Feelin' Good

Now that I'm on break and all the family's gone :-( it's time to clear the piles of junk off my scrapbook table and scrap! I looked first to 2 of my favorite challenge blogs, Scrapping the Music and ARTastic. They each had a challenge that I wanted to combine into one scrapbook page. Scrapping the Music's song of the week is Feeling Good by Nina Simone which made me think of my election 2008 photos because I listened to that song on inauguration day. I was already picturing the birds flying by when I saw on ARTastic 'The Perfumed Garden' by John Coburn to use as inspiration:


And this is what I came up with:


Obama came from a greeting card (not Hawaii ;-) in case you were wondering.

Perfect Beach Reads

Lost in Books is going to the beach and wants to know which books to pack. I recommend:

1. Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell - I read part of this on my tropical honeymoon and I gave it to my niece to read on her honeymoon in Jamaica. It's an easy book to get lost in!

2. Looking After Pigeon by Maud Carol Markson - takes place in a house on the Jersey Shore (not to be confused with the t.v. show version). I imagine it would be nice to be comforted by the ocean while reading this sad-ish tale.

3. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C. S. Lewis - I started reading this book at the beach a few years ago. At the beginning Lucy gets sucked into the ocean through a painting and has to swim to a ship. The description ran through my mind when I flipped over on my boogie board and had to swim for shore.

I also read The Other Side of the Story by Marian Keyes at the beach once. It's my favorite of hers:

11 years ago today...

I married my best friend. Tonight we saw Toy Story 3 after having Lucille's BBQ for dinner.

P.S. I found this picture on the internet and I don't know who made it. But it looks just like me and the mister.

our little dog

As of yesterday we've had him for 1 whole year. I was looking at his pictures from when we first got him. I always like to say we got him slightly used and he looked it.

We love you Captain Skippyjon Jones!

P.S. This card is from comesmart but if you live in the U.S. you can't order from them. :(

3 Books You Thought You'd LOVE But Ended Up Hating

Really I didn't HATE these books, they just annoyed me:

1. "Walking in Circles Before Lying Down" by Merrill Markoe - I thought a book told from a dog's point of view would be fun, but no. And the owner was ridiculous in a bad way.

2. "Sushi for Beginners" by Marian Keyes - the main character was too bitchy for me to care how she fared by the end of the story

3. "The Last Battle" by C. S. Lewis - If I wanted to read a bible story, I would read the bible.

P.S. I found this photo on we heart it. And thank you Lost in Books for the topic.

I like to travel

...but it feels good to be home.

P.S. Unfortunately I didn't get to travel with Yoda. This is a poster for Star Wars Weekends at Disney-MGM Studios.

I've been sick so I sound like a pirate...

...prompting one of my students to tell me:

Your voice is blue. It's a circle. I can tell.

????????????????????????????????????????????????

P.S. Garnet The Outspoken Pirate is by thedreamygiraffe.

3 Books I Thought I'd Hate But Ended Up Loving

Lost in Books wanted to know which books surprised me when I read them.

1. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling - My father-in-law told me for a few years that I should read it and that I would love it, yet I didn't quite believe him. But then I remembered what a smart man he is so I gave it a shot, and of course he was right! The series includes some of my favorite books.

2. Twilight by Stephenie Meyer - My friend Michelle was like, You have got to read this book! and I wanted her to join the book club I'm in so I said yes I would read it if she would read The Enchantress of Florence by Salmon Rushdie which is what we were reading at the time. Well she made a better recommendation than I did! The Twilight Saga are not the best books I've ever read, but they were fun and reading them gave me street cred with my nieces in Kansas.

3. Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen - EVERYONE kept telling me to read it which for some reason made me think I would hate it. But EVERYONE was right luckily and it was one of the best books I read last year.

P.S. i heart books is by vol25.

3 Books that Have Been on My TBR List the Longest

Lost in Books wants to know what books I have had the longest but still haven't read.

