Shadow Creek ,my Book of the Week

Shadow Creek by Joy Fielding

This was the book I worked on last week. I have read many by this author and she is easy to read and usually writes a good interesting mystery novel with well thought out characters.

This one was disappointing . It had just too many “unbelievable s “ in it.

It is a horrendous slaughter of 2 sets of elderly people in their cottages in the Adirondacks. By a couple of crazed serial killers. This part is laced with gore and sex.

Into this scene at Shadow Creek comes a very dysfunctional set of people, a mother( wife soon to be divorced) her out of control 16 year old daughter, the husband's fiance (soon to be married) and 2 peculiar friends of the mother, a fashionista and a homosexual dandy. 

All are waiting for the husband to arrive so they can have a nice weekend at the lodge. The husband never gets there; he is too busy with his work which turns out to be a girl friend of his daughter. The daughter keeps taking off into the forest to meet a boyfriend and her mother goes frantic trying to keep her in check meanwhile  casting nasty barbs at the fiance of her husband. They all get thrown out of the lodge but instead of heading home decide to camp.

Then all of the characters , the goodies and the baddies, get mixed up together and you keep thinking to yourself ” well that was really stupid”.

I did get to the end of the book as I knew it would end okay but given all the peculiarities of the plot it did make me wonder just how it managed it.

Not a book I would recommend.

Tax Time coming UP

Tax time fast approaching so everyone is collecting their forms and their Turbo Tax helper or making an appointment for H& R Block or their friendly AARP tax helper person all to help them save as much money they can by filling in their big tax form correctly.
Well we solved this a long time ago when we were given a great tax shelter.

Here it is. I think it was hand made so can't share it with you or tell you where to get one!

Remembering Winter

It was a beautiful day today , sun shining warm almost 70 degrees and I truly now think Spring is on its way. I even managed to get out in the garden and plant some radishes and small seeds of flowers.

I had decided a while back that I would choose a photo for each season that would truly represent the kind of winter, spring, summer fall we have in 2013 and then paint it so here is the one I have done for Winter 2013.

We had very little snow this year and you can see that by the scant amount on the wheelbarrow.

Starry Starry Nights

Starry Starry nights-a painting Challenge

Van Gogh's    The Starry night

Every very month there is a painting challenge on the blog “Paint and Draw together” and I find it a good way to get motivated to paint. Maybe you have seen some of my past attempts.

Well in February a new challenge wasn't posted so I decided to give myself a challenge but who and what should I try to paint. It's a difficult choice to make as you want it to be a challenge. I looked at many old masters and just couldn't decide.

Then I was looking and listening to YouTube and heard one of my favorite tunes , Starry Starry night sung by Don McLean with just a lovely video of Van Gogh's paintings . http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkvLq0TYiwI

Shirley's attempt at Starry night

When I saw it I knew which painting I would choose for my challenge.

It is a difficult painting to even look at let alone paint as the brush strokes go every which way and the beautiful colors swirl and blend so well and it is difficult to concentrate on just one part of the painting. 

Now I know why Van Gogh was such a marvelous artist.

I am sad he had to have such a sad life.

But what a legacy he left us to enjoy.

Post script>: From Wikipedia

 The Starry Night is a painting by the post-impressionist  artist Vincent van Gogh. The painting depicts the view outside his sanitarium room window at Saint-Rémy-de-Provence (located in southern France) at night, although it was painted from memory during the day. It has been in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, part of the Lillie P. Bliss Bequest, since 1941. The painting is among Van Gogh's most well known works.

"Rabbits, Rabbits"; March is here.

Rabbits, Rabbits; March is here

I'm not sure why I do this but at the beginning of each month before I say anything else, I say,” Rabbits, rabbits”. Stupid really but always have done it and I wouldn't mind betting my sisters do it as well. My mum said if you did that you would be lucky all through the month. Another English superstition.

I was curious about how this came about so using my trusty computer and Google I looked it up.

It seems this has been going on since 1200 A D and nobody seems to know why. It's obviously to do with good luck and also because the hare or rabbit was deemed a lucky animal. I remember that some people in England also carried a rabbit paw around for luck. Just thinking about it makes me cringe now but I do remember someone ,I can't remember who, letting me stroke the soft velvety rabbit paw. At the time I was very impressed.

I understand this superstition has gone all over the world and especially to Europe and other places that were colonized by England and the English speaking people.

Do you think the French say Lapin, lapin and the German say kaninchen, kaninchen or do you think the luck only works if you say it in English?

Lucky rabbits paw ( not for the rabbit!)

I also found out that I might been saying it wrongly and I should have been saying” rabbit,rabbit white rabbit as it is the white rabbit part that brings the good luck .Also you have to say it out aloud not just think it.

Linked to this strange tradition was another peculiar one which I hadn't heard of before and this you only do on January 1 to bring you luck during the whole year. For this you had to walk backwards down the stairs saying rabbit on each stair.

You probably needed luck for that especially if you had a few drinks on New Year's Eve.

So now it's March and lets hope it a good and lucky month but if it isn't I'll know why.

Crazy Sweater Day

Crazy Sweater Day

Every month I meet with a group of jolly ladies that all originated in the United Kingdom.

It is a time to chat , give each other support and have a laugh and relax.

Every month the hostess for the meeting will pick a theme and most are pretty usual for meetings- white elephant exchange, tacky dress, plant exchange etc.

This month we were challenged to look in the back of our closets and find that sweater that we just haven't managed to throw out yet but would never wear outside of the house.

Well most of the ladies bravely came up with some wonderful  crazy  sweaters and yes we did have a laugh about them. 

Strangely enough no one wanted mine and I offered to give it to anyone who wanted it so I have put it at the back of the cupboard again.

Penny Memories

See a penny, pick it up,
all day long you'll have good luck,
give it to a faithful friend,
then your luck will never end

As Mike and I were walking back up our driveway after digging another 6 wheelbarrow loads of wood chips ( phew!) he bent down and picked up a shiny penny lying there.
How it had come there I don't know but I could have dropped it, it could have fallen out of a pocket etc etc.
As we both grew up when a penny actually meant something we always pick them up and put them in a penny jar. Pennies also seem to grow in my change purse although these days spending actually cash is a thing that has been overtaken largely by plastic. When I get a purse of coins full I load them in the penny jar.

An English penny was something you couldn't miss as it was big and heavy. Many candies  (sweeties) could be bought for a 1d. It counted for so much that there even were two smaller coins, a halfpenny 1/2d and a farthing 1/4d. So when we were kids we collected all the small coins and felt we were really rich . If we collected 12 pennies we then had a shilling.

So what's a shilling? A shilling was a shiny silver coin and worth 12d. 1s=12d. Not 10 but 12 you notice. This led to complications at school and in arithmetic ( it wasn't called math then).It got even more complicated as 20 shillings were collected into pounds, £1. However pounds were paper money so we rarely saw those as kids. You had to learn the complicated conversions back and forth 12d=1s, 20s= £1 and when I became a teacher it was really hard to teach especially as the metric change was just about coming in when old money had to be changed to new money and new conversions had to be taught. A penny then became new pence.
So a few memories came to light brought up with picking up a penny and not a true penny at that.- a cent. Must be a lucky day.

Find a penny, pick it up.
All day long you'll have good luck.
See a penny leave it there,
bad luck comes! So beware


So it seems you'd better pick it up- pennies or cents as luck is hanging on the action.




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