Pat's (phebj's) Progress--Page 3

For my third thread topper, I thought I would focus on Boise’s parks and greenbelt. Boise has about 100 different parks and the greenbelt is considered one of them. It runs alongside the Boise River for about 25 miles within Boise and extends farther all the time as other cities and towns along the river join into it. The idea for the greenbelt came about in the 1960s when Boise was trying to figure out how to prevent people from building in the river’s floodplain and make the river an asset rather than the eyesore and dumping ground it was at the time. The City of Boise patiently acquired land along the river and today the greenbelt is used by most, if not all, residents of the city for walking, biking, skating and/or commuting to work. It provides direct access to about 20 of the city’s parks and connects into the Ridge to River system, a network of 130 miles of trails in the Boise foothills.

The parks along the greenbelt are often referred to as a “ribbon of jewels” and work seems to be constantly ongoing to build new ones. (This link shows the map that appears on the greenbelt to orient users and you can see how the parks are strung along the river’s edge.) One of the newest parks is the Boise River Park, a whitewater park for kayakers. (On the map it’s referred to as the Ray Neef River Recreation Park.) Here’s a picture:

My favorite park along the greenbelt is Kathryn Albertson Park. It’s named after the wife of Joe Albertson, the founder of the supermarket chain, and was designed to be an urban wildlife sanctuary. Consequently, it’s for pedestrians only and dogs are not allowed from March through June when the waterfowl are nesting. I love it because it’s a beautiful place to take a quiet, contemplative walk. We often see deer, fox, herons, ducks, turtles and, for awhile this fall, 4 roosters that someone must have left there. It was so funny to hear them calling to each other. Here’s a picture of one of the ponds in the fall:

The other thing I love about Kathryn Albertson Park is the sign at the entrance. They chiseled her name into big rocks and it always reminds me of the Flintstones.

Books with an Idaho connection (a work in progress)

Fiction set in Idaho:

A Country Called Home by Kim Barnes
Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner
Five Skies by Ron Carlson
God's Dogs: A Novel in Stories by Mitch Wieland
Train Dreams by Denis Johnson
Thousand Pieces of Gold by Ruthanne Lum McCunn
Sudden Death, Over Time by John Rember

Non-fiction set in Idaho:

Anything Worth Doing: A True Story of adventure, friendship, and tragedy on the last of the West's great rivers by Jo Deurbrouck
Balsamroot: A Memoir by Mary Clearman Blew
Big Trouble: A Murder in a Small Western Town Sets Off a Struggle for the Soul of America by J. Anthony Lukas
Bitterbrush Country: Living on the Edge of the Land by Diane Josephy Peavey--4.5 stars (review at msg #40)
In the Wilderness: Coming of Age in Unknown Country by Kim Barnes
Indian Creek Chronicles: A Winter Alone in the Wilderness by Pete Fromm--4.5 stars (review at msg #182)
The Good Times Are All Gone Now: Life, Death, and Rebirth in an Idaho Mining Town by Julie Whitesel Wetson

Currently reading

Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin (for June 6th book club)
The Longevity Kitchen by Rebecca Katz

Books I’ve gotten stalled on but intend to finish:

Toms River: A Story of Science and Salvation by Dan Fagin
My Own Country by Abraham Verghese
All Things Shining: Reading the Western Classics to Find Meaning in a Secular Age (from my Meaning of Life class in November)

Books I've abandoned

Six Years by Harlan Coben

Books Read in 2013

January (3)

1. The Moomins and the Great Flood by Tove Jansson (fiction; children's)
2. Indian Creek Chronicles: A Winter Alone in the Wilderness by Pete Fromm (non-fiction)
3. What Was Asked of Us: An Oral History of the Iraq War by the Soldiers Who Fought It by Trish Wood (non-fiction)

February (6)

4. Bitterbrush Country: Living on the Edge of the Land by Diane Josephy Peavey (memoir)
5. Above All Things by Tanis Rideout (fiction)
6. Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple (fiction)
7. Anything Worth Doing: A true story of adventure, friendship and tragedy on the last of the West's great rivers by Jo Deurbrouck (non-fiction)
8. The Dinner by Herman Koch (psychological thriller)
9. Balsamroot: A Memoir by Mary Clearman Blew (memoir)

March (6)

10. Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo, and Me: A Graphic Memoir by Ellen Forney (graphic memoir)
11. God's Dogs: A Novel in Stories by Mitch Wieland (short stories)
12. Ethel and Ernest by Raymond Briggs (graphic memoir)
13. The Story of Lucy Gault by William Trevor (fiction)
14. Frances and Bernard by Carlene Bauer (epistolary fiction)
15. The Nao of Brown by Glyn Dillon (graphic novel)

April (3)

16. Schroder: A Novel by Amity Gaige (fiction)
17. Cancer Vixen: A True Story by Marisa Acocella Marchetto (graphic memoir)
18. The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman

May (3)

19. My Brother's Book by Maurice Sendak
20. Sudden Death, Over Time by John Rember (short stories)
21. The Woman Upstairs by Claire Messud

June (2)

22. Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel (graphic memoir)
23. Serena by Ron Rash (fiction)

Books Acquired in 2013

I’m planning to list here the new books I bring into the house this year and keep track of how many of them I read.

1. Our Hidden Lives: The Remarkable Diaries of Postwar Britain by Simon Garfield (recommended by Heather and Peggy)
2. Writing in the Dark: Essays on Literature and Politics by David Grossman (recommended by Darryl and others on his thread)
3. Our Daily Bread by Lauren B. Davis (recommend by Deborah/vancouverdeb)
4. The Good Times Are All Gone Now: Life, Death, and Rebirth in an Idaho Mining Town by Julie Whitesel Weston (Idaho connection)
5. Anything Worth Doing: A true story of adventure, friendship and tragedy on the last of the West's great rivers by Jo Deurbrouck (Idaho connection)
6. God's Dogs: A Novel in Stories by Mitch Wieland (Idaho connection)
7. Balsamroot: A Memoir by Mary Clearman Blew (Idaho connection)
8. Above All Things by Tanis Rideout (ER win)
9. What Was Asked of Us: An Oral History of the Iraq War by the Soldiers That Fought It by Trish Wood
10. A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson
11. Bitterbrush Country by Diane Josephy Peavey (Idaho connection)
12. The In-Between World of Vikram Lall by M.G. Vassanji (recommended by Paul; got from PBS)
13. The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Graham (Penguin Threads edition recommended by Ilana)
14. The Complete Tales & Poems of Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne (recommended by Linda)
15. What a Wonderful World by George David Weiss and Bob Thiele
16. Grand Central Station: How a Train Station Transformed America by Sam Roberts (NPR interview on the occasion of GCT's 100th birthday)
17. The Marsh Arabs by Wilfred Thesiger (recommended by Linda)
18. Take Your Time: The Wisdom of Slowing Down by Eknath Easwaran (recommended by Lynda)
19. Where'd You Go Bernadette by Maria Semple (recommended by Joanne, Amy and Tina)
20. My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell (recommended by Ilana and Judy)
21. Drop City by T.C. Boyle (recommended by Lucy, Mark and others)
22. The Destiny of the Republic by Candice Millard (recommended by Mark, Katie and others)
23. The Dog Stars by Peter Heller (recommended by Mark and Donna)
24. The Nez Perce Indians and the Opening of the Northwest by Alvin M. Josephy, Jr. (author is the father of Diane Josephy Peavey)
25. The Master of Go by Yasunari Kawabata (recommended by Stasia; got from PBS)
26. Arctic Dreams by Barry Lopez (recommended by Lucy)
27. Eagle, Idaho (Image of America Series)
28. The Dinner by Herman Koch
29. Sweet Tooth by Ian McEwan (gift)
30. It Will All Work Out: A Life History in Jane Falk Oppenheimer's Words (gift)
31. Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory, and the Conquest of Everest by Wade Davis
32. The Lost Carving: A Journey to the Heart of Making by David Esterly
33. Fire in the Lake: The Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam by Frances Fitzgerald (PBS)
34. One Day the Ice Will Reveal All Its Dead by Clare Dudman (recommended by Linda)
35. Six Years by Harlan Coben--abandoned
36. Toms River: A Story of Science and Salvation by Dan Fagin--reading
37. Sugar Salt Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us by Michael Moss
38. Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love & Wisdom by Richard Hanson
39. Culinary Intelligence: The Art of Eating Healthy (and Really Well) by Peter Kaminsky
40. Falling to Earth by Kate Southwood
41. Under the Afghan Sky: A Memoir of Captivity by Mellissa Fung
42. The Age of Edison: Electric Light and the Invention of Modern America by Ernest Freeberg
43. The Accursed by Joyce Carol Oates
44. Lions of the West: Heroes and Villains of the Westward Expansion by Robert Morgan
45. The Burgess Boys by Elizabeth Strout
46. Thousand Pieces of Gold by Ruthanne Lum McCunn (Idaho connection)
47. Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald by Therese Anne Fowler
48. The Longevity Kitchen: Satisfying, Big-Flavor Recipes featuring the Top 16 Age-Busting Power Foods by Rebecca Katz with Mat Edelson
49. Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
50. The Woman Upstairs by Claire Messud
51. Cooked by Michael Pollan
52. Serena by Ron Rash

Books I've finished recently and owe some comments on:

Anything Worth Doing: A true story of adventure, friendship and tragedy on the last of the West's great rivers by Jo Deurbrouck
Balsamroot: A Memoir by Mary Clearman Blew
God's Dogs: A Novel in Stories by Mitch Wieland

Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo and Me by Ellen Forney
Ethel & Ernest by Raymond Briggs
The Nao of Brown by Glyn Dillon

Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple

The Story of Lucy Gault by William Trevor

Pat- Love the new thread and the wonderful photos! You live in such a beautiful location. God's Dogs: A Novel in Stories sounds very good, plus I love that cover!
Are you still reading Team of Rivals? That old relic?

Thanks Mark. I do love it here. I think God's Dogs is going to be great but the last couple of days I've been reading the graphic memoir Marbles because it needs to go back to the library.

When I went to the library discussion of Balsamroot last week, I asked if they had any plans to continue an adult book club and they said maybe in the fall. But as I was getting ready to leave the person who led the discussion came up and asked if I wanted to join her RL book club. I can't go until their May meeting but in June they're reading Team of Rivals and I figure I must be able to finish it by then. I'm so happy to have a reason to get back to it. It bothers me when I don't finish books, especially ones I've already invested so much time in.

Lovely new thread Pat and I have just one question: is each successive thread going to have more and more beautiful pictures of your beautiful state? haha Seriously, the pictures are really so stunning. I especially love the park entrance.

LOL Bonnie! I do love pretty pictures of Idaho and know I tend to over enthuse at times because my husband and friends have been known to roll their eyes. I'm thinking at least one thread, I'll do about things I don't like here and put up bad pictures just to balance it out a bit.

2: What a lovely place that is.

Wonderful new thread and gorgeous park pictures! Absolutely lovely.

I'm delighted to have a look at beautiful Idaho. Many thanks, Pat! AND Happy New Thread!!!
I can't wait to see whether you think I should bump the Verghese up to a higher spot on Mt. Bookpile.

Hi Katherine. It's not a huge park (about 40 acres) but it was really well designed with pathways winding around ponds and benches to sit on to look at the view. It takes about 25 to 30 minutes to walk the whole thing but you can take different paths and get several different walks out of it.

Thanks Roni! I'm so glad you liked the pictures of one of my favorite places.

Hi Peggy. I'm glad you're enjoying the look at my own private Idaho. I have no idea when I'll get back to My Own Country by Abraham Verghese and that's too bad because what I read was very good. I also know it's one of Darryl's favorite books.

Albertson Park looks stunning Pat as does your latest thread. x

Thanks Paul! Good to see you here. :)

Hi Pat, I hope you had a great weekend. I love the pictures you are sharing with us this year. Idaho is a beautiful state but I love seeing places that I would never see just driving through.

Hi Pat, I love how you share Idaho with us!!

Morning Pat! Beautiful new thread. It's funny The parks along the greenbelt are often referred to as a “ribbon of jewels” our park system in northern Ohio is called the Emerald Necklace. People must lose sleep at night thinking up these names.
I think the Albertson rocks are cool - and they do look like something out of the Flintstones. In 500 years they my be the new Stonehenge with wild stories of how they got there. Aliens, maybe.

How wonderful to have beautiful parks so close by! I am jealous.

Waiting for your review of Marbles.....

Albertson Park looks fabulous.

What incredibly beautiful parks! How different this must be than living in NYC.

Hi, Pat! Lovely new thread: wonderful photos of beautiful places!

Hi Judy. I did have a good weekend. We finally have good weather here and it's nice to be out walking on a regular basis again. Glad you're enjoying the Idaho pictures.

Hi Joanne. We've been inundated with Idaho historical information on the local TV news, the local paper, and with tons of scheduled events to celebrate the Sesquicentennial. Today is actually the official birthday. Idaho became a territory on March 4, 1863. Tomorrow we're planning to check out a big exhibit that opens at the Idaho Historical Museum. I'm glad you're enjoying what I've shared so far. Just brace yourself because there's a lot more to come.

