The Five-Minute Snowman Centerpiece

When I was swapping out Santa for Snowfolk I wanted to change up the centerpiece that stays put on the dining table. I'd changed out the runner to one with blue and white snowflakes so I thought a snowman would be perfect. And this one took five minutes.

I'm not even doing step-out pix! You'll need a silvery tray, fairy lights, white batting, bottlebrush tree and a snow person (or more, if you want!)

On the silvery tray (Dollar Tree) I added a string of battery fairy lights.

I added some of the batting I use as a base for my felties on top of that, pulling some of the lights out of the batting.

After placing the snowman in the middle, using tacky wax I added a few bottlebrush tree.

 And there you have it -- five minutes (the longest part is fiddling with the lights) and using items on hand.

 And full of winter fun!

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So Far, I'm Not Bonding with 2021!

It's been a bumpy ride this year, hasn't it? January hasn't started out the best for Rick and me. And that part has nothing to do with the riot in Washington.

That was a bad week for us on any number of levels. The worst was that Rick's mom fell and broke her hip. Surgery was delayed for a few days for other medical reasons. Apparently, she was close to having a heart attack (which didn't have anything to do with the fall) and the cardiologist had to sign off. Meanwhile, she was in terrible pain. The good news is that the surgery went well and she is starting to sound like herself again. There will be rehab, of course, but that one is looking up.

I think it was the same day that we found out a cousin of Rick's (second, or removed) had died in December. Barbara was a lovely woman. She and I shared an interest (no, a passion) for Jacqueline Winspear's "Maisie Dobbs" mysteries and she would send me hers when she finished. She never forgot Rick's birthday. Every year she sent a Christmas letter to Rick and one to me -- much of it was the same but she always, always personalized the first couple of paragraphs, referring to our times together or shared interests. A few years ago she came to the lake and we had a wonderful time and I will be forever grateful for having had that opportunity to get to know her better. 

I'm still going through cardio testing, which -- thanks to slow prior authorization from our new insurance company -- has delayed appointments and finding out just what needs to be done for my a-fib. I'm still hoping for a conservative, medication-only treatment. 

A friend of Rick's came down with Covid. He's not a good candidate with many co-morbidities. Rick picked up meds and food for him, leaving it at his door. Stay tuned. And, Rick is also having trouble with his tenant who lives on the other side of his duplex wall. The best thing that could happen is that the lease is broken. Sometimes a bad tenant is worse than no tenant. Oh, and the tenant was exposed to Covid over New Year's. He'd better be staying out of the laundry room.

But, on the happier side, Lizzie and I have been enjoying some backyard bird watching.

There's a lot of action at Lizzie Coco's Birdbath Bar and Grill. I've seen all kinds of sparrows, woodpeckers, juncos, cardinals, jays, and I think the red one in this post is a finch. 

Although, every photo reminds me that I should have washed the windows outside before the snow fell!

 Rick is making noise about wanting his hair cut. I'm liking his long-hair look and dreading using the clippers he bought. Maybe a scissor trim.

The good news? I'm now eligible to register for my Covid vaccine. The bad news? Our county has over 80,000 people in my category and doses for about 2,500. I'm sure glad I like being in my house.

As you can see in the photos above, I have replaced the Santas with the snowfolk. I am so glad I did a bottlebrush tree mantel this year so I don't have to deal with that right now!

The big tree and some of the smaller ones will probably be down by the time this posts, give or take a day. I was going to take it down on the seventh, after Twelfth Night, but the lights and color were so peaceful and calm and after what happened the day before, I needed all the peace and calm I could get. Meanwhile, this one gives me all the joy you need on a bad day. Or week. Or month.

So, to keep me calm, another Lizzie pic. She was having quite a time. Lizzie lives in oblivion of all except eat, sleep, play, purr. I think a lot of us wish we could live in oblivion after events at the Capitol last week, but I also suspect that being oblivious to facts, truth and falling under the spell of a maniacal fascist leader and conspiracy theories is what got us into this mess in the first place. January 20 cannot come soon enough for me but I'm under no illusions that the violence is over. Remember, I live in the state where these domestic terrorists got a dress rehearsal storming our state capitol in April and plotted a kidnapping attempt on our outstanding governor who has gone to the mat to protect our state during Covid.

These people are not patriots. They were not peaceful protestors. Call them what they are. Rioters, terrorists, racists, thugs and so much more, incited by a madman who was enabled by followers whose source of information was unproven conspiracy theories. For many, those theories were fueled by perceived self-interest, whether it was financial or motivated by single issues like the Supreme Court. Why should we be surprised at his inciting violence? I just don't understand the thinking behind this.

It's not like we weren't warned when he suggested using the second amendment to take care of Hillary Clinton in 2016. It's not like we weren't warned by the increasingly rabid tweets. We were warned. And eyes were covered.