1. Toby Tyler by James Otis - I can't remember who gave me this book when I was a kid but I never read it. When I was a child it seemed too long. When I was a teenager it seemed too childish. As an adult, books that seem more interesting to me are what I grab first. But some day I will read it!

2. The Road from Coorain by Jill Ker Conway - my grandma gave this to me after her trip to Australia (I think I was in junior high school!). I love Australia, memoirs, and my grandma, but for some reason have never got around to it. I wish now I had read it while she was still alive so we could have discussed it, or maybe she would have had some story to share about her trip that would explain the purchase of the book. Or it could have been random? She was always buying me books like a good grandma should.

3. Wilt by Tom Sharpe - I had to buy this book for a class in college but SURPRISE SURPRISE! we never read it. I've held onto thinking I might read it eventually, but I think subconsciously the cover turns me away. It's a drawing of a man who looks like he's trying to kill a blow-up doll.

Yes, I've had books on my bookshelf that have gone unread since I was a child and yet...I keep buying more!

P.S. Wall to Wall books is by minimoon on deviantART. It's a portion of a book store in Washington, D.C.

a first

Today Captain Skippyjon Jones stepped in gum. After I pulled gum-encrusted rocks out of his paw, he seemed to take removing the gum much better than a person would. He might have even enjoyed it.

Corey called and I told him what happened and he said HE stepped in gum today too! So I told him that he is connected with Captain like Bo and Hope are connected.

P.S. The photo was taken in March by ME!

you're missed

Blue Diary by Alice Hoffman

This book, which is 2/9 for my Colorful Reading Challenge, was really good because it made me question my beliefs about the justice system in The United States.

Ethan is a small town hero, husband, dad, and baseball coach. He's a volunteer for Monroe's fire department and is always the first on the scene. He's even saved people's lives. Everyone looks up to him.

Jorie is just Ethan's wife of 10 years and a mom, and Monroe is just a small town until the day they all discover after Ethan's seemingly random arrest that in the past he murdered a 15 year old girl.

Questions ran through my mind throughout the book: can a person really reform themselves? Is that enough if they haven't served time in prison? Is someone absolved of a crime just for going to prison? What would I do if that was Corey? What should Jorie do?

This book is a shining example of why Alice Hoffman is one of my favorite authors.

Ruby by Ann Hood

I've had this book on my shelf for quite some time, but I finally pulled it down to read for the Colorful Reading Challenge. I have to read 9 books with 9 different colors in the title this year, and Ruby is 1/9.

To summarize, Ruby is a pregnant teenage runaway. Olivia is a thirty-something milliner (a hat maker to us common folk) whose husband was recently killed in an accident. (I think I've been putting off reading it because I don't really like sad stories, unlike someone very near and dear to me!)

So...Olivia retreats from her NY apartment to her Rhode Island beach bungalow (I like it when people live in cool places in books. Even if it's not realistic! I feel like I get to live there too for awhile.).

I know you can't wait to read the book to find out how they meet so I'll tell you...they meet in Olivia's house after Ruby has broken in! And then Olivia decides she should adopt the baby when it's born and the broken down bungalow becomes a safe-ish haven for all 3.

But really it's not a sad story with a fairy tale or tragic ending. I got the feeling I was seeing how things might play out if that story actually happened out here in the real world.

It's only 225 pages, and I enjoyed it so much that I read it in one day during spring break. There are also several song references (especially The Beatles) so I made a corresponding playlist on my ipod. Those were the days.

And now in honor of Olivia the Milliner, a pretty cool hat in a drawing by Samuel Ribeyron:

Quote of the Week

Happy Teacher Appreciation Week!

On Tuesday after the teacher from next door came by to ask me something a boy said,

"Why are you and all the teachers so nice?"

A+!

P.S. The Snape deal is by hey my name is jess.

May the 4th be with you.

Always.

P.S. Wrong Helmet is by Steve Bonner.