I Love This Award.

June just gave me a very beautiful blog award.  This means so much to a newbie blogger like me. She is wonderful and she knows how much her support has meant to me.  As soon as I figure out how to post the award...I will...right now you just have to imagine it!!!

She had some fierce stipulations upon accepting this award.   Here is the first set and this is me following directions.

MY LIST OF THE LAST FIVE BOOKS I READ

The Sweetness At The Bottom Of The Pie
The Strings That Tie The Hangman's Purse
Sacred Ground
Glass House and...hmmm...yikes...oh no I forgot...got it...
Baked...this one is a cookbook and really good.  It is from a NYC bakery.  Their brownies are supposed to be magnificent. 

Now the next part is a little difficult for me...I have been reading and enjoying so many blogs that I don't know how to really choose five to give an award to.  I just don't feel qualified yet.  But I am going to try to share blogs that I really enjoy.  I am still sort of bouncing around all over about a million blogs and slowly getting to know them.  So here we go!!!



My favorite newly found blog...E.J.Stevens.  Her blog is deep and dark and mysterious and full of lovely fantasy.  She is also an author.

I also love Allison.  Her blog is full of all things Maine.  Gardens and photos and food and recipes.  It is delightful.


Manda is also a unique and new blogger.  We started blogging at about the same time and she is always there to answer tech questions for me.  She has a goal to reach this year and she is bound and determined to blog daily.   I am making her a pillow with stars...her fav...and she is very patient.

Heidi has a healthy food journal blog.  I have followed her for years and love her writing, ideas and recipes.

Steena also has a blog that I love.  It is clean and fresh and she writes beautifully.  I am an admirer of her blog in all of its chocolatey goodness.


So...that should do it.  I follow far too many blogs and have lots of blog envy but I feel myself growing and learning from so many people.  Just a quick and sincere thank you to all of you. 

A Quote From One Of My Heroes...

"There is more treasure in

books than in all the pirate's

loot on Treasure Island."

 

                           — Walt Disney

 

 

 

I need to say this...since I have been adding books to my Kindle today...I cannot resist a great book and the absolute attraction of carrying my library around with me!!! 

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ...

How can I be so tired?   I can barely read and the effort of reading emails each day and trying in vain to keep up with all of my new blogger friends is an enormous effort!!!  I blame my sister Paula and the pace we set for ourselves each day.  Even Lucy can't open her eyes...I have not cooked all week long...I literally am out of energy.  I did not even move out of bed this morning until noon...I went downstairs three times to get coffee...and I read and napped and watched a CSI marathon.  I am pathetic!!!   How can lunching and shopping take such a toll?   I hope and yearn and pray for an energy filled Saturday. 

Way Too Much Fun...

My sister Paula just drove away...we had such fun...just shopping and lunching and whatever...it was our very first time to be together somewhat healed since our parents died.  We can talk about them and laugh about them and just remember them...without too much pain.  I am exhausted!!!  I have not blogged or read or done anything in my real and normal life since Paula came on Sunday.   I have not even cooked...we have been going out and bringing in and drinking Skinny Girl Margaritas and yummy wine.   It has been rainy and really cool here and we still had fun...nothing stopped us...we even drove an hour to a little town called St. Peter's Village for amazing breads.  But I cannot state this enough...I am EXHAUSTED!!!  I cannot move...I am in bed with my laptop and I have no plans of moving for hours and hours and hours.  She drove off this morning with her car loaded up with homegrown tomatoes and asparagus and breads and cheeses and fresh local strawberries and spring onions and golden beets and just harvested spinach and books and other stuff that she bought...anything that she thinks she can't get there...she brought back with her...we are about 7 hours away from each other...but there is a big difference in the Midwest where she is and the East Coast where I am.  It is funny to realize that her breakfast habits have not changed since we were little girls in green bunk beds sharing the same bedroom.  She has to have Cheerios with a banana on the side and plain not flavored coffee with a sprinkle of Coffemate...every morning I woke up to the clinking of her spoon in her cereal bowl as she sat at the big kitchen table and read and ate.   She loves salami sandwiches for lunch but just one half and made a special way...so that is what we packed her for her trip home.   My sister Paula is my favorite sister in the world...I will love her forever.

My Sister Is Here!!!

It has been a difficult sad year for my me and my sister Paula and my brothers Jim and John...it seemed as though all that we were doing was dealing with my parents...and then both of them died within months of each other.  My sister Paula is the only one of us who still  lives in the town that we grew up in...her husband is a dentist,  some of the same friends that they went to kindergarten with are still in their circle of friends.  My parents were within blocks of her house and were always eager to babysit for her, bring her things from their garden or take her kids for her at any time.   The town has its own park and playgrounds and swimming pool and baseball fields and football fields and even an ice skating rink in the winter.  The best part of living there was that we could walk, run or ride our bikes everywhere...we could meet our friends at the park or pool in the summer...skate or sled in the winter. People still come home for football games and Homecoming  in the Fall. At this time my husband and I are living about 7 hours from the little town that I grew up in and my parents are no longer here.   So...my sister came to visit...she drove herself and arrived yesterday.   We have fun together...but it is so different now without our mom...I don't think that it is possible to know how tied you are to your family until the family unit changes...even though we are grown...it still seems as though we are missing something.  We talk about our parents, we try to replicate certain foods that my mom made but...something is always still missing.   I am beginning to think that something will always be missing for all the rest of our lives.   We will celebrate and visit each other and toast our parents...we will talk about our dad and our mom...but we will always feel their absence.

Brown Bread And Butter?

I think I really enjoyed this book only not as much as I thought I would. I loved the beginning and the middle but near the end I literally had to speed read to the finish line. Haunted Ground had lovely writing and great depth but I was simply ready to finish it. The premise of Haunted Ground is this…an Irish farmer is digging up turf. Turf is what fuels stoves and fires for cooking and for the winter. Every farmer has his own turf patch and the cutting is exhausting and precise. As this farmer is digging he discovers a red headed woman, who has been buried in the peat for God only knows how long. It could be months, years, or centuries. The discovery gets everyone excited because there is an unsolved missing persons case going on within the area and everyone rushes to this area hoping wondering and praying that it is the missing person that they want it to be. There are three key characters in this novel that I am sure will reappear in the second novel in this series. Cormac and Nora are the archaeologists working on the buried body. Detective Garret Devaney is the relentless policeman who is determined to solve the crime. There are lots of towers and Irish bars and old estates and things to constantly dig up. There is a huge cast of odd quirky and dysfunctional characters that includes neighbors and cousins and parents and scientists and friends and unwed mothers with so many secrets that I should have kept a list of them…I don’t think any of these characters thought that just plain talking to someone about something that was bothering them would be a simple and effective way to find out what was going on…and truly everyone in this novel has a secret or two…or three…but it was a very good book…sort of in the Elizabeth George style of writing. Upon finishing it I only craved tea and brown bread with butter and perhaps a cheese sandwich or two and a green apple…these seemed to be the only foods that Nora and Cormac ever ate. I have no clue why books make me crave certain foods mentioned in them but they really do. We were at a Farmer’s Market on Saturday morning and of course our first item purchased was a hearty loaf of organic brown bread. Yum!!!