Thanks Lynda. I just googled Ohio Emerald Necklace Parks and must say the pictures of the parks are stunning. Someday I'd love to visit Cleveland again. I was there several times as a young child visiting my father's parents but haven't been back since.

Hi Linda. When we lived in lower Westchester County, there were very few parks so the emphasis on the parks here has been a big bonus. And with lots of available land, it seems like there is always a new park in the works. We generally walk our dog in our neighborhood in the morning but in the afternoons we often drive to a park to take our walk which keeps things interesting.

Lucy I loved Marbles and will probably give it 5 stars. I'll review it soon since it needs to go back to the library. Thanks so much for recommending it because I hadn't heard of it.

Hi Linda. It is very different than living in and around NYC. Actually, NYC had a lot of parks compared to where we lived in the suburbs. I remember loving spending time in Central Park but once we moved to the suburbs there was very little land devoted to parks.

Thanks Terri! I didn't see you there at first.

Hi Pat- 5 stars for Marbles? Yah! I've requested it from my library. I like the connection between her and my current author, Alexie. Small world, huh?

Hi Mark. I've never read anything by Alexie but it was interesting to see Ellen Forney had worked with him on The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian.

Pat - I've learnt a new word - I would have had no idea what Sesquicentennial meant if I hadn't had it followed by your dates! I think I would have made a guess at sixhundredth!

Rhian--LOL! I've not only learned what the word meant but also how to spell it now without having to check if I did it right. ;)

Lovely new thread, Pat. I think the first one is my favorite -- I love floating down cold rivers in hot weather!

Thanks Ellen. That's actually a big thing here in the summer--people floating the Boise River in various shapes and sizes of rafts and inner tubes.

Pat - Idaho's tourism department should be paying you a commission. What beautiful pictures! We rafted down a river into Lake Michigan a couple of years ago, and it was great fun until a snake swam by my foot, which was dangling over the side! Can't wait to hear what you thought of your recent reads!

Hi Pat- You will have to correct that major over-sight! READ Alexie! I can't praise him enough and as a bonus, these are short books.

Hi Amy! I'd love to get a commission for my Boise Boosterism (a very apt phrase that Richard coined).

I've actually never floated the Boise River. My husband did it as a child and isn't particularly interested in doing it in his 60s. Your snake story gives me pause. I wonder if they're snakes in the Boise River.

I wish I could work up some enthusiasm for doing my overdue reviews but the spirit just isn't moving me. Hopefully, that will change soon. I hate seeing the number of reviews I need to do grow.

>33 phebj: Oh that looks like fun!

Pat, I'm about 1/3 of the way into The Dinner. Interesting...

What a gorgeous new thread you have here, Pat! I love all the pictures!

Ok, Pat. that settles it. Not only are we going to have to meet up,we'll also float a river when we do! (Maybe with a guide-ish sort of person).

Pat, I just love seeing Beautiful Boise through your eyes. I'll stay out of the river, though, if you hear of any snakes! That's great that you found a book group to join. Mine meets tomorrow night and I haven't started my book. Thank goodness it's going to be a quick read.

Hi Joanne. I think I saw on your thread that you had The Dinner home from the library. I'm eager to see what you end up thinking of it.

Hi Mamie. I'm so happy you're enjoying the pictures of Boise. I love trolling the internet looking for them.

Janet that sounds like a great idea! When I was looking at the map when I read Indian Creek Chronicles, I thought we'd actually live somewhat close-by if not for the obstacle of all that wilderness.

Hi Donna. I'm really hoping this book club works out. Considering I don't know any of the members, it's a roll of the dice. But if it succeeds in getting me to finish Team of Rivals I'll consider it a success.

Tonight I'll start reading Team of Rivals for my book club in three weeks. I'm already feeling a little overwhelmed.

Good luck with Team of Rivals Janet. It's pretty good but it's not a page turner. Did you see the movie "Lincoln"? That got me interested enough to start it again but then of course I got distracted again.

There's a blog I found helpful in summarizing some of the book and posing good questions to consider called Team of Rivals One-Stop (here) that was done by a college professor in 2009 that I'd recommend in addition to the LT group read thread (here).

Hi Pat, .....and the Idaho travelogue continues. I'm enjoying everything about it Pat, but I don't think I'll be floating down the river anytime soon. I love that picture though:-)

Yes, Alexie is terrific.

Love the photo of the floating rafts in the Buoyant Boise. It would be unbearable except that the sun is shining, the snow is melting and the birds - a few early robins and such are cooing spring melodies at one another - there is hope.

Hi Bonnie and Lucy! Glad you like the picture of the Boise River. It's what makes this area green. Otherwise, it would be pretty bleak. I remember in Tucson, their river beds were empty for most the year except for the monsoon season when things could get nasty with torrential floods.

I'm glad to hear you're a fan of Alexie too Lucy. I need to see what my library has of his books.

I think I heard we may actually get some snow on Monday and Tuesday and I hope they're wrong. It's been so nice to take regular dog walks again and feel like we're moving away from winter. We've got lots of birds here too. One of the big harbingers of spring here is the return of the red-winged blackbird and there have been tons of them at our bird feeders lately. The males can be very aggressive and territorial and love to puff out their red epaulets

Hi Pat -- what beautiful Idaho photos here! Thanks so much for sharing them. Hope you get your wish for no-snow. We're in the middle of a major storm here, with about 10 inches so far and no sign of stopping...until tomorrow, that is, when it's supposed to be near 50. Ah, springtime in the Rockies!

Have a great weekend!

Hey Pat, the fair state of Idaho should put you on the payroll. You're very informative posts and pics surely will increase the number of tourists to you area.

I love red-wing blackbirds. They gather at the creek at the end of our block. Not yet though - I haven't seen any yet this season.

Finished The Dinner. I'm not sure what I think... I liked it, but, well, yikes!

Oh, cool! You have red winged blackbirds back already ;-)
I love when they come back and start flashing around. I do have to admit, I DO love spring too. I just don't like what it leads to.
Beautiful pictures and descriptions of Idaho attractions. I won't ever tire of them. Promise.
The Boise River looks pretty peaceful. I wouldn't mind floating down that one.

Interesting coloring on the bird Pat.
Have a wonderful remainder of your weekend. x

Hi Anne. I had no idea you were getting a major snowstorm this weekend. I have a cousin that used to live in the Denver area and I remember him telling me that even a major snowfall could disappear pretty quickly when it warmed up like that. Hope it's pretty and then it's gone!

Hi Lynda. LOL! My husband and his family are somewhat dumbfounded about how much I love Idaho because they were all worried I'd hate it after living so much of my life in the NYC area.

Hi Joanne. I have mixed feelings about the red-winged blackbirds. I like their coloring and I like their singing but I don't like how aggressive they can be. I've seen them go after hawks and herons and I don't want them chasing the herons away. I'll be interested to hear what else you have to say about The Dinner but at the moment I think I liked it, but, well, yikes! is a pretty good description.

Hi Claudia. I didn't realize you had red-winged blackbirds too. I never saw one until I moved out here. I've been seeing more and more of them the last several weeks. The Boise River is pretty peaceful and it seems like a very safe river to float.

Thanks Paul. The red-winged blackbirds are very noticeable with a splash of red and a splash of yellow on their wings. Hope you have a good rest of the weekend too even though we're being robbed of an hour of sleep.

We see red-winged blackbirds here too, but I don't think of them as a harbinger of spring. They must show up later ... now you've got me all curious about their migratory patterns.

Hi Laura. I googled red-winged blackbirds and see they're basically all over North America. I'm not sure why I didn't see them in NY but I'm pretty sure the reason they're so abundant here is because there's a pond behind our house with lots of cattails (and that's what they love according to my google search). That's probably why you see them too--your pond attracts them.

I may not be on LT as much in the next couple of days. I just started playing Words with Friends and have become obsessed with it. I'm playing 4 different games which is probably a mistake. My brother-in-law is killing me. Luckily my husband can't get too aggressive because he has to live with me. And my sister-in-law and niece are a joy to play with and balance the other two out.

Words with Friends? So it's basically like Scrabble on the go? I don't have an i-Phone, i-Pad, or a Facebook account. I feel out of it.

Hi Linda. It is just like Scrabble and I play it on Facebook. My husband doesn't have a FB account and uses his iPhone or Kindle Fire to play. All my friends have been playing it for a couple of years and I never tried it until about a week ago. I figure it's good for my brain. One of the things I like about it is you can plug any word or "word" in and it will let you know if it works before you play it with no penalty for guessing. What I don't like about it is there are a lot of pop up ads but my husband says for a small fee you can avoid those.

If you like WWF you'll also like Ruzzle, which is just like Boggle. They are definitely fun!!

I've never played Boggle, at least I think I haven't. I will have to check it out.

Hi Pat--Thanks for the links for Team of Rivals. I started it this weekend and am a couple chapters into it. I had to start a page of notes to keep the players and incidents straight.

No, I haven't seen Lincoln, though several people from the book club mentioned getting a group together to see it in Missoula.

Pat! That's my problem too! My friend invited me to play Pet Rescue Saga on facebook. I should have never accepted!! It's got me obsessed with saving puppies, piggies and other small defenseless creatures who will surely perish if not for my assistance. Good luck with WWF's.

Hi Pat. I love the pictures of Boise's parks and greenbelt - what a good idea to set aside some land as dedicated parkland. You're making me want to visit Idaho :-)

Never played Boggle? Well. With the right crew, it can be a very fun game. My nephew kicks my butt at it. He kicks everyone's butt at it. But he makes it fun. I was hooked on WWF for a while but have shifted my bus commute time to reading lately. I might have to pick it up again. It's a different use of the brain.

A game that involves saving animals would be the end of me. I know I would get totally sucked in and would just waste hours and hours. Then I would remember that it's not real. :-|

Hi Janet. I'm hoping that when I get back to Team of Rivals I'll remember who everyone is but if not I'm just going to plow ahead. Those 250 pages I did read were hard-earned and I can't imagine re-reading them. I hope you get a chance to see the movie Lincoln in the theater. It's a great film and there was something about seeing Lincoln larger than life that added to the experience.

Hi Lynda. I think will steer clear of Pet Rescue Saga. I can easily see getting obsessed with something like that. As it is, I'm having trouble getting off the computer if I'm actively playing WWF with someone. Just what I needed --another time consuming computer activity! But, of course, I'm loving it most of the time.

Hi Heather. Good to see you and glad you're enjoying my Idaho themed threads this year.

Hi Ellen. I will have to check out Boggle. I've certainly heard of it but am pretty sure I've never played. We have a great-neice (age 13) and great-nephew (age 7) visiting soon. Maybe that would be a fun thing to do with them.

>64 phebj:: You could probably do 5 minutes on Wikipedia and catch up on who was who if you didn't remember.

Hi Pat- Beautiful pictures. Some great reading, too.

Hey Pat! What beautiful parks you have in Boise! It really makes me want to hop on a plane and visit. I probably wouldn't float down the river on a raft, as I'm not a strong swimmer and deep water makes me nervous. But I do like to sit by the riverside and daydream.

My hubby plays Words with Friends, too. I have resisted so far, because I'm afraid I would get addicted.

I agree with you about the film Lincoln--there was something so moving and great about seeing the man alive on screen even though I knew it was Daniel Day-Lewis. He BECAME Lincoln.

Sandy K

Tad that's a great idea!

Hi Beth! Thanks for stopping by. I'm glad you're enjoying the pictures. I'm doing a lot better at posting about Idaho than I am at getting reviews done these days.

Hi Sandy. I'm more of a sit by the riverside person too. :-) My advice about WWF is to continue to resist. I am addicted at the moment and I both love and hate it (will dislike it) at the same time.

Morning Pat- Good luck getting back into TOR. It must be tough returning to a book like that, after some time has passed. I think it's worth finishing though. You can do it!

Mark the main reason I'll be trying to finish Team of Rivals is it's a RL book club selection for June and I hate showing up to a book club without having finished the book.

Have you come across flylady? http://www.flylady.net/ Mostly she is all about cleaning,decluttering and organizing, but one of her sayings is that you can do anything for fifteen minutes. It's how I manage lots of they-seem-too-big-to-tackle projects. I set my timer for 15 minutes and work (or read) steadily; not worrying about how much I actually get done. I'm currently working on TOR that way so I get it done (or at least a good chunk of it) by the 28th, my bookclub date. I'll start my taxes that way this weekend, too. (along with scattered bouts of 15 minute cleaning).

Or at least that's the plan. ;-)

That's a good idea Janet. Because June seems far away I haven't even pulled Team of Rivals out from the bottom of my pile of books yet. But it's definitely not a book I can blitz through until the end so I really shouldn't be waiting.

I clicked on the link for flylady and realized I have been to her site. I like the idea of trying the 15 minute rule for reading TOR rather than cleaning which is why I initially checked out her site.

I love flylady, too! I use the 15 minute timer a LOT. It's such a great way to stop procrastinating.

Sandy K

Hi Pat!
I was here yesterday and got side-tracked to Flylady! Ha! Then I couldn't remember where I was on LT... so I'm back today. And I have a really shiny sink!!! BUT - I did not put any shoes on today and probably most days 'til next winter will be barefoot per usual. Anywho - cute website ;-)

When I look at the book TOR now, I'm amazed I read it so quickly. It's a monster. But, I really liked it - oh, and I had to get it done for my RL book group. Always helps when I have a deadline.

