I've Been Tagged!!! And...Soon You Will Be Too!!!

1. What is your all time favorite comfort food?

A yummy delicious baked potato with butter, salt and pepper and cottage cheese on top.




2. What kind of foods did you take to school, for lunch? (any grade)


We lived a block from all of our schools so we came home for lunch...a hot homemade one that my mom made.  Soup and toasted cheese, a BLT, macaroni and cheese and something we loved...tomato soup with little elbow pasta in it and grated cheese on top.


3. What is your favorite all time cooking show on T.V... past or present...and why?

Hmmm...I still love watching Giada cooking Italian...I love the way she says spa ghee tee!!!






4. Which celebrity, famous person, or famous chef, would you invite to your next holiday party in your home, and why?

Hmmm...I would invite Bobbie Flay...I would demand that he cook for us.


5. Which holiday you love the most?

I love Christmas more than anything!!!


6. If you won an all expense paid trip for ten days to these top 3 wine regions, which of the 3 would you pick?

 Bordeaux, France,
 Tuscany Italy,
 Napa Valley, California

(these are in their actual order on the top 10 favorites)

I would go to Napa...we lived near San Francisco years ago and I loved Napa and Castroville then and I still love Napa now... plus I want to go to The French Laundry for dinner.
7. What kind of food  did you absolutely hate, growing up, as a young child, or teenager?


I hate and still hate eggplant.  And I do not like sweet cereal of any kind.  Nor anything maple flavored.


8. What was the most dreaded dish that you prepared and said you would never prepare it again?

This is a good one...yogurt scrambled eggs...I thought it would work but it most certainly did not...
 


This was fun...I hope my blogger friends will have fun filling it out!!!


I have no clue how to tag anyone...so you have to tag yourself!!!  Hee hee hee...I am still learning how to tag and set up an RSS feed on my blog...which for some reason will not work...frustration...



I Am So Confused...



I am suffering from character melt down!!!  I need to go to a YA fictional character support group.  Am I reading about far too many YA characters with way too many issues?  Henry in Dust City has abandonment issues and Kyle in You has issues with his self-esteem.  Katniss had issues with her mother.  Peeta had issues with his mother.  Breena and Kian and Logan are in a triangular relationship and Vera is drinking vodka as she delivers pizza. Zack was manipulative and egomaniacal!!!  And all of this is just within books I have read in the last five days!!!

When I actually sit down to write a review...I can't remember the names of the characters I am writing about!!!  I called Henry Hank and I thought Zack was Jake and now I am totally freaking out about remembering character names.  Please tell me this is even slightly normal.  I absolutely hate going  back into my book to find the names of characters I have just read about.  But...from now on...that is what I am going to have to do.  OMG...I need to start writing down the names or at least write the review before I start a new book!!!

Once Upon A Time...

Call me dense…yes…you can…but I had not a clue that this book was going to have actual fairy tale characters as its main characters. I was about an eighth of the way through when I realized that Cindy Rella was Cinderella and that the Detective White who had a horrible experience in her childhood with 7 miners…was Snow White. And so the story goes. It sounds as though the book would follow a comedic vein but it really didn’t other than a few tongue in cheek statements made by lots of the characters. It was really a mystery and a good one at that.

Here is the gist of the book…Henry's dad is the big bad wolf and he is in prison for murdering a little old lady and her granddaughter…hmmm…this city or region is separated into humanoids and animalia…and ruled by this chemical company that sort of took over the fairies and starting manufacturing fairy dust instead of allowing the fairies to make it naturally…an evil sort of drug lord is responsible for a ton of really bad things happening and Henry sets out to fix everything.

I won’t tell you if he succeeds or not.

I think I am glad I read Dust City. It was extremely clever and a different enough to be interesting. I read it quickly and didn’t really have to think very hard about anything in it. It was just entertaining.

A Fairy And A Fairy And A Half...

Breena has just turned 16. She wakes up to find her mother gone. This is a bit unusual because her mom is always there to make a fuss about her birthday.

On the way to school Breena believes she sees odd creatures in the woods. Something blue, something not quite right… but she shrugs it off. Breena is not the most popular girl in school. Other girls have more money, better clothes and even better friends. After school and upon returning home to a still empty house her one and only friend, Logan, comes over to make her a birthday dinner. There is a knock at the door, a huge fight and at that moment Breena’s life changes forever. She enters Fairyland.

Apparently she is a half human half fairy sort of princess. Her father is the Summer King and her mother was his concubine. It appears that most fairies are infertile and in order to have children they must mate with a human. Breena’s father fell in love with her mother and that is why they are not living in the Summer Kingdom but instead live near a forest in Oregon. Sounds funny but it was truly a wonderful book. Again, it is one of my favorite kinds of YA fantasy…it is a quest. Breena must quickly become the princess that she was intended to be. She has to master magic and become outspoken and brave in order to survive. She is captured and escapes and has to use her wits and new found skills to save herself, her kingdom and her mother. At one point she is actually captured by Prince Kian, who at one time was her betrothed but now needs Breena in order to gain the return of his sister who is locked up in the Summer Kingdom. Much to Breena’s surprise, Logan appears in this land and he ,too, is not what he appears to be…

This was quite a fun book. The book was full of fast paced and fun adventures that were a bit frightening and heart stopping. I did not want to stop reading…I sort of raced through this book. It was that good. Not amazing award winning fiction but a very good story. What I did not like about it was the abrupt ending…I found that to be very unsatisfying. On my Kindle the book actually stopped at 80% or so…the rest of the space was excerpts from other books…I totally hate that. And the book ended in such a way as to make you have to buy the next one in the series…although I don’t think that is such a bad thing…but again…I was surprised when the book ended. It seemed a little manipulative. But it worked since I instantly bought  Forever Frost and am reading that now.



You...

Kyle Chase is a loser…in his own mind. He has dropped out…he has made poor choices, he doesn’t care, he doesn’t like the way his parents treat him, he doesn’t respect his teachers, he doesn’t really even like his friends. He knows if he had made other choices he would be in a different school doing very different things. And yet he is not. And there is nothing he can do about it. He has everyone figured out. He has life figured out and he is not able to change anything. He doesn’t know how or even better he knows how and yet he doesn’t want to do anything to change. He appears to be stuck. He gets detention after detention, he doesn’t study, he yearns after a girl named Ashley and does not do anything about it. He wonders when his mom became awkward around him and when his dad began to dislike him. He seems to love his little 5 year old sister. Her innocence and her love for him mean a lot to him. One day he hears his sister tell his mom that when she grows up she wants to be just like Kyle. When his mom responds that she hopes not…Kyle is sad even though he doesn’t want to be.

Then…new student Zack comes into Kyle’s life and nothing will ever be the same again. Zack knows how to find Kyle’s weak spot and use it to his own advantage. This results in a devastating end of this story.

I was really caught up in this story. It is narrated by Kyle. It was heartbreaking. I wondered what I would do if I had known someone like Kyle. He is intelligent, awkward, rebellious…all the things a 15 year old male can be. I don’t know if I would have gone out of my way to talk to him. It seemed as though all he needed was one understanding parent or one teacher he could talk to but all circumstances were against him. He walked alone. His story was so sad. He seemed to not know joy. He did not understand what to do with his tortured anger.

So…how did I feel about this book…I think it is an important book to read.