hey Yoyo... Found her biog and thought you might find it helpful... Apparently the island is make-believe, but since she was in Trinidad for a while, perhaps there is some of that...? Here is a link that might be useful: Shani Mootoo bio

Inspired by this conversation I have downloaded an ebook of Miss Buncle's Book from our local public library, though I have not yet read it. I also dowloaded and read Eva Ibbotson's The Secret Countess. I found it pleasant and readable, but for me it is probably not a read-again book. Long ago I read DE Stevenson's The Young Clementina, and I liked it enough to read it again a decade later. However I've tried a couple of her other books and couldn't get into them.

I can relate to "not knowing where to start", but about work in general. After Jody died, I really let things go. I fed the animals and did a little picking up around the place. Some days I dealt better than others. Now a year later, I am so behind on everything. I feel much better, but it is hot, hard work. I am getting ready to hire someone to come here and get control of the yard....which is about 3 acres, and mow the pasture for me. I need to fertilize the hay field, but the cost of fertilizer has skyrocketed. I don't even feed that hay because my horses are old and I feed them hay better suited for them, which was expensive to begin with and out of sight, I am sure now. But, Nicole's suggestion of organizing containers is excellent. I don't have room here like when we had an 10 room house before we moved, so I am putting away everything except the bare essentials, to sell them. I asked my daughter if she wanted anything. I had hoped she would at least wanted Grandma's old cookie jar, but she didn't grow up with it, so I am sure some cookie jar collector will love it.

What was the Magnaverde quote? Decorate for the life you have, not for the life you wish you had? Perhaps kurashi is a combination of those two concepts? Just in looking at the brief descriptions, I get the impression she wants us to think about how the life we are living jibes with the life we really want to live. Do you have full sets of fine china but entrtain caually? Do you have boot trays overflowing with shoes because you don’t carry your shoes to the bedroom closet, because it’s more convenient to leave them by the door? (solution: fewer shoes or create shoe storage in the closet by the door?) And more such things. So, if you study the way you really live and the way you want to live, some changes should arrive at a point where they converge. And bring you joy. The book is checked out at most of my libraries, and it being new I can’t request it from another. But I can make a short drive to check it out in person. And don’t worry, visiting the other libraries in my system does bring me joy.