OK, Pat, Flylady looks like she can help me get my butt into gear. I liked her on facebook and have her my email address. It looks so easy to declutter, but can I do it? It's worth a try. Hope you're having a relaxing Sunday.

Good luck finishing TOR Pat. Flylady looks like something I could use; off to investigate.

And I'm off to set my timer and see if I can get the kitchen cleaned up! I learn the best stuff on LT. I hope your week end was a good one, Pat. I like WWF but only play one game at a time!

Good morning, Pat. I rec'd my first email from Flylady this morning and she offers great suggestions and ways to get everybody into the act of cleaning. I'll pick up my supplies today to start swishing and swiping tomorrow morning.
So you're going back to TOR? Good luck. I've got that one in my to do pile and I look forward to getting back to it too. I might save it for vacation and dedcate my reading time to it.

Uh oh Pat... I've hijacked your thread with flylady. But all the posts have inspired me to start over with her, too.

Love the new thread! I have many happy memories of floating the Payette River with my cousins. My Grandpa would drop us off under a bridge in Emmett, and pick us up several miles down river. We never saw any snakes...

I just started playing WWF a couple weeks ago. I play with my sister. I was hesitant because I have a history of getting really mad when I lose at Scrabble. LOL

Hi Sandy, Claudia, Lynda, Bonnie, Donna, Janet, and Jenn. I'm glad you're all liking flylady so much. I should be using her tips more because I'm a major procrastinator and when you're retired if you're not self-motivated you can "waste" a lot of time. I usually need a gun to my head to get me to do something I consider to be unpleasant like cleaning.

It looks like one of the side effects of playing WWF so much is a flare up of some of the repetitive stress injuries I had years ago from spending too much time on the computer. I can't blame it all on WWF. It's probably just the extra time that got me. So I'm going to try and limit my time on the computer for the next couple of days and see if it gets better. Actually, it already feels better after limiting my time yesterday. So I apologize for not getting around to the threads for the next couple of days but I don't want to push it and end up with having to stay off the computer for months which is what happened 10 years ago.

And Jenn I know exactly what you mean about getting mad if you lose. I have to be careful when I play WWF with my husband and his brother. They're both very competitive and I find myself getting upset if they're beating me badly. Luckily I've won a couple of games with them so it's not all one-sided. I'm much more relaxed when I play with my niece and sister-in-law because they're much more mellow people.

>71 streamsong: I love that idea.
I sometimes use this to encourage my procrastinating college student clients. So often they report that the 15 minutes was enough to get them over the hump and engaged in the reading or writing or whatever. I say "Just Do It" might actually work. Waiting for motivation to come rarely works. Motivation tends to follow the getting started, rather than the other way around.

Now if only I would listen to my own advice......

Hi Pat
Sorry to see your extra computer time has bothered your injury! Hopefully a couple days of low computer time will heal you!

Sending you healing mojo, Pat, and wishing for you a weekend full of fabulous!

I have that trouble too, Pat, if I play too many games where I'm just clicking the mouse. Hope it doesn't trouble you too much.

Hope there are no aches and pains amid a lovely weekend.

Wishing you quick healing and a great weekend!

Ellen those are wise words (Motivation tends to follow the getting started, rather than the other way around)! Too bad it's so hard to actually get started sometimes.

Chelle, Mamie, Roni, Paul, and Terri--thank you so much for the quick healing wishes. They seem to have worked. I cut back my computer time to about an hour a day and my wrists feel much better. I'm not sure how much time I actually spend on the computer but I'm guessing it's between 3 and 4 hours a day. I watch hardly any TV these days but I think I've filled that time with surfing the web.

I have a ton of threads to catch up on but I have been getting some reading done which has been nice. I just started Toms River: A Story of Science and Salvation by Dan Fagin and it's excellent. I know I first read about it on LT but I can't remember who recommended it. It's about the long term environmental consequences of the actions of Ciba-Geigy in Toms River, NJ and I thought the author did a great job explaining the synthetic dye business in the first two chapters. Here's a quote:

Dye manufacture had always been a waste-intensive business. . . . A maxim of the chemical industry is that every step added to the manufacturing process decreases efficiency and increases waste. . . . The process was so inefficient that at Toms River, making brown . . . dye, a typical example, required five and a half pounds of raw material to produce one pound of finished dye, with almost all of the remainder discarded as waste. In other words, the Toms River plant's production capacity when it opened in 1952 was not really four million pounds a year. It was actually four million pounds of dye and approximately eighteen million pounds of chemical waste.

That waste was dumped on the very porous soil surrounding the plant as well as directly into the Toms River and resulted in so many cases of childhood cancer that a huge legal settlement was obtained in 2001. It's a very well-written book and I appreciate how clear it is about the chemical processes involved. I can actually understand them!

I just read a very good article in National Geographic about the fracking business in North Dakota and this book seems to have a lot of parallels. There is so much money being made in ND right now extracting oil from the ground by fracturing the earth that no one wants to think about the consequences for the water supply and the environment over the long term.

Hi Pat, fracking is a huge hot-button issue here in CO as well, and still continues despite well-documented water contamination issues, fire coming out of faucets, etc.

Oh wow, I got seriously sidetracked by the Flylady!! I think I'm a bit overwhelmed at the moment to follow her advice, but this summer we will embark on The Great Dig-Out of 2013 and hopefully emerge alive out from under some seriously embarrassing clutter. I suspect I will be spending a lot of time with the FlyLady:)

Hope you feel better, and have a great weekend. Did you get snow? We have about a foot so far.

Good luck healing your irritated wrists Pat. Don't let it get out of control. Maybe you should try some voice enhanced software like Dragon.

Hi Pat,
I'm getting into Bitterbrush Country and enjoying it ;-) Peavey's a good writer and loves her subject... I'll probably have to add Idaho to my bucket list.

ETA: Maybe I should plan on taking my granddaughter with me :D

Anne once again I'm surprised you guys have gotten so much snow. It's been much colder here (20s in the morning, highs only in the 40s) but other than a very light dusting of snow the other morning, we haven't gotten anything. (Although I can see that the foothills and mountains around Boise got snow.)

I got a kick out of your "Great Dig-Out of 2013". My fatal flaw is that I clean up for company by scooping up papers and other stuff and putting everything in a closet or cabinet. Out of sight means out of mind and I have a tough time when all of a sudden I need to find something.

I've gotten more interested in the fracking issue as a result of hearing of more and more people from Boise moving to western North Dakota for the jobs. The woman profiled in the National Geographic article was making $2,000 a week driving an 18 wheeler. And apparently, the tank truck drivers can make up to $40,000 a month.

Hi Bonnie. I remember trying some of the voice activated software when I first had the problem. I never really took to it and it seemed to make a lot of mistakes but I'm sure there have been huge improvements in the last ten years. For now, I'm going to try to limit my computer time which I should be doing anyway so I'm doing something other than sitting on my butt.

Hi Claudia. I'm so happy you're enjoying Bitterbrush Country. Of the 4 Idaho books I read for the library discussion group, that was probably my favorite although I liked them all. I think you'd like Idaho. It's very laid back and even Boise has the feel of a small town.

Hi Pat, sorry to hear your problems, I know that I have to be careful when playing games on the computer, they seem to affect me more than straight typing. It's hard when you find a new game and suddenly get addicted though!

Hi Pat, hope cutting back on computer time is keeping the pain away.

Lots of signs on tree lawns around here. Some say Frack On others say No Fracking. I'm confused as to what stand to take on this subject. To do nothing probably presents the best case scenario. I'm certainly not going to make a heap of money if they Frack, I think only a few will benefit monetarily.

Anyway, hope you're having a good day.

Hi Pat,
Hoping that you are doing well.

I think the fracking thing is very, very bad. And I know less than I should before making such judgments.

Hi Judy, Lynda, and Ellen! Thanks for stopping by. Cutting back on my computer time has really helped my wrists and my reading progress.

I've really been caught up in this book about the environmental pollution in Toms River and feel so sorry for New Jersey with all its chemical plants and being a dumping ground for hazardous waste. I'm pretty sure this will be a five star book for me.

I'm very behind in reviews but did manage to finish one for a recent ER book.

Book Notes

5. Above All Things by Tanis Rideout--4.5 stars

This was a hard book for me to rate. On the one hand, I thought it was very well done and a page-turner that I couldn’t wait to get back to. On the other hand, while I was reading it, I had a major problem with it being a fictionalized account of a real life event--George Mallory’s third and fatal attempt to reach the summit of Everest in 1924. But it’s been over a month since I finished it now and I’ve calmed down about my frustrations with what was real and what wasn’t and appreciate the book more for what it was intended to be, which is a fictional work inspired by historical events.

The book has an interesting structure. It alternates between Ruth Mallory’s first person narrative of a long day early in June 1924 as she waits for the latest word from, or about, her husband and whether he’s been successful in summiting Everest, and the third person account of the months long British Mount Everest Expedition of 1924. Surprisingly, Ruth’s thoughts and reflections while she does what she’s become good at--waiting--were sometimes more interesting to me than the life threatening activities of her husband and his climbing partners.

The saddest aspect of the book was that it was the story of a love triangle between Ruth, George, and Everest, and as Ruth says, “It’s humiliating to come second to a mountain.” Of the ten years that Ruth and George were married, George was away for approximately four of them. First because of his service in WWI and then because of his three expeditions to Everest. Left behind for long stretches of time, Ruth tries to come to terms with why George always chooses the mountain over her and their three young children.

I’m not a risk-taker so I’ll probably never understand why someone would want to climb a 29,000 foot mountain that makes them physically ill, mentally deranged, and likely to die, but I did love reading about the challenges that the climbers faced from the comfort of my recliner. I was particularly struck by their reluctance to use oxygen, which they had for the 1924 climb, because above 26,000 feet (the “death zone”) there’s not enough oxygen to sustain life for long. But on the author’s website, she explains that “the use of oxygen was thought to be unsporting in the 1920s, the equivalent of using steroids in sports today.”

My feelings about George were mixed. Most of the time, I thought he was incredibly selfish to be away from his family so much but there were also enough instances of his love for Ruth and his understanding of what his absences meant to her that I developed some sympathy for him. The book puts forth some ideas as to why he was so compelled to tackle Everest (besides “because it’s there”). He’s portrayed as wanting to prove something to his father and to honor his brother, good friend and country for losses suffered in WWI. In the last analysis though, I think you either get this kind of risk taking and obsession or you don’t.

My big regret with this book was not reading the author’s note at the end before I started. I mistakenly thought it followed real life events very closely and so I was upset when I googled things as I was reading only to discover differences between the book and real life. My advice would be to just read this as a novel and to think of Ruth and George as characters rather than real people. Tanis Rideout’s website contains this quote which I wish she had placed at the beginning of the book:

I have taken the historical personage of George Mallory and his friends, family and fellow explorers and used them as a jumping off point. All the research, all the desire to have facts at the tips of my fingers is in an attempt to create a world coloured and detailed and rich that the reader can immerse themselves in. No doubt, some who are familiar with the Mallory story will notice inaccuracies, changes and fictions. I hope, that even for those, these distractions will not prove too grave and that the emotional experience that the story delivers will be worth it.

In the last analysis, the emotional experience was worth it and I would highly recommend the book.

Hi Pat- Looks like I lost you for a few days there. I am sorry about the wrist pain. We will miss your limited time on LT but your health is what's important.
"Tom's River" sounds interesting but also a bit depressing.

Hi Mark. Thanks for the good wishes. I guess Toms River is depressing but it's so well done I'm mostly finding it fascinating. I'm amazed that the author is able to weave all the various strands of the story together so seamlessly. He covers the history of the synthetic chemical industry, epidemiology, and cancer research as well as various people and events in modern day NJ without confusing me or losing my interest.

You must have posted that review, just as I was visiting. Another fine review. I would love to read more about Mallory.

Thanks Mark. Eventually, I want to get back to Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory, and the Conquest of Everest by Wade Davis which is a non-fiction account of some of the same events. I just read the first chapter but it was excellent. As usual though, there are so many other books I want to read that that one has ended up at the bottom of the pile for the moment.

Hi Pat, Thanks for the great review of Above All Things. I tend to google and get caught up with what's real and what's not so it's probably good advice for me to just read it as a novel when I get to it.

Fracking really is a hot button issue here, as Anne said. The latest seems to be towns that are banning fracking within their city limits but they then run the risk of being sued by oil and gas companies who feel their mineral rights are threatened. As an east coaster, the whole idea of mineral rights and split estates is a bit odd. Also, as a native New Jerseyan who, incidently, used to work for a fragrance, flavor and chemical manufacturer (you'd be shocked at what's in those expensive fragrances and so called natural flavors), I've been eying Toms River with great interest.

Excellent review of Above All Things, Pat. It seems quite popular, as all of the copies in our library system are out.

Great review of Above All Things, Pat. I agree with you; I've never understood the decisions of extreme risk takers to pursue their goals, especially if they have families who they are (or should be) responsible to. These activities make about as much sense to me as standing in the middle of the New Jersey Turnpike during rush hour, dodging cars and trying not to get hit by one or more of them.

