Back to the Blog !

SO happy to be back to blogging - two months out from my wrist surgery, no more splint, and making progress with physical therapy.  I am happy that I can type easily now...and while still not a lot of strength in that hand I feel back to almost normal!  

While recovering I did a lot of online shopping and a lot of reading...here is what's been happening - 

We love our apartment and love our screen porch, but we don't have the best view to the side.  Lucky our apartment faces the woods and a preserved area, but the wall next door is not the nicest view.  Several years ago I added outdoor curtains, and a faux tree hid the fireplace vent from the apartment next door.  The tree has seen better days, so we ordered two of these expandable faux ivy fences from Amazon -

 and it made a huge difference.

We started with one and attached it to the center screen support with Command Hooks...but we realized we need another one.

John figured out a way to attach them to garden stakes and give them some stability...

Here is the finished look...and we love it.

We also got a new grill...had a George Forman for several years and went with an newer model - 

We can have an electric grill in our building and this new one is working out great.  Love to do burgers, hotdogs, chicken and salmon...and last night made some salmon packets which turned out great!

Also ordered these from Amazon - have a fire extinguisher, but seemed complicated if we ever needed to use it.  This two pack of Fire Blankets  - one in the pantry and one out on the porch - should make it easy if we ever have a flare up or fire.  You just pull the blanket out and then it smothers the fire!

I had plenty of time to read while recovering, and enjoyed some great books.

With all his family and friends gone, one-hundred-year-old Murray McBride is looking for a reason to live. He finds it in Jason Cashman, a ten-year-old boy with a terminal heart defect and a list of five things he wants to do before he dies. Together, they race against the limited time each has left, ticking off wishes one by one. Along the way, Murray remembers what it's like to be young, and Jason fights for the opportunity to grow old. But when tragedy strikes, their worlds are turned upside-down, and an unexpected gift is the only thing that can make Jason's final wish come true.

The day Scarlett dies should have been one of the most important of her life. It doesn't feel fair that she is dead before she had a chance to fulfill her dreams, before she even turned thirty. And now she's still...here...somehow, watching the ripple effect of her death on the lives of those she loved the most. But her journey is not over, and as she finds herself pulled into reliving her most defining memories, she starts to realize that maybe she didn't have everything quite as figured out as she once thought.

When poet and writer Joy Davidman began writing letters to C. S. Lewis—known as Jack—she was looking for spiritual answers, not love. Love, after all, wasn’t holding together her crumbling marriage. Everything about New Yorker Joy seemed ill-matched for an Oxford don and the beloved writer of Narnia, yet their minds bonded over their letters. Embarking on the adventure of her life, Joy traveled from America to England and back again, facing heartbreak and poverty, discovering friendship and faith, and against all odds, finding a love that even the threat of death couldn’t destroy.

On a November day in 1940, Adam Paskow becomes a prisoner in the Warsaw Ghetto, where the Jews of the city are cut off from their former lives and held captive by Nazi guards, and await an uncertain fate. Weeks later, he is approached by a mysterious figure with a surprising request: Will he join a secret group of archivists working to preserve the truth of what is happening inside these walls? Adam agrees and begins taking testimonies from his students, friends, and neighbors. He learns about their childhoods and their daydreams, their passions and their fears, their desperate strategies for safety and survival. The stories form a portrait of endurance in a world where no choices are good ones.

Celebrating her forty-fifth birthday at her local pub, popular podcaster Alix Summers crosses paths with an unassuming woman called Josie Fair. Josie, it turns out, is also celebrating her forty-fifth birthday. They are, in fact, birthday twins.

A few days later, Alix and Josie bump into each other again, this time outside Alix’s children’s school. Josie has been listening to Alix’s podcasts and thinks she might be an interesting subject for her series. She is, she tells Alix, on the cusp of great changes in her life.

Josie’s life appears to be strange and complicated, and although Alix finds her unsettling, she can’t quite resist the temptation to keep making the podcast. Slowly she starts to realise that Josie has been hiding some very dark secrets, and before she knows it, Josie has inveigled her way into Alix’s life—and into her home.

But, as quickly as she arrived, Josie disappears. Only then does Alix discover that Josie has left a terrible and terrifying legacy in her wake, and that Alix has become the subject of her own true crime podcast, with her life and her family’s lives under mortal threat.

Who is Josie Fair? And what has she done?

I love this book!  I purchased it back in 1977 as a librarian in my first job out of college.   I finally found a copy on Thriftbooks and was thrilled to re-read it!

This classic, much-loved novel tells the story of Jennie Logan, a woman caught between two worlds, two times, and the two men she loves—one her husband and one an artist who may have died in 1899. David Williams’s novel is a thrilling read, part love story, part mystery—a tale of time travel (or is it madness?) that keeps the reader guessing until the very end. Now back in print, this exquisitely written book is not to be missed.

As they do each June, the Foxes have driven the winding roads of Appalachia to drop off their children for a two-week stay at their grandmother’s. Here, twelve-year-old Thea can run free and breathe in the smells of pine and fresh bread and Grammie’s handmade candles. But as her parents head back to suburban Virginia, they have no idea they’re about to cross paths with a ticking time bomb.

Back in Kentucky, Thea and her grandmother Lucy both awaken from the same nightmare. And though the two have never discussed the special kind of sight they share, they know as soon as their tearful eyes meet that something terrible has happened.

The kids will be staying with Grammie now in Redbud Hollow, and thanks to Thea’s vision, their parents’ killer will spend his life in supermax. Over time, Thea will make friends, build a career, find love. But that ability to see into minds and souls still lurks within her, and though Grammie calls it a gift, it feels more like a curse―because the inmate who shattered her childhood has the same ability. Thea can hear his twisted thoughts and witness his evil acts from miles away. He knows it, and hungers for vengeance. A long, silent battle will be waged between them―and eventually bring them face to face, and head to head…

The provocative and hilarious summer read that will have book lovers cheering and everyone talking! Kirsten Miller, author of The Change, brings us a bracing, wildly entertaining satire about a small Southern town, a pitched battle over banned books, and a little lending library that changes everything.

As a retired librarian I just HAD to read this book...and it was a funny and thought provoking look at how books get banned and how information can change your life.

Heading out to Physical Therapy now...each day a little better and looking forward to enjoying the rest of the summer.

What have you been up to ?  New purchases?  What have you been reading ?  Leave a comment below - I love hearing from you !

And...STAY COOL!