I don’t usually post contest links, but this is a legitimate publisher with great books about needle arts. And…I really want an iPad!
http://cooperativepress.tumblr.com/post/39967265012
Even if you don’t feel like entering the contest, knitters might want to look at their books.
“I wrote that book in order to clear up the muddle in my own mind about innumerable social and political questions, questions I could not keep out of my work, which it distressed me to touch upon in a stupid haphazard way, and which no one, so far as I knew, had handled in a manner to satisfy my needs.”
~ H.G. Wells, in the introduction to “A Modern Utopia”
I feel really ambivalent about this book.
I wouldn’t recommend the book to most of my friends. Well’s writing style would bore most modern readers. The stilted dialog, and his very preachy attitude, are very different from the sort of modern science fiction my friends and I read and discuss.
On the other hand, this book really made me think. Well’s vision of an ideal world is so different from mine! He was reacting to the things he disliked about life in 19th c. England, but some of the ‘cures’ he recommends for those problems would fit right in to my vision of Hell. I had fun teasing out <i>why</i> he proposed some of the stranger features of his utopia. As a result, I learned more about conditions in Victorian England than I ever did in history classes.
I retired from my church soloist job at the end of last season for a number of reasons. We planned to be out of town for several Sundays in September and October, (a time when it’s almost impossible to get good substitutes), I wanted the option of spending holidays with out-of-town family or friends, and I thought it would be fun to occasionally sleep in on a Sunday morning.
So, I sang my last solo on 4th of July weekend, my section members threw me a terrific retirement lunch, and I spent my first summer in decades NOT hunting up and learning new solos for the following year.
My husband and I traveled in Turkey September 13–October 1, visited his brother in NYC, went to his 46th high school reunion, and spent time with my aunt and some Ohio friends. For the first time since I was 5 years old, I didn’t sing in a choir for Christmas Eve services. It felt weird, but it was nice to have a chance to listen for a change.
But, I missed singing.
Missed it a lot!
So…now I’m back with the Third Presbyterian Church choir, singing as a volunteer this time. The music is still glorious. The people are still interesting. And I’m having loads of fun!