Dancing, Space Center, and Selvedges

The past week was mostly about activities other than quilting. 

Monday afternoon was spent in a three hour line dancing workshop. A local instructor arranged to bring Niels Poulsen from Amsterdam to teach. I attended his intermediate level workshop, and boy, did his dance routines test my ability to recall 64-count dances! Here's a line dance Niels choreographed called Ghosted. Or you can watch Niels dancing it here.

On Wednesday hubs and I headed to Titusville where we stayed for two nights to revisit the Kennedy Space Center (KSC). We'd been there in March 2017 when Di came to visit from Australia, but it's a place worth visiting again. 

The all-inclusive price allows visitors inside a number of buildings where videos and exhibits can be seen. A bus will take you past the ginormous vehicle assembly building, where it appears that on this Thursday morning, many people were hard a work. The bus unloaded us at the Apollo/Saturn V Center.

There you can see actual capsules and rockets used in different missions. 

After a while, some of the rocket and shuttle names became blurred in my mind. A rocket is used only one time; the next generation is shuttles that rocketed upward, but then flew like a plane to land on earth. No waste!

Being at the Kennedy Space Center, and watching numerous video presentations about the space program since 1962, including President John F. Kennedy's speech about it, made me really think about what we've already experienced. Anyone else besides me remember July 20, 1969 - TODAY, 55 years ago - watching Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walk on the moon?!

Now we're seeing what the future holds as other companies join the journey into space. Here's a model of the Artemis II that will send a crew to the moon for "a long term presence for science and exploration." 

The KSC IMAX theater program is about the James Webb Telescope - more powerful than the Hubble telescope. It was fascinating to learn about! After $1 billion was spent designing and building the Webb telescope, it was launched from French Guiana (because the location was near the equator) on December 25, 2021. It has been sending incredible images back to earth. 

The Boeing Starliner has been in the news. After experiencing a helium leak and thruster issues during docking with the International Space Station, it's not yet in condition to return two astronauts - Suni Williams and Butch Filmore - to earth. I can't imagine being in their space shoes!

Honestly, some of the space stuff is unbelievable, yet dozens and dozens of astronauts keep going. The "Heros and Legends" building is an impressive acknowledgement of everyone who's been in space.

After that well-spent day, we were ready for food. A search found Grills Seafood Deck and Tiki Bar in Port Canaveral. Turns out it's on the Royal Caribbean cruise ship dock! In port was the newest cruise ship in the fleet - the second largest cruise ship in the world, Utopia of the Seas - 6,700 passengers; 21 places to eat; 23 bars; 5 pools; 3 water slides, and 2 casinos. No, thank you!

We sure enjoyed our meals at that green-roofed restaurant though! As I've mentioned before, I'm not much of a fish-eater, but I was definitely won over by the delicious fish reuben recommended by our waitress. Can you imagine? Swiss cheese and sauerkraut with fish? It was amazingly good! The fish was cobia, a lean, mild-tasting whitefish. A Key Lime Colada went down real easy too. Hubs ate a shrimp Cuban.

It's nice to have these mid-week getaways, which affirm that: 1) crowds are thinner; and 2) motels are less expensive. Our Wednesday and Thursday night stay at a Hampton Inn jumped $70 more on Friday night. 

Not much happened in my sewing room this week where I focused only on making foundation paper pieced selvedge blocks for the Bibliography quilt. Thus far, 24 blocks are made. I'll stop at 30. 

Specifically using selvedges with text that includes a year, I was happy to find 2015 and 2013 selvedges for this block.

But when I found a selvedge from 1997 - whoo-ee! I texted Amy Friend (the pattern designer) to tell her. She texted back, "You win!" 😀 The 1997 date was on a selvedge of pink Moda Marbles. Were you quilting back then too?

 

Book Recommendations

A Novel Proposal by Denise Hunter is a sweet story about Sadie, a writer. She's already received a $20,000 advance on her next book, and must switch from her favorite Western genre to romance. She's never read a romance, let alone written one. Sadie's best friend suggests getting out of NYC to really focus on writing. She finds herself in one half of a duplex on a South Carolina beach with a stack of romance novels to read. 

Sadie meets the handsome landscaper, Sam, who lives next door. He seems to be a curmudgeon and will barely speak to her. She continues to meet friendly people, and decides (with the duplex owner's permission) to build and install a Little Free Library next to the duplex, right on the beach access boardwalk. While tending the library, Sadie finds the book Christy by Catherine Marshall (I read this book about 25 years ago. You too?). When she opens the book to leaf through the pages, she finds a space cut out of the pages and a box within it. 

What follows is a quest, with Sam's assistance, to return the book to its original owner. You might guess where all this is headed, and you'd be right - a predictable romance. Apparently this book has been made into a Hallmark movie. 

I appreciated the book recommendations Sadie made to people using the Little Free Library which is what prompted me to read my next book - Julie by Catherine Marshall. 

Linda's score: 4.9/5.0

Julie by Catherine Marshall was written in the 1970, but wasn't published until after her death in 1983. It's based on Catherine's own life during the Depression, and is definitely worth reading, even decades later. 

Julie Wallace is 18 years old, the oldest of three children. Her father was a pastor, but they've left that church in Alabama to live in Alderton, Pennsylvania where Ken Wallace is the new owner of the Alderton Sentinel. Though he knows nothing about the newspaper business, the whole family have jobs to do. 

As Julie learns more about her father's business, she becomes privy to concerns in the community - the risks and treatment of men working in the steel mill; living conditions of workers in a flood-prone area called The Lowlands, and questionable practices of the community's elite. When a engineer's report is missing - about the condition of an earthen dam, holding back water above several communities, including Alderton - Julie and her dad raise concerns. Their family is threatened, and all of Alderton is at risk. 

Julie is a captivating story that's a good reminder about how far we've come since Depression-era working conditions and safety standards. Scripture and Bible lessons are woven into the story too. I know this book will stick with me for a long while.

The only negative thing I'll say is that the narrator is Cassandra Campbell. After hearing her read dozens of books, I'm a bit tired of her voice which is okay, but not a favorite.

Linda's score: 4.4/5.0