Saturday, February 26, 2011

... In The Belly of Jonah ...




The new book club that I joined this month had chosen a book written by a local. I was a little skeptical at first, I must admit. However, no more than two paragraphs into the reading and I was hooked. While this book is very eerie, with such a psychotic vilain, I couldn't put it down. I thought that I would surely take a break during my out of town trip where I'd be alone in my hotel room... not a chance!

Set in Ft Collins, the book has a small town feel. It touches on the SD/CO/WY lifestyle and it felt very familiar to me with our many trips to/from the areas while living in UT and SD. I was also intrigued by the descriptions of the mining industry, while touched upon the text gives you just enough to interest you but not bore you with it.

While I had expected Biblical conontations, very very subtle, which makes it more intriguing to see where the next few Liv Bergen adventures take you. The characters were very well written. The author takes many risks with the book that shocked me. Very few authors actually do the thing that you think "oh they can't do that!", but she does!

To make it all the more perfect, Sandra "Sam" Brannan was at our book club meeting. She was so genuine and just lively to talk to. Not at all what I expected. She was very honest about the industry and just so easy to talk to. I would love to meet with her again after reading her second book that comes out in June, which I will surely read immediately.

Sunday, February 13, 2011

... Travel ...

Once upon a time there was a young lady who adored airports, lived for travel, dreamed of new adventure... she has kindly stepped aside for the new and unimproved loather of air travel that has replaced her. I felt this moment of transition in 2004. Houston Bush Intercontinental, the name says it all. The employees were awful, nobody seemed to be aware of their job and duties, and I felt that the establishment should be ashamed to even rank itself in the majestic realm of international air transportation. Over the years I became more fond of road trips with my ever so fun husband and less excited to fly anywhere.

Last week I embarked on a journey to Dayton Ohio, misery. From the TSA agent at RAP that was a lover of "we" rather than "you". -"why don't we take our shoes off. Now can we just take our laptop and put it on it's own tray.". To the elderly flight attendant that fell asleep standing up in the front of the plane! Shouldn't these professionals be reevaluated often? If the airline claims they are here for our "safety first" (which I already believe to simply be their way of saying sorry ahead of time, if your flight attendant is an asshole we apologize but she is merely here for your safety) explain to me how Sleepy McSleeperton is going to help me? WE would have to get her to safety, not the opposite.

Then there was the lovely girl on the counter that was irritated that I noticed she over looked printing my connecting boarding pass, my bad.

I am usually against monopolies, but Steve Jobs and Richard Branson should take over the world!

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

... really ...

hummmmmmph.

A great friend of mine often reminds me that 97% of women are crazy.  I don't know where she came up with this stat - if she read some form of scientific report stating something even closely related to women's unstable/irrational behavior - or if she looked at a select group and did her own math.  Either way, the more women I meet, the more I believe this to be fact.

It is because of this large majority that when you do find a dependable friend falling into the 3% that are worth your time - you hang on tight and thank your lucky stars!  A great friend is a friend for life.  You can go months without talking to these women, and pick right back up.  When you have an unpleasant encounter with one of the many - you can call upon one of the few and ground yourself.  Every single day, you should remind yourself how fortunate you are to have found one of these gems!

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

... Reading List ...

Book Club... FAIL!

Searching for a new book club... check!

My 101 in 1001 reading list... not going well.  I've gotten a few chapters into Emma.  Which means I have 6.75 Jane Austen Novels remaining, and all of Malcolm Gladwells books.  Need to pick up the pace!

Then was tagged in a friends Note on FB - I've read more than 6, so there BBC!  Although now I feel like I should have read more.

**********************************************************************************


The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books listed here.
Instructions: Copy this into your NOTES. Bold those books you've read in their entirety, italicize the ones you started but didn't finish or read an excerpt and underline the ones you’ve seen the movies of. Tag other book nerds. Tag me as well so I can see your responses!

1 Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series – JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
11 Little Women – Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit- JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch – George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Graham
31 Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis
34 Emma – Jane Austen
35 Persuasion – Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Berniere
39 Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne
41 Animal Farm – George Orwell 
42 The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving
45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding
50 Atonement – Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi – Yann Martel 
52 Dune – Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez(this is the worst book I have ever read.)
61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
62 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History – Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road – Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fieldin
69 Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick – Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
72 Dracula – Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses – James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal – Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession – AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple – Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web – EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
94 Watership Down – Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo 

Saturday, October 16, 2010

... False Fan ...

