Saturday, April 25, 2009

Shakespeare: The Original Mac Daddy?!



We all know that there is not much concrete information on William Shakespeare. Most people know about the question of the actual authorship of his work. However, (I’m ashamed to admit this because I have a degree in English and didn’t know this…) there is a question out there as to the many wives of Shakespeare too. Watch out Henry VIII, here comes Master Shakespeare to give you a run for your spousal money!!!! LOL! Just kidding, Shakespeare didn’t have that many! There is an entry in the Stratford book of marriages for Shakespeare and TWO women. The second woman is Anne Hatheway whom we all know to be his wife. But, on the day before that entry there was a marriage license dispensed for him to wed Anne Whateley. Was this a clerical error? Was he a bigamist? What’s going on here?

Karen Harper’s novel, Mistress Shakespeare, tells the story of his secret life with Anne Whateley. It seems they were childhood sweethearts who were secretly wed before Shakespeare married the other Anne! Oh…the scandal!! LOL! Anne Whateley is his London wife and Anne Hatheway is his Stratford wife.

This is a pretty interesting novel if you’re like me and enjoy all things Shakespeare. It tells of his rise to artistic fame set against the backdrop of the times – political unrest, the plague, etc. It also gives an interesting interpretation of his plays and sonnet series from the perspective of his double spousal relationships and thus his warped interpretation of love.

I look forward to reading more by this author and was pleasantly surprised to find a lot more of her historical fiction at my local library! Yippee!!!! I love summer reading on the beach!!!! I hope my library doesn’t mind when books come back a little sandy…

Friday, April 24, 2009

Feeling Truly Blessed

THANK YOU!!! THANK YOU!!!! THANK YOU!!!!!!!!

I can't thank you all enough for all the positive energy that you have sent my way. I feel so blessed to be a part of the blogging community! You all are the absolute BEST!!!!

I'm still packing like a crazy person and feeling a little over whelmed with it all. Our moving day is Monday the 4th of May. Please send more good vibes for nice weather and a speedy moving company! (Wow! Do they ever charge a small fortune to move your stuff!)

Does anyone have any advice on the moving of my pets? The cats have never been in the car longer than the 10 minutes it takes to get to the vet and they scream the entire way! I hoping the cats go to sleep for the three hour journey and I'm also praying that neither of them get car sick!!! LOL! My poor little guys! There's also the birds to think about. I've realised that the cage is too tall to fit in my car on the back seat so they're going to go for a little visit with my mom. My darling mom is going to have to chauffeur them to our new place in her minivan! I wonder how they'll do?! LOL! Can you imagine the racket if I did put them all in the car on the same journey! LOL! My husband and I will need earplugs!

Monday, April 20, 2009

Breathing Through Insanity

My life as of late has been INSANE!!!! My hubby and I are having some real financial issues (the local food bank is our saving grace) and as such are selling our house in order to get our feet back on the ground. It sucks but it's necessary. We're keeping our positivity hats on and it seems to be working out well. We decided to get the house ready to sell and in a complete whirlwind of garbage bags and trips to the local dump, we finished all our work in about a week! Insane...I know! It gets better though...Our house sold in 5 days!!!!! Can you believe it! With all the doomsayers out there who were telling us to prepare for the house to be on the market for about 6 months to a year because of these "tough economic times"!!!! Well, we must have a guardian angel on our side because everything's going well. Now we're madly grabbing boxes from every grocery store in a 10 mile radius and packing all our stuff like crazy people! Where are we moving you ask? Well, Huntsville is calling our name and we're listening! We're so excited to be moving to the country to start over our life! We've always wanted to move up there and we both feel like if we didn't have our back up against the wall that we never would have made the move. Some times things don't occur the way you want them to but your dreams still come true!

Well, that's my life right now but I've still had plenty of time to stitch! I put my Elegance of the Orient on hold for a bit because my husband bought me Ballerina Beauty!!!! He saw it on sale and thought I needed a little pick me up!!! I know...my husband is truly the best guy out there! My digital camera is having some issues right now and so I'm unable to post any pictures but they will hopefully follow shortly. Also, it was my birthday a little while back and my amazing Mom bought me The Mighty Samurai and another one that I can't remember the name of but I'll post that soon too!

I'm all a jumble and thrilled to bits to be posting again! I'm at the library right now (apparently the internet people cut off your service wen you can't pay the bill! LOL!) and I'm trying to remember everything I wanted to share. I'll post again soon and keep you all updated with my crazy life, stitching, and I've also read some AMAZING books recently that I'm dying to share!