I'm coming out from blog hibernation to relate a conversation I had today about Max.  This was too good not to write down. 

Every Wednesday morning I go to Max's school and volunteer in his school library.  At first I was shelving and shelf reading, but now I'm cataloging picture books preparing them all to be bar-coded.  Since the four Catholic schools merged a year and a half ago, their library books haven't been entirely consolidated, so they all need to be re-cataloged and bar-coded.  

Anyway, I was working on that this morning when one of the moms who works at the school came up to me and asked me if I was Max's mom.  I said yes, and she said, "I just wanted to tell you that Max is the funniest little boy.  Really funny.  And so nice and sweet.  Last week I was outside with the kids before they came into the school and he sniffed twice and said, 'I smell pork chops.'  I laughed throughout the day at that, and when I told a couple of the teachers about it, they agreed that this is typical of him and that he is a sweet and funny boy.  He's always coming up with something unexpected."

Color me gobsmacked.  Max and I have been in the middle of a major power struggle for the last couple of weeks.  He has been so uncooperative.  It feels like the simplest thing, like asking him to get dressed, is the beginning of a tense volley of negotiations.  And it is so wearying.  

But that's not all - she finished by saying, "He's always so nice to be around.  If you're having kind of a bad day or things aren't going that well, if you go and talk to Max, and you feel better."

Honestly, I can't think of anything I'd rather hear about my child than that people feel better - happier - when they are around him.  What a fantastic compliment. 

Now if only he'd be this little baby angel with me.

AAR pollsters, Lee, Cindy, and LinnieGay, posted the results of the poll for Top Ten Hanky Reads today.  I thought I would share my ballot.  

 

	Title and Author
	The Bronze Horseman by Paullina Simons
	The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
	To Have and To Hold by Patricia Gaffney
	Morning Glory by LaVyrle Spencer
	A Place to Call Home by Deborah Smith
	Till the Stars Fall by Kathleen Gilles Seidel
	The Shadow and the Star by Laura Kinsale
	Rachel's Holiday by Marian Keyes
	The Dream Hunter by Laura Kinsale
	The Lady's Companion by Carla Kelly

 

Although I came up with 10 titles, the only two that really made me bawl my eyes out were The Bronze Horseman and The Time Traveler's Wife.  But then, I'm not an easy crier.  It could also be that of the 10 titles I listed those were the only two that didn't have traditional HEA's (or untraditional either, for that matter).

I found it challenging deciding which ones to include and eventually went with the books that I remembered as being great and quite melancholy (at least in spots).  I actually think I agree with the Kinsale titles AAR lists more than the ones I listed.  I always cry at the flashback of Samuel arriving in Hawaii in The Shadow and the Star, but Seize the Fire is one wrenching read, sadder overall than TSATS.

	Title and Author	Why Comforting?
	The Windflower by Laura London	This is such a funny book.  Merry starts out beautiful and bright but otherwise completely out of her league and ends up de facto emotional captain of the Black Joke.  Puts me in a good mood every time I read it.
	The Shadow and the Star by Laura Kinsale	Two words: Leda Etoile.  LOVE HER.  If I could pick one romance heroine to be best friends with, it would be her.  She is so positive and brave and funny.  I love being in her mental sphere even if it's only for the short time it takes to read this novel.
	Simply Irresistible by Rachel Gibson	Again with the "prim" and proper, positive-minded heroine.  Love Lexie, love John.  The whole thing is funny as heck too.
	Heaven, Texas by Susan Elizabeth Phillips	Funny, funny.  I can't entirely say why I find this so comforting, but I know I took it with me to Russia when we went on our first adoption trip, and it made things better for me.  That's really something.
	Truly, Madly Yours by Rachel Gibson	I really like the passing of the seasons in this book, the showcasing of all the holidays.  I also like the idea that someone is looking out for the heroine's welfare even if it is manipulative and from the grave.  There's the sense that no matter what happens she's secure.  Plus - pining hero.
	Archangel by Sharon Shinn	I think it's the fact that the heroine is prickly and bitchy and makes everyone sing to her tune (literally) and still gets to be queen.  Plus the scene at the end of the book where she gets to go off alone and be solitary in her cottage at the top of the mountain and the hero, to see her, has to approach like a serf on foot even though he's king.  I love that scene, everything about it.
	Promised Land by Connie Willis and Cynthia Felice	Rural isolated setting, pining hero, fun pet.  Also, the heroine is a bitch for a good portion of the book and she still gets the love.
	Fifteen by Beverly Cleary	Plain Jane gets Stan the Man

 

So.  This is going on all over. I just checked my credit card (my 1 credit card that I've had for 20 years and has been owned and bought out and owned and bought out by about 6 banks and is now owned by one of the biggies that got TARP money), and, sure enough, my rates have gone up.  This doesn't concern me too much because in all of those years, I've never paid a dime of interest.  I always pay in full, and I always pay before it's due.  My family has for many generations had a thing about debt called paralyzing fear, and I inherited this.  So even though I use my card, I never charge more than I can pay off.  I am what the banks call a "deadbeat customer."  The only money they make off me is what they charge businesses to process my transactions. 

Up until now I've been okay with this sort of passive using of the banks, but lately I've gotten more and more angry at the big banks' blatent and shameless actions aimed at extending predatory lending at infinitum.  So I've been wondering if I should just open a credit account at my credit union.  The terms for me are just as good and though my credit score will get dinged if I close my old account, I'm not looking to buy a house or other large item right now anyway. Basically, I'd just like to send a message, however small, to my bank that I do not appreciate their lending practices and that I will not condone them.  

I can't decide if it's worth it, though.  They aren't really profiting from me, and I'm just one tiny fish in a huge sea of credit.  What do you think?

I haven't been so good about blogging lately, but I have written a bit for AAR, including 4 new reviews:

Undone by Karin Slaughter (I liked her last Will Trent book a lot better)

Lord of Scoundrels by Loretta Chase  

And 2 mediocre-to-bad recent romance offerings:

• Beauty and the Duke by Melody Thomas
• Best Wishes Always by Lucy Finn 

At AAR's News Blog I compared and contrasted bad boys and how and why 2 different YA authors tackled them : Zach in Impossible by Nancy Werlin and Ethan Bryne in Companions of the Night by Vivian Vande Velde.

I don't know if anyone has actually missed regular updates on this blog, but if you have, the above are some of my thoughts on romance and characters.  I'm going to try and put together my ballot for the Favorite Hanky Reads, Comfort Reads, and Holiday Reads Ballot which we are polling for right now at AAR.  So look for that.  

Since I do this every month for Eagerly Awaiting (I put this feature together), I thought I'd look back and see what panned out for me out of the books I parted with hard-earned money for.  If this seems a meager number, remember we are on a very fixed budget.  Also, I didn't really have that much time to read until Max went to school this fall.

 

	Title and Author	Edition	Purchase Price/Vendor	Worth it?
	Grave Secret by Charlaine Harris	Hardcover	$13.47 Amazon	Yes; I owned the rest of the series, wanted the entire thing.  Grade: B
	Indiscreet by Carolyn Jewel	Paperback	$7.99 Amazon	Haven't read yet.
	A Regency Christmas anthology	Paperback	$4.47 Meijer	Haven't read yet.  If it sucks, I figure I can probably sell it in a few years.  Carla Kelly books tend to gain in value over time.
	Hot Under Pressure by Kathleen O'Reilly	Paperback	$4.99 Amazon	Haven't read yet.
	Revenge of the Spellmans by Lisa Lutz	Hardcover	$6.80 Half.com (includes $3.99 shipping)	Yes.  I have the rest of the series, and as a whole, it's great.
	The Surgeon's Lady by Carla Kelly	Paperback	$4.49 Meijer	Haven't read yet.  See above comments re: Carla Kelly resale value.
	Not Quite a Husband by Sherry Thomas	Paperback	$5.24 Meijer	Yes, worth the money.  Better than Delicious, although still not as good as Private Arrangements.  The central conflict here was a little thin - either that or the heroine is just too damned sensitive for her own good because this marriage could have been save with one long, painful conversation.  Road romances aren't my favorite, but this one, involving as it does a Muslim uprising against the British in India/Pakistan was historically interesting.
	True Love and Other Disasters by Rachel Gibson	Paperback	$7.99 Target?	No.  I really need to stop buying Gibson.  I keep hoping for another Simply Irresistible or Truly, Madly Yours experience.  Hasn't happened.
	To Beguile a Beast by Elizabeth Hoyt	Paperback	$6.99 Target?	No.  The only keeper of this series for me was To Seduce a Sinner.  I'm getting To Desire a Devil from the library.
	Marrying the Captain by Carla Kelly	Paperback	$4.49 Meijer	Haven't read yet.
	Scandal by Carolyn Jewel	Paperback	$7.99 Can't remember	No.  Started strong, but petered out and was a DNF.
	Too Good to Be True by Kristan Higgins	Paperback	$6.99 Meijer?	Yes.  Higgins is a new autobuy.

 

 

 

 

So last night Milo got lost.  Or, at least, I had no idea where he was.  I am very careful with my dogs.  They have collars & tags; they walk on leashes.  I supervise them pretty closely even when they are in the backyard.  Still, it's sort of a miracle that Milo hasn't gotten lost up until now.  At two he's still really puppyish.  He has lots of energy, wants to play all of the time, and has never met a person, kid, or dog he didn't want to win over.  He goes absolutely nuts with joy when we have company over.  "It's a visitor!  I didn't know it was Visitor's Day!  Fantastic!"  He's also incredibly curious and ADD. 

