Today (edited from yesterday)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(yes it deserves a bazillion exclamation marks)

The LOST season begins, and we are hitting it off with a big splashin' party. Okay, maybe it's just going to be cake and our crazy LOST buddies, but hey, it's gonna be great. If you are one of those who knows that it is the fourth season and are put off because you are so far behind, check THIS out! You will have to watch a commercial before it, but it shows you a quick catch-up in 8 minutes. It does a pretty good, thorough (if not slightly comical) job. Of course, you might not be an instant-addict by watching this, but the season DVDs pretty much do that to you. I highly recommend getting caught up and caught in.

Until then, I might just be decorating an island cake like last year!

Something to share

I have spent the past two days devouring a new book, The Thirteenth Tale, by Diane Setterfield. It has been quite a good one, one that sticks with you even after you close it. It's a wonderful, intriguing, mysterious book that definitely caters to the group considered "readers". If you are one who has been known to be up reading late, burning the midnight oil, and then pick the book up from your night-stand even before sleep has left your eyes, you will thoroughly identify with the main character of this novel. I just want to share a little tidbit with you that the author uses to introduce us to Margaret. I share it because it so fully describes the way I feel about my own reading experience. In fact, after I had read the paragraph, I reread it a couple of times to say to myself. Yes! This is exactly how I feel.

Margaret has tucked herself into bed and looking at her stack of friendly books on her night-table, she thinks:

"I have always been a reader; I have read at every stage of my life, and there has never been a time when reading was not my greatest joy. And yet I cannot pretend that the reading I have done in my adult years matches in its impact on my soul the reading I did as a child. I still believe in stories. I still forget myself when I am in the middle of a good book. Yet it is not the same.....When I was a child, books were everything. And so there is in me, always, a nostalgic yearning for the lost pleasure of books. It is not a yearning that one ever expects to be fullfilled."

After this paragraph, Margaret discovers a new author, the mysterious lady who the book revolves around, who completely recovers the lost joys of reading for her. How exciting for her! Of course, this isn't what the book is about. This happens in the first chapter. The plot develops after this point, but I fully understood what Margaret was feeling. I still think back to the times in my Junior High and High School days when I first read Jane Eyre, Gone with the Wind, Wuthering Heights, The Shell Seekers, the Emily books, and others that zapped me from existence and completely swayed me. There has never been another time like it. Many books have come very very close. The Historian for example I loved after it came out a few years ago. The other books continue to be comfort books for me. I turn to them often and read and read them over and over. I enjoy it, but it is never going to be quite the same as that first time.

Perhaps it is reading now as an adult, with more complex emotions, being less easily swayed. Perhaps it is because our emotional senses have developed and experienced many things, unlike when we were young. Still, I wish to be grabbed, taken hostage, and seized in the way I remember. For those of you who are young and first discovering those worlds in the page, read as much as you can, because it will never quite feel the same.

The Latest

Last May, I challenged myself to read all of the Newbery Award Childrens' Books. 86 books have been given the distinguished award so far. Currently, I have read 38. Not quite half. I took a long break in the fall from reading them; I felt like some adult material was in order. I have enjoyed discovering the differences between each book that has won. Some are easier reading, younger grade levels, and some are far more complex and intriguing. I have been sailing between the Hawaiian Islands, hunted during the Salem witch trials, in a battle with King Arthur, and stuck in a dust storm. Some of these books include precocious young girls on a mission, young boys trying to honor their families, children running away only to hide in a fantastic museum, and some with people who are grieving or lost. During the weeks I have been reading I feel like I've been on an emotional roller coaster. There's a reason these books have won and usually each evoke a different kind of emotion. Some are very funny, some are very, very sad. Overall, I am enjoying this immensely. Here are some of my favorites so far since I have started:

The Grey King (the fourth book in a series)
The Giver
A Single Shard
The Bronze Bow
Holes
The View from Saturday
From the Mixed-Up Files of Basil E. Frankweiler
Young Fu of the Upper Yangtze

I had read quite a few before I started this challenge. Looking at the list, there are many of those I would recommend as well. But any book you read from the list is guaranteed to be good.

