Classic Reading and A Wee Bit of Sewing

I love to read, and listen to books, especially a good mystery.

When I was a teen I read Agatha Christie.  Lately I was wondering when the mystery genre began.  I decided to learn more about it.  So I checked Wikipedia.  According to the article, the genre did not begin until about 200 years ago.  Edgar Allen Poe, and Voltaire were some of the earliest, as well as Wilkie Collins.

I have read Poe, many years ago, never read Voltaire, but I had never heard of Wilkie Collins.  I decided to check it out, and read The Woman In White. 

It is interesting when you consider this is one of the first books which was considered a mystery.  The style of writing was very different, compared to many other books which I have read, being that it was a story which was woven from many different character's narratives taking up where one left off. I love reading some of the classics because it teaches a bit of history, but also a great portrait of how different  morals, and thinking.  There is another Wilkie Collins mystery called The Moonstone which I am looking forward to reading soon.

Moving on, we are still getting a lot of rain almost daily. Coming from Oregon you would think that it is not a big thing, but in Oregon you do not get 1-2 inches a day!  Which means I don't get a whole lot of outside time being that we are pretty wet.  But all that time is paying off.

I finished a couple of blocks from the Vintage Farm Girl, I am not even going to say I am doing the QAL I am so far behind.

Butter churn

Baking Day

I started to cut out the next block which is Canning Season, but I am not loving my fabrics I chose.

 I finished the cross stitch except for the name for the SIL Christmas stocking.  I need to go and find the floss color that I use to stitch names. 

I also started to work on my next embroidery piece now that I am done with the blocks for my redwork Words of Wisdom blocks.  It is a set of barns with quilt blocks on them.  I am using a varigated Valdani, and am loving the way it is looking.  I was looking at a lightbox on Massdrop and Dh asked me what I needed it for.  I explained, and he asked why can't you use the overhead projector I saved form the garbage pit?

I am lazy and just use a cheapo mechanical pencil and it works pretty well.  I decided to try to get one traced a night.  Then the machine can get put away.

I am off to do housework, namely dish washing.  I usually get home around 8 pm or so. Last night I got home to the road being blocked (which for many isn't a huge deal but I had to backtrack up the freeway 3 miles and then take about a 15 mile detour to get home.  Oh the joys of country living!)  because someone had messed up the natural gas line, which meant no one had gas, which for me, means no cooking, and no hot water.  I got home early tonight still no gas.  I heated a canner full of water on the turkey deep fryer outside so I had hot water to do dishes with at least.  Oh it would be nice to have a shower too.  Grrr.  Supposedly they are sending a tech out tonight.  Um that was about 4 1/2 hours ago, it is closing on a quarter after nine and still no one in site.