Friday, February 6, 2015

7 Quick Takes {Take 68} Brightening up our winter with happy thoughts, books and crafts! edition...


As I was trying to think of ideas for this post, I made a list (go ahead, make fun ;-)) of things running through my head this morning, and tried to come up with a "theme." I had a few topics I knew I wanted to talk about, but no idea what they had in common.  So here's what I came up with! Because we could all use a few bright spots in winter, yes?

-1- Thinking positive thoughts, since it's still looking apocalyptic out there

We awoke this morning to more snow. I don't mind snow, I really don't. But there has been zero instances of the temperature rising above freezing, hence no meltage of aforementioned snow, and we're running out of space to put it.

View out my office window
My poor, ancient little car was doing it's best imitation of The Little Engine that Could this morning on my commute in. It's dicey out there, for sure. But spring is coming! In a...little while, let's stay positive! With Lent comes good fish fry, and February is a short month, so then there's March and St. Patrick's day revelry and St. Joseph tables... See?!

-2- Yay for blog comments, because I think I have finally stopped Blogger from eating things!

OK, *so.* I have known for a bit that Blogger occasionally gets hungry and consumes comments. I kept thinking to myself:

"I need to look into this and see if there is anything I can do."

But then I would forget. #gettingold

So finally, after hearing from more than one person that they left a comment I never ended up seeing, I remembered to do a little research, and unsurprisingly found information from other people who were experiencing the same problem. They had a suggestion for changing the comment settings, which I did, and this week I have had a record number of comments.

!

I AM HORRIFIED. If you have left me comments in the past that you never saw, I promise I was NOT moderating them out and snubbing you! I publish everything except spam. And abusive or inappropriate comments, though that has never happened. I think Blogger has been messing with all of our minds for YEARS now. Good heavens. So I am happy that I seem to have this under control and that I am hearing from all of you more. *thrilled!*

-3- Crafty, cozy fiction

Moving on to book news, lots going on there. I've been busily reading a book that will be part of the Read and Stitch series as soon as I finish, and to give you a sneak peek, that is Murder Tightly Knit (An Amish Village Mystery), by Vanetta Chapman:


Knitting, the Amish, a small town? These are all desirable characteristics in a book for me! Very excited to discuss this one, which should hopefully be next week!

-4- Upcoming book club selections have been updated!

I updated the Catholic Book Club reading list to reflect what I'll be tackling for the next four months, so join in if you see something you like. For this month, we have book 2 in the exciting I Am Margaret series by Corinna Turner, which is The Three Most Wanted:


If you haven't read the first book in this series, you might want to start there. You will get through it quickly, trust me, because you won't want to put it down! Both are $3.88 right now for Kindle, a BARGAIN.

In March, we move back to non-fiction for Lent, and will read Trusting God with St. Therese, by Connie Rossini:


This looks to be the more personal style of non-fiction that I really enjoy, and I'm looking forward to reading this. Only $4.99 right now for Kindle. Then coming up in April and May I chose two mystery titles, because it will be spring and I just love those. :0 A Sister Joan mystery, and another Birdie Elliott mystery (remember her, the vicar's wife?) this one centered around the feast of the Ascension, I couldn't resist the timing on that one. I'll talk about those more as the dates draw near. :)

-5- Spring rosary design, because who doesn't need an arsenal of rosaries based on the seasons?

My best rosary gal pal Allison has her shop in vacation mode right now because she recently delivered a beautiful new baby girl, and so in the mean time I've been busily planning rosary gift and chaplet ideas for when she opens back up. :0 Right now, I'm thinking spring, and so maybe a cherry blossom hued St. Therese rosary and chaplet for a friend? Oh, the fabulous possibilities are endless. But I do, truly have a list of gift ideas on my desk, and when I need a pick-me-up, I pull it out and make more notes. I am a nerd.

-6- Stashbusting afghan, thinking warm thoughts...

I am a big fan of crocheted afghans, it is true, but all of the blankets I have are made out of acrylic. It's the budget, acrylic is far less expensive than wool. But as I went through my stash the other day *halo* I realized that I have a bunch of skeins of wool left over from various projects, or for projects that I lost interest in making. I had a bunch of brown, a skein of pumpkin, some green and yellow... Then I remembered the Forest Path afghan from Knit Picks, which I've been admiring for weeks now:


I purchased the pattern and just a few skeins of wool to supplement what was in my stash, but I already had over half of what I would need to make the afghan in my custom stashbusting colorway. :) Because the blanket is crocheted in a schema of different pairs of colors surrounded by your main color, you could use up tons of single skeins that are lying about in your stash. Your finished blanket will end up having a lot more colors in it than the original design, but that matters not so long as there is an overall palette that fits together pleasingly. The extra wool is on it's way and I'm very excited!

-7- Is there *anything* in our house anymore that doesn't have an affiliation with Frozen?

A package from Amazon arrived at our house yesterday evening containing the small gifts I had chosen for the kids for Valentine's Day. One of which is this set of wooden puzzles for Anne:
I had gotten her a few Frozen puzzles for Christmas, and she does use them, but they're made of traditional cardboard, and the pieces are smaller and harder for her to manipulate and keep together. These wood pieces are perfect for 3 year olds. And I love that you can store the puzzles in the wood container. Score. Happy winter activities for us all!

How have you been doing, dear reader? Leave a comment, now that you reliably can. :0 And check out more 7 Quick Takes over at This Ain't the Lyceum!

4 comments:

  1. Thanks for the book suggestions. I love Amish novels so will definitely have to check those out. I'm not familiar with the other titles but they sound interesting. Best of all I often get an Amazon gift card for my birthday so....!

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  2. On the comment issue for a while I had trouble leaving comments using the Chrome browser. When I realized that this was happening to me on multiple blogger blogs I thought it might be on my end and Googled it. If I remember correctly it was something to do with my cookie settings.

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  3. I've been told blogger has eaten so many comments on my blog. I've been thinking about using the comment form that people who have "comment love" button use but I have yet to feel determined enough to go through all the steps. But it does make me hopeful to hear that blogger's comments can me made to work!

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  4. We have the same puzzle set in "Mickey Mouse Clubhouse." Great wooden box for storage and each puzzle has a different stamp on the back of each piece for easy sorting when they get mixed up. Enjoy!

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