Anyway, last night.  I was canning my butt off (10 quarts of apple slices in apple pie filling), when J. came home about 11.  I'd already managed to burn myself and spill boiling hot water all over the kitchen floor necessitating pulling out the oven and swabbing underneath it.  It was that kind of night.  I knew I still had about 25 minutes of walking the dogs, and it was late, so I headed out when I got the chance.  Milo and Ruby were both fine.  They know the drill.  Mondays and Thursdays the last walk is a late one.  All was normal until we got about six blocks from home and started being followed by 2 loose dogs, one small and black, the other medium-sized, highly energetic, and blond.  They followed us for blocks, and it was very distracting for all of us, especially Milo.  I stopped a few times to let them meet and greet, hoping that would do it and they'd let us move on alone.  No dice.  The bigger blond dog was strutting about, prancing, weaving in and out of the dogs, peeing on every tree in sight, and falling into play stance whenever he wasn't marking stuff.  This was serious provocation to Milo who really needs very little provoking to get hyped up. 

Finally after dragging them for blocks, I got rather concerned about the situation.  Where were these dogs' owners?  And why weren't they searching for them?  I stopped, hoping to get a look at the dogs' tags, and when I knelt down, Milo took the opportunity to rip his leash from my hand and took off after the blond dog, both of them running pell mell around the corner.  I ran too, with Ruby, but I'm not nearly so fast, and by the time I turned that corner, they were both out of sight.  I had no idea where they had gone, but I had a pretty good idea that Milo and this dog would not be out of energy for some time.  I walked Ruby home in the direction we'd come, calling and calling for Milo, but I never saw him or the other dog.  The small black dog followed Ruby and me home but would not let me close to him so I couldn't round him up or take him into the house to get him warm.  I told J. what had happened, then went out in the car and trolled the neighborhood, driving slowly and calling for Milo. Nothing.  It's hard to see a black dog on a dark night.  Eventually I figured they could be anywhere, anywhere, what with how fast they moved and all the things in the night that dogs like to explore.  I went home.  J. went out in his truck and looked too but came home alone.  I posted a lost dog notice on Craigslist with photos, took a bath, and resolved to start looking/calling the shelters in the morning.  Then before I went to bed I thought I'd check the back door one more time, just in case.  And, lo and behold, when I opened it, there Milo was - cold, thirsty, happy to be home, not a bit repentant.  I guess all of those day-in-day-out walks familiarized him with the neighborhood pretty well.  He went right to his water bowl and started slurping.  "I'm home.  Anything happen while I was gone?"

Relief!  All of those dead dog-in-the-road, Milo-bleeding-from-fight-injuries, Milo-freezing-to-death-overnight images I could put to bed along with the rest of us.  Thank goodness.  I could have clobbered the little blighter if I wasn't so happy to have him home again.  But I was so happy to have him back uninjured and none the worse for wear.

AAR is polling for your favorite heroes, heroines, and couples.  Below are mine.  Go vote for yours!

 

Heroes:

 

1. Will Parker, Morning Glory by LaVyrle Spencer

2. Alexander Barrington Belov, The Bronze Horseman by Paullina Simons

3. Sebastian Verlaine, To Have and to Hold by Patricia Gaffney

4. Devon, The Windflower by Laura London

5. Nardi de Saint Vallier, Bliss by Judy Cuevas

6. Samuel Gerard, The Shadow and the Star by Laura Kinsale

7. Nick Allegrezzo, Truly, Madly Yours by Rachel Gibson

8. Bobby-Tom Denton, Heaven, Texas by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

9. Nick Ziegler, Crazy for You by Jennifer Crusie

10. Daniel Watson, Lucy Sullivan is Getting Married by Marian Keyes

 

(I really had trouble ranking the top three, and Myles Dampier from The Sea Wife by Holly Cook almost made the list.  A lot of these guys are alpha jerks or overly testosterone-y.  I have a weakness for that. #1 and #10 are just very, very sweet. )

 

Heroines:

 

1. Leda Etoile, The Shadow and the Star by Laura Kinsale

2. Merry Wilding, The Windflower by Laura London

3. Rachel Wade, To Have and to Hold by Patricia Gaffney

4. Georgeanne Howard, Simply Irresistible by Rachel Gibson

5. Rachel, Archangel by Sharon Shinn

6. Sophie Dempsey, Welcome to Temptation by Jennifer Crusie

7. Maddie Timms, Flowers from the Storm by Laura Kinsale

8. Maggie Beaumont, Catch of the Day by Kristan Higgins

9. Mia Thermopolis, Princess Diaries by Meg Cabot

10. Melissa Romney-Jones, The Little Lady Agency by Hester Browne

 

(These were quite a bit harder to come up with than my fave heroes list.  That was a bit troubling to me.  I think for me the heroine is often a placeholder, so she has to be really unique or I have to really like/identify with her in order for her to make this list.  The top three immediately came to mind, after that I had to consult my spreadsheet.  I wonder if the titles from Catch of the Day on will make my list in a few years.)

 

Couples:

 

1. Tatiana Metanova and Alexander Barrington Belov, The Bronze Horseman by Paullina Simons

2. Jessica Darling and Marcus Flutie, Sloppy Firsts by Megan McCafferty

3. Roan Sullivan and Claire Maloney, A Place to Call Home by Deborah Smith

4. Rev. Clare Fergusson and Russ Van Alstyne, Rev. Clare Fergusson mystery series by Julia Spencer-Fleming

5. Quinn Hunter and Krissa French, Till the Stars Fall by Kathleen Gilles Seidel

6. Delaney Shaw and Nick Allegrezzo, Truly, Madly Yours by Rachel Gibson

7. Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane, Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers

8. Nell Sweeney and Will Hewitt, Nell Sweeney mysteries by P. B. Ryan

9. Elena Michaels and Clayton Danvers, Bitten by Kelley Armstrong

10. Nora Becket and Christian de Rivers, Lady Gallant by Suzanne Robinson

 

(I'm voting for chemistry here or how well these characters match, rather than how much I like them individually.  Which is why The Windflower doesn't make this list; as much as I love Merry and Devon, the cast is in many ways an ensemble one.)

Okay, so I spent the summer trying to keep Max entertained, gardening, canning, listening to the Harry Potter series on audio, and obsessively reading everything I can about this economic downturn.  This last one is an illness, I know.  But I can't help it; reading the media coverage infuriates me.  Clearly, we've all been had, and we're still being had.

I'm calling this one now: this is a depression.  A serious depression.  Not a recession; this is not cyclical.  It's not a matter of inventory getting overstocked an industry taking a little break until it moves.  We are in serious economic trouble as a nation.  The recovery is not going to be a recovery for the average Joe because even though industry may be able to not move backward, to break even now, they've done so by massively retrenching and the jobs that keep the country on an even keel aren't coming back.  Many, many of them aren't EVER coming back.  The ones that will emerge will not be middle-class achieving jobs, either.  We are all in for a serious lifestyle adjustment in the short and middle term, and I am talking multigenerational living as a way of survival - in the short term because Gen X and Y are so encumbered by credit card and student loan debt they can't establish themselves and in the long term because the Boomers completely screwed themselves over by living high on the hog for most of their adult lives.  They won't be able to afford to retire and live independently.  

We are a year since the freefall began and none of the underlying problems - toxic assets, gov't regulation of industry, the criminal behavior of the mortgage industry - have been addressed in any but the most superficial way.  All those toxic assets still exist.  They haven't been sifted out from the good loans.  They are still going to have to be dealt with.  Government regulation hasn't been reinstated, and none of the high flying rake-it-in thieves who illegally and unethically sold bad financial products left and right are in jail.  

Furthermore, the average person has no money to fuel an economic recovery.  He spent all of his future earnings in the last ten years. He literally doesn't have anything and is up to his ears in credit card/student loan/car payment/mortgage debt.  Unemployment may "slowing" but it's not going to stop anytime soon.  All of those small businesses who rely on splurge or luxury spending aren't going to have any customers.  They will go out of business.  More unemployment will result, and even fewer people will have money to spend.  We haven't seen the end or even the bottom slope of the foreclosure crisis, and ahead of us is the foreclosure crisis for commercial properties (see above: businesses can't make money if no one spends any).  

Credit card companies are going to have a hard time getting any blood from stones, and credit, already seriously dialed back, is going to be frozen for a good long time because no one can take it on and banks won't lend except to a sure thing.  

Plus, plus, we've taken on TONS of debt communally for the future in government borrowing.  Cash for Clunkers and the new mortgage tax incentives are only spending future revenue in the now, further limiting our ability to buy anything in other sectors and costing the taxpayer future revenue to boot.  

Seriously, we have got to stop thinking in THE NOW.  Stimulating the economy - essentially taking the payday early - is fine if there is a payday coming.   Is there a payday coming?  Not unless everyone on every level - gov't/industry/personal does the hard work of deleveraging now.  You've got to get out of debt before you can buy more stuff.  No one wants to say that though because we are so used to instant gratification.  But there is no instant solution to this problem.  You can't buy your way out with money you print in the basement (or at the Treasury).  You have to eat little/buy nothing/move in with your parents/scale back your expectations to the level of decades ago until you have something you can work with.  

I don't see that happening.  The consumer is spending less but not acknowledging the true permanent seriousness of this situation and the government and the media are fueling this delusion with talk of a recovery.  

In my opinion we are looking at a Lost Decade in America if we keep on the path we are walking now.  

The Eyre Affair Jasper Fforde Fantasy/Alternate Reality 2001 Rating: B

 

[Note: obviously, The Eyre Affair is the beginning of what has turned out to be a fairly lengthy series.  This was my reaction when the series was only the one book.]

