Cleaning out the garage 2013

I have mentioned this many times over the years, at one point (approximately 2005-2006) the garage was a total mess. I took care of 10 items a day out of the garage until it was clean.  10 items a day was very doable.  I looked. I am not sure there was an "as it happened/10 items a day" garage post.  But here is a recap post I wrote in 2008.





2013 -
Monday 6/10/13 my husband and I cleaned the cupboards in the garage.

Sunday 6/16/13, husband and I cleaned out the odds and ends that had accumulated on the floor of the double bay side of the garage (where the cupboards are). Then middle and I scrubbed the floor with soap, a broom and a hose.

Monday 6/17/13, middle and I removed everything from the messy half/side of the pegboard (single bay end of garage). We rearranged the hooks and brackets on the peg board, rehung what we were keeping, and then made a trip to GoodWill with all the rejects. We rehomed other things to a young couple with a new garden.

Wednesday 6/19/13, middle and I sorted out the other half the peg board. We also cleaned up a pile that had accumulated in another corner.

Thursday 6/20/13 I hauled everything out of the single bay floor and middle and I scrubbed it. While I was hauling, youngest sorted out bins of balls, outdoor games, etc. and middle scrubbed the three huge windows.  When my husband got home from work he sorted out four sets of golf clubs.

We have a pile going to GoodWill on Saturday.
My husband is taking the clubs to a local golf shop to see what is worth keeping.
I have a pile I am trying to decide - ?


The cupboard clean out was time consuming. The rest of these projects were small, doable jobs. Breaking them down into segments made each part defined and easy.

This is actually the before picture. I know, does not look like a huge mess. But it wasn't very tidy. And behind the garbage can, there was a whole lot of junk and dirt on the floor. Some of that stuff went to GoodWill and some of it was rehomed to a young couple with a large garden. 

Here is the after picture. We have things now on this peg board that were in other places in the garage and on the floor. So, in tidying and weeding out things, we picked up a lot more storage space.

Here is the before picture for the other half the peg board. 

After pegboard.
How many snow shovels do we actually need? Evidently we need all of these plus . . .

.  .  . the wide one which now hangs with the lawn chairs. 

Before Picture - See four sets of golf clubs in that far corner? We didn't know it, and we have no idea when, because no one actually plays golf so the clubs have not been touched in years, but at some point there was a nice mouse nest in the bottom of one of those bags. . .VERY luckily I only moved them out of corner and did not look in them before husband got home. Middle would have had to call EMS if I had been the one that found it (even though no little mouse nor mouse carcass was home). 

This is the pile (of clubs) my husband is taking in to a local gold shop to see what is worth keeping. One golf bag went in garbage, two to GoodWill, keeping one. (This picture is actually missing 6 wooden end clubs that I had already put in his car and 6 different length putters that we are keeping no matter what). 

Minus the vacuum cleaner and wheelbarrow in the background, this is the latest GoodWill pile for Saturday. The green and the black things are golf bags. 

This is my I can't decide pile. These all came on the truck from my husband's mother's house cleanout.  They were still sitting in a corner of the garage, unbeknownst to me.

After - Garbage can and recycling can and lawn mower were all out on driveway when this pictures was taken. They will all three go in what is the lower left corner of this picture. 

Before - this was actually taken on the day we were cleaning out the cabinets. My sorting table is in the lower right corner of the picture.

My books - House of Seven Gables (1851) by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Wiki notes:

The House of the Seven Gables is a Gothic novel written in 1851 by American author Nathaniel Hawthorne. Hawthorne explores themes of guilt, retribution, and atonement in a New England family and colors the tale with suggestions of the supernatural and witchcraft. The story was inspired by a gabled house in Salem belonging to Hawthorne's cousin Susanna Ingersoll and by those of Hawthorne's ancestors who played a part in the Salem Witch Trials of 1692. The book was well received upon publication and later had a strong influence on the work of H. P. Lovecraft. The House of the Seven Gables has been adapted several times to film and television.

No, I had never heard of Lovecraft, if you have, please leave a note in comments.

