The need for speed?

Do you have an idea how many pages are out there offering reading speed tests or tips and techniques (7, 8, 12, 15, even 20) for increasing your reading speed and comprehension?
On the other hand, there are just as many pages about slow reading.
I browsed through a few and all of them listed benefits and downsides of the respective reading speed.

Picture via pxhere

There's no need to repeat them here as well. As usual, these are just my personal thoughts on the topic.

I read quite fast without ever having worked on any techniques, so I can't tell you if there are maybe things I do automatically. Although I have never timed my reading, it's definitely not speed reading and that's fine.
I can understand that someone who has to read a lot for research, studies or work would want to get through books or documents quickly. It has been a long time that I had to do that myself under the pressure of a deadline, though.
Personally, I don't think books that are read for pleasure need to be sped through. If you already are a speed reader, fine, but I don't need to become one just for them.

Actually, I thought I should rather look into slow reading instead. Change the pace every, now and then.
So I looked at a few tips after all.

Make a ritual of your reading by creating the perfect space and surroundings.
My perfect space is my bed, my favorite time is the night. With age, I have become much more intolerant to noises from the outside. Not the birds I can hear right now, but car doors slamming, sometimes cars in general, power tools, but also people talking loudly. I don't know if my street has really become louder or if it just feels like that to my brain.
Something to drink next to me is a must, cold or hot depending on the temperatures.

Ban the cell phone from the room / avoid multitasking.
My problem is not a smartphone as I don't have one, but the notebook if I use it to read, but if I notice feeling the urge of changing to a different page, that's usually the sign for me to stop reading for now, anyway. I'm not saying it never distracts me at all, though. Personal emails have indeed been answered during reading sessions before. 

Set small goals.
I don't set goals at all. I just read on as long as I feel like it and have time. So maybe that would be worth a try. Make myself stop and take a break every, now and then to allow the content to settle in my brain even more deeply.
It probably depends on the content, though. I can tell which books take me longer - biographies or classics, for example - while it's harder to take a break from my vintage crime books. Come on, I have to know who murdered Lord Holstonebrook in the folly and why they left an initialled baby blanket, don't I??

Take notes or mark something you really like.
Aah, I mentioned before that I'm not the journaling type at all. That hasn't changed so far, no matter how much I like a sentence or passage.

Reading goes well with selfcare - tea, a bath, soft music or aromatherapy.
I'm fine with the tea, but the others are not for me. I can't do longer tub sessions anymore, I don't do aromatherapy (not taking chances with an allergic cat), and even soft music is not my thing when reading. I only like background noise of any kind for crafting.

Discuss books with others.
Meeting people in a book club is out of the question for me for different reasons. I would prefer one to one discussions and by that I don't mean just reacting to a comment on an app or a blog post.
Also, part of the problem are probably the books I read or those I don't read.

So - is reading the way I do it just my kind of slow reading? I'll have to think about that.
However, I'm missing one thing in this list and that's reading loud. Even if it's not a book I read to Gundel, I read sentences or passages out loud to savor the beauty of a sentence or grasp the meaning of something better.

How do you feel about speed or slow reading and what do you prefer?

This post was inspired by a friend participating in a blog hop about how fast people read.


By the way, if you write book reviews or blog posts about other book-related matters - even movies based on books - please check out "A Good Book and a Cup of Tea", a monthly bookish blog link party that I host together with Erin from Still Life, With Cracker Crumbs and Lisa from Boondock Ramblings. You can find out more about it here.

From my children's book cabinet - Dunkles Glas und Fisch in der Lampe

The German title of the book I have for you today translates to "Dark Glass and Fish in the Lamp".
It was published in 1963. Ingeborg Engelhardt, the author, wrote novels with the aim to make history accessible for children and young people. Instead of writing books about famous personalities of a certain time, country or region, though, her books told stories of ordinary people. For that, she also visited some of the places where her novels were set and did research, for example in archives.

