The end of September

I finished one of my favorite books last week, September. I read it every fall and despite trying to read it as slowly as I can I’m always so disappointed when it comes to an end. I love it. Read it.


 

Last Thursday J and I went out to the club for dinner. It’s a pretty spot right now because there are so many trees on the course and the leaves are changing. We had steak to eat. It was lovely.





This weekend was quiet. It thundered and rained from Friday until sometime over night between Saturday and Sunday. So we stayed indoors and watched football. I made a big batch of chicken stock with the remains of a roast chicken. And I baked brownies this weekend. We missed church because we were up late watching the Ohio State v. Wisconsin game (we won!) and I forgot to set an alarm. But we did make it to small group Sunday evening.





J is busy this week, he has to fly every day. He starts his office job next week.





I’m busy doing laundry today. I don’t mind because it means I can sit and read between loads. And it’s a good day to read because although it’s not raining, it’s grey and chilly and gloomy. The pictures of the trees changing colors are from this morning. I thought the dark grey/blue sky was a pretty backdrop. The picture of the blue sky is one I took last week before all the rain came.





And of course some kitty pictures. I need to stop taking so many pictures of them! But they’re just so darn cute.





Tomorrow I have Bible study in town at church and a Spouses’ Club board meeting. Errands to run. Busy, busy.

I can’t believe that it’s almost October…

Catching up on books

 The Big Four by Agatha Christie

 

Was this a Poirot mystery, or a Sherlock Holmes? It started a bit oddly for a typical Poirot, but I didn't immediately take much notice. After a while I couldn't help but draw the obvious comparisons; the faithful Hastings (Watson), the old lady housekeeper, the house in London, the battle of wits with an international super villain.

Although this was more a Holmes mystery story, I still enjoyed it. A little change of pace from what I was expecting. That said, it wasn't my favorite Poirot book. It was all too fanciful and far fetched and incredible to be believed. And without the believability, it lost it's power to draw you into the story. There was no suspense, no mystery. It was so incredible a story I didn't even try to solve it!

Entertaining, a short and easy read, kind of a fun twist of two excellent sleuths...but probably not one I'll read again.

 

 An Echo in the Darkness by Francine Rivers

 

This is the second in a trilogy. Although it's written by a Christian author with obviously biblical and Christian content, values and stories, the setting of ancient Ephesis/Rome is described in vivid and sometimes disturbing detail. Lots of drinking, sexual content, and quite violent/gory at times. That said I'd be careful about reading these books if those are issues or temptations for you.

 

This book was pretty good. But around page 300 I found myself thinking, "yes, we've been over this before, more than once, I get it, let's move on, too repetitive, time to move on and wrap it up." I think the books overall are good, they tell an interesting story, they're not badly written, they draw you in, paint a detailed picture, develop characters, but they're repetitive and longer than they need to be.

 

Although it's a long book, it's an easy read!

 

I did like books #1 and #2. But book number three deals with a third character who you're introduced to in the first book but disappears in the second book. I'm not sure I'll read book three, I don't find myself liking the series that much or burning to know what happens to said third character.

 

Autumn

Every so often I like to look back in my blog archives. I was nosing around some of my posts from September and October from years past and found these lovely fall posts:

Favorite Fall Movies

Spice Cookies


I've already started in on the movies. Last week it poured rain all day and so I watched The Ghost and Mrs. Muir about 5 times. It rains almost constantly in that movie, so it's the perfect accompaniment to a damp fall day.

I've yet to make a batch of spice cookies. But that needs to happen soon.

Instead of a California fall, we have been getting real fall here in North Dakota. The leaves are starting to change colors, it's most definitely cooler. We had our first overnight freeze warning. We've had to turn on our heat at night. I've made the first batch of Swedish meatballs to go along with the start of football season. The days are getting shorter. The apple and clove scentsy has been burning. I'm enjoying it.