Hi Joanne. I struggle with these books that are fictionalized accounts of real life people. With Above All Things I kept thinking I was learning about the real George Mallory and what he did only to find out on google that things had been changed in the book. For instance, I wanted to see a map of his climb and the book didn't have one. Later, I found out that the author changed the route in some respects to make it more dramatic. At the time that really bothered me.

There seem to be a lot of books lately that are fictional biographies or autobiographies of real people. I just put one in my Amazon cart called Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald that just came out and looks really good. Apparently, "she" trashes Hemingway so that should be interesting. I also have another one to review called Frances and Bernard that is a fictionalized account of the relationship between Flannery O'Connor and Robert Lowell. In that case, I was happier because the names had been changed and I didn't feel like I was reading about real life people.

I think I first heard about fracking on the news when they were reporting about people whose drinking water was on fire. It wasn't until I started hearing about people in Boise going to North Dakota for the fracking jobs that I wanted to find out more. If you're interested, you can probably get the March 2013 issue of National Geographic out of the library if you don't have a subscription. The cover story is "America Strikes Oil: The Promise and Risk of Fracking." It profiles workers in North Dakota but has a lot of good charts and diagrams of what happens during the fracking process that made it easier for me to understand what was going on.

Thanks for the compliments on the review Linda. I was very happy to get Above All Things as an ER book since sometimes those can be hit or miss. And I think you'll like it since I think of you as reading books about explorers.

I got my copy of One Day the Ice Will Reveal All Its Dead by Clare Dudman about a week or so ago. I'm not sure when I'll get to it but I'm looking forward to reading it. Interestingly, the author of Above All Things refers to Alfred Wegener and his theory of continental drift in her author's note. It plays a very minor role in the book but she felt she needed to point out that Ruth would probably not have been aware of it in 1924.

Thanks Darryll! It's good to see you. I struggled with my feelings about George Mallory and wondered what would have happened if he had survived the 1924 expedition to Everest. He always told Ruth that things would be different once he succeeded in getting to the summit but I don't know if that kind of risk taking personality would ever be happy being a homebody. The marriage seemed doomed to me.

Hi Pat! Excellent review of Above All Things - thumb from me. I agree with you about the fictionalized accounts of real life people - this is such a growing trend right now, it seems. It bothers me a bit because once you start to fictionalize something that was non-fiction, people start to be confused about what is real and what is not, what is based on the actual facts and what is purely imagined. I, too, have Frances and Bernard on my shelves, and I liked that the names had been changed - makes it so much clearer that this is a book based on a real life story because then instead of trying to separate fact from fiction, one can just sit back and enjoy. That was a big part of the problem that I had with The Paris Wife, I think. I always wonder what the families of these real life people think about their relatives being presented to the public in this way - kind of like those commercials that use old images of celebrities long gone to endorse their products.

This is a picture from the book Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory, and the Conquest of Everest by Wade Davis and shows the clothes that climbers wore in the 1920s. As Tanis Rideout explains on her website:

George Mallory and Sandy Irvine climbed Everest in leather hobnailed boots, silk puttees, tweeds, gabardines, and windproof suits designed by Burberry (yes, that Burberry). Today’s climbers have access to insulated, hard-plastic boots, down suits, and top-of-the-line tents and sleeping bags.

George Mallory is the second from the left in the back row. He has his right leg propped on the person in front of him and it's wrapped in a silk puttee which as far I can figure were used to cushion their legs.

Hey Mamie! We must have cross-posted. I really liked The Paris Wife. I read it right after taking a course on Hemingway and liked learning more about him without having to read one of his books. The course I took had us read For Whom the Bell Tolls. That was the first Hemingway I read and I never would have finished it if not for the class. After reading The Paris Wife, I read A Moveable Feast and luckily really liked it so I haven't totally written off Hemingway. In some ways, his life seems more interesting to me than his books.

Your comment--I always wonder what the families of these real life people think about their relatives being presented to the public in this way--reminded me of the Wallace Stegner course I took. For Angle of Repose, he borrowed heavily from the letters of Mary Hallock Foote. Her family didn't want him to make any reference to her because they assumed she wouldn't be recognizable in the book. Because he copied a lot of Foote's writings, she was recognizable and it was made worse for the family because he had the character do something reprehensible that Foote never did but readers of the book believed she did do. It obviously can get very complicated.

Don't wait too long to read Frances and Bernard. It was a fantastic book!

I am not a huge fan of Hemingway, Pat. I loved A Moveable Feast and very much liked The Old Man and the Sea, but I have not liked anything else that I have read by him, although I do admire what he was trying to accomplish with his sparse writing style.

That story that you share about Angle of Repose is exactly what I am talking about. It becomes like an unauthorized biography where the author doesn't have to stick to the facts or provide endnotes about what is and isn't factual, and then it is confusing to the reader where the truth ends and begins unless they are very familiar with the subject matter. It's a bit of a slippery slope, I think.

I will get to Frances and Bernard soon - probably May or June. So good to know you thought it was fantastic!

Hi Pat, you've been reading some interesting books. I am planning on reading Above All Things at some point, but I already know that I have little sympathy for the risk-takers, I simply don't understand that kind of drive that pushes people to overlook their responsibilities to family and loved ones.

I also came by to wish you Happy Easter, hope you have a great weekend.

Great review of Above All Things.
I know what you mean about regretting not having read the author's note in the back first. I tried to make a point of telling readers to do that first. It makes a difference.

btw, I finished Bitterbrush Country and even as a non-resident of Idaho, I LOVED it!

Terrific review of Above All Things Pat. I like historical fiction myself but sometimes they do twist things to make their story more interesting. I don't mind it as long as they're not outright lies. I just finished a pretty good one based on the iconic Miigrant Mother photograph from The Great Depression.

Greetings Pat! My copy of The Dinner finally is ready for me to pick up from my library. Hopefully, I"ll be able to slip it in sometime soon. Have a good Friday :0)

Mamie I agree that it's a very slippery slope to mix fact and fiction. (I saw it referred to somewhere as "faction".) I was so much happier with Frances and Bernard and it seems so simple to just change the names.

Hi Judy. Thanks so much for the Easter wishes. I hope you end up liking Above All Things. I thought the author did a pretty good job of making George Mallory at least somewhat sympathetic. There were things I really didn't like about him but I didn't think he was a monster.

Hi Claudia. Yeah for two books we both liked--Above All Things and Bitterbrush Country! I remember your comments about Above All Things and was glad someone else felt the same way because most reviews I've read of the book don't mention it.

Bonnie I saw Mary Coin in the bookstore the other day but was unsure about it so put it back. That picture is so recognizable and the idea for the book sounds interesting. I'm just surprised at all the fictionalized accounts of real life lately. The other one I heard was good and want to read is The Aviator's Wife about Charles Lindbergh's wife.

Hi Lynda. I can't wait to hear what you think of The Dinner. I keep thinking I would rate it higher now that some time has passed. The ending really horrified me and I wrote the review right after I read it. Now I think of it more as a good story rather than being distasteful.

Have a Happy Easter, Pat.

Hi Pat--Well, I didn't get done with Team of Rivals for the bookclub meeting yesterday. Sigh. I plan on finishing it, but I need to read some lighter stuff to clear my brain for a while. Not to mention finishing taxes!

Hi Tad! Thanks for stopping by and thanks for the Easter wishes. :)

Hi Janet. I think Team of Rivals is a tough book to finish in a relatively short period of time. And by short period of time, I mean a month! Did you end up going to the bookclub meeting anyway? If so, what did the other people think of it?

Happy Easter, Pat!

*waves* Happy Easter!

Happy Easter, Pat! Have a great day today!

Good discussion there about Hemingway and Paris Wife - I was amazed by how much I liked the book. I'll have to reread A Moveable Feast now - I can barely remember it. I do also have to wonder what the families think of being ficitonalized.... but I suppose it comes with any kind of celebrity status these days? And PW was about as sensitively done as it can get, I thought.

Happy Easter!

Hi Lynda, Faith, Mark and Lucy! Thanks so much for the Easter wishes. Our celebration of the holiday will be later today at my sister-in-law's house. She's cooking Easter dinner this year and since she's a good cook, I know it'll be delicious.

Lucy I remember looking at Paula McLain's website when I read The Paris Wife. She has a good description of what she was trying to do with the book--which was to get an understanding of their interior lives. Here's the link if you're interested. At the bottom of the page, there is a list of Hemingway trivia. One of them is that their child (Bumby) grew up to be an OSS officer in WWII and was captured by the Germans. It turned out the officer interrogating him was going out with his nanny Tiddy and he ended the interrogation and Bumby was treated well for the six months he remained a prisoner of war. That's the kind of twist a fiction author would make up.

Nice reviews! For some reason, I really like reading about moutain climbers, especially on Everest. I already have Into the Silence on by wish list. From your review, I think that I will skip Above all Things

Happy Easter, Pat! I really enjoyed your review of Above All Things, and I share your feeling about a couple of things. Like you, I am not a risk taker, so I have a hard time understanding the mentality of someone undertaking an endeavor so risky, that also involves long, long periods away from home. I also think fictionalized accounts of real people and events are dicey, which makes me really appreciate the ones done really well.

Happy Easter Pat. I thought you wrote an excellent review of Above All Things. I don't mind fictionalised accounts as long as I'm clear where the fiction starts but as you say, it can be difficult to know that as a reader.

Happy Easter, Pat!

I totally agree with your comments about Toms River -- I rated it the best non-fiction book I read in the first quarter of this year. I am not a science person at all, but he actually made the chemistry explanations comprehensible -- even fascinating -- to me. The man can really write.

Hi Pat. I missed wishing you a Happy Easter, but hope that you are well and that April is starting out as a good month for you.

Hi Pat, I agree with your comments about Above All Things and "faction" books in general. My solution is to treat them as fiction books with a few facts thrown in! I already had it on the WL but might not get to it for awhile. The picture of George Mallory on Everest looks like he could be on his way to a meeting at the bank! Except for the silk thingy on his propped up leg, that is. Your thread continues to both educate and amuse me. Hope your wrists are better.

Toms River is excellent! I got it as an ER, have flags throughout pending a review. The setup of the dye business going back to the mid 1800s was fascinating.

Hi Pat! Yes, I did go to TOR bookclub meeting. There were about 12 of us there--about half didn't get it done. ;-) Everyone said they enjoyed it--just , as you say, it can be a hard book to read quickly. I know it's not the book I pick up in the evenings when I'm tired. BUT I am more than halfway through, now. DD has been home on spring break for the last week and once I (finally!) get taxes all the way done, I should be able to speed up a bit again.

Just making sure that I stay caught up over here, Pat. Hope you are enjoying a lovely Sunday!

Hi Pat- Just checking in. Haven't heard from you in awhile. Hope all is well in Idaho.

Hi Rhonda. I'm really into the mountain climbing theme this year. The latest book I've put on hold at the library is Death Grip: A Climber's Escape from Benzo Madness by Matt Samet. On looking at the book description closely it looks to be more about being addicted to prescription drugs than climbing but there's supposedly a connection to being addicted to climbing. I'll give it a shot. It just came out and got a lot of good reviews on Amazon.

Hi Anne. Thanks for the Easter wishes and the compliment on my review of Above All Things. I can't believe it's taken me a week to get back to my thread. We've had company the last couple of days and I ended up with four Osher classes this past week. Luckily, that's just a one time thing. One of the classes was two consecutive days on Astronomy taught by someone that flew in from California to teach it.

Thanks Heather. I agree about being OK with fictionalized accounts of RL events as long as I'm clear where the line is. That's why I think I would have been happier if I knew going in that a lot of things had been changed and that could have been taken care of by putting the author's comments up front instead of at the end. In any event, I'm glad I read the book and would definitely recommend it.

Thanks Roni! I'm hoping to have some time next week to get all caught up with my starred threads. I'm assuming yours has some wonderful pictures of spring flowers and pottery that I've been missing out on! :)

Hi Terri. I'm thinking it must have been your thread that I first read about Toms River on. Thank you for that recommendation. I've been stunned by how well he writes about science and history. I've put the book aside for a few days to read a library book called Schroder: A Novel by Amity Gaige because it's due back soon but I'm hoping to finish Toms River this week.

Hi Ellen. Thanks for all the good wishes. I can't wait to get caught up with your trip to Hawaii. I'll be taking notes in case we decide to go next year. :)

Hi Donna. My wrists are better. Unfortunately, that's because I spent less time on the computer. Oh well, at least the problem was easily solved! I just realized that I need to check your thread for news of the new granddaughter. I'm afraid I've missed a lot this past week. :(

Hi Katherine. I'm glad to hear you loved Toms River too. I hope Dan Fagin writes more books but it must have taken him years to write Toms River with all the research he must have done. I had never given a thought to the dye manufacturing process but it certainly makes me look at colors in a new way.

Hi Janet. I'm more eager now to get back to Team of Rivals. I just started a class on Idaho as a Territory and the teacher was talking about the Civil War as the reason that some events in Idaho in 1863 didn't get much attention. I think ToR will give me some perspective on what I'll be learning in this class, at least I hope so. I do most of my reading at the end of the day and, like you, ToR is not the first book I think of reading to relax at the end of the day.

