Tag: reading

I found it!

~ Maggie ~ 4 Comments

I finally found the library! Yeah, I know that sounds silly, but they moved in the summer (when we were away) and I just couldn’t find the adress they listed on the website (google maps isn’t all that acurate here). But two weeks ago, I suddenly saw them, right at the side of the road I drive on almost weekly, because it connects the two supermarkets I go to most frequently. That’s so great!

I usually get books on alternative medicine or regional history and stories from the library. They have a lot of books in their collection that are no longer for sale.

What I took home with me this time, top to bottom:
– in the 60’s a priest asked local people for stories about the past and lore. He wrote them all down without comments or analyzing. His books are such a great source!
– a book about menopause. I’m still trying to figure out some facts about that.
– the first book of our famous island herbalist. I bought the other one, but this one is out of print. I have borrowed this many, many times and I’m slowly copying the information in my notebooks.
– a book about the healing powers of water. Could be interesting if they don’t go over-the-top with the spiritual stuff (that’s an extremely fine line with me)

I think they also have a good selection of fiction, but I read a lot of novels on my e-reader, so I’m never really checked those out.
Since I know people will ask what fiction I’m reading: I’m on a Morgana Best binge – if you like cozy mysteries with a bit of paranormal, you should check her out. I just finished 18 (!) books in the Kitchen Witch series and now I’m binging her Vampire and Wine series. I also read Practical Magic and it’s prequel Rules of Magic, by Alice Hoffman. Yeah, there’s theme in my reading these days 😉

Knitting & Reading

~ Maggie ~ 11 Comments

Reading: finished another book by Janet Evanovich. I love her writing!
And I started a more serious (thick) one. In English, it’s called The Bible of Clay and it’s one of those thrillers that revolve around ancient texts (in this case the stories of Genesis as told by Abraham). I’m not sure what I think of it. I have a hard time concentrating, but that may not be the book’s fault.

Knitting: finished the hat (it will get it’s own blog post), working a bit on the shawl. Comfort knitting.

linking up with Ginny’s Yarn Along and As Kat Knit’s Unraveled Wednesday

Knitting and reading

~ Maggie ~ 2 Comments

After that case of startitis my knitting came to a full stop. Not immediately, but that shawl I was trying to make… didn’t work out. Also, I started to doubt if I really wanted to make a bikini coverup. Wouldn’t it be better to make a cardigan with that yarn?
And then I started a baby hat for a baby shower that will be held this Saturday. How simple is that? Well, I blame the yarn, but it can also be my sluggish knitting, but I was almost done when I noticed it just wasn’t something I’d want to give as a present. So I started again with a different yarn. I’m not really motivated to finish it though. Those double pointed needles are not really my favorite way to knit (but my circulars are too long). Maybe I should just let it go. I need to buy a present anyway because I just don’t have time to make more than just that little hat. It’s a really cute pattern though.

My lack of motivation for knitting may also have something to do with my reading. I’ve been reading so much lately! I have a small collection of books about Curacao (history most) or set in Curacao and once I started reading one of them, I couldn’t stop myself and had to read them all. It took some time, but I love knowing more about the island (I will probably pop into a thrift store to find more books like this today).
And then I found the book on the right. It’s in Dutch, but the title translates as “Secret Medicine of the Gypsies”. It’s written by Pierre Delon. My goodness. His writing is… well, different, but it’s so interesting. Reading this book stirred up my latent, but always strong interest in herbal medicine, so next thing I knew, I was downloading books about that on my e-reader. Starting with the classic: Culpeper’s Herbal. I can’t believe I never read that one before. And then 20 more modern books. I’m enjoying working my way through The Natural First Aid Handbook (thinking about buying a paper version for reference). And then there are so many more interesting books. I think I also have brought one home with me from that book market I visited a few times (as I said, latent, but strong), so I’ll have to dig that up.And I’m waiting for this book to arrive, but that will take some time (Amazon takes about a month to get thing here, and then it needs to go through customs. I ordered it two weeks ago, it will probably arrive mid-April.)