If you are trying to remember what else Hawthorne wrote - The Scarlet Letter (1851) - which I read this past January (2013).

Chapter one, House of the Seven Gables, is typical of books of this time frame. The author is trying to catch one up to a lot of details/history. The story doesn't start (in this book) until chapter 2. Sometimes (Dickens for example) the story doesn't start until chapter 3. It is good I not only understand this (now) but embrace it. I am not fighting these books as they start at their own pace.


character list (for a trip down memory lane if you have read the book):
Hepzibah Pyncheon
Clifford Pyncheon
Judge Jaffrey Pyncheon
Holgrave
Phoebe Pyncheon
Colonel Pyncheon
Matthew Maule (the elder)
Matthew Maule (the younger)
Alice Pyncheon
Gervayse Pyncheon
Uncle Venner
Old Jaffrey Pyncheon
Thomas Maule
Two workmen
The organ-grinder (and monkey)
Judge Pyncheon’s son
An old gentleman
Young boy (who eats different shaped cookies)
grimalkins

I felt like I was back to my kind of book.

The language is beautiful. Just beautiful.

I didn't know one thing about this book. Not one thing. Had never seen a movie version. Had never read an article. And I am not spoiling it here.

But I will say/warn that this is a classic and has a very slow pace.

If one is only use to modern with a lot of action and a very fast pace, it is going to feel odd.

My family and I have observed classics are an acquired taste.

Bug Pictures - No, I am not quite sure why each Bible School class had a bug mascot.

NOTE -
These are not original ideas. We did make them. But the inspiration/patterns came from Pinterest.

Scroll down to "Paper Plate and Straw Praying Mantis" - We made 10.

Middle made 20 bees for her door/wall.
Here is the inspiration bee picture (scroll down to bees buzzing on blue background).
The directions are Marble Paint Bee, under insect section.






ADDED LATER-

Middle's own name tag

Each year middle mails a class picture and a note to each child from her class  - here are copies of this year's version.

Original post -

This is middle's door. We found the flower idea on Pinterest too. We found the strips of construction paper already cut, when we cleaned out the art shelves under the stairs (post coming soon). 

This is on the floor, taken from part way up the stairway. It was hard to figure out how to get them all in a picture.

This is youngest's door. We only put three Praying Mantises on the door. The other 7 are for the kids to take home at the end of the week. We have serious doubts they will hang together on the door. We decided it was easier to mend 3 than 10. And there are 7 kids, so their bugs will stay nice.

We did not make the Praying Mantis names tags, one of the directors did, but we loved them.

I am not sure I have ever posted pictures of the storage cabinets in the garage, it is sort of a wall of cabinets, VERY handy, huge amount of storage.

There are four of them.

They measure 6 feet tall.

Each cabinet is 30 inches wide.

They are mounted on the wall, 8" off the floor.

As I said, it is sort of a wall of cabinets.

They were made by one of those custom closet companies and installed when the house was originally built.




I did think to take before pictures (right to left) -

This picture is very nicely out of focus because I was holding the iPad out over the hood of the car as far as I could reach, and I am sure my hand was shaking. I did better with the second/after picture of this cabinet (below).

And these are the after pictures (in the same order) -

Most of the things in this cabinet (now) were not in the cabinets previously, so I basically picked up a whole extra cabinet's worth of storage. 

When oldest is home in July, he is going to go through that whole big bin of cords and chargers (bottom shelf) and see what we actually need. 

Raincoats and slickers in bottom bin. Gloves, mittens, hats, scarves in other bin. Yes, I have a whole shelf of lunch boxes. 

I bought 6 small bins (shoe box size) and 4 large bins with locking lids for this project. I already had the rest of the bins.





Bonus -

There is very little on top of the cabinets (now).
If you look at the before pictures (top of post) you can see what was up there originally.
Previously, the white pool bag lived on top the cabinets (now in a cabinet).

And, on the far right, there were STACKS of paper bags, mailing boxes, lawn bags. 

I pruned down the volume of paper supplies hugely. 

And what I kept now fits in the cabinet.

