Monday, January 8, 2024

Thursday, January 4, 2024

Bank of Dave | Official Trailer HD

I'm here with a movie recommendation. It is on Netflix in the US, but I would think it would be on Netflix in England also as it is an English movie, set in Burnley. I read that part of it was filmed there but it was mostly Bradford, Leeds, Wakefield, and London. I began watching knowing absolutely nothing about it. If you like to do that, you can skip the trailer! Anyhow, it is a wonderful movie.

Tuesday, January 2, 2024

Today's pictures - sunshine

After about nine days of dark, cloudy weather we have sun today. The blog header picture was taken yesterday, and here is the same view today.


 And if you look closely, you may be able to see the smoke coming out of the chimney, against the blue, blue sky.

Book List 2024

January - 5

1. The Murder at the Vicarage - book 1 in the Miss Marple series
by Agatha Christie
mystery 1930
Kindle

2. The Body in the Library - book 2 in the Miss Marple series
by Agatha Christie
mystery 1942
Kindle

3. Hilda and the Troll - book 1 in the Hildafolk series
by Luke Pearson
children's graphic novel 2010
print
library book

4. We Don't Know Ourselves
A Personal History of Modern Ireland
by Fintan O'Toole
nonfiction 2021
print

5. Trouble in Triplicate - book 14 in the Nero Wolfe series
by Rex Stout
mystery 1949
Kindle

February - 2

6. The Second Confession - book 15 in the Nero Wolfe series
by Rex Stout
mystery 1949
Kindle

7. Felsengarten
Our Mountain Garden
by Mrs. Theodore Thomas (Rose Fay)
nonfiction 1904
print
library book

March - 3

8. Three Doors To Death - book 16 in the Nero Wolfe series
by Rex Stout
mystery 1950
Kindle

9. Dead Presidents
 by Brady Carlson
nonfiction 2016
print

10. In The Best of Families - book 17 in the Nero Wolfe series
by Rex Stout
mystery 1950
Kindle

April - 2

11.  Spring Rain - book 3 in the Gardener's Chronicle trilogy
by Marc Hamer
nonfiction 2023
print

12. Curtains For Three - book 18 in the Nero Wolfe series
by Rex Stout
mystery 1950
Kindle

May - 2

13. Asleep 
The Forgotten Epidemic That Remains One Of Medicine's Greatest Mysteries
by Molly Caldwell Crosby
nonfiction 2010
print

14. Murder by the Book - book 19 in the Nero Wolfe series
by Rex Stout
mystery 1951
Kindle

June - 3

15. Mr Rosenblum's List 
Or Friendly Guidance For The Aspiring Englishman
by Natasha Solomons
fiction 2010
print

16. American Bloomsbury
by Susan Cheever
nonfiction 2006
reread
print

17. Triple Jeopardy - book 20 in the Nero Wolfe series
by Rex Stout
mystery 1952
Kindle

July - 4

18. In My Time Of Dying
How I Came Face-To-Face With The Idea Of An Afterlife
by Sebastian Junger
nonfiction 2024
print
library book

19. Corps of Granite
Glimpses of New Hampshire's CCC Camps
by Robert W Averill
and Kris Pastoriza
nonfiction 2024
print
library book

20. Prisoner's Base - book 21 in the Nero Wolfe series
by Rex Stout
mystery 1952
Kindle

21. The Golden Spiders - book 22 in the Nero Wolfe series
by Rex Stout
mystery 1953
Kindle

(Probably some of the July books were in August)

September - 1

22. The Secret Lives of Booksellers and Librarians
by James Patterson and Matt Eversmann
nonfiction 2024
print 
library book

October - 2

23. Three Men Out - book 23 in the Nero Wolfe series
by Rex Stout
mystery 1954
Kindle

24. The Black Mountain - book 24 in the Nero Wolfe series 
by Rex Stout
mystery 1954
Kindle

November

24. Dangerous Davies - book 1 in the Dangerous Davies series
by Leslie Thomas
mystery 1976
Kindle

25. Wonder - book 1 in the Wonder series
by RJ Palacio
children's fiction 2012
print
library book







Monday, January 1, 2024

And a Happy New Year!

 I've always loved John and Yoko's Christmas song, and particularly these lyrics:

"And a happy New Year. Let's hope it's a good one, without any fear."

Why "fear"? Just because it rhymes with year? I don't think so. Artists are geniuses at coming up with just the right words. There is so much fear everywhere. Wars, climate, politics, and more personal fears about one's life.  

We have had some months of fears. Tom had a fall and had to go down to the hospital where Hazel was born ten years ago. They needed to check him out because of concussion and brain bleed (aren't those awful words). This happened on August 30th. He came home on September 1st. While he was there, it was discovered that he has a heart ailment called "a-fib" and then later found out he has high cholesterol. One wouldn't expect a vegetarian of 52 years to have such a thing, but the past few years he has eaten a lot of fat - cheese and butter particularly. Probably this is stress-related from issues dealing with his mother's old age. 

I went online and found out how many grams of saturated fat he should have in a day. It was miles less than he had been eating. He began mindfully living by those grams, and has lost a lot of weight. We won't know for a while if it has done good with the cholesterol numbers. Apparently there are some kinds which are genetic, rather than caused by diet. 

He had a stress test for the a-fib and found that his arteries are not clogged. That is such a relief. He only has to take an aspirin a day to deal with it. The cholesterol medicine comes with warnings for most everything on earth, but I am ignoring them hoping the eating less fat will make a difference. 

He definitely has post-concussion stuff. The problem is that we think he had three before this, but he was never unconscious as he was in August, and we never thought much about them. Now, knowing what we know, there were side effects. He is working hard to rest more, and walk, do qigong, and meditate each day. Slow and steady wins the race, we hope. 

All this is why I have written even less lately than before. The days have been sometimes exhausting. 

I am really going to try to write more in 2024. I have continued to read your blogs, though not often commenting. I want to be a blogger again.