I'm aware that you won't find an English version of this book - actually it's out of print here as well -, but I hope you'll be able to enjoy hearing about it anyway, just as I like to discover what children in other countries got to read.
I must have read this for the first time when I was about 11 because it was a recommendation by my Latin teacher who very much believed in children learning not through mere facts, but also stories and pictures (she and her husband traveled a lot and in every last class before vacations she would show us slides).
That fits well with her also being responsible for the small school library meant for the lower classes where my friend and I spent happy hours helping out. I remember how delighted she was about my becoming a librarian.
Mrs. Evler, this post is for you.

Germania inferior (red) within the Roman Empire
around the time of the book,
picture by ArdadN (public domain) on Wikipedia

We are in Germania inferior ("Lower Germania") towards the end of the first century AD, in Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium, to be precise, the province's capital and military headquarters from which the city of Cologne developed.

Römerturm in Cologne (the only surviving
of 19 Roman towers which were part of
the city walls), picture by Mediatus,
CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

During a stormy night, three travelers look for shelter at an inn, a young boy and his two Egyptian slaves. They ask for a glassmaker called Timon whom they visit the next day.

The young boy is Lysander, son of the famous glassmaker Ennion of Aquileia who has been executed by Emperor Domitian, allegedly for inventing unbreakable glass which would have upset the economical balance.
After fleeing from Aquileia to escape the wrath of the Emperor who had also confiscated his inheritance, all Lysander has left are the slaves Nemo and his brother Mutus who worked with his father.
Now he wants to work for Ennion's old friend Timon until he can return home. Timon has been about to close down his workshop because he can't compete with glassmakers from other Roman provinces. His daughter Fides, called Fugilo ("little bird"), however, convinces him to give Lysander a chance although it might prove dangerous for them to host a wanted man.
Lysander, on the other hand, who lives with them at first is shocked to find a fish scratched into their oil lamp and thus learn that Timon and Fugilo are Christians.

Roman perfume bottle
(around 1st to 3rd century),
 picture by Hermann
 Junghans, CC BY-SA 3.0,
via Wikimedia Commons

With their beautiful glass, Lysander, Nemo, and Mutus get the attention of a big merchant who makes a deal with them to sell it to rich people outside of the province.
Therefore, the workshop's reputation spreads until a Gothic king and his daughter arrive to have Lysander replicate a glass that's important for a wedding ritual. The experienced Nemo takes on that task, but Lysander holds back the finished glass having fallen in love with the beautiful Svanadis and not wanting her to return home.
He also finds out that Nemo is actually the one who has invented the unbreakable glass and kept experimenting. Nemo offers to share the secret with his master in exchange for his and Mutus's freedom.
Everything changes, however, when the workshop goes up in flames.

Roman glass in the shape of a
Secutor's gladiator helmet, picture
by BS Thurner Hof, CC BY-SA 3.0,
via Wikimedia Commons 

It's still fascinating to me that the Romans used to be here, not just in Cologne, but also in my own town (which was part of Germania superior ("Upper Germania")). When our oldest church was renovated decades ago, archeologists found that in there had been a "villa rustica" in that spot, a farmhouse meant to provide soldiers with food.

Also I was already intrigued by glass even then (and of course loved the idea of unbreakable glass).
According to the Britannica, the Rhineland was one of the great glassmaking areas of the Roman world and there was decorated glass that was a speciality of the region.
The so-called "Schlangenfadengläser" (literally "snake thread glasses") were decorated with glass threads - clear or colored -  curling around the glass and pressed on. I couldn't find a picture I was allowed to share, but you can find one here that shows beautiful examples kept in Europen museums or in the banner of a page on the website of the Romano-Germanic Museum in Cologne which holds the worldwide largest collection of Roman glass.

We don't just get the story of Lysander, the glassmaker, though.
We also learn about him as a fugitive to a strange country so different from his own (snow!), as a son who wonders what the real reason was for his father's death and is afraid for his mother and sisters he had to leave behind (rightfully so as we find out at the end), as a young man falling in love with a princess from what's a Barbarian tribe to him who longs for home, as a master betrayed by his slave (from his point of view), and a man confronted with a faith other than his own.

