It's time to get active!

Click on this Active April calendar from Action for Happiness to enlarge it.

My way of being active is to keep walking, walking, walking.  I walk in the hallways of my senior living facility if the weather outside is too hot, too cold, too wet, too icy, too much for an old lady.  Hey, that's pretty much what the calendar above says for April 12th:  "Move as much as possible, even if you're stuck inside."  I'm sure we can all find a way, if we are really motivated.

This is something that makes me happy.  It's one of the trees flowering along our Crown Center fence.  Isn't it beautiful?  And I was able to walk outside yesterday to take this picture.

Week in Review

• For Monday Musing, I wrote about a BIG book, HERE.  (Friday's book is even bigger.)
• On Twosday, I wrote about historical fiction, HERE.
• Wednesday's Words were not what they seem to be, HERE.
• My Thursday Thoughts, HERE, were about April foolishness.
• Book Beginnings on Friday was for a book about a different result on 11/22/63,  which we know as the day JFK was assassinated, HERE.
• On Saturday, I wrote about fun and joy, HERE.
  
  

is hosted by Deb at Readerbuzz.

Fun and joy

Get organized?  Impossible, so let's move on to the next item.  Hmm, have fun sounds good, but what shall I do to have fun today?  There is always reading, for a "bookie" like me.  Or walking somewhere interesting, before we have any more bad weather.  That means weather that is not too cold or too muggy or too icy or too wet.  Here are some more ideas for having fun:

• 
  Think of three things I'm grateful for (thinking, thinking, thinking).
• Find joy in music today:  listen and maybe sing along.
• Take a photo of something that brings me joy.
• Say positive things in my conversations with others.
• Appreciate the beauty of nature and the trees "springing" into bloom along our parking lot.  Here are some of them.

When I run into my friends, I'll try to remember to ask them what they feel grateful for today.  The "fun-est" thing so far was ordering a children's book for my next library delivery in the middle of this month.  The library in our subdivision makes monthly deliveries to the elderly people in my senior-living facility.  Not all of us have cars or drive anymore, so this is a great way to get books, especially since only a few hundred books are available in our tiny library, which is made up of donated books from some of us living here, as well as donations from good folks in the community.

Beginning ~ with "JFK ESCAPES ASSASSINATION."

Beginning

I have never been what you'd call a cryig man.  My ex-wife said that my "nonexistent emotional gradient" was the main reason she was leaving me (as if the guy she met in her AA meetings was beside the point).

11/22/63 ~ by Stephen King, 2012, historical fantasy, 880 pages

On November 22, 1963, three shots rang out in Dallas, President Kennedy died, and the world changed.  What if you could change it back?  In this brilliantly conceived tour de force, Stephen King — who has absorbed the social, political, and popular culture of his generation more imaginatively and thoroughly than any other writer — takes readers on an incredible journey into the past and the possibility of altering it.

It begins with Jake Epping, a thirty-five-year-old English teacher in Lisbon Falls, Maine, whose life is upended when his friend Al, who owns the local diner, divulges a secret:  his storeroom is a portal to the past, a particular day in 1958.  And the dying Al enlists Jake to take over the mission that has become his obsession — to prevent the Kennedy assassination.

So begins Jake’s new life as George Amberson, in the world of Ike and JFK and Elvis, of big American cars and sock hops and cigarette smoke everywhere and to the small town of Jodie, Texas, where Jake falls dangerously in love.  Every turn leads eventually to a troubled loner named Lee Harvey Oswald and to Dallas, where the past becomes heart-stoppingly suspenseful, and where history might not be history anymore.  Time-travel has never been so believable.  Or so terrifying.

My thoughts so far

I have never, ever tried to read a book this long before, but the idea intrigued me.  The front cover inside the front cover (yes, read that again) has a different headline that the one above.  It says:  "JFK ESCAPES ASSASSINATION."  So I brought it home and have read several chapters so far.

Gilion at Rose City Reader hosts

Book Beginnings on Fridays.

Being foolish

We're into April now.  Yesterday, the first day of the month, is widely known as April Fool's Day, when children play pranks on each other.  I remember doing it as a school girl.  One year, when I attended summer camp, a fun event was for each of us to dress up to represent something about the month we were born.  I no longer remember what anyone else did, but I do recall dressing as an April Fool.  What I remember is wearing my jeans and shirt turned wrong-side out, so that the tags were on the outside.  By acting "foolish," I won the contest.

These words are not what they seem to be

Abbreviation ~ is 12 letters long.

Monosyllable ~ is definitely not.

Non-hyphenated ~ has a hyphen in it.

Thesaurus~ does not itself have a synonym.

So these are not at all what they seem to be,

and I think that's funny.  I have started the list.

Can you think of some other examples to share?

Historical fiction

The Women ~ by T. Coraghessan Boyle, 2009, literary fiction, 464 pages

Is it easy to live with a genius?

Frank Lloyd Wright’s life was one long, howling struggle against the bonds of convention, whether aesthetic, social, moral, or romantic.  He never did what was expected, and he never let anything get in the way of his larger-than-life appetites and visions.  Wright’s triumphs and defeats were always tied to the women he loved:

1. Olgivanna Milanoff, an imperious Montenegrin beauty who was a student of the Russian mystic Gurdjieff and was known by Wright’s apprentices as “the Dragon Lady”;
2. Maude Miriam Noel, a passionate Southern belle with a mean temper and a fondness for morphine;
3. the spirited Mamah Borthwick Cheney, tragically murdered at Wright’s Wisconsin estate, Taliesin, in 1914; 
4. and his young first wife, Kitty Tobin, with whom he had six children.

T.C. Boyle deftly captures these very different women and, in doing so, creates a gripping drama about marriage, the bargains men and women make, and the privileges and pitfalls of genius and fame.

But do you know who Frank Lloyd Wright was?  He was born on June 8, 1867, and died on April 9, 1959.  He was an American architect who designed more than 1,000 structures over a period of 70 years. Wright played a key role in the architectural movements of the twentieth century, influencing other architects worldwide.  He believed in designing in harmony with humanity and the environment, and his philosophy was exemplified in Fallingwater (1935), which some see as the best American architecture ever.  This photo shows Fallingwater.

If you want a BIG book, here it is

Things We Never Got Over (Book 1 of 3 in the Knockemout series) ~ by Lucy Score, 2022, romantic comedy, 570 pages

Naomi wasn’t just running away from her wedding.  She was riding to the rescue of her estranged twin to Knockemout, Virginia, a rough-around-the-edges town where disputes are settled the old-fashioned way … with fists and beer.  Usually in that order.

Too bad for Naomi her evil twin hasn’t changed at all.  After helping herself to Naomi’s car and cash, Tina leaves her with something unexpected.  The niece Naomi didn’t know she had.  Now she’s stuck in town with no car, no job, no plan, and no home with an 11-year-old going on thirty to take care of.

There’s a reason Knox doesn’t do complications or high-maintenance women, especially not the romantic ones.  But since Naomi’s life imploded right in front of him, the least he can do is help her out of her jam.  And just as soon as she stops getting into new trouble he can leave her alone and get back to his peaceful, solitary life.  At least, that’s the plan until the trouble turns to real danger.

. . . and to another book that was recently

added to our Crown Center library collection.