I have a large stack of books that are calling my name. I better grab my box of tissues.

I have a thing for cheesecake

I am a major cheesecake connoisseur. I love it tremendously. If it is an option for dessert I will most likely pick it. I especially love the home-made, added real cream cheese, baked in the oven kind. So, I finally got around to making a cheesecake the other day for the first time ever. It was easier than I thought it was going to be. I had had the cream cheese sitting in my fridge for quite a while and even bought a set of spring-form pans to get the job done. I was wondering if I could do it. I found a recipe from my Barefoot Contessa cookbook and mixed away. The mixing was easy, as was the baking. The oven procedures took some time, but that's it, only time. Nothing hard. It had to bake for awhile, sit in the oven with the door open for awhile, sit on the stove for awhile and refridgerate for awhile. That's a lot of waiting. But it was so worth it. It baked wonderfully. There weren't any cracks on the top, and I promise I did nothing extra fancy. The recipe said that this would happen. I was so excited. I dabbed a few cherries on top and dug in.

My next thought. "Why haven't I been making cheesecake, like, my whole life? This is so good!"
Answer to myself. "You haven't had this recipe your whole life, silly."
Next question to me. "Should I make this monthly or weekly?"
Answer. "Probably don't want this fattening of a temptation in my fridge waiting to accost me at every opening."

So I've decided to make it biannually.

I had to call my sisters to let them join in the fun. There's just too much cheesecake to go around. It's so good, yet so rich. Even now, after it's all gone, I can feel the texture of it in my mouth, taste the sweet, crunchy graham cracker crust on the bottom, and dream about the slightly cooked outer sides of the cake.

On second thought I better go buy some more cream cheese because I think I am going to make another!

PS, I would like to give all the credit to Ina Garten, the Barefoot Contessa lady, who's baking genius made it possible for someone like me to make a good cheesecake.

Busy

Here are a few projects that kept me busy during the holiday/new year season. It has been one of my goals this year to be more grateful. I got this idea from a few blogs I frequent, quite a while ago. It's been stewing in my head, and I finally got around to, no pun intended, putting it down on paper! It's a gratitude journal, with 52 pages for each week of the year. I figured that I wouldn't be able to do a daily entry, but weekly entries would probably be do-able. I made the binder out of cardstock and put random sizes of paper inside. No rhyme or reason to it.











I've also been wanting to do a little album about myself for quite awhile. I have been wondering why and decided that I wish that I had some fun, unique memories and facts about my parents from when they were my age. I filled each page with a different idea. Of course I put in all of my current favorite things, but also some unusual questions like "what I would do if I had the day to myself", or "what I love about myself". Bonnie helped me think of some of them. Thanks girl! Some of my favorites are: "What I want to be remembered for", "What's in my closet", "I had a fabulous childhood", and "I want to learn how to".

A Few of my favorite things

A fab kitchen tray. A great place to put mugs for cocoa and my potted flowers.


A shelving unit I stumbled upon that works great to get stuff off of the countertop. (also the new plates I found on my shopping spree. Thanks Kathi)


I think if anyone was watching when I first saw this apron, they probably must have thought I was going into cardiac arrest. Let's just say I made record time grabbing it off of the shelf.


I found this basket for all my small, hard to find a place for, albums. I thought storing them like this would give visitors the all-clear to grab and read away.

Time for lights off

(a post by the Dusty half)

I had the opportunity on Saturday to take down the Christmas lights and decorations. They hadn't been on since the 20th of December since we were on vacation. When we returned, we decided that since it was almost New Years, we wouldn't plug them in. However, across the street, the neighbors have been turning their lights on well past New Years Day, which makes me wonder, are they celebrating a birthday? An anniversary? An ancient family tradition? When should be the official day to take down Christmas? Some people take theirs down a day or two after Christmas, as in the Challis family :), others wait until they can pester their husband on New Years day right in the middle of a bowl game..... So, I pose the question. Should there be an official holiday in America for taking down decorations? England has Boxing Day. I THINK that means that they box all of their decor up. What do you think?