Happy Spring/Equinox!!

How do you celebrate the onset of Spring?
Apparently, around these parts, neighbors ring your doorbell with over five yards of yummy, sunny yellow and white seersucker, hand it to your butler/Hubby and tell you Happy Spring!
That is exactly how Neighbor Nancy gifted me yesterday! And I don't think it was even out of someone's garbage or her garage! How excited was I? Pretty dang, I can tell you. Spent a good part of the evening touching it, wondering of all wonders, what kind a summery fun I can make out of it!

Lest you think that I'm a Complete Social washout, without a thing to do except fondle seersucker, I'll have you know that I have quite a busy agenda on a Saturday night....
Like completely and totally fall in love with this living room in my latest Better Homes and Gardens.
It's been a long seven years since a paint brush has touched my living room walls but I kept holding out for something that I REALLY loved.
Found it.
I want that couch, those curtains and I'm thinking that bookcase looks pretty amazing as well...
Searching for that drapery material right after I'm finished with you....

Then, next on my busy schedule, I finished up my Tea Cozy for the conference this coming weekend. Crocheted a fancy shmancy ring to top it. It's good to have a dramatic pull so that when you remove the cozy, you say Voila! and present your hidden, hot tea (or casserole or Hubby's oatmeal in the morning)
Hubby has said that he feels like a magician when he removes the cozy off his Heart Friendly Morning Oatmeal.
So.
This week, I placed a fake little toad (yes, I have those kind of things around my house) under the cozy and waited in the living room to hear girly like screams from an unsuspecting nearly 57 year old man (also , hoping that I wouldn't instigate a heart attack.)
However, Hard Nosed Hubby barely flinched. Just gave a friendly, 'Ribbid' and dug into his oatmeal. Guess living with me all these years, has taught him to be on his guard. Always.

The library has warned me, via email, that My Wonderful Book is due on Monday, so early to bed for me so that I can curl up properly to finish this interesting book. I'm a great Kaye Gibbons fan. This one is different but oh so good. It helps that Hubby and I have been watching Ken Burn's Civil War Series. The book's background thread is the Civil War and it's horror; good reference points.....

Then, because Hubby has a similiar busy Saturday schedule, he helped me figure out another one of Amy Butler's wonderful, insanely difficult pattern...

The sleeve was courtesy of his engineering skill and patience with the detail....

So.
That wraps up my First Spring Weekend Saturday Night.
Sedation necessary?

Book Report

Lest you think that I have gone off my rocker, reporting of Panty Grapes and Sweater Carrots, I thought I would take a bit of a detour of my usual crafting/sewing reporting and take a dive into my literacy world this month.
My rule is to always have three books going at once.
I believe this strange philosophy/practice came from the days when I was nursing.
I would have a book posted at each nursing station and proclaimed the time mama/baby time. And for the marathon sessions, I was set. The world had to come to me or wait.
Got more reading done that way.
If my book was of interest to the younger set, I would read aloud. The whole Narnia series got accomplished that way.
That said, here is what I have been reading this past month:

As you know from a previous post, Anne Tyler's hot of the press latest book caught my attention. Finished it in under a week. Good for ol' ADHD Me.
In typical Anne T. fashion, her main character is full of quirks and revelations. All her books take place in Baltimore, her city of residence.
This book follows the chronicles of a hapless bloke, devoid of much interest in anything till he gets assaulted in his brand new location after years of existing in the same apartment. From this traumatic event, a series of other situations come into his life in the most unusual way. We see how this impacts his solitary life and what he learns.
Good read. Anne Tyler's characters are always endearing to me. Hmmmmm.

And while I'm sewing, I'm listening to another AT.
The Amateur Marriage is a sad one.
Sad in the reporting of a post WWII marriage and it's mistaken start and it's forsaken ending 30 years after the fact. Sadly, I believe many WWII marriages started and ended in the same way. Hurried decisions only to be altered by the shadow of the war in all their lives. Saw it in my own parents lives.
This is the third time I've 'read' it.
Masochist?

AND then there is this Gem of the Year!!!
(I know, I know; it's only February....but it will be hard finding a more entertaining, well written book. (okay, outside of pulitzers etc....)
Kaye Gibbons never disappoints me. Her Ellen Foster, The Virtuous Woman also is a favorite.
Youngest Son had this one in his possession and when I had finished Noah's Compass, lamenting as I do whenever I finish a good book, he reminded me that he had a Kaye Gibbons waiting in the wings.
It has taken me less than a week, reading in the wee hours when peri menopausal insomnia strikes.
Absolutely delightful tome about three generations of well read, well opinionated women under the same roof during WWII (a pattern?) The grandmother is absolutely wonderfully wonderful. A self appointed, rogue Doctor to her small rural area, respected by the actual doctors in the land and silent benefactor to many.
Her daughter, abandonded by a ne'er do well of a husband (having been warned by her wizened mama) is usually on the outside of her mother's and daughter discussion. The granddaughter, quiet, obedient and very smart, abandons the idea of college, even when the best are pursuing her, because of her love of her home and it's eccentric lifestyle...Then.....Well, you just have to read it...

That's mama's Book Report for now..
(Now if I can find just the right old green swimsuit to make some aspargus.....:D)