"The Eyre Affair is a little bit of everything - adventure, romance, alternate reality - and a whole lot of fun. I didn't know quite what to expect from it; in reviews Fforde's style has been compared to Connie Willis and Douglas Adams. I don't think he's much like either, except for the fact that he is funny, and he has created a wacky, entirely unique universe for his wacky, entirely unique characters to inhabit.

The year is 1985, and the place is England. But this 1985 England is quite different from the one the British may remember. History has taken a few strange turns, and as a result, the Crimean War is still going strong, and the British are periodically engaged in fighting the Russian Czar's troops. Also, instead of enthusiastically following the latest pop culture icon, the general population is literature mad. They love Shakespeare, Marlowe, Bacon, and especially Bronte and Jane Eyre.

Our heroine is Thursday Next, an ex-military ex-police Literatec. As a SpecOps officer, her job is to ferret out literature frauds and make sure the guilty are punished. A bit unsatisfied with her going- nowhere, no-opportunity-for-advancement job, Thursday jumps at the chance to aid a more secret branch of the SpecOps in apprehending the third most wanted criminal on the planet, Acheron Hades. Hades is virtually uncatchable. He has all sorts of special powers, one of which is the ability to hear his name mentioned anywhere. He also shows no reflection in a mirror, and cannot be filmed. But Thursday had him as a professor years ago in college, and so she can be of some assistance.

Thursday's first run in with Hades is a disaster. As a result, she goes to her old hometown to rest and recover. While she is there, Hades makes his next move. He kidnaps Thursday's aunt and uncle and the machine her uncle is working on, the Prose Portal. This machine is capable of transporting people in or out of works of literature. Literary characters begin to disappear, first a rather unimportant one, and then, to the horror of the whole nation, Jane Eyre.

Will Thursday be able to stop this madman, and his plan to ruin all the great works of literature?

The first thing that must be mentioned about this book is that it is pretty darned funny. The universe is just so bizarre. Thursday knows people named Braxton Hicks, Paige Turner, and Jack Schitt. There is a sort of running joke about Shakespeare where Thursday meets any number of people from all walks of life, and has the same discussion with all of them: did Shakespeare really write his own plays? Watching her earnestly discuss this with a bartender was comical. There were all sorts of clever little bits to illustrate how crazy about literature and art everyone was.

Then there were the scenes with the characters that had been taken from books. They remained in character, and so the contrast between them and the rest of the people was clear and amusing. Also, various people were always reflecting on what a great piece of work Jane Eyre was - except for the sucky ending. And since Hades is tampering with Jane Eyre, the book undergoes some fairly major transitions before The Eyre Affair is finished. Funny, funny.

The romance between Thursday and her former fiancé, Landen Parke-Laine, was only a small part of the book, but it was still reasonably satisfying. More would have been better, but you can't have everything.

The book dragged a little in the middle, and there were some point-of-view violations. Most of the book was told in first person from Thursday's perspective, and it is a little unclear why. Thursday is a good character, but somehow Fforde's use of the first person failed to deliver the intimacy that usually comes across with this device. And every so often, Fforde would switch to third person. The book would have been less jarring and more effective had it all just been written in third person.

The Eyre Affair felt very fresh and different. I liked the novelty of a world where reality and literature sometimes coincide. From the back cover it appears that this is the first book in a series. I will certainly be looking forward to reading Thursday's further adventures."

The original review is here. 

This book is available at half.com.  No Bookmooch copies right now.

 

It's been awhile since I blogged.  I went on vacation - a week at Lake Fremont with my family - and I had to work like a demon to get stuff done for AAR beforehand.  Then when I got home the message boards debuted in their new location, and it's been sort of one headache after another with databases crashing and search functions not working and ad scripts crapping out.  Let me just go on record here: I hate host transfers.  Transferring data from one site to another is always complicated, and there are always problems.  This transfer was necessary, but it was a lot of work before it transferred and a lot of work after too. 

Well, that's off my chest.  On to the good stuff.  Here's the garden at the end of June, specifically June 26th, 2009.

We had a heat wave the week we were gone, which was nice because we were at the lake and it was about 10 degrees cooler there.  When I came home, I found that my vegetables (and weeds) had exploded with growth.  The rain/heat combo made a dramatic difference.  My tomato plants had grown as much as a foot.  I ripped out some of my volunteer cilantro and froze the bottom leaves and picked some of the snap peas.  Tonight I had some lettuce from this garden.  The bunnies got at it and it took awhile to grow back, but I finally got a good head.  It was...a bit gritty.  But still good.  I'll have to do a better job washing it next time. 

My onions are almost ready to thin, which means scallions in the very near future.  The small row of carrots that survived look great, as do the potatoes.  The zucchini plants are thriving and have put out a couple of flowers as have some of the tomatoes.  Three pepper plants survived.  They look less robust, but I might get peppers off them still.  The beans and basil are coming back from pest attack too.  Over at garden #2, the one I'm doing with my dad, I've got a row and a half of carrots, more onions, lots of tomatoes, three good-looking pepper plants, and some great squash.  The beans and lettuce got eaten down.  You actually can't really tell there was lettuce, it's so badly depleted.   But, really, with my CSA bounty, I hardly need any more lettuce.  Overall, things are on target right now.

Here is my little container garden.  I've got 4 tomato plants (2 shown), a couple of cucumbers, some baby lettuce, and a cabbage.  These are all doing really well.  I had some trouble with chipmunks - I think - digging in the pots.  They destroyed my basil, so I'm now growing in indoors.  Once I mulched these veggies with horse manure, though, the critter damage has been minimal.  

See those weeds in my patio?  They are no longer.  You would not believe the weed growth from the water/sun double play.  I had so much nightshade growing back in the back of the flower garden.  Which would be handy if I wanted to kill someone with an old-fashioned, highly traceable poison.  However, since I don't, out it went along with some fake clover and a boatload of crabgrass.  

Speaking of invasive stuff, here is my mint patch.   This stuff grows like crazy.  I didn't plant it, but I have dug it out with a shovel each year of the past 10 years I've lived here.  And it always comes back bigger and better than ever.  Up until now I've just composted it, but this year I'm trying something different.  I'm drying it upside down in my garage as per these instructions.  (See photo here.)  This is so I can make mint tea this winter and use it for cooking with.  I ripped out a lot of it, but this is actually the after photo, so as you can see, I've got loads more.

Max and I picked mulberries off our neighbor's tree.  I froze them because berries are very time sensitive.  I asked Max if he liked blackberries or mulberries better, and he said blackberries.  Curious, I asked why.  "Because they taste stronger, Mommy," he said.  I thought that was pretty insightful and interesting considering he hasn't tasted a blackberry since last August.  But he's right.  Blackberries have a stronger flavor to them.  

Our first raspberries are also setting nicely.  I bought them off Craigslist for $2 a plant and dug them in only a couple of months ago.   They are pretty hardy.  The dogs have trampled them a bit, but they've stood the test so far.  I hope they grow and grow and grow.  I love raspberries, and that area of the yard doesn't have to look "sculpted" or anything.  Here is a picture of my fledgling fruitmaker.  There are also photos of my flowers on Flickr.  Almost everything I have this year I raised from seed I gathered free last fall.  Which is kind of cool.  I'm letting a lot of indigenous wildflowers live in the garden too as they are generally a lot more trample resistant than traditional flowers like lilies or roses.  It's kind of a more chaotic look, but I like it.  

We are back to cold and rain again for now.  I'm hoping that the warmer weather will kick back in because I need it and my garden needs it.  So don't pancake on us now, Mother N.  We need the sun! 

Well, they are coming in.  The vegetables are definitely coming in.  This week we got:

• Kohlrabi
• Spinach
• Loose lettuce greens
• Romaine lettuce
• Swiss chard
• Kale
• Parsley
• Radishes

And I actually still have some bok choy and parsley (it's so yummy, but very potent tasting) from last week.  I am going to the cottage this week for my annual vacation with my family and will take my greens, but I honestly can't see that we will eat this much, even as a group of 9, so I'm blanching my kale and chard and freezing it for the winter.

In my garden the lettuce is ready to be picked, as is the cilantro and the pea pods.  That's a lot of food, all at once, and we're not even in tomato season!  This week to use up my chard & kale, I put them in scrambled eggs and made a sweet & sour soup with the kale, and I ate a lot of salad.  Also, I did a stir fry with a sesame seed sauce that I whipped up.  I've really been cooking a lot, and often outside my comfort zone.  It's a learning process.

(Photo credit: Goebelski's family blog.  They got the same Trillium Haven Farm produce, so I figured it would be redundant to snap a photo of mine.  Plus, I'd already started cutting some of it up to blanch.)

Note: This is really a faux "Once More with Feeling" review since I wrote down these thoughts when I read the book nearly six years ago in October 2003. It's been in the back of my mind that they were making a movie out of this...eventually...but I just saw the trailer and it flashed me back.

Last night I stayed up terribly late reading this book and crying my heart out. I was very tired when I woke up this morning, but I couldn't get this story out of my head to go back to sleep.

I'll skip the explanation of the story since it's more or less inexplicable. Suffice it to say that Henry DeTamble has a disease that causes him to suddenly and unexpectedly go backwards and forwards in time. He arrives at his chronological destination naked, carrying nothing, and violently ill and must therefore scrounge for food, clothing, and shelter. This often leads to (frequently violent) confrontations with the law.

