Crocheting, World War II Books, Sunsets and More

 

Pastel Petals.  Pinks and purples, various sized squares and rectangles, but believe these pieces parts are closer in size than the previous afghan I made from donated squares.  

Ta Dah!  It's finished and laying here to dry/blocked.  I had enough of the light lilac color yarn in my stash that I didn't need to use multiple colors to edge and join, as I did with the previous "Little Boy Blue" afghan.

I don't typically do more than a basic straight edge for these afghans assembled from pieces parts, as most are colors that work for either a male or female; but this one is decitely female, and so I made a scalloped edge to finish it off.  You can see it in the picture with the whole afghan, but here's a close up.

We've had another dinner party, but not as large.  6 instead of 14 at our last one where I served chicken enchildas.  Which is not what is pictured here.  This is Chicken Marsala that I fixed for just hubby and I a few nights ago.

We enjoyed this Spanish wine so much we ended up ordering a few more bottles.  If you've not tried it, add it to your list.

We had a gorgeous sunset a few nights ago as I looked out the walk way making my way to take out the trash.  Was almos to late to get the picture.  Probably 5 minutes earlier was the best time.

Another beautiful bunch of flowers.  We've kept this, rather, hubby has kept this vase filled for me.  We've both enjoyed having flowers daily in the condo.  He brought these home to me ono Valentines Day.  I much prefer yellow roses over red, in case you're wondering.

This is the 3rd book of Louise Fein's I've read/listened to.  This is an historical fiction, but inspired by the authors fa,mily history with lots of addtional research done.  The book is extremely reviting, hard to put down.  There's what she knew as the daughter of a high ranking Nazi official vs what she begins to learn through her Jewish Friend, Walter.  Courage, love, danger and picking ones path are choices she makes during this difficult time.  I highly recommend this book folks.

Helmet for my Pillow is a personal narrative or Marine Corp Veteran, Robert Leckie.  You travel with him from basic training on Paris Island, South Caroline to the raging war in The Pacific Theater.  This book was published back in 1957.  He was inspired to write this book after seeing South Pacific on Broadway.  He thought it was important to let the public know, the war and all it's horror were NOT like a musical.  I thought I might not enjoy the book, since it seemed like it might be too masculine for me to enjoy; but I was totally enthralled with the book and highly recommend it.

Knitting, Crocheting, and Listening to Audio Books, During Covid

 

This is the book I'm currently listening to.  I'm really enjoying it.  History hasn't taught us much about how many women made important and long lasting changes to our country.  Some of the women discussed in this book I know of, but even those I've heard of I learned new things about them.  This book seems particularly important to read or listen to right now, given the state of things in the country.  With the push of the far right and trying to remove safe guards and progress women have made.  Please put this on your list to purchase or check out of your local library.

When you read do you stick with a subject, or author or do you read randomly?  I've never been a big reader; but am loving audio books.  I find them enjoyable because you can do multiple things at one time.  I got into audible books first to have something to listen to when I take my daily walks.  Was getting great step counts and listening a lot........then came the winter......argh.  Not a fan of winter.  I do sometimes force myself to outside if there's not snow or ice on the ground for fear of falling.  I use the library app Libby.  Originally I used Over Drive but found Libby is more user friendly, so switched.

So I listened to, as you can see, a bunch of political stuff.  Given all that we've been through these past 4 years it seemed wise to read/listen to get more of the nuts of bolts of all that went on.  WOW!  Not sure though I would say President Obama's first book, Dreams of my Father is a political book.  It's was very much about his life, from childhood on.  I found it fascinating how he lived in different worlds.

The Room Where it Happened got a bit long in the tooth.  I listen to about half, then switched to another book and then came back to it.  I don't agree with  Bolton on much of anything, but it points to how truly dysfunctional trump was/is.  And how much all those around him thought so.  Puzzling why so many tried to defend him.

I do tend to stick with a topic for awhile in my reading/listening.  These are I think important to help us understand better what our Black American Citizens deal with, both in the present and in the past.  I mentioned above how I like listening as I can do multiple things at one time.  In addition to listening while I walk, I listen while I knit, while I do things around the house and often while I'm doing dinner prep in the kitchen.

These 3 books about Scientology are a real eye opener.  It is such a horrible cult it's frightening because it has such a huge membership.  The original founder, L. Ron Hubbard was a huge huge narcissist and reading about him reminded me so much of trump.  It's disappointing to me how this huge wealthy business gets treated like a church in terms of taxes.

Again focusing on a subject/topic.  I found these books by the same author riveting.

Since I often was listening and knitting or crocheting, these are 2 afghans I worked on.

These bright colored strips were donated to my charity, Bridge and Beyond and I crocheted borders for each strip, and then crocheted them together.

And this brown knitted afghan has been in the works for a long time but, listening and knitting I've been able to make good headway.  I'm also working on a purple scarf, but haven't taken a picture of it yet.  Need to do that.

I'm happy and excited to report hubby and I got our first Covid Inoculation and are scheduled for our 2nd.  I hope you all are staying safe from Covid and getting your vaccinations.

It's been ages and ages since I've blogged on a regular basis, and I've really missed it and visiting and reading and commenting on each of your blogs.  So, I'm recharging now and plan to get back to it.  Please let me know how you all are doing.