Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote

Just like many of the characters within Truman Capote's novella, I have been swept away, infatuated and fallen in love with Holly Golightly. I believe that was intentional by the author which is what makes this little story so great.

At just over 100 pages, we enjoy her for such a short period of time before she flits out of our life again and the story ends. I feel as if Truman Capote treats the reader as just another enamored suitor of Miss Holiday Golightly.


Oh but, she's charming and unpredictable. And she delights the world (or irritates it) with her risky adventures and devil-may-care attitude. Her past is somewhat of a mystery when we meet her at 19 years of age and it's implied that she had rough times as a child.

But rather than writing another story of heroine-overcomes-bad-childhood, Capote glosses over her past and presents us with an ambitious and manipulative character who takes on the world in the most endearing way. Holly Golightly happens to the world and just when the world wants to box her in, she moves on, refusing to be pinned down. She lives true to her calling card which reads, "Miss Holiday Golightly, Traveling".

In talking about her first husband (Doc) to the bartender (Joe Bell) she says...

"Never love a wild thing, Mr. Bell," Holly advised him. "That was Doc's mistake. He was always lugging home wild things. A hawk with a hurt wing. One time it was a full-grown bobcat with a broken leg. But you can't give your heart to a wild thing: the more you do, the stronger they get. Until they're strong enough to run into the woods. Or fly into a tree. Then the sky. That's how you'll end up, Mr. Bell. If you let yourself love a wild thing. You'll end up looking at the sky."

The writing is delicious and the story has a rhythm which seduces you much in the same way that you become seduced by Holly herself. It's a irresistible story and I can see why it's considered such a classic.

Time and again while reading this story, I was struck by it's racy nature. Set in the 1940's, Holly is anything but pure and admittedly declares, "I am top banana in the shock department!"

The only piece of furniture she owns is a satin-tufted four-poster bed; she's free with her sexuality, and she has affairs with married men. Her language is anything but a lady's and contrasts strikingly with her beautifully-coifed and glamorous appearance.

I couldn't help but think how provocative this little book must have been for it's day. I'm looking forward to seeing how it was interpreted on screen since I have not yet seen the movie which Audrey Hepburn made so famous.

Since this is my fourth read for the 1% Well-Read Challenge, I'll be tackling Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres next. I have read one other novel by de Berniere's titled Birds Without Wings and it was an exceptional piece of historical fiction about the war for Turkish independence. I recommend it without reservation which leads me to select another one of his books to read next.

If you have read any of the books, I've mentioned in today's post or even written a review, I'd love to hear from you!

Breakfast at Tiffany's

I love this. I am immersed in a theme and I have Holly Golightly all around me.


I'm having so much fun planning and piecing my Breakfast at Tiffany's block. I was shooting to do it as part of August's Glitz and Glamour challenge at Crazy Quilting International but we're going away for the Labor Day holiday tomorrow so I'll have five days without internet access and will miss the deadline. That's OK, cuz Miss Holiday Golightly is traveling...


Now, if you'd read the book, you would get that pun. I'm also reading the story right now for the 1% Well-Read Challenge and loving every little quip -- the verbal banter is fabulous and Miss Golightly is a treat for the senses.


I'm planning a monochromatic color scheme for the block fabrics and I know that two large motifs will be the chandelier in Tiffany's window and Miss Golightly herself.


So I'm off to piece my block now so I have it to take with me on my trip. And look, I get to play with all of these beautiful embellishments in my favorite color...


I can't leave without sharing this excerpt from the book....

Holly Golightly in a conversation with Paul Varjak, the guy who lives upstairs:

"I don't want to own anything until I know I've found the place where me and things belong together. I'm not quite sure where that is just yet. But I know what it's like." She smiles, and lets the cat drop to the floor. "It's like Tiffany's," she said. "Not that I give a hoot about jewelry. Diamonds, yes. But it's tacky to wear diamonds before you're forty; and even that's risky. They only look right on the really old girls. Maria Ouspenskaya. Wrinkles and bones, white hair and diamonds: I can't wait. But that's not why I'm mad about Tiffany's. Listen. You know those days when you've got the mean reds?"

"Same as the blues?"

"No," she said slowly. "No, the blues are because you're getting fat or maybe it's been raining too long. You're sad, that's all. But the mean reds are horrible. You're afraid and you sweat like hell, but you don't know what you're afraid of. Except something bad is going to happen, only you don't know what it is. You've had that feeling?"

"Quite often. Some people call it angst."

"All right. Angst. But what do you do about it?"

"Well, a drink helps."