This, of course, costs him a great deal personally, and the one shining thing in his life is his relationship with Clare whom he meets when she's 20 and, due to some whonky time traveling, also when she's 6. By the time she enters his life for the first time in the proper chronology, he's fairly messed up - an alcoholic, a womanizer, stuck in an emotionally draining relationship, feeling trapped, hopeless, and utterly without choice (though, paradoxically, the philosophical mainstay of Niffenegger's time travel is, in fact, freedom of choice).

This is easily the most memorable book I've read this year. The characters were completely real to me. I know I will be thinking about them as actual people for quite some time. Niffenegger convinced me of the utter rightness of their relationship. This is a couple that was meant to be (though I confess I still can't quite comprehend the "chicken or the egg" nature of their meeting). Their love wasn't just emotion, it was energy, sex, feeling, and compassion. They were better when they were together, and bereft and unwhole when apart. And their bond was unchanged by age or health or beauty. Clare actually prefers the older Henry who has been "spindled and mutilated" by time and circumstance - because the older Henry's soul was the one who guided her throughout childhood and helped to form her as a person. Similarly, Henry is equally happy to see Clare at any age whether pre-adolescent or elderly. She is his Clare; she is his happiness. Her outside is packaging.

The time travel as fiction device is used by Niffenegger to wonderful effect. It is the ultimate "show, not tell" technique. The reader is not privy to information, and, therefore, the emotions underlying Clare and Henry's early meetings aren't immediately apparent. This is one book that could be read over and over again, and each time the reader will understand these characters and their relationship better.

Though the book's title is The Time Traveler's Wife, this is really Henry's story. His Chrono Displacement drives the course of the narrative and all of the characters' lives. Some of his adventures are comic and all of them are interesting, but most of them showcase his tragedy. He sees things, terrible things, over and over and can't change them. He knows his own fate well ahead of time and must keep it to himself. He knows what his condition does to Clare, yet he desperately needs her to keep waiting for him. Henry is beautiful, passionate, erudite, and frenetic. He is refined and poetic yet somehow intensely masculine. And though he must occasionally be brutish to survive, he's innately gentle. It's so touching to watch him interacting with Clare as a young girl and himself as a child. His suffering makes him patient and empathetic. And it makes him appreciate the here and now more than most people. He wrings the joy out of every moment.

Clare is very likable, but somehow not as fully fleshed. Her life was particularly interesting to me because she is exactly my age. Her experiences were, to some degree, my experiences. I remember the 1980's and the early 1990's just as she did, and I listened to many of the same bands. Reading her parts of the story was like going down Memory Lane for me.

One final praise: it's so rare to find a book where the sexual side of the relationship seems to be spiritual in essence. Henry is a very sexual being and so is Clare, and their interactions together are earthy but at the same time necessary and nourishing. The are inextricably tied to each other by fate and time, they have no choice in that, but in the sexual side of their relationship they affirm that commitment and it remains a joy.

All of the above impressed me greatly, but for me the book is "only" a B+. Somehow their story was almost to poignant and sad for me to take. It's not something that I could read over and over again, though I will likely purchase it. Clare and Henry have a true love, but, by the nature of Henry's condition, it's an obsessive love. They aren't whole without each other. And, unfortunately, that condition mandates that they spend a great deal of time apart. Their longing for each other during these times was so intense that at times it seemed that I couldn't keep on reading. It was too sad. Perhaps if other aspects of their lives had been touched on or had they other sources of equally stong love and support, their life together and apart wouldn't have been so tragic. But that was not the case. I ended the book in tears.

Still, if ever a book made me think "Carpe diem!" it was this one. When I closed it, I went off to tell my husband that I loved him and the little annoyances of my life didn't seem so very important to me suddenly. Joy is fleeting but precious, The Time Traveler's Wife illustrates, and that is a lesson most of us could relearn over and over.

 

Here's the film trailer:

 

This thing is going to be sad.  SAD.  I've been thinking for years that they should put "100 Years" by Five for Fighting on the soundtrack.  That song always makes me think of Henry (love that name, Henry!).  But I'm sure they didn't. I really like Rachel McAdams and am putting this on my calendar.

 

 

 

I have a new DIK review up at All About Romance for Bound by Your Touch by Meredith Higgins.  Check it out .

 

 

 

 

 

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Mr. and Mrs. Wrong Fay Robinson Harlequin Superromance #1012  9/2001 Rating: B+

 

"Lucky and Jack Cahill have been married for less than a year when Jack decides to move out. The two of them love each other very much, but they cannot get along. Lucky is impulsive and intuitive. Jack is protective and logical. Lucky loves her riverside cabin and the great outdoors. Jack thinks the cabin is a dump and spends his free time playing golf. The one thing they have in common and never argue about is their attraction to each other.

This attraction leads to a little snag in their separation. On one of his trips back to the cabin to "look for something," Jack manages to leave a little something behind: a baby. And since neither of them wants a divorce, they have to figure out just exactly how to make this marriage work.

In the middle of all of this emotional sorting out is a little mystery. Years ago a woman named Eileen Olenick was killed in Potock, their small town, and the murder was never solved. Many assumed that a local autistic boy killed her, and he was sent away to an institution. Now due to a change in laws about the disabled, that boy, now a man, comes back to live in Potock, and things begin to happen again. Things that make Lucky question if he did actually kill Eileen Olenick.

The mystery in this story was tightly plotted and kept me guessing. There were also little twists and turns in Lucky and Jack's relationship that I wasn't expecting. New things kept cropping up to interest me. I have to admit I'm a sucker for the old unsolved mystery plot, especially ones that involve old gossip and entangled relationships. This one was all of that and more.

The romantic plot was equally satisfying. Lucky and Jack have a frustrating but fun relationship, and they do enjoy each other's company when they aren't fighting. Reading these marriage-on-the-rocks romances can be an interesting change from the norm. In this case, what is sacrificed in sexual tension is more than made up for by the emotional depth these characters have for each other. Which is not to say there is no sexual tension here. The love scenes were fun, perhaps because Lucky and Jack were so comfortable with each other that they could "play" in bed.

The only problem I had with this book was that the resolution of the mystery was a little melodramatic, and that was followed by another, and somewhat silly separation between Jack and Lucky.

Mr. and Mrs. Wrong restores my faith in Fay Robinson. She's definitely a category author to watch. I will be looking for her future books, especially the next one, which is about Jack's sister Emma."

[Addendum: the sad thing is, I've had the sequel to this book in the TBR pile for years now, and I've never read it.  And, sadly, Robinson passed away some time ago, so there will be no more books to watch for.]

The original review is here. 

This book is available cheap at half.com or at Bookmooch .

 

J. says I should blog about this because I was so stoked at my success in fixing my own ball joint faucet. 

Saturday, I was cleaning up after cooking lunch and I noticed that the hot water was no longer coming out.  At all.  Since I spend a goodly amount of time every day washing dishes, this was not good.  I went into the bathroom to see if the hot water heater was the problem, but the sink and tub both had it, so that meant the kitchen faucet was the culprit.  It had been sort of leaking for awhile if you put any pressure on the handle too.  

So, being cheap and not wanting to "Call a plumber," as J. suggested, I scoped out the fixture.  The handle was affixed with a sort of octagonal screw (the kind presumably manufacturers use so that you have to buy one of those screwdriver bit sets).  Fortunately, I have a screwdriver bit set, and with only a few wrong picks, located the right bit.  Once I had the screw out, I had to unscrew the cap and the whole thing came out in my hand.  

Since I had turned the water off, this was not a problem, but it was then that I began to wonder if I'd be able to get this thing back on.  Or if we'd be going the whole weekend without water because I wasn't going to call the plumber on weekend rates.  

So I started fiddling with the fixture itself, and lo and behold, found out that it had parts.  Moving parts.  Moving parts that sort of fit together and that presumably would make it easier to stick back onto the faucet base.   A quick internet search yielded the diagram to your right, and I realized that amongst the parts in my hand, there were no little spring thingees.  Huh.  I went back in the kitchen and rooted around in the sink where I found, amidst the dirty dishes, one spring and one tiny spring cap.  When I inserted this into the hot water circle in the spout and reassembled the whole thing, I found I had hot water again and cold, but the cold water wouldn't turn off.  So gambling that I'd diagnosed the problem, I went to the hardware store and bought a set of springs and spring caps, then came home, and inserted one into the cold side of the spout, reassembled again, and voila!  It worked like a charm.  I had hot water, cold water, and no leakage.

Yay, me!  

What made me happiest about accomplishing this was not the $100 it saved me calling the plumber, but the feeling I got that I could do this, that I could operate independently, that I didn't actually need to ask someone (someone who would charge an arm and a leg) for help.  I could do it myself.  With an internet diagram and a willingness to tinker around a bit.  I haven't felt this good since I installed my own wireless network a year ago.  There are times when I seriously think I should have taken more practical courses in high school like shop and home ec.   Knowing how to do stuff, or where to start the process of learning how to do stuff would be far more valuable to me than all that Calculus I've since forgotten.  

Well, after a month or more of double ditching (digging a ditch, piling the dirt to the side, adding layers of leaves and cow manure, then piling the dirt back in) a roughly 16 ft. by 12 ft. plot of land, I've got the garden almost all in.  What's there?

Peas, potatoes, onions, cucumbers, bush beans, pole beans, tomatoes, peppers, carrots (though most of these didn't germinate), Swiss chard, lettuce, zucchini, cilantro, oregano, dill, basil, and parsley.  Quite a lot of stuff for a not-so-large bit of dirt.  I hope it all comes up.

