Colorful Reading Challenge

Oh boy! Two years ago I took part in The Colorful Reading Challenge and it's back! Here's what it's all about...

The Colorful Reading Challenge is simple:

1. Just choose 9 books with colors in the titles.

2. The books can overlap with other reading challenges (because let's face it, we need them to.)

3. Post your links to your reviews each month to share with other participants.

4. The challenge runs from January 1, 2013 to December 1, 2013.

5. Read to your heart's content!

When most people think of colors they think of the basics- red, yellow, blue, green, orange, purple, white, black, and brown. But don't forget, as Crayola taught us, colors have a wide array of tints and shades so don't forget you can include colors such as silver, gold, plum, pink, crimson, scarlet, turquoise, blonde, gray, pumpkin, the list goes on.

These are the books that are on my shelf waiting to be read and have a color in the title:

The Black Lights: Inside the World of Professional Boxing by Thomas Hauser

Black Swan Green: A Novel by David Mitchell

The Grass Dancer by Susan Power

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

Like Water for Chocolate: A Novel in Monthly Installments with Recipes, Romances, and Home Remedies by Laura Esquivel

Gunn's Golden Rules: Life's Little Lessons for Making It Work by Tim Gunn

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake: A Novel by Aimee Bender

4 Blondes by Candace Bushnell

Five Quarters of the Orange: A Novel by Joanne Harris

Scarlett: The Sequel to Margaret Mitchell's "Gone With the Wind" by Alexandra Ripley

The Tea Rose: A Novel by Jennifer Donnelly

Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor

The Virgin Blue by Tracy Chevalier

Blue Rodeo by Jo-Ann Mapson

Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris

Standing in the Rainbow by Fannie Flagg (maybe a stretch?)

I've already got Angi ready to take the challenge with me! Anyone else? Do you see a book from my list that you think I should definitely read in 2013?

Project Life Week 27

These pages are from July and have been done awhile. I'm just now getting around to sharing. I still love this Project and worked on October this weekend.

A closer look:

I got my hair cut and highlighted. I used my stylist's "prescription" to document the day.

Here's our trip to see Batman, which was scrapped here in July. I just cut out Batman's logo from a sheet of patterned paper.

Here is Stellaluna after one of her obedience classes. I got her Little Monster shirt for 47 cents after clearance and a coupon. Sweet! I used a leftover Jack Russell book cover pic to remind me that there was an adorable Jack Russell in class that day.

Time to make the doughnuts...back to school. I twittered about Big Brother so I printed it and cut it out to share for the day.

Right page:

A closer look:

I saved the tags from a shirt to help document this day.

I used some junk mail to document where we went to dinner.

We always celebrate the beginning of our relationship, game night with Kristi and Mike. I used my triangle punch to make the banner, some word stickers from my friend Angi, and the picture is from Corey's phone.

On the first day of school Stellaluna graduated from obedience. It was hard to get a picture of her with her graduation cap on, so I used a graduation cap sticker from Angi to complete the pic. Now that I'm looking at it again I see I made a mistake: I said we had to play Bingo to graduate but we had to play Memory.

P.S. Here is Nerd Nest's week 27.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Corey has to work today as he almost always has to work on Thanksgiving. Bummer! But I'm trying to stay positive. I'm thankful he has a job so we can pay our bills and take care of our little dogs. I'm thankful that I still look forward to him coming home from work even after all these years.

Project Life Week 26

This page documents a Monsoon storm, so you probably know it was from awhile ago. But I also made this awhile ago, and am just lazy about getting these posted. I still love Project Life and had fun this weekend adding more thrilling moments from my life to it.

This week also documents a pack walk, obedience class for Stellaluna, watching Craft Wars, and a visit from my parents.

A closer look:

I recycled a used Book IT! progress chart from school into the background for this pack walk. (Ha! I just realized I used a progress chart to help track my own progress!) Any other Book IT! fans out there? I couldn't believe they would actually give me free pizza just for reading!

I must have been in a recycly mood that week because I used a magazine ad as my journaling block for my obedience class with Stellaluna. It was for a tacky Hamilton teacup chihuahua knick knack. But the sentiment rings true for my real teacup chihuahua: She May Be Small But She's Got a Big Heart!

More paper junk: this ad for Craft Wars came with my purchase from Michael's. I liked that show but I thought it was weird that Tori Spelling had to revoice almost all of her parts.

Finally, my dad left this old list behind on accident after their visit. Funny how someone else's handwriting can feel so familiar. I also love my dad's shorthand.

If my mom hadn't misbehaved she wouldn't be immortalized as a backseat driver. That's on her.

P.S. Here is Nerd Nest's week 26.

my accidental art lesson

If you recall I wrote a review of The Bird Catcher by Laura Jacobs in 2010. My main complaint about the book was the numerous esoteric art references which were a distraction from the story. The example I gave was, "She's a Modigliani inside a Braque." And my reaction was, "What?" and "What?" So I looked up Modigliani (and Braque) and really liked this painting, Jeanne Hebuterne in Red Shawl:

Since then I have been unable to escape Amedeo Modigliani. In June I went to the Palm Springs Art Museum with Linny and I knew the instant I saw Head that I was looking at a Modigliani:

On Saturday we took Jake to see Skyfall. In one scene they use this painting to kill someone:

...and I said to myself, I think that's a Modigliani!!! (Letting my mind wander on these kinds of details may have led to my confusion on some of the plot points.)

So when I got home and googled it, I found out that Woman with a Fan was stolen in 2010 and is indeed a Modigliani. (And a Braque was stolen in the same heist! Maybe the author did it.) It also led me to a twitter post where someone asked the same question, and someone else replied, "Yes, it's a Mod." I guess if you're cool you will just call him Mod but I like saying his last name enough to get a dog and name it Modigliani.

If I'm going to be haunted by an artist I'm glad I at least enjoy the artwork.

The morale is that there is something to be learned from books, even the ones with tedious references.

I voted!

And this is where the mister is tonight:

My class voted unanimously for Barack Obama this afternoon. I told them I would tell them who I voted for tomorrow.