Photo by Mina Meh on Unsplash

I devoured the book as a child and later kept looking for it on fleamarkets.
When the internet came along, I saw my chance, but didn't remember the author and wasn't sure about the title.
Finally, I posted on the "In search of" page of a used book site (the page doesn't exist anymore which is a pity as it was so interesting to read what others were looking for and also informative) and someone told me the title.
After getting it I luckily found I still enjoyed it as much as when I was 11.

Do you have books like that from your past?

Weekend Traffic Jam - Week 166

Welcome to the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot!
My posts for the link up will go live on Thursdays at 9:30 p.m. EDT or, if you live in the future like I do, on Fridays at 3:30 a.m. CE(S)T.

Technology - love it, hate it. At the moment I'm more of a hater as I'm still struggling with some last settings that stubbornly refuse to do what I want.
What I hate even more, though, are captchas. I don't know why websites I have visited forever have suddenly decided all at once to hit me with captchas. Not one or two, I would be fine with that, but multiple ones, up to 15. I'm tired of bicycles, crossings, buses, and traffic lights. I'm tired of tiny, sometimes even blurry pictures. And is a handlebar tip part of a bike or isn't it? Does anyone know? 🤪

Are you ready for the weekend?

As part of the reboot, we will be featuring a different blog every week.
How about stopping by and saying hello? Let them know we sent you.

This week our spotlight is on Old New Green Redo.

Sandi from Old, New, Green, Redo says: "Barberry Lane Designs is the home of an artist, antique and uniques collector, entrepreneur, historical writer, gardener, Granny and awesome cook."

Marsha from Marsha in the Middle started blogging in 2021 as an exercise in increasing her neuroplasticity. Oh, who are we kidding? Marsha started blogging because she loves clothes, and she loves to talk or, in this case, write!

Melynda from Scratch Made Food! & DIY Homemade Household - The name says it all, we homestead in East Texas, with three generations sharing this land. I cook and bake from scratch, between gardening and running after the chickens, and knitting!

Lisa from Boondock Ramblings shares about the fiction she writes and reads, her faith, homeschooling, photography and more.

Cat from Cat's Wire has what she calls a jumping spider brain. She has many interests and will blog about whatever catches her attention - crafts, books, old movies, collectibles or random things.

Rena from Fine Whatever Blog writes about style, midlife, and the "fine whatever" moments that make life both meaningful and fun. Since 2015, she's been celebrating creativity, confidence, and finding joy in the everyday.


Here are some of my picks from last week's link up.

Amalia thought that the world cup was better with cake.

Lisa's friend never says "Calm down" and Lisa tells us why.

Nancy has been at Bospop - are you curious?

Erin and her son Wyatt are half through their "Frog and Toad Summer".

I really like the sound of Angie's mushroom Devonshire pie.


Let's link up!

Guidelines:
This link party is for blog posts only. All other links will be deleted.
Please link only blog posts you created yourself. Please link directly to the URL of your blog post and not the main address of your blog.
Please do not link to videos, sales ads, or social media links such as YouTube videos/shorts, Instagram or Facebook reels, TikTok videos, or any other social media based content.
Please do visit other blogs and give the gift of a comment. 

Notice:
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We welcome unlimited, family friendly content. This can include opinion pieces, recipes, travel recaps, fashion ideas, crafts, thrifting, lifestyle, book reviews or discussions, photography, art, and so much more!
Thank you for linking up with us! 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Silent movies - A Dog's Life

Today I got two Chaplins for you. I don't mean two Chaplin movies, but two Chaplins in one movie - Charlie and his brother Sydney.
Let's have a look at "A Dog's Life" from 1918.

Here's the plot with spoilers.

The Little Tramp is trying to make the best of his life in the streets although he's sleeping rough, is sometimes forced to steal food, and has his run-ins with the law.

It's not that he doesn't want to work, but at the agency the others keep pushing him out of the way and in the end there's no job left for him.
Then he meets Scraps. The little stray has found a bone which attracts a lot of other dogs, and Charlie saves Scraps from the fight.