Along with the autumn season, lots of normal base and church activities have started back up. I've been attending a ladies Bible study on Tuesday mornings at church. We also joined a small group that meets just off base on Sunday evenings. I'm back on the base spouses' club board handling the charitable requests this year. So slowly we are getting back into routines and starting to meet people here.

J starts an office job in October. He's going up to the group to be an exec for 6 months. He's cursed (blessed?) with this job. This will be his 3rd exec. job in his AF career. It means long days, late nights and me usually grumpy because he can't tell me when to have dinner ready. But since his flying here doesn't mean he has to leave maybe it wont be so bad because he'll be home otherwise.

I'm re-reading September. In all honesty I hadn't even thought about reading it, until two weeks into the month and it hit me and I got very excited! I'm going as slowly as possible! I think I am going to finish my reading year with more re-reading. Harry Potter is calling my name. And I don't remember the last time I read through them.

We've got a visitor coming in October and I'm already very much looking forward to that...!

“Her pleasure in the walk must arise from the exercise and the day, from the view of the last smiles of the year upon the tawny leaves and withered hedges, and from repeating to herself some few of the thousand poetical descriptions extant of autumn--that season of peculiar and inexhaustible influence on the mind of taste and tenderness--that season which has drawn from every poet worthy of being read some attempt at description, or some lines of feeling.” ― Jane Austen, Persuasion 

Finally finished

It took me long enough (not to actually do it, but to motivate myself to do it). My first table runner is done! It was actually pretty easy, and parts went together very quickly. But other parts (ironing, hand stitching the binding…) were still long and labor intensive. I’m in two minds about small quilting projects now that I’ve finished one. On the one hand, awesome. On the other hand, if I’m going to do all this work why not just make a big quilt? :)

Here’s my finished top before quilting


Here’s my top with the spider web designed traced on, but still before any quilting

And, ta-da! It’s all quilted, bound and done. 

Why Faith Matters

Why Faith Matters

"Judging by today's bestseller lists, one would think that religion is either irrational or extreme. What's missing is a genuine debate between the atheists and fanatics; someone to point out that religion has value in the modern world. Why Faith Matters is an articulate defense of religion in America. It makes the case for faith and shows its relationship to history and science."

Some parts of this book I loved. Some parts made me uncomfortable. There is a real lack of extremism in this book, and a lot of generalities. Not bad things in and of themselves.

Whilst reading I was applying his teachings to Christianity, but the author points out that really, you could apply his work to any of the major monotheistic religions; Judaism, even Muslim. So this isn't a book making the case for Christianity, but literally faith, whatever that faith may be. Hence some of my discomfort. Or maybe discomfort isn't the right word, maybe caution is a better word.

What I loved was his frank use of theology and science and history to help make the case for faith. He states several times that faith and the rest of modern education don't need to clash and fight against one another, but that they can and do work together to strengthen each other. I saw things and thought about them in entirely new ways.

One of the best parts of this book is his discussion of what do bad things happen to good people. It's such a hard topic. And one that I find myself totally tongue tied about when trying to talk to a non-believer, even myself sometimes. His discussion about it is brilliant.

It's a short book, and not hard to read, but it needs to be read slowly.

here are some quotes that jumped off the page at me...

xiii  "Life is such a remarkable surprise, why should death be less of a surprise?"

 

xv  "As with all meetings of the spirit there was not one who gave and one who took; there were two who stood with each other and before God, and even in their sadness, felt blessed."

 

Pg. 10  "'Doubt,' as the theologian Paul Tillich wrote, 'isn't the opposite of faith; it is an element of faith.'"

 

Pg. 12  "Acceptance of mystery is an act not of resignation but humility."

 

Pg. 15  "To believe only in what u can see seems a peculiar form of blindness."

 

Pg. 67  "Nature, even human nature, abhors a vacuum; when our need for meaning is wrenched from its religious roots, people repeatedly turn to creeds that draw devotees by the power of their conviction."

 

Pg. 85  "my real difficulty is with the notion that science is 'the only begetter of truth,' as biologist Richard Lewontin once expressed it. That is both an inflated view of science and an impoverished view of truth."

