I finished a quilt top the other day. I was frantically putting together this Amy Bradley applique quilt pattern to put up at Lil'Schep's third birthday party. My husband, in his infinite wisdom, suggested that I shoot for finishing the top, rather than trying to finish the entire quilt in time for the party. "You'll be disappointed," he urged, "if you rush the quilting and aren't happy with it." So here it is:
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| Yes, there is a pirate ship on the playground! |
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| Proud mama to this quilt top. |
I also got to flex a few more crafty muscles for this birthday party:
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| Can't go wrong with penguins. |
I decorated my first cake! I bought a cheapo cake decorating set on Amazon and got to icing. Homemade buttercream definitely tastes better than the canned stuff, so I foresee icing more cakes in the future. I took a page out of my mom's book and bought a toy to top the cake with, which doubles as a gift for the birthday boy! I really am proud of all I managed to whip together for this party. Even my Cricut got some action--those are homemade shark fins and a homemade sail. It was a good time overall. Thanks for taking the time to read it. I'll eventually get around to blogging the commissioned quilt I finished a while back, so stay tuned. Until then, God bless!
Recent Reads:
Sin in the Second City by
Karen Abbott
My rating:
3 of 5 stars
It's hard to really like a book about brothels, but this wasn't bad. A true account of one of America's most notorious whorehouses, the story largely follows the two women that ran it. Some of the stuff is so outlandish that I had to laugh out loud. Overall, I thought it was an entertaining account of two colorful characters who strove for excellence in "entertainment."
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An Invisible Thread: The True Story of an 11-Year-Old Panhandler, a Busy Sales Executive, and an Unlikely Meeting with Destiny by
Laura Schroff, Alex Tresniowski
My rating:
4 of 5 stars
A bit of an emotional roller coaster ride here. The audiobook was performed wonderfully, so it was a very easy listen. A woman takes a child beggar under her wing, and what follows is a series of joys and heartbreaks. I didn't want the book to end. Read it.
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Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey through His Son's Meth Addiction by
David Sheff
My rating:
4 of 5 stars
Wow, this was pretty heartbreaking. It's one thing to read about someone's drug addiction, and it's another to read about it through a parent's eyes. This book made me fear for my boys--I was privileged enough to have been raised in a way that prevented any exposure at all to drugs (I didn't even know anyone who smoked tobacco!), so will I be able to do that for my kids? And will I be able to educate them to make the right choices when I can no longer shield them from this? So many unanswered questions. I pray that God will help me make the right choices when it comes to raising them up.
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Tweak: Growing Up on Methamphetamines by
Nic Sheff
My rating:
3 of 5 stars
Liked it, didn't love it. After reading his father's book, Beautiful Boy, I was really looking forward to hearing about their shared memories, and to fill in the gaps for those times where the two weren't in touch.
You know, Nic mentions "dark" books and movies a few times in this book, and how they weren't really the best things to be reading at those points in his life. For me, this was a "dark" book. I've never been exposed to drugs and have had minimal contact with those under the influence of drugs, so this world was (and still is) completely unknown to me. Hearing Nic describe his highs was rather disconcerting--having listened to this book at an emotionally trying time in my life, I kept thinking that I could use an escape like that. Of course, I wouldn't even have the first clue where to find them, but the fact that these thoughts even crossed my mind is a testament to how dark this book is.
The book ends flatly. Of course, you should expect it to, because apparently addicts are always addicts, even when they're in recovery. I don't know that I would ever share this book with my children. Yes, he's honest about the lows he hit, but he doesn't sound all that ashamed of what he's done in the past, and now, he's doing okay. I don't want my children thinking that they can throw away several years of their early lives and ultimately end up okay, because so many addicts end up not okay.
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Against Medical Advice: One Family's Struggle with an Agonizing Medical Mystery by
James Patterson
My rating:
3 of 5 stars
Good, not great. It was eye opening to see what this family endured with their child's incurable condition, but I felt that this could have been a much longer, much more detailed account. That may be me being nosy, but I don't feel like I got a sense of how this impacted the family day to day, which is fine, but hence the three stars, instead of four.
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Code Name: Johnny Walker: The Extraordinary Story of the Iraqi Who Risked Everything to Fight with the U.S. Navy SEALs by
Johnny Walker
My rating:
4 of 5 stars
Neat book. It falls in line with books such as American Sniper, so if you didn't like that, don't bother with this one. This book, however, is told from an interesting perspective--an Iraqi translator that worked with the SEALs during the war. I was hooked from the first page. The narrator reads the book with an accent that makes me feel as if it were read by the author himself, and I found myself empathizing with him and his family at every twist and turn. It's no spoiler to say that he is now living in the U.S. with his family, but I felt something akin to suspense, waiting for the moment when he would finally be permitted to come to his new home in the U.S. Worth the read.
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The Outsider by
Stephen King
My rating:
2 of 5 stars
Two stars because it was read by Will Patton. Mark my words, this is the last time I let anyone talk me into reading another Stephen King novel. This new book was just as long and unbearable as his old stuff, and the only reason I finished it was Mr. Patton's delicious drawl. I'm done.
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On our tabletop:
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| UpperDeck's Legendary, Marvel Edition |
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| Vegas Dice Game. Surprisingly fun. |
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| Hasbro's Risk Legacy |
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| Milton Bradley's Shark Tale Shark Attack, a remake of my childhood favorite! |
Swipe Right: The Life-and-Death Power of Sex and Romance by Levi Lusko
Flawless: Inside the Largest Diamond Heist in History by Scott Andrew Selby
The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl by Timothy Egan