I'll happily admit that this made me feel
all mushy right away. The rest of the
pack raided a grocer's shop in the meantime.

At a coffee stall, Scraps takes the chance to steal some sausages and the Tramp stuffs himself with food every time the proprietor isn't looking.

A hilarious scene. The stall owner is Sydney Chaplin, by the way.

Now that they had something to eat, the Tramp heads for a dance hall. Unfortunately, the "Green Lantern" offers free dancing, but doesn't allow dogs, and they get thrown out.
He won't leave Scraps outside, though, and cleverly hides him. If only the tail wouldn't peek out through a hole in the pants, wagging like crazy.

There's a new singer and hostess in the bar who moves the audience to tears with her sad song.
The bar owner, however, wants his guests happy ... and thirsty! "If you smile and wink, they'll buy a drink."
So she tries her luck with the Tramp. After a bit of confusion, he asks her for a dance which turns out interesting, to say the least.
As the bartender finds out he has no money to buy drinks, however, he throws him out.

Flirting 101.

Outside, two villains mug a drunk gentleman and take his wallet. Being followed by police, one of them buries it in a hole next to the Tramp's favored sleeping spot.
Luckily, Scraps finds the wallet and they head back to the "Green Lantern".
Meanwhile, the singer has got herself sacked for refusing to dance with another customer. She's desperate because the owner doesn't want to pay her, but the Tramp shows her the money he has found and says they will settle in the country.
Too bad that the villains overhear them and take the wallet back. The Tramp doesn't give up that quickly, though, and manages to get the money back. 

"Giving" the villain his arms - a splendid performance.

The villains chase him to the coffee stall, during the struggle the wallet falls on the ground - from where Scraps successfully recovers it while the villains get arrested by the police and the Tramp escapes, leaving the poor stall owner behind confused and the worse for wear.

In the end, you see the happy couple on their farm and a bassinet stands on the floor - not with one baby, but a whole litter!

There are two things clearly standing out in this movie.

1. Scraps (called Mutt in real life) absolutely stole the show. Sorry, Charlie and Edna and the others, you were funny, but we all know who was the real heroine here.
2. The singer's dress. I just couldn't get over this masterpiece of fashion design. We should all wear dresses like that, women, men, children.
It looked like a long whitish skirt with a black diaphanous top over which there was kind of a black apron whose two parts were connected at the hips with black strips. But wait, there's more! Uhm, a flapping piece of curtain fastened to the back?
"We still need a dress for Edna. Oh hey, there's still some leftover fabrics here. I can do something with that!" Absolutely brilliant 😂

Not only Scraps leads a dog's life in the movie, but also the Tramp and the singer, even if not literally.
The association between the scenes of the Tramp losing the fight for a job at the agency and Scraps the one for the bone is obvious.
All three of them are forced into that life which actually makes it extra heartwarming to see them get their happy ending (even if founded on ill-gotten money). I was fully prepared to see them go down a lonely road into an uncertain future, but I liked this much better.

I also enjoyed the gags very much and the "choreography" that Chaplin was so good at.
32 minutes well spent indeed.

P.S. Did you notice something about the pictures? The familiar cane is missing. I guess a cane and a leash would have been too much.

Not on my bingo card

This is just a quick update/rant/vent.
A few days ago my notebook looked kind of weird. In one spot the case started warping, not much, but still in a way that didn't bode well.
I'm not going to go into details, let's just say buying a new notebook in a hurry had not been on my bingo card for the weekend.

Trying to make things look like I want them has been on my bingo card even less. I'm getting there, but there are still settings that are determined to fight me. Sounds that need to be turned off (my tolerance with beeping things has been going toward zero with age). A card reader that needs to arrive.

I'll be honest, I don't do well with change once I'm used to something that has been working for me.
Bookmarks, files, where to save what, change this in Windows setting, that in Firefox, the next here and there and everywhere ... and why the heck won't it let me change the start screen?? I would lie if I didn't admit that my motivation has dwindled by the second.
And having to start my video game again for the third time now, now that's just adding insult to injury!
At least I didn't lose any pictures.

