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Showing posts with label Reading. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Reading. Show all posts

Saturday, January 22, 2022

Heilbronn

Sometime shortly after our move to Germany, someone recommended that we read A Tramp Abroad by Mark Twain. The person said Twain gave some interesting commentary on the German language which we would be able to better appreciate now that we lived in Germany. I downloaded the Kindle book (it was free!) and it had been sitting there waiting for me to read it for several months. I finally opened it up and started reading. I am still in the midst of finishing it as I had to take a break to read this month's book club read (The Alice Network), but from what I have read so far it's a delightful book. His writing reminds me of Bill Bryson's style.

Anyway, in the book so far he has talked about visiting Heidelberg and Heilbronn. Charles and I visited Heidelberg as one of the stops on our honeymoon river cruise. We will be visiting again at least once while we're stationed in Germany because it is pretty close, but we have yet to make it over that way. 

For one of our weekends this month, we were trying to find something to do. It has been a little more challenging with continued COVID restrictions, especially because of our incomplete vaccination status (incomplete with the new regulations here). I looked at the map and saw that Heilbronn was pretty close. We have driven by the Heilbronn exit many times, but I never really knew much about it. I suggested we take Suzie there for a walk and lucked out with a lovely sunny, albeit chilly, day. 



Heilbronn sits on the Neckar River which is something Twain talked about in the book. When we arrived in Heilbronn we parked at the Wertweisen Park. If you have ever lived in Europe, you'll appreciate this next bit. Parking was free and abundant! Charles routed our walk through the park and up along the river into Heilbronn's downtown area. As we got closer to the city center, we came upon a bridge that goes over the river from one side of the city to the other. It was LOADED with locks representing relationships. I have heard of this in Paris and have seen it in other cities. We spent a few minutes looking at the multitude of locks. I was impressed to see that many of them were professionally engraved. It gave it a better sense of purpose and intentionality. 


This tower was not far from the love lock bridge (that's what I am going to call it, at least). I read briefly about the towers in Heilbronn, but I am not going to attempt to give you their history because I don't remember it well enough. This tower had fun metalwork at the top so it looks like someone is walking a tight rope off the top of the tower. 


Twain mentioned the astronomical clock in the book. It was neat to see it in person and think about how many others have looked at it over the years. Right in front of the clock was a Saturday market, but we happened upon it as it was winding down. 

We spent some more time walking around the city center, doing some window shopping and watching Suzie scare pigeons into flight. We ended our stroll back through the park. It made for a great afternoon adventure.

Wednesday, September 20, 2017

Design: Book Club

One of the special activity groups for our base spouses' club is Book Club. Since I am already a part of a book club, I am not taking part in this one. It can be hard juggling two books with deadlines each month. But it was fun picking out the graphics for this one. There were a lot to choose from on Shutterstock.

Fonts used:
Little Days
Franklin Gothic Book


Sunday, May 22, 2016

Design: Book Club

When we first moved to this base, a new book club was started. I have been going since the first meeting where we read Mr. Penumbra's 24- Hour Bookstore. About a year ago I became the admin for the group which allows me to maintain the Facebook page and make sure the group keeps running smoothly. It is a lot of fun and, since we are so casual, it is not a lot of work.

Our base recently had a festival and they invited several base interest groups to have tables to promote themselves. The book club was asked to join and I was happy to do it. Since I have been in charge of the group I have not really promoted the group except in a base spouse Facebook page. But this would be a fun way to reach out to more people.

My friend, Emily, and I hung out at the table and we met some really nice folks. I was surprised that even some guys came up and chatted with us. So far our group has only been females. But having a male member would add a different perspective and maybe open us open to books we might not pick otherwise. 

For the table, I created a sign, a signup sheet and a little take-away flyer. I started my design process by searching other book club flyers on Google and found a really cute one that I could pretty easily replicate. I'm really happy with how it turned out!

Fonts I used:
Modern No. 20
Gardenia (one of my favorite fonts right now)
Segoe Script


Saturday, June 6, 2015

My bookshelf

Growing up with a mom who wanted to be a librarian, we read a lot. I remember many visits to the library to pick out books to read.

Then at some point I made up my mind that it wasn't cool to read. I don't know why it mattered. I still read from time to time, but definitely not as much.

Over the past few years I have returned to reading just for the fun of it. It started off reading before going to bed. I find it is an excellent way to turn my brain off so I do not lie away thinking of everything under the sun and not being able to sleep.