Hi Mamie. Thanks for stopping by. I'm hoping to spend a good part of today with my feet up reading or catching up on LT. We have a dinner out later on but otherwise nothing, which is a relief after a very busy week.

Hi Mark. Thanks for checking in. All is well in Idaho, just a very busy week in RL. Yesterday, I went to my first bar mitzvah which was a really interesting experience. I'm not religious but I can see the value in educating a young man on the values of his community and impressing the importance of leadership on him at that age.

Hi Pat, stopping by to see how things are with you and leave with Toms River added to my library search list. That one sounds very interesting!

I hope spring is arriving in Idaho about now!

Morning Pat! I really want to get back to A Team of Rivals too and before we head to Virginia in May. Ooooo, I better get cooking. Will rec'd a dvd of Lincoln for his birthday but we haven't gotten around to view it. Many scenes were filmed in Virginia and if we get the chance we'll check them out while were down there. Have a grrrrrreat day!

Skipping up to the end... 5F here and I'm hunkering down to finish Regeneration, which I am finding fascinating. Hope you have a great day!

I was in a real bookstore the other day and Toms River: A Story of Science and Salvation caught my eye on the way out. We were in a bit of a hurry to get to an appt so I didn't pick it up - but it was nagging me.
I knew I had heard of it somewhere (LT no doubt) but couldn't remember what it was about. I see it is getting very good comments and reviews. Wish I had just grabbed it on the spot - but that is not in my nature anymore. Someday I'll see it again. I'm learning patience...

Good morning, Pat. Now I will also be keeping an eye out for a copy of Toms River....

Hi Pat, Hope all is well in your corner of the world!

Yoooo Hooooo, you can come out now Pat. :0)

Just passing through **waves** to Pat.

Where's Pat?

I'm here and doing well! Just incredibly busy this month. I workout twice a week with a trainer and take yoga classes twice a week now too, signed up for 4 Osher classes this month and have had company twice. I've also been going to some of the events for Idaho's 150th birthday and taking cooking classes so unfortunately I haven't had much computer time. I'm really looking forward to May when I won't be quite as busy. I miss you all and thank you for checking in with me. I'll try to write more later. I have a lot of books I've finished that I owe comments on and they've all been good so I do want to write something about them.

Off to exercise!

I'm exhausted.

Sounds like you are having a lot of fun, though!

#150 You sound like you're busy doing some interesting things Pat! Looking forward to having you back with us in May :-)

Hi Pat!
I just got a FREE Kindle book on Idaho!

'For 91 Days in Idaho' by Michael Powell

Got a Kindle?
Interested?
Check Amazon...

*waving* at Pat

Just checking in on Pat! Glad to see you are doing fine. Miss seeing you around.

Can't believe it has been over two weeks since I stopped in last - thanks for the link to the Hemingway and what a great tidbit about Tiddy! You can't make up stuff like that, can you! Good to keep in mind when someone puts an 'improbable' coincidence in a novel, eh?

Glad you are well and very very impressed at your exercise regimen.

Thank you so much for the recommendation of Indian Creek Chronicles. I LOVED it!

Pat nice to see you so busy and upbeat. Hope May allows you more time to spend with us. x

Busy Pat! Your schedule sounds full but balanced. Can't wait to see what you've been reading.

*waves at Pat*

Hi Pat, just cruising through, hope all is well and you are busy and happy.

Morning Pat! Hope all is going well in your little corner of the world. :0)

Just a drive-by hello!

Hmmm. May must have turned into another April. Anyway, I'm missing you here and hoping that you're enjoying all that you're doing!

Wow, thanks for all the visits everyone. I will try and respond individually later. May has turned out to be just as busy as April if not more. Part of what's going on with us lately is we're trying to decide if we want to build a new house so we've been out looking at lots and taking in the Spring Parade of Homes which took place the first two weeks of May. There were 40 new homes on the Parade all over the Treasure Valley. We probably saw half of them because we're only interested in building a one story house so we skipped all the two story ones.

There's a good chance we'll end up staying where we are and maybe doing some renovations on our existing house so I don't want to give the impression it's something we're definitely going to do. We really like our house, which has a view of a common area with a pond and no backyard neighbors, but I'd love a view of the mountains if we could get it. Unfortunately, on the other side of the berm behind the common area is a busy road and while we can't see it, we can hear it when we sit outside in the nice weather. There are so many considerations about making a move when we don't have to and no place is perfect so my head is swimming more often than not trying to weigh the pros and cons of staying here versus moving. There also has been a noticeable improvement in the real estate market here with existing houses selling quickly and lots of new building.

Anyway, my internet time lately has been spent looking at real estate and single level home plans. I'm still plugging away on Team of Rivals for a June 6th book club and have also started The Woman Upstairs, the new book by Claire Messud which I'm enjoying so far. I did finish some comments about Frances and Bernard so I'll post those next.

Again, thanks for checking in on me. I'm trying to catch up with all your threads as time allows.

Book Notes

Frances and Bernard by Carlene Bauer--4.5 stars

A fictional love story told through letters, “inspired by” the real life correspondence of Flannery O’Connor and Robert Lowell. Since I know virtually nothing about either of these writers, I had no issues with what was true or not in this novel about two intelligent people who can’t find a way to make their relationship work.

The author described the theme of the book to Publisher’s Weekly as “what happens when someone effusive, passionate and grandiose {Bernard} gets involved with someone tough-minded, cranky and aloof {Frances}.” While Bernard is instantly likeable and Frances seems cold in comparison, once his manic depression becomes problematic, Frances’ reticence to become romantically involved with him becomes more understandable and my sympathies switched to her side. Here are a couple of quotes to give you an idea of the heartbreaking nature of their relationship:

Bernard, in a letter to Frances: “I love your suspicion--it means your mind is always sharpening itself against the many lies of the world--but right now it is killing me. So I am going to ask you to write me a letter convincing me that you believe me. You do not have to tell me that you are in love with me, and you do not have to tell me how you feel about me. You have to write and tell me that you believe I love you.”

Frances, in a letter to a friend: “He will call four separate times at work; I can’t answer it the first three times, and the fourth time, when I pick up, he’ll say: “Why didn’t you pick up before? You’re Florence Nightingale, you’re supposed to pick up. I could be bleeding on a field in Turkey.” We laugh, it’s funny, but the fact remains: He has called four times in a row in a span of five minutes. . . It makes me want to hide from him sometimes in embarrassment--I have maybe a tenth of his energy, and I often wonder when he will realize that he’s in love with a slug. Whirlwinds can’t love slugs. They need other whirlwinds, don’t they? Or mountains.”

I finished this book over a month ago and it’s stayed with me and I would even consider re-reading it, which I almost never do. The only reason I’m not giving it 5 stars is because the discussions of faith went mostly over my head and I couldn’t appreciate those parts of the book.

Good to hear from you, Pat! Sounds like you have a lot on your plate :-)

Pat is back! Pat is back! Yippee! Funny, I am just copying the audiobook of the Woman Upstairs. It sounds very promising.

I have to read Frances and Bernard. It sounds like something I would very much like!

Have you read

A Good Hard Look?

It is a wonderful novel regarding Flannery O'Connor.

I highly recommend it.

Hi Pat! Glad you're around and doing alright. I'm with you on wishing for a view of the mountains. That would be lovely.

Nice to see you here, Pat. House-related decisions are never easy -- so many trade-offs! Good luck.

Hi Pat. Good luck with the house decisions. We are also in the midst of such decisions. It's a great time to sell our house, and we'd like to, we just don't quite know where we would go after...

Great review of Frances and Bernard - the idea of Lowell and O'Connor together is terrifying! But I can see the fascination in playing with it.

Oh real estate - well - it is so much fun and sometimes the trip out and about looking at things helps you see that what you have is pretty good, and sometimes you do find something that will work better. I love looking at real estate ads and have these 'moments' of imagining myself wherever, from some Colorado mountain place to Maine to Baja. Enjoy!!!!!

*waves* Passing through, saying hello! Good luck on the house decisions. That's a toughie... I hope there will be a eureka moment for you that will reveal the right choice!

Good to see you Pat and good luck with your house hunt or renovation. Either way, it's stressful. Excellent review of Frances and Bernard.

Hi, Pat. How exciting to be in a position to choose to move or not. Enjoy! Be happy with your decision.
Glad you're still reading!

So, going back to early April . . .

Lori, Claudia and Ellen--I have to admit that I still haven't finished Toms River! I got up to the last part which is the lawsuit and for some reason put it aside. I really want to finish it and I'm pretty sure I will. Anyway, I hope you all enjoy it if you decide to read it. It is pretty enlightening about how hard it is to prove environmental causes of things like cancer which take years to develop.

Lynda I need to catch up on your thread(s) to see how you're doing on Team of Rivals and whether you've taken your trip to Virginia yet. I read along pretty consistently for about a week with Team of Rivals and then need to take a break which I'm currently doing. Unfortunately, my June 6th book group date is looming.

Claudia I hope you like the Kindle version of For 91 Days in Idaho. I've read some of Michael Powell's blog entries and enjoyed them. I wish they had a paper version of the book since I rarely read things on my husband's Kindle but I may have to reconsider that.

Jenn I'm so happy you enjoyed Indian Creek Chronicles. I'm finding so many good books about Idaho this year and really enjoying learning about my home state.

Roni, Joanne, Judy, Heather, Stasia, Mark, Lucy, Paul, Donna, Terri, and Peggy--thank you all so much for stopping by my abandoned thread in April and May. I remember making a conscious decision in the fall to try and do more things this spring and I think I overdid it. I like having down time to myself and have felt frustrated with my busy schedule this spring. Luckily, I think there is only one Osher class I want to take this summer so I should be able to get back to a more workable schedule over the summer which means time for LT again. Yay!!!

Hi Katie. I have had a lot on my plate and am looking forward to a more relaxed summer. At the moment, I'm sipping a margarita which is a good start. :)

Hi Mark. I'm about 75 pages into The Woman Upstairs and really like it so far. I'm hoping to finish it by Tuesday though so I can get back to Team of Rivals.

Linda, thanks so much for the recommendation for A Good Hard Look. I had never heard of it and it looks good. My library has it and I plan to pick it up on Tuesday.

Hi Ellen. When we moved out here from the suburbs of NYC, we were so happy to have a view of water (i.e. the pond behind us). At the time, I had no appreciation for mountain views but now I do. What a difference six years makes.

Laura you are so right about the trade-offs. We've seen lots with mountain views but unfortunately in areas where the walking is almost non-existent compared to where we are now. Walking (the dog) is the one activity we consistently love and it would be hard to leave a place where there are multiple, safe routes to take right out our front door.

Jenn good luck with your house decisions too. It seems like all of a sudden this spring, it's become a seller's market here again.

Lucy I too love looking at real estate and was thrilled to find out that they do spring and fall Parade of Homes out here. I don't actually want to work with a realtor yet but have so much fun checking out all the new homes. It reminds me of going to the auto shows in NYC. You could sit inside all the new cars without anyone pressuring you to buy anything.

Hi Faith I think you're right on the money about the eureka moment. I know when we saw our current house, I loved it instantly. I think finding the right place to live is mostly making an emotional connection to it and that's so hard to predict. It's like you'll know it when you see it and you just have to get out there and look.

Hi Bonnie. Yes, it is stressful. There seem to be so many ups and downs. We'll see something online that looks great and then go take a look at it only to realize it won't work or isn't anything like we thought based on its description. I'm not thrilled at the idea of doing renovations especially since we're not working and therefore home a lot. Of course, maybe we'll end up doing nothing--with us that's always a possibility. We had a whole move planned to the Oregon coast in the early 2000s that completely fell through.

Hi Peggy. I am hoping that in the end we'll be happy with what we decide to do, even if it's staying where we are. In the meantime, as much as the process has its ups and downs it's also a fun thing to do.

Thought I’d post some more Idaho love notes.

We took a road trip recently along the Snake River to Twin Falls in south central Idaho. I’d never been to this area before and finally got to see Shoshone Falls. They’re called the “Niagara of the West” and are actually 45 feet higher than Niagara Falls (212 feet high vs. 167 feet for Niagara) but they’re not nearly as wide. Here’s a picture of them in all their glory. They weren’t quite this spectacular when we saw them earlier this week because there hasn’t been that much spring runoff this year from the mountains.

For lunch we stopped at this great restaurant in Twin Falls called Elevation 486. It sits right on the rim of the Snake River Canyon and the view is absolutely breathtaking.

And on the way back we drove past Thousand Springs. The following description was lifted pretty much verbatim from the Nature Conservancy’s website.

The springs burst out of the canyon walls and represent the end of a journey of water that begins in the Craters of the Moon area nearly 100 miles away. As the water flows over the extensive lava fields of the Craters of the Moon area, it sinks into the porous lava and disappears underground. The water flows underground for nearly 200 years {!!!}, until it flows as waterfalls out of the canyon walls of the Middle Snake River. The water is crystal clear and pure, creating beautiful springs and pools.

Wow, Pat, those photos are gorgeous! I'd love to visit those sites in person some day.

Both of the falls are beautiful!

Love the photos!!!

