two blocks and two books

It has been a busy busy week around here and today is the first day I have nowhere to be ALL DAY!  Of course, there are a zillion chores that need to be done to catch up (I've been trying, but they seem to get ahead of me when I'm gone a lot), but I think I'm almost to a point where I can do some fun stuff!  (Blogging counts, right?!)

I did manage to squeeze in a couple of blocks for the wedding quilt...

The colors still aren't coming across as bright as they are in real life, but the first of the two is closer.  Hopefully at some point I'll get a good photo!

I start my sewing day (when I get one!) with one of these and then work on cat carrier covers.  I've gotten through three of the fabrics and am working on a fourth.  That one was a LOT of fabric and the smaller covers I'm making with it take less fabric, so I have eight (eight!) in progress right now.

We spent a little more time finishing up building the catio last week, but decided against putting the top on, as it needs to be mounted to the outside of the house and we don't want to do that.  We're going to use L brackets to attach it to the concrete, but don't really want to drill holes in the walls.  So we just stapled some netting across the top and so far it's working.

The kitties like it!  I bought a cat grass planter and grew that up for them to have outside as well.  It's not as big as their previous enclosure, but first up on the list for Toby and Finn - every time out - is a roll on the concrete and everyone loves the perches.  The hubby wanted to put some sort of outdoor carpet out there, but I talked him into some inexpensive rugs.  They're easier to replace and the kitties like to wrestle them, too.

The garden is doing nicely - we've finally gotten some warmer weather and the plants are starting to recover from a colder stretch right after they were planted.  No photos...sorry...but I spent about two hours out there weeding yesterday.  The weeds seem to be doing better than the garden plants, but I'm going to stay ahead of them!

I have been reading, and with a crazy schedule, sometimes it's just easier to pick up a book for 20 minutes than just get started in the sewing room and have to stop again, so two books this week!

Another one I'm not entirely sure where it came from, but it was pretty good.  A middle-aged man (though the author would have you believe he is older than the 59 he admits to later in the book) is living alone in a very rustic cabin in the remote woods of Maine.  After a tragic fire took his entire family, this is how he is able to mentally survive.

The morning following an ice storm a younger, pregnant, woman shows up, clearly running from something and despite his attempts to get rid of her, she stays.  As time moves on, they become friends in an awkward sort of way.

She was running from her husband and a past mistake that her religion somewhat shunned her for.  The husband does find her and the dynamic there is interesting.

It was a slow paced story, though there are jumps in time that are weeks long.  Both the main characters help each other heal, though, so it's a pretty positive book.

And then there was this disaster.

This author....

I read her first book a while back and reported on it being atrocious.  I had high hopes that this, about her 7th, would be better.  It was, in a general sense, not.

The grammar in the first was very precise.  This one is a bit better, though the typos still continue.

So this is book two in a series of three.  Generally series books are okay, as the author takes time to reintroduce characters and though it's a slog when you've read the first one, if you haven't, it's a nice courtesy.

That is not what happened here.  I felt like I walked into the middle of a conversation a group of people were having and one of them casually said "oh, that's Ned and that's Lisa" and went back to their conversation, but let me hang out.  I have no idea what the main character looks like (though she cut her hair near the end), I have no idea about how old she is (though she referred to people as "old" that were in their 50's, yet she has an adult son) and I only have a vague idea of the situation that put her where this book starts.

But lets regroup.  In the first book, the main character's cheating, drunk husband died in a car accident and she inherited all his wealth, including a house in a small, quaint, though fake, town in Missouri.  She was going to sell it (apparently she is from South Haven, Michigan (a real city that I'm sure the author googled once and went "blueberries, check; beach, check" and closed the browser window), so no idea how that connection happened), but ends up renovating it and turning it into a bed and breakfast (where she bakes a LOT of blueberry muffins).  That is haunted, apparently.

So this book sees the grand opening of her little adventure and all of about 12 people stay there before the book ends.  She is off galivanting around to visit South Haven (where I might note that the sun DOES NOT SET at 8pm in the summer - it is much later) multiple times, her friends that run a winery, the local antique shop that has Tiffany lamps and dating no less than three different men.  Mention is made that SHE can set her schedule of when to welcome guests, but I'd think you'd be busting your butt a little harder the first few months you're open.

Anyways...  She commissions her friend to make a signature quilt to hang in the entry of the home for guests to sign.  Because, though she's a quilter, she's not good enough and obviously is too busy running around in her Mercedes that she keeps saying she is going to sell.  The ghost removes names of people who she doesn't like.  Who are less than BFFs with the owner at the end of their stay.  The ghost also signs the name of one of the boyfriends (he did the renovations, that's how we met him in the last book - apparently he's a hunk, but I have no idea what he looks like...again...) but then removes it later.

And then the book ends.

But not without a TV miniseries wrap-up style "what will happen next - you'll have to tune in tomorrow to find out" few paragraphs at the end.

And honestly?  I'm so fed up with this author, I don't care what happens.  Because if I have to read "yummy" about anything for the next 100 months, I might puke.

The next book is better.  Sad stories, but at least the author probably owns a thesaurus.

Off to get the banana bread out of the pan (it came out of the oven a few minutes ago and it's best to get it out of the pan when warm!) and then go maybe do some sewing!!!

Happy quilting and reading and baking and gardening!

Katie