I've come to the conclusion that you can tell a lot about a person based on their team trend.  Deep routed questions can be answered by this often overlooked character flaw.  -- Are they a glory seeker?  Will they be there for you when you are down?  Will they be humble?  Will they move on to the cool kids with the lunchables when you show up with a bologna sandwich? --

As an England girl, and having lived in Italy and Spain... I think it's absurd that anyone would "fan" a team for reasons other than they were born into them.  My family, for instance, regardless of the number of times the home team is relegated into lesser division... disgraceful losses... disappointing sportsmanship... etc. etc. etc., they'll never wear a scarf that isn't blue and yellow.  (Football - real football- reference).  Why?  Well obviously because "we are Leeds, we are Leeds, we are Leeds!"  Traveling across Europe (and the World minus America), you'll notice that it is very rare that someone actually supports a team other than the one right down the road.  Of course, it's acceptable to support a team in a different league than the home team just so you have someone to follow in said league... but you still don't buy their jersey.  Why is Football loved so dearly around the world?  Well simply because of patriotism.  It's amazing.

With this sort of an upbringing... it sticks out like a sore thumb when I meet a Cowboys Fan with a New York accent, a Southern Belle with pink Chicago Bulls jersey, a South Dakotan "hook 'em".  The beauty behind sports is the bond between neighbor, the comrade at arms cheering in the stands, the group frenzy that lies behind every basket, goal, run, touchdown.  Think back to high school.  The excitement in the stands.  Everybody you knew (for the most part), everyone you loved, your friends, your neighbor, teacher, mother, father, brother, classmate... they all sat on the same side and cheered beside you, rooting for the home team!  What could be better?

... the answer.  For some: the glory, the popularity, the bragging rights, the win.

It's with great wisdom that I warn... beware of all who cheer for the team that has no geographical connection to them at all.  Unless there is a valid explanation - went to college there, was stationed there, my state didn't have a such and such team (and in that case they had better pick the team of the next closest state), parents were born there and it's in the blood, family member plays for them, the entire team once attended my birthday party, you're catholic, I am a girl and cheer for them because my husband does... beware.  Beware.

(Note: the one and only exception to this rule is Hillary Clinton)

Sunday, October 3, 2010

... Kindle, my love ...

The girls new best friend...

I can not say enough about my Kindle.  Upon hearing about the "e-reader" I knew that one day I would HAVE to have one.  I waited patiently, found other items that were a higher priority, and continued reading good old paper backs.  I told myself that I was vintage, a precocious reader like myself need not go electronic.  As much as I knew the little voice inside was screaming out for a Nook or Kindle, I convinced myself that a true fan of the arts would never trade in the smell of a freshly opened page for the new age - go green - nonsense, and the year went by.  However, when my mother-in-law called to get the details on the Kindle from the hubby, I thought it was too good to be true.  The lie was up!  I waited everyday, counting down for the new release of the wifi-only Kindle 2, and going online to make a wish list.  

The first purchase on the little gadget upon arrival was "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo". Then I went rummaging through the Kindle store to find anything free worth reading (tons) and anything for less that $2 that I had to have (I ended up cutting myself off after about 5 of those!).  I also chose a few free samples that I found intriguing.  Then, to stay true to myself, I ordered The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn... and crossed over into the e.  

What do I love the most?  Oh, I don't know.  The light weight.  The buttons on both sides allowing for comfortable control.  The fact that I can lay in bed and easily read a book without having to flip from side to side and figure out a way to hold the book without an arm falling asleep or random pages fighting me to lose my place.  I love that when I get to a word that I want to add to my vocabulary I can bookmark it in my Oxford dictionary with three clicks... aphorism, apropos, capricious, ennui... endless possibilities.  I love that when the ladies pick the new book club reading I can purchase it with a click of a button and not have to drive to Borders.  I love that I can throw the Kindle in my purse, and never lose my page.  I love that, if I have little time to read and lots of reading to do, I can turn on the voice feature - choose if I'd like a man or woman to read to me that day and at what speed - and ta-da... book on tape!  

It is amazing.  The quintessence of electronic upgrade!  GO GET IT. 

Whole Wheat Nutella Pumpkin Bread


Thanks to a FB post, I just found this recipe online.  So happy it's FALL!

Ingredients
  • 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 cup flaxseed meal (ground flaxseed)
  • 1 cup whole wheat flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/8 teaspoon salt
  • 2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
  • 6 tablespoonsturbinado sugar
  • 1/3 cup canola oil
  • 1/3 cup honey
  • 1/3 cup skim milk
  • 1 15 ounce can pumpkin
  • 1 egg
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
How-To
  1. Preheat oven to 350°.
  2. Mix the dry ingredients (through turbinado sugar) in a bowl.
  3. In a separate bowl, mix the rest of the ingredients (wet).
  4. Pour the wet ingredients onto the dry ingredients and stir until just combined.
  5. Transfer batter to a greased loaf pan and spoon two 1 tablespoon drops of Nutella.
  6. Swirl the Nutella around on the top with a knife.
  7. Bake on a baking sheet for 50-60 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
Servings: 8-10