It's hard to get a clear picture of this handsome fellow from my bedroom window, but if I tried to go outside, I'd scare him away (and I'd have to take all that time to bundle up). So, enjoy the pop of chubby redness amidst the snow and pine. He's nice company.
Purring Cottage
Monday's Musings and Goals
Book Review - Garden Maker by Christie Purifoy
I love, love, love this book!
Oh, how I love this book!
It's beauty is not limited to the gorgeous, inspiring photography, but flows over into the glorious prose describing the magnificent and minute creation of the great God of the universe and inspiring us to get involved in sharing his creativity and seeing his hand in it.
The love of the author for her crafts of gardening, writing, and photography shine through on every page and it makes me wish I could garden, write, and photograph so winsomely. And I shall keep trying, for she doesn't intimidate; she invites along. She makes me want to think and absorb more as I garden, to note better the intricacies of each flower, to invite more and different plants into my little world, to spend time in the garden not only as a gardener, but as a wonderer.
And on this gray winter's day, I needed the inspiration and got it.
Classics Club Review - Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
While some may consider this book moralistic, I thought it was encouraging, helpful, fun, and the moral lessons were tucked in here and there in an inviting and realistic way.
The cast of characters are loveable, warts and all. They are real, at least to the culture and time in which they were set, and in many ways remind me both of my childhood in the boonies of a third-world country and my children's childhoods where TV and internet were very limited in order to foster imagination, reading, and other creative activities.
This is not a pie-in-the-sky kind of story and the March family faces some severe trials and heartaches, but we're shown how they walked through those things with help from God, family, and friends without becoming preachy, just a little big-sisterly sometimes.
Since I used an audiobook for this one, I'll say that I enjoyed the rendition given by C.M. Hebert as she put good inflection in her voice and used believable accents and differing voice tones throughout. I really liked the book far better than the movies, though I did enjoy the Winona Ryder one a long while ago. For the rest of the set of Alcott books that I own, I do hope to read them in hard copy since I like the old set and want to use it.
So, now I'm on to Little Men. I think I will order some Alcott Literary Tea from Simpson & Vail Tea to go along with my endeavor. I sure enjoy their other literary teas.
To quote Tigger: "TTFN!"
This review is for Classics Club as well as Belle's Library Victorian Reading Challenge and fulfills Brighter Winter Reading for New-to-You (though I knew much about it, it was new in that I'd actually never read it).
Time Use Experiment
Yesterday I tried something I've wanted to try for quite some time - roasting pumpkin seeds. After I'd cooked three small pumpkins and made some pumpkin pudding with some of it and froze the rest, I washed the seeds in cold water, which made the stringy pulpy goo come of them pretty easily, mixed 2 cups of them with 3 T. oil, 1 tsp. garlic powder, 1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce, and 1/2 tsp. salt, and spread them out on an aluminum-covered sheet pan to roast at 250F for 45 minutes and then 5 more minutes at 325F as instructed by Taste of Home. They turned out wonderfully though next time I'm going to try a little more garlic and Worcestershire just for a little more punch.
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I'm trying an experiment today and so far I'm liking it. I've set a two hour timer on my phone and use that as a signal to add wood to the woodstove (too frequently I neglect it and have to start it up again 😒) and then to change focus for another two hours. I started with my time in God's Word and prayer as well as other reading and letter-writing. The next two-hour segment was for housekeeping - cleaning kitchen, cleaning one of the bathrooms, prepping sourdough to rise, making kombucha, watering indoor salad gardening, etc. After replenishing the fire, the next segment was for listing some clothing on Ebay all the while trying to keep curious kitty out of the pictures. (I use a trifold display board covered in scrap muslin as my backdrop.)
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On the left is the woodbox. I'm taking the picture from right beside the insulated woodstove. |
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These boxes are from Sky Flake crackers - a favorite from my childhood in the Philippines. |
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I hope to get more of my larger yardages of fabrics wrapped onto foamboard pieces. The aqua boxes are spray-painted and used to store various widths of strips. |
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My aunt's antique cast iron sewing machine. Boy! is it heavy! |
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The overflow yet to be put away. |
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My beloved Hoosier cabinet serves as cutting table and storage. |
New Year, New Goals
Yup, it's been busy around here (still). I have made time to list some goals for the new year and I'm already being able to make progress in some of them.
One of those goals has been to do some topical Bible studies. Usually I do a read-the-Bible-in-a-year program, last year's being a chronological read through The Complete Jewish Study Bible.
Reading Challenges for 2023
Because of her recommendation I'm also going to join the five-year Classics Club challenge found here. I decided to use only books I already own and so I sat down to make a mostly comprehensive list of all my classics, paper and on Kindle. Oh, my! I might have a hoarding problem. So this challenge will be good for me, getting me to read what I already own. My list also showed me how much I have already read of the classics and that's a good thing. I came up with 400 classics (that I could find not in boxes because of remodeling downstairs) subtracted the 95 that I've already read and now I think I may be set for life for classics-reading. 😂 I do like to read an author's whole collection, or at least a lot of it, so my list on the tab above has a lot of books from only a few authors at this time.
Monday Musings and This & That