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Showing posts with label No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency. Show all posts
Showing posts with label No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency. Show all posts

April 8, 2013

Meeting the writer, Alexander McCall Smith!

Scottish writer, Alexander McCall Smith has written many books, two of my favorites are The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, which takes place in Botswana, and La's Orchestra Saves the World.  He is a writer, truly an artist, in the way he writes, and he also plays the bassoon, in the "Really Terrible Orchestra."  As he spoke, I felt a connection to him, and a desire to paint or create art...  My husband felt it, too.  We met in a drawing class in college, but life has taken us on various routes, so art is on the back burner, right now.  Mr. Smith was actually born in Africa and grew up there, but he has lived most of his life in Scotland.
I was thrilled to see him in a kilt and knee socks.  I spent a month in Troon, Scotland when I was 10 with my little sister and grandma...saw Loch Ness, the Highlands, castles and met many kind people.
Mr. McCall spoke of the tactical practices of the bodyguards of crawling judges in Northern Ireland, issues of etiquette and when to wear white shoes in the United States, the suspension of Citroën cars (did you know it would take 2 and a half minutes for it to inflate before you could drive off?) and its impact on French bank robbers, and also the police, and Danish writer Karen Blixen and how important the first lines of a novel is...e.g. from Rose Macaulay's The Towers of Trebizond, "Take my camel, dear", said my Aunt Dot, as she climbed down from this animal on her return from High Mass."  And that was only the first 5 minutes of his 45-minute talk.
Olivia got her copy of The Great Cake Mystery, that he wrote about a 9 year old (just like Olivia), signed!  I don't know how well you can see, but he wrote just below the red square design...in a green pen.
Long line of people waiting for him to sign books.  There were about 700 people there to hear him.  He speaks as he writes, beautifully, and entertaining.  He spoke about how he wrote the next chapter for his book that morning in Cincinnati.  I ♥ the library there in downtown Cincinnati...the gold and yellow tiny tiles, stained glass windows and 4 floors that make the building special.
 Rob tilled up the backyard garden.  We planted row upon row of heirloom seeds:  Rocky Top lettuce mix, May Queen lettuce, spinach, yellow King of Siberia tomatoes, cabbage, beets, purple carrots, sweet peas, cilantro, chamomile, anise, lemon balm, Kentucky pole beans, watermelon, etc.
Sunday...a friend at church, Kristi (who is from the country of Georgia), took this picture...of the cross decorated with flowers.  Hannah picked the tiny yellow daffodils from our front yard and put them around. 

March 29, 2013

Vegan (and gluten-free) day


We had homemade granola with almond milk for brekkie.  For lunch, we made taco salad using:
  • organic baby greens
  • black beans
  • cumin
  • diced tomatoes
  • corn
  • guacamole or chopped avocado
  • Kraft catalina or creamy Italian dressing (both are vegan)
  • corn chips to top
That is definitely one of our favorite meals.  The girls ask for taco salad often.  For dinner, we had hash browns and lentil soup.  Vegan and gluten-free!
Friends from our homeschool group gave us these small books to help us journey through Great Lent.  Each day after we say morning prayers and read the Bible together, Hannah & Olivia get their books out to check off what they've done.  The best thing that has come from this is their desire to be a part of alms giving.  Our church is having a canned food drive, and so the girls each picked out some of their favorite items (raspberry jam and tuna fish) to place in the bin.  We volunteered at Matthew 25 several times recently.  They also started making simple fleece tie blankets, as a Sunday school project to donate.  And, Hannah has started to crochet a hat for Calvin's Hats.

Olivia spotted a butterfly yesterday in the backyard.  I got my camera and it was still in the area!
I've been drawing.  Make more cards to add to my etsy shop. Matroshka girls knitting, with a basket of carrots and an egg from the chicken...

One of my favorite authors, Alexander McCall Smith, will be in town next week.  I ♥ his series The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency books, which take place in Botswana.  I also really, really liked his book La's Orchestra Saves the World.  And his children's book The Great Cake Mystery is another excellent one.  I think we will bake a cake with jam, like there was in the book, to take when we meet him. 

May 21, 2012

New tea...to go with a book!

I decided to order this tea, inspired by the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency books by Alexander McCall Smith.  And it came...quickly!  Hannah and I enjoyed a cup of the 97 per cent tea, named after Grace Makutsi who brags about her high score on her exam at the Botswana Secretarial college.  She is hilarious.  ♥
If you haven't read any of these books, I highly recommend them.  We actually just got Smith's first children's book, The Great Cake Mystery, from the library (it also comes on CD, we got both at the same time, what a nice coincidence)!  It's about Precious, as a young girl:

"When a piece of cake goes missing from her classroom, a traditionally built young boy is tagged as the culprit. Precious, however, is not convinced. She sets out to find the real thief. Along the way she learns that your first guess isn’t always right. She also learns how to be a detective."
Geared for children 7 years old and up.  There are beautiful simple woodcuts on just about every page.  It starts off with Obed telling his daughter, Precious, about how he came face to face with a lion as a child and how he is still alive...  Even an adult would be captivated by this interesting and sweet story of a little girl in Africa. 

May 9, 2012

Green

Lush and growing well...
I highly recommend the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency books by Alexander McCall Smith.  This is his 13th in this series.  There is also a BBC production of the first couple of books...that are very well done.  We got it on DVD at our library.
I got more herbs to add to my little area where the sage and mint abound...purple basil, dill and lavender!
  I crocheted this green trim for this apron for a little girl.  Join in the "Yarn Along" here. ♥