Oh well, I won’t be bored soon, that’s for sure.

linking up with Ginny’s Yarn Along

Knitting and reading (yarn along)

~ Maggie ~ 5 Comments

I’m linking up with Ginny’s Yarn Along today and I thought it would be fun to look back on what I’ve been reading and knitting last month. Not that I plan to post extensive reading lists and ratings, I tried that for a while on my Dutch blog, but it took all the fun out of reading. A bit of rambling about whatever books I’ve read will have to do 😉

Knitting:
I’m so happy to be back to knitting full force! This month I finished some projects I started earlier this year (some dishcloths and the sleeveless sweaterdress). I finished a hat and worked on a cowl.
I don’t think I’ll be able to do 20 hats before 2020 (a plan I made a few months ago), but I am working on hats for my whole family. That comes very close to 20 hats, actually. Oh well, as long as I’m having fun with it…

Reading
My reading has been all over the place last month, but mostly books that made me happy.
I reread some of my favorite Nora Roberts novels, enjoyed reading two of the Little House on the Prairie books I found at the thrift store last week, spent a whole Sunday (and part of Monday morning) reading another Nora Roberts (Come Sundown – a real pageturner) and right now I’m reading a simple whodunnit that I’ve probably read before (I used to get these from the library).
When life is hard for me to handle, I love returning to books like these. Comforting, simple books that help me escape reality for a while.
Oh! I almost forgot to mention I read Wuthering Heights too, a few weeks ago. So that’s my one serious book this month. But it was so depressing that I hurried back to cozy mysteries (The psychic café series by April Fernsby, not really masterpieces of writing, but so much fun to read).

I still have lots of treasures to be read in my haul from the thrift store that Saturday…
(I’m saving the Christmas books for later this month)

Knitting & reading

~ Maggie ~ 8 Comments

Knitting: well, there isn’t much more to share since yesterday. Did a few rows, but nothing much. Wish I could be knitting and reading at the same time, but somehow I can’t manage that right now.

Reading: not as much as I’d like to, but I found a new funny author to binge read and luckily my e-book subscription is cooperating again. Maria Schneider writes cozy novels in chicklit style. Love those (remember the Matchmaker’s Mysteries I told you about last year?). The first two books by Maria Schneider I read were Executive Lunch and Executive Retention, about Sedona, who works as a tester for an IT-company, but gets involved in undercover work. They were fun, but the one I’m readking now (One good Eclair) is way better. Ivy is a nutritionist, but also from a mafia family, so she gets into trouble a lot. It sounds weird, but it’s really a great read.

Linking up with Kat’s Unraveled Wednesday

Yarn along :: knitting and reading

~ Maggie ~ Leave a comment

Knitting: halfway another hat. I’ve made a hat with this yarn before and I love it as much as I did the first time (that’s why I’m going so fast, I guess). It seems my knitting mojo is back. I’m determined to finish the hat challenge despite the two-month hiatus. It may be silly, but it keeps my mind off other things, so that’s good 😉

Reading: I’ve read a lot of simple feelgood novels lately and I loved it. But then I read on twitter that some book bloggers were going to read War and peace by Tolstoj. That’s one of those books that you always hear about (mostly how hard it is to read), but I never read it. So I decided to download it and read a few chapters to see if I would join them. Well, it’s actually not that hard to read. I’m about two thirds in now (page 810 of 1270) and I’m still going strong. Even though some parts (mostly those about the battles) are boring, the main characters are interesting enough to keep reading. 

This makes me wonder… are there more of these classics that I should give a try? I’ve been meaning to reread Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre for ages but never did (I read them for school) and I have never read Lord of the Rings, Pride & Prejudice or One flew over the cuckoo’s nest. And those are just a few that pop into my mind, there must be a lot more. Maybe I should make a list and challenge myself to read some of them next year.

Linking up with Yarn Along on Small Things

Right now

~ Maggie ~ 4 Comments

Right now I am…

:: looking back at a wonderful weekend

We started it on Friday evening like we do most weekends: by visiting Seaquarium Beach, have a bite to eat and a few drinks, while watching the sun set into the sea. We never get tired of that!

On Saturday we worked all day and it felt good. It’s silly how chosing to work can make such a difference in how it feels… T. dove into getting to know a different programming language then he normally uses and I worked on my Dutch blog and my book. Yes, that’s right. I’m afraid to jinx myself if I write it down, but it seems my writer’s block is finally over!

On Sunday we drove to the west part of the island and visited Shete Boka (Seven Coves), a national park on the North Coast we love very much.

