April 30, 2017 by ddominikwickles

Wanderlust Through Books

This week’s Daily Post Photo Challenge is Wanderlust. I love to travel although I do not get to do it as much as I’d like, due to life obligations, money and time:( So, I travel through the books I read.

This week I’ve traveled all the way back to 17th Century Japan with Laura Joh Rowland’s novel, The Perfumed Sleeve.

book cover

From Publishers Weekly

In Rowland’s ninth absorbing historical set in 17th-century Japan (after 2003’s The Dragon King’s Palace), Sano Ichiro, the shogun’s special criminal investigator, must once again navigate treacherous political waters to solve a puzzling murder. Sano finds himself retained by a corpse when the valet of one of the country’s leading figures, councilman Makino Narisada, delivers a posthumous request from his master. Narisada asks Sano to examine the circumstances of his own death. At first it seems that the elderly official succumbed to natural causes, but several clues point to foul play. While the initial suspects from the victim’s household all appear to be harboring guilty knowledge, the detective’s task is rapidly complicated when the two leading political rivals battling to succeed the shogun accuse each other of the murder and pressure Sano to slant his pursuit accordingly. The shadow of events from The Dragon King’s Palace hangs heavily over the two main supporting characters, Sano’s wife and his chief assistant, driving them to take perilous risks; nonetheless, this is an accessible entry point to the series for newcomers. Deftly combining a classic whodunit with vivid period detail, Rowland raises the stakes for her next book with an unexpected twist at the end that promises to present her dogged but fallible hero with even more difficulties in the future.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

I really enjoy this mystery series and it helps feed my wanderlust.

Do you like to travel through books?

April 25, 2017 by ddominikwickles

Spring, a Time To Recycle

Both Earth Day and the Daily Post’s Photo Challenge put me in the mood to talk about recycling, re-purposing and reused.

If you stop and think about it, just about everything can be recycled, re-purposed and reused.

Old bed sheets can be cut up for cleaning and garage rags.
Used tea bags can deodorize sneakers and boots. (For more uses see 5 Uses for Used Tea Bags )
The brown paper used as packing in delivery boxes can be turned into wrapping paper that kids can color on or a free toy cats can play with for days.
What looks like droplets to Quinn’s face is from the sun through the window blinds.
Empty milk jugs and pop bottles can be made into bird feeders.
Donate gently used items to your local thrift stores for others to reuse. The picture you’ve had hanging in your entryway for the last decade can be donated and exchanged for a picture that hung in someone else’s entryway for the same decade. It doesn’t have to be brand new, just new to you 🙂