Don't you hate the little pile of leftovers at the end of a cleaning out project? Yes, I took care of all of those and the table is back in the attic. I have four folding tables that we pull out for special projects. They are in the attic the rest of the time. Very handy solution.

This is the pile that was re-homed.

This is the pile that went to Good Will.

K-9 Kannon - youngest and I saw at a store and thought this looked like a LOT of fun (2/2)

My books - Romeo and Juliet (1597) by Shakepeare (1/2)

Yes, Shakespeare two weeks in a row.

As we were getting the DVD for King Lear, we got the DVD for Romeo and Juliet also.

Youngest was to have read this play (kids read the different parts) and then watched the DVD in high school this past year, but they ran out of time.

So, we caught her up to where she should have been at the end of the year. Yes, I am pretty sure she was the only high school kid to do this. (It was her suggestion, not mine.)

She loves West Side Story which is an interpretation of Romeo and Juliet. Here is a web site with 17 Romeo and Juliet off shoots listed. Some will probably surprise you.



Wiki notes:

Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written early in the career of William Shakespeare about two young star-crossed lovers whose deaths ultimately reconcile their feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular plays during his lifetime and, along with Hamlet, is one of his most frequently performed plays. Today, the title characters are regarded as archetypal young lovers.

Romeo and Juliet belongs to a tradition of tragic romances stretching back to antiquity. Its plot is based on an Italian tale, translated into verse as The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet by Arthur Brooke in 1562 and retold in prose in Palace of Pleasure by William Painter in 1567. Shakespeare borrowed heavily from both but, to expand the plot, developed supporting characters, particularly Mercutio and Paris. Believed to have been written between 1591 and 1595, the play was first published in a quarto version in 1597. This text was of poor quality, and later editions corrected it, bringing it more in line with Shakespeare's original.

Shakespeare's use of his poetic dramatic structure, especially effects such as switching between comedy and tragedy to heighten tension, his expansion of minor characters, and his use of sub-plots to embellish the story, has been praised as an early sign of his dramatic skill. The play ascribes different poetic forms to different characters, sometimes changing the form as the character develops. Romeo, for example, grows more adept at the sonnet over the course of the play.

Romeo and Juliet has been adapted numerous times for stage, film, musical and opera. During the English Restoration, it was revived and heavily revised by William Davenant. David Garrick's 18th-century version also modified several scenes, removing material then considered indecent, and Georg Benda's operatic adaptation omitted much of the action and added a happy ending. Performances in the 19th century, including Charlotte Cushman's, restored the original text, and focused on greater realism. John Gielgud's 1935 version kept very close to Shakespeare's text, and used Elizabethan costumes and staging to enhance the drama. In the 20th century the play has been adapted in versions as diverse as George Cukor's comparatively faithful 1936 production, Franco Zeffirelli's 1968 version, and Baz Luhrmann's 1996 MTV-inspired Romeo + Juliet.

We watched the 1968 DVD version:

Stephen Orgel describes Franco Zeffirelli's 1968 Romeo and Juliet as being "full of beautiful young people, and the camera, and the lush technicolour, make the most of their sexual energy and good looks." Zeffirelli's teenage leads, Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey, had virtually no previous acting experience, but performed capably and with great maturity. Zeffirelli has been particularly praised, for his presentation of the duel scene as bravado getting out-of-control. The film courted controversy by including a nude wedding-night scene while Olivia Hussey was only fifteen.

And

The film was directed and co-written by Franco Zeffirelli, and starred Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey. It won Academy Awards for Best Cinematography and Best Costume Design; it was also nominated for Best Director and Best Picture. Laurence Olivier spoke the film's prologue and epilogue and reportedly dubbed the voice of the Italian actor playing Lord Montague, but was not credited in the film.

Being the most financially successful film of a Shakespeare play during that time, it was popular among teenagers partly because the film used actors who were close to the age of the characters from the original play for the first time. Several critics also welcomed the film enthusiastically.

No SparkNotes needed for Romeo and Juliet.  It has been a long time since I read it, but both girls think the original text is pretty easy to understand.

Very easy to understand in DVD format. Which was obviously not word for word. Youngest said some of Shakespeare's writing was in there. But she had not finished it. Middle said she caught passages, but it was very different.

We (husband, middle, youngest and I) enjoyed Zeffirelli's version very much. It really stands the test of time (we thought). But we like old movies very much.

I thought the nude scene (mentioned above) was very tastefully done personally.

So the concern at the time was either 1968 sensibilities
OR
we saw an edited version for the DVD.

We saw her bare back and the rest was just implied. She was either in a skin suit or maybe it was taken care of digitally. If you happen to know anything about this, I would appreciate the info.



In school they watched the 1997 version with Leonardo di Caprio, Claire Danes, Brian Dennehy, John Leguizamo. Youngest did not care for that modern adaptation.



If you are trying to remember, here are the complete works of Shakespeare:

COMEDIES
All's Well That Ends Well
As You Like It
Comedy of Errors
Love's Labour's Lost
Measure for Measure
Merchant of Venice
Merry Wives of Windsor
Midsummer Night's Dream
Much Ado about Nothing
Taming of the Shrew
Tempest
Twelfth Night
Two Gentlemen of Verona
Winter's Tale


HISTORIES
Henry IV, Part I
Henry IV, Part II
Henry V
Henry VI, Part I
Henry VI, Part II
Henry VI, Part III
Henry VIII
King John
Pericles
Richard II
Richard III


TRAGEDIES
Antony and Cleopatra
Coriolanus
Cymbeline
Hamlet
Julius Caesar
King Lear
Macbeth
Othello
Romeo and Juliet
Timon of Athens
Titus Andronicus
Troilus and Cressida


POETRY
The Sonnets
A Lover's Complaint
The Rape of Lucrece
Venus and Adonis
Funeral Elegy by W.S.

Spools of Thread - how many does one need for the rest of their life?

Those are my spool racks, mounted above the bulletin board, in front of my sewing machine, in the closet under the stairs.

Closet is an odd term, it is actually a little room, but we call it 'the closet under the stairs'.

Middle went through and sorted spools by color.

Putting a lot of spools, which had been cluttering my sewing table, away in the process.

Nice and neat. Easy to find the right color. It is very rare that I have to buy the right color, usually we have it.

I do not sew for leisure any longer.

I sew to hem, mend, add straps, alter.

That is the ending half of the spools of thread story.





The first part of the story is, before middle even started tidying the spools to the finished state in the above picture, I started a spool donation bag.

One of the local high schools still has a sewing program.

I actually used to teach quilting in that same room at that same school, evenings, long ago. 

When I started the spool donation bag, I would look at the number of spools I had, decide I probably did not need 15 spools of white thread any more (I did when I was quilting all the time), and throw a few in the bag.

Then when middle was seriously tidying my spools (while I was working on a couple of her skirts at the sewing machine), she starting adding multiples to the donation bag in earnest.

She separated the spools into colors, looked to see if there were any exact duplicates (in colors other than white, black) and then only kept one of each color. And she pruned down the number of whites and blacks even further.





Last week, every day, I had multiple things in my car we had cleaned out of a closet or shelf that I was passing on to someone else.  (Several trips to GoodWill.)

When I pulled into the school lot, to drop of the spool donation bag, I thought - I wonder how many spools ARE in that bag?

I dumped them on the passenger seat.

Then I counted as I refilled the bag.

48 spools of thread were donated to the school. Doesn't look like it in the picture does it? When I started counting, I guessed half that amount. When I later asked middle, she guessed 50.





The spools from the picture at the top of the page are the ones we kept.

There are 105 spools in that (kept) picture.

We found (even) more as we kept cleaning that closet.

Yes, different colors are very necessary for mending, hemming, alterations, etc. And pretty much all of those colors get used, one time or another. But we did not need three spools of the exact same gold (for example).





I used to sew my way through whole spools of thread within a couple days (working on quilts or hemming massive amounts of baby blankets or the like).

I have not bought a spool of (any kind of) thread in many, many years.

I sent all my (specialty) quilting threads to a fellow blogger who happens to quilt, several years ago.