:: knitting

Hats, of course. Working on #8. Note to myself: Bring more yarn next time. I still love knitting hats, but I’d also like to pick up something else every once in a while.

:: reading

I’m really enjoying the columns a famous Dutch writer (mostly known for her children’s books) wrote in the fifties. I love the way she plays with language and I also love that she dares to write what she thinks, even if it was something less acceptable in those days (she was a feminist). It’s kind of inspiring.

I also read a book by Andreas Eschbach, but it seems that there isn’t an English version (I read it in Dutch). To bad. I think he’s one of the best writers of our time. Trying to find English versions I also found out that a lot of his books aren’t translated in Dutch either (he’s German). I can read German if I really want to, but it’s not a fun language to read… Still, his stories are great, so maybe I will, sometime.

At the moment I’m reading and writing both in Dutch and English and I’m trying to learn Papiamento (the local language on Curaçao). I think that’s enough languages in one mind for a while.

Since I keep hearing that the Matchmakers’ series I enjoyed so much is comparable to Janet Evanovitch’s books, I’ve started reading “One for the money” on Saturday. I like it sofar, but I can’t download the rest of the series within my e-book subscription, so I can’t read the whole series.

When I finish it I plan to start reading an historic novel about Curaçao. I feel like I should learn more about the place we want to settle, so this is a good start (I know novels aren’t the best source, but this is written by an historian, so I assume he does have his facts straight).

:: writing

Lots of articles in Dutch. I hope to be back to more active blogging in English soon, but for now I’m stuck with Dutch, it seems. I’m also looking forward to keep going with my book.

:: making lists

And lists of lists to make. Hmn. Relax, Maggie, relax (oh, I was so right to pick that as my word for 2018)! But there’s so much to think about. We return to Holland in about a month, but only to sell our house and to take care of lots of small things. And then (we hope in July, but it may take us longer) we’ll return to Curaçao to permanently live here. O my!

We did decided to give ourselves two years here in rentals and then we’ll evaluate if we want to stay or return (or move on to some other place).

:: thinking

About this blog and where to go with it. But also thinking that maybe for now it’s enough to enjoy what it is now. It’s fun to write about knitting and life. And I love the connections and comments. But then again, there’s so much more I’d to write about and…

Relax, Maggie, relax… 😉

Bon Siman! Wishing you all a great week.

(linking up with Jeannie Gray Knits’ Makers’ Monday)

Knitting and reading

~ Maggie ~ 10 Comments

(this post contains affiliate links)

Knitting:

Well, that fourth hat takes a long time. I couldn’t take it with me on our little trip to Bonaire (didn’t want to risk having to throw one of the two sets of needles I brought with me to Curacao in the bin at the airport), so it’s been on hold for two days. I’m looking forward to picking up my knitting this afternoon, after I do some more important things first.

Reading:

The good news is that I could take my e-reader with me, so I’ve been reading a lot. I also found ou that with my e-reader t I can knit and read at the same time.I used to be against multi-tasking (I don’t think it’s productive at all), but doing two things I love at the same time can’t be wrong, so I’m rolling with it.

If the cats don’t bother me, that is. They’re very interested in both my knitting and my reading.

I’m working my way through the Matchmaker Mysteries series by Elise Sax. when I took this picture I was halfway book 4, but we spent a lot of time on the airport yesterday and now I’m halfway book 5. I’m loving every one of them.

Linking up with As Kat Knits’ Unraveled Wednesday

Knitting and reading

~ Maggie ~ 6 Comments

Knitting: I just finished the third hat and need a little time away from it. Ha! I tried to design something different and though I think it’s not that bad, it does need some tweaking. I will post a picture of it next week.

Right now I’m trying to decide what hat to knit next with what yarn. So many possibilities…

Reading: An Affair to dismember by Elise Sax.

I recently found out I can access over 700 (!) English cozy mysteries from my Dutch e-book subscription. It’s silly, I was about to cancel the subscription since none of the books I wanted to read were in it, when I digged a little deeper and found this. I love cozy mysteries, but very few of them are translated in Dutch or even available in the English version in the Netherlands.

I’m in reader’s heaven now.

Joining As Kat Knits’ Unraveled Wednesday and Small Things’ Yarn Along