Day 2 Day radishes

August 25/ Books for summer

I want to suggest the following books to finish up your summer reading. They are The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows. This is a delightful epistolary novel and it is a novel about the citizens of Guernsey and their occupation during WWII. Very fast read.

The second book is A Short History of Tractors in the Ukrainian, by Marina Lewycka. If you choose books by their title, you have to wonder. And the cover doesn’t look much better. The subject is immigration from the Ukraine to England. This is what the LOS ANGELES TIMES has to say. “The last thing one expected in a work of fiction about Ukrainian exiles was a charming comedy of eros. . . A ride that, despite the bumps and curves in the road, never feels anything less than jaunty.”

January 18/ Mel Starr and the Gang of Four.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0011G9YEU

I have a new friend, Janine Clark, who lives half of the year here in Western Washington and half of the year in Arizona. We have known each other for about four years, but have not really connected until this past fall. We write each other and she writes these lovely letters, with good punctuation, interesting ideas, and she has interests in common to me. I send off these cryptic notes full of nonsense and poor grammar; you get the idea. Let us just say that she is leaps above me. No wonder. She is a writer.

This week she has been notified by Amazon.com, that she is a semi-finalist in their American Break Through Novel contest. The above link is to her first chapter on the web. The novel is for young adults. Think about reading the chapter. I hope my granddaughters do. We are encouraged to write a review. I read it, and definitely would read on. The name is Mel Starr and the band of 4.

November 8/ Sex and little and big girls

This week in Las Vegas there is a huge blogging convention. I was not invited. Maybe next year.

Last year I may have written about the book: Unprotected: Unprotected: A Campus Psychiatrist Reveals how Political Correctness in her Profession Endangers Every Student. by anonymous. She worked at a major university and she wrote anonymously because she would lose her job. I listened to her on the radio. She talked about how college girls were getting sick just thinking about having to participate in casual sex. She also talked about how the school professors encouraged participation in sex. She wrote the book anonymously because she would have been fired. I happened to be looking for the book today on Amazon because I did not know I had written on this book before. (Still do not know.) I was interested to see that the book is out of print and said it was unknown when, or if, it would be printed. I found that rather interesting. There are used books available.

Now I am going to buy the bookPRUDE: How the Sex-Obsessed Culture Damages Girs and Americans Too, by Carol Platt Liebau I am sending it to my eldest daughter. This is a book about young girls, 12 and beyond and the sex that can be found in groups,and  on the Internet and other places. Carol, on the radio, gave quite an ear aching blast on "hooking up" or casual sex with people that you do not know. Yikes!

When I had girls in high school, one school psychologist stated that 75% of all girls had intercourse before high school graduation. I wondered who were the 25% . I have not forgotten that number over 25 years. As a mother, I did not feel the odds were great.

I think the book PRUDE not only gives an overall picture, but some specifics as to where and what to be wary. For one thing, I did not know that there were so many books written for teens that actually have pornography or sexual content. This is a huge market. 

September 7/ For those in decor

I am still in the décor mood. And I am cutting out magazine pages so I can remember the ideas. The first picture is a page out of House and Garden. This is what I would like my books to look like. It is what I would like my house to look like. Notice that there is a over all color scheme: mainly yellow with a secondary of red and a few darks for accents. The next picture is a photo from the mag Dominio, which I kind of like. The magazine I mean, plus the picture. The picture shows a color scheme of the primary colors. This is my cookbook shelf which I use all the time, but am meaning to revise and restore to less than chaos. While I do buy books by their cover, who buy books by a color scheme? This how it all worked out for me. All this decorating knowledge has been made available to you by my friend Donna who can verbalize to me what to do. I purposely left the trash basket in as it is about a tenth of the recipes I threw away. 

July 25/ For scrapbookers only

Recently I ordered a book on scrap booking. I liked the author and this is her second book. The name is CLEAN & SIMPLE, the Sequel by Cathy Zielske. If you scrapbook, you probably know her. And she has a good blog, if you like crafty things. Her first book answered a lot of questions for me and was very informative. For example she explained Fonts,(now she likes handwriting) one of the fun things of our time, and showed how to work in the negative. She was pretty kick ass creative. Most people will say that why would anyone scrapbook? Cathy is a good photographer, and I could use that help. But scrapping is very creative. If you have any inclination towards graphic art, this is a wonderful place to start. It is a great place to display photos, It is a great place to journal, it can be very therapeutic. It is also a good excuse to buy beautiful paper.And  I love the smell of fresh paper. I took up pastels just so I could buy the colors, and the color feeds my innards. Should you still be able to hand write or print, it is a perfect place.

Sometimes I need a creative lift, especially I want more for the blog, so I ordered the new book. Her first book, CLEAN AND SIMPLE, is better. Somehow she went from simple to a lot more complicated. None the less, the book is inspirational and there are many principals that can be transferred to other crafts.

February 1/ more on fame

Tomorrow is Groundhog Day.  Keep that in mind. 

My post for today is really my additional thoughts, under comments,from yesterday.

January 31/ Fame

This morning I was listening to Jake Halpern discuss his new book Fame Junkies: The Truths Behind America's Favorite Addiction. You may recollected that I was befuddled and appalled watching American Idol. So I listened to the author for a while which answered a few of my questions. I came in at the part where he was saying that parents in America give too much attention to their children allowing them to think they can do anything, and they are wonderful.  He went on to talk about how children these days when asked whether they would like to grow up to be a CEO, doctor, dentist, US. Senator, Astronaut, etc. or would they like to carry Britney Spears bags.  The girls choose carry Britney Spears bags.  In past days they would have said maybe they wanted to be a scientist.  I heard very little more, because I was getting out the door.  But I did hear that children most likely to become celebrity addicted, watched more than an hour of television a day.  Also children at the far ends of the parent attention scale were the most prone. 

I looked this book up on Amazon, thinking the interview on the radio might have been over the top, but no, it is given a five star review.  In fact, I doubt that many,if any,  reading this will actually read the book. However, it is well worth going to Amazon and reading the review.  This celebrity adoration is a dark side of America. Barbaraso's death egads.

Pardon me, let me get my shawl, and my chapeaux and climb  in my carriage,( I do not want to get my hem muddy) and on to Pride and Prejudice.

Mr. Halpern speaks on All Things Considered about Hollywood.