"I've tried that. I've tried aspirin, too. Rusty thinks I should smoke marijuana, and I did for a while, but it only makes me giggle. What I've found does the most good is just to get into a taxi and go to Tiffany's. It calms me down right away, the quietness and the proud look of it; nothing very bad could happen to you there, not with those kind men in their nice suits, and that lovely smell of silver and alligator wallets. If I could find a real-life place that made me feel like Tiffany's, then I'd buy some furniture and give the cat a name..."

Crazy Quilting Revisited

On August 19, 2008, Jude of Spirit Cloth asked "What If? What if a crazy quilt block could be embellished more non-traditionally?"


Then two days later she asked others to come along. She asked, "would it be possible to redefine a traditional style without destroying its concept. to liven it up, to change its context, to bring it up to date, to work freely with out copying it over and over?" And, the world responded.

And now, there are many people playing along. And it's being called Crazy Quilting Revisited. I am intrigued. I am going along for the journey.


I have chosen some pieces for my Spirit Cloth crazy quilt piece. My grandmother's doily, my mother's aqua colored shirt, my husband's button down that fit him when he was 35, and some Japanese indigo fabric found when I lived in Japan. I love this idea of organic flow. To me, it's more in the true spirit of historical crazy quilts...

I mean, this is 180 degrees from Holly Golightly...or is it?

Note: All images are the work of Jude Hill at Spirit Cloth on her What If? Blog

Morning Visitor

This morning when I was sipping my first cup of tea and enjoying the sunrise,


I found this visitor at my woodpile...


He's a Pileated Woodpecker and they're so "enthusiastic"! If you've ever seen one you know what I mean...they are almost two feet tall and can shake an entire tree with their "searching"... According to Wikipedia, it looks like this visitor is not a he at all but a she...


Note: Thanks to Cheryl of Cheryl's Chatelaine for pointing out that this bird was probably the inspiration for Woody Woodpecker...

If you have no idea what we're talking about, you can check out an episode of the cartoon here.

111

About a month before my Mom died, I started to see the number 111 everywhere.

I would wake up in the middle of the night, glance at the clock and it read 1:11. I would buy a raffle ticket and my ticket number was 111. I would receive messages on my cell phone at 1:11 and when I checked the minutes I spent on a phone call, it was 1:11 minutes.

At first, I chalked it up to coincidence but when it happened over and over again, it was clearly not just coincidence. My Mom asked me what I thought it meant and I said that I felt like we had family and friends who had passed away previously who were trying to let us know that they loved us and that it was going to be OK...they would be meeting Mom on the other side and they were so excited to finally be reunited with her at last. My family members thought I was crazy at first but, when they began to pay attention, both my father and my brother were seeing the number 111 too.

The kicker for us all came during a visit from Mom's hospice nurse. While she was taking Mom's vitals, I glanced down at the bed frame on my Mom's bed and there was a moving sticker still stuck to the bed frame. (You know the ones that look like this...)


My parents had moved into their current house about two years ago and evidently had missed removing this sticker. The number on that sticker on my Mom's bed was 111.

I almost fainted. When I showed it to Dad, he was dumbstruck and after that, my father had no doubts that it was more than coincidence. He just couldn't understand why, when he bought a lottery ticket with that number, he didn't win the jackpot...

A month or so after my Mom died, I continued to see the number 111 and I felt it was my Mom, at that point, letting me know she was OK. I saw it everywhere...on my bike computer, I saw it coming back from vacation when I had 111 emails, my total at the grocery store was $111 once and another time my change was $1.11. My Mom's funeral was held on the 11th of March at 11 o'clock. You get the idea.

This weekend, I swam, biked and ran in the IronGirl triathlon which is held in Columbia very close to where I live. My friend Maura has created a Women's Giving Circle and we raise money for underprivileged women and children in Howard County as part of our race. Last year, my Mom made a donation to the group and supported all 20 or so of us moms who were out there doing the "unthinkable". She was so proud of us, at our age, trying something new, something challenging because she wasn't sure she ever would have put herself through that...When she went with me last year to pick up my race packet, she wanted to buy a shirt that said "My Daughter is an IronGirl" and was disappointed when they were sold out.

My friend Maura had the t-shirts that we wore this year printed in Grammy Aqua but that wasn't the only surprise she had in store for me.

This year, I went to pick up my race packet with my husband. The day was bittersweet and I was feeling sad remembering last year when my Mom had gone with me. Outside, there was an alphabetical listing posted where you look up your name and find your race number so you can tell the person inside what your number is...


