New life for old stool

Had to share my little creation!  It is a stool that I bought last summer at a garage sale for 2$.  It is solid wood.  Put casters on the "top" making it the bottom, then little boards for shelves and my Watermelen pink paint.  Found the metal top at the Dollar store.  It all works perfect for me to display my table runners that I weave and a few mug rugs.  If I get bored can always find someone to play chinese checkers with me on the table top.


April column



I want to remind my readers that I still have some books by local authors. I have several books written by Randy Turner about the Joplin tornado. I also have several copies of High Grade, a novel by D Lincoln Jones who was born in Granby and grew up in Neosho. He is working on a sequel that I am looking forward to.

Sometimes people come into my store with a book in hand and tell me I just must read this book because they enjoyed it so much. Guess this is just the way it is with people who love to read, we just can't help but want others to find as much joy in reading it as we did.

A book by Barbara Kingsolver is what was shared with me. I read two of her books a couple years ago and reported on them. When I found out the newer book was actually a sequel to an older one I was excited to read it. So I will do a quick review of that first book then follow with this newer one.

The Bean Trees

by

Barbara Kingsolver

A young woman, Taylor, has decided to leave her poor area in Kentucky, sure that there is a better world waiting for her. Her friends are getting married and having babies and she wants none of that. So she takes off in a beat up Volkswagen and ends up in New Mexico where it breaks down next to a tire shop called Jesus Is Lord Used Tires. The woman there takes her in. Ends up this business is a sanctuary for Central American refugees. I forgot to mention that along the way in Oklahoma a woman came up to her car and gave her a 3 year old little girl to save her from the abuse she has endured. The rest of the story is very engaging as she struggles with being a “mother”, makes friends, and learns how new families can be born without giving up the old.

Pigs in Heaven

by

Barbara Kingsolver

This story starts out with Turtle, who is now 6 years old on vacation with her mother Taylor. They are at the Hoover Dam and she is the only one who sees a man fall down a big hole near the dam. You realize right away that there is a very special bond between Mother and daughter. Turtle got her name because of the way she latched on to Taylor when she was 3 years old. The girls aunt just gave her to Taylor in a parking lot in Oklahoma then vanished. Taylor never knew where she came from but was sure she was an Indian child. Through Turtles insistence they find someone to check out this pit and the man is rescued. As a result they become celebrities and a young Cherokee attorney sees them on TV and sets out to find them and reclaim this child who is obviously a “lost” Cherokee who should be returned to tribal family. After meeting with the attorney, Taylor flees to protect her daughter as she knows the emotional damage that will happen if Turtle is taken from her. I love the way the story winds and weaves the lives of Taylor, Turtle, a boyfriend, Taylors mother, and an old Cherokee man who finds his way into their hearts. A terrific ending and I highly recommend Kingsolver books.

Out Stealing Horses

by

Per Petterson

This book was written in Norway and translated for United States publishing. I really liked Petterson's style of writing. It starts out with 67 year old Trond Sanders, who has found a little cottage on a river to live out his life in peace and reflection. He remembers back to 1948 as a young 14 year old growing up along the Norway/Sweden border. His thoughts and feelings as a youth spending summers with his father in a cabin much like the one he has, come back to him with such clarity, then he meets his elderly neighbor and his identity makes him relive the event of that one summer when a new friend. took him out to steal horses. Actually they just pretended to steal them by being stealthy and getting on the horses and riding them across the horse lot. His friend has acted strange all day and later he learns that on the previous day his friend had left a loaded gun in the house and one of his younger brothers picked it up and accidentally killed his twin brother. Trond remembers back to conversations with a friend of his father, who reveals that his father was active in smuggling information during the war. All the lines of this story weave together in the end for an emotional ending that I didn't see coming.

March newspaper column



I wanted to give part of my space this month to this organization. A member gave me this info so I am putting it in exactly as it came to me and I feel it is a very worth while to educate the public about.

