Bib

One of my friends showed me a bib she used for her daughters who were born in the 1960s.  I grew up in a clan that used bibs that supplied far less coverage, so this style was new to me.  You can buy bibs with sleeves at Target, Bed, Bath & Beyond, and Amazon for $9.99 to $12.99.  You could also whip one up out of  a half yard of scrap fabric or from a cheap, thin terry cloth towel.  Use store bought bias tape (or make your own) for the edges and the tie.  You just need the pattern.

Here's how I copied the bib to make a pattern.  We'll call this Position #1.  I placed the bib on brown paper and flattened the sleeves.  Then I traced around the bib.  You will see that I need to add the shoulder area and the backs of the sleeves.

I grabbed the sleeve seam and rolled the bib up, then traced.  We'll call this Position #2.  Then I went back to Position #1.

Next, I held the sleeve seam and rolled the bib down.  We'll call this Position #3.  I traced the rest of the sleeve area.

I added a seam allowance for the sleeve back seam.  I also folded the pattern down the center vertically and made changes so the bib would be symmetrical.   

I cut out my pattern and folded back the upper and lower sleeve areas.

Here's what we have.  After cutting out the bib from the main fabric, I would first sew the sleeve back seam.  Secondly, I would start at one neck edge and sew bias tape around the bib beginning at the shoulder on one side, moving under the sleeve seam, around the front, up the next sleeve seam, and ending at the opposite shoulder, stopping at the neck edge.  My third step would be to add bias tape to the neck edge leaving ties that are long enough make a bow at the back of the baby's neck.  The fourth and final step would be to sew bias tape to the sleeve edges.  I don't want the front pocket.  It looks cute, but who wants to dig around in a pocket to remove half chewed Cherrios?   

A Case for Grinding Tree Stumps

     A picture might be worth a thousand words.  An x-ray is worth one word - ouch!

My Fracture

     I'll be wearing a stylish shoe for about four weeks.

     Toe fractures, even fractures of the big toe, are not usually serious.  They heal in 4-6 weeks.  They rarely require more than ice, ibuprofen, taping one toe to the next toe, and wearing shoes with flat, stiff soles.  The initial impact is only a little painful.  Oh, who am I kidding?  It hurt.

I tripped over a tree stump.  It's probably a good idea to grind tree stumps. 

Lest You Think I Have Forgotten How to Read ....

     It seems that the library acquires newly published material first in book form, then later in e-book and audio-book format.  These two books were brand, spanking new when I flipped their pages:

Playing Dead: A Journey Through the World of Death Fraud by Elizabeth Greenwood - Ms. Greenwood had a mountain of debt in the form of student loans.  Unfortunately, her major course of study did not prepare her for a high paying career.  It would take decades to repay the loans. She wondered if she should her fake death, run out on the loans, and go on with her life under a new name.  This book came out of Greenwood's contemplation of larceny.  She recounts a few of the more famous stories of people who tried faking their deaths.  She delves into "disappearing," explaining that it is perfectly legal to disappear.  In the end, Ms. Greenwood travels to the Philipines to stage her death.  She comes home with a death certificate which she uses, not to wiggle out of repaying her loans, but to decorate the pastedown and free endpaper of her book.

Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann - In the 1920s, oil was discovered in Oklahoma under the Osage Indian Reservation.  Indians became fabulously wealthy, and white people started killing them for their head rights - a share in the tribal wealth.  Corrupt locals were all in cahoots, so the FBI attempted to investigate.  That went nowhere, so J. Edgar Hoover organized a team of outsiders that eventually cracked the case. Hoover's team didn't solve every murder, but they managed to convict the biggest player.  The case provided the training ground Hoover needed to turn his organization into what it is today.

    I also read the following because a long line of people wanted the audio-book, but the e-book was available:

Amy Snow by Tracy Rees - Foundling Amy Snow, so named because she was abandoned in newly fallen snow, gets booted out of the manor house when her protector, Aurelia Vennaway, dies too soon.  Amy thinks she is on her own with only ten pounds to her name; however, she has really received a rich inheritance.  Besides the money, Amy receives instructions that send her all over England on a sort of scavenger hunt.  At each stop along the way, Amy discovers more about her origins, and she learns Aurelia's secrets.

