I did some spring cleaning and decided to share some movies and books with you. Here are the winners…
Collision Bend by Les Roberts….Sisyphus Falls
Skylight Confessions by Alice Hoffman…Forest Sprite
Little Children by Tom Perrotta…The Many Thoughts of a Reader
The Memoirs of a Geisha DVD…Truly Simply Pink
Regarding Henry DVD…Anita Yancey
Congratulations ladies!
Last Saturday my mom and I attended the Ohioana Book Festival in Columbus and we can thank Carol for the wonderful day since it was her post that intrigued me. We had a fun time going to a few of the panels, visiting the author tables, and meeting Carol and her husband and daughter. I didn’t even recognize her (she doesn’t post enough pics of herself on her blog) but I knew who Amber was right away. We only visited for a few minutes, but hopefully next year we can work in some more time. She was lovely.
The panels
Columbus at 200 with Raimund Goerler, David Meyers, Arnett Howard, Nellie Kampmann
Fiction:Mystery series with Les Roberts, Casey Daniels, Carrie Bebris
Novel Ideas:Creating Fiction with Karen Harper and Robin Yocum
I only came home with three books, but I am going to make it a goal to read all three plus a few other Ohio authors for the next month or so. I hope you’ll enjoy my Ohio author reading tour!
I know I should have been together enough to get this up last week, but that didn’t happen so here it is a little late. These are noteworthy mothers, good and bad. I’ll take the name of the mom or the book/movie.
You have until noon Sunday to submit your answers as a comment. Comment will be hidden until I post the answers. No Googling!
This round will last til August. The person with the most points will win a B&N gift card (total $ based on # of total participants, so please play) and a randomly selected participant will win a fun prize from me.
Have fun and Good Luck! Last week’s Boggle Quiz here. Leaderboard and rules here.
1. It couldn’t have been easy raising seven red-headed kids with little money and it got a whole lot tougher when you take in a son’s BFF, one with a shocking tattoo no less, and love him like your own.
2. The prairie was a wonderful place to raise four children, especially one precocious pig-tailed girl who went on to write about her childhood.
3.
4. This was one tough chick. She had to fight to stay alive so that one day in the future her son could save mankind. Good thing she was so buff.
5. This mother had to wear her shame for life after bearing an illegitimate daughter.
6. Having to choose which child will live and which will die is enough to drive this mother into a dangerous depression.
7.
8.
9. The original mom who was a temptress with an apple.
10. This saintly mother of four daughters endures hardship and still inspires.
The moment a child is born, the mother is also born. She never existed before. The woman existed, but the mother, never. A mother is something absolutely new. ~Rajneesh
The only mothers it is safe to forget on Mother’s Day are the good ones. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic’s Notebook, 1960
Being a mother is learning about strengths you didn’t know you had, and dealing with fears you didn’t know existed. ~Linda Wooten
Happy Mother’s day to all.
When I saw Carol’s post about Ohiana Book Festival I thought it looked like a lot of fun and then I saw it was the day before Mother’s Day and thought it would be a great Mother/Daughter day. I know my mom will miss spending the day with Gage, but I’m looking forward to a day full of girl time and books. There will be around 100 authors and 25 different panel discussions.
Carol (Carol’s Notebook) and I are planning to meet up at some point and I hope that happens!
The Actor and the Housewife, Finished 5-9-12, rating 3.75/5, 339 pages, pub. 2009
Becky is a happily married mother of four who flies from her home in Utah to Los Angles to sell her screenplay. That fact alone is very fortuitous, so imagine her feeling of good luck that she should meet her celebrity crush while there. Felix Callahan, he of the romantic comedy that Becky watches over and over. Sparkly conversation ensues and the two find themselves drawn to each other, even though both are happily married. They each recognize an understanding in the other and suddenly it doesn’t seem all that strange that a stay-at-home mom and an A-list actor are the best of friends.
Their story encompassed almost a dozen years as their relationship goes through highs and lows, working together for months at a time to long absences where they are not speaking. The book aims to cover the oft asked question of whether men and women can just be friends. Becky’s initial waffling on the issue went on too long for me. As much as I loved the dialogue between Becky and Felix, the actual story and the going back and forth started to bore me. I loved the friendship itself and when Becky was on the page with Felix it was fun. The rest of the time seemed to be almost filler. As much as I liked her family, not one person was as interesting as Felix so they sort of blended into the landscape of the story.
