Concerning Books, Book Sales, and Bookstores

What happier topic is there than books? Simply wonderful. I love books. No, I LOVE books! Well, this weekend we spent two days surrounded by books. On Friday, we drove up to Wooster and went to their library book sale, which is in the basement of the old library building. We got two whole boxes of kids books, including Aunt Eater's Mystery Christmas and Wagon Wheels. Two Step-up readers that have been on our 'to get' list for years. After that, we went to Books In Stock, the bookstore that we have grown up going to. It still looks like an old bookstore. Just rows and rows of books in an old two-story building. We got some really fun ones. Another copy of the Roy and Dale bio that we absolutely love, a cool book on the liberation of the French Riviera during WWII, a really swell 4-stories-in-1 Yogi Bear storybook, Sarah even found a 1940 paperback movie edition of Gone With The Wind! However, my special find was a 1922 copy of Lorna Doone. It is the 'Madge Bellamy Edition', which was released along with the silent film. It has a picture cover, and has many illustrations and photos from the film inside. I am so excited! I actually weeded my collection of Lorna Doone.

Saturday dawned very hot. (What's new?) We got up early and had our coffee first, then all four of us headed down to Worthington. Went to their library book sale, which turned out to be bag day. So, we came back with eight large bags of books! Some kids books, but mostly adult non-fiction. Lots of WWII ones. Happiness. I even got a couple Christie hardbacks. Really nice ones, too. We were there probably close to three hours. :o) Then we went to another book store just down the road. We used to go there when Sarah had a violin teacher right around the corner. This is more like a book warehouse. Rows and rows of book shelves and about three feet of boxes and stacked books all along the base of every shelf and wall. I got a really cool hardback of Christie's Ordeal By Innocence. The find of the day, however, was a piece of sheet music that Sara dug out of a stack. The theme song from the 1954 film, Woman's World, showing all seven stars on the front! Sarah and I love the movie and the song, but we never knew there was sheet music for it. So, this is fantastic! Sarah also found a nice piece with Dan Duryea on the cover.



So, all the books got carried up to the back room upstairs so that I can work on them. Yesterday (Monday), I spent all day sorting and cleaning. I worked until 7pm and got about 2/3 of them cleaned. I'll finish tomorrow. Got some really nice books to fill out parts of the collection. Added to some sets, replaced beat up copies of a bunch of books, filled out many topics. The job will be finding places to put all of them when they are all cleaned! Ah, well . . . that has it's fun points too. ;o) I cleaned so many ink stamps off of the laminated library binding, that my fingers are still black! All fun, all fun. Books make me happy, and in this terrible heat, that is a good thing. It is very grey and heavy today. They are saying thunder and rain, but so far nothing has happened. I fell like Atlas, except I have the weight of the world on my chest, not my shoulders. I can't wait for Winter! In the meantime, though, the book are calling.



How lovely on the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who announces peace and brings good news of happiness, who announces salvation, and says to Zion, 'You God Reigns!' - Isaiah 52:7

Cleveland Art and Cemeteries

Sunday, it was so hot. We decided to go to the Cleveland Museum of Art. We have been wanting to ever since we met Jennie there back in February. The traffic was awful. The museum was great fun and this time we took the camera and got photos of some of our favorite pictures. They had a cool exhibit with sketches and etchings by John Taylor Arms. Most were done between the nineteen-teens through the thirties. They were really exquisite. Works of art, every piece. All buildings. Really amazing. Here are our two favorites.



That is me standing next to a painting of Yosemite National Park by Albert Bierstadt (my newly discovered favorite painter) and Sarah ais standing next to a painting by Joshua Reynolds. The two little girls are actually distant relatives of the Eliots, the British family Sarah is studying. They also have a portrait by John Singer Sargent. I really like Sargent. Theirs' is of a lady who was an heiress to the Colt firearms fortune.

Before heading out to get something to eat, we decided to run into two Cleveland cemeteries to take photos of some Grandparents graves. First went to Riverside Cemetery and got photos of Mom's Great-Great-Great Grandparents and their daughter. Then we went to Lutheran Cemetery and got a picture of Mom's Grandparents.