Already as you can see if you look closely, the potatoes are thriving.  The onions are tiny but growing.  The peas are nearly to the first line of string.  Lettuce and chard are coming up, and there's some volunteer cilantro up and at 'em.  I've got two rows of tomatoes, three different kinds, and a row of peppers.  They aren't large yet, but 8 hours of regular sun and copious waterings should get them moving.  

 

So far, the costs this year are as follows:

Money:

• $34.51 - seed order
• $8.42 - incubator 
• $5.46 - peat pots + 1 packet zucchini seeds (all 20% off)
• $1.50 seed potatoes (I'm going to try using small potatoes that have already sprouted in my basement and see if that works)
• $5.50 - gas for truck (2 24 mile round trips @ $2.00, averaging 19 miles to the gallon)
• $10 for wire caging
• $16.99 for fertilizer

Total: $82.38
Sweat:

• 1 hour choosing seeds (more browsing, but I'm counting that as entertainment)
• .5 hour planting flower seeds
• 5 hours picking up and spreading manure.
• 10 hours double ditching (at least)
• 2.5 hours planting
  

Total:  19 hours

Tomorrow I'm going to try and plant most of my second garden, the one I'm doing with my dad.  When I see exactly how much space I have, I'll better be able to decide what's going in there.  Beans and more tomatoes, for sure. 

 

 

Remember Me? Sophie Kinsella Chick Lit 2008 Rating: B

 

"Sophie Kinsella's newest book, Remember Me?, dangles from an interesting premise: What if you woke up tomorrow and everything that you didn't like about your life was transformed?

In 2004 Lexi Smart had a crap job, a crap boyfriend, crap teeth, and a crap future. She was a bit pudgy, more than a bit unfinished, and her father had just died. Running to catch a taxi on the night before his funeral, Lexi falls and hits her head. The next morning she wakes up in the hospital. But it's not the next morning. It's 2007.

Lexi can't remember anything from the intervening three years, but it's apparent to her that they've been eventful. She's lost significant weight. Her teeth have been fixed. Her hair is expensively done. And she has a husband. A perfect, super-rich, very handsome husband, Eric, who dotes over her and is so relieved she's okay. Lexi also learns that she's now the boss at her job, the manager of the carpet division of Deller Carpets. She's a high-powered executive now and makes a great income. Her employees – who include several of her good friends – fear her. Her nickname is "The Cobra."

All of this is more than a little unsettling. Lexi now has the perfect life. But how perfect is perfection, really?

There have been incidents throughout history – one of the most famous of them being Phineas Gage, a man who had his frontal lobe speared with a metal rod – in which people who suffer brain injuries have had radical personality changes. It appears that a similar thing happened to Lexi. From her fall emerged a more confident, ruthless, ambitious Lexi, the kind of woman who can make anything happen and does. Lexi who has always felt a bit out of control, has a hard time reconciling this new Lexi to her old self. She's hurt by the fact that her old friends despise her and appalled to learn she may have been having an affair with Jon, the sexy architect from her husband's firm. Just who was this interim Lexi and where did she come from?

Watching Lexi discover her fancy new self and her fancy new life is both fascinating and amusing. The author's humor is mild and predicated on embarrassment, but it's effectively funny. As is the case with most Kinsella heroines, Lexis both underestimates her abilities and frequently gets in over her head because she doesn't want to appear inept. Trying to fake a job and a relationship with no information about either, Lexi fails frequently – with style.

The book does have a rather sweet romantic subplot, but it's not immediately apparent how this will play out since Lexi has forgotten both of the men who claim to love her. Readers who have experience with the author will recognize the creatively brilliant, rich, down-to-earth and wry hero when he shows up, though, even if her alleged infidelity is troubling.

Kinsella's readers will also recognize these themes: perfection can be stifling, work is important but should not be everything, and "real" people are more about vulnerable substance than invulnerable surface.

With its fun premise Remember Me? is able to explore some interesting ideas with humor and insight. Lexi Smart is a likable heroine most readers will be rooting for even as the many sides to her overall character are exposed. This is solid, enjoyable Chick Lit."

The original review is here. 

This book is available cheap at half.com.

 

I've found the whole RPattz thing to be so interesting, from every angle - the crazy [really - lunatic] fans, the originally manufactured but now organically growing hype, the media coverage, even Robsten, which I am not too sold on as a fact but think is pretty romantic as a fiction.

It's been ages (if ever) since I've had a celebrity crush, but for some reason RP is the perfect storm for me, and I've tried to break down the appeal into isolated characteristics so as to better understand. Obviously, he is gorgeous - you could cook dinner over his photo - but his oft default scruffy look doesn't really appeal to me, so it's not that. At least not entirely.

The voice has to be given its own credit, though. Tenor and accent - Plus, plus.

I actually only wanted to see Twilight originally because of youtube videos I'd seen. For me Pattinson's interview persona is much more interesting than the perfect Edward, and I think a large part of that is the combination of his shyness/introversion and his seeming generosity with people. The Twilight craze is kind of ruining the moment for him, the fame is exhausting and each photo taken is kind of stolen goods, but he's not getting all Hugh Grant curmudgeonly about it. He rolls with the punches, smiles for the fans, and makes self-deprecating jokes about it, and for that you - I - feel rather protective about him. Back off, everyone, and let the man breathe. Enough, already.

I think lots of people with an online presence are introverted, but most of Hollywood is probably extroverted, so you may enjoy these people, but you can't relate to them, and many of them are a bit intimidating in their manner or bearing, or just arrogant. I, for instance, would never want to have a conversation with Brad Pitt because it would be so imbalanced, or at least I would feel like it is. He is the Big Man on Campus in every way, and I am the girl in the back of English class scribbling her notebook. What is the point in talking...there is nothing to say.

Rob is, however, so incredibly nonthreatening. He gives off a gentle, nonjudgmental air. He hasn't yet begin to believe his own hype. He seems real, unaffected and unwilling to change stuff he thinks is unnecessary. And because he doesn't care, he can get away with wearing the same 3 t-shirts and 2 pairs of jeans and carrying a Dadcase and everyone squees over his choices and thinks they are the coolest ever when, in fact, they are not. He is the coolest. Because he's decided what's important to him and he remains unwavering to those things.

I have no idea how much talent he has - I think that's yet to be revealed - but he is magnetic on the screen. You can't take your eyes off him, and you wouldn't want to if you could. That could take him far, if he decides after all this he still wants to go there.

Honestly, I think there's a real chance he could bail, esp. if the criticism gets too mean and personal. He's not in it for the fame or, seemingly, the money, and other stuff might be just as enjoyable and allow for less spotlight and scrutiny. I would love to see him work his screen mojo in some interesting projects and would be sad if Hollywood puts him through the mill and churns out pulp, but what concerns me most is the chance of all this High Profile crap turning him into a self-righteous, humorless, arrogant prick who just wants to bang supermodels and blather on about politics. Because that would ruin all of his appeal for me. The lack of all that in his public persona is what makes him seem like a good old fashioned movie star.

 

Addendum (6/9/09): Here's a rundown on why smart girls love Robert Pattinson .  Interesting summation.

Flagrant denial and stupidity are on display here.  Excuse the naiveté, but I've been trying, recently, to blame at least part of Americans' galactic economic mess on poor education and general ignorance about money.  This guy's actions cannot be blamed on either of those reasons.  Edmund Andrews was an economics reporter for the NY Times, and he warned others about many of the wheelin'-dealin' money schemes he fell into himself because he wanted to live comfortably and well beyond his means and he wanted to "pamper" his new woman. 

Even more interesting to me, however, were the comments following another writer's dissection of Andrews's situation.  This writer, Megan McArdle of the Atlantic, nearly gives Andrews's behavior a free pass, preferring to use him as an object lesson.  The comments left are brutal, though, and, in my opinion frequently misogynistic (see pic at right, which one commenter references as the real explanation for Andrews's problems).  Ironic, given that the writer of the piece is a woman.

J. saw this image and laughed, and I took frank exception.  Of the two of us, I'm far more frugal.  His finances were much worse off before he met me, although that can partially be blamed on his still-in-grad-school status.  Still, there seems to be this idea floating around out there in the male consciousness that marriage = financial doom because a woman will spend you into poverty and then leave you there.  

Am I alone in thinking that men can be equally stupid and disastrous with money, without a woman's help?

 

I know this comes as a surprise, but I actually have a lot of clothes.  A lot of clothes.  I never buy them (except at garage sales v. occasionally).  Everyone just gives them to me.  And plenty of them are really nice, particularly the stuff J.'s Aunt K. passes on. She has good taste in clothing and only buys very tasteful name brand stuff.

And, yet, I still wear the same 5 outfits all the time.  Or a variation thereof.  In the winter I've got maybe three pair of really comfy black fleece pants I wear with varying degrees of underclothing.  These I match with a red/burgundy top, preferably turtlenecked to make a sort of wintry uniform.  Now that it's spring, I've gotten out a couple of pair of jeans, and I work them in if the weather is warm enough.  Summertime is for V-necked shortsleeves and shorts (with sandals).  The quality of all of the above is negotiable.  I've acquired nearly everything I wear used since I quit my job - it's a momdrobe of stuff I can get dirty in and not feel guilty about.  

Frankly, I like old stuff.  If it's already distressed, I don't feel bad when I spill food on it or if Max spits koolaid on it or if the dogs jump up on me with their muddy paws.  Plus, it's already broken in in all the right places.  

