leahbird (formerly atlargeintheworld) talks books, food and farming while attempting 75 in 2012 (#3)

Ahh, the sweet smells of a new thread! AND a new username! YAY!

I love this picture so much, I had to bring it over here.

“She is too fond of books, and it has turned her brain.”― Louisa May Alcott
"If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need."― Cicero

*Note: Descriptions are not mine, but mined from LT or other sources. Thoughts are all me.

I'm participating in the group read of Ray Bradbury's work this weekend. While most are reading Dandelion Wine, I'm reading Fahrenheit 451 because I don't have Dandelion Wine and it's checked out at the library. Already, I'm getting those same old goosebumps that reading this book always gives me, and a part of me still feels like that 13 year old girl who discovered this book for the first time.

Also, maybe this means I'm out of my reading slump, 2 books in one week!

Congrats on successfully making the big change!

Leah - congrats on your new thread and name makeover! Have a great weekend.

Congrats on the transitions!

Glad to see you took the plunge, congratulations.

By the way, I'm going to switch you over to the new name in the Threadbook.

Heh, never mind. Looks like you got it!

Thanks but, yep, I covered the bases. ;)

A bit of a whiny side-note: I went out last night with my erstwhile best friend. For over a year things have been very weird between us because our lives have taken divergent paths: she's more of a scenester than ever before and I'm living the quite life on the farm. We rarely talk or see each other and when we do it's a bit weird, but I've kept trying and hoping things would come around. After all, we've been best friends for 11 years. Anyway, she actually invited me to come hang out and sleep over, totally out of the blue, and I was excited.

Long story short, it was a nightmare. Of the 4 hours we were "together," she spent maybe 15 minutes actually talking to me. She dumped me on some friends (who I was glad to catch up with but really miffed that I was being dumped on people) for ages to talk to some other people she sees all the time, left me AT THE BAR and went to another bar across the street to see a band she sees all the time (who are terrible), and then, when I finally found her there, ignored me until I left in a fury. I ended up walking a mile back to my car and driving 45 mins home in the middle of the night because I was so frustrated.

The whole drive home, all I could think was how much better my night would have been if I'd just stayed home with my book... I think it's safe to say that this relationship has become a dead horse and I need to stop flogging it. Books never abandon you at a bar.

So sorry for such an uncomfortable experience. A real friend doesn't abandon you at a bar either.

So true. There was a time not so long ago where spending time together was enough, a time when we would sit on my front porch and talk for hours. Now I don't even garner enough thought to not get left at a bar. How does one person become so oblivious to another human being? I don't even treat people I barely like in such a manner.

I think the thing that bothered me the most was the fact that, if she didn't want to hang out with me, she easily could have just not extended the invitation. I would have gone about my life and been spared such a terrible experience. Why would you call someone who you didn't want to spend time with?

I lost a friend that way, too. It sucks; I'm sorry!

leahbird - I used to have a best friend like that too. Well, sort of. We lived halfway across the country but we talked all the time and she kept saying "you should move out here! you should move out here!" Then I finally needed to move, so I moved there....and now we barely talk at all. She would complain to me about this other friend who canceled plans for the silliest reasons and then she would do the exact same thing to me and didn't even see it.

I finally stopped inviting her to do things, and when she invited me to do anything I would say "Sure! Sounds great!" and make other plans while I waited for her to cancel (which she always did. And she wonders why she never sees her friends).

Some people....I don't even know. Some people.

Thanks for all your words of understanding. I hate blabbering about it, but I was feeling seriously demoralized and at a total loss. I'm definitely grieving what used to be, but I'm not going to dwell. It's hard to let go of such a significant relationship (probably the most significant of my adult life so far) but you can't hold on forever or the dead weight will drag you under.

So, happier things. I'm trying to work on some businessy stuff for the farmhouse/wedding thing and would love some input. We want to somewhat "brand" everything under one umbrella but leave enough wiggle room that everything can work on it's own as well. We don't want to use the farm name because I want to market my china business off site and don't want to create confusion, so we're looking for the right name. I'm personally leaning towards "Something Old": I feel like it's perfect for farm weddings, the farmhouse itself, and my vintage china. So, how does "Something Old" sound to you?

So sorry about the crummy experience with your friend! :( Maybe she had good intentions to revisit your friendship, but it sounds like she's not mature enough to do so yet.

As for the wedding branding, I really like "Something Old", but I wonder if it might need to say "weddings" or "farmhouse weddings" as well. Maybe just as a sort of small-print subtitle on the logo. To avoid any confusion for those who don't have weddings on the brain.

I can picture such lovely designs to go with the name though! That's the fun part, huh? :)

That's kinda what I was thinking: "Something Old" with a subtitle like "weddings & more"...

something like this:


(I'm not sure if I want to continue the theme with the "something new" etc, but I'm playing around with it right now.)

ETA: I think I'm totally smitten with the simple design of the website Roostblog.com. It's soooo lovely. Now, to learn enough html and css to make mine look that scrumptious.

We hosted the state competition for the 4-H Forestry kids today. Had regional champion teams from all over the state running around the farm doing naturey stuff. It was pretty cool. Extra awesome because the team that won (Putnam County) was all girls. I loved that amidst teams dressed in camo and work boots and John deer hats, the girls who won were all wearing jeans, cute tops, and adorable rain boots! Take that, stereotypes of young women!

Now for those girls to go to Texas for the national competition where, I hope, they will continue to kick butt!

Like the logo. :) That's almost the color I was thinking of too, LOL!

Go girls! Congrats and good luck to them! I love that an all-girls team kicked some farm butt.

Cutest thing I have EVER seen! I want this child! (and the goat)

That's what I call starting them out early on farm labor!

BWAHAHAHA! LOVE!



These things just keep falling in my lap. It's too funny.

haha!

Just had to share these awesome little books I just got from PaperBackSwap. Penguin released a series of food essays called Penguin Great Food which I've been wanting to collect but they never seem to be available for swap. Magically I got 2 from one user over at PBS and they look like they've never been read.

Anyway, I always thought the covers were lovely which was one of the big draws but now that they are in my hands they are even better than I thought they would be. The cover images are slightly textured and quite wonderful.

Here are the ones I got today:

The Joys of Excess by Samuel Pepys


A Dissertation upon Roast Pig and Other Essays by Charles Lamb

Congratulations on a great find on PBS!

33. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury


Description: In Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury's classic, frightening vision of the future, firemen don't put out fires--they start them in order to burn books. Bradbury's vividly painted society holds up the appearance of happiness as the highest goal--a place where trivial information is good, and knowledge and ideas are bad. Fire Captain Beatty explains it this way, "Give the people contests they win by remembering the words to more popular songs.... Don't give them slippery stuff like philosophy or sociology to tie things up with. That way lies melancholy."

Guy Montag is a book-burning fireman undergoing a crisis of faith. His wife spends all day with her television "family," imploring Montag to work harder so that they can afford a fourth TV wall. Their dull, empty life sharply contrasts with that of his next-door neighbor Clarisse, a young girl thrilled by the ideas in books, and more interested in what she can see in the world around her than in the mindless chatter of the tube. When Clarisse disappears mysteriously, Montag is moved to make some changes, and starts hiding books in his home. Eventually, his wife turns him in, and he must answer the call to burn his secret cache of books. After fleeing to avoid arrest, Montag winds up joining an outlaw band of scholars who keep the contents of books in their heads, waiting for the time society will once again need the wisdom of literature.

Thoughts: A little bit of personal history needs to be shared to understand my connection to this book. My dad has always been a reader, his favorite author is Hemingway and I think he owns everything ever written by or about him, but he isn't someone who talks about books or ever went out of his way to put books in front of me. I don't ever remember my mom reading until a few years ago and, now that she does read, we don't share book tastes at all. So, even from a young age, I was pretty much responsible for my own reading. For a long time that mostly meant reading whatever was assigned in school and the couple of books that would come my way from friends or family members.

When I was 13 or 14 I discovered the joys of the library. Of course, I'd been to the school library before, but it wasn't until then that I realized I could explore the library for exciting new books. So I started exploring. The first book that I found for myself was The Giver- talk about an education! I didn't know books could be so intriguing and thought-provoking and interesting. I needed more.

The next book I came across was Fahrenheit 451. This book just blew me away. Mostly it was the feeling that the plot of the book was close enough to be uncomfortable, but it was also Bradbury's prose and ideals that really spoke to me. The questioning of "modern society," the appeal of Clarisse who was so open and receptive, the book people who carried entire books in their heads... Reading Fahrenheit 451 opened me up to all the amazing books I would read after it, made me a sponge for literature.

I don't know if other people can pinpoint the specific moments in time when they became a different person, but I feel like I can. It started with The Giver but it blossomed with Fahrenheit 451 and I will forever be grateful to Ray Bradbury for that.

Here are some of my favorite bits:

"But everyone I know is either shouting or dancing around like wild or beating up one another. Do you notice how people hurt each other nowadays?"
"You sound so very old."
"Sometimes I'm ancient. I'm afraid of children my own age. They kill each other. Did it always use to be that way? My uncle says no. Six of my friends have been shot in the last year alone. Ten of them died in car wrecks. I'm afraid of them and they don't life me because I'm afraid. My uncle says his grandfather remembered when children didn't kill each other. But that was a long time ago when they had things different. They believed in responsibility, my uncles says."

"Once, books appealed to a few people, here, there, everywhere. They could afford to be different. The world was roomy. But then the world got full of eyes and elbows and mouths. Double, triple, quadruple population. Films and radios, magazines, books leveled down to a sort of pastepudding norm, do you follow me?...
Classics cut to fit fifteen-minute radio shows, then cut again to fill a two-minute book column, winding up at last as a ten- or twelve-line dictionary resume.... Do you see? Out of the nursery into the college and back to the nursery; there's your intellectual pattern for the past five centuries or more...
School is shortened, discipline relaxed, philosophies, histories, languages dropped, English and spelling gradually gradually neglected, finally almost completely ignored. Life is immediate, the job counts, pleasure lies all about after work...
Now let's take up the minorities in our civilization, shall we?... The people in this book, this play, this TV serial are not meant to represent any actual painters, cartographers, mechanics anywhere... Authors, full of evil thoughts, lock up your typewriters. They did. Magazines became a nice blend of vanilla tapioca. Books, so the damned snobbish critics said, were dishwater. No wonder books stopped selling, the critics said. But the public, knowing what it wanted, spinning happily, let the comic book survive... There you have it, Montag. It didn't come from the Government down. There was no dictum, no declaration, no censorship, to start with, no! Technology, mass exploitation, and minority pressure carried the trick, thank God. Today, thanks to them, you can stay happy all the time, you are allowed to read comics, the good old confessions, or trade journals."

"It's not the books you need, it's some of the things that once were in books... No, no, it's not books at all you're looking for! Take it where you can find it, in old phonograph records, old motion pictures, and in old friends; look for it in nature and look for it in yourself. Books were only one type of receptacle where we stored a lot of things we were afraid we might forget. There is nothing magical in them at all. The magic is only in what books say, how they stitched the patches of the universe together into one garment for us...
After all, when we had all the books we needed, we still insisted on finding the highest cliff to jump off. But we do need a breather. We do need knowledge. And perhaps in a thousand years we might pick smaller cliffs to jump off. The books are to remind us what asses and fools we are. They're Caesar's praetorian gaurd, whispering as the parade roars down the avenue, 'Remember, Caesar, thou art mortal.' Most of us can't rush around, talk to everyone, know all the cities of the world, but the only way the average chap will ever see ninety-nine per cent of them is in a book."

5 stars

And then there was this lovely bit in the afterward that is so moving:

Since writing {Fahrenheit 451}, I have spun more stories, novels, essays, and poems about writers than any other writer in history that I can think of. I have written poems about Melville, Melville and Emily Dickinson, Emily Dickinson and Charles Dickens, Hawthorne, Poe, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and along the way I compared Jules Verne and his Mad Captain to Melville and his equally obsessed mariner. I have scribbled poems about librarians, taken night trains with my favorite authors across the continental wilderness, staying up all night gabbling and drinking, drinking and chatting. I warned Melville, in one poem, to stay away from land (it never was his stuff!) and turned Bernard Shaw into a robot, so as to conveniently stow him abroad a rocket and wake him on the long journey to Alpha Centauri to hear his Prefaces piped off his tongue and into my delighted ear. I have written a Time Machine story in which I hum back to sit at the deathbeds of Wilde, Melville, and Poe to tell of my love and warm their bones in their last hours... But, enough. As you can see, I am madness maddened when it comes to books, writers, and the great granary silos where their wits are stored.

Awesome

Love your review of Fahrenheit 451! It is always interesting to know someone's history with a book. It sounds like you enjoyed it just as much this time around.

It was definitely a different experience since I came to it with a lot more critical reading skills. I've never loved the ending because I wanted more, I wanted resolution, but it was still a very moving read. It took me back to my young self and that amazing sense of discovering hidden worlds inside the pages of a book.

My sister snapped this AMAZING photo of the sunset on the farm here tonight.

Well, well, well. I just received a very interesting comment on my Amazon.com review of The Last Unicorn Deluxe Edition several of us had issues with. You can see my review and the comments here.

The interesting ones are from Connor Cochran, Peter S Beagle's agent/manager. According to him, he and Peter were never informed about the sales plan that included signed and numbered editions. They are just hearing about this now and have made a nice offer to fans who are unhappy. Not that it's anything that would really put them out (don't think it will cost them a single cent), but it's a nice gesture anyway when so many others would just have let it go.

Anyway, knew there were some people who would probably appreciate this information. Hope it makes someone feel a little better. It did me.

Hey, thanks for the info! I doubt I'll shell out the shipping to send it to Peter Beagle to be signed, but I think it is lovely that his business manager made at least a gesture of good will when neither Amazon nor IDW did. (I emailed IDW, the publisher, when the whole debacle was going down and they didn't even bother to respond -- now I see why, since it appears to have been at least partly their fault.)

I feel a bit better about the whole business too.

In case anyone else is interested, we're thinking about doing a group read of John Irving's The Hotel New Hampshire sometime next month. You can come drop a message on the planning thread here if you are interested.

I LOVE this!

I'm farming and I know it!

Still my very favorite will always be Yeo Valley Rap.

June Round-Up

Books read: 2
Fiction: 2
Non-Fiction: 0
Classics: 2
Young adult: 1
Fantasy: 2
Cookbooks: 0

Average rating: 4.5 stars

From my shelves: 2
New: 0
Library: 0
Kindle: 0

I also started 3 books: 2 collections and a novel, which I am actually reading... and MIGHT finish before the July round-up.

Leah - What a lovely photo of the sunshine bidding bon nuit to the rural skyline.

Second Quarter/Half Year Review 2012

Books read: 32
Books paused: 6*

Paper books: 25
Kindle: 7
New reads: 30
Rereads: 2

From my shelves: 10
New: 15
Library: 8

Fiction: 29
Non-Fiction: 3
Series: 12
Fantasy: 26
Young adult: 13
Fairy Tales/Myths & Retellings: 5
Classics: 3
Cookbooks: 1

LT rating of 4.00 or higher: 14
My rating of 4 or higher: 18
Average rating: 3.84

Pages read: 10,308

Average book length: 322.13
Longest book read: 594
Shortest book read: 42
Average pages read per day: 58
Average pages read per week: 368
Average pages read per month: 1,718

*don't count toward any other totals

So, if I had finished all the books I've started, I would actually be perfectly on target to finish 75 books this year, which is a bit of a relief since I've been in such a reading slump. Now to just finish those extra 6 books in the second half of the year and to navigate out of this stupid reading slump for good.

For the past few weeks, all the books on Amazon's Top Sellers list have been e-books, most of which are romances. Now, I really appreciate my Kindle for it's convenience, but I only use it to read library books and free classics- I don't surf the net for all the free or cheap e-books du jour (most of which are self published, not that that is always a bad thing). It's disturbing to me that there isn't a SINGLE paper book represented in the top 15 sellers right now.

Personally, I feel like there is a significant difference between a book you only read because of the hype and the fact that you can get it on the Kindle for $3 and a book that is worth listing on a recommendations page. It's just... kinda what people have been fearing all this time about e-books and it looks to be coming true all the sudden. I don't want to read pulpy fan fiction crap because it's cheap for Kindle, I want to read books that are interesting and engaging and well-written and maybe happen to be available on Kindle. I guess right now that's a tall order.

50 Shades of Grey can kiss my ass.

"50 Shades of Grey can kiss my ass."

AMEN, SISTER!

My terror is that this phenomenon will mean that fewer and fewer of the quality books you describe will get published, simply because they don't make as much money as the cheap-o hash-jobs that everybody reads just for the dirty bits (or whatever).

But I suppose the book-pocalypse is a little way off yet. Currently, my plan for coping is to BUY ALL THE GOOD BOOKS. And then I will be stocked for the end of paper publishing as we know it. Grieving, but stocked.

Exactly. What publisher is going to bother with quality when they can mine the depths of bad fan fiction for next to nothing? I just don't understand it. I mean, there is always a place for brain candy and a bit of fluff, and there is some really good literary erotica out there- thank you Anais Nin- but it shouldn't represent a majority slice of the market.

There are all these articles about how women embracing these books is a sign of a new sexual liberation and e-books made it possible because they are discreet, but I don't buy it. These books don't represent sexual liberation, they are more of the same pandering crap the romance industry has been pumping out for years, these just have a TON of hype. And, personally, if someone is only reading these on their ereader because they are ashamed, then where is the liberation, the celebration of women's sexuality?

A friend commented that at least these are getting people into reading. But I don't think they are. The majority of these new readers who haven't picked up a book since high school are not going to seek out better quality literature. They might read a few more romances and then go back to not reading. Which leaves all of us genuine book lovers mired in the muck of a bad book market that has been created. ARGHHHH!

That is an awesome point about the whole liberation/discretion argument -- liberation movements don't need discretion! Also, what exactly is liberating about a novel that features a woman entering into a sexually submissive role under the power of a virile older man? That IS the same old crap -- in fact, it's the crap from the 1950's!

And I don't have an inherent problem with people reading crappy BDSM novels -- hey, get your thrills where you can -- but it is frustrating when they start to define the market, and that's what may be happening, and equally frustrating when they claim to be something they aren't -- at all.

Not to mention the larger cultural frustration that I feel, as an English teacher and a reader, when I'm faced with yet another reminder that much of the public, when exposed to sloppy writing, repetitive vocabulary, derivative plotting, and general pandering... cannot tell the difference. Many would, in fact, tell you that EL James is a "better writer" than some of the great authors of our time. *bangs head against wall*

When will people learn that what is "good" isn't always the same as what is "fun" and greatness is only achieved when BOTH quality and enjoyment are present?

On a lighter note (sort of), I saw one of those wacky e-cards on Facebook that said 'The world can't handle the baby boom that will result from "50 Shades of Grey" and "Magic Mike" being released in the same year.' At least people are getting some out of it, I guess. :)

HAHAHA!

The thing that's really funny is that 50 Shades of Grey now has a movie deal. Firstly, it will have to be infinitely better than the book because so much of the terrible dialogue (from the snippet I read) is in that girl's head. Secondly, all those women who are reading the book in secret probably aren't going to run out and be seen in public buying a ticket to that movie. What is the world coming to?

ETA: Here are some good ones.





AND THE BEST ONE!

OHMIGOSH I LOVE THAT LAST ONE!!!

Speaking of totally unrealistic expectations... yeah. That's really all I need to say.

PS: My favorite button ever was "Mr. Darcy: Kicking Edward's sparkly ass since 1813". :)

Ok, I'm missing something. What is this Magic Mike thing that people keep talking about?

A movie that just came out about male strippers.

Last one, I promise.

Hahahahahahaha! Except that wasn't really funny, just true. :)

Well, today has been a game changer. For the past few years since moving back to the farm, I've basically been living off stock dividends I inherited (woe is me, right?) because my businesses are new and growing and not self sufficient yet. It's been a godsend that I had the resources to pursue something that I loved without having to worry as much about making ends meet. I knew it wasn't a long term solution but it was working in the meantime.

Was being the key word. As of this past December the stocks began paying basically nothing. I mean, we're talking going from paying basically a teacher's yearly salary to now paying $600... for the year. The market is in the toilet. Short of selling the stock, which I can't really do because of family reasons, and which wouldn't help because the price is so low, I went from not really worrying to watching the bottom start to fall out of my savings.

So, drastic measures were called for. I just reentered the 9-5 workforce. My parents have the same stock and my mom is even considering going back to work- having not worked in about 15 years. I'm blessed to have landed this job (after looking for months and getting nowhere) but I am having serious pangs about what this means. Basically, all plans for expanding the farm have to go on immediate hold simply because I won't be here enough to get everything done. The wedding business will be fine since I will still have weekends free, but the farmhouse renovation timeline has gone out the window. I will either have to pay someone to do the work or do what little I can on wedding-free weekends. It's going to be a bit stressful, but I'm going to make it work.

The biggest adjustment is going to be spending my days in an office at a desk rather than outside with the animals. I won't lie, air conditioning is going to be GREAT, but it's just a very different tempo. I've enjoyed my moments of sitting with the chickens for a bit and taking the pigs for walks. I will certainly miss spending lunchtime in the lake.

But I will endeavor to be gracious and thankful for this job because I know sooooooo many people are out of work. I know how frustrating it is to hand in countless applications and interview over and over and get nowhere. Hopefully other people find what they need as well.

Leah - You have such a positive attitude about going back to a 9-5 job. It sounds like it will mean some trade-offs for you, but I hope that they are only temporary. This is a hard time for so many people, and it seems like every sign of recovery is followed by another setback. I hope you can find some quiet moments at work that help you keep your sanity even though you won't have the company of the chickens and the pigs.

So sorry to hear about the financial strains. With your dedication and attitude, I know things will work out.

What a huge difference in dividends! That surely is a gamechanger. Will your work be something you enjoy (or at least don't completely detest)? Maybe you can frame a copy of that picture at the top, to put on your desk. :)

I hope the wedding weekends will be delightful rather than stressful for you. Take a piggy break now and then, okay?

Thanks everyone. We had a big storm and I've been without internet, so I'm finally getting back and catching up.

@51, it's not necessarily something I would actively look for but it sounds interesting. I'll be working for a construction company that does all underground builds such as utilities, pump stations, and tunnels, mostly as contractors for cities. I will be doing their job bidding along with their project estimator, so it will be a lot of paperwork (which I have plenty of experience with) and a bit of research. I was a legal secretary all through college, so I'm familiar with most of what I'll be doing but here I will have a lot more responsibility and won't really be working FOR anyone, which is nice. The pay is good and I like the people in the office (one of whom I've known since I was a kid). I'm hoping that the fact that I'll be doing something a bit different everyday and out of the office a lot will make it not so claustrophobic for me and keep me from being miserable and feeling like a desk monkey.

34. The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt


Description: Hermann Kermit Warm is going to die. The enigmatic and powerful man known only as the Commodore has ordered it, and his henchmen, Eli and Charlie Sisters, will make sure of it. Though Eli doesn't share his brother's appetite for whiskey and killing, he's never known anything else. But their prey isn't an easy mark, and on the road from Oregon City to Warm's gold-mining claim outside Sacramento, Eli begins to question what he does for a living–and whom he does it for.

With The Sisters Brothers, Patrick deWitt pays homage to the classic Western, transforming it into an unforgettable comic tour de force. Filled with a remarkable cast of characters–losers, cheaters, and ne'er-do-wells from all stripes of life–and told by a complex and compelling narrator, it is a violent, lustful odyssey through the underworld of the 1850s frontier that beautifully captures the humor, melancholy, and grit of the Old West and two brothers bound by blood, violence, and love.

Thoughts: The Sisters Brothers wasn't what I expected it to be, a fact that worked in its favor I think. I expected more of a traditional western, much more plot/exploit driven than thoughtful introspection, so I was pleasantly surprised. Eli Sisters's internal monolog can be a bit tedious at times, especially since he falls in love with every lady who passes him by, but he reminded me of the soulful Doc Holliday, another troubled and sensitive man who's life trajectory seemed to always be surprising him.

For a large part of this book I felt that it should have been subtitled "The Continuing Despair of Tub, the Not-Very-Much-Wanted Horse." Other than Charlie (the other Sisters brother), Tub is Eli's only near constant companion on the journey to California and much of the plot in the first 2 sections of the book- those that don't deal with Eli's health problems- deals with Tub's inadequacies and tribulations, but Eli can't help but start to feel that Tub is a kindred spirit.

Ultimately, I think this story could have used a better ending. Not happier exactly, although I wouldn't have minded a bit less dejection, but the end just felt a bit flat and a little too easy.

Trying out a new rating system, so here goes: (still 1-5 scale)

Rating: 3.9

Liked: 4*
Plot: 3.5
Characterization: 4
Writing: 4

*how much I liked it counts for twice as much as the others

Hmmm... I might have to check that one out.

PS: Sorry to hear that life has gone all topsy turvy, but who knows, perhaps this will all bring unexpected opportunities. It sounds like you have the right attitude. We're rooting for you! :)

Thanks! I am feeling a bit excited about the new challenge and I feel like this is the best kind of "office job" I could have found since it won't be tedious repetition, but I'm still going through a bit of a mourning phase for not being on the farm as much. It's going to make for some long days but I think it will be pretty decent.

And I'm pretty sure I just pre-spent my first paycheck on rebuying appropriate office clothes. Luckily the office is pretty casual, but my cache of decent clothes has dwindled in the intervening years since I last had to be presentable. Even in a "jeans are ok" office environment, my farm clothes just won't cut it! I liked getting cute things again but I am not a real clothes shopping fan- they are just too damn expensive! Now, books, cookware, and antiques I can buy like nobodies business (and feel little pain at the expense), but ask me to pay $20 for a shirt and I get a bit grumpy. And the outlets are not nearly as cheap as I remembered them to be.

Yeah, I haven't been clothes shopping in ages. I used to lay out significant funds for decent clothes back when I had credit cards, but now that I pay "real money" I am less willing to part with such amounts. Also, the quality of the clothes has gotten cheaper while the price has gotten more expensive, which frustrates the heck out of me. Mostly I pick up stuff on clearance, now, which always puts me a season behind. :)

Oh, I am a total devotee of the clearance racks at Old Navy! I get stuff for like $3 brand new. Seeing as how I'm kind of decades or centuries behind in a lot of my tastes, one season sure won't hurt me! ;)

Being plus size has always made shopping irritating for me. Things that I liked were either not in my size or more expensive because they were plus size. I shopped at Lane Bryant a lot in high school but those clothes are really NOT youth friendly. I found Torrid in college and that was great for a while because the clothes were funky and edgy, but they lost their appeal to me when I realized that they are HORRIBLY made: everything you buy from there falls apart (except maybe the jeans, they still have the best plus size jeans options). Add to that the fact that I don't want to wear Hello Kitty shirts at 30 and my shopping options almost disappeared. Old Navy and Gap shirts work for me most of the time, but they aren't really my ideal style- they are nice but not exactly what I'd want. You can get an idea what I REALLY like here (except for the fact that I don't really wear dresses much, except with leggings, so I shock myself with the number of dresses I pin) and here. In my head I am apparently a 1910-20s upper class British farm girl... Basically, I want pretty much everything Anthropologie has ever made, but in my size and free. ;)

I know your shopping pain! I will say that I *finally* got to shop in a real H&M store in Dallas a while back, and loved it. Their stuff fits me! Even a smaller size than I normally shop for. I did not try the jeans but everything else I was having trouble deciding on what to put back, rather than what to (reluctantly) get, like everywhere else I shop. And the prices are loooowwww. :) Fun times. IDK if you have one near you though.

I'm with you on Anthropologie. There are some other $$ brands I love too but don't ever buy. I used to be quite an avid online window shopper, back when my dd was small enough to dress up, and I've come across so many beautiful places to browse but not a lot I can buy from. Boden, Shabby Apple, and Johhny Was are expensive but pretty.

Yeah, as you can see from my pinboard I virtual window shop a bunch. There are some brands I've recently discovered that I might have to buy from once I'm making money again. ASOS Curve has some GREAT stuff as does Evans, both from the UK.

Although I never seem to have the time, I can sew. I try to recreate looks that I like tailored for myself, with mixed results. And it almost always costs me the same or more because I can't get fabric as cheap as fashion companies do... plus I have to do all the work!

I'm a plus-sizer myself -- beyond the sizes that Gap and Old Navy feature -- and Lane Bryant was my go-to store for years, until they were bought out by Charming Shoppes (which does Fashion Bug, etc.) and suddenly their stuff was the falling apart kind too. These days I mostly shop at Kohl's, truth be told. I haven't clothing shopped online since falling out with LB. I love your pinboards though!

I am fighting a serious head cold (or allergies, who can tell the difference) so I'm heading into my first day of work feeling like Typhoid Mary, but I'm determined to make the best of it, snotty nose and puffy eyes be damned. I'm taking from-scratch cupcakes I made (while wearing a dust mask just in case) to bribe my coworkers into ignoring my yuckiness. See you guys on the flip side!

I'm not quite plus-size, but I am a really weird shape and my favorite place to buy clothes is eshakti.com . The clothes are really pretty, not too expensive, the sizes go up to 26W, and for $7.50 extra they will fully customize it - size and style. (Customization used to be free - but no longer :-(

I hope you're having a great first day at work!

Oh, thanks!

First day was good minus the fact that I was a faucet and the whole drive home I thought my head was going to explode. Big plus for this job: I will be traveling to make bids on projects a few days a week and they want us there really early- at least an hour. That means I will get an hour of PAID, UNINTERRUPTED reading time on bid days! YES!

Oh so sweet

Good luck with your new job, it always helps a lot if you aren't stuck in an office all day.
Love that poster.

I just started the thread for The Hotel New Hampshire group read here if anyone wants to come join us. You really should cause it's a GREAT book.

35. Fables 17: Inherit the Wind by Bill Willingham


Description: The tights and capes have been stored away forever, but it remains to be seen if Haven and its refugee inhabitants have survived the onslaught. Where do the Fables go from here? Bigby and Snow White's cubs try to move forward after learning a hard lesson about life and death. And the loveable, fan-favorite hero Bufkin the Flying Monkey gets into more trouble when he finally reaches his homeland of Oz.

This Fables volume includes issues 108-113 of the original series.

Thoughts: (Take 2 as I seem to have NOT saved the previous message) Thankfully the war is over, although the refugees haven't been able to return to Fabletown yet. Most of this issue deals with finding the new North Wind and what that will mean for Bigby and Snow White's kids. This was interesting but a bit slight. Hope to see a lot more exploration of the prophecy in future issues.

The story with Bifkin in Oz is good but I'm not really clear how it's going to mesh back with the main story.

I'm just hoping for more actual development now that the wars are finally (hopefully) over. I miss some of those good character stories.

Rating: 3.8

Liked: 4
Plot: 3.5
Characterization: 4
Writing: 3.5

Leah, I keep thinking about the Fables series every time I'm at the bookstore. I even entered to win Vol 1 over at GR (no luck). But I've yet to read any of them.

I've really enjoyed them. I wish Willingham would spend some more pages one fleshing out ideas and characters, but that's a genre-wide problem so I can't fault him so much. The first couple of trades have a very different feel to the later ones. I like the storylines in the later ones better but I like the development and character stories better in the earlier ones (which is one of the reasons I'm such a fan of the Cinderella spin-offs). Hope you get around to them sooner-or-later!

OH you've just GOT to read this article about a Great Turtle Escape. I feel bad for the guy, but the imagery of this story is hilarious!

Penguin shows 50 shades of Grey who is boss!

Classic Smut

How was your first week or so of work? Uninterrupted reading time sounds glorious. It's nice to know you've approached this new situation with a positive attitude, though it sounds like quite the adjustment. I'd be feeling down too if any "animal time" got taken away! But I'm sure in the end, the new experiences will be worth it. :)

There has been a lot less reading time than I thought there would be, but that should change soon. We've just got a million projects going right now and I'm spending a lot more time running around than waiting at bids. But it's been good. I desperately miss the farm since I'm usually too tired when I get home to do much more than the necessities but the work itself is fine. It's just been some SERIOUSLY long days. Unlike most farmers, I am NOT a morning person and always pushed getting out of bed to about 8. Now I have to be at work 45 mins away at 8, so my mornings are starting at 5:30am. I get everyone fed, myself fed and cleaned up, and make the long boring drive to work. Luckily, my sister works about 2 miles from my office so we've been carpooling. Once I get home from work, though, I've been up and working for 12 hours and am ready for a nap, which I can't have or I won't sleep.

FREE BATES!!! NPR covers the PBS press tour and talks about the third season of DOWNTON ABBEY!!!

FREE BATES! I'm with you on that.

Also, the Dr. Seuss line at the end of the turtle article just made me smile like a fool. Be free, turtles! (And Bates.)

Ohhh, I was hoping for more info on season 3! But it's good to see the cast is back and in good spirits. I didn't care for the Bates-in-prison storyline so I really hope they get him out soon.

I've been watching Lark Rise to Candleford and London Hospital over the last few months. I recommend both to fans of DA. Different stories but just as well made and set in that same era.

My mom has been watching Upstairs, Downstairs which, like Downton Abbey, is based off Below Stairs but it was made in the 60s or 70s and I just can't get into it. She's become obsessed though, so I can't wait for Downton to return and distract her. ;)

Book (most likely) Abandoned: The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers by Thomas Mullen

There is nothing wrong with this book. The half that I actually read was pretty good, if not a little bit slow. But I put it down amidst my reading slump (currently ongoing to some extent) back in *gasp* April and haven't picked it back up. It just couldn't hold me when I'm in a non-reading mood, so it was left by the wayside. Hopefully one day I will get back around to it, but for now it is abandoned.

Slow work days means I've been trolling Pinterest. Trolling Pinterest means I've found fun things.



And a whole website dedicated to books about Mighty Girls, with lots of "Best Of" lists

Haha, in my house we never get past the first frame-- DH is far too smart to ever say anything to me!! :D

This conversation happens at my house all the time. Unfortunately, as I live alone, I'm having it with myself.

Lol! I try to talk myself out of buying the books altogether, but when there's a sale…

I have long since convinced myself to buy more bookshelves whenever I run out of room . . . and since I am the only one at my house, I am spared that conversation with myself now!

If only we could fit bookshelves into our car. I've been longing to go get some from Ikea and just line the walls. But, can't get them home. :(

So instead I have stacks of books from the floor up!

I've been alone in the office all morning and will be until after 2pm. Since I am 2 weeks ahead in my paperwork, I have absolutely no work to do but wait for a very important fax. So, naturally, I got a phone call from my office supervisor saying that the President of the company, who I've never met, is going to be dropping in at some point this morning. YIKES! I am so bored, but afraid to get my book out because I don't want to look redundant in front of my real boss who could be here any second. It's making me twitchy.

Naturally, I'm interneting behind a work document I finished a week ago.

>87 leahbird: I'm crossing my fingers that the president shows up early so you can relax the rest of the day :-)

He showed up while I was shoveling lunch in my face because the very important fax was late and I had to eat quick so I could run the documents over to the project bid... So, all around, a wonderful first impression. And now my office is crawling with people. Thanks for the good thoughts though.

I got a great haircut today. It was sooooo overdue and I'm thrilled to have finally gotten around to it.

Then I went out to dinner with my friend Todd. It wasn't until we were sitting down at the table that I realized we were dressed almost identically: we were both wearing green shirts, blue pants- as in actual blue slacks, not jeans- and silver/grey shoes. Our waitress clearly thought we were on a date and I'm sure everyone else did too. They must have thought we were a pair of total douches. It was awful. The waitress just had that smug look on her face which screamed to me "You guys are obnoxiously twee and I will be talking about you in the kitchen."

Other than that it was a great time. Especially since we went to the big used bookstore afterwards! YAY!

Oh my gosh, I love that little comic above... I'm pretty sure that scene plays itself out here at least weekly. LOL.

Sorry about the awkward non-date! Haha. What would be even better, is if you and your friend repeated the scene with a completely different outfit and sat in the waitress' section again. That might really freak her out.

That's a good plan!

Other than the clothes incident, it was a great friend-date. Good food and good chat. I don't know how it always happens that I match people, but it happens with my sister ALL the time. It's sooooo weird.

Here's another good cartoon:

Ye shall know slow work days by the volume of random postings.

Like this one: (click to see it larger)

Amen. Wasting food is one of my biggest pet peeves.

I'm stealing the image in 92. ♥!

I see a lot of food waste, being in the restaurant biz. We tend not to waste a ton ourselves, since we feed farm animals with our scraps. But customers will overorder and throw out. No one takes stuff home any more it seems. :(

We tend not to waste a ton ourselves, since we feed farm animals with our scraps.

YAY!!! I love using excess food to feed food! My animals are always thrilled to get scraps, especially the chickens when they get the left-overs from the Christmas ham. They go BANANAS.

Yeah the chickens will eat anything! And the piggies of course. :) And apparently cows too? I never thought of cows as trough animals but I guess so.

I had a really odd conversation with my office manager and estimator (who I work directly under) this afternoon. A meeting about something new I'm going to be taking on somehow ended up feeling like a performance review to me. I don't even know if it was meant that way, but a few things were said that left me a little irritated and unsettled. My office manager said something about an emergency paperwork situation that happened yesterday that she didn't even give me a chance to handle, she just jumped in and did it, and I felt like she was saying I didn't handle it well... when actually I never got the chance.

Then my estimator said something about how there shouldn't be any down time, that if I'm done with my work I should find something to do to help the others. Well, I'm still 2 weeks ahead in my paperwork, I've filed every single document and bill that's come in the office, AND I even took my office manager's car to get detailed on Friday. I don't know how I could actually find another thing to do without starting to do the cleaning lady's job, and I still sometimes have down time. These things probably weren't even meant as criticisms, but I wasn't prepared for it and it's thrown me off balance.

And I was 30 mins late leaving work because of this meeting. Yuck.

I know it's been YEARS since I worked in an office or even had a boss to answer to, so maybe I'm just overly sensitive. I'm so used to getting stuff done without ever having to quantify my time/work to anyone that I'm most likely just having some adjustment pains. But I don't really know how to find out if it's my imagination or not without making it worse. Until literally 4:25 pm today I thought things were going really well...

Ugh! How yucky. :(
Maybe ask them directly if there is any other work they'd like you to pick up. Sounds like they want to feel in charge and don't like you working so quickly. Backwards, but common. Makes 'em nervous.

I keep asking my office manager if I can help her with things but most of what she does is stuff I'm not trained in yet that has to do with finances and project management. Eventually I will be able to help with that but for now I just try to keep her paperwork and bills filed.

My mom said something similar about trying not to get so ahead in my own work but that's just the nature of it really. My documents have to go to Florida to get signed and sent back to me so things have to be done early. And then I literally sit around with the signed documents waiting until the morning of the project bid for the numbers to come in. The office manager used to do both jobs so mom said maybe she's feeling a bit threatened because I'm so far ahead when she was always so swamped doing both jobs. Or maybe she's having trouble letting go of my side of things.

It's just not a dynamic I'm used to dealing with. Like I said, it's probably nowhere as dire as I feel right now but the last time I had a "manager" was when I worked at a law firm in college.

Your mom has a great point. Give it time! If they had any real complaint with you, they'd have come out and said it directly. Now you know what you're dealing with and can adjust. I just hope the atmosphere doesn't become oppressive or stressful.

Yeah, it's felt good up till now so I'm trying not to get too worked up. They did also say I was doing a good job but criticism (especially inferred criticism) always seems to come accross louder.

Sure does! Especially when you're still settling in. :)

Things seem fine this morning, so I guess it was mostly my imagination... I've actually been fairly busy this morning (there is a lull now while I wait for a fax) but, oh irony, my office manager and estimator are in the project manager's office looking at golf clubs online. For the past 30 mins. I have the nearly overwhelming urge to go ask them if they need something to do. I KNOW the estimator has something he should be doing since I'm still waiting on numbers he owed me yesterday. The perks of being management I guess...

July Round-Up

Books read: 2
Fiction: 2
Non-Fiction: 0
Classics: 0
Young adult: 1
Fantasy: 1
Cookbooks: 0

Average rating: 4 stars

From my shelves: 0
New: 1
Library: 1
Kindle: 1

Oh man, not again... Move along, nothing to see here.

Why legal documents, especially contracts, are the WORST:

I'm looking for the percent that a project owner will retain from our monthly payments until the project is completed. 99.8% of the time it's a 5% retainage, but you have to check each and every time in case it's different- say 2.5%.

I look in the Advertisement to Bid document. Nope. I look in the Information for Bidders document. Nope.

I look in the General Conditions document. In section 14.2 I find "The amount of retainage with respect to progress payments will be as stipulated in the Agreement." Fun.

So I check the Agreement. Buried in a big paragraph of legalese I find "The Owner agrees to pay the Contractor in current funds for the performance of the contract, subject to additions and deductions, as provided in the General Conditions of the Contract, and to make payments on account thereof as provided in Paragraph 3 of the Supplemental General Conditions." Got it.

So I check the Supplemental General Conditions and happen across "Section 18: Retainage- General Conditions, Article 14.2, last sentence, change "... as stipulated in the Agreement" to "... as stipulated in the Supplementary General Conditions." WHAAAAAT! You can't have a note IN Supplemental Conditions that POINTS you to Supplemental Conditions, that's just not fair.

Anyway, I finally find "To insure the proper performance of this contract, the Owner shall retain five percent (5%) of the amount of each estimate until final completion and acceptance of all work covered by this contract."

Well, thank you. I knew that. Couldn't you have just said on page 1 of the Information for Bidders "Payment Retainage will be 5% of the amount of the contract"? Do you have any idea how much nicer my working life would be if you did that? Sheesh.

So, that's a total of about 60 pages read/skimmed over 5 documents just to find a little bitty number. Epic fail.

I'm sure many of you have to deal with these same kinds of asinine round-about contracts too. My advice, which I just took, is to put on some some 1950s Big Band and have a moment of chair dancing while no one is looking (I love when everyone goes out to lunch at the same time!)

OH GOD, THEY'RE TOO PERFECT! Hurry, someone in London go get me some of these.

Oh those are lovely!!

I was just popping in to sympathize with you on the legalese scavenger hunt. (I read it earlier but couldn't post from my phone.) It seems they make contracts intentionally obtuse, doesn't it?

Oh I want some of those! Do you know where in London they came from? I googled book cupcakes but I just get books about cupcakes.

I WANT SOME!

How awesome! Looks like they may be from Victoria's Kitchen.

Yep, Victoria's Kitchen. These were ones they posted to Facebook and aren't on their website yet, but I liked these better than the ones from that flickr link because those had TOO MANY TWILIGHT books. ;)

From their website: "Victoria’s Kitchen is located in Chiswick, West London, but also caters for events in Victoria’s home county of Norfolk. "

My sister and I just pulled off the impossible: We successfully surprised our mother with a birthday party! We had it at this painting place and had her friend bring her up "to go shopping." When she came in and (finally) noticed us, she cried and said "Oh, it's my friends!" It was super awesome. The painting class was a blast and everyone's paintings turned out great. I'd post pictures, but I left the camera in my sister's car.

I had a look at their website and now I want to go on a cupcake decorating course. They run in Norfolk which is within travelling distance for me for a day out, but their bakery is the wrong side of London for me just to go and buy some cupcakes. I would love some of those book ones for my next book group meeting though.

Leah, I just wanted you to know, your food-labelling graphics and discussions are not going unheard. I have a dear friend who is also trying to make others aware of those ideas, and I chat with her often. I've shared some of the links you've posted and she thanks you. :)

Oh wow! That's great. The more that people are aware of the issues, the better they can vote with their wallets and drive change.

I really don't like weeks (or months) where the world feels especially filled with hate. Between the Colorado shooting, the Chick-fil-A nightmare, and now the Sikh temple shooting in Wisconsin, I really just want to buy an island somewhere and pretend the world doesn't exist. It's just too demoralizing.

I keep digging around the internet looking for hope and happiness, but a lot of times it's in short supply. :(

I'm sorry you're feeling down, leah. Try this video for a little hope and happiness.

I am happy for the successes they've had, but I'm in that bleak headspace where I keep thinking "We can land a rover on Mars but we can't be nice to each other." It's just one of those days. I needed a farm day rather than a work day today, but, alas, work calls.

I hope you feel better, leah. Let me know if there's anything I can do. I have an endless supply of cute animal pictures and a private comment box on my profile that you're more than welcome to vent into. There's also this. And this.

Ok, manatees always help. ;) I got my scuba license in Crystal River, FL, and spent most of that day swimming with the manatees.

Place of worship violence just hits pretty close to home. In 2008, the local Unitarian Church that many of my friends attend was attacked by a shooter in much the same way as the Wisconsin Sikh Temple- the man had no problem with anyone in particular, but targeted it because he hated liberals and Democrats and figured they would be the ones attending a Unitarian church. He arrived during a youth performance and shot 9 people, 2 of whom were killed. I just have such a hard time understanding people who live with such hate in their hearts.

That's horrible beyond words. I don't understand people like that either.

This is going to sound incredibly trite, but here, have some more manatees.

Never trite, always welcome. ;)

36. The Just Bento Cookbook by Makiko Itoh


Description: Bento fever has recently swept across the West, fuelled not just by an interest in cute, decorative food, but by the desire for an economical, healthy approach to eating in these times of recession. A leading light in the popularization of bento has been Makiko Itoh, whose blog, Just Bento, has nearly 160,000 subscribers in the U.S. alone, all of whom love her delicious recipes and practical bento-making tips.

Now, for the first time, Itoh's expertise has been packaged in book form. The Just Bento Cookbook contains 25 attractive bento menus and more than 150 recipes, all of which have been specially created for this book and are divided into two main sections, Japanese and Not-so-Japanese. The Japanese section includes classic bento menus such as Salted Salmon Bento and Chicken Karaage Bento, while the Not-so-Japanese section shows how Western food can be adapted to the bento concept, with delicious menus such as Summer Vegetable Gratin Bento and Everyone Loves a Pie Bento.

In addition to the recipes, Itoh includes sections on bento-making equipment, bento staples to make and stock, basic cooking techniques, and a glossary. A planning-chart section is included, showing readers how they might organize their weekly bento making.

In a market full of bento books that emphasize the cute and the decorative, this book stands out for its emphasis on the health and economic benefits of the bento, and for the very practical guidelines on how to ensure that a daily bento lunch is something that can easily be incorporated into anyone's lifestyle. This is the perfect book for the bento beginner, but will also provide a wealth of new bento recipe ideas and tips for Just Bento aficionados.

Thoughts: Going back to working outside of my home has presented several challenges, not the least of which has been the food issue. My food rules for myself are pretty specific and I'm not typically inclined to break them for reasons as wimpy as convenience. That said, the first few weeks of work found me struggling to make lunches work, whether that meant taking something hastily made in with me or hunting around town for something I wouldn't regret eating. It was not fun.

I decided to carry my lunch most days, but my ideas for healthy, appetizing, office friendly lunches were really few. So, I started scouring Amazon and the internet for cookbooks and ideas. I was aware of bento and tiffin, but I didn't really know how to execute it for myself. That's when I found The Just Bento Cookbook.

Since I just received this today, I can't comment on whether the recipes are any good yet. What I can say is that this is a GREAT introduction to bento style packed lunches. It's about 1/2 Japanese styled bentos and 1/2 American (including sandwiches, salads, soups, even homemade chicken nuggets) and International (such as Mediterranian, meat pies, and even curry) styles. The recipes are laid out basically as meal plans: all include veg, protein, and carbs (usually rice), and often also have fruit or other snacks.

Here's an example of how things are arranged:

Mini-hamburger Bento

Contents:

Mini-hamburgers
red onion and parsley salad
blanched snow peas
white rice with sesame salt
fruit
carrot and cheese flowers (a tasty garnish because eating with your eyes is important in Japanese cooking)

The section includes all the recipes you need, a FANTASTIC timeline to help you get your lunch done super efficiently and quickly in the morning, ideas for ways you can prepare some things ahead of time, and several recipe variations, including: nori-wrapped mini-hamburgers, spicy pork mini-burgers, bacon- wrapped mini-burgers, tuna mini-burgers, fresh salmon mini-burgers, and vegan black-bean mini-burgers. That's AWESOME! Go check the preview on Amazon to see the layout in action (page 15).

Also AWESOME are the many tips on how to make things you might think you needed to buy at home instead. A great example of this is a recipe for salted salmon, which sounds ridiculously easy and will save a lot of money.

Basically, I am thrilled with this bento cookbook and can't wait to try some recipes out. My conscience, wallet, and tummy will thank me for picking this up.

4.5 stars, but subject to change once recipes are tested

I like the idea of the bento cookbook. I take lunches to work as well and my lunches are just SO boring. I'm like you in that I do like to have healthy lunches but it is difficult at times.

SO difficult. I also have taste buds that seem to have a lower than average tolerance for boredom and I just get SO frustrated. It's hard enough planning healthy, yummy dinners that I can make at home for one person, but adding appealing lunches that have to be portable and not made on the spot is a serious challenge. I'm used to being close to my home kitchen at all meal times and now I'm lucky to get dinner there.

Hopefully this cookbook is going to make a big difference. I've got another one on the way that isn't bento but is geared for packed lunch adults (most "lunch cookbooks" I cam across were very much geared at kids and that's not always applicable). I'll let you know what I think of it soon.

Here in the wilds of Montana, I haven't come across Bento before, but it sounds perfect! And the boxes on Amazon are cute... Did you acquire a box or are you using what you have on hand for containers?

I'm still in the process of deciding which box(es) are right for me. It's an uphill battle because the boxes are all AMAZING! You can see the depth of my problem here. I will most likely spend way too much money on a couple of different ones so that I can have what I need on hand and mix and match. It's a particularly hard decision for me because I'm really anti-plastic, but that's hard to get around in this type of situation. At least the plastic ones I'm looking at are BPA free and more eco-friendly.

Check out Bento & Co. and Reuseit.com for better options for boxes than Amazon has. (There are several links listed in the back of the book that I've not visited yet, but I will post more if I find other good sites.)

What a great idea! I usually make more food than I need for dinner and eat the leftovers for lunch the next day but maybe I will pick up that Bento cookbook to learn to make better lunches. One of my biggest problems is how to pack them securely and efficiently and I'm sure that cookbook will help with that! I even know where I can get some cute boxes.

ETA: It's World Market, if you're interested.

Oh yes, World Market is great. But I'm not allowed to go there. At least until I move into a different house. No more room...

I used to take leftovers from dinner to work with me back in the day, but in my college poverty I just made myself accept the repetition and tastebud boredom. I just can't do that anymore. It makes me actually sad when I don't have a varied diet now, so I needed something that would give me quick meals that I could vary all the time. I still try to make a lot of things for dinner that I can freeze until I'm not bored by it, but that seems to be a hit or miss plan.

>130 leahbird: In May my office moved to a new location that is across the street from a World Market. Then in June I moved to an apartment that is across the street from a different World Market. I love them with all my heart. I try to stay away though, because I end up spending so much money on candy . . .

I usually purchase my coffee beans at World Market. You can get 24 oz. for the price of 11 or 12 oz. at the grocery store.

My local cook shop has some really nice bento boxes that I have been eyeing up for some time. Maybe it's time to take the plunge.

Look what I did today! I was SO PRODUCTIVE and finally got around to making the all important FB page for our wedding business, Something Old Weddings. Come check us out. I promise not to spam you, but I'm really impressed with my motivation today since I've been needing to do this for MONTHS. Now just to get around to the actual website.

Wow, it looks wonderful! The pictures of the weddings are fabulous. Are those all your ideas and handiwork?? Absolutely lovely! I especially like the china-- I think it pulls the whole thing together. :)

I remember the bento craze from a few years ago. Then it was all about kids and healthy school lunches, and there was a hugely popular blog going around about it. I wonder if it's still up; she gave out some great tips and recipes. Then it was the tiffin craze, for hot food. I liked the tiffin idea even better because the tins are metal and stackable and just plain neat.

Can't find the one I wanted, but this one's fun. Lots of GF recipes too.
http://happylittlebento.blogspot.com/

I don't recommend the cutesy little kawaii boxes, though. They are cheapo plastic, and reek of petroleum. :( Definitely invest in a good box.

Thanks! I've been involved with all of those to varying degrees. The one I planned on my own is the only one we don't have a lot of pictures of because they didn't want a professional photographer and I was WAY to busy to shoot any myself.

I've been personally collecting the china for about 2 years. It's taken over most of the available space in my house! Haha. I'm always buying because I want to be able to let people pick what they really like or what matches their theme/colors best, but it does look so wonderful when it's out on the tables.

Beautiful pics on your facebook page, leahbird. I hope your business takes off and flies.

Thanks for all the bento sites and info. Wow! I am amazed--especially by the website UnrulySun posted. Those kids' lunches look so wonderful--like little works of art.

What sort of good box do you recommend that would be occasionally microwave-able?

You can buy BPA and phthalate free plastics and feel pretty safe if you really want something microwave-safe. You want to avoid anything with the recycling numbers 3 or 7 (although some 7s are BPA and phthalate free and therefore safe), especially when heating as that releases the toxins. Luckily, most bento type boxes are safe plastics because the majority of the industrialized world is WAY ahead of the USA on issues such as these.

If you want something that isn't plastic and yet still microwaveable... your best bet is most likely going to be glass.

ETA: Any plastic that doesn't SAY it's BPA and phthalate free is most likely NOT. They are pretty clear about it because it's a big selling point. I wouldn't buy anything I wasn't SURE was BPA and phthalate free.

When I first took this job, I was often the only woman, or 1 of 2, in bid meetings. Usually if there was another woman, she was the project owner's secretary, with the notable exception that KUB (the local utilities board we do a lot of work for) has several women in their procurement department that are in charge of contracts.

In the last few weeks, however, there are more and more women representing construction firms, like me. Whether this is the result of firms hiring more women or the result of a bad economy forcing contractors to enlist their wives to deliver documents, I'm not sure. I'm hoping it's the former. Pre-meeting conversations are certainly better. Before it was shop talk and sports, now it's Pinterest projects, recipes, and shop talk. The menfolk don't seem to know what to do with themselves now that they are outnumbered!

I hadn't noticed that you lived so close until you mentioned KUB!

Yeah, I live in Maryville and work in Knoxville. I thought I remembered you living Knoxville, but I noticed on your profile earlier that you live somewhere else. I was just there the other day for a project bid (which I won, Yay!), so I might be up that way again for work.

>139 leahbird: and related: Even if a plastic is BPA-free (which is better than not), it will release estrogenic chemicals and other potential toxins if/when you microwave it. I can't find the article at the moment -- but in a study of 246 varieties of plastic (which is pretty much every type of plastic human beings use to contain/carry/process food), ALL of them had chemical "run-off" during or after temperature change. If you are concerned, I second the notion of using glass. Just an FYI.

PS: Lovely weddings! :)

#143 by @beserene> Interesting. I thought that was just after continual use ie, plastics should be replaced fairly frequently, making them WAY less eco-friendly than people want to believe re: something reusable. But I don't doubt it in general. I try to stay clear of plastics pretty much altogether but there are instances when I buy something specific. Wood (depending on sealant), glass, ceramic (depending on glaze and colorings), and metals are much better options all around but they also come with other challenges, especially in relation to microwaves and dishwashers.

ETA: Be wary of aluminum. Many times it has been lined with an epoxy that contains BPA in quite high quantities. This includes canned goods. Whenever possible, avoid acidic foods such as tomatoes, in cans because the acid accelerates the breakdown and release of the BPA.

Probably more than anyone really cared to know, but it's another of my pet obsessions.

>144 beserene: Thank you!

While I was slaving away at work today, my dog Daisy was working super hard too.



Yeah, that's my niece, in the dog bed, pretending to text while using Daisy as a pillow. Daisy is 15 and a VERY good sport. When I got home, Addy said "I love Daisy. She loves me too. She's your dog but she can be my dog, too!"

Wonderful picture!

Thanks for all the info re plastics and food storage. It's stuff I know, but sometimes get complacent.

Yay! Yesterday at our library's summer reading program raffle, I won two weeks of veggie boxes from a local organic farm. These are huge boxes. They have this on a subscription service but the boxes are fairly large (and fairly expensive) with all the money payable at the beginning of the growing season.

That's awesome! I'm assuming that the boxes are from a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture). They are GREAT ways to involve yourself with the local farmers and get great produce, but they can be a bit intimidating for people. The upfront costs put many people off, but if you can swing it it usually saves you money in the long run. The reason so many CSAs charge upfront is because that's where the majority of their costs lay, in seeds and plants and planting labor. It also insulates them a bit from bad seasons such as the one we're having this year. The government does this for corporate farms in the form of subsidies (well, it's all messed up now, but that's what they are SUPPOSED to do), but independents aren't protected. If you can't swing it, check with the farmer about a payment plan or making a partial payment and offering yourself for helping on the farm a few days. Most of the time small local farmers are happy to make deals.

ETA: Many CSAs also offer 1/2 or 1/4 boxes if you can't do a big one.

#146 We have a Daisy dog as well. Her preference is to use people as a pillow rather than the other way around! What sort is yours?

She's one of the most unlikely dogs ever: a Yellow Lab/Boston Terrier mix. I don't know HOW it happened, but she looks like someone shrunk a lab in the washing machine (she's 20 lbs) and then gave it funny, buggy eyes and Boston Terrier-shaped ears that are folded like a labs.

I don't know - shrinking a lab sounds quite a good idea - we considered getting one but decided they were just too big and needed too much exercise. Now if we could have got a half size one... Daisy is a Staffordshire Bull Terrier - she's not fully grown yet - but she definitely won't grow as big as a lab.

#150 -- So, is she a Yellow Lerrier or a Boston Tab? ;-)

Maybe a Boston Labrador Terrier... kind of fitting because she does not like other dogs unless she's known them for a long time. As much as I wanted to, we could never visit the dog park when we lived in cities because other dogs greeting her (butt sniffing and the like) made her furious. She's the most gentle dog in the world with kids, cats, farm animals, but new dogs are a NO GO.

But I do like the sound of Boston Tab. ;)

Better pictures of the old lady. She lost her left eye in a stray dog attack (she hated other dogs before that but it surely didn't help) in 2004.

Nice pictures - she's very Labrador coloured but I wouldn't have guessed Bosron terrier if you hadn't said!

It shows up in the finer details, as I said her eyes (er, eye) are pretty buggy and her ears are weird, but the most interesting part is on the back of her head. BTs often have a white spot or stripe on the back of their heads and Daisy has it too. She's mostly a creamy, yellowish white, but there is an almost perfect circle on the back of her head that is noticeably whiter than the rest of her fur. It cracks me up for some reason!

I am only 150+ posts behind on checking in, Leah. Hopefully I can keep up better from here on out :)

I'm sooo close to actually finishing a book and being able to post about books again! But the time just keeps escaping me. 3 jobs is not making getting out of my reading slump any easier.

I am amazed that you can get any reading done holding down three jobs! Hang in there!

37. The Hangman's Daughter by Oliver Potzsch


Description: Germany, 1659. When a dying boy is pulled from the river with a mark crudely tattooed on his shoulder, hangman Jakob Kuisl is called upon to investigate whether witchcraft is at play in his small Bavarian town. Whispers and dark memories of witch trials and women burned at the stake just seventy years earlier still haunt the streets of Schongau. When more children disappear and an orphan boy is found dead--marked by the same tattoo--the mounting hysteria threatens to erupt into chaos.

Before unrest forces him to torture and execute the very woman who aided in the birth of his children, Jakob must unravel the truth. With the help of his clever daughter, Magdalena, and Simon, the university-educated son of the town's physician, Jakob discovers that a devil is indeed loose in Schongau. But it may be too late to prevent bloodshed.

Thoughts: There had been a lot of talk about this book on LT and other bookish places on the internet, but I wasn't sure it was really something I wanted to make the effort for. Having been in a severe reading slump, it was certainly not at the top of my list. What sealed the deal was the fact that it was the very first book Amazon has offered as a free lending book for Prime members that I was attracted to in the least, so I just went ahead and borrowed it, with little expectation of actually finishing it.

To my surprise, this book somehow grabbed my attention better than anything I've started (and given up on) lately. Not only are the setting and story appealing, the characters are wonderful. The fact that Jakob Kuisl and his daughter Magdalena are historical characters, and that the author is their descendent, helped to make these fascinating, complex characters jump off the page, Jakob especially. Simon is a wonderful counterweight to Jakob's strong, confident personality, being more thoughtful, introspective, and challenging to the status quo. Even the character of young Sophie is a rich blend of self-sufficiency and the naivete of youth.

This book is, in essence, a mystery. I had my suspicions on who the bad guys were, but Potzsch weaves such a realistic and complex tale that my list of possible suspects grew and changed almost from chapter to chapter. I appreciated that the final reveal was fully plausible given the facts because so many mysteries I've read like to throw huge wrenches into the final reveal that you could never have figured it out yourself just by following the facts as laid out by the author.

While the way the end was handled was a tad distasteful to me, morally, again it felt true to the time and place and was therefore successful. I liked that enough was wrapped up that the book felt complete while leaving a nice transition into the next book in the series, The Dark Monk (also available for lending on Amazon and which I'm getting right away).

Thank heavens for an engrossing book. I've been reading it in little chunks while waiting for meetings but I'd like to go back at some point and read it a bit more fluidly.

Rating: 4.3

Liked: 4.5
Plot: 4
Characterization: 4.5
Writing: 4

#159: Adding that one to the BlackHole. Thanks for the review and recommendation, Leah!

We were talking rationing a while back, but I can't remember exactly who all was in the discussion. Anyway, here's a great graphic representation of WWII British rationing.



3 eggs a month! How?

Mmmmmmm, can't forget that cod liver oil!

No wonder it took several month's going without to bake a birthday cake.

I have a new magazine crush (even though I've not even seen it in person yet).

Isn't it GORGEOUS?!?



In case you were curious, my old magazine crush is Sweet Paul (which you can read online for FREE here)

>163 leahbird: But, that book is getting all sticky! *panic*

Yeah.... Will I be shunned if I admit that I didn't even notice that because I was drooling so much? Opps.

It was bound to happen sooner or later, but my mom and I just had our first wedding business disagreement/argument. One of the reasons that my mom and I even started this wedding thing as an actual business was to get my grandfather (who you might remember from my hoarding discussions previously) out of the picture. For years and years he's let anyone who claimed that ANYONE in the their family had EVER had anything to do with the family or the farm basically do whatever they wanted. He's lost thousands of dollars (and still does on some things) by not charging people when we cook for them, which is not an easy task. Part of me loves that he is generous, but in the end it's not really generosity, it's aggrandizement and stupidity- he loves the feeling he gets when people fawn over his "generosity," but in reality so many of them are just taking advantage of him. It's very frustrating. Especially when things aren't being maintained because he doesn't want to spend money, money that could be easily recouped if he charged people just a little bit.

So Mom and I took over. The only way to take over and not make him mad was to make a business out of it rather than a hobby. And we love it, I don't want to suggest that we don't. But we didn't necessarily just dream of running a wedding business, it grew out of a bunch of necessary changes.

So anyway, yesterday we received an information request from a girl. I sent her our packet and she emailed back that our $2000 location fee was way more than they were budgeting. She shared that they are teenage (19) parents and college students and that her fiance is in the military (I'm thinking National Guard because he has weekend drill) and they are on their own moneywise. This makes me feel like I want to help them. My sister was an unmarried young mom and college student too, but she had the good fortune to have family members who could afford to support her while she finished school and throw her a fabulous (although not extravagant) wedding. So, I asked what kind of budget they were thinking of. The answer, $200, was a little surprising, but I'm nothing if not determined and resourceful, so I decided to try to strike a deal with them. If they were willing to do all their own pre- and post-wedding cleanup AND spend some time helping me with remodeling and farm work, I would find a way to make it work for them.

I had my mom check the date and gave her a short run-down of what the situation was. She instantly said she didn't want to deal with it. Her concern is that we don't know these people at all and therefore don't have any reason to trust them to help us out. I argued that I would make it very clear that the agreed upon work would have to be done on the schedule we set and BEFORE the wedding or it wouldn't work out. And that I will, of course, meet them to talk it all over and get a better feel for the type of people they are (ie trustworthiness). In her eyes, this is the whole reason we took the event stuff away from my grandfather, so people wouldn't expect things for next to nothing. For me, I want to help a young couple who otherwise probably can't have a wedding in a beautiful spot (they would probably have to get married at City Hall because even churches charge more than $200 most of the time) and are trying to make it on their own against tough odds. The difference for me compared to my grandfather is that I expect them to demonstrate the inclination to earn that rather than where he would just lose money on the deal. I mean, if someone else wants to earn their wedding by ripping up old disgusting carpet for me, then I'm thrilled we could both benefit. I love bartering!

We can't agree. I'm going to meet with them tomorrow afternoon for a walk-through and hopefully prove that my instincts are right. I'd hate to be proven wrong on this.

Hmmm... I agree with both of you. The soft side of me would love to help out a young couple who was willing to work hard to make it happen, provided I didn't lose anything in the deal. The cynical side of me says "run away fast" because making them work means more work for you and there's no guarantee they'll follow through on anything post-wedding. Also, I'm a huge proponent of "don't spend money you don't have" and if you simply can't afford to have a fancy wedding, then you shouldn't blow your money and/or credit on trying to.

Don't you have many other costs involved in holding a wedding on your property? Will they be able to afford the rest of your fees?

ETA: I do hope your meeting goes well and they are responsible, hard-working young people. But even as I type this, I feel like that's a long-shot. Good luck to you!

For weddings we don't cater, plan, or coordinate, our only real expense is our time spent cleaning before and after. There is a negligible amount of power usage which we don't even really concern ourselves with keeping track of because the power to the pavilion is tied into my grandparents' house. I made it clear that we won't be cleaning for them at all as I can't pay my guys to do it for so little and my own time (especially now) is worth more than that. We'd probably mow for them just because it's something we do on a pretty regular basis anyway. Other than that, they're on their own. They'll have to blow leaves, clean toilets, wipe down tables & chairs, and collect all the trash.

The only other way they would really cost us money was if someone who COULD pay wanted the same date. Otherwise, if we aren't booked that day and don't have to do any work, $200 is actually better than $0. And really, the idea of that carpet being gone and me NOT having to touch it or heavy things I've been waiting for one of the guys to get around to being moved makes me very happy.

I get the feeling that they aren't trying to have anything fancy or pricey, just do something nice and affordable. They are only having 60 guests so that alone shows they are at least thinking in the right ballpark of something manageable on a tiny budget. But, I haven't met them and could be giving them way more credit than they deserve. We'll see.

Maybe they can recruit friends or family to help post-wedding. I really don't see newlyweds sticking around to pick up trash and scrub toilets. But you sound so excited, I want it to work out for you!!

#161 The rationing poster really shows up the differences in diet between then and now. 8oz of sugar would last my family for months, never mind one person using that much in a week. And 1lb preserves a month - I eat a fair amount of marmalade and I think I could just about get through that. But there's no chance that the three of us could get through 3lb of preserves in one month.

Well, they don't need to scrub toilets afterwards unless they have been... roughly treated. But yes, hopefully someone will stay behind to do their clean-up for them.

We always require that someone from their group is appointed as the night-of/day-after clean up person (it's usually parents). We do the major clean-up, but they are responsible for stacking rental items for pick-up and just making sure things aren't left destroyed. Of course, if they don't want to do any of that, we will do it for them for a small fee, basically what it costs me to pay the guys to do it. Most people choose to do it themselves, even though it's usually only an added $50- $100. We just made the decision from the start to offer almost everything a la carte so people who were on a budget could pick and choose what they needed and could afford. Most places just have a flat fee that includes everything and that's what you get, take it or leave it. We wanted to be more flexible.

That's a great idea. (I assume you have insurance for that sort of thing.) I would have loved an a la carte pricing menu for my own wedding. As it was, we paid for things we didn't even use, like a dj and cake slicing service.

When you really break things down that are included in most wedding packages, there is a lot that you get charged for that you probably don't really want or need or that you could do/supply cheaper yourself. We just aren't really into charging a fortune for nothing.

I've mentioned before that a lot of my family lives spread around the farm. My uncle's house is just one horse field up the road from my parents house. You can see cars pulling in and out of their driveway from my parent's den and even hear people talking if they are outside. So, clearly, it's not the ideal spot to throw a teenage beer party when your parents are out of town. Naturally, that's what my stupid cousins just tried to pull off.

My uncle and his wife are out of town on business and my grandmother is meant to be staying at their house keeping an eye on my rebellious party girl 17 yr old cousin. Well, she fed them all some story about staying with a friend and snuck all her friends over for a rager.

Now, I did more than my fair share of partying, but not so much until I was out of high school. And I certainly knew better than to try to throw a party at home with so much family around, because I knew it was only a matter of time before I would get caught.

Which is exactly what happened to them tonight. I was at my parents' house when my dad said he thought he saw a car pulling in up there. Knowing it was supposed to be empty he went to investigate... and found 6 car loads of teenagers. He put the fear of god and the police into them and ran them off. Stupidly, my grandmother didn't force my cousin to go home with her because she claimed to "want to clean up the house."

We were on the patio discussing how asinine the whole situation was when I head the unmistakeable sound of running flip-flops. My dad took off towards my uncle's house but I knew they had run to the church across the street so I took off over there. Where I found my 17 year old jocky party boy cousin and 3 friends. They had been hiding in the woods when my dad was at the house and got left behind. Well, I'm pretty sure I scared at least the girls straight because they were in tears in my car and begging me not to call the cops. My dad let them get away with calling one of their friends back to pick them up and called my OTHER uncle (who lives in town) to tell him what was going on.

I NEVER thought I would see the day that my dad was softer on stupid teenagers than I was. I would have made every one of them call their parents to come get them. That's what would have happened to me at that age if I had been stupid enough to pull such a stunt. I would have lectured them until they were begging to be grounded for a century.

So, of course, I'm feeling OLD OLD OLD and like the prophecy of becoming my parents is coming true. Oh, I feel for my possible future children because I'm apparently going to be a tough parent.

for bluesalamanders



IT'S TOO MUCH! I CAN'T STAND THE CUTENESS! I NEED IT!

I'm not even a huge superhero fan and this has me geeking out!

So, I've been thinking about ordering a bookplate stamp or embosser. I've never physically recorded my ownership in books before, but I have some I'd like to mark somehow so that if they get passed down eventually they have that extra special something to them. Do you guys use bookplates? Have any ideas? Here is my bookplate pinboard if you want to see what I've been looking at and give me opinions.

The one I will note on is the Dia de los Muertos one, which might seem a bit strange and morbid, but I have a big fascination with this Latin American celebration that falls on All Souls' Day, which happens to be my birthday. So part of me thinks that one is AWESOME for me, but the other part thinks it would be weird as a bookplate... Can't decide.

The manatees are FABULOUS! Thanks for the smiles.

As for the bookplates you linked to, I absolutely adore the "Katherine, this is her book" one, because it's traditional but with a quirky bit of humor. However, I think the DdlM plate sounds perfect for you. It also has that little bit of delicious creepiness, so when future generations open a book and see it, they get a tingle up their spine that "Geez, Great Grandma Leah was a bitchin' chick!" ;)

Thanks! That's the best advice/opinion ever! ;)

The only thing that's not great about the Katherine one is that, as is, it's a glue-in bookplate, not a stamp. I really don't want to fool with archival glue mess, but it might be possible to have a similar design custom made by one of the craftspeople who make the others. Cause I do like that one a lot too and I think it would be just as cute in b&w.

Oi, I forgot about the skeleton carrying books one. Do you like it or the calavera couple better?

I missed the skeleton at first. I think I like it better actually. Of course, you'd have different text on the couple?

I have an LT stamp, and an embosser that was once complemented by Jonathan Safran Foer.

The Dia de los Muertos is cool, but I dont know how well it would translate from a wedding stamp to a bookplate. Would it still have a date on it? What date would you use?

Of the ones you have pinned I personally like the girl under the tree, and the one with the forest animals

The DdlM one is fully customizable, so I'd have Ex Libris in the banner and my name or initials below with no date. I'd love to an example of your embosser. Can you charcoal over a sample of it and post it or is it foil?

ETA: Although, I do kind of like the Til Death part... cause I will be clutching books in my cold dead fingers. ;) So it could read "Ex Libris, Til Death, Leah M..."

In a nutshell...

It's a regular press embosser that I got from my mom for Christmas a few years ago. I'll figure out some way to get a picture and send it to you. (via PM, since it has my full name)

Thanks! If it's too personal, please don't worry about it, but I'm intrigued by an embosser a famous author admired! ;)

Nope, I have no qualms about individual LT users knowing my last name, I just don't want to post it for any old non-LTer to see. I'll post the whole JSF story, too, when I get home. I thought I had posted it on LT somewhere, but apparently I wasn't much of a poster back then.

I sent you the picture! The stamp is an Ideal Model M Round Desk Embosser.

In 2010 I went to the National Book Festival with this guy I was dating. He ended up ditching me right before I got in line to get books signed by Jonathan Safran Foer. The line was SUPER LONG (and of course, mostly populated by 20-something women like myself). And since the guy had left I didn't know anyone there at all. Originally, JSF was going to sign up to 3 items, with personalization. By the time they got to about 20 people in front of me (still not even half the line), he wasn't personalizing anything anymore because he was already 20 minutes over the 1 hour he had allotted for signing. There were two people standing at his table with him. One woman would take the books from the fan, open them all to the first page, and hand them to JSF. The other person would take them from him, close them, and hand them back to the fan. They were going super fast to try to get as many people through as possible, and no one was allowed to take their time or talk to JSF. So eventually it was my turn. I walked up to the table and handed my books to the first helper. She opened them to the first page and handed them to JSF. He grabbed my copy of Everything Is Illuminated and moved his hand across it to sign it, and felt the embossed stamp, and stopped. He turned the page so he could see it, and then told me it was really cool, and asked where I got it. I said it was a gift so I didn't know. And then he said it would be really useful, for example if you broke up with someone you would know which books belonged to which person. And then he signed my books and I floated away. Then, all of the fangirls who had been in line ahead of me came over and asked what he talked to me about and told me they were jealous. The end :-)

Awesome!

Please everyone take a second to read this NPR article, Battle Over Michigan's New Swine Rules Goes Hog Wild. This is an issue that goes to the core of what it means to be an American with the right to protect ourselves from unreasonable, oppressive government control and the right to feed ourselves as we see fit. Things like this will affect all Americans.

Ok, I'm hunting for new glasses as mine aren't long for this world. I discovered a company called Warby Parker who carry some grey frames (as that's what I'm looking for) AND, like Tom's Shoes, donate glasses to those in need for every pair sold, which I love. They also do this great thing called the Home Try-On where, for $1, they will send you up to 5 pairs of frames to try on before you buy!

So, I need some opinions. Firstly, some of the ones I picked are WAY to hipster huge, especially given my cheeks. Secondly, I do not fake picture smile well. Thirdly, my hair is bad today and my mom takes bad pictures... The ones marked Current are what I have now that need replacing, but I wanted to give a baseline.

What do you think? I think I like the Pierce ones but I'm still worried they are a bit large. I wear them all day, everyday so they need to be more practical than a fashion statement but I still want to look nice.

**I took these pics down because they were just such bad choices. See below for the only one I'm actually considering.

I like the Pierce ones best too.

Of the new ones, I like Pierce, too. But I prefer your current frames. The others seem too large.

I agree, I like the Pierce ones the best. Your current ones are so cute though! What a neat idea that they donate-- love that.

Have you heard of Zenni optical? You send them your scrip and they send you glasses super cheap. You can't try them on, but it's a good idea for back-ups and fashion frames. I think most of them are like $12/set. :)

Here're better pictures of my current ones and the Pierce ones where I don't look washed out. I'm liking the Pierce ones more and more.



@194 I love my current ones too but I've had them for over 5 years and they are starting to show signs of a lot of wear and tear. And they don't make them anymore. I should have bought a couple spares!

@195 I'll have to check out Zenni optical. Thanks for the heads up!

August Round-Up

Books read: 2
Fiction: 1
Non-Fiction: 1
Classics: 0
Young adult: 0
Fantasy: 0
Cookbooks: 1

Average rating: 4.5 stars

From my shelves: 0
New: 1
Library: 1
Kindle: 1

Blurg...

I like the Pierce ones best too.

OH OH OH!!! I just stumbled upon Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grim: A New English Version by Philip Pullman! Not only does Pullman retell 50 Grimm tales but each tale is followed by a personal commentary and historical information! This sounds lovely and I can't wait to read it!

Holy moly! I've never heard of that! Waannnttttt . . .

Me too! Just reorganized my fairy tale section -- I can totally find room for that!

>191 leahbird:: I really find the food/farming related links you provide interesting. When it comes to potentially invasive species, however, I don't agree that it's automatically a case of "unreasonable, oppressive government control". This is a complex issue, especially since Michigan's unique ecosystem has been burned by uncontrolled non-native species before. I don't necessarily think that the DNR needs to order the removal or killing of hybrid farm hogs that are in sufficient enclosures under reasonable control, but wild hogs are already becoming an issue up here, so there does need to be some action taken before the situation gets worse. And that's what they're trying to do. Our DNR doesn't always take the best step first, so I'll be interested to see how the lawsuits shake out, but I also think that the hog farmers need to understand that this isn't a problem being spun out of thin air. There is very real concern here. We've fought marine species like sea lamprey, zebra mussels, and now the impending carp in our big lakes -- the DNR, which, like everything up here, lives on the last remaining dime of its almost nonexistent budget, is stretched thin as it is -- the last thing we need is yet another losing battle on land.

Just thought I'd put the other perspective out there.

Oh no, I totally agree that genuinely wild, feral hogs are a problem. They are starting to be an issue here. And I agree that there should be reasonable management programs in place. But the thing that bothers me and a lot of farmers is that these people went from having legal established businesses for years and years to being out of business or actively pursued by state officials in one fell swoop. You just can't do something like that casually. And the problem is that the language and the specifications are extremely vague so they are actually citing a lot of heritage breeds as Russian Boar when they aren't at all, just have some of the same characteristics.

I think it all started as a plan they thought would help and it has snowballed, with hefty backing by industrial pork producers, into something unwholesome and dangerous. Responsible farmers need to have the right and ability to farm as they see fit in a context where they aren't endangering others. These pastured hog farmers SHOULD fall under that umbrella regardless of the traits of their hogs. People who don't manage their animals should be fined or shut down. Family farmers just already have it hard enough as it is that when you start fearing the they are going to make what you do illegal... well, it's a burden most can't weather.

I agree that family farmers have it tough -- and if the farmers have hog breeds that were obtained legally, they ought to be grandfathered in somehow, either through compensation or enclosure monitoring. Both of those things cost money, though, which we haven't got a lick of, and there's the problem. I suspect that the DNR, with perhaps a little help from our cheapskate governor, decided to do the cheapest and fastest thing, which isn't really the best. It would be nice if we had proper funding to handle situations like this in a manner that works at least somewhat for all sides.

Yet another thing that would be better if we were in charge, right? ;)

Interesting that NPR is touting this as a "first look" when the book has been out in the UK for AGES, but if you want to read the first 2 chapters of The Last Dragonslayer before it's out stateside in Oct, then here's your chance. (I didn't read it. I don't want it to spoil the excitement when the book arrives.)

NPR Exclusive First Read: The Last Dragonslayer

>205 leahbird: I'm sooo excitedddd

#206 by @norabelle414> Nora, what will you read first? I have a pretty good guess that my curiosity over the new JK Rowling will win out over all my other Oct 1 & 2 purchases, but I think the priority Fforde is The Woman Who Died a Lot. I think that if I hadn't enjoyed One of Our Thursdays is Missing as much as I did that I would have led Fforde-fest with The Last Dragonslayer, but I'm DYING (hehehe) to know what happens with the Thursdays.

ETA: I'm totally destroyed that the Shades of Grey sequel isn't expected until 2015. Whatever am I going to do for the next 3 years?!?!

Ooh, thanks! That just inspired me to go pre-order the Kindle edition of The Woman Who Died a Lot! I read The Last Dragonslayer after ordering it from Amazon last year, but thought it was written for a much younger audience. I am right there with you about the Shades of Grey series.

For all the Sherlock and Doctor Who fans and other appreciators of strangely fascinating Brits.

Love it!

>207 leahbird: I'm not terribly excited for the Rowling. I'll wait to see what other people think about it. As for the Ffordes, I'll probably read The Last Dragonslayer first, because I'm guessing it will go faster, and then take my time with The Woman Who Died a Lot. It also depends on what kind of contests he has for each.

I've never done the contests. Are they genuinely cool?

I've only done the one for One of Our Thursdays is Missing it was difficult but REALLY FUN.

>209 leahbird: That cartoon just gave me a complete fit of the giggles.

And on another note, I had not heard of the Pullman version of the Grimm fairy tales. That's going onto the wishlist!

Ok, that cartoon was hilarious. And totally true.

Also... contests? What? My Jasper-Fforde-loving ears just perked up. Please, please tell me more!

#214 by @tapestry100> I'm just discovering Hijinks Ensue, but if you like the cartoon you will probably love it all. It's nerdtastic!

Aren't the contests just for Brits?

>215 beserene: When Jasper Fforde comes out with a new book, he has some kind of competition in which he gives away a prize (usually a signed first edition of one of his other books). Here's the one for OOOTIM: http://www.jasperfforde.com/tn6_comp.html

>216 leahbird: The sleuthing competition for OOOTIM was open to all countries, I believe. I know the winner was in Maryland. There is a note on the competition page of his website that says "The US will have their own competition" {for TN7}
I think I vaguely remember doing another one that involved a picture of his wife walking a dog, but I can't find it now. Maybe it was on his facebook page or something?

So today was the most spectacular day at the fair. With the free passes I got from work, we got up early and drove up to watch some goat judging and some of the youth beef judging and then wandered around petting animals. Then Addy started getting whiny as crap and saying "My knees is hurting! I'm tired!" We rode some rides and cracked up because Addy looked like we were torturing her- she hardly cracked a smile. The highlight was when she insisted that the camel in the petting zoo was a dinosaur.

We then wandered up a hill to sit in the shade while we had an Italian ice and stumbled into a game. The guy conned mom into trying her luck at a fishing game... WHICH SHE WON! As in WON free passes to Disney on Ice (4 worth $160) and some Disney plushies. It was insane.

The only problem? We already bought Disney on Ice tickets...

On the way out I got shit-tailed by a cow. Perfection.

Cool! Sounds like a great day. :)

This is way late, but I haven't been around so: eeee adorable baby manatee!!

And I'm not a huge superhero fan either, but I love that manatee hero art too.

Love it!

#222

So good!

So, the total junkie in me now wants ALL of these, the fact that I already have or covet other editions of the books being completely irrelevant. By the time I buy all the pretty copies of books I love, I'm literally going to have like 20 editions of Pride and Prejudice. Thanks a lot Penguin.

Penguin Drop Caps

Ooh, lovely...I wouldn't mind getting them either.

I wonder what they will do for "X"?

My friend Lauren Morrill is about to launch her debut novel, Meant to Be, and you should all rush out and buy it. Well, you know, in November and all. If you are in the Knoxville, TN, area, come join me at her launch party at Union Ave Books on November 16th at 7pm. You know you need a signed copy!

If you aren't in the Knoxville area, call your locally owned bookseller and ask them to reserve a copy (because small booksellers deserve your $$ too!).

#225: Gorgeous! I want some!

#225

Want want want want

For once, I'm thankful for an Amazon shipping delay. I was pretty surprised that The Casual Vacancy wasn't available for release date shipping, but it's actually a good thing it's not in my hands right now. Not only is it giving me the push I needed to hurry up and finish The Dark Monk before Series September ends, but I've got a wedding to work this weekend and don't think I could take the extra workload with a tantalizing new book sitting at home calling my name.

231> Our pre-ordered copy at the library did not arrive either. I don't know if it showed up in today's mail or not since I'm working this weekend and have today off. The first person on the list is afraid now that she won't like it because she's heard there's quite a bit of bad language in it.

Lori, you should come down to Knoxville on Nov 16th for my friend's book launch event. Come for the book, but REALLY come because then we can meet and I can know that there really are LTers loose in the wild!

And, on topic, I hope the book shows up and that all waiting patrons are happy. I hope I'm happy. I'm nervous.

That would be fun. I'll have to see what is going on closer to the time of the event. I know I am scheduled to work Saturday and Sunday that weekend, but I may be able to make it by Friday night.

I FINISHED A BOOK!!! And it fits this month's theme, so I am super awesome. (I'm ignoring the part where I only read one book this month)

I'm rewarding myself with a shiny new thread, so come over there to applaud my super-duper reading performance. (Oh the shame)