So, once upon a time, there were lots more spools of thread than what is covered in the pictures (above).

Irises from our yard (these pictures were taken in May)

The squirrels will not let me keep any tulips. They eat them all.

One year I planted over 500 tulip bulbs, thinking they would at least leave a few for me.

They ate every single one.

They do allow jonquils, irises and daffodils.

Everyday the jonquils and daffodils were in bloom, I meant to take a picture.

So, when the irises popped, youngest took pictures, with her iPod, as we pulled in the driveway after school. I was not letting those get away from me too.

My books - King Lear (1603-1606) by William Shakespeare

Wiki notes:

King Lear is a tragedy by William Shakespeare. The title character descends into madness after disposing of his estate between two of his three daughters based on their flattery, bringing tragic consequences for all.

The play is based on the legend of Leir of Britain, a mythological pre-Roman Celtic king. It has been widely adapted for the stage and motion pictures, and the role of Lear has been coveted and played by many of the world's most accomplished actors.

The play was written between 1603 and 1606 and later revised. Shakespeare's earlier version, The True Chronicle of the History of the Life and Death of King Lear and His Three Daughters, was published in quarto in 1608. The Tragedy of King Lear, a more theatrical version, was included in the 1623 First Folio. Modern editors usually conflate the two, though some insist that each version has its individual integrity that should be preserved.

After the Restoration, the play was often revised with a happy ending for audiences who disliked its dark and depressing tone, but since the 19th century Shakespeare's original version has been regarded as one of his supreme achievements. The tragedy is particularly noted for its probing observations on the nature of human suffering and kinship. George Bernard Shaw wrote, "No man will ever write a better tragedy than Lear".

In case you did not catch the last line, Lear is a tragedy. I am not sure if anyone sits and bawls at the end of Lear these days. I wonder if they did when it played. There is one (truly) cringe worthy scene. If you are watching it on video, it will be conveniently out of visual range (behind a chair or something).

In case you missed it (above), Lear takes place 8th century BC. In the legions of Britain, there is a King Leir. And that is the basis for Shakespeare's King Lear. There are other stories and plays based on this legion.





Just in case you are new -
1. My first dab into audio books happened in college (graduated in 1983) with a Shakespeare class. I quickly realized if I read the printed page, while listening to an audio version with each part read by a different actor, I understood much more of the play.

I did not return to audio books until 2010, driving home from North Carolina, listening to a Patrick Robinson submarine story my husband happened to have in the car. What a difference that made in a 14 hour driving day (bad weather). I have been hooked ever since. My husband has listened to hundreds of audio books through the years (in his car, work day). I listen to all my audio books in the car, running errands, traveling, waiting for kids. We bought my hybrid specifically so I can have the car 'running' while parked and listen through the stereo system. I get a lot of books 'read' that way over the course of the year. My lists for 2011, 2012, 2013 are on my sidebar.

2. I have mentioned one of middle's favorite English teachers thinks all Shakespeare should be seen and not read (it is a play after all).

3. We usually see at least one Shakespeare play a year (it just works out so that a play group, somewhere within driving distance, is doing Shakespeare).  My family enjoys them (stage version) very much. Yes, often at intermission we are catching each other up on what is happening. Sometimes we are even checking SparkNotes at intermission on my husband's iPhone (that would be me, often happens with plays, I "SparkNotes" up to the point we are in the play.).






Back to King Lear: I have read it at least once. I have seen it on stage at least once. When it was assigned by one of my reading groups (recently), I (foolishly) downloaded it from Audible. I was careful to get a version where each part was read by a different person. I started it. Two minutes later, I remembered 2, 3 above and stopped.

I went to the library and found a 1982 BBC DVD version that (pretty much) followed the script. (I am very attached to BBC, EVEN IF THEY ARE VERY OLD). Middle and I watched it.

