Like-Spring Weekend

Kathryn posted about her cleaning attack this week.  Strange how contagious that "virus" became :)  My sewing room was a disaster, cluttered, cramped and dated.  I had ordered a great indestructible new rug (smaller and designed for an outdoor patio), a buffet to serve as storage and ironing station, and a table-top ironing board to replace my giant board that was always "out," but had not really made a plan to do the work.  These items arrived very quickly!  I guess this weekend was destined to be the cleaning weekend.

Friday:  Finish the projects currently in progress and get them out of the way. 

Saturday:  Up at 5:30 a.m. to move all of the furniture out, put the old rug out for BC to haul to the dumpster for me, make a trip to the diner to relax and fuel up.  Back home to dust and wash every surface, object and tool, scrub the floor 3 x, knit in between drying periods, wax the floor, trim and lay the new rug pad, lay the new rug, put everything back.  To bed at 10:30 p.m.

Sunday:  Up at 7:30 a.m. to unpack the new buffet and get rid of the packing materials.  Then off to the diner to fuel up.  You have to love the Nutley Diner.  It is bustling at every hour.  I love to go there when I need to be out among people but don't want to go to the trouble of arranging a meal out with a friend or two.

Then back home to put the buffet together.  BC arrived just as I was running out of steam and finished it up for me.  He muscled it into place, cleaned up the mess and admired the new arrangement.  What a kid!

Wa la....the "new" sewing room! Now, a nap sounds pretty good.

February 15, 1903

On this day in 1903, the teddy bear was born when Morris Michtom and his wife Rose placed two stuffed bears in the window of their Brooklyn shop window. Michtom sent a stuffed bear to President Theodore Roosevelt and asked for his permission to use his nickname, Teddy, for the dolls after a 1902 political cartoon depicted Roosevelt refusing to shoot a bear while on a hunting trip in Mississippi. The sign along side the dolls in the window read “Teddy’s bear.” The toys were an instant sensation and Michtom started the Ideal Novelty and Toy Co.

Clifford Berryman's political cartoon of President Theodore Roosevelt's bear hunting trip to Mississippi that gave the teddy bear its name. This is one of several cartoons he drew of the same event.

That Summer in Sicily: A Love Story by Marlena De Blasi

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Wow, what evocative language....  I listened to the MP3 download. The reader's voice and Italian language skills are gorgeous.  This is a complex love story.  It gives the listener a tone, lifestyle, value system, political system and somewhat historical glimpse of life in Sicily in the mid-twentieth century.  I finished the tale wishing I could be a part of the society so beautifully described by the author, who, as it turns out, was also the reader of this audio book.  She reads in a bit of a monotone that makes it difficult to differentiate between the two story-tellers.  However, her reading adds so much to the listening value that the monotone is almost insignificant. F

I am not a habitual love story reader.  This one was well worth my attention.  Maybe I will make it a habit to read at least one love story in January/February every year to celebrate Valentine's Day.



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