Monday, November 22, 2010

Book List

Have you read more than 6 of these books?
The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books listed here.

Instructions:
Bold those books you've read in their entirety;
italicize the ones you started but didn't finish or just read an excerpt.
You can even past this into your own blog.
1 Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series – JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 The Divine Comedy
8 Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
11 Little Women – Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch – George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis
34 Emma – Jane Austen
35 Persuasion – Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Berniere
39 Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne
41 Animal Farm – George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving
45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding
50 Atonement – Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi – Yann Martel
52 Dune – Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
62 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History – Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road – Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick – Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
72 Dracula – Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses – James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal – Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Posession -- AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple – Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web – EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
94 Watership Down – Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

Final Count: 50...Take that BBC!!!
Does this make me a geek?

The real question is why books like Dante's Inferno, Miguel de Cervantes Don Quixote, Ralph Ellison's the Invisible Man, Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, Zora Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, Ibsen's A Doll's House, Swift's Gulliver's Travels, Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray, or even Author Miller's The Crucible didn't make the list? For heaven's sake, Harry Potter, The Da Vinci Code, and The Lovely Bones made it?



Thursday, August 19, 2010

Lady Rain

Sweet smelling is the summer day
When honest Lady Rain does fly
Draped in a lissome cloth of grey
She breaks into shifting skies

Like God’s own mercy does she fall
Interjecting on summer’s heat
Slow sweltering days that seem to crawl
Floutingly she seems to beat

What language does the thunder speak
As such that the lady can command
How her dulcet tones drum the beat
Reverence respect she demands

To which self doth the mulish lady go
From that which tarn did she derive
What path or road will she accept to flow
Unwillingly does she drive

Those who listen and that which hear
She oft speaks with a wit that’s wry
For who is there that does not fear
When the Lady utters a siren sigh

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Mortal Eyes

“There’s a Divinity which shapes our ends."
John Adams before the signing of the Declaration of Independence

Though mortal eyes and minds cannot fathom the end from the beginning, God does.

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

“Barney the Blister-a Gardening Tale”

When the weather turns warm and the air sweet I find myself drawn to the outdoors.   Gardening has always been one of my favorite spring pass times, and having my own garden makes it even better…However redoing a very established garden is more of a challenge than I anticipated.
These last few weekends have been filled with dirt, worms, blisters, some blood, sore muscles and sunburns.  Sounds like fun huh? 

But the fruits - or more accurately- flowers of these labors are, I think, pleasing and attractive. I am delighted with my little garden.  I wish that I had more funds, and time, to make it really “my garden”, but alas flowers are surprisingly costly and it’s unexpectedly easy to exceed the preset limits when shopping at the nursery.  At least the plants I have chosen are all perennials and I can add to it over the months/years to come.

The other day I took pictures of all of the flora now planted in my garden so that in the future when I am wondering if that purple plant in the corner is the Siberian Bugloss or if it is the Lavender White or Lavender spliced Columbine, I’ll be able to look back at my labeled pictures and discover that it is really dandelions or grape hyacinths. 

I thought it only fitting to post said documentarial pictures on the blog…this way the charming flowers may be viewed by all.  This action also provides a fail safe for when my computer crashes (which will inevitably happen knowing my laptop) then I will still have record of my amazing green thumb (let’s just hope that the plants survive now that I have claimed that).

Now since we don’t have internet at the house yet I put these pictures on my thumb drive to take to work with me so that I could put them up on my lunch hour. Sadly I forgot to grab the pictures of all of the flower labels.  You’d think I’d be able to remember their names considering the quality time I have spent with them, but alas I cannot.  I will try my best to put the right name with the right flower

First off, the Columbines

pictured above "Swan red and white Columbine"


Lavender spliced Columbine

Jack Frost Siberian Bugloss (Adam’s favorite)

Jacobs Ladder

Lavender

Lavender Silvia

Dwarf Corianthis


 
Carnations

I can’t remember the names of these next few, but will update with their names soon



Here are our window boxes filled with Geraniums, Snap Dragons, and Petunias.