Actually, here's the thing: I just don't care what I look like as long as I'm basically clean and presentable.  I only wear makeup if I'm going out, and only the bare minimum then.  I've given up entirely on mascara and wear my glasses instead of my contacts all the time now.  I try to curl my hair when I take Max to school, but I don't always work it in.  Half of my shoes are frankly a disgrace.  I just don't feel it's my goal in life to be decorative.  I want to be healthy.  I want to be decently attired.  It would be nice if I were model skinny or had great coloring and hair with tons of volume and natural highlights.  But since I don't and, since I'm meeting my real goal of being useful, it's all the same to me if I not winning any Best Dressed Mom contests.  I'd rather be comfortable.   My sell-by date has long since passed, and I've bagged my limit.   My energy is better spent elsewhere on something I actually care about.

Fifteen Beverly Cleary YA  1956 Rating: A

 

"There is something about adolescence, those teenage years, that marks you and leaves its brand for life. It's a time of an enormous breadth of feeling; breathless excitement, staggering humiliation, quivering expectancy. When you're in it, it absorbs you, and when you're past it, you never quite forget.

Beverly Cleary paints a vivid portrait of this in her book, Fifteen. First published in 1956, it's the story of first love and all of its painful thrills. Despite the lengthy time gap between then and now, all of the feelings, thoughts and actions still ring true. It's all there - the waiting by the telephone, the careful decisions of what to wear and say and do, as well as the wondering if maybe you could walk by his house and accidentally run into him without being completely obvious.

Jane Purdy is fifteen and desperately desirous of a boyfriend. She is in the midst of a crushing discovery. All of a sudden it is painfully clear that she, her parents, her friends, her house, and her clothes are all unbelievably lame. She is average; not a glamorous girl-woman like Marcy or an intellectual like Liz. Just ordinary. She babysits for extra money, and she has plenty of time to do it because she doesn't have a boyfriend or even date much. Unless you count baby parties that she goes to with George, a family friend who is shorter than she is and only interested in his rock collection.

Then one day she meets Stan, Stanley Crandall, the new boy in town. He's older - at least sixteen because he drives-and so handsome with gray-green eyes and a cute dip in his brown hair. She meets him in an awkward babysitting moment and fantasizes about him. Maybe he'll call. Maybe they'll go out. Maybe....

He does call, and they do go out. And he is polite and sweet and older, and all the other girls look at Jane with new awareness. But instead of being happier and having all of her problems work out, she is now in crisis all the time. Because every word she says - everything she does - now hovers on the brink of being a startling social gaffe. If she wears the wrong dress, will he think she's a baby? If she orders the wrong thing to eat, will that reveal how unsophisticated she still is? Will she ever know the right thing to do?

Fifteen is a wonderful book for anyone who remembers what it was like to be young and nervous and inexperienced and for anyone who remembers what it was like to not quite know yourself yet. The book is, of course, about Jane and Stan and their blooming relationship, but it's more about Jane and how she learns who she really is and what she really wants. She has to define herself before she can be happy with Stan. She has to figure out who Jane is.

A warning: the sweet factor is very high in this book, but that did not bother me at all. It's just a charmer. I found myself laughing and cringing at the things Jane does and how her parents react to her. And Stan Crandall is the nicest boy in the world, bar none. I only have one question. Where was he when I was in high school?"

The original review is here. 

This book is available cheap at half.com or at Bookmooch.

 

I have never really been very good at traveling.  The whole "It's out of my hands" is so not my thing.  I fret about my luggage getting scanned and then getting lost.  I worry that I will lose my carry-on or that someone will steal something of mine when I'm distracted (as I tend to be when traveling, since worrying about the plethora of smallish details takes so much of my focus).  I'm always certain I'll lose my tickets, or my passport, or I'll be bumped from a flight and this will cause problems for whoever is supposed to pick me up.  Basically, I'm a wreck until I reach my destination and then I need a little time to recover from it all.

I'm inclined to believe that this is really just my OCD aggravated by stress and, therefore, that I've always been like this, but my adventures in Eastern Europe in 1993-1994 did not help anything.  I had a series of really strange things happen to me in Russia, Poland, and Lithuania that certainly didn't help me feel in control while traveling.  I kept a "diary" of my daily goings on while I was abroad - really, it was copies of letters I wrote to this guy I was obsessed with.  I've been planning for awhile to transcribe some of that stuff here because it's the first-hand (and most accurate) account of that time, but, honestly, reading it is so excruciating, that I can't bring myself to do this.  I can't peruse more than a page or two before I want to die of embarrassment.  My 22-year-old self is so contrived, so manipulated, so presented, and so emotionally heightened, all for the benefit of this guy, that I wish I could go back in time and stuff her in a writing implement-free incubator until she is a bit more fully hatched. 

So since I can't read it - and I mean it, I CAN'T read it - I'll just sum up from memory.  

1st leg of trip - my luggage gets lost in Warsaw.  This wouldn't matter so much except that I packed exceedingly carefully because I could only take a few bags and I had to fit in everything I'd need for a year, including my teaching materials.  Fortunately, it was eventually found.  

2nd leg of trip - we cross the border, and the Russian guards paw through our stuff. (I am in a group of about 11 people.)  Anything and everything is subject to confiscation.  Imagine that whole crappy go-through-the-x-ray-machine-at-the-airport on steroids in Russian, and that's it.  Again, fortunately, I didn't lose anything.  

Arrival in Russia - my housing situation falls to pieces.  No one has any idea where I will teach or live for several weeks.  When the date of my practice homestay arrives, a rep from the school who had promised to employ me takes me instead to a little resort on the Baltic Spit.  In Soviet Russia this was sort of the place to stay, I'm told.  Unfortunately, the accommodations are not luxurious in the Western sense.  They drop me off in a room in a sort of bathroom-free shack, tell me that a teacher from the school should be along, and leave.   I spend the night locked in my room with all my belongings listening to the mother of all drunken binges going on around me and thinking about where I should pee.  Eventually, my escort returns with her teenage daughter as she realizes I know no one and don't even know where I am geographically (and have no way of contacting anyone since there is no telephone).  

1st big trip - Warsaw/Krakow.  This was actually a really cool trip, except that I was the only person in our little group who spoke adequate Russian and we were, in fact, in Poland (where they speak Polish).  I found that if I approached people speaking Russian, they would ignore me, but if I approached speaking English and then switching to Russian, they would talk to me (in Russian).  I have some good memories of this trip, including traveling by bus through the Polish countryside seeing the regular flash of a series of cemeteries, lit up with candles for All Souls'.  Krakow was beautiful, and Auschwitz made a permanent impression on me.  My biggest challenge?  Arriving in the Krakow station at midnight with no map, no Polish, and no idea where we would stay or how we would get there at that time of night.  Honestly, there are times when I can't believe I actually did these things.  They are so unlike me. I completely could have been raped or killed.

Complete Clusterf*ck (i.e., New Year's trip to Vilnius) - a friend of mine and I decided we would go to Gdansk since we had significant time off around the holidays (Russia shuts down everything for the first couple of weeks in January), but he had left his passport in the city we lived which was east, not west.  So we went to Vilnius, Lithuania, instead.  At the border, right around midnight on the 1st, the Russians confiscated my multi-entry visa which made it possible for me to enter and exit the country at will.  When they walked away with it, I thought they were going to check on something and bring it back, but then the train started again, and my little adventure with Russian travel bureaucracy began.  I had brought about $80 with me for this weekend trip, and suddenly I was stranded in Lithuania during the holiday shutdown with no assistance given whatsoever from my travel companion (who spoke only incomprehensible Russian and was irritated with me, I think, for not wanting to hook up) and little support from my program director.  The American embassy wouldn't help me.  I got shaken down for money by the bus patrol because I forgot to have my ticket stamped.  The photographer I went to for new passport photos suggested I pay in a non-monetary currency.  I had to throw the most embarrassingly bitchy hissy fit at the Russian embassy and physically refuse to leave the building to get them to look into the details of my visa confiscation.  It was like a surreal nightmare with a soundtrack in Lithuanian.  Eventually I got out of there, re-entered the country at the same check point - where they were waiting for me with my original visa, having realized they'd screwed up - got home, and went to bed for about 3 weeks where I cried and huddled in a fetal position.  It had occurred to me, as I rode this dismal journey back alone, my travel companion having abandoned me to go back to teach, that it would have been so easy for me to be pulled off the train by some official, killed, and dumped.  And it would have been weeks before anyone would even think to investigate my whereabouts because communication was so impossible.

That was the low point, I think.  I did go on some trips after that, to Gdansk, to St. Petersburg, to Tallinn (and some charmingly remote Baltic island offshore), to Kaunas.  But I made sure to travel with other people who spoke Russian too - girls who spoke Russian and were neither interested in me romantically nor passive-aggressive - and I had occasional problems with panic attacks, esp. when dealing with officials at borders.  And instead of staying on in Eastern Europe to travel after my term was up, I left early and just came home.  

Then I just avoided going anywhere which would require a visa or a passport.  I held out, in fact, for 10 years until the time when we went to pick up Max.  And that trip is its own little story.  

 

Last week I reviewed Twilight, so this week I thought I'd comment a bit on the extras, specifically, the commentary by the movie's director, Catherine Hardwicke, as well as its two leads, Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson.  I bought the 3-disc edition from Target and so got an extra dose of extras, many of which were actually of some interest, although I'd really have appreciated more outtakes and a blooper reel.  There have to have been tons of bloopers on this film, esp. given all the weather troubles they appear to have had. 

The commentary is on the first disc.  Robert's comments are by far the most entertaining.  For a good rundown of those, go here; not all of his quips get mentioned - Mandi Bierly leaves out a couple of the funniest ones - but the ones she misses come up in the comments left by others.   

