The Knitting Fiend

Christine tagged me. Arggh! Here are my answers:

1)Total number of books in your house:

Countless! There are at least 100 in the upstairs guest bedroom, boxes of books in the basement, and we sifted through and found “nice looking” ones to put on the shelves in the living room. (These include a complete set of Encyclopedia Brittanica’s from 1911 dedicated to, believe it or not, Warren G. Harding.)

2)The last book you bought was:

Oh boy! For the last 5 years I’ve made it a habit to go to the library for anything other than reference books. I did break down and buy The Kinesiology of Exercise, after using the libraries copy for a long time. It’s a little disorganized, but it describes the exercises well.

3)What was the last book you read before reading this?

Last 2 books I read were “Florence Harding” and “Warren Harding”.

I have to answer the obvious question: Why?!

My grandmother was born Lucia Harding. I spoke with my, 96 year old, deaf as a post, tottering on high heels, whiskey sipping Great Aunt Dolo. She was reminiscing about various family members and told me “Uncle Warren” — not her father’s brother, mind you– came to visit her family in Santiago, Cuba sometime before he was Preisident.

I’m probably the only person who paid close attention to the Harding’s travel schedule trying to figure out when this tripmight have occurred.

BTW. The Florence Harding book is fairly interesting. (I checked my copy out at the library!)

Oh! You can also play a game when reading these. Write “Clinton” on one side and “Harding” on the other. Then put bullets below for topics like “economics”, “infidelity”, “legal/financial scandals”, “first ‘black’ president” etc. Almost any topic you want. Compare and contrast. I swear, you just have to laugh.

4)Write down 5 (or 6) books you often read or that mean a lot to you.

All three books in “The Lord Of The Rings”. “Gone With the Wind”. The whole “Narnia” series by C.S. Lewis. “Persuasion” by Jane Austin. “Knitting Without Tears” by Elizabeth Zimmerman because it made me brave enough to design. Although, I must say, her percentage system is seriously deficient. And I don’t mean her specific choice of percentages. The whole idea of percentage sweaters leads to designs that “sorta fit’ most people. ( I call this “Mom fit”. You know, the sort of fit a mother of 4 rapidly growing kids thinks is “perfect” when outfitting her kids in handme downs? Yeah. It kinda fits. )

5)Who are you going to pass the stick to (three people) and why?

Well, I’d like to send it to my sister, but she doesn’t blog! So, I’m going to pick on people who leave comments at my blog:

Erika, The Knit Rider, who is practically my neighbor in Chicago.
Jussi Jussi’s Knitting Circle way down in Sidney.
Sonja Xona Fusion Knitting, more people should see the gorgeous stuff she knits! (In fact, you should go to day, because the stuff is gorgeous.)

If I took Sonja’s advice, I’d be getting out my Lace Carriage and interpreting the Christine’s Lelah on a knitting machine.

I bet not one of these women read the Harding books!