Some of his followers are otherwise good people. They do good things for others, volunteer for worthy organizations, would bring chicken soup to a sick neighbor.  Some are in my extended family, others I've known for years. They are people I care about. I don't wish them ill, I know we will in time have what I hope are good times together. But I do not understand how they can stick by him after all the damage he has done to our country.

I truly believe they are deluded. If anything comes from this, I would like to think they would come around and recognize not only who and what this man is and his role in instigating partisan hate, but also their role in enabling it through their votes or passive acceptance. It is not a matter of party. It's a matter of principle. Or, as the old saying goes, "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."

My word of the year is hope. Hope for eyes wide open, not eyes wide shut. But I don't know that I'm too hopeful about an end to the violence. Or, that everyday people will accept their own accountability. I'd like to be wrong, so very much.

We are emotionally and mentally exhausted. At least I am. I'm getting a little desperate for joy.

I'm leaving comments open here but keep it civil, regardless of point of view. I'm sure some won't agree. But comments that cross the line will be deleted.

Mural Monday: Bright Color in Old Town

There is a bit of irony in the fact that Lansing, Michigan's Old Town might be the trendiest area in the city, and certainly the least frumpy! It's an area of the arts and they do it well.

So it's not surprising to see this splendid mural on the side of one if its older buildings. I'm happy to share it today with Mural Monday on Sami's Colourful World.

 

Titled "Maagwed Miijim: The One Who Provides," it is by artist Nani Chacon with Dylan Miner and Marsos DeJesus and was sponsored by MSU Women of Color Initiative in 2018.

Old Town is one of three "villages" in Lansing's early development. John W. Burchard was the settlement's earliest resident, building the first log cabin in Lansing in 1843. 

The area was home to the city's first sawmill and a its location by the Grand River and its first bridge, financed by leading pioneer James Seymour, connected the area to places wast. Lansing's first school was built in Old Town as well. 

For many years the area was a bit of a hub in the city, but it began a decline in the 20th century. When I was a child in the mid 1950s, my grandparents lived in the country north of Old Town, and the area was most convenient for my grandmother's shopping. 

By then some of the spots I recall were Glass Pharmacy (where Mom and I would have a cherry phosphate at the counter while Grandma did her grocery marketing), Freddie's Donuts, Beeman's Market, a bank, the dime store (was it a Woolworths? I don't recall!), the Mustang and Unicorn bars and the Northtown movie theatre (where, according to my grandmother's journals, she and granpa enjoyed many movies). 

Only the Unicorn remains. After a good deal of decline, the area fell into decay. Slowly, but very steadily, enthusiastic artists and small businesses, led in large part by the remarkable Robert Busby, and with the help of many grants, brought the area back to the status of being Lansing's crown jewel. 

 

It is the place to be, with its galleries, shops, street art and annual festivals.

One of the things I missed most at Christmas was not being able to shop in Old Town's delightful stores. Yes, they were open. No, I didn't shop this year. Going to Old Town is one of the things I'm looking forward to visiting again after my vaccine.

We'll be visiting again here soon!

The Books of 2020

These year end book posts always take forever to pull together but I admit I love looking back at them so they are worth the time!

I didn't read "New York"yet but I made it through all the others and a whole lot more!

This year I read 65 books, totaling out at 19,827 pages. (2019 was 62 books at 18,238 pages.) I was pleased to top both my title goal of 60, as well as cover more pages.

As always, mysteries always top my list as a favorite genre. I read some good ones and a few that I will willingly pass long to someone or donate to the library! 

Here are the lists by category. Favorites are noted with ***. Books I've featured on this blog earlier this year are hotlinked.

Fiction

In this category, my favorite of the year was "The Dutch House," by Ann Patchett, along with the three books by Antoine Laurain -- very fast, whimsical reads and just what I needed this Covid summer.  

I was most disappointed in Julian Fellowes "Belgravia." I was a big fan of his "Downton Abbey," and this is somewhat in the same vein but it just didn't connect with me.

Another disappointment was Ann Patchett's "Commonwealth." I so loved "The Dutch House" and her previous books, especially "Bel Canto," so perhaps I had unrealistic expectations.

*** The Dutch House (Ann Patchett)

 Winter Solstice (Elin Hilderbrand)

Belgravia (Julian Fellowes)

***The President's Hat (Antoine Laurain)   /   Vintage 1954 (Antoine Laurain)   /   The Portrait (Antoine Laurain)

Commonwealth (Ann Patchett)

Reflections (Richard Lassin) 

 Mystery

My favorite of all these was Louise Penny's newest, "All the Devils are Here," with Anthony Horowitz's "The Magpie Murders" high on my list.  Josephine Tey's classic "The Daughter of Time" was a real winner that had me looking for more on Richard III.