When I read that I was 111, I caught my breath. Then I remembered that my friend Maura knew the race director and she made sure I got this number and I felt a big "hug".

I went inside and walked up to the table where a man was standing behind the sign that read "Numbers 0-250 here". He says, "Hello, what's your number?" And I tried to speak but nothing came out, I choked and the tears began to pour down my face. I bawled. Not little tears mind you, they were big honking, heaving sobs. All my sadness and missing-my-mother erupted from within me and there was no stopping it...the floodgates were released and I poured out all over that poor man whose nametag said Dan.

At first Dan was too shocked to know what to do and finally asked, "Are you worried about the race tomorrow?" I shook my head vehemently no. I motioned for him to move on and just get me my packet so I could get away. He asked for my number again but I was crying too hard to tell him. That's when my husband stepped around from behind me and, in a choked up voice that broke when he said it, he said, "Her number is 111."

Yesterday morning I awoke at 5:00am to go to the race, this race where my number was 111.

I knew my Mom was with me, still thinking I'm nuts, but with me. And, I was fine...until I had to get my body marked...that's where someone puts your race number on your hands and your shoulders with black marker so they can identify you throughout the race. Again, the question came, "Your race number?" And this time, I didn't sob but tears started slipping down my face and I croaked out "111". So, I cried my way to my bike, pumped up my tires, wiped my face, got my goggles and swim cap, told my mother I loved her, and went on to have a beautiful day.

This is me and my friend Maura (one of the Ironmen I told you about before) who remembered my Mom this race.

She remembered that it would mean a lot to me if the t-shirts were in my mother's color. She remembered and requested that my race number be 111. In her incredibly busy schedule of organizing the Giving Circle, having us all over for dinner the night before, and participating in the race herself, she remembered that it was going to be a tough day for me and I would be missing my Mom.

It was such a beautiful and meaningful thing to do. When it feels like the rest of the world has moved on, it means so much when someone remembers, doesn't it? Someone remembered how hard it still is to have lost my Mom. I'll love her forever for that.

Here are some more pics from race day.

The IronGirl is a women-only event and the triathlon is the shortest one out there...0.5 mile swim, 17 mile bike and a 3.4 mile run.


Many women of all ages and sizes and athletic ability participate to just see if they can do it. It's a beautifully inspirational day, sometimes with three generations of women participating and passing the finish line together.


The day isn't about winning the race, it's about finishing. It's about stretching yourself to do something you didn't think you could. All along the race course, you hear words of encouragement, "You're doing great.", "Great job!" "You're making it..."


When passing one woman, I said, "I hope I'm still doing this when I'm 65..." At which point, a woman behind me says, "I hope I'm still doing this when I'm 30!!" Which made us all laugh...


They mark our ages on our calves and it's so incredible when you see women out there at 63 or 55 years of age...grandmothers. And you know their names because they're printed on our numbers. And it's so beautiful to see the younger girls at 14-18 completing their first race. Maybe next year you'll come to Baltimore and consider doing it with us.

There are free massages afterwards...


That's all for now...Gotta run!

Playing with Chickenscratch

I had a gingham patch on my Tea Therapy block so I decided to play around with Chickenscratch. I have seen examples of chickenscratch around the net over the past several years and always wanted to give a try. I should have used the same thread for the o's as I did for the crosses but that's what experimenting is for, right?

It turns out that I even had an example of chickenscratch in my vintage linens collection and didn't know it.



I love how these simple stitches can transform the whole look of a piece of gingham. The actual gingham on this piece is red and white but all the stitching makes the pillow cover appear a soft pink.

Linda B of Chloe's Place has an entire Flickr set of Chickenscratch examples to delight your eye. I love this one where she applied chickenscratch to a piece of denim...

And I love this little house that she credits to Margaret J in the Quilts of Unity...

Amy of Angry Chicken runs a regular apron challenge called Tie One On whose theme for August is Gingham. Needless to say, there has been much chickenscratch discussion as a result. Aprons are due by September 1 so you can check back on the Tie One On site then to see pics of all the aprons that are entered. There is bound to be a lot of chickenscratch...

Photo courtesy of Angry Chicken

Mary Corbet of Needle 'N' Thread has a post on chickenscratch and Feeling Stitchy also has a good post on chickenscratch as well as many others which I don't have time to mention...Now that I've tried a bit of it, I can see where it would be fun to sit and play around with it for a while.

Here's some good basic instructions if you want to try it. Now don't count your chickens before they scratch...

