I'M A JANEITE

Monday, October 24 (45 minutes)

In my Jane Eyre readings this week things took an unexpected turn.  The story got kind of weird and Mr. Rochester dressed up like an old fortune teller lady and made all his female guests and Jane get their fortune told.  By the way no one knew it was Mr. Rochester, but he did reveal himself to Jane.   I guess I didn’t see this coming because Jane is religious and she was excited to see the fortune teller (before she knew it was Mr. Rochester) and I would think a religious person would not want to get mixed up with a fortune teller.  The thing is, even though I don’t really like this part of the story I kind of really want to know what happens next. 

Friday, October 28 (20 minutes)

I had a really stressful day, I had to take a big test and I didn’t feel like reading something where I had to think or pay attention.  I splurged and bought myself a chi tea latte and a People magazine.  The only article I really got into was the one about the daughter-in-law of Bernie Madoff.  She is speaking out because Ruth and Andrew Madoff (Bernie’s wife and his living son) have a book out about their side of the story.  Anyway, she talks about her husband Mark who committed suicide due to shame of his father and how she is coping with her two young children.

Sunday, October 30 (30 minutes)

So my favorite yarn store twitted that they had a limited stash of Interweave Knits – Jane Austin special edition left and thought they’d be out by the end of the weekend.   Let me back up a bit.  Knitting is a big hobby of mine that has gone on the backburner since I started school.  I just can’t do it all.  I usually guilt myself out of knitting, and by that I mean every time I consider knitting I tell myself, if I have time to knit, I have time for homework.  I’m my own mom.  My husband and I had already decided that our cruiser ride would be our workout for the day and we just couldn’t decide where we wanted to ride.  Thankfully I saw that tweet because after we cruised to the yarn store I got one of the last ones.  It had lots of patterns that fit Jane’s time and that would look good on a modern girl like me.  It also has lots of articles about knitting and Jane Austin.  After we picked up my magazine my husband was cold and hungry so we biked over to the coffee shop to get him fed and I got to read my new magazine.  It was a wonderfully guilt free afternoon. 

DONNER LAKE

Thursday, October 20, 2011 (2 hours)

This week I was able to visit Donner Lake in California and the Donner Museum.  I have always been intrigued by the story of the Donner party since my Dad told me about it when I was a little girl.  The museum had a video about the Donner party I think it was from the first year there was color film and told the gist of what happened, but it was hard to connect with.  The Museum had a bookstore and I talked to the Park Ranger about which of the books she recommended.  She said the one I was looking at, Desperate Passage: The Donner Party’s Perilous Journey West by Ethan Rarick was a good read with the latest dig findings.  She was right it had lots of information about the area and what it was like to join a wagon train and why anyone would want to uproot their lives and move across the country.  I decided to give my Dad the book as a souvenir so I read as much of it as I could before I gave it to him (also knowing I could borrow it when he was finished). 

Flying home was a bunch of hurry up and wait so when I was flying I read my books and when I was in more of the hurry up and wait mode I caught up on my magazines.  I still had a People magazine to catch up on from the previous week with the main story being about Amanda Knox. 

HURRY UP AND READ

Wednesday, October 12, 2011 (2 hours)

The title of this week’s post is in relation to a phrase I like to use when flying, and specifically being at the airport consists of having to “hurry up and wait.”  And now that I am back on my 90 minutes of reading I was excited to have the opportunity to be at the airport and on the plane reading.  I do not like to get into a focused reading until I am in the air flying because there are too many distractions for me; number one is looking out the window and seeing the world.  Once we got above the clouds I was able to snuggle up with Jane Eyre and delve into her world.  She is really in love with Mr. Rochester and knows nothing can come of it because he is her boss and she is of a much lower class.  She finds it difficult to not daydream or wish he was not around more.  When he does return it is with many guests and he is busy entertaining them. 

Waiting in the terminal I prefer to read something a bit simpler so I caught up on the last two People magazines my friends gave me.  Not too much exciting stuff, but one little article that did catch my eye was a book for making crafts with your cat.  Key word “with” your cat, not “for” your cat.  Many of the crafts are felting projects.  I know a bit about felting because I knit and felting is taking something knitted or crocheted and putting it into water and agitating it.  The crafts are not exactly knitted because the “fiber” is from your cat’s hair (which would be difficult to spin and knit into yarn).  I didn’t know whether to laugh or buy the book.  The book is Crafting with Cat Hair, by Kaori Tsutaya. 

Back in the Saddle Again

Monday, October 3 (15 minutes)

My husband’s Bicycling magazine came in and he kept telling me I need to read an article about riding through France.  Of course many articles talk about bicycling and France, but this was about a woman and her family who bicycled through the Loire Valley that has “400-plus-mile network of (bicycle) paths and somnolent back roads called the Loire a Velo, a route that has become a magnet for small, quirky, cycling-friendly inns” (p. 72).  And when I read that I knew why my husband thought of me.  Along the way they road past vineyards, wheat fields, and best of all castles; it felt like the most romantic article I had ever read.   Not the kissing, flowers kind of romantic, but the rolling hills, glass of wine, touring hundreds of years old chateaus and castles on a bicycle.  Driving through the country can be scenic, but the details of life fly by at 60 miles an hour, there is just something about bicycling and making one’s own way along the roads.  This article has had me dreaming ever since I read it.

Friday, October 7 (35 minutes) and Saturday, October 8 (30 minutes)

I hate to admit it, but I put Jane Eyre aside when I finished my last reading class.  I’ve been doing catch up ever since.  When Jane saved Mr. Rochester he left town and Jane is frustrated he has not done more to figure out who tried to hurt him.  Jane attempts to carry on and figure out what happened.  I have to get on the ball with this because my husband said he saw the movie on the new releases rack at the video store so the pressure is on. 

Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday (about 10 – 15 minutes daily)

I don’t have too much to note about this, but my co-worker gives me the Wichita Eagle every weekday except Wednesday and I usually read whatever headline or side story catches my attention.  There was a really interesting article about Steve Jobs this week and I had no idea about him being adopted, it kind of brings to light the question of nature verses nurture.