Friday, December 04, 2015

The Milking Stool Weekly Link Round-Up





There's not much to report this week. Denis and I spent a very relaxing Thanksgiving Day eating the rather traditional meal that I'd cooked and watching some favorite movies. I hope you all had a day just as pleasant as ours.

Having worked retail for three decades, I make it a habit to stay away from anything that smacks of shopping on Thanksgiving weekend. To me, racing out to buy more stuff isn't the best way to show how thankful I am for what I already have. However, I misjudged our milk consumption and had to buy more on Sunday. Before I pulled into the parking lot of the nearest store (Super Target), I saw that it was an absolute zoo, so I continued on to the next place I knew that sold milk: Walgreen's. Hardly a vehicle in the lot, scarcely a soul in the store. The entire trip took no more than ten minutes, and I arrived home with both milk and my sanity (or what passes for my sanity anyway). I have let Denis know that if we should happen to run out of milk on Christmas Eve, he's going to have to go find a cow and milk it!

Before I track down those links, I thought I'd show you the latest thing off my knitting needles. The pattern is called Peacock, and the yarn is Red Heart Shimmer in their peacock color. I absolutely love this yarn and have several more skeins in my stash. I posted this photo on my Facebook page and wound up agreeing to make a scarf for an out-of-state friend (not in this color). I'm nearly halfway through one of my bed covers, and I need something smaller to work on once in a while to give my wrists and arms a rest!

Time for those links!


►Books, Movies & Other Interesting Tidbits◄
  • A surprise Laura Ingalls Wilder bestseller is transforming a small press.
  • Waterstones is back in the black four years after being at the brink of bankruptcy. (Too bad they won't buy their apostrophe back....)
  • Kenneth Branagh is all set to play Hercule Poirot in Murder on the Orient Express
  • Forget binge-watching, and try encouraging binge-reading. Okay, I'm all for that, but what if I've been known to binge-knit while I binge-watch?
  • Renewing the Library of Congress. 
  • The dark side of Toy Story
  • According to The Scotsman, Diana Gabaldon believes Outlander may be "too intense" for British television. 
  • There's a lot of truth in this: If you enjoyed a good book and you're a woman, the critics think you're wrong. 
  • A lost William Faulkner play has been published for the first time.
  • It's rather sad to me to see things like "emoji" make their way into dictionaries when all sorts of wonderful words are vanishing.

►Channeling My Inner Indiana Jones◄
►Channeling My Inner Elly Mae Clampett◄
  • What this impala did left some tourists dumbstruck (or as they say in the UK "gobsmacked").  
  • One of the most beautiful sights in the entire world: Monarch butterflies have arrived in Mexico. 
  • Pumpkin the raccoon is just your average dog. 

►The Happy Wanderer◄

►I ♥ Lists◄


That's all for this week! Don't forget to stop by next Friday when I'll be sharing a freshly selected batch of links for your surfing pleasure.
Have a great weekend, and read something fabulous!

10 comments:

  1. I'm completely with you, Cathy, about avoiding shopping during the crazy days after Thanksgiving - it's insane! You've done a lovely, lovely job with that knitting; I love the shades of blues and greens in it. And your post made me triply happy because I see Waterstones is doing better. It's always good news when bookstores do well. Now, let's hope the indies have a good year, too. Off to look through those secret Roman libraries...

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    1. Doesn't the mere sound of the phrase "secret library" make you perk up? It certainly does me!

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  2. Ugh. Literary criticism is often the playground of bullies. They wouldn't like what I write, and I care nothing for stories that purport to tell me all about the human condition. There also seems to be a strong sense of that Calvinistic belief that if you enjoy something, it's sinful somehow. They've set themselves up as arbiters of taste and are peeved that most of mankind couldn't care less for their literary opinions.

    Just one more way of keeping the human race divided and sniping at each other.

    Lots of interesting links to look at. Back later.

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    1. You and I have the same opinion of literary criticism, Pepper.

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  3. Your knitting is an art! The recipients are lucky.

    Agree on sexism in literary criticism. I think it's true also though of criticism of works by people from diverse cultures and countries.

    And to combine two links into one comment: I definitely believe in binge-reading. I''ve done it, but usually varying the authors and titles. But I can shut the email and phone down and read for a weekend or take a "reading vacation.

    But a friend takes the cake on this: I gave her Diana Gabaldon's first book for last year's holiday season. She is a retired nurse and loves historical fiction. So, I asked her a few months ago what she thought of the book. She told me that she has read every book in the series since then, staying up until the wee hours. That's thousands of pages and she's a busy person.

    That raccoon story is amazing. And I love those bridges in Scotland, but what I find stunning is the blue sky.

    Thanks for the links. Will be back to read more.

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    1. It shows how much your busy friend loves Gabaldon's storytelling ability to get through those huge books in that length of time. Gabaldon tells marvelous stories both in person and on the printed page.

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  4. I dare not start on Gabaldon's books. I may never emerge and nothing would get done.

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    1. That's a sensible reason to leave her alone, methinks!

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  5. I'm immersed in J.K. Rowling/Richard Galbraith's third book, Career of Evil. It's long and wordy and I get nothing done as it is while I'm involved in a book like this. It's not a quick read, and she loves to write details and I, of course, must read about them.

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    1. Details very, very seldom ever bother me. I think the only time they do is when there's no story to support them-- but that's never a problem with Rowling.

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