We also took photos of a bunch of others. I found several little children, so I spent a long time yesterday putting them on FindAGrave. Got too hot walking around in the sun, so we decided to go find something to eat. On the way, we went and saw both of Mom's Grandparents old houses. Then we found a Chipotle and had dinner. Came home and settled down for the evening. Mom tested blood sugar on all four of us and I had an 89! That must have been a fantastic meal for me! :o)

One thing I have asked from the LORD, that I shall seek: That I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, To behold the beauty of the LORD And to meditate in His temple. - Psalm 27:4

Birthday , Heat, and the Wonders of Electricity

Our birthday dawned . . . hot. As always, the predicted temp was one of the hottest of the month. This time it was a melting 98F, which turned out to be entirely correct. So, we decided to stick around and keep cool. So, we watched some of our birthday movies, had ice cream, ordered pizza in for dinner and got our presents in the AC. What a surprise! Mom and Dad gave me a throwing tomahawk! I am so happy! I am working on making a sheath for it now. It is going to be green and black and I beaded a medallion for decoration that has a shamrock in the middle! Ah, well . . . who cares if the Indians didn't decorate in the Irish motif. ;o) Speaking of Irish - We watched another birthday movie after dinner. Luck Of The Irish with Tyrone Power and Anne Baxter. It is my new favorite. Gramma gave us Amazon giftcards and I really wanted to buy Luck of the Irish, but it only comes in a ten-movie set. So, I finally decided to get myself a frivolous present and that is what I ordered. Man! Am I happy I did! How much fun to just pick stuff I wanted, regardless. :o)



We had plans to go down to Columbus and see Laura on the big screen on Friday night. Sadly, a super storm appeared two hours before the movie. Half an hour after it came, we lost power. At 5:18pm (like the good detective-in-training that I am, I figured this out by deductive reasoning. That is, with a little help from my little electric clock that stopped. heehee ) We sat around in the back room upstairs and did a few crossword puzzles and I managed to work on my beaded medallion a bit more before it got too dark altogether. We went to bed at 9pm, still in the dark and hot. No power or telephone when we woke up in the morning. At least we had pulled several gallons of drinking water and a few containers for flushing the night before. However, no water is really rotten. We all got dressed and went up to Mansfield and ate breakfast. Took a nice, leisurely time about it. Even got to have coffee! Then we went grocery shopping. Since everything in our fridge and freezer was probably fighting for it's life, we got stuff to make for lunch, dinner and breakfast that didn't need chilling or could last in the cooler.

Came home, still no power. So we rushed into the fridge and pulled out a bunch of our meat substitutes because Mr. House had room in their chest freezer. We spent a bit of time outside picking up some of the debris in the yard. Branches and twigs everywhere! But, I got overheated and came back in. No way to cool down since there wasn't even cold water. Dad drove down to the lake and filled twenty more containers for flushing water. We all mainly hung around all afternoon and evening, trying not to get hot or drink a lot. Went to bed a soon as it got dark. Too hot to really sleep, so Sarah and I talked a lot. Around 3am, the phone rings! It was the power company telling us that they thought our power was back on. It wasn't. Back to bed, but this time we inspected the countryside from our windows. Two neighbors had power. Promising. An electric company truck drove by, shining a spotlight at the tops of all the poles. Then around quarter to five, the little light I have hanging next to my bed flashes on to half power. Just glowing yellow. Our mini ceiling fan is also turning slowly. This show real promise! So, I got up and turned off all the lights upstairs that had been turned on accidentally. At 5:10am, it came back on! The AC units beeped, the fan started up full swing and lights came on. We all made a bee-line for the bathroom and I filled a gallon jar with cold water. Then we all went to sleep for two hours with the AC on. Sarah and I woke up about an hour before Mom and Dad, so we took showers, did all the dishes, refilled the jars of water (just in case) and even did a load of laundry. Then we all got dressed and drove down to Columbus to get some groceries. (Funny, isn't it? We stayed at home when the power was off and went out when it was on. ? ) They were saying more storms by 4pm, so we came home after lunch. Weren't home long when Mr. and Mrs. Keultjes showed up! What a surprise! They had tried calling, and figured we didn't have power (or phone. It was still down), so they came down with a birthday desert for a visit! She also brought some of the most beautiful flowers in a little blue and white creamer. OH, were they lovely. I managed to keep them until the following Saturday, before they really looked poorly. I washed up the creamer and am going to bead the flowers so we can put them in our bedroom. It was a really nice visit. Always wonderful when we get to see them.



Or phone didn't get fixed until yesterday (13 days later), but we have only had a few power blips during the following week. God really blessed us with the power only being out for 36 hours. Some people had it much longer. Now we aren't quite taking for granted the privilege of flipping a switch and light comes on, or turning a faucet and getting water.

"There will be a shelter to give shade from the heat by day, and refuge and protection from the storm and the rain. - Isaiah 4:6