I forgot to add yesterday that we are listening to Stuff Matters, which is excellent. (It's a leftover audio book from when we did chemistry last year.) I really enjoy the narrator and the topic of materials science has made all of us look at things like stainless steel and paper differently. Rose, I'm also hoping the winds are not going to be as high as they say. I'm glad you're safe where you are. The sky here is smoky and our CO detector picked a heck of a day to decide to start its "end of useful life" chirping. :svengo:

Rose, thanks for checking in and I'm grateful to hear you had a peaceful night. My offer still stands, although we are also suffering from not-great air quality. I'm sure it's an improvement over Sonoma County, but they did cancel PE at the local schools and our kids' swim practice was also cancelled. The local movie theater is showing The Shining on the big screen tomorrow. I might head over there but I have to balance it with DH being out of town. (Not only the logistics, but the creep factor as well!) I'm currently reading The Burning Girl, which I received last month from my Powell's subscription. So far it's good, but not great. It's interesting in that it's a coming of age story, but a bit updated. It still has the thing where the girls are on their own and exploring independently (days out and about in a rural area, packing picnics, home for supper, etc) but with the modern twist of searching for things on Google Maps, for example. I'm not enthralled by it, but it's an easy read during a busy week. My dad borrowed my copy of Just Mercy before I could finish it so that's on hold for now.

Like Miss Peregrine, we solved it by not really storing sheets. We have two sets/bed, one for warm weather and one for cold. Right now the flannels are stored and I'm sure they will smell musty when we pull them out and we will have to wash them before use. But within a season, we just wash and put sheets right back on the bed instead of pulling out stored ones.

:crying: When Prince passed away there was a video making the rounds of him playing While My Guitar Gently Weeps with Tom Petty, not to mentioned Jeff Lynn, Steve Winwood, and George Harrison's son Dhani. I'll post it again, but for Tom Petty this time:

This would be a good book to look at on paper. The photos are lovely and I like the colonial-style typeface. You can preview it here. I've started Sarum a few times and dropped it. I think I'm permanently giving it up. Hmm. I put a hold on it at the library and I'll take a look. It sounds a bit Gone Girl-ish?

Thanks for the recommendation. I'll have to check it out. That's been on the shelf for a while but for some reason I'm reluctant to pick it up and start reading even though I know it will be excellent.

I understand the ban and disagree with the ban. I don't think there's anything wrong with reading Mein Kampf. I've never read it myself, but I think there's value in reading about the lives of all kinds of people, whether we like them or not. I can't judge the Germans for having a law like they do because they're coming to it with a very different experience. But I do think if a nation chooses to ban something altogether they have to be aware that in addition to the desired reduction in exposure, it can have an undesirable fetishistic effect.

I am reading Eliana's recommendation Just Mercy. It really is excellent. The writing brings clarity to very complex issues. The author is humble and doesn't pull and punches. It helps me put together disparate pieces of data stored in my mind into a cohesive picture, with a focus on simple humanity. It has, however, caused sleepless nights. I was also going to avoid our library book sale in October. We just finished donating 400 books. But we just received free tickets to the preview sale as Friends of the Library members, so...

:svengo:

Just for fun! (I know there's no reliable correlation.) I was shocked when DD9 got new shoes today and they're women's size U.S. 7.5! She's only 4'6". But yep, they fit her! And DS, who is 13 and 5'6" needed a men's 10.5. I wonder if they'll grow tall or if I'll just have hobbits with big feet. My side of the family is quite short and DH's side is quite tall. Any others who had young kids with large feet? How tall did your kids end up being?

Loesje, adding my hugs to the others. Yep. At some point they stopped editing his work and I stopped reading it. Actually I think they overlapped, but my tolerance was also higher then! A few years ago I picked up the version of The Stand that King had wanted to publish, but which had been cut due to length and cost. In the intro he was very up front and said that now that he had the money and the fans he has decided to add back in the 400 pages he had originally written, but that didn't necessarily make it better. I ended up quitting about a third of the way through.

Hmmm. How soon is too soon for another Laxness novel? All are welcome here, and you, Rose, are not that far away at all! I took me 12 weeks of almost-nightly reading to get through Ulysses. I read it along with the Classics and the Western Canon good reads group and you can read our discussions as you move along if you'd like. It found a place deep in my heart, even though I am certain I didn't even know enough to know what I missed as far as rabbit trails. As a follow up, I later read The Most Dangerous Book: A Battle for James Joyce's Ulysses. It covered the background of how the book came to be written and published, the smuggling of copies into the U.S. from Europe and Canada, and the eventual legal case brought to court by the publisher at Random House and the founder of the ACLU. Having read both, I'm glad I read them in the order I did.

