March is here–almost Spring!
Kimba hosts the Sunday Post each week. I like to take part because it gives me an opportunity to look back at last week and forward to next week in both my personal life and my blog and book life! I also love to see what other people are doing and what books everyone is reading.
Home and Blog
Cleaning and planning
I sorted papers this week. Recycled a lot and now I have to file the rest of it. Also unpacking some more boxes that had been left in the garage. That seems to take a lot of time!
We are also planning to build a fence in the yard plus we are putting together a long-term plan of what we want to do with our yard. So now that we have a weekend with some 60 degree weather we went to price materials and measure the yard. We have the utility company coming to mark where the utilities are.
The season for day trips
I feel like I hibernated most of January and February. Now that the weather is warmer some days (we’ve still had days of snow, snow flurries and cold wind!) I am getting out a little more. (February was actually one of the warmest on record for Iowa.)
My daughter and I had a wonderful day out. We drove to Ames, Iowa–about an hour north of us (home of Iowa State University) to have brunch first, then went to Reiman Gardens and finished off at a winery we both like! Reiman Gardens is wonderful (a butterfly room I could have spent all my time in) and we even walked outside in the gardens even though everything was still dormant. We plan a return visit when the garden starts growing again.
My husband, daughter and I also went to the State Historical Museum of Iowa here in Des Moines. It’s in a beautiful building and we’ve wanted to visit for awhile. We all like history and the museum has some great exhibits. The lobby has a wooly mammoth in the lobby which was dug up when they built the parking garage a few years ago. That’s kind of amazing to think it was there for thousands of years and suddenly found when the historical building and parking garage were built. One of the displays we spent quite a bit of time in was the Civil War era. I hadn’t really thought about Iowa and the Civil War, but a lot of men from Iowa joined the armies.
We didn’t get a chance to see everything in the museum so we’ll have to come back another day. We had lunch in the cafe on the top floor. It has a great view of Des Moines and when the weather is warmer we plan to come back and sit on the terrace outside.
On another day my husband and I took a ride through the southern part of Des Moines . . . passed by the zoo, Fort Des Moines (which has a museum) and the fairgrounds (home of the Iowa State Fair). We ended up in downtown Des Moines for an early dinner.
Looking back I see a trend–our trips always involve at least one stop to eat!
Blogging
I got some blogging done, but didn’t visit many blogs. It seemed like every day I was pulled away from my computer. I’m hoping this next week to catch up on some of my favorite book blogs as well as find some new ones to read.
Blog posts last week
- Sunday Post: Feb 12
- Waiting on Wednesday: February 15
- Review: Nightshades by Melissa F. Olson
- Sunday Post: Feb 19
- Review: A Room Full of Bones by Elly Griffiths
- Waiting on Wednesday: March 1
- March 2017 books on my list
Blog posts planned next week
- Review: Etched in Bone by Anne Bishop
- Waiting on Wednesday
- Book review
- Sunday Post
My books
What I’m reading
A Bone to Pick by Charlaine Harris
What I read recently
Etched in Bone by Anne Bishop
Heirs and Graces by Rhys Bowen
City of Wolves by Willow Palecek
To Dwell in Darkness by Deborah Crombie
The Merchant’s House by Kate Ellis
Nightshades by Melissa Olson
Rebel of the Sands by Alwyn Hamilton
What I bought or borrowed
The Body in the Library by Agatha Christie
The Armada Boy by Kate Ellis
Catch the Fallen Sparrow by Priscilla Masters
The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle
Interesting on the Interest
- These awards have the following categories: Novel, Novella, Novellette, Short Story, Bradbury and Norton.
- I have read Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire (Novella nominee) and Arabella of Mars by Daniel D. Levine (Norton nominee). I own several other books, but haven’t read them yet (story of my life!)
What did you do last week? What did you read? What books did you collect? What are you planning?
