Between milking three cows a day and sewing obsessively, my wrists are starting to bother me.  I know this means I need to rest. (And stop typing so much.)  And to watch my posture.  But...I...MUST...KEEP...SEWING.  (And typing.) This reminds me of my early knitting days.  So compelling.  So fun.  Well, that's the update.  Back to back stitching.

The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings Trilogy - Tolkien
The Boneshaker- Kate Milford
121 Hours Between a Rock and a Hard Place- Aaron Ralston
Streams of Silver- R.A. Salvatore
The Halfling's Gem-R.A. Salvatore
The Crystal Shard- R.A. Salvatore
Homelands- Salvatore
Exile- Salvatore
Sojourn- Salvatore
Virals- Kathy Reichs
Scorpia Rising- Anthony Horowitz
Snakehead- Horowitz
Crocodile Tears- Horowitz
Eagle Strike- Horowitz
Ark Angel- Horowitz
The Bromeliad Trilogy (Truckers, Drivers, Wings)- Terry Pratchet
The Brother's War- Jeff Grubb
The Thran- J. Robert King
The Knife of Never Letting Go- Patrick Ness
The Ask and the Answer- Ness
The Maze Runner- James Dashner
The Scorch Trials- Dashner
The Lab- Jack Heath
The Angel Experiment- James Patterson
School's Out-Forever- Patterson
Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports- Patterson
The Final Warning- Patterson
Max- Patterson
Angel- Patterson
Fang- Patterson
Beyond the Deepwoods- Paul Stewart and Chris Riddel
Freeglader- Stewart and Riddel
The Winter Knights- Stewart and Riddel
The Curse of the Gloamglozer
The Princess Bride- William Goldman
Heir Apparent- Vivian Vande Velde
The Ninja Handbook- "The International Order of Ninjas"
Dragons of Autumn Twilight- Margeret Weis and Tracy Hickman
Dragons of Winter Night- Weis and Hickman
Dragons of Spring Dawning- Weis and Hickman
The Magic of Krynn- Weis and Hickman
The Last Straw- Jeff Kinney
Dog Days- Kinney
The Last Straw- Kinney
Geektastic!- Holly Black and Cecil Castellucci
Unicorns vs Zombies- Black and Castellucci
A Crack in the Line- Michael Lawrence
The Underwood See- Lawrence
Small Eternities- Lawrence
The Moons of Mirrodin- Will McDermot
A Walk in the Woods- Bill Bryson
In a Sunburned Country- Bryson
Notes From a Small Island- Bryson
Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life- Bryan Lee O'Malley
Scot Pilgrim and the Infinite Sadness- O'Malley
Scott Pilgrim vs the World- O'Malley
Scott Pilgrim Gets it Together- O'Malley
Scott Pilgrim vs the Universe- O'Malley
Scott Pilgrim's Finest Hour- O'Malley
Things Not Seen- Andrew Clements
The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy- Douglas Adams
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe- Adams
Life, the Universe, And Everything- Adams
Paranoid Park- Someone
Pathfinder- Orson Scott Card
Ender's Game- Card
I am Number Four- Pitticus Lore
The Lost Days- Rob Reger
Stranger and Stranger- Reger
Dark Times- Reger
The Eternity Code- Eoin Colfer
You Killed Wesley Payne - Sean Bedouin
Evil Genius - Cathering Jinks
Genius Squad - Jinks
Genius Wars - Jinks
Chesapeake- James A. Michener
They Shoot Canoes, Don't They?- Patrick McManus
The Good Samaritan Strikes Again- McManus
Night Watch- Terry Pratchett
Stuck on Earth- David Klass
You Killed Wesley Payne- Sean Bedouin
The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl - Barry Lyga
A Scary Scene in a Scary Movie- Matt Blackstone
Beat the Band- Don Calame
Black Hole Sun- David Macinnis

(A bunch of manga)
Hangman's Curse- Frank Peretti
Nightmare Academy- Peretti
Touching Spirit Bear-Ben Mikaelsen
Ghost of Spirit Bear- Mikaelsen
I am a Genius of Unspeakable Evil and I Want to be Your Class
President- Joseph Lieb
Some of the short stories in "Firebirds Rising" --Edited by: Sharyn November.
Epic- Connor Kostick
Saga- Kostic
Edda- Kostick
Spud- John van de Ruit
Spud- the Madness Continues...- John van de Ruit
Tales of the Madman Underground- John Barnes
The Web of Fire- Steve Voake
The Dreamwalker's Child- Voake
Goth Girl Rising- Barry Lyga
Run With the Horsemen- Ferrol Sams
The Pit and the Pendulum- Edgar Allan Poe
Preludes and Nocturnes- Neil Gaiman
The Doll's House- Gaiman
Dream Country- Gaiman
Seizure- Kathy Reichs
Bonechiller- Graham Macnamee
Dark Angel- David Klass
A Spell for Chameleon- Piers Anthony
The Source of Magic- Piers Anthony
Did Somebody Step On A Duck ~Jim Dawson
This Is All- Aidan Chambers
Dark Eden- Patrick Carmam
1984 -George Orwell
Inheritance- Christopher Paolini

I know it seems strange for an old southern state quail like me to have a blog named Peerie Flooers.  But I am a bit strange.  When Kate Davies posted her GORGEOUS pattern, Peerie Flooers, I was taken with the phrase as much as the design.  I went looking online for more Scottish Gaelic.   What I found was the lullaby and it grabbed my heart hard.  Speaking psychologically, it addresses my darkest.  As, I suppose, all really good lullabies and fairy tales will.  Moreover, my eleven year old daughter loves it too.