 

Pg. 92  "as maturity in an individual consists in recognizing his own limitation, so maturity in a thinker is often marked by admitting certain features of the world cannot be understood."

 

Pg. 111  "Suddenly it became clear to me that we bring light into this world not as a source but as a prism- it comes through us. As electricity requires a conduit, so spirit moves through human beings to touch others in crucial moments."

 

Pg. 111  "Indifference distances us from God."

 

Pg. 131  "'You see,' he explained, 'from sixteen to thirty-five I was always drunk and felt no pain. Since I was never in pain, I never grew.'"

 

Pg. 151  "Imagination does better with pain that with bliss. Dante's Inferno has always seemed to me a more successful poem than his Paradiso because pleasure is so fleeting and hard to grasp but pain is concrete and easy to imagine. So the torments that religion describes are horrible and easy to project. The rewards seem ephemeral and often silly."

 

Pg. 188  "The key to coexistence is not sameness but recognition of something greater than all of us."

 

Pg. 191  "'Frantic orthodoxy is never rooted in faith but in doubt. it is when we are not sure that we are doubly sure.'"

A Voice in the Wind

A Voice in the Wind is the second book I've read by author Francine Rivers. In short the book is about: "Torn by her love for a handsome aristocrat, a young slave girl clings to her faith in the living God for deliverance from the forces of decadent Rome."

So when I started the book, it wasn't at all what I was expecting! No love story, no slave girl to be found. It's all about the Romans taking over Jerusalem and the exiles that creates (and where we eventually find the girl to become a slave). It also follows barbaric Germanic tribes fighting the Romans. It's a very violent, bloody start. And the stories are disconnected. Not my cup of tea! But I kept reading because I was intrigued and because it was well written.

Eventually the bloody beginning comes together in Rome, story lines converge, and things start making sense and getting very interesting. It was hard to put the book down.

The "love story" isn't a huge part of the book though. It's an undercurrent until the very end when it becomes a major issue. It's kind of corny, rich man falls for the "help" and every girls dream of him pursuing her at any cost. Blah, blah, but important to the story line and tastefully downplayed.

And of course this book just leaves you hanging at the end and wondering and going, "WHAT?!" "REALLY?!"

I really liked it and I can't wait to get the second book from the library (someone else has it on hold!!)

Halloween Table Runner

I haven’t quilted in quite a bit. My mother-in-law found a table runner pattern called Waffle Time at my local quilt shop. There is a large center panel which is great for a feature fabric, which in turn is great for a holiday themed runner. Since we’re coming up quickly on autumn I thought I’d try my hand at a Halloween design.

Here are my four fabrics all cut and ready to go: black with grey spider webs, grey, orange and my featured, not too creepy, pumpkins.


You sew the black and orange strips and then cut the strips into 2x2 inch squares. Then you join your 2x2 grey squares to your black and orange squares. This all becomes part of the boarder. 

Sewing the inner boarder to my center panel. 

Straightening the end and making it the correct length. 

Now I can sew on the short inner boarders to the “top” and bottom” of the runner. 

All my inner boarders are on and now the inevitable ironing!

Next come the rows of little squares. They get sewn onto the first, inner boarder. First the two long sides, and then the two short ends. 

And the last step in the top piecing process is the outer boarder. Long sides, then the short sides.

I got the top all done before the in-laws left. And then I had to clean house, we went on a long weekend trip, and then I had to re-stock the house and unpack.

I have been working on the quilting this week. It’s hard to tell without a finished and washed product, but I’m quilting a bunch of spider webs on it. It should get finished this week and then I’ll finish the post and show you my completed table runner!

Catch up: Minneapolis

An impromptu road trip. Not usually my cup of tea (the impromptu part).

Friends of ours who are stationed at a base about two hours west of us asked if we wanted to meet up in the big city of Minneapolis over Labor Day weekend. We’ve known them since college, they were in ROTC with J and the boys were part of both of our weddings.