What I think is most interesting is that, of the three, only Catherine Hardwicke seems to be a fan of Twilight, the book, and she is really, really a fan of its melo-love-drama in general and of Edward Cullen in particular.  To be specific, her comments lead one to the conclusion that she has spent many evenings imagining how she would shag Edward completely senseless.  But since Edward is, very unfortunately, a fictional character, she could make Rob work in a pinch.  Yes, she could make Rob work...and there would be pinching.

This left me with a bit of a bad taste in my mouth.  It's not the age difference, really.  Really.  It's that she was his boss, and she's more or less verbally leering at him throughout.  Otherwise, she offers little enlightenment on the making of the film, and in at least one instance, [at the point in the film where Bella exits the book shop] she completely drops the ball, failing to explain the perspective of a camera angle Rob asks about.  Did she or did she not film and cut this thing?

Kristen Stewart is by far the least talkative of the three.  My sense is that she may have some perspective to give, but nothing has inspired her to offer it.  She's there on sufferance.  Twihards who imagine a Robsten pairing would only have to listen to this commentary for that fantasy to be cleared up - her attitude toward her costar is familiar, friendly, and at least once [when Rob complains about his hands] utterly exasperated.  Bella as a character, in her everygirl ordinariness, doesn't seem to particularly interest her.  For that matter, neither does Edward.  Mostly she comments on the everyday problems of each shoot - bad weather, treacherous terrain, wire work.  She did seem really familiar with the audience reaction to the film, like she'd been to a number of showings and was interested to see how the work had been perceived/received.  

In contrast, this is obviously the first time Rob Pattinson has seen the whole of Twilight, and it's clear it makes him beyond uncomfortable to have to view his performance. To endure it he resorts the British fallback, self-deprecating humor and spends the almost hour and a half ripping on his face ("Sometimes I think I look like I've had facial reconstructive surgery, like after burns or something."), his hands ("I've got such effeminate hands. I could never be strong."), and his "sculpted" eyebrows (which seem to represent and bear the full brunt of the contempt he has for Edward).  

Charmingly enough, this strategy works for him, probably because he mostly concentrates on the thing that he has no control over but which has been universally well received - his looks - instead of thing he did have control over and was less well received - his performance.  This is a smart use of self-deprecation; however, it's my sense that it comes naturally to him and it's not simply manipulation.  And he is genuinely funny and quite entertaining putting on this one-man talent show, laughing, joking, and bursting into song for comic effect.

Yet all this can't hide the fact that he clearly views Edward as fairly ridiculous and the Edward worship as beyond explanation.  Twilight could in no one's estimation, be considered a recommended book for 22-year-old males (the few 22-year-old males who actually read books, that is).  It's a girl's book, a romance.  Many of Edward's characteristics - his Adonis looks, his sculpted body, his politeness and good manners, his prolonged abstinence - are not ones that recommend him to other men.  And, objectively, this is a guy who has spent the first 90 years of his immortality going to high school and not even taking advantage of his good looks to bag girls.  He can play the piano and read minds, but what has he accomplished? 

Additionally, you can tell that the way the movie people dolled Edward up rankled.  The many disparaging remarks on his sculpted eyebrows reveal that.  Then there are his comments on Edward's "bouffant," his lipstick, the dorky baseball costume he wears during the vampire baseball scene.  None of these things add up to a manly enough man for all of the attention Edward's gotten, at least to the actor who played him.  Catherine Hardwicke clearly thinks she nailed Edward [cough, cough] and he is as dreamy as they come, though.

So, in sum: really enjoyable and fascinating commentary - not for what is said, but for what isn't.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have a new DIK review up at All About Romance for Catch of the Day by Kristan Higgins.  Check it out .

 

 

 

 

 

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Montcalm County has finally, under much public pressure, voted to discontinue giving their animal shelter pets to R&R Research, Inc. , a company that either sells them or euthanizes them. 

This is definitely a victory for the domesticated animals of West Michigan, so hurray for that!

Today I blogged over at the All About Romance News & Commentary blog about my delicious experience watching the movie Twilight.  Check it out.

I have to say, having read the GQ interview with Robert Pattinson , that he doesn't sound like he's having a heck of a lot of fun at this point in his life.  The piece flashed me back to when I was 22, living in another country, supposedly having this great adventure but really just eking it out day after day, alone and miserable.

At that point in my life I was working in Kaliningrad, Russia, teaching a whole spectrum of different aged students English.  When I signed up for this gig, it was supposed to be this grand adventure that also proved how fantastically courageous and blithe I was.   I was very excited about it.  At one point another plan I'd made to go and teach in Moscow fell through, and I was devastated.  After four years of college studying Russian and Russia, I wanted to go there and breathe the Russian air and absorb the Russian culture in through my very skin.  I thought I was totally up for it.  I mean, I'd kicked a$$ in my program at the University of Michigan, finishing Summa Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa.  Nothing was beyond me, right?  The world was my oyster to be slurped up and digested with relish.

Only it didn't quite work out that way.

In reality, the whole thing was terribly overwhelming.  I could speak and understand and write Russian if I concentrated, but living in the midst of a foreign language is like hearing a buzzing all of the time.  In normal life, if the people behind you in line at the movies start talking politics, you can process and either eavesdrop, participate, or ignore.  In Russia, I had to isolate every conversation and concentrate in order to understand it.  A phenomenal amount of information was being funneled all around me, but I knew I was missing most of it, at least at first.  I felt embarrassed to talk because I had no confidence that I wouldn't make atrocious mistakes all of the time.  And, in fact, even though my Russian was pretty good, frequently people wouldn't understand it because they saw me, knew I was foreign from my clothes, the way I stood, or whatever, and would dismiss me as unintelligible before my mouth opened.  I'm not kidding.  I'd take Russian friends along when I went to stores and when this happened, ask them if I was messing up, and they would assure me that what I'd said was clear and correct.  It was the other person who wasn't hearing. 

Another kind of freaky thing was the knowledge that we were being monitored by the local KGB.  We were told they knew our whereabouts and our activities.  This was right after the fall of Communism in 1993, but much of the political apparatus was still in place.  I knew I didn't blend in, and sometimes I'd hear the word "American" before I stepped off the bus on  my way home in the dark cold and wonder if maybe those guys behind me were the ones talking on the bus.  And then I would think, "No, I'm being paranoid."  But the fact was that Kaliningrad was a closed city to foreigners until right before our group came in, so the vast majority of people hadn't seen anyone in their lives who wasn't a Soviet citizen.  It was just creepy.  

At this point, at 23, I really had only a small collection of life skills and making them work in another culture was challenging.  Purchasing food was tricky, and preparing it well was often beyond me.  I lived on deep fried potatoes and bread.  I lost significant weight and got down to 95 pounds.  I was alone all the time.  I made only one good friend, and, of course, she couldn't babysit me; she had her own life to lead.  I read all of the time because my music collection sucked, I didn't have a TV, and the radio was limited.  There was no internet then and about half of my mail didn't make it to me from home.  My students gave me a stray kitten for a pet, but I had such a strong allergic reaction to it, I had to give it back even though I was starving for company and really could have used some fur therapy.

I looked horrible the whole year.  I could only bring with me what luggage I could carry and that included toiletries, books, teaching supplies, anything I'd want for a whole year, so my wardrobe was limited.  Everything I wore, I hand washed when it got dirty, and I wasn't exactly adept at that, so I looked layered and rumpled and ugly all of the time.  Russian girls my age there made a real effort to look sexy even in the worst weather.  My goal was not to die of exposure, and to hell with the rest.  I had my mom send over contact lens solution (at great cost - thanks, Mom) so that I could ditch the glasses I'd intended to wear all year because I couldn't stand to look plain, rumpled, and bespectacled all the time, every day.  There were so many pretty girls there.  I felt like Nanny McFee.  

In the end, all these things added to some travel related visa problems made me a nervous wreck.  Despite having learned numerous new skills, I felt like a huge failure because I was only surviving, not thriving.  The constant isolation only increased my anxiety and paranoia.  I left early, came home, stayed with my parents for awhile and dialed it back to near zero.  Everyone wanted to hear about my exciting time abroad, and I could barely bring myself to talk about any of it, too shell-shocked and, at the same time, too proud to admit how I'd floundered.  The whole experience was humbling in the extreme.  

Looking back now, I wish I'd lived with a family instead of on my own.  I wanted privacy, but I think having a foster mother type would have helped tremendously, even if I'd had to sleep on someone's couch.  I needed a sounding board and more emotional support than I had available, and some decent food would have helped.  

I remembered all of that today when I read that interview and wished I could have somehow imparted the handful of wisdom I learned then, or at least been able to ship off a home cooked meal to Robert Pattinson (who would probably only laugh at me for my impertinence).  Poor lad, away from home and surrounded by complete lunatics and opportunists.  I will never understand fans who mob famous people and faint and scream.  I'm not sure I could actually bring myself to introduce myself to someone even semi-famous (such as a favorite author) whom I liked and respected.  What would I say?  Nothing impressive or of importance, I'm sure.  Better I stay at home where if I say something stupid, there's a limited audience for it.  

 

His Majesty's Dragon Naomi Novik Fantasy 2006 Rating: B

 

"His Majesty’s Dragon is straight fantasy, no romance whatsoever, but it does have, at its heart, a very lovely and emotionally rich relationship between a man and his newly hatched dragon.

Captain Will Laurence and his naval crew capture a French frigate in what Laurence assumes to be a routine skirmish. What’s hardly routine is the cargo the frigate is carrying: a dragon egg. Dragons are rare and powerful creatures, used by both the English and the French in the ongoing war, so a dragon egg is a prize indeed. Unfortunately, this egg is about to hatch, and no one on board knows much of anything about rearing a young dragon.