Hi Pat -- gorgeous photos! My mom's family is from Twin Falls, or actually, nearby Jerome. I do not remember Elevation 486, though, from our last visit -- wow what a spot!

Beautiful pictures, Pat.

Great to see you back, Pat! Looking at houses is such fun - at least until moving becomes no longer theoretical. Great review of Frances and Bernard. It is going on the list along with A Good Hard Look. Flannery O'Connor was a fascinating writer and person. I hope to read more of her short stories, which are sitting on my TBR pile.

Wow! The Shoshone falls are amazing. I have actually never been to Idaho--it looks like I should plan a trip.

Hi Katie. It was a great one day trip on a beautiful day. I hope you get a chance to visit Idaho some day. It would be fun to meet you.

Hi Roni. Shoshone Falls is pretty spectacular--the way they look, how loud they are, and the mist. We're hoping to take a boat trip they do on the Snake River that goes past Thousand Springs sometime. We have some relatives that highly recommend it. They particularly liked seeing the beautiful blue water from the Springs.

Hi Faith. Glad you liked the photos. I actually just cruised through your thread and saw your great pictures from Disneyworld.

Anne you have to go to Elevation 486 next time you visit your relatives in Jerome. From what I could tell, it's pretty new and the brainchild of a restauranteur from Sun Valley. My husband had picked it out after doing some research on the internet but didn't tell me much about it beforehand. My jaw literally dropped open when I saw the view. I honestly can't think of a more spectacular view that I've seen. There was something about being perched on the edge of the canyon and being able to see down into it (there is a golf club at the base of the canyon) as well as the surrounding countryside. The cars going over the bridge and the people playing golf looked like ants from our vantage point. It's a relatively casual place and the food was good to great. I hope you get a chance to try it sometime.

Hi Rhian. Glad you liked the pictures too. It's been fun for me this year to show off the sights of Idaho.

Hi Linda. It's good to be back on LT. I really know nothing about Flannery O'Connor. I'm pretty sure I first heard about Frances and Bernard on Suzanne's (Chatterbox's) thread and now I'm looking forward to reading A Good Hard Look which I never would have heard of if not for Linda's recommendation. I love LT!

Hi Rhonda. If you do plan a trip to see Shoshone Falls make sure you come in the late spring when the runoff is in full swing otherwise you may be disappointed. My understanding is that by late summer, there's not much water because it's all been diverted for irrigation. I hope you can come some time and we can meet. :)

Hi Pat, it's great to see you here and with such exciting news. You'll have to keep us all in the loop on your house-hunting results. Those pictures are amazing, I would love to go and see the Thousand Springs some day. I haven't spend any time in or around Twin Falls mostly we just drive by on the inter-state, so need to make a point of stopping there and looking around, inter-state driving is great for getting somewhere but it doesn't really show much of the country you are driving through.

I was born and raised in Niagara Falls Pat and I have to say your falls there in Idaho is mighty impressive. Beautiful photos!

Thousand Falls is exquisite - wow.

#192 It's been fun for me this year to show off the sights of Idaho. - as a non US LTer I've enjoyed seeing your pictures a lot, as Idaho is a state that I knew very little about.

Pat, we were so fortunate when we moved to our current home, it was like it was meant to be. When the possibility of a move to this area arose, this was the very first house we inquired about based on the booklet of real-estate listings we got. At the time, it was "under contract for sale" so we wrote it off -- literally. I wrote "SOLD" over the listing in the book.

We looked at a dozen houses, all wrong, and one "possible" -- at the high end of our budget. But I saw that this house was still in the listings. "Oh, they often leave them there until the sale closes," the agent said. "Do they add lines to the listings, though?" I asked. She checked, and sure enough, the sale had fallen through. She showed us the house, and it was PERFECT. Oh, not in perfect condition -- a bit of a fixer-upper -- but just what we were looking for, and at the low end of our budget amount. So we eventually added to what I'd written in the brochure "SOLD -- TO US!

What lovely Idaho photos! I stopped at Five Guys the other day, and my fries of the day came from Idaho Falls. LOL

Great photo of the Shoshone Falls Pat! I haven't been there for ages. I spent many summers in Oakley, ID - not too far from Twin Falls.

Update on the house hunting: We put down reservation deposits on two lots in different subdivisions. Both are very close to where we currently live so we won't be totally escaping the noise issue. This area is just too close to two busy roads but it's also close to the river, has great walking, and we've gotten used to being near supermarkets, restaurants and shopping. It's sad in a way because these new subdivisions are replacing farm land and I'll miss seeing the rotating crops and cattle.

The lots are not platted yet and won't be until at least September so we don't know for sure what the views will be and our deposits are fully refundable. One lot backs to what will be a nature preserve with the river behind it and there won't be any houses behind it. The other one is on a pond but we will see other houses. The lot with the nature preserve behind it will definitely have a view of the mountains in the winter and may or may not have a partial view in the summer. The other lot is trickier to figure out because it's hard to know how much of the view of the mountains will be blocked by the other houses that will be around the pond. It's frustrating to not know about the views until September.

In the meantime, we had a meeting with a builder we like and have been scouring the internet looking at floor plans and house design pictures. I'm not sure how far we'll get with that this summer because I'm not sure it makes sense to design a house if we're not sure of the view.

On the reading front, I never made it to my book club this week and still have not finished Team of Rivals although I have read another 300 pages in the last month and only have 200 more to go. I'm determined to finish the book but I expect it will take me awhile.

I got Fun Home by Alison Bechdel out of the library and am enjoying it and I just ordered Devil's Peak by Deon Meyer which I know many LTers liked. Every once and a while my husband asks me for recommendations and I told him about Devil's Peak and he loved it. I will probably take that one with me on a trip to the Oregon Coast we going on at the end of this week. We'll be staying in Astoria at the Cannery Pier Hotel which we loved the last time we were on the coast and going down to Cannon Beach for the Sand Castle Festival. I'm looking forward to the cooler temperatures on the coast. It's been in the 90s here for several days.

Hi Judy. I hope you do get a chance to see Twin Falls someday and take in Shoshone Falls and try out that restaurant. And I agree, traveling on the freeway is very different than taking the back roads. What I love about the backroads in the Northwest is that there's virtually no one on them. It's taken me a while to get used to that because where we lived in NY you were definitely sharing those roads with other drivers who were usually avoiding major traffic congestion on the parkways and expressways.

Bonnie I'm impressed you liked the pictures of Shoshone Falls considering where you grew up!

Lucy one of the things that was so neat about Shoshone Falls is that you get to it by driving down a rural road and then start snaking down toward it. There's a park all around it with tall trees so you hear it before you see it. It really is tucked out of the way and the interpretive signs they have up in the park talk about the early explorers completely missing it.

Rhian I'm so glad you're enjoying my personal tour of Idaho. I'm going to be starting a new thread soon just as soon as I figure out what my next Idaho post will be.

Terri that was a great story about finding your house. Someone said the other day that he felt that looking for a house was similar to looking for a partner and I think there's some truth in that. What I've realized is that I need to have an emotional connection to the place I'm going to live and that's so hard to quantify when you're looking.

Hi Lori. I try to stay away from Five Guys because I always eat too much there but whenever I do go in I always love seeing the bags of potatoes and where exactly they're from.

Hi Jenn. I had to look up Oakley ID to see where it was and read on Wikipedia that some consider it to be the last real life "Mayberry" left in America. They also said it had some great Victorian houses. With that description, I hope to see it someday. It sounds like a great place to spend time in the summers.

Hi, Pat! Those are really dramatic pictures - thanks for them! Also, congratulations on having two good possibilities to choose from when you build. (I have my fingers crossed for the nature-preserve-in-back one.) I'm curious....will you choose a different house plan for each lot or one that will be happy in either place? (Never mind; I see that you have already answered the question.) I love house plans, so if you feel like letting us know what you're looking at, I'll be delighted to see!
And I'm laughing a bit about you and Team of Rivals. After all, how long has Matterhorn been sitting on the "currently reading" pile?????
If I don't get back before you have your Oregon trip, enjoy!

Hi Peggy. I definitely prefer the nature preserve lot but the builder keeps calling the other lot a "killer lot" so it makes sense to us to hold on to the reservation until it gets platted. In some ways the lots are similar in that the backyards (and the views) face northeast but since one will have views of other houses I assume we may want to take that into account.

Here's a link to the floor plan my husband and I like the most at the moment: http://www.homeplans.com/plan-detail/HOMEPW72975/three-bedroom-georgian. We'd want to open up the dining room and make the office a media room and probably make some other small changes as well. And, of course, we're seeing new things all the time, including plans from the builder. We'll probably meet with him in a couple of weeks and tell him what we like. He emphasized that we should figure out what we want rather than try to pick an existing floor plan. Also, we tend to like craftsman style homes so don't plan to go with the exterior shown with this plan.

Very exciting, Pat! I would love to build a house someday, when I no longer need to worry about work, commutes, etc.

It is exciting Katie but also a little scary because it's such a big project and it's hard to know how it will all look until it's done. But since we're retired, we have the time to devote to it. The tricky thing will be agreeing on everything. As you might expect, my main priority is a place for reading and all my books. :)

We were visiting some newish friends for the first time at their house, and they had the most beautiful built-in bookcases all over - even in the kitchen! I was green with envy but made a mental note for when I get to design my dream house :-)

Katie one thing I've been seeing is pictures of bookshelves in dining rooms and I love the way it looks. If you haven't heard of it, a great website is houzz.com. It's free to register and you can see pictures of all different types of house design by room (e.g. home libraries) or subject (e.g. bookshelves) and save them in your ideabooks. I'm not on Pinterest but it seems similar except you can keep everything private if you want. It's very addictive. I've spent most of the last couple of days on that site.

Oh, gosh, houzz.com sounds wonderful - and dangerous. I will definitely check it out.

What is supposed to be the dining room in our house is actually my "library." We didn't need a formal dining room, as we have a nice-sized area in the kitchen to put a table and chairs, so I lined the (two) walls with bookshelves (though not, unfortunately, built-ins). The other two "walls" are actually open to the rest of the house, but I was able to include a comfy chair and ottoman and side table. It's not ideal, but I'll take it (for now ;-) )!

Wow - sounds very intriguing and exciting. It is lovely to look out over water, but it sounds like the other one has a bit more privacy. Tough choices to make!

Oh, Pat! I am excited for you... and I know what you mean when you say it sometimes seems scary. I was worried my little kitchen re-do decisions would come out all wrong since I had a hard time visualizing. There were some really good surprises and a few small disappointments. Overall, it came out wonderful. I'm sure a new house is much harder, but being retired you will have the time to devote to it. It'll be great when it's done.
I wonder if building a new house is less painful than renovations to the house you live in???
Maybe ;-) At least you have a quiet, sane place to live while it's all going on.

Idaho is so beautiful! If I ever get there, I may not want to leave. Maine is gorgeous too... so maybe I'll be ok with returning home. Thanks for the wonderful pictures and descriptions!

Good luck on your house planning! We just remodeled our bathroom and it made me very determined never to build our own home--way too many decisions. We usually agree, but are both big procrastinators on any kind of decision. I do like craftsman style, and it fits in well with a natural area.

Hi Pat! Lot's of exciting things going on for you. I'm thrilled and truthfully, my friend, I'm envious :0} Call me nutty but I love looking at planned developments and visualizing what they will become. I certainly understand your fears though but it will all work out. Why do I know that? I'm sending lots of positive mojo your way. The house plan looks perfect but I'm not sure what "craftsmen" style means. Could you explain? I look forward to reading more about this project.

Shoshone Falls looks spectacular but I'm not sure I'd have the guts to walk out on that plank to observe them fully.

Off to check out houzz.com. :0)

ETA: oooo! saving pictures of my dream kitchen to houzz.com! What fun!

Katie in some ways we don't need a dining room either but our dining room table was our first purchase as a couple. We love it but it's a little too big for our kitchen (the only dining area in our current house). Rather than get rid of it, we've kept it but at times it's a pain to navigate around. If we go ahead with building a new house, we will make sure there's space for it (along with some bookshelves)!

Lucy I've surprised myself by how much I like mountain views now. Having grown up on Long Island, being near the water seems natural to me and I dismissed the mountains when we first moved out here. And privacy is important to me too now. In metropolitan NY, that was very hard to come by!

Claudia I'm anxiously checking your thread for the finished kitchen pictures! I think you may have sold me on the idea of a two-drawer dishwasher. Also, the picture of your cabinets was beautiful. I love the style and the color of them.

Rhonda I completely agree with you about there being too many decisions to make in building a new house and that's a big part of what makes me nervous about it. I can be a terrible decision maker because I want to look at everything out there before picking something. My husband is the opposite--as soon as he sees something he likes, he's done. Luckily, I think he has a great design sense and his confidence in what he likes helps me to feel like it's the right thing. Sometimes, when we've been talking about all the things that go into designing a house, I do think it might be easier to remodel but being retired, we'd have to live through it--no office to escape to while the work is being done. I'm glad in a way that nothing much will happen until September when the lots are platted. It gives us time to mull over whether we really want to do it.

Lost your thread for a while, there, Pat....sorry about that. Good luck with the building/remodeling decision. I've always loved to remodel things -- in my head. Can't really bear the thought of the upheaval though. And building from scratch....couldn't do it. Inertia...it's very powerful!