This is ultimately Becky’s story and I had mixed reactions to her. I liked her quick wit and committment to family. She did not take her friendship with Felix lightly and with a heavy heart walked away from it when her saintly husband had a problem. I guess my problem with Becky is that I just didn’t believe her.
The story was pure fantasy, except for the chapter that made me cry-that was just wrong. If you look at it like a fantasy you might not be bothered by the improbability of it all. Oh, I did like the Mormon aspects to the story. I thought it was well done and wish more stories could incorporate religion this well without becoming a religious story. It was refreshing.
I feel like I’m vacillating as much as Becky! I liked it, but was put off by the back and forth and the complete ridiculousness of some of the plot. This book from from my own shelves.
So, fess up. Who is YOUR celebrity crush? Over the years mine have ranged from Joe Montana to Johnny Depp.
Here’s how to play…Words are formed from adjoining letters. (You may not skip over letters) Letters must be in the proper sequence to spell a word. They may join horizontally, vertically, or diagonally to the left, right or up-and-down. No letter cube may be used more than once in a single word.
No proper nouns, abbreviations, contradictions, hyphenated or foreign words.
Scoring-Make up to 20 words with at least 3 letters. If someone else makes the same word you will still get one point. If you are the only one to find a word you will score how many letters are in that word (3 letters=3 pts, 4 letters=4 pts, etc)
Bonus-There is an author’s name (first and last name connected). Find it for 2o points.
I love Boggle and have already made my list of 20 words. The more people who play the more fun it is. Spread the word 
See how that last round played out here. Current leaderboard here. Last week’s Frenchy quiz here.
I like to keep Sundays with Gage on the light side, at least for Gage, but we have reached the all important milestone of tantrums. Did I say no? Tantrum. Do we have to leave the swings after 40 minutes? Big-time tantrum. My favorite is the I’m going to hang out between your legs until you pick me up move that he’s perfecting. Picking him up usually does the trick. Unless it’s the swings, there’s nothing to be done for that.
Gage was having a grumpy morning so we took him out to the park and then outlet mall where they have lots of ducks and kiddy rides.
This seemed like a great idea until after each thing was done. It was like we flipped a switch and ended up with this…
I thought it was a bit early for tantrums, but from looking around at other mom sites I see that I am not alone in this 18 month old clingy/tantrum period. That helps, but seeing that it might last for awhile has me calling in reinforcements.
I’m asking all you moms or kid lovers out there for some good tantrum advice. What worked for you?
Finished 5-4-12, rating 2.5/5, health/food, 41 pages, pub. 2012
I like tea. Jason and I both like to drink tea at night (sometimes wine wins out for me, but on a good night it’s tea!). I like the act of brewing it and sipping it in pretty tea cups. I’ve been known to buy the loose leaf tea and try to blend depending on my mood. So, it was a no brainer when this book was offered to me.
This is my first book about tea, but am confident in saying that this is not a definitive one. However, it does have interesting information on 10 big teas-ginger, garlic, green/black, chamomile, cranberry, peppermint, raspberry, goldenseal, echinacea, & lemon. My favorite versatile tea is peppermint; I blend it with lots of other flavors. But I was surprised to know that it affects male fertility. On a related note, Jason’s favorite raspberry, can affect women’s uterine area and should possibly be avoided while pregnant.
The book is very short, but it does include recipes for each tea. I was thinking about giving it away, but think I’ll hang on to it for a bit longer as I try a few of the combinations. I like that the recipes are for tea bags and not loose leaf since that’s how most people drink their tea.
Valerie Lull is currently studying herbalism and I thank her for sending me her book. I hope the tea drinkers out there will take a look. The only reason I didn’t rate this higher is because it was so short. Fine for the what’s in there, but it felt incomplete.
Do you have a favorite tea? My go-to tea the past few years has been Asian Jasmine White Tea.
Beth Fish Reads hosts. Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs.
Yesterday I gave away a few books from my cleaning spree and today I’m offering up 2 DVDs. Just leave me a comment telling me which one you want (or both!) and I’ll draw a winner at noon on MAY 14th.
1. The Memoirs of a Geisha. 2005
2. Regarding Henry. 1991
Good luck and happy viewing!
Stacy's Books 