby police dept for their kind help in locating my daughter after she had been in an auto accident and no one knew where she was. A great job and greatly appreciated.

I only have time to review one book this month, although I have read a couple more of J.D Robbs mystery books. Maybe my next month I will have a really good read to report on.

A Map of the World

by

Jane Hamilton

Wow, I started this book with no real idea what it was about. The cover only gave glowing reviews about it and about Hamilton's writing style. New York Times said: "A nimble job of showing us how precarious the illusion of safety and security really is." I found that the book did exactly that.

When I report on a book I have a very hard time trying to decide how much of the story to tell without spoiling it for someone who might want to read it. I decided on this one I had to tell the story and of course there is so much more to it than I could give away here.

It starts out in the voice of Alice. A young mother of two daughters. She is rather a dreamer and her husband now has life time dream of his own dairy herd and 400 acres to farm. They invested all they had to buy a run down old farm with a beautiful dairy barn. Alice is a school nurse and in summer time she shares days of caring for her best friends two little girls. On one morning of rushing around to collect herself and girls, the friend drops her girls off and Alice is distracted for a few minutes before realizing that the friends two year old daughter is missing. She finds her in the pond and in the end the child dies. Alice is in such dispare over the incident that when the police come to their farm to arrest her she assumes its for this event. She has been in a deep depression for weeks. It turns out the charges are for child molestation from a 6 year old boy from school. The judge sets the bail so high that husband can't make it. She spends 3 months in the county jail, awaiting trial.

The second part of the book is in the voice of the husband, Howard. He is a little bit of a dreamer too and was a loner til he met Alice. I would call him a deep thinker. When his wife is arrested he finds himself with two little girls to manage, plus managing the farm and milking twice a day. The summer is in a drought so his crops are struggling too. He is desperate to get his wife home, partly because he can't believe she molested a child and he needs her at home too. The girls are lost, angry, and confused. He finds he has to drive 20 miles away to buy groceries. People stare and community has been whipped into frenzy and more children come foreward. Three months later Howard finally has to sell the farm and his beloved dairy herd. He has loved the old farm house because of its history even though it is falling down. He moves the girls into a town farther away, an apartment with no yard. With the money from the sale of all he has, he gets his wife bailed out. It takes a couple more months for the trial.

This is where the voice changes to Alice and she is telling what it is like to live in the jail, where she is beaten. She has about given up and has accepted that she may likely spend her life in prison. She talks about this little boy and how she really hated to see him come into her nurse office. He was obviously so neglected and acted so strange, cursing and refusing to co-operate. By trial time the other children have dropped charges and her attorney has proof that even though the specialists say he has been sexually abused, the abuse was not at the hands of Alice.

So spoiler alert, Alice is found innocent. But her life and that of her family has been forever changed. Howard will no longer farm. His dream is dead. Alice is a changed person. She has lost her best friend. But she has the compassion to see that no one won, even the little boy who accused her of molesting him. So the take away is that life happens and things can take wrong turns even though you may not "deserve" the outcome. So the New York Times is right about "how precarious the illusion of safety and security really is".

April 2016 column

If you read my column last month you might have thought I was losing it. Sorry for my first statement not being very clear. The secretarial position that I did not run for this year was for the Fiber Guild that I have been a part of for the last 5 years. Now I feel better to have that cleared up. And speaking of the Fiber Guild, we are up and running to make our September Fiber Daze event in Mt Vernon be better than ever this year. The guild has grown leaps and bounds this last year and we have so much talent within the guild that it boggles the mind. Our two day event has become the highlight of the year for us. It takes many people to work together to put an event like this on. So I will be reporting much more later on this. I will say that if you want to be a vendor or teach a class the applications are on line now and the deadline is April 15. Website is: fiberfolksofswmo.com then click on Fiber Daze and you can go to the applications.

I am also excited to report that the Neosho Farmers Market is getting geared up to start the first Saturday of May. We hope to have even more vendors than last year and some new surprises for folks. I am looking forward to this weekly event right here in our own back yard, so to speak. The booths will be full of home grown produce or hand made items. Our location will be the same as last year, right across from the library, just a block off the square.

Books, books, books. Have decided to continue to sell my books at half price, since I am only in the shop a couple days a week now. It is working out well to be able to go in when I have time or just need to get a way and weave a couple rugs. Classes are still available to learn to weave.

I have read a mix of books this past month. So here are my picks

Odyssey

by

Jack McDevitt

It has been a long time since I read a science fiction novel. This one caught my eye, yes, I like pretty covers. The setting is in the future around 2235. We have the caustic journalist, McAllister, and Hutch who is head of the Acadamy, a space flight organization. It also centers around a Senator's 15 year old daughter Amy, who wants to be a pilot one day and also one of the Acadamy's top pilots, Valya. They are on a rountine space flight to place monitors in locations in other solar systems to try to gather information on the Moonriders, (UFO's). But it seems that a dangerous hoax is being played out by someone to scare the public into putting more funding into interstellar research. Lives are put at risk, and some lost, but it all works out in the end. Oh, and the Moonriders are real and very dangerous in a way that no one could imagine. I think I might like to read another of McDevitt's books as it is interesting to think of what the far future might hold for us.

Remember When

by

Nora Roberts/ J.D. Robb

Before you groan,”no, Not Nora Roberts”, I will have to say that several people have tried to get me to read this series of books by J.D. Robb, AKA Nora Roberts. Roberts has written so many books over the years that they sort of blur to me. But she turned suspense writer under her psudoneum of Robb. This book is acuually two books in one. The first one telling the story of Laine who is owner of a store called Remember When. She buys and sells unique antiques and gift items, and has made a nice home in a small community in the mountains of the Maryland. When a stranger is hit by a car in front of her shop and dies in her arms, her tidy little world starts to fall down around her. She is really the daughter of a small time con man whom she hasn't seen for many years. The stranger turns out to be a good friend of her father who was like her uncle when she was a child. As he dies he tries to tell her something and she realizes who he is. Along comes Max and when he meets Laine the sparks fly. He is a hired PI, trying to locate millions of dollors worth of stolen diamonds. Things get complicated and heated, but in the end by working together they find most of them and in the process uncover Laine's true identity. A realy good romance story that I did enjoy. Then in the second half of the book we change over to J.D. Robb writing in her futuristic suspence, jumping 50 years into the future and Laine and Max are senior citizens by now. The story is about their grand daughter, Samantha living in New York City and the mystery of the remaining diamonds is back. NYPD Lieutenant Eve Dallas is the head of the investigation of the murder of two women with close ties to Samantha. We find the focus of the book now on Eve and her husband Roarke who happens to be wealthy and manages to help her with her cases. It was interesting to see how Robb describes how the future might look in every day things, like transportation, politics, foods, robots, ect.

Since 1995 when the “In Death” series with Eve Dallas was started, to now there are 53 books in this series. Makes you wonder how someone can keep turning out books at this rate.

From WeaverBirds Rugs, formerly Read Again Books