Latest Listenings, Part 3

Here's the last batch of audio-books:

Fiction

The Twelve Tribes of Hattie by Ayana Mathis - In 1920, Hattie comes to Philadelphia with her mother and husband.  They are running from the lynching of Hattie's father in Georgia.  Hattie hopes Philadelphia will be the promised land, but it isn't.  The twelve tribes, besides being a biblical allusion, refer to Hattie's eleven children and one grandchild.

Lucky Us by Amy Bloom - These people just won't be held down, but can you really reinvent yourself so easily?  It works for the characters in the novel.  

The Muse by Jesse Burton - You don't need an external source of inspiration to achieve your artistic goals.  You just need confidence and maybe a little support from somebody who knows somebody.                 

Non-Fiction

The Hemingses of Monticello by Annette Gordon-Reed - The story of Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson is well know but not backed up with written records.  Jefferson clearly favored the Hemings family, but he was careful to refer to them only as slaves or employees in Monticello's business records.  Ms. Gordon-Reed's book is too long and she engages in too much speculation and drawing of conclusions based on what might have been going through someone's mind.

Enchantment: The Life of Audrey Hepburn by Donald Spoto - Ms. Hepburn had a sort of tough/charmed, wonderful/sad life.

The Road to Little Dribbling by Bill Bryson - In 1995, ex-pat Bryson wrote Notes from a Small Island, stories about a romp he took through England, before he moved back to the United States. Moving back didn't last, and he returned to England.  He decided to repeat some of the trips featured in "Small Island", and the resulting book is "Little Dribbling."

In a Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson - In this book, Bryson travels around Australia.

The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson - I guess by now, you have figured out that I am quite taken with Bill Bryson.  He's really a funny guy.  "Thunderbolt Kid" is a memoir about growing up in Des Moines, Iowa.

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls - Jeannette Walls was raised by a bi-polar, drunken father and a self-centered, loony mother.  It's a wonder she turned out so well - and so forgiving.  Today, her crazy mother lives in her guest house.  The glass castle is the fantasy home Ms. Walls' father promised to build for the family, just as soon as he could work out a few of the engineering details and get some money together.

Food by Jim Gaffigan - Jim Gaffigan wants to be thought of as fat, and he would have you believe only junk food passes his lips.  The book is funny, but I'll bet Gaffigan is a closet vegetable eater.

An Education by Lynn Barber - My mother used to say, "You never know what someone is thinking."  Lynn Barber also makes that point in her memoir.  Ms. Barber's parents never stopped pressuring her to study hard so she could go to Oxford.  Then they told her college was a waste of money when it seemed they could marry her off to a successful, older businessman.  This businessman seemed devoted, but he really had a wife and a couple of children living a few blocks away.  These two incidents were Ms. Barber's real education, and the training she needed to become a journalist.    

Latest Listening, Part 2

The reviews continue:

Fiction

The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom - Lavinia is an Irish girl of the late 1700s whose parents die on the voyage to America.  The ship's captain takes Lavinia to his home to be an indentured servant.  She is placed with a slave family on the captain's plantation.  A story of love, family, and loyalties follows.  It's not a happy book.

The Witch of Painted Sorrows and The Secret Language of Stones by M. J. Rose - These are books one and two of a three part series called "The Daughters of La Lune."  La Lune is a spirit who takes possession of some of her female descendants.  I don't believe in anything paranormal, so these books weren't high on my list.  

Sons and Daughters of Ease and Plenty by Ramona Ausubel - I liked this one.  It's about the mayhem that follows after a spoiled, rich couple spend piss away their trust funds.

The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield - A famous writer, Vida Winters, has published a collection called Thirteen Tales of Change and Desperation.  The odd thing is that the book contains only twelve stories.  At the end of her life, the author invites the young daughter of a bookshop owner, to hear the thirteenth story - the true story of Vida Winters.

The Scandel of the Season by Sophie Gee - This is a story about Alexander Pope and his writing of the mock heroic poem, "The Rape of the Lock."

The Bird Sisters by Rebecca Rasmussen - Two spinster sisters, living on the family farm in Wisconsin, are known far and wide for their skill in fixing and rehabbing injured birds.  

The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri - An Bengali couple immigrates to the United States.  You would think they would have the harder time reconciling their cultural differences in their new home, but their American born children seem to struggle just as much.      

The Doll House by Fiona Davis - New York's Barbizon Hotel was where niece young ladies lived in New York in the 1950's.  It was converted to condominiums in 2005.  A condo resident goes poking into the back story of one of the building's long time residents, and this story unfolds.