Guys, I have a fantasy. And it involves being able to do justice to a write-up of my experience reading Independent People. Alas, I am just slammed with stuff from morning until evening these days so instead of waiting until I have time to do a full review, I'll just do what I can for now. (And thank Jane for suggesting it to me.) I think I'm developing a soft spot for books with unlikeable main characters, in this novel a sheep farmer named Bjartur. Perhaps there's some part of me that rebels against the standard model of the protagonist-as-hero left over from my childhood, or from all the read-alouds I've been doing for my own children. I think it started with Ignatius Reilly in A Confederacy of Dunces, of all things. Apparently there's a certain type of alluring main character that makes me want to throw my hands in the air, without making me actually throw my hands in the air. :laugh: Anyway, when I started the book I was expecting a serious epic set in Iceland, and it was. Despite Jane's warning, I didn't expect the utter frustration I would feel at the characters, especially surrounding major events in the plot. Their strange mix of willpower and laissez-faireism is something beyond my comprehension and I am still unable to determine how much of it is cultural based upon time and location vs the author's sense of humor and desire to paint interesting characters, not to mention his endeavor to develop a bit of an unlikely ending in order to make a political point. I very much appreciated the thread of sly (and sometimes not-so-sly) humor running through a story so bleak. And some of the factors were very modern: much of the plight of small farmers, the banks, the politics, the factors people use to decide how to vote, etc would be perfectly applicable to society in the U.S. today. I grew fond of most of the characters and as the years went by in the book they became like old friends or foes. I felt I was enduring in the small turf house along with the family, and it hurt my heart when their guilelessness and lack of sophistication impacted them as they grew older. The old grandmother was a wonderful character, with her annual Christmas ear cleaning. One description of her may have been my favorite line of the book, but sadly I forgot to write it down before retuning the book to the library. Paraphrasing, Laxness likened her continued existence to "a flame the Lord had forgotten to snuff out." All in all, it's brilliant novel and I can see why Jane recommended it. This one would be good for a re-read some day when I have more time.

Checking in to say that I have been watching Irma and am sending good thoughts to all. Jane, thank you for the eclipse stamp! We all love it and the kids are downright obsessed! Today is our first full day of school after we just got back from our last trip of the summer, and two of our outside-the-home activities begin today too. Hopefully I will find some time to write about Independent People later.

I love my Miele. We have the C1 Classic Titan. When I'm rolling it is has a slight tendency to tip over. It doesn't happen as much now that Ive gotten used to how to maneuver it, but I would say that's the only downside I've found. I would use the powerhead if you have medium pile carpet. My favorite things about it are the color(!) and the strong/variable suction. The strongest suction is strong enough that my arm gets tired dragging it across the carpet because of the resistance. I only did that once when I first got it. I also like the easy bag change and for DH's asthma, the HEPA filter.

I've been traveling but I've been thinking of you guys and I'm relieved to hear your update! Sorry about Kaiser. We may have to leave them too because of similar issues with them not acknowledging reality. :grouphug: :grouphug: :grouphug:

Was it Act Your Age: A Coming of (Middle) Age Memoir ?

Thanks. Yes I also was left with more questions than answers. It does need a re-read for me but I somehow found the second book very aggravating to read, which I think may have been intentional. It definitely gives the ready the feeling of being completely lost and while tied up in an opaque and political bureaucracy. I did enjoy the first book much more, and the third was a relief because it explained some of the things from the second. All in all a confounding piece of work. Thank you very much for the goodreads link; there's some good stuff to think about in there! Do you think you'll read any more by him?

Are you at least allowed to say you've been losing your marbles? :sneaky2:

We have some good friends in Indy. Hmmm.

I probably should have foreseen the sun/moon theme this week and planned ahead by starting 1Q84, which IMO would have been perfect. Instead I scanned the shelves and DH has a copy of Singularity Sky by Charles Stross. It's not really my thing, but I'll give it a couple of chapters before deciding. This morning we went to the library for eclipse programming and I thought I would be able to pick up my holds but they closed the rest of the library off and had us all on the patio for outside viewing or in a conference room which opens onto the patio from one side. I'll have to head back later today. We came home and found a dog on the roof of our garage! She got up there because the people on the other side left some stuff piled up and she managed to scale it and then got stuck. Still, it was hilarious because we had just been talking about how the eclipse might affect animal behavior. I am still reading and enjoying Independent People. I have a particular love of the types of female characters found in the book so far. Yes, if you still have any! The kids would love it. I was in the same place when I finished which was one of the reasons I wanted to see what you think! I still haven't decided and I read it more than a year ago. Hang in there Rose. :grouphug: And I'm glad to hear your thoughts on The Hidden Life of Trees. I got that for FIL for his birthday and he's been raving about it as well. I'm sorry to hear that. :grouphug:

What about neighbors? My kids' closest friends are neighbors whose kids go to the local public school. Can you do a Lego thing at your home for homeschoolers every month or so?

We're with you as you find a peaceful path forward. :grouphug:

Welcome Aurora! :hurray: :hurray: :hurray: