The Joy of Books

I came across this video on YouTube and posted it on Facebook, but it's just too good not to share here.

January

It's hard to believe January is almost over. The winter that almost wasn't, continues to throw a little snow our way without it ever amounting to much. Normally I'd have at least two feet of the white stuff just outside my door by this time. That's okay with me. Although I love the snow and winter, I am ready for spring and summer this year—more than ever before.

I'm dreaming of soft sand, salt water, summer sunsets, and the sounds of water rushing to and from the shore.

I just sent off another article to my editor. I love the writing process, but there's nothing like hitting the send button after the work is done. I have a few more projects in the works, so it's time to push on towards February with a little more steam.

And when I'm feeling a little less than creative, I head on over to Pinterest. I just started my account a couple of weeks ago and I'm having fun navigating my way around. You can see more of my photos of New England here, then take a peek at some of the other albums I've started. Say hello, and I'll follow along.

Where Do You Get Your Books?

Over the past six months I've been culling my collection of books. I have two bookcases in my living room, one in the den, one in each of the girls' rooms, books stacked on tables in my bedroom, and I have countless piles taking up residence on miscellaneous desks and surfaces throughout my home. I have a lot of books.

Where did they all come from? Well, I buy a lot of my books—some from my local bookstore, and some (Hey, I need to save money in order to support my habit.) from online book sources. At least I feel like I'm doing my part to save real books. I don't mind going to the library on occasion, but I often want to keep my book longer than the allotted 2 weeks. I think you know by now that my affection for books far outweighs any rational thinking.

So, where do you get your books? Locally, online, at the library, or do you swap books? (Try paperbackswap.com or bookmooch.com.) Do you use an e-reader? Will the iPad and Kindle take over the world?

Curious minds want to know.

Photo: Flickr

Planning and Plotting

I'm a list-maker, a writer-downer, a chart-drawer, a planner. I like to see things in black and white, plain as day, so I understand where I'm going and just what I've been up to. Sometimes this is good and sometimes....not so much.

I suppose I do this to keep my monkey-mind from swinging on yet another branch. To control the
chaos in my head—just a little bit. After all, I'm used to working on a few things at a time while
simultaneously keeping my family from eating cheerios night after night. As all mothers know, we can do 2, 3, 4 things at once. Piece of cake. Until it isn't.

I was reading about a fellow blogger's newest musings just recently and found out that she's on a writers' retreat. All she has to do is spend time writing. If she's hungry, she'll eat. Then write. If she's tired, she'll nap. Then write. And if she wants to write for hours and hours on end, without interruption, she can do that, too.

I was green with envy.

With all my lists and plans and good intentions, I still can't keep on task. I still can't find a rhythm that works for me—that allows me to do what I want to do versus what I have to do. Day after day I return to my charts and my calendar. I keep adding to my lengthy to-do list, moving the things I really want to do further down the page. I promise myself next week will be different. Next week I'll be able to settle my brain and just do it. Next week. As soon as...

Why do we do this to ourselves? The things we want to do are just as important as the things we have to do.

If I babble on about change and doing and being to all of you, dear readers, then I have to quit whining and just get it done. I have to reclaim some of that time just for me. So here's my new plan: I will create my own writer's retreat, or better yet, a writer's boot camp (File in, shoulders back, butt in chair, fingers on keys—type.) I will revert back to parenthood bribery tactics...."If you eat just one more bite, you can have a cookie." Maybe I'll even try to dangle a carrot in front of my nose. I'm not exactly sure. But whatever I do, I have to realize I'm the only one stopping myself.

So I leave you with this: If you are burning to do something, do it. No more excuses. Start your own boot camp and sit in that chair or jump out of it if you have to. Erase some of those have-to's on your calendar and replace it with space—some free time to do the things you want to do.

What Are You Reading?

Nothing brings me more joy than a box full of books. Okay, my children, my husband, my dogs—but other than that, nothing brings me more joy. I love when my UPS man drops another box onto my porch with a wink and a smile....wondering how soon he'll be back. Today I'm expecting another box, but this one is for my youngest daughter (lucky girl). I'm sure it will cheer her up after a long day of schoolwork and choir practice.

I just finished Winter Garden by Kristin Hannah this past weekend. Her characters leapt off the page and I was a wreck by the time I closed the book. My husband looked over at me with a smirk on his face that said, "Again? Really?" He wonders why I put myself through such torment over "fictional" characters.

I'm half-way through Diane Keaton's memoir, Then Again, which is really a love letter to her mother. She has melded together some of her fondest memories with a collection of entries from her mother's journals into a book that is tender and sweet, funny and heartbreaking.

I'm also knee-deep into yet another book about writing (Robert's Rules of Writing) which I'm rather enjoying although not fully agreeing with. Sorry Bob. I do like his no-nonsense approach and most of his tips are spot on, so if you want to snatch up a copy, just be sure to understand that what works for some writers doesn't always work for others—and vice versa.

I have several books stacked neatly on my shelf waiting to be read with the word "sister" in the title (hmmm, I wonder what that means?) and a couple of books from an author I'm just getting to know both on the page and personally. I'm not sure if I want to save Maryann McFadden's novels until I hit the Cape or break with tradition and read pages filled with summer sunsets and beach sand when the snow starts to fall again.

And have I mentioned that I'm a Jane Austen fan? Well, I am. Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility are always around to keep me company, even if I just read a few pages here and there.

Photo: vi.sualize.us

Breakfast!

Since dinner has been so hard for me to prepare lately, I've turned to breakfast foods to help me out of my rut. Once in a great while I would serve breakfast for dinner, but now French toast and pancakes, bacon and eggs, muffins and pastries, have all made their way onto my dinner (and sometimes lunch) table a lot more often than they used to.

For New Year's Day, we enjoyed a breakfast brunch: cinnamon rolls with hot chocolate and coffee when we woke up, and a spread of scrambled eggs, French toast, home fries, toast, bacon, and tea later in the day. And I'm getting another craving to do it all over again.

Growing up, my mother would cook scrambled eggs and home fries in bacon fat because my father and I don't like butter! (There, the secret is finally out. I could never understand why Julia Child was so enamored with butter.) But bacon fat....well, let me tell you, there are few things more delicious than cooking with the artery-clogging goodness of pure fat. Just check out Sydney's recipe for perfect breakfast potatoes over on Crepes of Wrath to see what I'm talking about. Mind you, I haven't cooked bacon the old-fashioned way in a very long time. To reduce the amount of calories and fat my family and I consume when we do splurge and eat real bacon, I'll microwave it to save our souls and to keep from cleaning a grease-smeared stove top, but once in a while... Is there anything more heavenly than the smell of fresh brewed coffee and bacon in the morning?

I was never a big fan of eggs either. I won't eat a fried egg, so it's only scrambled eggs for me. But the idea that you can mix together scrambled eggs, sautéed vegetables, and savory meats—yum! I can scramble just about anything together and be happy. Check out this recipe for an egg scramble, known as a Garbage Plate, here.

When I'm not indulging in something sinful for breakfast, I eat almost the same thing every day. I think you'd find if you cracked me open, I'm probably 75% peanut butter. But that's a story for another day.

Breakfast sandwiches, granola and yogurt drizzled with maple syrup; banana muffins with dollops of raspberry jam, toasted pumpkin bread with fennel sausage, have now become treats just about any time of day. Breakfast is the perfect meal.

For more breakfast inspiration, head on over to Simply Breakfast where Jen Causey shares what she's been eating every morning. Check out Sydney's recipe for Bacon and Egg Cups which accompany her perfect breakfast potatoes. Then head on over to the Smitten Kitchen for a full menu featuring Baked Eggs, Chive Biscuits, and Bloody Mary's.

Gray Day

This boy's bedroom isn't too masculine for me. A few tweaks here and there and I would have been happy to call this my bedroom growing up. On the walls is one of my favorite Benjamin Moore colors, Rockport Gray. This chameleon color has hints of brown and green and looks good in almost any light. Here are a few more favorites...

Color Inspiration: Benjamin Moore

P.S. You may also like Gray Matters and The Beauty of Stone.


Image via designdazzle.blogspot.com - Atlanta Symphony Showhouse

Vintage: Bringing Back the Postcard

I spent some time last week pouring over old letters from friends and family, my husband and children, when I pulled out a stack of postcards from Paris a friend had written more than twenty years ago. I admired the stamp, the postmark, the weight of the paper. My box of cards and letters reminded me that a letter or note doesn't necessarily have to be long, as long as the message is clear: I care. So this week, I will purchase a stack of pretty postcards and grab a roll of stamps (29 cents vs. 44 cents for a letter) and I will send them off with a smile.

Image via philatelicdatabase.com

Change

A new year, a new job, a new season....some changes happen naturally and some we set into motion ourselves, always with good intentions. But I'm not good with change. I order the same breakfast at our local diner, I buy the same style clothes year after year; I even recreate traditions down to the smallest detail. Sameness suits me. I find comfort in the expected. And yet I long for a little shake up. A baby shake.

Is this a middle age thing? Am I bracing myself for what's around the corner? When the kids are gone, when it's just the two of us, when I can enjoy the fruits of my labor, travel the world, and rekindle a little romance with my husband? Even if I'm secretly looking forward to some of them? Change is hard and I'm holding on so tightly to my past that any change, even the smallest of changes, sends me reeling. Yet some of the most important decisions I have ever made, and some of the most rewarding aspects of my life, were the results of some very big changes. Maybe this is why I like same. All that upheaval early on in my life has made me happy with old and familiar.

I've made some pretty big changes in the way I do business in the last 2 years and I feel more are on the way. These changes have been mostly good, although I have yet to cut the cord completely and really reach out to grab another brass ring, but I've made a good start. I just wish I had made it earlier in my life.

And then, sometimes change is taken completely out of your hands.

I was in the bookstore a couple of month ago, browsing through the stacks, when I came upon a copy of Our Bodies, Ourselves. I had owned a copy of this book about 25 years ago, before I became a mother and before I started to think about anything beyond what a normal 20-something woman would think about. I was more curious than anything else.

As I thumbed through the pages, I skipped chapters and chapters of information about bearing children, sexuality—all of the things I've either already experience or (I think) I have a pretty good handle on. Three quarters of the way into the book I discovered that I have moved into new territory, I have a new identity, a new box: 45-65. What happens to my body now is written about in chapters outlining menopause, osteoarthritis, and "our later years". Oh boy. I had to re-read a few sentences before I was even comfortable enough to get use to my new role as "older woman". It's kind of like watching those commercials for seniors age 50+: term life insurance, retirement communities. and realizing, I'm almost there.

And if seeing it in print isn't proof enough, every hair that falls out of my head is grey—thick, rough, make-no-mistake-about-it-it's-grey, grey. It's as if I have crossed over into some unknown territory—middle-age land—where adults come to take a good look at their past and a sober look into their future. Talk of grandkids, 401ks, all mixed in with college tuition have now become part of the 5-year plan.

Change is supposed to equal growth, opportunity. All positive, all good. Yet sometimes so hard to accept.

We may not be able to do anything about the changes to our bodies but we can do something about changes of heart. We can choose to play up the positive and let go of the negative. We can choose to look beyond what's right in front of us and believe we've been given a great opportunity when change comes our way. An opportunity to shake things up. To be brave enough to make a change, no matter how small. No matter what.