And now that I'm stuck at work for lunch instead of being able to come home, I read on my lunch break, too. I have several co-workers that stop in the break room and will ask me what I'm reading. They have kids and say how they wished they had more time to read. One of the ladies told me that last weekend she finally took some time, sat in her comfy chair and read while her boys played. I was so happy for her that she was able to take some time for herself. I think all parents should do that!

I just finished a nice book called Charleston. Of course I would enjoy that, right? It took place in the 90's, so it was the Charleston of my youth. As always when I read books that take place in the Lowcountry, I got homesick. The story was interesting and hit home. It was about a lady who grew up in Charleston and then moved away for college and was living in London. She had been gone for about 10 years and then came home for a visit. She described her feelings about being home...how it was all so familiar and she just picked back up where she left off. I feel the same way every time I am back.

Our next book club book is called Brooklyn: A Novel. I am about 20% through the book. We picked it from a list of books that were becoming movies this year. So far, I am not sure it would make for a great movie. The story has been slow to get under way. I am hoping it picks up soon.

Monday, March 3, 2014

Austenland: Review


A while ago, I saw a preview for the movie Austenland. I love Jane Austen books, especially Pride and Prejudice. When I realized it was a book, I decided to read the book and wait for the movie to come on Netflix. The book made for light and quick reading, but it was a cute story. It is such a short book that you could read it in a day or two.

Last week the movie came in the mail from Netflix and we finally got around to watching it on Saturday evening. From the very beginning I knew I wasn't going to like it. As with most movies based on books, they deviated quite a bit from the book.

The other thing about the movie that I did not like was they made it too cheesy and ridiculous. Some of the characters were just annoying in the movie. I do not remember them being that way in the book. Only one character from the book and movie were pretty dead on.

In summary, I suggest reading the book and skipping the movie.

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Our Town

Last night I finished reading the play, Our Town, for the 3rd or 4th time. I fell in love with this play in the 8th grade while reading it for an English class assignment in Mr. Stallings' class. All throughout the year, Mr. Stallings would try to teach us life lessons. With each book and short story another life lesson was shared. The lesson from Our Town was to truly live everyday. I am often reminded of this life lesson.

If you have never read or seen Our Town performed, it's a great, simple play. It has three acts and takes place in a small town in New Hampshire. (I love New England!) It's basically about family, marriage and life in a small town.

In the last scene, one of the characters has died and she is watching her funeral. She has a chance to go back and live one day of her life. But it's too hard to watch because she can see that no one is really appreciating the moment as much as they should. My favorite line from the whole play is: "Do human beings ever realize life while they live it?--every, every minute?" It really makes you stop and examine your life. Do you say "I love you" to the people you love enough? Do you do the things that make you happy? Do you appreciate your life and everything in it?

Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Book Club for One

One of my favorite movies is P.S. I Love You. It has been out for a few years now and for Christmas I asked Charles to buy me the book. I figured if I loved the movie, the book would be even better. That's usually how it goes. I finished the book a few weeks ago and watched the movie again this morning so I can share my thoughts.

I was very surprised at how dramatically different the book and the movie are. Of course, the movie version of a book is always pretty different but this was like a whole different story, except for Gerry dying of a brain tumor. In the book, the characters are all living outside of Dublin, Ireland (which I loved because it is one of my favorite European cities). In the movie, Holly is American and Gerry is Irish. In the book, Holly's parents are still married and she has 2 older brothers, one younger sister and a younger brother and there is a great story about her relationship with her siblings that you don't get in the movie. In the movie, her father left them when she was 14 and she just has a younger sister so she already has abandonment issues. In the book, Holly and Gerry grew up together and everyone was happy that they got married. In the movie, their meeting is much more romantic. They met in Ireland while she was traveling on a college trip. However, everyone thought they got married too young. In the book, Holly receives 12 letters from Gerry all at once, one for each month, and she has to wait until the next month to open each letter. In the movie, the letters are much more unpredictable.

Overall, I think I enjoyed the book more. The movie always makes me cry but the book showed so much more emotion and delved more into what Holly was feeling after the death of her husband. It focused a lot on her strength; she didn't feel like she was strong, but her family and friends all admired her for it. I think I love this book/movie so much is because I know I would be just like Holly if anything ever happened to Charles. He is the love of my life and I can't imagine what it would be like to live without him. In the book, Holly jumps from job to job and after Gerry dies she has to figure out what she wants to do in life. But she feels like her purpose was to love her husband and she was very good at that. I feel I'm the exact same way.

If you haven't seen the movie, I highly recommend it. Just make sure to have a box of Kleenex handy.