Book Review: Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear

Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I think this will be my favorite book read in 2011.  The character of Maisie Dobbs just sticks with you.  A beautifully written mystery set in England during the years following WWI, this book follows Maisie, the daughter of a costermonger (go ahead, look it up - I did) who goes to work as a maid in a large house and then through a combination of intelligence and the sponsorship of her employers goes on to become educated, serve as a nurse, and then become a detective.  This book covers her first case which brings her face to face with memories of her past.  So well done that I couldn't put it down, and in fact stayed up late into the night reading after my homework was done.  Go get it - now.  :) 



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Grey

Grey skies pass above
Grey cat sleeping by the fire
Writing hand is still

*crickets*

Not a lot of wordage going on around here lately and for that I apologize.  This school thing keeps me on my toes apparently.  Every time I breath a sigh of relief about turning in another assignment it seems there is another deadline barreling down on me.  That said, things are going well for school.  The house is still mostly a disaster, but maybe a little less gross at least.  The yard/garden?  Couldn't tell you - haven't been out there in ages.  So I continue to look forward to winter break, but that's about all I have for you for now.  I do want to suggest that if any of my autoimmune/chronic illness followers out there are interested we've got a great author discussion going on over at Shelfari.  Come check it out - we're reading FibroWHYalgia this month, and author Sue Ingebretson is leading the discussion for us.  We've got a bunch of lurkers this time, and would totally welcome any discussion people want to add in.  :)  Just click on the link I embedded above in the word Shelfari. 

Monkey + Pants = Impending World Domination

Harvest Time

I've lost track of time, but I think these pics were taken last weekend.  That's part of this year's harvest - my first ever pumpkins, sweet potatoes, and even two potatoes which is a miracle b/c I had dug up what I thought were all of my potato plants earlier and found nothing good.  then when I was ripping up the garden I yanked on what I thought was a lone weed, and a potato came flying out.  Happened twice actually.  The lesson to be learned with the sweet potatoes is to pay attention where you put them in (or maybe don't go the jungle garden route that I did this year) so that you know exactly where to dig.  A deer busted down my netting the last week before I had time to pull out the garden.  The deer munched away at the sweet potato vines leaving me to guess where the potatoes were in the ground.  Let's just say that I'm not a fan of unnessary shovel use so that won't happen again.  I'm pretty sure I'm still missing some sweet potatoes so I'll need to get out there one more time with the shovel and see what I can find. 

My other success in the picture is the pumpkins.  Mystery pumpkins - no clue what kind or what to do with them but for volunteers they did pretty well.  I think that I'll say that my lesson learned is that you don't need 3 volunteer pumpkin plants in a tiny little garden. One would probably be two much but we'll see if we get to test that theory next year.  :) 

How's your garden doing?  What lessons will you take away from it this year?  Share the knowledge or just say hello in the comments.  :)