Actually, I just wanted to let you know that I'll have to sort out everything - especially my patience - before there will be business as usual. Hopefully soon.
Until then have a cute and rare picture of my Gundel sleeping on my pillow. And not beeping.

Barbie's wardrobe - Shift Into Knit

I'm not a fashionista. I'm ... you could say... a wearer of clothing. I like my clothes to be comfortable and the right size and possibly not to have holes or spots (that part is not always easy if you have cats, just the other day I was shocked to find three in one of my dresses after my lady had a snuggle session on me).
There are features I love, like pockets in dresses or 3/4 sleeves, but beyond that, I'm fairly undemanding and not adventurous.
That doesn't mean I don't like to look at clothes at all, especially those that I would never be able to wear myself, due to money, my size, lack of occasion, etc. There are still ways to bring Haute Couture into my life, though. I mean Barbie and her friends.
I have always been fascinated by miniatures and Barbie's vintage outfits with their tiny zippers and buttons and buckles and accessories are incredible. This is my "fashion life", either through my own small collection or pictures.
(And yes, I do know Barbie's body isn't natural, I knew it as a child and I never strived to look like her ... if I had, something would have gone wrong).
Let me give you a glimpse in Barbie's wardrobe every, now and then.

You may wonder why instead of bringing you some light and airy outfit in this new heatwave I am, well, actually Barbie is "shifting into knit". No worries, you'll see.

Barbie has the same problem as me at the
moment, the fan constantly blowing hair
across her face. I should set them in
boiling water to keep them from straying, but
I can't be bothered in this weather.

I wanted to introduce you to a new model.
This is a Color Magic Barbie doll from 1966/67. Although she has the same face mold as the dolls before her, the difference is that there's nothing subtle about her with this bright hair.
Actually the Color Magic came in two different hair colors called Golden Blonde and Midnight Black.
The body was the same as that of an American Girl meaning she didn't have a twist and turn waist yet, but bendable legs.
Her face could either be "soft color" or "high color". Our model has a soft color face, the lipstick and rouge are lighter and the nostrils aren't painted.

What does Color Magic mean, though?
These beauties didn't just come with accessories like a headband matching their swimming suit, bobby pins, and ribbons, but also with two bottles of "Hair Color Changer A & B". A changed Golden Blonde to Scarlet Flame and Midnight Black to Ruby Red. It also changed the color of the swimsuit and outfits that were made especially for the Color Magic. B changed the color back. Or not. Too bad, but it didn't really work on the Midnight Black which makes dolls that still have black hair rarer. In fact, the black could change to red without even using the solution (a problem that the Julia doll has as well, you will meet her eventually).
There is also a rare platinum Color Magic. I have never seen her in person, but read that her hair didn't change at all.

A Midnight Black whose black hair has changed a little,
an ex-Midnight Black who has turned into a full Ruby Red,
and the Golden Blonde from this post.

Our Golden Blonde is wearing "Shift Into Knit".
 

I don't think Barbie will be sweating too much (another actual vintage doll problem, by the way) in this sleeveless knit mini dress which was manufactured from 1969 to 1970 as #1478.

It has a light red-orange top - which I think looks great with the hair - and a navy skirt. As accessories, there are a golden chain belt ending in a golden disk and a fringed scarf.
It was too hot to wrap it around the neck, I could even imagine Barbie to be using it as a headband during the day as she doesn't have her original one anymore.

The shoes that originally came with the outfit were chunky red pilgrim or red bow shoes. Unfortunately, I don't have either at the moment, so I gave Barbie some modern red high heels.
The scarf and belt are a little harder to find than the dress itself. Smaller accessories - like shoes! - just got lost much more easily.

Are you old enough to remember dresses like these?

For full disclosure, I edited the doll stand out of the pictures, but didn't change anything about the outfit.

Barbie is a registered trademark of Mattel, Inc. I am not affiliated with Mattel in any way.


