Book Bucket List | Time to Read up on Gardening...

It's almost Spring! I'm excited about this for a couple of reasons.  One, that it will hopefully keep raining, and two, that I get to start gardening in earnest. Last year was the first year that I ever put in much effort with gardening, and it soon became one of my favorite hobbies.  Since I'm still a newbie, I've been looking up some of the highest recommended books by expert gardeners.

Beverley Nichol's classic Down the Garden Path  contains Nichol's autobiographical trials and tribulations, and a lot of funny stories, about her attempt to turn a lifeless lot into a beautiful garden.  For a beginner like myself, it provides a lot of tips and tricks as well as reassurance that I'm not a complete failure as a gardener.

Onward and Upward in the Garden is another great resource for gardeners.  In 1925, Katharine White published 14 articles for The New Yorker on gardening.  After her death in 1958, her husband E.B. White, assembled her work and had them published together as a book.  These articles are considered classics that every gardener should read at some point in their gardening careers.

Our libraries also carry one of my favorite gardening magazines, Sunset.  This magazine not only has articles about gardening in our local climate, but information about getaways, recipes, and other awesome things on the west coast.  It's a magazine I read every month because it has so much interesting semi-local information.  Magazines can also be checked out for three weeks at a time, just like books! So next time you're in, flip through a copy and see what you think.

Learning | Doldrums

If we are to believe the prognostication of a certain groundhog in Pennsylvania, winter will be here for another six weeks or so. Many people are sick and tired of winter, especially back East, where polar vortexes seem to send storm after storm. My best friend, Roberta, who lives in New Jersey, recently proclaimed, "Enough, already!"

Doldrums of Spring, from jonasflanken's photostream
on Flickr.com. Some rights reserved.

We have finally started to get rain here in the Central Valley. We know we need the rain. Most people I talk to are really glad to see it. But if it continues, I wonder how long it will be until I hear library customers wishing for spring and sunshine.

There's a word for the melancholy feeling we get, when the weather has been gloomy for too long: doldrums.  Doldrums first appeared in written form in the late 18th century.  Its origins are murky; it seems to have come from the past participle of the Old English verb, dullen, which is dulled. Doldrum originally referred to a person who was dull, what is sometimes called a dullard. Scholars have speculated that doldrum was formed on the pattern of the word tantrum. (Now that's another interesting word! Nobody really knows its origin, either.) We use the word in its plural form, usually in the phrase, in the doldrums.) 

If you have young family members in the doldrums, you should consider reading Zoozical together.  This picture book by Judy Sierra, with illustrations by Marc Brown, should help cheer you both up. I think my favorite part of the book is the description of all of the despondent animals in the zoo in the middle of winter: "Little lemurs stopped leaping./Their yowling was keeping the wombats awake. Then the snakes (by mistake) tied themselves up in knots. Ocelots lost their spots." They're bored. Nobody wants to come see them, when it's cold and icy outside.  So, they come up with a plan: they'll put on a Zoozical! Okay, maybe the songs in the Zoozical are my favorite part. I can't make up my mind. But who can resist songs like "The Seals on the Bus," "For He's a Jolly Gorilla," or "My Darling Porcupine?"

Another meaning of doldrums is better explained by an encyclopedia entry in one of SSJCPL's databases, EBSCOhost. Doldrums is another word for an equatorial belt of calms, located slightly north of the equator between two belts of trade winds.  Some people have suggested that the phrase "in the doldrums"  comes from comparing one's mood to that of depressed sailors who are stuck in a vessel on calm waters.

Sunrise in the Doldrums, from Angela Huxham's
photostream on Flickr.com. Some rights reserved.

What do you like to read, to beat the doldrums?  Many of us turn to cozy mysteries, like Nancy Atherton's Aunt Dimity series, or at least something light-hearted, like Ladies' Night by Mary Kay Andrews. Leave your suggestions below. Your fellow readers will thank you.

Just Life | Library Computers

Did you know that the library has free internet computers? You just need a library card to use these computers for free.