Now for the Vegetable Garden

Tomatoes (before planting)

We have planted Green peppers, yellow peepers, “Chocolate” peppers, corn, peas, beans, cucumber, watermelon, strawberries, and some cantaloupe.




We also have a herb garden left from the previous owners…All I can say for sure is that there are chives in there, the rest is unknown. 

If all goes well we will have quite the harvest.

Monday, June 7, 2010

Casa

Alright Liz, here is the requested photos...We haven’t really had a chance to photograph the inside yet...That is for another day and another post. Maybe I’ll withhold the innards of our house until Liz and Company come to visit in August...Maybe the curiosity will drive you crazy enough to make a trip up to our house! Mwahahaha! (If you can’t tell that is Maniacal laughter)

Our home – A quaint little bungalow built in 1948.

Here is a picture of the house with our corner garden (a work in progress), Adam, our car, and the flag…If you were wondering it was Memorial Day when I took this picture and the boy scouts do the whole flag-holiday-fund-raiser-thing.

The next few pictures are just for fun. The night I was taking the pictures of the house there was an amazing sunset. I thought I would share because I thought it was a beautiful site. These were taken from our yard.






The west facing window.

I was getting a little artsy in this one. It ended up being a little blurry because the auto focus was focusing on the image in the window… After this picture I switched to manual but the best of the colors were gone…So please forgive the blurry and focus on the pretty.I’ll probably fix it up and republish it when my Photoshop is up and running.

That’s all I have for now…Join me later for
“Innards- the Grand Tour” and
“Barney the Blister-a Gardening Tale”

Monday, May 24, 2010

Cuddly pup

This past Sunday we had family dinner at my parent’s house. We of course brought Aussie along so that we could avoid
A) questioning from my father as to why we hadn’t brought his grand-dog for a visit (“She wanted to see Grandpa!” He would have advocated thoroughly making us feel guilty), and
 B) adventures wear her out and that in and of istself is the makings of a quiet evening and a good night sleep.

Later Sunday evening on returning home, Aussie went for her bone and her pillow and started chewing away happily…not much later this is what we found (FYI all we had was our cell phone at that moment so the pictures aren’t high quality)

Sleepy puppy.
If you can’t tell she is cuddling her bone between her paws.

After we took some picture with our phone (because we knew if we moved Aussie would probably stir) Adam got up to get the real camera, which, as we predicted woke Aussie with a start…

If you can’t tell she is still not fully conscious.


In fact it only took a few seconds for her to fall asleep again

She isn't much of a morning person dog

Speaking of mornigs...Here is another picture I took a few weeks ago. This is a typical morning look for both Aussie and Adam…All hail bed head!

(again, cell phone picture)

She is a cute dog…Stubborn, but cute none the less. Thanks to my family for wearing her out.

Monday, May 17, 2010

Mommas (I love you 5)

There is a Jewish Proverb that says “God could not be everywhere and therefore he made mothers.”

I am no expert on motherhood, seeing as I have yet to become one (at least to a human child), but I have as of late been observing mother’s. My job offers me a rare view into the soul of motherhood. My awareness of mother’s love and of her sacrifices has extended far beyond the straightforward experience of childhood.

Motherhood brings the greatest joys and the greatest heartaches of life. As a mother you are never really alone in your thought. Mothers always think twice, once for herself and once (or more) for her child. In my opinion adoption has to be the greatest example of this. Mother’s that come in our doors often, if not always, articulate two viewpoints-that of herself, and that of her unborn child. I have found that the essence of adoption is “What will be best for my child?” After all it is not a mother’s job to speak for her voiceless child? Who would be better than a mother? I believe Mother’s are the comprehenders of the things their children (even 24 year old children) do not or cannot say.