Hi Lynda. Thanks for all the positive mojo for the house project. :) I've been searching the internet for a good picture of a craftsman style home and got very sidetracked. Here's a little bit about craftsman homes from Wikipedia:

The American Craftsman style, or the American Arts and Crafts movement, is an American domestic architectural, interior design, landscape design, applied arts, and decorative arts style and lifestyle philosophy that began in the last years of the 19th century. The American Craftsman style has its origins from the British Arts and Crafts movement which began as a philosophy and artistic style founded by William Morris earlier in the 1860s. The British movement was a reaction to the Industrial Revolution, with its disregard for the individual worker and degradation of the dignity of human labor. Seeking to ennoble the craftsman once again, the movement emphasized the hand-made over the mass-produced.

Here's a picture I found on Houzz that I liked. It wasn't that easy to find pictures of a one story craftsman house. These houses can get pretty elaborate as far as the details go and we won't be doing that because it can get costly. I like the craftsman style look on the exterior but like a very open and light interior.

Traditional Exterior by Westminster Interior Designers & Decorators Erin Johnson Interiors, LLC

Hi Linda! I'm glad you found me again. I got a kick out of your comment about inertia and I agree that it's fun to daydream about what remodeling you might do. I'm not ruling out doing something simpler than building a new house. Hopefully, whatever we do we'll be happy with our decision.

Oooooo, I like that, Pat! Nice, clean lines! Thanks for taking the time to do the research.

Very nice Pat. And very exciting to be building a house although I still have nightmares from when we did it 33 years ago haha.

The Roycroft Campus which championed the Arts and Crafts movement, is in the next town over from us.

We built our house 9-10 years ago. We are very happy with the house and the process wasn't too much of a nightmare. Nonetheless I don't expect we will do it again! However I will enjoy living vicariously through your project Pat.

Wow, Pat, exciting stuff going on here. I love the idea of a new house. Our old one needs so much work that I don't know where to start. I guess the wood rot around some of the windows is the best place to begin as I don't want the windows to fall out! I think you are wise to wait and choose between the two lots until you see how the surrounding houses will impact your view. We had a lovely view of Pike's Peak in Colorado Springs until the house next door was built. :-(

I wouldn't trade my dining room for special family dinners. And, if I were you, I'd have built in bookcases in every room! I hope you do build, Pat, because it would be so much fun to follow along with you as you make all the decisions involved.

I love the Craftsman style too. Our bungalow has touches of it. And of course, built-in bookcases are traditional craftsman style.

Beautiful plans and what an exciting project!

I love living near the water, too, but sometimes the mosquitos are fierce on my place. If they bother you, you might plan some evening walks this month along your sites to check out their presence. They usually diminish later in the summer as things dry out, but I've long wanted to have a screened gazebo on my place.

You're welcome Lynda! Looking for a picture of a craftsman style home to post made me realize how few contemporary ones there are out there. Most of the pictures were of much older homes with more than one story.

Bonnie, you're killing me (I still have nightmares from when we did it 33 years ago)! You reminded me of the time we remodeled all three of our bathrooms at once in NY and for a short period of time, none of them was usable. I still remember that clearly even though it was almost 20 years ago. I just looked up the Roycroft Campus--what a neat looking place. If I ever get to the Buffalo area, besides looking you up, I will definitely check it out.

Laura I didn't realize that you built your current house. I remember you talking about picking out the lot because of the pond but didn't think of that meaning it was in connection with building. I'm assuming you had an advantage in building and design because of your husband's background and talents.

Donna, that's exactly what we've been afraid of with some of the lots we've seen (We had a lovely view of Pike's Peak in Colorado Springs until the house next door was built. :-(). The Parade of Homes seems to be notorious for that--building a new home with a great view that will disappear when the development is finished. It's funny, because the more I look at house design pictures, the more I see rooms you wouldn't think of with floor to ceiling bookcases in them. A friend of mine built her house and has a wide hallway lined with built-in bookshelves and I think that's a neat idea too.

Roni thanks for the reminder that built-in bookcases are part of the Craftsman style. I'll have to remember that so that I can ensure the inside reflects the outside. :-)

Janet that's an excellent idea about scoping out the mosquitos. I hate them with a passion. We don't get too many where we currently are but occasionally they do drive us inside. And the screened gazebo sounds like a perfect solution!

>223 phebj:: Pat, thank you for the wonderful compliment on my hubby's talents! We worked with a builder and his architect, but Chris was very involved in the design. I just wrote checks. :)

OOoo, Pat! I love that Craftsman exterior especially for a scenic lot in Idaho!
I like your linked house plan too except that I'd want somehow to get the laundry room over to the bedroom side of the house. Do the mosquito walk for sure!!!
So much help you're getting here........and you just wrote checks!!!!

I love the Craftsman style. I can't wait to see what you do! Exciting :)

Pat - very exciting to hear about your (possible) new house plans!

Hi Pat, exciting is the word for all that you have going on right now. I sometimes spend hours watching Home & Garden TV as people "House Hunt", but I think building one to suit your individual needs would be wonderful. Looking forward to following along.

Enjoy your trip to Oregon.

>215 phebj: That is gorgeous!
Enjoy your time in Oregon, my very favorite state.

Hi Pat, how exciting! I hope you'll keep sharing as your home evolves -- wherever that may be!

Your thread is a super dangerous place -- first FlyLady and then Houzz...

Hi Pat - Love that house!!

Hi, Pat. Lovely house photo! Good luck with the building process.

Oh Pat, your recommendation of the Houzz website has gotten me in trouble. ;) First I was just browsing, then before I knew it I had talked my husband into having a custom desk built and some built in Pantry Units as well. I have been spending far too much time on that site!

Laura I've really enjoyed seeing the beautiful bookshelves your husband has built for you and seeing some of his other work on his blog. It must be so satisfying to see the tangible results of your work.

Peggy I agree with you about wanting the laundry room on the bedroom side. I remember looking at a house when we first moved out here that had two entrances into the laundry room--one from the hall and one from the master bedroom closet. I thought that was genius.

Jenn and Heather I continue to veer from being very excited to wondering if we'll really go forward with it. My husband now has a decibel measuring app on his iPhone and is planning to take measurements of the noise in our current backyard versus the lots we've reserved at different times of the day. Hopefully, no one will think he's nuts. He's more bothered by the noise than I am so he keeps cautioning me that it may be a deal breaker. We'll see . . . .

Hi Judy. Sorry about the Houzz site. ;-) I've spent so much time on it that I'm starting to see pictures I've already seen so it's not as addicting as it was in the beginning. I sometimes wonder what life would be like without the internet. For one, I'd probably get more reading done.

Judy and Ellen thanks for the good wishes on the Oregon trip. More about that to follow.

Anne I plan to keep sharing about the home project because at the moment we're not saying anything to family and friends so this is my only outlet for discussing it. Since we're not sure how this is going to work out yet we've decided to wait to tell everyone until we know we're going to follow through.

Hi Joanne and Terri. It will be interesting to see how the house design progresses. I wish I could also find the floor plan for the picture of the craftsman house I posted.

We had a great time on our trip to Oregon although we were somewhat disappointed with what we saw of the Sandcastle Festival in Cannon Beach this time. The last time we went was in 2004 and my memory is that they had more contestants and more experienced ones. It was still fun but I kept comparing it to the earlier one. One of my favorite parts of the trip was watching the big ships come in and out of the Columbia River from the comfort of our room. There were binoculars in the room and you could get the daily ship report from the front desk so we knew when to watch for them. We spent one day exploring the Washington coast on the other side of the Astoria bridge and the other thing I really enjoyed was the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center they had on Cape Disappointment.

My book haul was as follows:

Cannon Beach Book Company:

Serena by Ron Rash

Time Enough Books in Ilwaco, WA

In the Shadow of the Banyon by Vidday Ratner
The Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War by Drew Gilpin Faust

Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center gift shop

Undaunted Courage by Stephen Ambrose

Now that we're back, we're getting ready for a week long visit from my cousin who has never been to Idaho before. Unfortunately, it looks like the weather will be quite hot next week (90 to 95) which is not my favorite weather for spending a lot of time outdoors. We'll be going up to the mountains for a couple of days so that should be cooler.

The builder we're working with is out of town this week and we'll be busy next week so it won't be until the first week of July that we get together to begin discussing house design. I'll keep you posted!

Hi Pat- Glad you had a nice time in Oregon. I always enjoy my visits there. Congrats on snagging Undaunted Courage. It's one of my favorite NF titles. I NEED to reread it one of these days.

Hi Mark I never had any interest in reading Undaunted Courage until seeing the exhibit at the Interpretive Center. It was really interesting and gave me a better idea of what the Lewis and Clark expedition went through to make it to the Pacific. We kept on seeing road signs for Dismal Nitch on the Washington side of the Astoria Bridge and couldn't figure out why someone would name a place that until we saw the exhibit. It was a spot on the Washington shoreline where they were stuck for six days at the end of their journey because of horrendous storms. I think it was Clark who wrote about those six days and called it a "dismal nitich." Now it's a rest stop.

Hi Pat,
I just can't quite get my head around building a whole house. Renovations have been upsetting enough - though definitely worth it!
Good luck with your research on noise and mosquitos. Perhaps when more houses are built there will be less of both? We have a lot of mosquitos here from July to September. I don't like them, but for three months of the year it's ok since I get heaven the other nine months. And the more I live with them, the less they bother me even though they love me! I've learned their cycles and work around it.

btw, I am about 75% through 91 Days in Idaho and loving all the tidbits I am learning. It is so whetting my appetite to visit. And I would want to spend 91 days there, too! Powell's writing is familiar and easy. Just wish I had the paper book now instead of ebook since there are lots of pictures and some are not clear on the Kindle. A minor irritation. It was a great bargain.

Glad you're back, Pat, with new books and house-thinking to look forward to!

Pat, I may have mentioned that there is a wonderful Ken Burns PBS documentary regarding Lewis and Clark.

I'm running away with Dayton Duncan. He knew a lot about the Lewis and Clark expedition and became rather choked up when talking about Merriweather Lewis' suicide.

Brought tears to my eyes!!!!

Hi Claudia. In our meeting with the builder the other day, he mentioned that putting a ceiling fan on a covered patio kept the mosquitoes away. I never heard that before but if it's true it would be an easy fix. I really wish there was a paper copy I could get of 91 Days in Idaho but it seems to only be available for e-readers. I'll probably break down and get it on my husband's Kindle because I think I'd enjoy reading it. I have read and enjoyed some of their blog posts on Idaho. Hope you get out here some day!

Hi Peggy! Good to see you. I'm hopelessly behind on LT but that seems to be my new normal these days. Life continues to be busy. My cousin from Colorado was here for a week and now my brother-in-law and his wife arrive this weekend for 4 days. Boise celebrates its 150th birthday on the 7th and my MiL celebrates her 91st birthday on the 8th. We're hosting a big family BBQ on the 7th to celebrate both. I'm keeping my fingers crossed it will be cool enough to eat outdoors. Hope you're having a good summer.

Linda thank you so much for all the info on the PBS documentary about the Lewis and Clark Expedition. When I get around to reading Undaunted Courage, I will be checking it all out. I recently got some new bookshelves because my husband couldn't stand seeing the multiple piles of books next to my reading chair and I've designated them to hold all my American history, fiction and related books. It's nice to have them all organized. If I can get a good picture I'll post it. Hope you're doing well.

House update: We had a meeting with the builder on Tuesday and showed him what we liked in the way of a floor plan and the pictures we've been collecting on Houzz. It went well and next we'll be meeting with a designer who will come up with a floor plan that includes everything we want. So we're slowly inching along!

Reading update: I decided to join the group read for The Long Ships by Frans G. Bengtsson. I bought this several years ago after reading rebeccanyc's excellent review and I'm so glad I finally started it--it's excellent! I've also started Devil's Peak by Deon Meyer mostly at my husband's urging so we can discuss it. He read it after I told him people on LT liked it and he loved it and has since read two more of his books. It's better than I thought it would be. I'm not much of a detective book reader but so far I'm really liking it. Tomorrow I'll pick up Sparta: A Novel from the library. It's Roxanna Robinson's new book. I really liked Cost and I'm hoping her new book will be another quick absorbing read. It's been really hot here so lots of time to read while avoiding the heat. I'm also hoping to join Mark's group read of A Fine Balance. That's another book that's been languishing on my shelves for way too long.

Hope everyone is enjoying their 4th of July. Ours is intentionally quiet as we recharge in between house guests. :-)

Happu 4th of July, Pat. I will be reading The Long Ships as well this month and have been looking forward to it. I will probably start it next week.

Hi Judy. I noticed you were one of the participants in the group read of The Long Ships. It's a great summer escape book transporting you to another place and time.

Somewhere I was just reading that you could see the 4th of July fireworks from your home in Canada. Hope you have a good time watching them tonight. The only problem I have with the fireworks in the Northwest is that they start so late. Here they don't start until 10:15 because it's not dark until then. Not what I was used to in the Northeast.

I do wish I could squeeze The Long Ships in. They just won't fit.
Hope you took some time to celebrate the 4th with all your company and plans for the big bash on the 7th.
And I'm thrilled that you are getting your very own house plan!