Here is a quick summary about our library computers:

• You need a library card to access the library computers.
• You can use a computer for at least an hour per day.
• To print (black and white) is only 10 cents.
• To print (color) is only 50 cents.
• You can reserve a library computer seven days in advance, but you need to use the reservation computers from inside the library.
• Your print job gets printed right in front of you to safeguard your privacy.
• Bring some change for your print job. Our printer doesn't accept credit cards or debit cards.
• Your print job stays in the print queue for at least 2 hours so you don't have to rush to the printer to get your print job.

So, if your home computer crashes unexpectedly, don't worry.  Just come to your local library to use a computer for free.

Signing off until next Monday- Panteha

Books On Film | Sounder and The Watsons Go To Birmingham

Today, I will be recommending two Newberry Award winning children's fiction novels that have been adapted into film in honor of Black History Month.

SOUNDER
By Williams H. Armstrong. Published 1969.

Sounder is the story of a boy growing in a poor sharecropping family in the south. When his father is sent to prison and his dog goes missing, the young boy's life is thrown into turmoil.

There are two film versions of Sounder, a feature film from 1972 and a Disney television movie from 2003.

THE WATSONS GO TO BIRMINGHAM--1963
By Christopher Paul Curtis. Published 1995.

The Watsons Go To Birmingham takes place in 1963, during which civil rights and segregation were hotly debated topics. The reader follows an African-American family on their summer visit to Birmingham, Alabama from their home in Flint, Michigan. While visiting their grandmother, the family encounters tragedy in the form of the 16th Steet Baptist Church Bombing which the parents struggle to explain to their young children.

The book was adapted into a film last year. Christopher Paul Curtis is also the author of several other popular historical children's books, including Bud, not Buddy, Elijah of Buxton, and The Mighty Miss Malone. 

Covers courtesy of LibraryThing.

Book Bucket List | Knowing your limits...

The Nancy Pearl Action Figure

I'm not ashamed to admit it.  I have, and will, stopped reading books and never finished them.  I hate the feeling when I absolutely HAVE to finish a book and dislike it so much I have to force myself to read it.  Sometimes I feel guilty, because it was a recommendation from a friend or a super popular best seller, but if I have no interest, I can't bring myself to pick it back up.  I feel even worse when it's a book that's been on my bucket list, and it turns out I can't finish.  I don't feel guilty as often any more though, because I was taught a very important lesson.  

This last September when Nancy Pearl kicked off the One Book, One San Joaquin program, she talked a little about how to determine if you should stop reading a book or not. Nancy talked about her "Rule of 50".  If you're 50 years old or younger, if you don't like a book by 50 pages, then it's time to stop.  If you're over 50, subtract your age from 100, and then that's how many pages you should stop after. (Her reasoning is "Why waste precious time?")

So the question is, after all of this, how do you find books that you'll actually like?  A great resource is Nancy Pearl's own books about books, Book Lust, More Book Lust, and Book Crush for younger readers. In each of these titles, Pearl gives her expert advice on what to read for every "mood, moment, and interest."  I've gotten a few good titles from these books, and am pleased to let you know that I've even stopped reading one after 50 pages. (And didn't feel bad!)

Learning | Mental Floss

I first heard of Mental Floss about ten years ago, through SSJCPL's subscription to Mental Floss magazine. This is a great publication to pick up, read a short while, and put down easily, if interrupted.  It's stuffed with interesting facts, and answers to questions you may never have had an inkling to ask--but wish you had.

Mental Floss also has a wonderful, entertaining website (a banner at the top of the web page features an amazing fact generator! It told me the name of the smallest U.S. president, and included his height and weight.)  This website has other snazzy features, including a Knowledge Feed, which is jam-packed with interesting articles and videos--would you like to see Neil Gaiman read "Green Eggs and Ham?" There are also Big Questions, in which Mental Floss reader's questions are answered; Lists (my favorites are the word lists, like the 11 Obscure Regional Phrases to Describe the Cold;) and Quizzes, asking the reader to choose answers to topics such as Jelly Belly Flavor, or Yankee Candle Scent?