The Creative Habit

The quote in my sidebar from Aristotle really spoke to me this morning when I read it. It led me to my bookshelf to seek out one of my favorite books, The Creative Habit by Twyla Tharp. Funny, this is the second time I've thought of this book in two days. To me, it's a sign. That book must have something to teach me today...

Yesterday, I was both surprised and delighted to note that it was included in Josh Kaufman's The Personal MBA Recommended Reading List: The 77 Best Business Books In Print. I was surprised because I wouldn't typically expect to see this book on a "business book" list and delighted because I think it really belongs there.

This book was published in 2003 so it's not new. But, like every truly good book, it's new again to me every time I pull it down from my bookshelf. Much more than a self-help book, this book discusses all stages of the creative process and is somewhat autobiographical. The author, Twyla Tharp, is one of the best dance choreographers of our day, creating over 130 dances for Broadway musicals and the best ballet companies in the world. This book is practical and approachable and provides countless strategies for approaching a creative life. It is a treatise on not only the process of creativity but the results of creativity and how one cannot exist without the other. It's creatively written, using various font sizes and colors -- only 250 pages and a quick read.

Above all, this book, like the Velveteen Rabbit is real. It has become more real for me the more I use it. Twyla Tharp recognizes we are human. She expects failure, she expects creative ruts, she expects life to overwhelm our creativity at times and she gives brilliantly simple suggestions for overcoming these ruts. Interruptions are inevitable...don't be crushed by them, expect them, manage them, make them part of who you are, and move on to further greatness...I love it.

Here are some of the things she says:

1. After so many years, I've learned that being creative is a full-time job with its own daily patterns.
2. Creativity is not just for artists. It's for business people looking for a new way to close a sale; it's for engineers trying to solve a problem; it's for parents who want their children to see the world in more than one way.
3. Creativity is a habit, and the best creativity is a result of good work habits.
4. In order to be creative you have to know how to prepare to be creative...there's a process that generates creativity -- and you can learn it. And you can make it habitual.
   

I know why I was supposed to pull down this book today. The Summer always throws me into a creative tailspin. Vacations, adventures, sports activities are wonderful fodder for my creativity but the time left to actually produce is lessened.

As we approach the start of school, I'm excited! Excited to prepare for those days of productive creativity. Chapter 2 of The Creative Habit talks exclusively about Rituals of Preparation, or for me, preparing myself for the creative time when Jack is at school. I'll leave you today with one of my favorite excerpts from her book...it begins Chapter 2.

I begin each day of my life with a ritual: I wake up at 5:30am, put on my workout clothes, my leg warmers, my sweatshirts, and my hat. I walk outside my Manhattan home, hail a taxi, and tell the driver to take me to the Pumping Iron gym at 91st Street and First Avenue, where I work out for two hours. The ritual is not the stretching and weight training I put my body through each morning at the gym; the ritual is the cab. The moment I tell the driver where to go I have completed the ritual.

It's a simple act, but doing it the same way each morning habitualizes it- makes it repeatable, easy to do. It reduces the chance that I would skip it or do it differently. It is one more item in my arsenal of routines, and one less thing to think about.

Wonder Boy, Wonder Mom and Wonder Woman

WONDERFUL!!

He did it! He lived up to all the hype. He rose up under unbelievable pressure to become the most decorated Olympian of all time. That's an almost super-human accomplishment. How did he do it?

He wasn't alone.

The story I've been watching for the past two weeks has not just been in the pool. The story I have been watching has been up in the stands. The story has been sitting in three metal seats night after night and their names are Debbie, Hilary and Whitney.


Let me be honest. It's true I stayed up late to watch Michael's final relay last night but I what I REALLY wanted to see was Michael's Mom and two sisters.

Night after night, I have watched them cheering him on, crying under the pressure, their voices becoming more and more hoarse day by day. I have cheered with them, been proud for them and cried with them when they've cried. When Michael's Mom dropped to her knees and melted under her seat last night, I melted too. They are my people. They are a family from Baltimore, traveling to Beijing to support and help their brother. What an unbelievable moment for them.

And Michael, well, he completely won my heart on the first night of swimming. Upon getting out of the pool after winning his first gold medal, a news reporter was in his face asking about the race and he's saying... "Where's my Mom? I can't even see her out there? Where are they sitting? Geez, I wish I could see my Mom..."

I love this picture of Michael and his mom and all it says about them.

And, the story doesn't end with Michael.

There's Dara Torres. All I can say is WOW!

I really haven't had any sports heroes in my life. I mean, not where I would actually hang their picture up on my inspiration board and want to emulate. That was true until Dara Torres came along. Heroes aren't just for kids anymore, they're for us too. And, I'm claiming one.

