Fiber Fool

Well, I did make *some* progress on two of the items in yesterday’s photograph, though I was hoping for at least three, but the design project I was kicking my butt yesterday. The charting and the figuring for at least two sizes was making my head explode. So since there isn’t much of any interest to show you I’ll catch up on my logging of movies and books today…

Well the first book I finished last week was A Good Yarn by Debbie Macomber. This is a follow-up to her first knitting-related book, A Shop on Blossom Street. If you enjoyed the first, you will likely enjoy the second though I would recommend leaving *plenty* of room between reading them because really they are the same book with a different cast of characters. However, even though the cast of characters have a different set of problems from the first they are part of the same formula - roughly the same ages etc. It was a good enough light read, but I’m glad it had been a year or more since I had read the first book.

Prior to this set of books I had read just a couple of Macomber’s books and now I’m curious of each of the “series” suffers this same problem. Anyone out there more familiar with Macomber and can shed some light on the other series she has?

Then I picked up the next Stuart Woods Orchid book featuring Holly Baker, former MP now chief of police of Orchid Beach, FL, Orchid Blues. This was *awesome*! I wanted to call my mom at about midnight her time and yell at her for getting me started on this as there is a HUGE plot twist within the first twenty pages that had me reeling! I couldn’t believe. I should have believed it, but it seemed too unreal.

It seems this series deals mostly with fringe groups. The first had to do with a highly secretive “town” within their town that no one knew anything about. This one had to do with a secret town that was on no maps that was rather curious. I’m not normally big on stories about militia groups or other types of fringe groups, but I have loved and devoured these two books and can’t wait to read the next two!

After the previous heart racer I decided something lighter might be nice so I picked up this coffeehouse mystery (learned about from Chris and Chaos) by Cleo Coyle. On What Grounds is the first in the series. It probably isn’t a “must read” but it was a fun and light niche mystery. It did make me want to learn more about coffee. I’m pretty new to the world of coffee (having gotten my first coffee maker for Valentine’s Day) and would love to learn about the different beans and the different roasts and all that. Not to mention, I’m sure I have plenty to learn on how to brew a cuppa properly. So, yesterday I checked out a couple books on coffee from the library. These I don’t think will be hugely helpful as they are mostly recipe books, but they both have some introdutory material. Then I have a few other more substantial books requested through Prospector (regional ILL) that I’m waiting on. It is always kind of fun to get your interest peaked to read some more non-fiction. Mostly my non-fiction selections revolves around my art and craft pursuits.

As I mentioned yesterday I’m not onto the first Tami Hoag, Still Waters. I’m only about 50 pages in so far, but it seems okay for 50 pages. We’ll see how it shakes out.

This past week we dusted off a few old favorites that aren’t sooo old. It was fun to watch these films that we hadn’t seen in such a long time.

Mystery Men is just hillarious and it was a blast to see Hank Azaria again not to mention Jeanane Garafalo, W. H. Macy, and Greg Kinnear. It did make me want to be Baby Bowler for Halloween, LOL! A costume design I don’t think I could pull off - especially on a budget. You can’t be Baby Bowler without the skull in a pink tinted translucent bowling ball can you?

Tortialla Soup is just a lovely movie about the evolution of family and it focuses on food. It won’t matter if you ate a five course meal before you watch this movie, when it is over you will be craving really good Mexican! It is based on Eat, Drink, Man, Woman by Ang Lee but set in LA with a Mexican family at its center.

Then on Sunday night we wrapped up the weekend with a lighthearded romantic comedy classic for us - A Big Fat Greek Wedding. That so could be our families in that movie! Thankfully we both came from large families so it wasn’t quite the shock that John Corbett’s character had. DH’s family was still a little crazy the first time, but now I love them all - now that I know who it is who is hugging me anyway, LOL!

Sunday afternoon on a whim we did end up seeing a matinee at the theater. We ate near there and as luck would have it Accepted was showing in just ten minutes or so and we had been talking abou wanting to see it. We were a little scared. It could be *really* bad, but it could be *really* good like The New Guy.

Well, we both loved it. We declared it this year’s The New Guy and figure we’ll probably need to make room for it in our DVD collection at some point. We did leave wondering how much of Lewis Black’s character was scripted and how much of it was him just going off. We’re betting most of it wasn’t scripted. I guess we may find out when the DVD comes out.

I guess if you aren’t familiar with The New Guy I haven’t helped you in deciding whether or not to see this film. There is a band of friends in high school that didn’t get accepted into college for fall, whether it was that they chose poor essay subjects or they put all their eggs into one basket, there are five students that do not have post-high school plans figure dout and one of their friends who does. Out of desperation, one kid decideds to fake an acceptance letter, but knows in order to dupe his parents they need a web site. Well, word of this school spreads due to the web site and before they know it, they have their own college on their hands. A non-traditional one by all means, but a college nonetheless. It is a fun, campy movie about underdogs that makes you laugh (and groan a few times).