Saturday's Dilemmas...

We switched out our Tom Collins yesterday for Yellow Fevers! Thank you Kathy from BermudaOnion!
Lemonade, vodka, and lots of ice topped off with Sprite or Seven Up!
We sat on the deck sipping these blissfully. So refreshing with our soft shells! So refreshing with anything!



Prepare to read one long windy...pronounced wine dee...long sentence...sorry...gasp...

Here we go...

On to our dilemma...by this time of the year lots of flowers would be planted and the decks would be decked...every garden bed would be freshly mulched...but...




we are getting a new roof and the dormers and decks are getting painted and stained...

in two weeks...this is all happening in two weeks...in two weeks my life will be total chaos...outside clutter, pounding, mess, strange faces in my windows...I have to remember to close the blinds!

My neighbor said the noise from the pounding is close to unbearable...OMG!

Add to this the fact that we have never lived anywhere long enough to have to paint...let alone do all of this stuff...then later in the summer the driveway gets done, we are getting new countertops and floors...and making my island bigger and adding new shelves!

Why after a lovely peaceful time of everything being in working order do we move on to total chaos?

And right now...as I type...my glass cooktop is not working still...it stopped heating on Sunday...and we don't know whether to try a repair or just get a new one since it's in the island that is being replaced...I find this all overwhelming...so what was my answer to everything this week?

I read 4 books!!!

Lucy and I are looking for a quiet home away from home...any offers?

Lol...

Or else we will spend our days in here! If we had one of these...sipping iced tea and Yellow Fevers while watching the Amish guys put up our roof!


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What Is Happening Today...

Reading this...really really good...I love English mysteries...love them...this one has begun with a bang!




Got these from Vine...yummy...








This came from Lauren Bisom and St. Martin's Press via NetGalley! Sounds very different...out of my comfort zone but I kind of like that lately!




Den is finally home...tonight we are doing soft shells on the grill with baby roasted potatoes and fresh peas. We should be having ice cream for dessert...don't you agree?
Soft shells are in season here and so good...we have been grilling them...lightly basted with a butter olive oil fresh garlic tabasco sauce combo.
I know...they look kind of creepy but they taste really good.




We are experimenting with summer "cocktails"...tonight is Tom Collins night.
Really good gin, fresh lemon juice, and simple syrup topped off with club soda.




I just love Friday nights!
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So Good...So Interesting...So Yummy...

This book was SO GOOD...warm, relaxing, a bit old fashioned, I loved it. My review can be seen by clicking on my Goodreads widget. I want to read more by this author.



My friend Elisabeth pinned this on Pinterest...it almost looks too pretty to drink.
I find this color so interesting...It's a blueberry lavender mojito!



And this...I am actually craving this. It looks so different but it is that broccoli salad that everyone makes...found this on Pinterest and I am still searching for the recipe.
So yummy looking...


Woe is me...today is Amazon Vine Day...I have dented my pile of review books this week but...I can't resist new offerings...I love Amazon Vine!



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And The Reading Goes On And On...

Finished this...what an amazing sort of coming of age book...the sun is staying out way too long...everything is dying...and Julia...narrator...is just trying to figure out why she's quiet and alone and can't talk easily to boys. This book is so much more than that, though. It is beautifully poignantly written and it felt as though this event really could happen. Every day the sun stays out longer and longer. There are real time people and clock time people...I am not sure yet what I would be...I loved this book.




Reading this...sweet and lovely...I love the way this author writes.




I want this...I veer toward this style almost all of the time! It's me...plus I just got my nails done in an almost matching color...lol...can you see the little sparkly specks and do my fingers look wrinkled?








Lucy and I have just come in from a long walk...the rest of my day is free...I am going to spend the rest of the day figuring out what to do about my dead cooktop and reading!!!
And thinking about that dress!!! That lovely flowy summery dress...
Lucy before our walk...




Lucy after our walk...and I do all of the pushing!




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It's What's Happening...