Hi Peggy. So far it's been a very quiet 4th of July but it's not dark yet and we have lots of neighborhood kids who like to set off fireworks. It does look like rain though so that may put a damper on things.

I started The Long Ships today Pat and at page 69 I can say I am really loving it. It is quite the palate cleanser after the disappointing The Wasp Factory.

The Craftsman style is so appealing. What a fun and absorbing project.

You are reading all books I haven't, so it is hard to make book comments......

Yes, moving air disperses mosquitoes and flies, so a porch ceiling fan would definitely be a good idea, Pat!

I'm glad the house plans are moving along well.

Hi Pat--your house planning details sound really exciting. I like the idea of the fan (mentally changing my own plan from screened gazebo to screened porch with fan.) Did you settle on which building site you liked better?

Hi Bonnie. I'm slowly making progress with The Long Ships and just past the 100 page mark. I'm having a little trouble keeping track of the timing of things and who some of the people are but I love the story. Now that our second set of summer house guests have left I hope to have a lot more time for reading. :-) I read your review of The Wasp Factory and I think I'll pass on that one. I read The Dinner and then The Woman Upstairs shortly afterward and decided I was done with books filled with unlikeable characters for awhile.

Hi Lucy. I love the craftsman style too but we'll most likely use certain elements of it rather than follow it to the letter. I generally like very light open spaces for interior spaces and I'm not sure if that qualifies as craftsman. Our builder said what I was describing was a "transitional" style.

Hi Roni. Thanks for confirming that a fan will be helpful keeping mosquitoes away. They can really ruin the joy of sitting outside in the summer. We meet with the builder and a designer this Friday who will draw up a floor plan for us so that's exciting.

Hi Janet. We're definitely leaning towards the lot that will back to a nature preserve and the river but will have to wait until September to see the final platted lots. Right now there's a lot of construction going on in both subdivisions--putting in pipes, streets and ponds--and while we have a general idea of the outline of the two lots we reserved we're not sure exactly what our view will be from each. The lot near the river looks to have a view of the mountains to the east framed by some deciduous trees but just walking a short distance can cause that view to disappear behind the trees. All of a sudden there's a lot of work happening on the subdivision with the other lot so I'm getting more interested in what's happening over there. I'll keep you posted!

Your building plans are moving right along, Pat. What an exciting time for you and your hubby. It looks like things are busy on the reading front as well. I have read good things about Sparta though I haven't read Cost yet despite buying it a year or so ago after it went on the new 2001 Books to Read Before You Die list. My plan is to live to be 100 with my eyes and senses intact so I can read all the books I OWN!

Hi Pat, we sound to be right around the same place in The Long Ships, I am really loving this book. I have always had a thing for vikings and I certainly getting plenty of viking action in this book!

Hi Pat! Your new home plan sounds lovely! My husband and I live in a new home but we didn't participate in the planning at all as it was built already when we found it. I would have loved to help wit the plans as there are a few things I would have changed!
The craftsman house photos look amazing!

Pat, I haven't read The Long Ships but I did enjoy Devil's Peak.

Hi Donna! I'm about 50 pages into Sparta: A Novel and it's a slow go so far. I don't remember that being the case with Cost. That said, I think it will be a good book about the problems soldiers face when they return home and try to take up their old lives. I didn't know there was such as thing as the 2001 Books to Read Before You Die. I will have to look for that.

Hi Judy. I'm pretty sure The Long Ships is the first book I've read about Vikings. I just finished the first section on "The Long Voyage" and am really enjoying it.

Hi Chelle! We're moving along with our house plans and met with the designer yesterday. He'll be drawing up a floor plan for us to incorporate all the things we want. It's exciting but overwhelming--so many details to think of. I just hope we don't forget something important.

Hi Ellen. I've put Devil's Peak aside for the moment since I own the book. Sparta: A Novel is due back to the library next week so I'm hoping to finish it in time and then get back to DP. Based on what I've read so far, I think The Long Ships is going to be a five star read for me.

Hi Pat! I thought I had lost your thread but turns out I commented recently! Getting caught up is such a pain!
I'm sure the builder will make sure you don't forget anything! Have fun picking out everything! I hear that's the best part!

Just speaking. Just wishing I were committed to *Long Ships* instead of *Wasp Factory*. I don't know that I'm going to be able to read that one right now, and it's too late this month to change. That's the bad side of setting goals.
Hope you're well and that the ideas for the house are beginning to look settled.

*wave*
Good luck with the house building. I can't wait to see what you decide to do.

Hi Chelle. I'm actually somewhat apprehensive about picking everything out because I'm such a terrible decision maker. The interesting thing about the Houzz website (which is an internet version of clipping pictures from house design magazines) is that I start to see a pattern in the things I'm clipping and that's been helping me realize what I like.

Hi Peggy. When I saw a lot of LTers were going to read The Wasp Factory I went to Amazon to read a couple of pages online and decided I couldn't read it. After reading Darryl's recent 2 star review of it, I think I made the right decision. I'm loving The Long Ships but made the mistake of starting A Fine Balance the other night which I think I'm going to love more. I'd really like to give each book my undivided attention but I don't think it's going to work out that way.

Thanks for the good wishes about house Chelle, Peggy, and Jenn. We're anxiously awaiting the first set of floor plans from the designer. He had another project he had to finish first so I'm not exactly sure when we'll see something but I'm hoping it will be this week.

Hi Pat- How far along into A Fine Balance are you? I was truly amazed how fast the narrative was. Mistry has quickly become a literary hero of mine.

Mark I'm not very far because I'm spending too much time on the computer rather than reading! But I'm reading some each night before I go to bed. In a way, I don't care if it takes a long time because I think I'm really going to love this book. I'm so happy for the push to read it now.

I remember reading The Remains of the Day for my first TIOLI challenge. That became one of my favorite books and it languished on my shelf for almost 20 years! I wonder what else I've already got that I would love. My problem is I love buying books and with LT there's always something new I'm hearing about that I just have to get.

Dear Pat - some excellent reading going on over here with Mistry, Meyer and the Vikings. I did read The Wasp Factory but renamed it "The Warped Factory". Unpleasant but fascinating.

Hi Pat,
Just want to say, I loved A Fine Balance too. Glad you are finding time to read it.

Hope you get your floor plans soon. That's going to be so exciting when you can start "seeing" it all in place :-) The Houzz website sounds wonderful... especially if you are seeing a pattern evolving. It's pretty amazing how all those agonizing decisions come together in the end.

Hi Pat, it's just so exciting to be planning a new house. I hope everything goes well for you as the planning turns into actual construction. I would probably pick A Fine Balance (which I read eons ago) over The Long Ships if I was unfortunate enough to start one while still engaged with the other. They're both very, very good, both wonderful in their own ways. I'm glad I don't have your problem haha.

Hi Pat,
I hope you're enjoying A Fine Balance. I loved it when I read it several years ago.

I'm one of the intrepid readers of The Wasp Factory and I totally understand why you opted out. I'm actually finding it to be quite intriguing but hardly pleasant.

Hi Paul! I like your characterization of The Wasp Factory. I'm planning to give that one a wide berth. I rarely read two superb books at the same time so I'm loving my July reading of The Long Ships and A Fine Balance.

Hey Claudia. Good to know you're another fan of A Fine Balance. For some reason, I don't remember hearing much about it when it came out in 1995 but that was well before LT. We have another meeting with the house designer on Tuesday so we'll see where things stand then. Unfortunately, I keep looking at house plans and thinking of changing things we told him 2 weeks ago but we do want to get the plan right so we don't have costly changes once we start building.

Hi Bonnie. So far I seem to just naturally want to pick up one book more than the other so I'm not agonizing over which one to read. A Fine Balance is so good but so sad and sometimes I find reading The Long Ships is just the break I need.

Hi Ellen. I'm pretty sure A Fine Balance will end up being one of my favorite books. Have you read anything else by Mistry? The only other thing I've read is Such a Long Journey which I liked but I'm thinking A Fine Balance will be an even better read.

Hi Pat. How lucky you are to have the chance to design a home. Some relatives recently did the same for a house intended to be their last, carrying them through their retirement years. While taking us on a tour, they remarked on several things that we should remember if we were ever to do the same. The only one that I remember actually did make sense. They put a laundry room right next to (door opening out into) the master bedroom, saving steps and time in transferring the laundry back and forth. I have been thinking about that today as I made multiple trips, lugging heavy laundry baskets to and from the basement.

Hi Linda! That's funny you should mention that because that's one of the changes I've been thinking about. When we were looking at houses in 2007, I remember seeing one where the master bedroom closet opened right into the laundry room and I thought that was a great idea. Right now I don't mind walking from one end of the house to the other to do laundry but I might feel differently in the future.

I also have a friend who built a home she hopes to stay in as she ages and a lot of the features you don't notice as being for that purpose but all her hallways and doorways are wide in case she ever needs to be in a wheelchair and her bathrooms are fully accessible.

I also wanted to thank you for your review of Color Me English. After reading it the other day, I ordered a used copy from Amazon since my library didn't have a copy.

I think you will be glad that you purchased a copy of Color Me English, Pat. It is quite dense (in a good way) and the essays related to authors and works of literature are ones that I would like to return to as companions to reading those books. I read a library copy, but would now buy it used if I came across it. And I rarely buy a book that I have already read.

I also loved Colour Me English; it's one of the best collection of essays I've ever read.

Pat - Just a fly past to wish you an excellent Sunday and trust that the coming week is filled with joy.

Special hi! to a special lady :-)
Hope you are having a good week.

Hi Pat, I'm finally trying to get caught up! I'm sending you a big thank you for your encouraging messages regarding my sister. As the shock wears off, we are now ready to roll up our sleeves and start fighting. We have been told that it's going to be a long, hard road but having a positive attitude really helps.

I was disappointed that I couldn't squeeze A Fine Balance into my July reading as everyone I know who has read it seems to have really liked it. It's on my radar and one of these days I will get to it.

Just dropping in to say hi, as I know you are probably busy with your house.

Hi Pat, I miss talking to you regularly but I know you're busy, I'm busy and we all have stuff that takes us away from what we really want to do.
Your house plans are so exciting and I enjoy following your progress. Glad that all's going well :0)

Pat; I have seen you over at Cee's place providing knowlegeable comfort but you are sorely missed in your own abode also. Updates! x

Have a lovely weekend.

Thanks for the visits everyone! My own thread is usually so far down my list of starred threads these days that I haven't been checking it but this morning when I logged on, there was a message from Paul relatively close to the top!

So as requested, here is an update:

The last couple of months have been dominated by house design issues and trying to get as healthy as possible. I was doing great on the exercise and healthy eating front until we went away for a vacation a couple of weeks ago. Since then it's been hard to get back on track. My Osher classes for the fall have also started and that's been interfering with my exercise time. I assume this will all sort itself out shortly but it's been frustrating to have been doing so well and now feeling like I've lost my motivation.

(Just in case you were wondering, my health is very good these days but I know losing weight is a good thing to do for my future health considering I had estrogen positive breast cancer. Excess fat produces estrogen which I want to avoid if possible.)

With the house, we've been going back and forth with design changes for about 2 months now. Our builder uses a home designer to do the plans and we like his work but there are looonnnngg stretches before we see each new set of revisions. He either has horrible time management skills or he's really busy. Either way, we still don't know which lot we're going to build on. Both subdivisions are behind on being platted. The lot with the nature preserve behind it should be platted by late October. The lot with a pond behind it just extended our reservation agreement until December 1st!

We've been walking both subdivisions regularly on the weekends and evaluating the noise levels with my husband's iPhone decibel app. One of the reasons we want to move is we're too close to a busy road. Both of these new subdivisions are also close to this road but not as close. So, of course, the lot we otherwise like the best (with the nature preserve behind it) is the noisier one. We have some time to ponder this. It's just a little strange having a house we want to build but not knowing yet where we're building it.

I wish I could say I had been doing a lot of reading but alas that is not the case. I've been taking a ton of books out of the library on house design as well as a bunch of other topics but haven't done a good job of finishing anything. In June, my husband put together 3 new bookcases for me which I filled up with the books piled by my reading chair but as I type this I'm looking at the new piles that have taken their place. At least for the moment, I'm acquiring many more books than I'm able to read.

I have a lot of starred threads to catch up on and hope to do that in stages. I really love the 75ers and even though there's no way I can manage to read that many books this year, I want to catch up with what's being going on in everyone's lives--reading-wise and otherwise.

I know how it is when you immerse yourself in a particular project. You wind up doing sooooo much reading in books, researching online, etc on that topic. Those goodies you so lovingly picked out that are now on your shelves get delegated to "later".

After all this planning, I'm wondering how long it will take to actually build and move in???? Are you a patient person?

After all this planning, I'm wondering how long it will take to actually build and move in???? Are you a patient person?

Well, according to the builder, once we start, it should take them 4 to 5 months. We're assuming we'll be done by April but time will tell!

I'm not sure how patient I am. All I know is I'm more patient than my husband! But he's really impatient so that's not necessarily saying much.

Oops! It's been so long since I set up a new thread, I screwed it up. Stay tuned. . . .

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