But you'll also see lots of repeated names here. Of particular notes are new entries in the remarkably complex "Serralier" series by Susan Hill, more "Ruth Galloway" mysteries by Elly Griffiths and one of my new favorites, Donna Leon's, "Guido Brunetti" books. 

With any series, I recommend reading in order, although the most recent Louise Penny ("All the Devils are Here") stands on its own. It was also fun to catch up with the newest "Maggie Hope" mystery by Susan Elia Macneal and Deborah Crombie's newest, "A Bitter Feast." 

Kate Atkinson's "Big Sky" brought back Jackson Brodie and was worth the wait. Ann Cleeves has a new "Vera" out in "The Darkest Evening." It is her most recent but my first and I will read more and seek out the TV series based on her books.

I also want to give a shout-out to the British Crime Library Series (BCL, when listed below) which brings back classics from the "Golden Age of Mystery" by authors more obscure but no less clever than Agatha Christie and P.D. James. (And their covers are little art masterpieces in themselves!)

Prisoner in the Castle (Susan Elia Macneal)

***The Various Haunts of Men (Susan Hill)   /   The Pure in Heart (Susan Hill)

The Silent Patient (Alex Michelides) - This was hot on the NYT Bestseller list this year. Not my favorite but I admit, I was surprised. An unreliable narrator who has ever appearance of being reliable.

Desperate (Patti Battison)   /   Obsessed (Patti Battison)   /   Silent Grave (Patti Battison)

*** A Bitter Feast (Deborah Crombie)  One of my favorite series with husband/wife detectives working in London.

*** Bryant and May: London's Glory (Christopher Fowler) short story collection of the two eccentric British detectives.

***The Magpie Murders (Anthony Horowitz)  A great entry by the writer who also brought us television series "Foyle's War"and "Midsomer Murders."

The House on Vesper Sands (Pariac O'Donnell) -- A fun Victorian mystery set in London. I hope it is the first of a series.

Death at La Fenice (Donna Leon)   /   Death in a Strange Country (Donna Leon)  / Death and Judgment (Donna Leon)  /  Dressed for Death (Donna Leon)  /  Aqua Alta (Donna Leon)  These are the first books in a the Guido Brunetti series set in Venice. He eats very well indeed. Don't read when you are hungry!

The Janus Stone (Ely Griffiths)  /  A Room Full of Bones (Elly Griffiths)   /  The House at Sea's End (Elly Griffiths)   /   The Crossing Places (Elly Griffiths)   /  A Dying Fall (Elly Griffiths)  Griffiths'lead detective, Ruth Galloway, is a forensic archaeologist working in the Norfolk area of England.

Sidney Chambers and the Perils of the Night (George Runcie)   /  Sidney Chambers and the Problem of Evil (James Runcie)  These are the books that inspired the "Grantchester" series on PBS.

The Bookseller (Mark Pryor) This is a new series set in Paris featuring a Paris Embassy and former FBI agent as the lead character. In this one, they are trying to find a bouquiniste who disappeared from his stall - witnessed by the lead character. I will read more of these.

 The Division Bell Mystery (Ellen Wilkinson)   BCL  /   Death Has Deep Routes (Michael Gilbert)  BCL  /   It Walks by Night (John Dickson Carr)  BCL  From the British Crime Library series written in the 30s.

***Big Sky (Kate Atkinson)

***The Daughter of Time (Josephine Tey)

Every Contact Leaves a Trace (Elanor Dymott)

Crowned and Dangerous (Rhys Bowen)

Don't Look Back (Karin Fossum) 

No Shred of Evidence (Charles Todd)

***All the Devils are Here (Louise Penny)

***TheDarkest Evening (Anne Cleeves)

Blue Christmas (Emma Jameson)

***Nine Lessons (Nicola Upson)  This series of mysteries (this is #6) features the real-life author Josephine Tey as the protagonist. Even though I'm not always fond of real-life characters playing a main role in fiction (see below), it works here because the work is so obviously fiction -- and well written. The plots are very clever in all the books. I'd recommend starting with the first of the series.

Plaid and Plagarism (Molly MacRae)

Biography/Memoir

My favorite of all the memoirs and biographies in this category was by our blog friend Kathy McCoy -- "The Crocodiles Will Arrive Later."  She had long wanted to write a memoir of her years growing up and it is a powerful story of resilience with more than a good deal of humor and loads of love. I was inspired.

Worst on the list was Hector Bolitho's "King Edward VIII" An Intimate Biography." This was written right after the abdication and it was not only poorly written but really very little of what I look for in a biography -- namely, research. Not recommended!

 Alex Trebek's "The Answer Is..." isn't deep but it's fun to learn more about the late, beloved host of "Jeopardy." And Ann Hood's "Kitchen Yarns" is more a collection of essays on her life as related to food -- but the recipes look pretty good and the writing is delightful. It was fun to learn more about Richard Rodgers ("Something Wonderful") and Queen Victoria as well.

