Read In January 2019

About my average - ten books read this first month of the New Year.

Clock Dance by Anne Tyler was on a top ten 'Book of the Year' lists for 2018 and was one of my favorites this month. Anne Tyler is one of the authors I will always read.

Pieces of Her by Karin Slaughter is one of her stand-alone books. This one about a daughter wondering if she really knows her mother. A tense and suspenseful read which shows how difficult it is to hide in this age of electronic surveillance.

Vengeance by Benjamin Black (Pen name of Irish author John Banville.) We had been enjoying the BBC series Quirke about an Irish pathologist; I wanted to read one of the books the series was based on.

Her Every Fear by Peter Swanson was one of NPR's best books of 2017. This book was compared to Gone Girl which is why I added him to my 'authors' list.

The Clockmaker's Daughter by Kate Morton was my favorite read this month. I love Morton's books and the way she weaves present day into something that happened in the past. Highly recommend.

small great things by Jodi Picoult After reading Picoult's latest book last month, I decided it was time to go back a read more of her's. As I said, she doesn't shy away from controversy. small great things deals with race, prejudice, privilege and justice for which there are no easy answers.

Broken by Karin Slaughter I was sad when I finished Slaughter's Grant County series because I really liked the characters. So I was happy to find that one of them carries over into the Will Trent series. This is #4 where GBI special agent Trent is sent to Grant County - the crossover book where the continuing characters first meet.

Fallen by Karin Slaughter is #5 in the Will Trent series.

Salem Falls by Jodi Picoult is one of her older novels.  A former teacher tries to start over in a small town after serving time for misdemeanor sexual assault of one of his students at his former post. But the law requires him to register as a sexual offender and soon everyone in town knows and wants him gone. "Innocent until proven guilty" - yeah, right.

Criminal by Karin Slaughter is # 6 in the Will Trent series and so far my least favorite. Alot of flashbacks establishing the who/why of some of the characters.

More Picoult and Slaughter next month - and who else??

Baby, It's Cold Outside

No, this isn't a blog post about the controversy over the song, it really is cold outside! 
New record lows are being set as well as record lows for the high temperature of the day. Previous records for this date were set in 1965. Doug was two years old and we were living in the old parsonage in Brooks. I don't remember any specifics about the cold weather then, but I do remember how drafty and hard to heat that place was.

Thanks to the snaps, pops, bangs, noises the house was making from the contractions of the cold and expansions when the furnace ran, I've been awake since 4:00 a.m. When I got up at five, the temperature was -22° according to my online home page. Our high today is supposed to be -8° with wind chills in the -25° to -35° range. Baby, it's cold outside. And I'm so glad I don't have to go anywhere, that our furnace is working, that our pipes didn't freeze.

It has me wondering how we survived the cold when I was young. Our old farm house wasn't insulated. It was heated by a coal stove in the living room and a wood burning range in the kitchen. Which I don't remember, though I do remember, when I was older, the wood/coal burning stove that was brought into the kitchen each fall to help heat the house after an oil-burner stove replaced the coal stove in the living room.

And I wonder where Betty and I slept until we were ages three and five? It wasn't until 1948 that there were two useable bedrooms upstairs. Until then the west room didn't have a floor. Only the smaller east bedroom was used and my older brother had that. Did we girls sleep downstairs? Where? Did I sleep upstairs in the same room as Ron and Betty was downstairs in a crib in Mom and Dad's bedroom? My memories don't stretch back that far and a call to Ron to see if he remembered didn't help. He did say the upstairs didn't even have floor registers until 1948. The only heat was what came up the stairwell.

My memories of sleeping upstairs include feather beds and piles of blankets; getting up and standing on the register for what warmth there was while getting dressed. Oh, yeah, and there was no indoor bathroom. Going to the outhouse meant bundling up to hurry down the path only to partially undress and freeze until you hurried back to the house.

I don't remember school being called off because of the cold. I do remember trudging through the snow in layers of clothing and scarves around our necks and faces to walk the mile to our one-room school - and being envious of the kids whose parents brought them in the family sedans.

How did we survive? I guess we were a lot tougher then.

Another Name For My Worry Stone

I've written before about my special worry stone, the one found in the Cedar River many years ago by a man for whom it was very special, and why he gave it to me.

Not only was it a piece of honey agate perfectly shaped for one's thumb to rub worries away, it had a hole in it. And a rock with a natural hole through it was said to be lucky or even magical - also rare.

So rare that even with all my years of rockhounding, I have never found any small Holey stones myself. I do have this one, but I bought it at a flea market years ago.

This large piece of limestone with a hole through it is my only personal find.

So even if they are rare and are special or lucky or magical and with all the reading I do, why have I never known that rocks with a hole in them are known as Hag Stones? Maybe I once heard them called that, but forgot? I don't think so, because when I read about hag stones a couple days ago, I definitely felt like "Where have I been that I didn't know this?"

In folk magic lore hag stones were viewed as protective amulets to guard against evil spirits and dark energy. Small ones could be worn around the neck or placed on a window ledge to ward off illness, theft or curses.
My honey agate worry stone is on the window sill above the kitchen sink and I have worn the other one on a cord around my neck once or twice.

There are actually three holes in this stone. One site I consulted says some holes can be made by a boring mollusk called a piddock. I do think the holes in this stone look like they were made by something, not human, boring through it.

