April Reading List

 These are the books I finished reading in April.  As always, library books are marked with an asterisk.

The Brutal Telling, Louise Penny*

The Shadow House, Anna Downes.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Jonathan Safran Foer.

Bury Your Dead, Louise Penny.

I'm still enjoying the Three Pines mysteries by Louise Penny.  I don't have any of the books in my pile at the moment, but I am keeping an eye out for the next one in the series each time I'm in a library.

I bought The Shadow House for 25 cents. It was fine.

I had also purchased Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close for 25 cents--twice!--at the same thrift store as The Shadow House.  It was also fine.  I'd been curious about it for a while and finally read it and now both copies are in my garage sale pile.  That's how I found the second copies.  My crafting group at church is having a garage sale fundraiser and my contributions are mostly some old paperbacks and a lamp.  They cleaned out the storage closet of craft projects for fundraisers of yore and repriced them and hope to send them on their way.  There's something to be said about the shifts in fundraising techniques and the skill sets and practices of church groups in mainline Protestant denominations, but I don't think I'm the one to articulate that.  I've shown up late to the party of this flavor of churchiness and try to help where I can.

Speaking of church, I survived Lent and all the Easter celebrations and obligations.  Mostly.  I think.  April had a lot of obligations, most of them centered around celebrating.  Which for me meant practicing handbells, constantly running to the store for cake ingredients, and planning and planning and planning.  I did enjoy celebrating Easter in my family's tradition, which is to meet on the Saturday before the big event, hunt Easter eggs, eat candy, and generally mess around.  On the drive to my sister's house to celebrate, I finished my daughter's birthday socks.  I have since attempted to make socks for my dad's birthday and my mother-in-law's birthday, but haven't really finished much.

I've sewn some little projects, irritably worked on socks, and tried to cover all the bases while my small family very slowly passes around a cold.  The little purple project bag was probably my favorite.  The oven mitt was a disappointment but I learned a lot.

For May, I want to get back to work on the quilt (quilt blocks are fun. A whole quilt top is a little intimidating), make some dishcloths for fun, and try to knock out some socks.