Nonfiction

The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom - During World War II, in the Netherlands, Corrie Ten Boom and her family members helped save many Jewish people by feeding them, hiding them in the family home, and helping them travel to safer locations.  Corrie eventually got caught and spent time in a Dutch concentration camp.        

The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee -  The author is a physician.  The book combines the history of cancer treatment with Dr. Mukherjee's experience treating patients.  If you have had cancer or if you have ever been close to anyone treated for cancer, then you have to read this book.

Latest Listenings, Part 1

     I recently watched a scene in a television show in which a character showed contempt for people who listen to audio-books.  The point was that people who read are smarter (and possibly better in every way) than those posers who pop in their ear buds to absorb a book.  Well, I disagree.  I might look like a raggedy old lady when I'm squatting in the back yard, wrist deep in potting soil, my Kindle droning on and on, but I am multi-tasking, enriching my internal and external landscapes at the same time.
     Here's what I heard recently:

Fiction

     When a Scot Ties the Knot by Tessa Dare - Okay, you have me on this one.  Reading a book like this is not proof that I have anything much going on between my ears.  It's a fluffy romance, especially for those who are obsessed with the Outlander thing.

Secrets of a Charmed Life by Susan Meissner - The author uses the London Blitz during World War II to tell her story.  A single mother sends her two daughters out of London to a foster home in the countryside, so they will be safe from the German bombing.  The older child is smart and headstrong; the younger one is unbelievably sweet and devoted to big sis.  The foster mother is a saint.  A little mystery develops that is tied up completely in the end.  Some people criticize the book for being a bit too formulaic.  Others say Susan Meissner, an American, failed to be convincing as a Brit telling a British story.  
    
Caleb's Crossing by Geraldine Brooks - It's a story about Puritans and Wampanoag Indians.  The female protagonist, Bethia Mayfield, finds her emerging self at odds with her Puritan upbringing.  She is more attracted to Cheeshahteaumauck (anglicized to Caleb), a Wampanoag Indian boy, than she is to the fellow Puritan suitor approved by her father.  Caleb was a real historical figure, the first Native American to graduate in 1665 from Harvard University.  The history presented was interesting, and so was the story of Bethia's coming of age.

The All-Girl Filling Station's Last Reunion by Fannie Flagg - Fannie Flagg is an actress turned author.  She wrote the book Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe and the screen play for the film, Fried Green Tomatoes.  The All-Girl Filling Station is an homage to the WASPs of World War II.  I wouldn't be surprised to see this book turned into a movie some day.

Pygmy by Chuck Palahniuk - Agent Number 67 (nicknamed Pygmy by his host family because of his small stature) is one of many secret agent children sent to the United States by an Asian nation (Korea, maybe?).  The child agents masquerade as exchange students; their mission is terrorism.  The book is a series of dispatches from Pygmy to the home country in which he reports the progress of his mission using his unique command of the English language - sort of a mash up of Oh in the cartoon Home, Yoda in Star Wars, and Jadis, the scavenger, in The Walking Dead.  Some of the violent stuff made me queezy, but other stuff really tickled my warped sense of humor.

The Museum of Extraordinary Things by Alice Hoffman - A Coney Island girl has to spend her life in a huge fish tank playing a mermaid.  The author uses two historical fires - the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire and the Dreamland Fire of 1911 to set the story.
  
The House at Tyneford by Natasha Solomons - Elise Landau is a Viennese Jewish girl who in 1938 is sent to Tyneford House in  England to escape the Nazis.

Trapeze by Simon Mawer - Marian Sutro is the child of an English father and a French mother.  She is bi-lingual so ends up being recruited for undercover operations during World War II.  She is told her chances of coming home alive from a mission are 50/50, but she goes anyway.  You'll have to read the book to find out if those odds worked out in her favor.

The Boston Girl by Anita Diamant - Eighty five year old Addie Baum tells her life story to her twenty-two year old granddaughter.  It's a nice story about being the child of immigrants.  I loved Linda Lavin's reading of this book.  I think her narration was the best I have ever heard, and I have listened to lots of audio-books.

Non-Fiction

One Ranger by H. Joaquin Jackson - This is Jackson's recounting of his colorful career as a Texas Ranger.  After retiring from law enforcement in 1993, Jackson graced the cover of Texas Monthly Magazine, did some acting, and ran a private security firm.  He said he is the last of his kind, and he represents the end of an era.