Faithful Friends Animal Advocates Inc.is a non profit organization that cares for and finds homes for abandoned and neglected animals in Newton and McDonald Counties. It was started 5 years ago when concerned friends came together, seeing a need for an animal shelter, after the city of Neosho closed it’s animal shelter and sold all animal control products. Organizers decided to build a no-kill shelter in Neosho. After 5 years of fund raising, the new FFAA shelter will hopefully open in May 2014. At this time rescued pets are fostered in homes of caring individuals. There is always a need for more foster homes. If you can help, please call 417-592-2512 or submit an application to foster on the website ffaaneosho.org  FFAA publishes a quarterly newsletter. If you would like to receive one, please submit your name and address information or request via email on line.

Fund raising is a constant need, with the next big event the Second Annual FFAA Spirit Triathlon March 29 2014. Volunteers are still needed to help the morning of the triathlon. Details for triathlon registration and volunteering are available on the FFAA website.

In January, 31 puppies were rescued, along with several adult dogs and cats. Animal adoption days are planned for the first and third weekends of each month, weather permitting. Adoption days are held at Joplin Petsmart, or at the new thrift store. Faithful Friends Animal Advocates opened a thrift store in Neosho, located at 915 W. Harmony Street Suite A-2 telephone # 417-454-4555. Hours of operation are Monday -Friday 10:00-6:00; Saturday 10:00-4:00 and Sunday 1:00-4:00. Donations are welcome at the back of the store M-F 10:00 - 3:00  and Saturdays 10:00-1:00. Please note some items can not be donated, there is a list on the website.

As for the books I have been reading: I guess I am becoming a mystery reader now.

No Time for Goodbye

by

Linwood Barclay

What would you do if you woke up one morning and your house is empty with no trace of your family?

Now imagine you are a 14 year old girl. That was the opening setting for this book. Cynthia woke up with her mother, father, and older brother gone. There was absolutely no evidence of foul play, no note, no goodbye, they had just vanished along with the 2 family cars. The story moves forward to 25 years later when things unravel finally and she starts to learn the truth.
She has started to think she and her daughter are being followed and someone is watching the house. Her patient husband is coming to the end of his rope as he sees his wife coming undone. A clue is that she learns that her father as she knew him never existed as he was leading a double life. A really good mystery with her husband taking a lead role in solving it when the police are unable to.

Never Look Away

by

Linwood Barclay

Another story about the disappearance of a family member that turned out to not be the person that David thought he married and had a son with. David is a small town reporter and when his wife vanishes, as he “looked away” at an amusement park. He becomes the suspect as far as the police can see, as his story just doesn't add up to the facts they have. He ends up finding out that his wife has established a false identification by being his wife as she hid out till the time was right to claim her share of some big money. But the house of cards starts falling apart and in the end a mothers love shines long enough for her to save her son.

The Magdalen

by

Marita Conlon-McKenna

This was a much different pace from the previous mysteries. The setting is in Ireland in the 1950's.

A young girl falls in love with a handsome young man who is new to the coastal fishing town. She ends up pregnant then finds he doesn't want her as he has ambitions to marry an older woman so he can gain control of her farm. Esther's family is ashamed of her and must hide this sin. She is sent to a convent that takes care of unwed mothers and other women of the time who are not able to take care of themselves. This convent is called the Holy Saints Convent and is Dublin. They manage a huge laundry business called the Magdalen Laundry. It was named this because they saw the women they had in their charge as fallen women and they worked long hard hours doing laundry as a punishment as well as a way to have a place to live. The book gives you a look into what it would have been like back in the 50's and the total dependence that women had to be taken care of. If they didn't own property, own a business, or have a husband they were pretty much outcasts. And one small sin on this girls part would make her an outcast even to her own family. Through her months of labors in this laundry she learns she has an inner strength that she will need to stand on her own two feet. She will find a way to learn how to take care of herself and break from the bonds of society and the Church.

February Newspaper column



Brrrr! Crazy weather we have been having. My brother in North Carolina has had very cold weather and snow there. He likes to brag that he left the midwest so he wouldn't have to shovel snow. Well hope he didn't get caught without a shovel.

I have been a member of Friends of the Neosho Newton County Library for over a year, and finally started going to the meetings and meeting folks. What a nice bunch of people and they really do some good work to help the library meet the needs of the community for things that the library can't afford. A couple fund raisers are in the works. One being the nice book bags that are for sale in the library for only 3$. I will carry a few in my book store to sell for them, so stop in and buy a bag, even buy a book or two to put in it. Second being their book sale which has grown to twice a year now. It will be coming up soon and at such good prices so mark your calendar: March 13,14,and 15^th, during library hours. I have applications if anyone is interested in joining or just making a donation.

I have read quite a variety of books this month, from a classic, to a thriller and finally a good fiction by an author that I reported on a couple months ago.

The Pearl

by

John Steinbeck

I have wanted to read this little book for some time, along with more of Steinbeck's books. It is a very simple book of love and greed. This simple fisherman and his family live a very meager existence on the fringe of society. His greatest hope is to find the one Pearl of the World. When he does find the pearl he starts dreaming of how he can better his family with new cloths and be able to send his son to school. The townspeople find out he has the pearl and take advantage of him, trying to steal it when he won't sell it cheap. In the end he is a fugitive and looses what is most important to him due to the greed it made him feel, so the pearl was worthless to him. A great classic that is timeless.

The Vision

by

Dean Koontz

This book found its way into my store recently and was published in 2012, with a nice new cover. At first I thought it was a new book, but as I started reading it I was remembering the events, so looked again and found it was originally written in 1977 and was one of his first books published and yes I had read it a long time ago. I re-read the book and couldn't remember “who done it” till the last chapter. I do have to admit Koontz was laying the plot out to make the husband appear to be the crazed psychopath. It did turn out to be someone close to her and they were after her next. A pretty good read but it didn't have his usual twist of humor that I like. It was a little on the dark side and I think he has definitely improved with age. He even admits in his afterward that is was written when he was young and stupid.

The Invisible Ones

by

Stef Penny

I reported on another book by this author recently, Tenderness of Wolves. I ended up ordering this second book by Penny and I have to say it was my best read in a long time. The setting is in the 50's in

England and is about a private detective, Ray waking up in a hospital bed after being poisoned and he is remembering what lead him there. He had been hired to find Rose, an estranged daughter of a Gypsy family, because he was half Gypsy so would understand their culture. The family that Rose was married into has a curse hanging over their head and possibly some sinister secrets so it is very difficult for Ray to gain their trust to find out what happened to Rose, who has been missing for 6 years. With many twists and turns as the story is told in the voice of Ray and of a young boy named JJ who is part of the Gypsy family. I like the way that Penny draws her characters together then sorts them out to reveal the truth in the end. I found this to be a very good read as I enjoy learning about how other cultures live.

Dorothy Cliff is the owner of Read Again Books

Circular weaving: Tote bags

I wanted to share in pictures my experience last summer in making tote bags/purses on my table top loom, using a circular weave so that the bag was made on the loom, weaving front and back as I went.
The set up is for regular tabby weave as you have to do the tabby weave to start with for a few throws to close the bottom.

I don't have the weaving sequence with me at the moment for the weaving of the body. but here is what it looks like from the side.

When you get the bag as long as you want you have to continue with this pattern for a border and filler so that you can take it off the loom and still have it open.  Follow me?? 
Here is a couple pictures of finished bag.

The last one is the finished bag with lining and pocket inside, then I went on line and learned how to braid the same fabric that I wove the bag into a strap.
I made about 10 bags to sell but haven't sold any yet.  I will wait for a better venue for selling as there is alot of work in one and sure can't sell them for 10$. 

My little thought for the day:
"People will generally accept facts as truth only if the facts agree with what they already believe."---Andy Rooney


Happy New Year

Attached is my column for January for the newspaper.  I think I have bored all my readers away with only posting my column on this site for several months now.  My New Years Resolution (besides drinking more water) is to write more for both my blogs and if no one reads them, then thats OK too.



HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I still haven't read the Hobbit, but it is on top of my to read stack so perhaps I will get to it this month. I have been making a lot of lint at my book store this past month, catching up on sewing “rag” strips, to make into rag balls, to weave into rugs. Mostly working with denim, so it creates a lot of lint.

I now have 7 huge balls to weave into rugs and the sewing machine is put away for awhile. The store has been vacuumed up now and I can weave smaller items on my smaller rigid heddle loom here at the store. Anyone wanting a demonstration feel free to stop in and I will show you how it works.

A book I have had on my read list for some time is Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. When I was in the library recently I found part 1 and part 2 of the movie version. Temptation made me check them out and watch them. I am now even more determined to read the book. I will wait till I have read the book version to do a report. Now here are a couple books I did read.

Skin

by

Ted Dekker

I have read several books by Dekker and find him difficult to place in a specific genre. His books are a mix of mystery, thriller, science fiction, fantasy, and religious, in a good verses evil way. In this book, 5 people from various backgrounds find themselves in a little town in Nevada with a tornado boring down on them. Murder rides in with the storm and they find themselves pitted against a man known as Sterling Red. As this unlikely group band together we see they each have their own weakness that Sterling exploits, and he is trying to force them to kill the ugliest of the group. They also eventually find they do have something in common. They all suffered a special kind of epilepsy as teenagers and underwent an experimental procedure that cured them but also put them under control of the lab to make them believe they are in this game and they don't know what is real and what isn't. It is a really exciting read that I couldn't put down and the ending was not what was expected at all. Think I will look for some more books by Dekker.

Fear the Worst

by

Linwood Barclay

My first time to read this author and I really like her writing. Ordinary Tim Blake sends his teenage daughter off to work and she vanishes. The hotel where she claimed to be work says they never heard of her. Tim sets out to find his daughter and finds some very scary people are looking for her also. The detective in charge seems to spend more time dealing with her own daughter and the ex-wife is not much help. Tim has had his share of disappointments in life but he loves his daughter and risks everything to get her back. He uncovers that the hotel is involved in human trafficking, so how is his daughter mixed up in this? This was a really well done mystery and I am ready to read 2 more of her books that are waiting for me in my must read pile.

December column for paper



I have a confession to make. I have never read The Hobbit. It has now moved up on my long list of “must” read books for this winter. I have several books by John Irving on hand and many of them have been made into movies such as The Cider House Rules, and The World According to Garp, but I chose this one to read this month.

Until I Find You

by

John Irving

820 pages that drags you along in the life of Jack Burns. I am not sure it is worth the time spent reading it but you get caught up in a sort of voyeurism that you need to keep reading to see how things turn out. It starts out with Jack as a boy of 4 on a pilgrimage to norther Europe with his mother to find his womanizing father. They never find him but his tattoo artist mother indulges in some prostitution along the way. This all takes up about 100 pages. She returns home to Toronto and puts Jack in an all girls school so that he will be “safe” since he is such a pretty little boy. Of course this backfires and he is abused by the older girls and later by older women, which sets up his life of unfulfilled romances. Funny, but had he been a little girl we would have been more incensed by this large part of the book. Later on he becomes a famous Screen Write and finds out that his father has been following his life from a distance all along and in the end they find each other but under weird circumstances. So if you want a long long read that is not all that satisfying then you might like it. As for me I am sending it to my niece in Oregon who has run a tattoo/piercing business for years and I actually think she will like it.

The Marks of Cain

by

Tom Knox

This book takes you to Spain and France as two strangers, American David and Englishman Simon become involved in two apparently unconnected strands of what's revealed as one conspiracy. Through his grandfather's will and secret map David is urged to learn his true family history. It will lead him to the heart of Basque country, where he meets a woman who gets caught up in his quest.

Quinn is an investigative journalist and is working on two violent murders of elderly people. He finds that both had been in a top secret Nazi camp and there is a tie in with the same Basque area and a possible curse on a race of people found there. The story takes you on a journey from Arizona, to the Spanish countryside, to the heart of Southern Africa. In the end they try to supply a rational basis for the Nazi genocide. I found this to be a good read and would recommend it to others. I found myself going to my computer to search for facts about the area and people involved so it was quite educational as well.

Devious

by

Lisa Jackson

If you like authors who carry their main characters along from one book to another, you will like this 7^th Rick Bentz/Reuben Montoya novel.

A murder of Sister Camille, an old high-school friend takes them to St. Marguerite's cathedral. Sister Camille's sister gets involved along with her estranged husband who just happens to show up the same day of the murder. This old Nunnery is the site of more murders and the connections with certain Priests and an older nun makes for a great who done it book.

Dorothy Cliff is the owner of Read Again Books in Granby.