Finished this...liked it...summery...light...fun...




and this...OMG...loved this book...loved the whole Mad Men era sort of clothes, background, drinks thing going on...I had no clue that I would be drawn into this book the way I was!




Reading this...about halfway through...beautiful writing, scary premise, coming of age...what would happen if we went off of clock time and the sun stayed out longer and longer every day...




Bought this summer bag when my sister was here...at a very neat local shop that I did not know about and now that I do...yum...it is handmade out of grasses that give off this really lovely scent...in the car it smells amazing and when I walk by it...it's sitting on the dining room table...the smell is delightful...it's supposed to provide you with a wellness feeling!!! And the tag says it's an aphrodisiac? Yikes!
Isn't it too too cute?
Even Lucy likes it...but she thinks it's a new scratcher!
Bad kitty...




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Swell Swag!!!

Look at this stuff! Swag...true swag from Hogarth! At first I thought it said
Hogwart's! I was looking for wands and a spell book!














Here is news from The Bookseller about Hogarth...today.

"The spirit of Virginia and Leonard Woolf's literary imprint the Hogarth Press will be revived on both sides of the Atlantic after Random House announced the launch of a new fiction imprint.

Hogarth will launch in summer 2012 and will focus on "contemporary, character rich" publishing. It will publish between eight and 10 books a year in the United States. The UK wing of the imprint will publish a smaller number of titles each year, with the list comprising exclusively of titles published by its US sister.

Molly Stern, senior vice-president and publisher at Crown will lead the imprint in the US. Clara Farmer, Chatto & Windus publishing director will head it up this side of the Atlantic.

Among the lead titles in both territories is I Am Forbidden by Anouk Markovits, originally acquired by Crown's Lindsay Sagnette from Scott Moyers of the Wylie Agency, and The Watch by Joydeep Roy-Bhattacharya, bought by Chatto's Hardie from Arabella Stein on behalf of Nicole Aragi.

I am Forbidden is a three-generation saga set in the secretive Hasidic Satmar sect.

The Watch is set in modern-day Kandahar, following an Afghan woman who is demanding the return of her brother's body from a US military base.

Farmer said: "This dynamic new venture marks the timely revival of the Hogarth name for a new generation, and for a transatlantic audience.

"The original Hogarth Press has been a treasured and vital part of Chatto's identity for 65 years, and its books remain distinct from the new list, which will also be housed within Chatto & Windus."

The Woolfs founded Hogarth Press in 1917 and early publications included T S Eliot's The Waste Land. It was acquired by Chatto in 1946."

I can't wait to read all of these but I am really ecstatic about The Kissing List and The Dead Do Not Improve. The Kissing List is intertwining stories about 4 women...I love this kind of book and The Dead Do not Improve is sort of a sarcastic intense mystery...I will be stretching what I normally love to read with the first two books but I really want to step out of my reading safety zone!!!

The books are so new and they smell so good...that hot off the press new paper smell!

Am I the only one who loves the smell of printed paper?

I will Always Miss Her...

It's still amazing to me that my mom is no longer alive...it has been almost three years...that I have not seen or touched or talked to her. I used to keep her phone number on our phone's directory...right up there with the most called numbers...but we just got new phones and I didn't add that number. That felt like a huge step for me. When my sister was here we didn't really talk about her very much...it's as though the memories don't fade but they are less relevant? We are not adding new thoughts of her...just going over old ones.

Den said that although I probably look more like my mom my sister has more of her mannerisms...I didn't even notice this until Den mentioned them to me...she taps her fingers the way my mom did, she says things that my mom said...even her facial expressions are identical to my mom's. And her funny intolerance of certain things...are solely my mom's.

I always thought that when you no longer had a living mom you were sort of orphaned...but I read something the other day that made me truly realize that she is always here...that even without her physical presence...Mother's Day is still a day to celebrate her...
and so I will.

Happy Mother's Day, Mom!!!
I had her to myself for four lovely spoiled years until she decided to unmake me an only child!!!
Darn it!!!
Just teasing Paula, John and Jim!





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