I know that I am always saying that my job is the most difficult yet rewarding work I have ever had. It is so full of emotional ups and downs that sometimes I wonder why I am putting myself through this…then I think of what the girls I work with must be going through. I hear things like “I can be a good mom!” “My baby should know her mother!” and “I can make this work!” But those are always mixed with expressions like “My baby wouldn’t have a father.” “I would have to work all of the time and I wouldn’t be able to give my baby the time she requires.” and “financially…and/or spiritually I just can’t provide everything my baby needs.” My emotional ups and downs are diminutive compared to theirs.

When a mother places her child in the arms of a couple there is a surfeit of emotions running through her. There is happiness at the prospect of the bright future she is giving to her child. She feels joy for the couple. There is also bitterness and jealousy. But the most overwhelming is sorrow. A greater sorrow I have yet to see.

As much as some people think that adoption is a selfish act, and that these mothers “give up” their children because they didn’t want them is sadly mistaken. These women…These mothers place their children because their thoughts of themselves, their wants, and their desires have been put aside and their thoughts are solely of the wellbeing and happiness of their child. I have come to believe that the sacrifice of mothers is more akin to Godly sacrifice than any this mortal existence can allow.

As I said before my experience is limited. Adoption has been the most prevalent and commanding motherly occurrences I have seen in the last year. Please do not think that I deem the sacrifice of mothers to be the providence of adoption. I look back at the sacrifices my mother made, and still makes for her children. She desires nothing more than the wellbeing and happiness of her kids. I would not be where I am without my mother.

I am positive that I won’t fully understand motherly heartache until I am a mother myself, but I am just as positive that it is a pious and hallowed type of hurt.

All I can do is hope that I have caused more joy than heartache to my mother. I know that it kills a mother to watch her kids grow up…but then again, knowing my mother’s kids, it may have killed her quicker if they didn’t.

I love you 5 Momma

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Hot Crossed buns

As a child I learned the nursery rhyme "Hot Cross Buns." I always wondered: What is a hot cross bun? How come sons only get them if there aren't any daughters? And why are they priced one 'ah penny, and two 'ah penny? Who would just buy one when you can have two?!


Hot cross buns are spiced, slightly sweet yeast rolls studded with currants and sometimes candied citron. What makes Hot crossed buns Hot Crossed Buns is the cross on the top of the bun made with frosting, white pastry dough, or cuts in the dough. The dessert acts as a reminder of the crucifixion and is a traditional treat on Good Friday on the Christian calendar. Its origins date back to the Saxons who marked buns with a cross to honor the goddess Eostre, the goddess of light, whose name eventually morphed to Easter.
Here is how to make a special Easter treat.

Hot Crossed Buns Recipe
(The easy way)
• 1 (1/4 ounce) package active dry yeast (1 Tbs.)
• 2/3 cup warm water (105 to 115 F)
• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 2 3/4 cups Bisquick baking mix
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1/2 cup currant
• 1/4 cup chopped citron
• quick icing (recipe below)

QUICK ICING
• 1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
• 1-2 teaspoon water

Directions

1. Dissolve yeast in warm water in large mixer bowl. Add egg, sugar and 1 12 cups of the baking mix.

2. Blend 1/2 minute on low speed, scraping bowl constantly. Beat 2 minutes medium speed, scraping bowl occasionally.

3. Stir in remaining baking mix, the cinnamon, nutmeg, currants and citron; beat vigorously 1/2 minute.

4. Spoon dough into 12 greased medium muffin cups. Cover and let rise in warm place until double, about 1 hour.

5. Heat oven to 375°F Bake 15 to 20 minutes. Make a cross on each bun with Quick icing. 12 buns.

6. Quick Icing, blend 1/2 cup confectioners’ sugar ad 1 to 2 teaspoon water.

Or you can always do it the cheater’s way (and by far my favorite and what I deem as the tastiest way)!

Make cinnamon or orange rolls and frost them with a big’ol X.

ENJOY!

Monday, March 22, 2010

One Nation

'If we ever forget that we're one nation under God, then we will be a nation gone under.' - Ronald Reagan