So we decided, what the heck, sure!  it would be good to get out of town and see them.
We stayed at the Minneapolis-St. Paul Air Reserve Station. They have a hotel, The North Country Lodge. For about $53/night we had a big room, bathroom, mini fridge, microwave, coffee maker. It was a really nice hotel and big! We were very pleasantly surprised. And you can’t beat the location; it’s attached to the airport so you’re close to everything.

I didn’t take a ton of pictures. In my angst about leaving the kitties for the first time I totally forgot my new camera. Heck, I even forgot my electric tea kettle! Travesty.



We arrived just before dinner on Friday. We tried out Matt's Bar and their famous jucy lucy for dinner. Yes, that is who you spell it. They have been featured on several TV shows. But for all their “fame” they are quite literally a tiny hole in the wall place. One cook, one waitress, very crowded. As for the fancy hamburger, filled with molten cheese, it was just OK. There is an inherint problem with trying to eat molten cheese; it’s molten. But it was fun. Then we went and found a great ice cream place called The Pumphouse Creamery. We finished the night at the hotel playing cards and chatting.

Saturday morning J and I had our fantasy football league draft at 9am. Guess who got dead last pick? This girl! But I still think I got a pretty decent team put together (and my sis and BIL traded me Peyton Manning after the fact, so life is good). Then we went out to a local sports pub and watched the first Ohio State game of the season. Very fun, and we won! After the game we walked around downtown for a while and did a bunch of window shopping. It was a beautiful day. We regrouped for pizza later at a little place we found when we went for ice cream on Friday, Pizza Biga. Very good! And of course, we ended the night with another game of cards.

Sunday was Mall of America day. J and I walked that whole thing for about 5 hours! I bought three things. And then we were so tired from all the walking we went and saw the new movie Planes. Cute, but mostly I was just enjoying sitting down! Haha. We met up with our friends for dinner in the mall and then back for a final evening of cards and conversation at our hotel.

We drove home on Monday morning. Nice drive, a little rainy. J saw a bald eagle on the way! I guess I saw it too, but I didn’t realize what it was until after he said something. The cats did fine with us being gone. And we spent Labor Day evening at a friend’s house for a BBQ. Got to know some people in the squadron a little bit, and I didn’t have to cook so it was a great evening.

And now I suppose it is officially autumn… although you wouldn't know it today as it’s 95 degrees!   

Next up, my sewing project! (Probably next week…)

Catch up: the in-laws

The end of August got really busy. J’s parent’s arrived in town on the 20th, stayed until the 27th, and then we took a last minutes Labor Day weekend trip to Minneapolis. We just got back home yesterday and I thought I’d catch up the blog in between loads of laundry and a few errands.

So, the 20th. The in-law’s arrived without any problems and right on time. Andy picked them up from the airport and we all spent the evening at our house and had BBQ pulled pork sandwiches for dinner.

The boys spent most of the rest of the week golfing. They spent almost every day at the country club, but J and his Dad played the public course once I think. Of course our perfect 75 degree and sunny weather evaporated and it was 90+, muggy and high summer the while time they were here. That’s August for you.

Cathy and I drove to Mayville and visited two local quilt shops and a basement taqueria on Tuesday. It was a pretty drive on back roads through fields. We both bought some patterns and fabric. We also shopped at the East Grand Forks quilt shop later in the week. When we weren’t shopping, we were quilting. I made a Halloween table runner (that’s getting it’s own post later).

Aside from the golfing and quilting we played a lot of cards. Hand and foot as always, but they also taught us a new game, golf (the card game version).

And they both loved our new kitties!

We went out to eat a few times; Rhombus Guys pizza, the country club, The Blue Moose and we lunched at a new place to us, The Boardwalk Grill. Their favorite by far was the pizza, which is pretty amazing! During the summer you can sit up on their roof, which we did, and we had perfect weather the evening we went.

I didn’t take a lot of pictures… but here are a few.

Driving around ND, late summer. They were harvesting wheat that week.

 
J and Brutus playing hand and foot