I didn’t expect to be back here quite so quickly with another holiday baking video but when I heard Elly say “Look at the smoke! I’m sorry!” I had to go back into the kitchen with the camera.
FalalalalaWhere There’s Smoke, There’s Fire Read More »
The first mess clean up was an exploded coke – a container of Fiber (scary Fiber!) fell from the top shelf, knocked over an unopened coke, fizzy carbonated elixir of life (according to TW) all over the kitchen floor. No I didn’t yell. I just quietly walked to the laundry room for a beach towel. Handed it to TW. Quietly walked back to the laundry room for the swiffer wet jet and calmly cleaned the floor.
Spreading the joy – one kitchen clean up at a time.Christmas Baking Has Begun Read More »
There were six books sitting on the library cart – all six needed to go back to the library on 12/13. I only had time to read three – maybe four – of those books. Which should I choose? I took my queues from TW and selected the ones that I remember her making comments about, asking questions about, rambling about… and that’s how I ended up reading Dream Queen.
Dream Queen appears to be a prequel, though that didn’t make sense to me sense there’s a whole lot of back-story given to us about James and Hal… if this is a prequel, I’m not sure I want to see any of the other books in the series. Heck, I’m not sure I want to read any of the other books in the series anyway. I’m not a big fan of Chloe. She’s a pretty wimpy detective… then again, maybe she’s wimpy because this is the prequel and she comes into her own later… I don’t know. Maybe I’ll get another book and give it a try.
Thank goodness for Sassymonkey and her review of The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake. If I hadn’t read it long before I read the book, I might have been one of those who was frustrated by this brilliant novel. I might have thought it was a book that is similar to something Jennifer Weiner might have written. Or maybe Lolly Winston. But this book is not anything like those. It’s closer to something written by Sarah Addison Allen in that it has magical elements but it’s really nothing like that either.
It’s not like anything I’ve read and that amazes me. It’s so rare to find a story you haven’t read before.
The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake isn’t a happy story. It’s a story that left me feeling out of sorts and angsty. It’s a good story. Read it but read it without expectations – if you can.
The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake Read More »
Last spring, when Melissa Ford told me in a “cone of silence” kind of way that she had a novel coming out later in the year I was thrilled for her and then I sort of forgot about it. When she emailed me last week and told me that her book… it was really coming out, like this month. What?! Already?! Awesome!
I headed over to Amazon and discovered I could pre-order the book which should ship in a couple of weeks… or I could get it now for Kindle. I obviously could not wait so onto my Kindle app it went. I said I was going to start reading it over the weekend, after I finished the other books I had to finish over the weekend but the reality was, I couldn’t wait to start – so I started on Friday and got through chapter 2 before I reluctantly went back to the other two books that I HAD TO FINISH…
Melissa opens with a great quote (and don’t take my word for it, Julie Godar Yammered exactly the same thing when she started reading it on Friday).
“June Cleaver beat the crap out of me with her rolling pin.”
Heh.
Life From Scratch is about Rachel… a graphic designer living in NYC who has pretty recently divorced from her trying-to-make-partner lawyer husband. She read blogs and relationship blogs helped her get through those early divorce days. One of those blogs spurred her to start a blog of her own – a food blog/life blog sort of thing.
Rachel is like a lot of bloggers – she finds it very hard to believe people actually read her blog. It isn’t until her best friend introduces her to a stats program that she realizes just how many people read her blog. After her best friend nominates her for a “Bloscar” — well, she really begins to understand that not only do people read her blog, they like it – and she’s (gasp!) a writer!
Rachel struggles through dating and family relationships and trying to figure out what to do with her life and in the end… you’ll just have to read it to find out what happens to Rachel. And then sit here and wait with me while Melissa writes the second installment in the series. Because there must be a second installment… the book ends with Rachel not quite where I expected her to be (or if I’m honest, where I wanted her to be) and now I need to know how she’s going to manage…. Everything.
Life From Scratch (by Melissa Ford) Read More »
She’s Gone Country is the other book that was due back to the library because it had holds – but I was a bad library patron and kept it out for three extra days so that I could read it. TW said it was good – she said she kept thinking about it. So – I figured I should read it.
And it was good, but I’m not sure why TW kept thinking about it after she finished. She said she wanted to know more – but the epilogue told us more, what more did she want? I guess a sequel would be nice enough but I’m not left dying to know what happened to the lives of Shey or Dane or the boys or… or anyone else. It was good but not good enough to leave me wanting more.
I still am not quite sure why it has holds – the books I reserve at the library, even the big sellers, rarely do…
She’s Gone Country Read More »
I am employed by BlogHer, Inc as the Community Manager at BlogHer.com. The opinions expressed in this post are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of BlogHer, Inc or its employees. I was not asked to write this post. I received no compensation for writing this post. Heck, nobody even knows I’m writing this post except RJ who is reading over my shoulder as I type…
I have the best job in the world. I know, I know – you’re tired of hearing me say this because you do not have the best job in the world. Sorry. Can’t help it. Gotta say it. I do have the best job in the whole wide world. But… every now and then the best job in the world causes a few little problems. Or problems large enough that I start telling TW that I need an intervention. One of the things I do every day at BlogHer.com is help solve problems that members of the community have. One of the ways I help members solve problems is by editing comments that don’t display image or video code properly. Or by deleting duplicate (or quadruplicate) copies of posts. No big deal, this happens all of the time and I’m happy to help. Or it wouldn’t be a big deal if we weren’t running an awesome HomeGoods campaign right now. But we are.
