March Recap

Hi, everyone! Can you believe it's April already? It doesn't seem like it should be, though the weather does make you realize it is spring and that you better enjoy it while it lasts before the summer heat comes to play.

Another month gone and it's time for a monthly recap.

Read:
1. Sword of the Guardian by Merry Shannon
2. Karen Memory by Elizabeth Bear
3. Moon Called by Patricia Briggs
4. Ganymede by Cherie Priest
5. Blood Bound by Patricia Briggs
6. The Edge of the Unknown by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
7. Mirror in the Shrine by Robert A. Rosenstone

Crafts:
Amigurumi!!!
1. Yoshi
2. King Boo
3. Rowlet
4. Totoro
5. Dango
6. Chulthu
7. Ultros
8. Link from Zelda

Stitching:
~ steadily working on Potions, Brews, and Spells

Lots of reading and crocheting this month. I've been working on the Potions pattern for my Friday Frolic project. I've got three more months of crocheting for the convention in July. Believe me when I say that I am counting the days. I really want the freedom to crochet and craft to my heart's content without worrying about looming deadlines.

That being said, my favorite amigurumi, hands down, has to be the Link doll. He's adorable. I love the hat and shield. The shield was a pattern from All About Ami. She did a great job designing it! Usually I have a hard time single crocheting in rows since I'm used to stitching in the round, but I didn't have any trouble with my gauge.....granted I didn't use my size H hook like usual, I used a size G, but I didn't want the shield to be ginormous and it came out to just the size I needed.

Books....and more books..... hmmm......the good thing about books is a visit to the dentist. You may wonder what a dentist and books have to do with one another. Well, my sister works in our local university's library. Since we carpool, if I have dentist appointment, I can browse her library afterwards.

This time around I found a few books on Japan (no surprise there) and one I hadn't heard of by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I'm not sure how many people know this, but Doyle was a strong advocate for Spiritualism. A great many people got involved in the movement prior to the war and even more so afterwards.

The Edge of the Unknown is a non-fiction book written by Doyle in 1930 detailing his thoughts and theories on Spiritualism and documenting accounts of his involvement in the movement along with other people's as well. Interestingly enough, the first chapter was devoted to Harry Houdini. For a time, Doyle and Houdini were friends, but separated due to their conflicting views of Spiritualism. In the chapter on Houdini, Doyle claims (he wasn't the only one to have the same opinion) that Houdini himself was a medium and that his stance against Spiritualism was partly to get rid of the fake mediums in the field and to hide his talent from others.

Doyle mentioned that when Houdini was questioned about his stunts and how they were achieved, he said that he had a voice that he listened to. He said that the times he tried the stunts without waiting for that voice, he failed, but whenever he listened for the voice first, he succeeded in his stunts. A psychic power perhaps or maybe really good intuition? Who knows.

The other chapters go on to talk about various events and mediums who Doyle hoped would persuade his readers that Spiritualism was indeed a real science and that contact with the spirit realm was possible.

Don't you love it when people leave marginalia in books? Well, someone left a comment about one of the chapters about Doyle and his friends being visited by a ghost. Just one word 'fraud'. And, of course, when I tried to look up the encounter on the Internet, all I could find was the chapter itself. How sad...it would have been interesting to see if his friends were exposed as frauds.

I've been rambling, haven't I?! I hope you enjoyed the ramble and that you learned something you didn't really need to learn today. (I can use Monday as an excuse, right?!) Well, on that note....until next time!