You can bet if there's any more rockhounding in my future, I'll be on the look out for Hag Stones.

"The Leatherman Place"

In the tradition of remembering a place or location in relation to people who once lived there, or nearby, generations ago, my mother was born 100 years ago today in a little three room house on a farm known as The Leatherman Place.
As a passenger along on one of those ubiquitus family outings of my youth, known as a Sunday Drive, we often took the dirt road west of town and north of Hwy 34 along what is now labeled on the maps as Dogwood Avenue and Mom would point out where she was born. I can remember when the house was still there but in later years all that remained was the barn. I wish we had stopped and taken pictures of the house on one of those Sunday drives.

Judging by the blooms on the Snowball bush, this early photo of Mom was taken in May when she was about four months old. I do believe Mom was squished into big sister Evelyn's doll buggy.

Another photo still at The Leatherman Place, I think, but a few months later. I want to caption the look on Mom's face; determination? Triumph because she's mastered sitting up? Or is she just wondering why daddy is drawing her attention so mommy can take the picture?

Mom would not have memories of living on the Leatherman place because the following spring the family of four moved NE of Villisca to the Findley? farm. Perhaps not known as that, but it was just west of Findley Cemetery. In June, baby sister Lois would complete the family of five.

Even with her eyes closed, you can see what a pretty child she was. Was this the family pet which influenced her life-long love of dogs?

A studio portrait of the three sisters, Evelyn, Lois and Ruth.

The three sisters along with their little cousin, Ray Inman.

Another studio portrait with the parents - Delphia, Ruth, Evelyn, Joseph and in front, Lois.

There is a big gap in the photos I have of Mom. This is a school picture taken either when she was a student at the school in Hacklebarney or after they moved to the Guss area.

Teen years.

Puppies and flowers.

All dressed up. Must have some place to go.

Her picture from her photo album displaying all the photo booth pictures of her friends during the time she began dating.

The sisters and their beaus - later, their husbands - Lois and Alvin, Evelyn and Howard, Ruth and Louis. One of the few pictures of Mom with her glasses on.

Such a beautiful young woman.

She, who found joy and laughter in life. The mother I remember and honor on this 100th anniversary of her birth.

A Hard Habit To Break

Forty years. Forty years, at least, during which I have developed a habit that will be very hard to break, but I think it is about time.
No, it isn't smoking, I quit that forty-six years ago this month. But I think this habit will be almost as hard to break as smoking was. I only smoked on and off for twenty-two years. I've been recycling for at least forty years.

I chart my recycling habit as beginning when we moved back to Adams County in 1978, though I remember some limited recycling while still living near Grimes - for instance saving newspapers for Boy Scout paper drives.

But on an empty lot down on John Street in Corning, there were some dumpsters similar to the one above. At that time, as I recall, the only things that were recyclable were newspapers, cardboard, clear glass bottles and jars, tin and aluminum cans and #1 and #2 plastics, like milk jugs. I already considered myself an environmentalist, so being able to recycle some of what otherwise would have gone to a landfill was something I valued and respected.

More items are now acceptable and curbside recycling is more available which has made it easier for most. Before curbside, in the town where I now live, those large recycling dumpsters were in the parking lots of two of the grocery stores until the store managers got tired of cleaning up after all the people who just couldn't follow the recycling rules.

Because of where I live, I still have to take my recyclables to the Waste Management recycling dumpster on the west edge of town which is not too far from me. I sort the cans, plastics, glass, paper into individual bags as they are accumulated so when I go I can just empty them into the right bins. As you can see, it is about time for me to do so again. And it may be the last time for me.

We have dumpsters throughout our neighborhood, one of which is right across the street. It is picked up (emptied) twice a week. I may, if I can convince myself that the small amounts I recycle aren't going to save our planet, begin putting all our trash in it. Part of the reason will be because of the convenience and my 'creeping up on me' age.

But the other reason will be because of a news story last month about how so much of the nation's recycling goes to the landfill anyway, because of contamination. Even if I carefully rinse out my recyclables they can still end up in the trash because others don't. That coupled with the total disregard by many who don't follow the guidelines for recycling- window glass and mirrors in the glass bin, plastic bags in the paper bin, cardboard boxes not broken down in the cardboard bin, etc. - which ruins the effort of those of us who do follow the rules.

Recycling is going to be a very hard habit for me to break. 😢😠💔

Handsel Monday

Ever hear of Handsel Monday? Me either. But my 'Word of the Day' for New Year's Day last Tuesday was Handsel. The definition: "A gift made as a token of good wishes or luck especially at the beginning of a new year.

Further down was more information - that the word handsel or hansel dates back to the 13th Century, that it was an old Scottish (British Isles) custom to give a small gift or good luck charm on the first Monday after New Year's Day - Handsel Monday.

Money was a favored Handsel Monday gift, as it was supposed to insure a full purse for the rest of the year. If the handsel was a physical object other than money, tradition held that it could not be anything sharp or it would 'cut' the relationship between giver and receiver.
Bud has mentioned that his Dad was superstitious about giving or receiving a knife for that reason. The recipient could negate the severing by 'paying' for the knife with whatever change he had in his pocket. I wonder if his Dad's superstition could be traced back to the tradition of Handsel?

I have the little purse, a coin and a good luck piece to go in it that I *could* give to someone on this Handsel Monday - but would anyone know why I was gifting it?

2018 In Photos January to December