Dozens of people stop by every day to talk about what they’d like to buy at HomeGoods, who they’d like to buy gifts for, and to tell us what they’ve recently purchased with their $25 HomeGoods gift card. They even leave photos (and videos) of things that they’ve bought from HomeGoods with this gift card. Reading those comments every day (sometimes in quadruplicate) caused me to get the itch to go to HomeGoods.
This is scary. While I like HomeGoods, I do NOT like to shop. I really do not like to shop when I’ve already spent about 10K on Christmas and there isn’t a single person in my family who needs anything else. And did I mention TW is kind of under-employed? Yet here I sat… dying to go to HomeGoods. I told TW about the problem. She looked at me like she’d never seen me before. Yea. And then she said, “Well if we went to HomeGoods, we could go to…” and I shut her out. I did not want to hear whatever she was going to say. That is NOT an intervention.
The day passed. I worked, I worked some more, I did laundry and cleaned up the cold room. I tried to nap but the dog barked. I got up and said, “We need to go to the libray.” So we got dressed and went… afterwards, I asked TW if we needed to do anything else… and she said, “Well you wanted to go to HomeGoods… and we need vegan chocolate chips, vegan Worcestershire sauce, and a part for the snow thrower.”
I thought about it and sure enough, it seemed like the smartest place to go was to the Willow Rd shopping center where Lowes, Whole Foods and… HomeGoods live. As I drove, I thought I’d just go straight to Lowes and then to Whole Foods and then we’d go home. I DID NOT NEED TO GO TO HOMEGOODS.
But guess where we went first… HomeGoods.
And I spent $19.58 on this:
Everyone else was spending a $25 gift card… I think this means I should go back again next week and spend another $5.42, don’t you?
I Need an Intervention Read More »
We went from having not enough good library books to choose from to having too many. We’ve had so many that we’ve held a couple a few extra days so one of us could finish something we started on the due date. We’ve had some books go back unread by either of us. It’s a frustratingly awesome problem to have. As I was reviewing my library account, I saw some books that were due back today – none had been renewed, so I clicked the renew button only to discover that two of them had holds and couldn’t be renewed. Huh. Neither were books I’d heard anything about. Both were just plucked from the New Arrivals shelf because their titles or covers looked interesting. I figured TW would have time to read them both – she reads faster than I do and has more reading time than I do. I thought I might get lucky and manage them both but I decided I’d read She’s Gone Country, if it looked like I’d only have time for one.
But while TW read Stiltsville, she kept stopping to talk to me about it.
“I want to live in Miami.” – Weird because while we both like to visit Miami, neither of us has really expressed interest in living there. I don’t think we’d like it.
“How’s that reading along with your daughter’s syllabus working out for you?” – Hmph! It isn’t. I read one book instead of three because our library was closed for so darn long.
“I want to live near the ocean.” –Well sure, me too, but can you define near? “Closer than our Starbucks.” Wow, that’s really near. You’d better get another job or start saving some more money because that’s pricey.
“I don’t want Michelle to go to college in Gainesville.” –Err she lives in Gainesville and she isn’t dropping out.
So… rather than read She’s Gone Country (out from under TW who hadn’t really started it until 10:30 last night because she spent six hours on my quilt) I picked up Stiltsville.
And it was good, I read it straight through – It didn’t quite make me want to live in Miami and I wouldn’t want a house in Stiltsville and I wouldn’t want Michelle living in Gainesville if another Danny Rollings decided to do horrendous things to women (and one man) and damn it, I still want to read along with Michelle’s syllabus. And I don’t particularly want to move to Asheville… even if TW dies.
In case you hadn’t noticed, it’s snowing here. And it’s grocery shopping day. So, TW wandered out about 45 minutes ago to shovel the sidewalk and throw snow from the driveway so we could go out.
First she cleaned off my car, which is a smart place to start.
Then she shoveled around my car, which is also a good place to start.
Then she did some other stuff which involves the snow shovel and the snow thrower. I don’t quite understand the science of it but I know she does it. While she was using the snow thrower – the handle came off. This is apparently bad? And now we have to go find parts for the snow thrower? Which seems problematic since I don’t know what kind we have (thanks for sending it, Deanna. It really has been the most awesome gift!) or where to get parts. Maybe we can order them online somehow? Whatever, we’ll figure it out.
While she was shoveling and throwing the snow, the nice neighborhood snow plow cleared our street – and left a big ball of snow at the end of our driveway, which TW has to shovel or we can’t get out of our driveway.
And while she was doing all of that, my car became covered with snow again and she had to clear it off again.
Yea. It’s like that. And will be like that for the next five months or so.
Trials and Tribulations Read More »