We had both seen a theater performance in 2011. So we had both seen it before, even fairly recently, but could not remember the specifics. We watched one day while she worked on the door decorations for her bible school class. We watched a scene, and then I paused and read the SparkNotes from that scene out loud to both of us, and then we continued. (We both totally needed that SparkNotes intermission to really understand what was happening in the plot and subtext. )

That was actually a great way to watch (and understand) Shakespeare. Great afternoon.  I am a firm believer middle's high school teacher is right - plays are written to be seen and not read. I am also a firm believer that a little help from SparkNotes is a very good thing.  And I think one should see Shakespeare as often as one can.

Middle and I both attended my book group to discuss this book.

There was one man there who had never before read Shakespeare. He said of himself - I think I am just too pedestrian for Shakespeare. One of the other men there said - you just started with one of the harder plays.

It has been such a long time since I (Vickie) read Shakespeare, I have no opinion on that fact. The man who responded, mentioned in another part of the discussion that he has probably read Lear 20 times over the years.

In preparing to lead our group, the facilitator read Lear a couple times, listened to it on audible at least once, then watched the 2008 Ian McKellen version, and then I think he read it again.  He was well prepared and did a very good job. (Yes, there is enough depth to Lear that it stands up to many rereads in a very short time frame).

There was lots of (group) discussion. I didn't know how truly well I understood it until I realized I had an interpretation/viewpoint (all during discussion). Middle said the same thing - she had a definite viewpoint as she listened to other's talk.

Linen Closet, packing up winter bed layers

We have space bags in closets all over the house. Yes, partially for the space saving feature. But mostly to store clean things in an air tight environment where dust mites cannot flourish.

The bag on the left has 5 very thick winter blankets from my husband and my beds (we have two extra long twins, right next to each other, my husband twitches and jumps in his sleep, I am a very light sleeper). We switched to summer sheets/blankets over the weekend. Those winter blankets are all washed and packed until they are needed late next fall.

The bag on the right has all the weird odds and ends of sheets, mattress pads and bed skirts from many years of different beds. They are all still in very good shape, keeping them for future use, but not needed right now. 

For example: There are at least two sets of queen size sheets in that bag and we have not have a queens size bed for years. But someday, one of the kids probably will and they are very good sets. There are also a lot of single, flat sheets in that set. The fitted part of those sets are long gone, but the flats are still in very good shape. And those have come in handy many a time. 

My husband helped me dig them all out of the linen closet over the weekend. They all fit in one bag. There is a lot in that bag. 

This is the bottom of my linen closet. This first bag, shoved way to the rear of the closet is the odds and ends bag from the right side of the picture (above). 

This is the second bag, put in front of the other bag, in the bottom of the closet. As you can see, 17" clearance to fit. Very good use of space.

This is the top half of that same closet.

The top shelf is full of small space bags with one or two extra bed pillow each. These are company pillows. The space bags keep them dust free.

The next to the top shelf has wash clothes front left, hand towels front right, all kinds of chucks/other mattress protectors back left, and pillow cases/sheets back right.

The shelf with the bright pink and blue has beach towels in the front and quilts in the back.

The bottom shelf has one quilt. And then you can see the space bags in the bottom of the closet. If you are wondering about the size of those shelves, they are 27 1/2" deep and 23" wide. The shelving comes all the way out to the front of the closet, no wasted space. 

I did not think to take a before picture.

This closet was VERY full looking just two days ago. All the odds and ends, that weren't actually ever used (right space bag) were cluttering the living daylights out of this closet. And there is actually more IN the closet now, than then, because I added the five winter blankets that were on our beds (left space bag).

My books - Around the World in 80 Days (1873) by Jules Verne

Wiki:

Around the World in Eighty Days (French: Le tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours) is a classic adventure novel by the French writer Jules Verne, published in 1873. In the story, Phileas Fogg of London and his newly employed French valet Passepartout attempt to circumnavigate the world in 80 days on a £20,000 wager (roughly £1,324,289 today) set by his friends at the Reform Club. It is one of Verne's most acclaimed works.

Here is NovelGuide's biography of Verne. Short and interesting.

Jules Verne (1828-1905) novels are actually all translations (he wrote in French). It is funny to think of them as foreign (I think).