Mental Floss: because sometimes you just need to give the noggin a good cleaning. 

Courtesy of Cayusa's photostream on Flickr.com. Some rights reserved.

For a quick overview of history (with a healthy helping of irony and sarcasm,) try the Mental Floss History of the World: An Irreverent Romp Through Civilization's Best Bits.  This focuses on the topic of world history, in a very condensed form. Readers of the magazine and website will appreciate the side notes, with topics such as "The Quotable Julius Caesar," and "D'Arc Triumphs," and "Name That War!"

She's Crafty | To WIP or Not to WIP

When life gets busy, it's hard to find time to craft. The holiday craze is now behind us but we still find ourselves busy with birthdays, big changes, work, and life in general. But it's good to keep a project or two going through the chaos and during the calm.

One of my Zentangle inspired pieces.

Some of our crafts can even present a tiny space of time for a clear head filled only with the pattern of creation--ooo, that sounds relaxing--depending on what you're working on. I've found the repetitious pattern-making of contemplative drawing, also known as Zentangle, as very soothing and a recharge to the batteries of my mind. And other times, the project I'm working on feels like I'm conducting a symphony of chaos and I'm in the middle of the noise grinning like a maniac...but, it is what it is.

Grinning and chaos may have happened

In the crafting world we call a project we're working on a WIP, or a Work In Progress. Usually Kaye and I have have a few WIPs going, keeping us sane and occupied. Kaye is working on a knitting project at the moment and she works on it daily. The only specific WIPs I have are a few top-secret research projects I'm testing out for a teen craft program I'm doing during the summer. I thought I had more WIPs to declare but I found my other projects are a different story.

Some of our work is solid and focused. Something that has a date of birth and we hope for it to have a finished date. The work in between is (usually) steady forward progress. However, sometimes we find ourselves surrounded by prep-work and skill building, like me. Surprisingly, I don't have any personal WIPs at the moment. I didn't believe it myself until I tried to pin down exactly what I'm working on. Sure, I just finished a design project, but that's now a FO (Finished Object). I have many UFOs (UnFinished Objects) laying around that I've let gather dust but not a specific WIP that I'm motivated to finish. Intriguing.

Well, wait a minute, I could argue that prep-work and skill building is my ultimate WIP, right? The always and forever WIP never to be finished, only built upon layer by layer. So basically what I'm getting at is, I am my own WIP, right? How very philosophical. This is a craft blog, so that's as far as I'm going to elaborate on that argument.

So, lets get to the meat of the matter. What am I actually working on. What WIPs do I plan on starting? What am I doing to further the WIP that is me?

With the aid of a tutorial I bought a year or so ago, I decided to work on my digital painting skills. I've done two paintings for commissioned design projects but afterward let the technique go to pursue other interests. Now, I'm picking it back up again and hope to get better.

Recently I went through my college art portfolio and hung some of my drawings on the wall as motivation to draw more often. I stare at curves of draped fabric before bed remembering how much fun it was to recreate the light bending and hiding around the sheet of fabric and I find myself wanting to draw a bunch of still lifes. Methinks the trick is working! And since it's been a while since some serious drawing practice, I've checked out a few sketching and drawing books from the library to firm up my skills.

With all this painting and drawing in mind, a few ideas have been percolating and I might have a WIP or two or three to call my own. One, to draw a portrait of an individual I admire by hand and add color with digital paint. Two, to illustrate a few of my favorite quotes. And three, to go through my photos and find one that might translate well into a painting.

And as mornings in my area go back to being somewhat wintery, I'm also in the mood to knit up something warm and cozy. Brrr!

Do you have a WIP at the moment? Maybe you have a UFO or two begging to be turned back into a WIP? Or maybe your WIP is on the brink of becoming a FO? Let us know!

Kaye & Malia