Something Wonderful (Todd Purdum)   

King Edward VIII: An Intimate Biography (Hector Bolitho)

***Comfort Me with Apples (Ruth Reichl) -- I love Reichl's writing, her ability to tell her story with a good deal of self-awareness and honesty. Plus, there are terrific recipes!

Queen Victoria's Sketchbook (Marina Warner)  A combination of paintings by Queen Victoria and the history behind them and her love of art.

The Answer Is... (Alex Trebek)

***The Crocodiles Will Arrive Later (Kathy McCoy) 

Kitchen Yarns (Ann Hood) 

***Beatrix Potter: A Journal  Only 32 pages and mostly images and diary entries, this large and lovely book was a real treat.

Fictional Biography (I really don't like this genre!)

For the most part, I find fictional biography the lazy author's "biography." They research some (and you'd better take a look at their sources -- some are better at it than others; always check the notes at the end of the book and then look up those sources to see how they stand in terms of bias). Then they make up the conversations and motivations which may -- or may not -- be close to accurate. 

"Love and Ruin" was about Martha Gellhorn and her relationship with Ernest Hemingway. Paula McLain has written about the Hemingways before ("The Paris Wife"). I may not be a fan of the genre but the the book is well written and appears to be much better researched than the others in this category.

"The Royal Governess" is about Marion Crawford, governess to the now Queen Elizabeth II, shunned after she had written a book called "The Little Princesses. From the notes, her research was largely the aforementioned book. The conversations and situations in some cases are accurate (or appear to be, as reported in Crawford's book, which I have read and returned to when reading "The Royal Governess") and in some cases I wondered, "Where did she find this?" I did a pretty exhaustive google search and there was much about her private life I couldn't verify. Or come close.

Even worse was a book called "The Queen's Secret" which is about Elizabeth (Queen Mother) during World War II. I have issues with her sources. By and large most of them have had an agenda against the Queen Mum for a variety of reasons, and maybe for some, those reasons are well founded. But that's not what I really hated about it. Honestly, your 14-year-old diary-writing daughter could pull this book (written in "first person diary form") far better than the author. Anne Frank was younger than that! I have tried to decide if I should just throw this one in the trash (I absolutely hate the idea of tossing a book) or risk someone buying it at a library sale and believing it all without research. It's still sitting by the door next to the garage and garbage can, awaiting my decision. 

Love and Ruin (Paula McLain) 

The Royal Governess (Wendy Holden)

The Queen's Secret (Karen Harper)

Non-Fiction

This is a wacky category because it's a little bit of everything, including "Almost Everything," by Anne Lamott -- which isn't really biography and it isn't really non-fiction and it isn't really an essay. It is just wonderful. If anything connected with me more during these past political and Covid months, it was this book (although it was written before Covid hit.) 

Tops of this category is "Les Parisiennes" about women in France during WWII, with a heavy focus on the Resistance. "The Wild Remedy" and "Mudlarking" were both fascinating to me -- the first because of its message of the power of nature and art for those dealing with Seasonal Affective Disorder and depression; the latter because I was always curious about what those mudlarkers found when combing through the detritus of the Thames when the tide went out.

 ***London Peculiars (Peter Ashley) If you love London, this is filled with all sorts of off the beaten track spots you might want to check out!

 When Paris Sizzled (Mary McAuliffe) Paris during the 1930s with looks at such luminaries as Chanel, Gershwin, Cocteau, Satie and many more.

***Almost Everything (Anne Lamott) - Reading this book helped me get through the trying political and Covid times. Lamott just does that. She is wonderful.

***Les Parisiennes (Anne Sebba) -- This one is fascinating. It covers the WWII years in Paris and the women who were a part of it -- the resistance, the collaboators, the spies.

***Remembrance of Things Paris (ed. Ruth Reichl)  Only one piece in this fabulous collection of essays from "Gourmet" is by Reichl but oh, the quality of the writing, the way it summarizes Paris from the war years on. I loved this one! The recipes are a wonderful (but unnecessary) touch. If you love Paris and food, read this one.

***The Wild Remedy (Emma Mitchell) If you are affected by depression (I learned a lot about depression in this one) or seasonal affective disorder, this book may help you through. And if you aren't, it's a wonderful (and beautifully illustrated) read anyway.

***Mudlarking (Lara Maiklem) If you've ever had a yen to go hunting for old coins and bits of pottery on the Thames, check this one out! A fascinating look at London's river -- and what washes up when the tide goes out.

The Library Book (Susan Orlean)

I know everyone has different reading tastes. Mine are somewhat eclectic. But there are some good titles on this list -- in fact, with the exception of "The Queen's Secret" and "The Royal Governess," I would recommend all of them, depending on what you enjoy. Time to turn the page to a new stack of books!

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