Learning Curve

Two accomplishments that please me to no end:  having my forced bulbs all come up this spring and making a new banner today for my blog.  The first was easy---plop dirt in pot, plop bulbs in dirt.  The second was a little more tedious---have a gazillion tabs open and do everything over at least twice.

Big Decision

Last night the Pilot helped me box up all my sewing and painting and mixed-media.  Time to get on with the novel.  No more lollygagging about, doing this or that according to mood.  I can't have anything in sight because I'm so weak and easily tempted.  So, drastic measures were necessary. 

Don Quixote

I've started reading DQ and am thoroughly enjoying it.  I'm reading the Tobias Smollett translation this time, and, I have to say, even though it's at least twice as long, I'm enjoying it more than the Walter Starkie version.  I see the humor so much clearer.

Good Grief!

OK, apparently everyone and his brother knew about Goodreads except me.  My excuse is that I am a recovering Luddite.  But I love reading and have found several "clubs" online that are reading the "classics."  Besides a few groups on Goodreads, there are The Classics Club, an online group for monitoring  your reading list, and A Classic Case of Madness, a group of women reading through the lists in The Well-Educated Mind by Susan Wise Bauer at. I bought this book way back when it first came out and was so excited about it.  I started the reading and a notebook, but petered out because I didn't have a reading buddy (which Bauer recommends).  I wasn't online, and no one in my life was interested.  My reading of late has been very chaotic, so while looking online in search of structure, I found these groups.  The WEM group is about halfway through the novel list.  I have read a lot of the novels on the list, but it's been a while, and I want to reread some of them. OK, it's the Sheldon (of The Big Bang Theory) in me that can't just jump in the middle, so I am going to start with Don Quixote this week. To see the books I'm reading you can click here or in the right side bar click on  "'To Be Read'' under the "Pages" heading.

Flora Bowley

I took Flora Bowley's e-course last February.  I've signed up again so that I can absorb more of her free spirit.  The two paintings above are in their beginning stages.  Her process has many layers and it's so fun to compare the before and after of a painting.