H. G. Wells (1866-1946) was from England if that is where your mind went (mine did, obviously).

If you get confused between the two authors, Well's top ten books are listed as

The Time Machine (1895)
The War of the Worlds (1898)
Kipps (1905)
Tono-Bungay (1909)
Ann Veronica (1909)
The History of Mr Polly (1910)
Mr Brittling Sees It Through (1916)
Russia in the Shadows (1920)
A Short History of the World (1922)
Experiment in Autobiography: Discoveries and Conclusions of a Very Ordinary Brain (1934)

Here is a link to a listing of Verne's works (it is a long list). On that same page are links to character lists too.


Now that I have gotten all that book housekeeping out of the way:
I loved this book.

I had never actually seen any of the movies (I was thinking 1956 starring David Niven, not 2004 starring Jackie Chan and Steve Coogan). So yes, I knew they were somehow racing around the world, but I did not know any of the particulars. 

So the book was fresh and interesting to me.  It was very much a story.  It was an easy to understand, light read. But that was welcome just now. Kind of the perfect summer book (for me).

I listened to this book directly after This Side of Paradise, so honestly, it was a relief to settle into something I liked.

My audio version was 7 HRS and 51 MINS, narrated by Jim Dale, released in 2005 (from Audible).

I actually started with the USFLit2Go version and had to switch.

The USF reader was too fast for me. He was not telling a story, he was finishing the page, to me.  I have the ability to slightly slow down or speed up my iPod, but even that was not enough to compensate.  There are a couple USF readers who I adore, but this was not one of them.

And interestingly, I picked up the fact that the two readers were using slightly different translations. USF version used the word "trunk" and the Audible version said "suitcase". I noticed other slight differences. So it was as if I switched from an English to an American version. I would have preferred the English version, but was not willing to give up Jim Dale. An added point for the Audible version is there was subtle sound effects here and there - a little music, train noises, etc.  It was not like listening to a movie sound track, not at all, but just little bits here and there that I really enjoyed.



I caught something in Chapter XI - IN WHICH PHILEAS FOGG SECURES A CURIOUS MEANS OF CONVEYANCE AT A FABULOUS PRICE:

"They soon reached a small hut, near which, enclosed within some high palings, was the animal in question. An Indian came out of the hut, and, at their request, conducted them within the enclosure. The elephant, which its owner had reared, not for a beast of burden, but for warlike purposes, was half domesticated. The Indian had begun already, by often irritating him, and feeding him every three months on sugar and butter, to impart to him a ferocity not in his nature, this method being often employed by those who train the Indian elephants for battle. Happily, however, for Mr. Fogg, the animal's instruction in this direction had not gone far, and the elephant still preserved his natural gentleness. Kiouni—this was the name of the beast—could doubtless travel rapidly for a long time, and, in default of any other means of conveyance, Mr. Fogg resolved to hire him. But elephants are far from cheap in India, where they are becoming scarce, the males, which alone are suitable for circus shows, are much sought, especially as but few of them are domesticated. When therefore Mr. Fogg proposed to the Indian to hire Kiouni, he refused point- blank. Mr. Fogg persisted, offering the excessive sum of ten pounds an hour for the loan of the beast to Allahabad. Refused. Twenty pounds? Refused also. Forty pounds? Still refused. Passepartout jumped at each advance; but the Indian declined to be tempted. Yet the offer was an alluring one, for, supposing it took the elephant fifteen hours to reach Allahabad, his owner would receive no less than six hundred pounds sterling."

So, they were feeding normally gentle elephants sugar and butter to make them mean enough to fight (and provoking them).

Am I the only one who finds that a fascinating and topical concept? And this would only be how the elephants FELT, because they would not have any of the self image issues associated with body size for female humans. The sugar and butter changed their personalities (according to the story).

I used to blame hormones on how I felt and my emotions/mood. I also blamed hormones on what I perceived to be hot flashes and night sweats and early menopause. When I cleaned up my food, all of that went away, even though I am now older (and still cycling). So whether the food/junk impacted the hormones or whether it was the food/junk directly impacting me, it stopped. Really stopped. And if I eat the wrong things, it comes back to me.