Blue is just a lively color...

This is a postcard for a family friend. I love how this turned out. I've been wanting to use the material on the outsides for a while, but it had to be the right project. And, truth be told, I was a bit afraid to cut into such pretty fabric. But it turned out well, I think.

There has been some knitting. As a matter of fact, I'm about to turn the heel on my husband's sock. I did that knitting on Saturday while in the van on a roadtrip to see my BIL play a football game.

I was also able to finish reading Morningside Heights by Cheryl Mendelson, author of Home Comforts, a book that is at the top of my list to add to my bookshelf, and I was really impressed with this book. Mendelson did an excellent job of weaving together the characters and their separate stories, talking about some of the characters professions and what they were working on (opera singer, pianist, science, psychoanalyst, writer, lawyer) without making a layperson feel completely inept, and I really loved how she would have a character rehash a conversation and while rehashing, would go from 3rd person to first and then back. I loved it. Now, it may be that only an English major would recognize that and appreciate it, but I did and I thought it was great. I think this is a book to put at the top of any to-read list you might have going.

I also recently read Prep by Curtis Sittefeld and I must say that I have mixed feelings. It was extremely well written and she had such an excellent grasp on the nuances of teen relatioships and friendships, and what private school(boarding school) education can be like. But, there was a bit too much of the angst and unsurity that I sometimes felt while a teenager for me to be able to finish it. I saw a bit of myself in the main character, but that wasn't the real problem. I just had this horrible sense that she was never going to figure things out, that she was never going to become comfortable in her own skin, that she would always feel she was a nonentity. And though I can be quite pessimistic at times, I have this irrational need for books and movies to end happily, or at least end satisfactorily. And I just didn't think this one would for me. So it put it down with about 100 pages left. Yes, I did read the last few chapters, but I don't want to give it away to anyone who might read it. I recommend it for excellent writing, but that's about it.

And I'm glad I can cross off a couple of books from my reading list.