Sources:

1. Sibyl DeWein and Joan Ashabraner: The Collector's Encyclopedia of Barbie Dolls and Collectibles. Paducah, KY, Collector Books, 1994
2. Sarah Sink Eames: Barbie Doll Fashion, Vol. II, 1968 - 1974. Paducah, KY, Collector Books, 1997
3. Color Magic Barbies 1966 - 1967. On: My Vintage Barbies
4. Iris Schmid: Color Magic Barbie #1150 1966, 1967. On: Vintage und Mod Barbies in Deutschland, Europa und weltweit 2 (in German, very informative post!)

Weekend Traffic Jam - Week 165

Welcome to the Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot!
My posts for the link up will go live on Thursdays at 9:30 p.m. EDT or, if you live in the future like I do, on Fridays at 3:30 a.m. CE(S)T.

Do you remember the cartoons of Charlie Brown writing to his penpal? Sometimes he was brave and used a pen instead of a pencil and you could tell by the inkblots generously distributed over the paper.
For my birthday, I got a set of colored inks which also included a glass quill, something I had wanted as a teenager, but never got for myself. My first attempt reminded me very much of Charlie Brown, not so much because of ink on the paper, but my hands - and not even from writing but from taking the rubber stoppers out of the tiny glasses. It was as if there were tiny scared octopuses in there!
I'm very slowly getting the hang of writing with it, though, so that's something.

It looks like I was fingerprinted, but
I promise I'm just clumsy.

Now, are you ready for the weekend?

As part of the reboot, we will be featuring a different blog every week.
How about stopping by and saying hello? Let them know we sent you.

This week our spotlight is on Sonata Home Design.

Missy from Sonata Home Design says: "Hi, I'm Missy and I believe decorating a home isn't about following trends...it's about composition and courage! Courage to embrace yourself!
After more than 35 years as a music teacher, I now teach a symphonic approach to home design. I help you compose rooms filled with color, harmony, and joy using the very same principles I spent decades teaching in the choir room. ...
Through Sonata Home Design, I want to inspire you to embrace color with joyful courage and create a home that feels good to the soul. Let's explore the world of design and DIY together!"

Marsha from Marsha in the Middle started blogging in 2021 as an exercise in increasing her neuroplasticity. Oh, who are we kidding? Marsha started blogging because she loves clothes, and she loves to talk or, in this case, write!

Melynda from Scratch Made Food! & DIY Homemade Household - The name says it all, we homestead in East Texas, with three generations sharing this land. I cook and bake from scratch, between gardening and running after the chickens, and knitting!

Lisa from Boondock Ramblings shares about the fiction she writes and reads, her faith, homeschooling, photography and more.

Cat from Cat's Wire has what she calls a jumping spider brain. She has many interests and will blog about whatever catches her attention - crafts, books, old movies, collectibles or random things.

Rena from Fine Whatever Blog writes about style, midlife, and the "fine whatever" moments that make life both meaningful and fun. Since 2015, she's been celebrating creativity, confidence, and finding joy in the everyday.


Here are some of my picks from last week's link up.

Judee's Moroccan cauliflower dish looks so good!

I love poppies. So does Jeanne.

Esme has some spice in a carrot cake for us.

Lydia has some thoughts about exploring.


Let's link up!

Guidelines:
This link party is for blog posts only. All other links will be deleted.
Please link only blog posts you created yourself. Please link directly to the URL of your blog post and not the main address of your blog.
Please do not link to videos, sales ads, or social media links such as YouTube videos/shorts, Instagram or Facebook reels, TikTok videos, or any other social media based content.
Please do visit other blogs and give the gift of a comment. 

Notice:
By linking with Weekend Traffic Jam Reboot, you assert that the content is your own property and give us permission to share said content if your post or blog is showcased.
We welcome unlimited, family friendly content. This can include opinion pieces, recipes, travel recaps, fashion ideas, crafts, thrifting, lifestyle, book reviews or discussions, photography, art, and so much more!
Thank you for linking up with us! 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter