October 2015 in Books

A whooping amount of 19 books read in October!! :o) A staycation (body really needed the rest), a second round of MS attack medicine and participation in the Dewey's 24 Hour Readathon helped reaching that number of books read.

Having read that vast number of books does not mean, that I am low on neither a reading list nor physical unread books. I actually expect that the number on my to-read list might grow as getting new inspiration at the annual book fair in Copenhagen next weekend

39 Steps by John Buchan
United Kingdom
E-book / Library Book


The Woman in Danchurchsocial* (Salvation Army) by Henning Mortensen
(Original Title: Kvinden i korshæren)
Denmark
E-book / Library Book / October BookFriend book

On Writing by Stephen King
USA
Library Book

Knot the Usual Suspects by Molly MacRae
USA

Purl Up and Die by Maggie Sefton
USA

Dyer Consequences by Maggie Sefton
USA

Pan's Secret* by Michael Katz Krefeld
(Original Title: Pan's hemmelighed ) 
Denmark

The Hundred Year Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson
(Original Title: Hundraåringen som klev ut genom fönstret och försvan) )
Sweden

The Wisdom of Eleanor Roosevelt edited by Donald Wigal
USA

Countdown to Murder* by Gretelise Holm
(Original Title: Nedtælling til mord ) 
Denmark

After You by Jojo Moyes
United Kingdom

Innocence by Dean Koontz
USA

Becoming Dickens by Robert Douglas-Fairhurst
United Kingdom
Library book

Bitches* by Gretelise Holm
(Original Title: Møgkællinger)
Denmark

Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee
USA
E-book / Library Book

Moment of my Life* Edited by Lars Henriksen and Daniel Øhrstrøm
(Original Title: Mit livs øjeblik)
Denmark

Hallowe'en Party by Agatha Christie
United Kingdom
E-book / Library Book

Britt-Marie Was Here by Fredrik Backman
(Original Title: Britt-Marie var här)
Sweden

Christmas with Rosamunde Pilcher
Germany
Library Book

*Literal title: the book has not been published in English version, so title is not an official title of the book

Basic Knitting

One of the local nightschools offered a knitting course less than a mile from where I live, taught by a creative knitter, who often get published in Danish magazines with her knitting a crochet patterns, Stine Hoelgaard Johansen.

 

I knew the basics: stich, purl, cast on and cast off - other things I have dabbled with but not mastered. Well I just took her four sessions to change all that. Her inspiring way of teaching you various techniques is mindblowing - you can actually start learning to knit from basics and then end up doing cable knitting and other patters, that I once thought to be incredibly difficult to understand

Well the following photos shows you my attempts at two of the newly learned techniques:



Cable stitch

Seaman's pattern

Some of us have opted for 3 extra sessions to learn more - the price for those sessions is a bargain compaired to what we learn, so tonight is the last of the extra knitting night.

In through the front door - running round the back - peeping through the window  - off comes Jack! (Kitting rhyme)

Dreamcatcher

 

Even infants were provided with protective charms. Examples of these are the "spiderwebs" hung on the hoop of a cradle board.These articles consisted of wooden hoops about 3½ inches in diameter filled with an imitation of a spider's web made of fine yarn, usually dyed red. In old times this netting was made of nettle fiber. Two spider webs were usually hung on the hoop, and it was said that they "caught any harm that might be in the air as a spider's web catches and holds whatever comes in contact with it."

Above are the words of Frances Densmore in her book "Chippeva Customs"

 

The dreamcather on the photo is my first attempt at making one. SMYKS had a jewellery course in how to make dreamcatchers - this is a bigger one intended for a neclace and once we had the touch she suggested that we will continue making smaller ones for ear rings etc. Me, I opted for this to hang next to a dreamcatcher above my bed which I purchased in the US years ago.

Happy ... Book Lover's Day

My first contribution for the Holiday's in August Card Swap over at Paper Craft Planet that Julie hopefully receives today. Guess I qualify as a book lover having read 20 book already this year. Now, I do not normally count the number of books I read, but Angela's post on January 1st made me wonder, just how many books I read during a year. Totally surprised that my number is 20 already, as I would have guessed maybe one book per month in average.

 

Design paper is from Søstrene grene, stamp is from Nikki & Friends colored with my COPICs, text is from Jane Austen's "Sense and Sensibility".... and the quote:

 

You know you've read a good book when you turn the last page and feel a little as if you have lost a friend. Paul Sweeney

 

A Stitch Before Dying

3rd book in the Black Sheep Knitting Mystery series by Anne Canadeo.

 

Maggie is invited to host some knitting events/workshops at a Berkshire spa resort and eyes the chance for the knitting group to go there together for the weekend. The theme is definately spiritual and tries to use knitting as a meditative craft, where one can drift away in calm thoughts, relax and become one with the knitting. Something different for Maggie but definately intriguing as knitting is her big passion.

 

Random Knitting - Mindfull Knitting (with a touch of Yoga) and at a spa resort in beautiful fall colored suroundings - what could be a better way for the ladies to rejuvinate themselves?

 

When a murder occur at the peaceful place, they start to look at the odd ends to see if they can connect them.

 

Can help thinking about a quote from one of my favorite authors:

 

"Sitting with one's knitting, one just sees the fact."    Agatha Christie

 

 

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas

My Santa Music Box (Twelve Days of Christmas)

Santa Clause has the right idea: Visit people one a year.

Victor Borge

Fall Birthday

I just love fall colours and the leaves welcoming winter with their beautifull colors. Birdie Brown (Torico) has a fall gnome freebie in this month's challenge. One of my friends celebrated her birthday this week so made this card for her using the freebie, as she is fond of autumn leafs too:

Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.

Albert Camus

 

Must admit, that I smiled when reading Karen's post earlier this week, as she quoted the same words that I used when creating this card last weekend. But yet again what is more fitting than those words describing the beautiful autumn leafs?

Entering it to:
Live & Love Crafts Challenge #4 Halloween and/or Autumn Colours
Birdie Brown October Freebie Challenge

Crafter's Tea Party - Tea Cups - Part 2

Maybe the "base"-design of this card seems familiar, and you might have a point. When I was doing the telephone card, I got the idea to use a stamp punch (Martha Stewart) to punch out tea brand logos from teabag sachets and tags and use it at one of the tea swaps coming up - glad that I pursued this idea, so the base was finished before my accident.

I used a digi stamp from Whimsy and Stars Studio, MRO Coffee Cup, since thought it perfect for the swap's theme: tea cups. Actually my all time favourite tea cup, has been a jumbo size cup in the same color as the girl on the stamp.

Made a tea bag pouch, that holds 4 instead of the required 2 teabags - Cathie had to wait a long time for me to send this, so wanted to add that little extra. Again the digistamp was used, albeit merely part of it.

            "Each Cup of tea represents an imaginary voyage"
                                                                               Catherine Douzel

Just Another Word?

 

 

The same day, that I had to familiarize myself with a new word, I read this:

                    Sometimes I break down
                    overwhelmed by my losses,
                    those past and to come.

                    I unleash crying,
                    fifteen minutes at the most.
´                  Then I dry my tears.

                   I don my joy cloak.
                   It shields me from sorrow’s aim
                   while I heal inside.

                                                                            Judy

15 minutes was not quite enough for me I am afraid, as it seems that 2012 is testing me beyond my limits. So what is the word?

 

Osteoporosis

 

Having to add another diagnosis was a hard "slap in the face" for me. The "only" reason we found out was that it is mandatory to get the examination when being prescribed cortisol - never did I imagine that it would come out postive.

 

I know that there are treatments to keep the symptoms/progress down, but I have yet to find out, what the doctors' plans are.... It is the uncertainty and "what's-next" feeling that is eating me up from inside. Readng other bloggers' stories abouth additional diagnosis to their MS, I have ofteren wondered: How do they handle it in their mind?

 

Need to reconnect with the crafting mojo again to let my mind deal with more positive things, and hopefulle resume my photowalks soon (the fractured arm made photographing hard to do)... just getting a little normalcy back might make the new path a little lighter to walk.

Veterans' Day

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders Fields.


Take up our quarrel with the foe
o you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

John McCrae

Words of Inspiration

Turn your face to the sun and the shadows will fall behind you.

Maori Proverb

Words of Inspiration

Me, many moons ago on my very first bicycle

Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.

Albert Einstein

Words of Inspiration

O bed! O bed!
delicious bed!
That heaven upon earth to the weary head!

Thomas Hood

Peace Day

This is our cry
This is our prayer:
To create peace in the world

Inscription from the Genbaku-no-ko-no-Zoh

If you are in Japan, most likely you will know already, that it is Peace Day. Today it is 66 years since the US dropped an A-bomb over Hiroshima.

Japanese Kanji sign "peace"

In the Peace Memorial park in Hiroshima, you will ind a statue. Genbau-no-ku-no-Zoh - Statue of the Children of the Atomic Bomb. It depicts Sadako Sasaki and a crane - and has become the symbol of peace. She became ill of the Atomic Bomb Disease (leukemia), and while at the hospital she started folding origami paper cranes hoping to make 1000. Unfortunately she did not reach her goal, but her classmates decided to help her reach the goal post mortem. Ever since, paper cranes has become the symbol of hope.

Hugging

A hug is like a boomerang - you get it back right away

Bill Keane "Family Circus"

CCEE stampers challenged us to get a hug on a card. First thing I did was to email a friend of mine persuading her to participate with a card like one she sent me a few months ago - it had the greates hug on it, that cheered me up at a moment when the MS was showing its ugly head.

Actually she gave me the stamp that I have used on my card - Can't you just feel the softness of this hug?

The Little Mermaid

Her skin was a clear and as fine as a rose leaf, her eyes were blue as the deepest sea, but, like all the rest, she had no feet, for her body ended in a fish tail.

Hans Christian Andersen

Words of Inspiration

The quilt is made by Judy B. Dales

America is not like a blanket - one piece of unbroken cloth, the same color, the same texture, the same size. America is more like a quilt: many patches, many pieces, many colors, many sizes, all woen and held toghether by a common thread.

Jesse Jackson

To my American friends and readers: Happy 4th of July

Taking Things for Granted

Even though I thought I knew a lot about Franklin Roosevelt (FDR), I never gave it much thought, that he was struggling with himself and his surroundings when he was diagnosed with polio. To me he is a rolemodel, since he became president of the USA after he got disabled and refused to give up.

A couple a weeks ago - actually when I went to the attack treatment - I watched a programme about Warm Springs, the places where he "claimed" his life back.

His surroundings labelled him, when he was diagnosed - especially his mother gave up and thought that his life was over thus condemming him to be a couch potato. He felt/saw discrimination at first hand and had to surpass that and his gloomy thoughts about his condition to return to life. He had to ask Eleanor to talk to him like he was. Warm Springs offered him a vague hope about being able to walk again, which he wanted to try and found out how to keep on living despite being labelled as disabled - even run for president.

The Eleanor quote that I saw on a memorial in Washington now makes even more sense and got more powerful after having watched this programme. 

Chills was running down my spine when I watched this - the day I got the MS diagnosis, I was in a wheel chair. The doctor asked me to think about early retirement since my world was now limited. Makes me happy that I realised that the lady in the bed next to me had a very active life despite being paralysed from the waist down, hence giving me the courage to seek out exactly what I could do. I have encountered people's perceptions of MS as being disabled and not able to have a normal life, even within in my family - but also opened other peoples' eyes to the possibilities you still have even with MS. I choose to try to see if I could get back to normal - carpe diem - and doing things that people without ilness does not even do :o)

Definition of Home

From today and two weeks onwards I will be house-sitting - well actually this time it is appartment-sitting which included looking after two indoor cats. I do this once in a while for family and friends, doesn't pay me anything but I will have some time away from my own little appartment and the noisy next door neighbour, and I still have to go to work every day.

Just after Christmas, I bought a book on sale "Twelve Days of Christmas" by Trisha Ashley, thought I would save it for holiday read later this year. However, when I grapped some books to keep me company on my latest travel, I had grapped this without knowing - and once I started reading it, I could not put it down until I reached the last page. The main character, Holly Brown, was housesitting - only difference between her and me: she gets paid to do it.

Half a year ago, I started a draft on a novel, where the main character would be a house sitter, who earned her living doing that + crafts. After having read Trisha's book, I stopped writing it, as she had already written was I had imagined for my own little novel. Discarting my own idea does not make me sad, as I could not have done it better than Trisha - in fact: I would not even have come close to her writings.

Maybe my comfort in travelling and housesitting actually come from a sense of being without roots? That I have not yet been able to settle down and said: "This is what I want!" I like my job, and yet I have this feeling that the job is not truely, who I am.

Where thou art, that is home.

Emily Dickinson

Words of Inspiration

The cat was created when the lion sneezed.

Arabic proverb.