The House of Unexpected Sisters

I'm having a minor outpatient medical procedure on Tuesday morning

and don't know when I'll be able to visit the T Stands for Tuesday folks.

I'm hoping to be awake and recovered enough to fully participate in a

State of the Union BINGO game with family. That'll brighten my day, won't it!

I'll make my blog visits as soon as I'm awake enough to make sense.

I do enjoy the Tuesday T fun.

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The House of Unexpected Sisters is the 18th book in The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series by Alexander McCall Smith. I started reading these when the series first began. Mother -gone these five years now- and I would read them and enjoy discussing them together. Such sweet memories. I'd recommend reading these books in order, as the relationships grow over the course of the series. This book got good reviews.

from the back of the book:

In this delightful installment of the bestselling No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, Mr. Polopetsi tells Mma Ramostswe and Mma Makutsi a troubling story about a woman who has been wrongly dismissed from her job. Never one to let an injustice go unanswered, Mma Ramotswe begins to investigate, but she soon discovers that the case is more complicated than she initially suspected.

Other surprises await our intrepid heroine. Mma Ramotswe happens to hear of a local nurse named Mingie Ramotswe. Who is this mystery lady who shares Precious's surname? Then she finds out that an unpleasant figure from her past has recently been spotted in town. With the generosity and good humor that guide all her endeavors, Mma Ramotswe will untangle these questions, ultimately bringing to light important truths about friendship and family -both the one you're born with and the one you choose.

favorite quotes:

she glanced out of the window. The sun was on the acacia tree outside, throwing delicate shadows from the foliage. These shadows fell on the trunk of the tree, creating patterns of darkness and light, a mottled effect. A tiny creature, a lizard or gecko, moved suddenly from one of these shadows, clinging to the bark of the tree, becoming sunlit for a few seconds before retreating into the shade. It is going about its business, she thought; this small being had matters as large and important, to it, as our own human affairs. And most of the time, of course, we did not notice such things because it was our own business that we were concerned with, and our hearts were not large enough for things that were so much smaller than we were.

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She missed him [her late father] -still, after all these years, there was so much she wanted to ask him. ...There was so much she would have liked to have found out, but, as was the case with so many questions, they are only asked when it is too late and they can no longer be answered.

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Those images of those old places, the places you come from, never completely disappear. They remain with you, those scraps of memory, those pictures somewhere in your mind of how things were, of what the sun looked like when it shone through the window of your childhood room and caught floating specks of dust in its rays...

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and a quote with tea in it:

She had plenty of time at her disposal -hours if necessary- and she was looking forward to a long session of tea and cake with her old friend.

And on that note, I'd invite you to join the weekly T Stands for Tuesday blogger gathering where we share a post with a drink in it and enjoy visiting with old friends and new.

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I'm not entering these challenges but am using the ideas for inspiration.

I have some ATC art to share today. I found two ideas I combined -the More Than Words "Say" January mini-challenge and the Think Monday, Think ATC Collage challenge (also from January). The background came from a jeans ad in a magazine:

I added words, both cut out and hand lettered, then glued a row of gravel to the bottom.

I used another catalog/magazine picture for the background on this one inspired by the Three Muses Birds challenge:

I picked up a dried leaf out of a patio flower bed, brought it in, wet it down thoroughly so it wouldn't crumble when I flattened it, and pressed it to dry. When it was dry I glued it and a juniper twig I found on the patio (I fear that juniper tree will not make it through the winter) to the background. The bird is from a card of embellishments I picked up on sale at Michael's back when Elizabeth first introduced me to ATCs and got me started.

I'm going to name the Try it on Tuesday Time Flies challenge from January and the Take a Word Roses challenge (also from January) as the inspirations for this ATC:

I used pink watercolor to cover a base card, then added some ferny, summery greenery paper and put some rick-rack over it. The ribbon reminded me of dancing around a May Pole. I added that clock with the rose as a reminder that time does fly and summer's roses will be here sooner than we expect.

I tried sewing again for this one and finally gave it up and covered the holes with those cute bug stickers:

I've decided that I need to do any sewing on a separate piece and then attach that piece to the ATC.

The More Than Words challenge for February appealed to me, and I had fun looking up song lyrics that went with "Always". Here's the first one I did that was inspired by that concept:

Again, please note: I'm not participating in this challenge but just using the general concept as inspiration for my ATCs. Here is another along that line:

Other of my ATC cards shared at this blog can be found by clicking on the ATC tag.