Sometimes when she is in a good mood you can hear her singing, awa upstairs, alone to herself.  "Hush-a-baa-baa, my peerie flooer..." Her voice is so fresh, light, and dear it breaks stouter hearts than mine. The men in our lives love the song, sure. My husband laughed in his good natured way the first time I played it for him, as I brushed off a couple of tears. Though he lacks a need to hear it over and over and over again, as does our son. But me and the girl find comfort in repetition and perhaps we hear in the song Grandmothers long past?

If you spend a lot of time replaying the song while staring at the Scottish and English translations, it becomes a nice unit study of not only Gaelic, but also how to learn a language. So that works nicely for our school this year.

And then there is this.  We are Gaelic, the O'Groomes from county Cork (Contae Chorcaí) Ireland. Groometown is still a thriving community, full of our ancestors working right down the road.  And my children also come by it honestly from both sides of their heritage.  I'll have to look up my husband's old family name and from exactly whence they come.   Grandpa Tom knows.  He's working on Irish citizenship these days. Here's to the hinterlands, the ancestors, a wooly woven thread of time and love, and small flowers every day.

 Just in time for the wooltastic tree skirt/wedding present project happening in my living room, Kate Davies and Felicity Ford are launching a movement to restore truth in wool labeling:  Wovember.  And to advertise the glory, beauty, and benefit of 100% real wool.

Today's progress on the tree skirt.

 Grandmother, Master Seamstress

 I love projects requiring a huge joyful spazflagration of art supplies spread out everywhere.

 Trying to get the ribbon the dove is using to carry wedding rings with her beak just so.

The detail on these decorations feel 1950's inspired to me.  Its fun to work on a creative project with such tight historical boundaries. You wouldn't think so, but because the decorations have to be loosely Christmas-ish, vintage-ish, feltable, and with a certain just right amount of detail. It seems such a project would feel wrongly laborious and anti creative. But its more like a puzzle. You think, hum, what can I make next? Then suddenly you get a eureka light bulb sort of feeling as an idea hits you.

But unlike when Ann Taylor was working her stocking magic in the 1960s, today we have google image in silhouette. What a marvelous tool. Dove + silhouette + google image = Thank you!  

Halloween was last night in town at Aunt Ashlyn's house.  Elsje and Russel joined in for their first ever Halloween celebration.   They asked the group of us adults sitting with beers after the kids were home and sorting candy, where we got Halloween.   We all stumbled around verbally, tossing out bits of history: pagans, equinox, Catholics, Day of The Dead, Samhain, etc.

I asked them about the major and lesser holidays in South Africa.  Apparently there is Christmas and Easter and insignificant banking kinds of holidays (similar in fanfare to Columbus day, for instance).  No extra curricular feasting.  Apparently, no co-opting of super cool mystic Bush lore?  I suppose the holidays of gluttony are all uniquely American.  Natch.

Today we'll take down my beloved Halloween decorations.  And Mom is coming over to work on our present for the newly weds.  We're making her a (first ever as far as I know) tree skirt to match the family tradition of red wool felt stockings, a tradition I enjoy so much.  I love to sit with the wool on my lap and imagine what to make next, to feel through my hands a connection with the grandmothers who started it all (I wonder, does it go back further than the first stockings Ann Taylor made?)  And to realize I get to help throw the whole thing forward, hopefully, as a gift of love for future generations as well as a gift of now.

Every year I go on a small bitch-ranting tirade about the commercialism of holidays.  Val set me straight, "Too bad we can't all be as hand-made special as you."  Ouch, quite right.  Thank you Val!  Gratitude gratitude gratitude gratitude, please, let me pin my soul to eternal simple humble gratitude and keep moving.

I am unimaginably lucky: my whole story.  I can see it in my children's eyes every day.  I can see it in the fresh vision of new friends.  I can see it in the angry eyes of a friend recently diagnosed.   The truth of my good fortune lives in my husband's eyes, always.  There is infinite opportunity to see it everywhere I look.  Happy Good This Weird World Day with Love and Gratitude, y'all!

Dear Husband got in from California last night about 8.  By 9:30 it was lights out in our house.   At 8:30 this morning he is still asleep, I'm leaving to go milk the cows, and its 30 degrees outside.  Its good to have everyone tucked in, home, and warm.  And I predict a cold snowy winter for our southerly state this year.

Its hard to move the cat off my lap and get dressed.  But I know the cows are waiting for me with their fullness and warmth, milk will steam into the pail as jars fill, and no more flies until summer.  Fall has always been my favorite season.