I'm 43 years old, a mother and I swim. She's 40 years old, a mother and she swims and wins Olympic medals. Here is a fabulous article about her and her unique perspective in the all-too-often, youth-filled Olympic games.

I leave you with this quote from Dara, this Olympian, this Mom. When asked what her 12 olympic medals might mean to someone like me, she said...

"If this helps anyone out there who is in their middle-aged years and has put off what they wanted to do because they thought they were too old or because they have a child, and that they can't balance what they want to do with being a parent, then that's great. What I've done is show them that they can do it."

Have Umbrella, Will Travel

I'm so excited. One of my nine nieces, the oldest one,


is leaving for Brussels today to study for a semester abroad.


When not traveling to Brussels, she is studying journalism at the University of Wisconsin.

Jack and I were trying to figure out what we could get her as a "Bon Voyage" gift?? We decided that we should learn a little bit more about Brussels before deciding so we turned to the all-knowledgeable Wikipedia.

As we were reading about Brussels, we learned that the climate is quite rainy.

Brussels is relatively near the coastal areas, and its climate is therefore influenced by marine air masses from the Atlantic Ocean, as well as nearby wetlands. On average (based on measurements the last 100 years), there are approximately 200 days of rain per year in the Brussels-Capital Region.

Oh boy, that's a lot of rain. In fact, she's likely to experience 5-6 inches of rain/month while she's there!

Holy smokes, this girl is going to need a travel umbrella. There were tons of cool pics on Flickr of Brussels in the rain and even a picture of this cool umbrella shop in Brussels!

Photo courtesy of Squonk11

So off Jack and I went to the Mall to find a cool travel umbrella...Well, to make a long story short, the only cool travel umbrella we found was this number from Coach...


All the other ones were ugly or black...but this one was $88 and we could NOT afford that. Plus, you tend to lose umbrellas. After two hours of looking at every travel umbrella in the Mall, Jack says, "Hey Mom, why don't you buy a black one and decorate it?"

Ahhh, what brilliance! You've got to love his confidence in his Mommy...but that got me thinking....and the rest is history.

We bought a black umbrella with a good mechanism and we were finally released from our quest. Jack was very thankful to be out of the Mall...

Upon getting home, I got out my fabric paints, different size drinking glasses to outline the circles, and began to paint. The work really went very quickly...


We took the umbrella to her Going-Away Party and had family and friends write her notes and sign them with a fabric paint pen.


We painted the inside only and I added this saying:

"It's raining on the outside but you have friends who love you under here..."

Because the umbrella had a double fabric, the paint did not bleed through to the topside. I even got a chance to test it out in the rain...


And how about this sweet little Stitchette pattern by Wee Wonderfuls I bought not too long ago...


Maybe I'll stitch this cutie while feasting on another Brussels creation...Belgian waffles...Yum!

Photo courtesy of CxOxS

I'm hoping to travel to Brussels this Fall so if you have any travel tips or experiences, I'd love to hear about them!

The Boys are Away...

OK, so I have to admit it, when I dropped my two men off at the airport for their trip to Texas to visit Jim's family, I was relieved and delighted.

I have been looking forward to these three days alone for over a month. I can't wait to have some time to myself to think, to re-group and to tackle some of my projects. I'm starting to feel guilty because I am really looking forward to the two of them going away...

So, I bake them some cookies to take with them thinking that will assuage some of my guilt. It worked; I felt better sending them off with a piece of myself.

I didn't have to cook dinner so I went for a jog, came home, wrote myself a list for the next few days and poured myself a glass of wine. Now, I'm watching the Olympics and writing this post.

Here's my list for the next few days...we'll see how much I get accomplished.

I'm a real lover of lists and try to save them as much as I can. I'm not so good at keeping a journal (though I'm in love with the idea of keeping a journal) but I am very good at making lists. So, I keep them. Kind of a sort of journal.

Actually, Sasha Cagen agrees with me. She wrote this book and keeps the To Do List Blog where she showcases some very interesting lists from some very interesting people. Her book is quite entertaining if you too enjoy listmaking...they really do tell us a lot about ourselves.


My very favorite lists of all time are the ones my husband, Jim, made when we were preparing to have Jack over 12 years ago. My husband is an engineer and very thorough when he needs to be. Here are a few of his lists that he wrote before Jack was born...


Isn't he absolutely the sweetest? He was very worried that he would forget something for the "big day". It's a funny and crazy time of life when the first child enters a couple-dom...I love looking at these lists and remembering how young and hopeful we were. How hard we were trying not to make a mistake...