Shortly thereafter while the HMS Reliant is still at sea, the egg does hatch, and the dragon rejects the member of the crew selected by lot to put it in harness. Instead he decides he prefers Laurence. In that moment Laurence’s whole life changes as he transitions from career navy captain to member of the Aerial Corps/dragon handler, for once a dragon allows itself to be harnessed by a human, a bond is forged forever, and all other considerations and the comforts of a normal life fly out the window. Laurence accepts all of this with resignation as he places the harness on the dragon he names Temeraire. What he doesn’t realize is how important Temeraire will come to be to him.

While dragons are fantastical creatures, Novik’s introduction of them as fighting weapons in the Napoleonic Wars never feels artificial or unbelievable. Perhaps this is because the rest of her historical backdrop is so well done. Laurence is in every way a man of his time and a man of his career. His outlook, his decisions, and his prejudices all stem from being a man of good family and good upbringing. Temeraire, of course, takes him by surprise, mostly because he didn’t know how intelligent and social dragons can be. He is stunned to find out they can talk, and even more astonished to watch Temeraire outpace him intellectually. But the biggest surprise is how soon he becomes emotionally attached to his winged, scaled protégé.

The best parts of His Majesty’s Dragon are the quiet scenes between Laurence and Temeraire. Laurence has never been anti-social, but his position as navy captain prevented him from having very close friendships with his shipmates. His relationship with his own father is tepid at best, so when he is thrust into a mentoring role, he doesn’t quite know how best to go about it. But his kind and gentle nature comes to the fore, and he finds that caring for Temeraire is rewarding in and of itself.

Temeraire, for his part, becomes fiercely devoted to Laurence, far more devoted, in fact, than he is to his given mission: defending England. While he is able to talk and understand things upon hatching, Temeraire is childlike. As the book progresses, he goes through more adolescent stages, and it is interesting and often touching to watch him with Laurence. He is a fearsome creature, but emotionally vulnerable to this one man. It is fortunate for him that Laurence is so honorable. Some dragons in this parallel universe do not have it so good.

The book’s first two thirds involve Laurence and Temeraire getting to know each other and then learning to operate within the Aerial Corps. I found both of these to be very enjoyable. The last third was their introduction to warfare, and my interest waned here. Novik does a good job narrating her battle scenes and using them to reveal things about her lead characters, but action scenes, and particularly battle scenes, just aren’t my thing. I was tempted to skim in places and probably would have if I hadn’t been reading this book for review.

Strangely enough, while reading this, I kept comparing His Majesty’s Dragon to Wen Spencer's Ukiah Oregon series. While on the surface they are little alike, this series being historical and concerning dragons and the other being contemporary and concerning aliens, the relationship between Laurence and Temeraire is as warm and supportive as the one between Ukiah and his mentor, Max. And both Novik and Spencer do a wonderful job with world-building and suspenseful action scenes.

His Majesty’s Dragon is the first book in a series.  Several of its sequels have already been released to good reviews. So new fans of Laurence and Temeraire will be able to immerse themselves in this new and very exciting parallel universe right away. That’s good news!"

The original review is here. 

This book is available cheap at amazon.com.

 

What's in: 

• 2 short rows of peas
• 1 short row of Buttercrunch lettuce
• 1 short row of Swiss chard

(I will, perhaps, be adding rows of lettuce to spread this harvest out a bit.)

• 1 long row of carrots
• 1 long row of onions
• 1 long row of potatoes

(Check out this really cool link on growing 100 pounds of potatoes in 4 square feet.  I might have to try this.)

Also, tomatoes, peppers, and asparagus are planted in their little seedling trays.  Nothing has come up yet, but they are being encouraged to grow.

I've put in about 7 more hours of sweat labor, mostly double ditching the garden to dig manure and leaves into the soil and loosen things up for planting. And I bought a bag of potting soil ($2.75) to plant the peppers and tomato seeds in since the instructions specified "sterile soil."  

Also, I've discovered that Milo remembers well how to climb the fence and get out, so now when I'm gardening, I've got him on a chain in the yard.  :(

The weather is getting pretty decent here, with temps getting into the fifties during the day.  The porch has all of those big picture windows, and if the sun is shining it gets warm enough for seedlings to be set out by mid-morning.  Some of our crocus are still out, but we've also seen tulips, hyacinths and daffodils.  A few of our bushes are budding.  I am grateful for spring.

Have you seen the youtube video of the crowd in the Antwerp train station bursting into dance when the Do-Re-Mi dance is piped out of the central speakers?  So fun.

I've watched it like 5 times already.  It makes me smile and smile.  I LOVED The Sound of Music when I was little.  Loved it.  Waited for it to come on TV once a year (this was when we had 3 channels and PBS and you watched what they gave you when they gave it to you and were grateful) and ate it up.  We had the record set and my sister and I would listen to it on our huge HI-FI stereo (the cover was so heavy that if you weren't careful and it slipped, it could decapitate you - or at least I always worried it could) and sing and dance around the room.   Oh, we loved that movie.  I have it.  I'll have to get it out and watch it with Max.  Julie Andrews had the loveliest, clearest soprano - so joyful to listen to.  

It's funny how watching groups of people dancing can so invigorate you.  I remember feeling the same way when I saw Les Miserables at the Civic in college.  All those people singing and moving so passionately all together - it made you want to hunt down a French aristocrat and cut him down right there.  The feelings it inspired!

Laws of the Blood: Companions Susan Sizemore Vampire Fiction 2001 Rating: B

 

"I am always up for a good vampire story, and if a little romance is thrown into the mix, so much the better. Until now I was unaware that Susan Sizemore wrote a vampire series. Laws of the Blood: Companions is the third book in the series, and, though I have not read the first two, I enjoyed it very much.

The story takes place somewhere in the second half of the twentieth century. Istvan is our vampire "hero," and he is over five hundred years old. He's a dhamphir vampire, the son of a vampire and a Roma (gypsy) woman. He had strong psychic powers before he was turned into a vampire, and now he's top dog. Istvan's job is to be an Enforcer of Vampiric Law. He gets rid of law breaking vampires and protects the vampire community as a whole from human scrutiny.

Selena Crawford is a Chicago homicide detective who comes from a family of "white" witches. She has strong extrasensory abilities as well. Because of this she was picked to be Istvan's companion several years ago. They were both set up by an interfering vampire, and the result is that they have a blood bond that connects them. Neither of them wanted this relationship, but because the relationship exists, they crave each other and need the sexual and emotional connection even as this desire goes against personal inclination.

What throws Istvan and Selena together again in this book is a vampire murder that occurs in Chicago. As a homicide cop, Selena is called in to view the grisly remains of a mutilated and decapitated vampire. She immediately recognizes him as a vampire, but is somewhat at a loss for what to do. After all, vampires have their own leaders and laws. Unbeknownst to her, Istvan is also aware of the murder and involved in the investigation. There's one small barrier to their working together on this, though. Selena is Istvan's primary suspect.

This book was quite entertaining. The story moved along quickly, and there were a number of amusing moments. This is not a romance per se, it's more of a mystery adventure, but there was enough of a romance between Selena and Istvan to be satisfying. The fact that their relationship is a coerced and permanent one makes it a variant of an arranged marriage, which is one of my favorite scenarios.

There are some similarities to the Anita Blake books. Selena is rather kick-ass, Istvan is a vampire leader, and they are bonded together in a mystical type of union. But this series seems to be somewhat lighter fare. The Anita Blake books are so...everything. Violent, sexually graphic, complicated, angsty, intense. Companions is violent and sexy, but not in a graphic way, and the rules of the universe seem more constant and clear. And, unlike the Anita books, this series is told in the third person, so Istvan's feelings are explored too. It's not so heroine-centered.

The one thing that would have made this book better would have been the addition of a glossary/codification of vampire law. It was confusing to try and figure out how an Enforcer was different from a strigoi and what exactly a dhamphir was. Half the fun of a vampire book is figuring out how that particular vampire universe operates. Since Companions is the third book in a series. I kept wondering if all this had been spelled out in the preceding books, or if the reader was just expected to puzzle it all out. Also, most of Selena and Istvan's personal history was summed up in clunky flashback form. One can only assume that it had been covered in real time format in a previous book.

Laws of the Blood: Companions was a solid read. It was straightforward, interesting, fun, and not too angsty or melodramatic. I think I'll go see what the first two books in this series are all about. If they're anything like this one, they'll be plenty enjoyable."

The original review is here. 

This book is available cheap at amazon.com .

 

This year I thought it would be interesting to keep track of input output of my garden(s).  I'm going to have two: the one I worked on together with my neighbor, Amber,  last year, and one I'm going to do with my father on his church's land.   The second one I ethically couldn't do, if there was a scramble for land to garden on, but despite the stories I've read about how more people are gardening to save money, half of these church plots are still untaken.   Maybe more than half.  So there is room for me.  Anyway, I thought my dad could teach me some things about gardening and it would be a fun thing to do with him.

 

 

I'm also going to be getting fresh, organic produce from a local CSA, Trillium Haven Farms.  I'm hoping between these three sources I will have enough tomatoes to do lots of canning for next winter and I will have lots of root veggies to take me through at least late fall.  

So, what have I done so far?  Well, back in February, I put my seed order together, and those seeds have arrived.  I bought one seed starter kit and my mother-in-law bought me another one plus some organic seeds. I used the first one to plant flower seeds I harvested last fall: sunflowers, cosmos, marigolds, hollyhocks, and this funky pod plant I've sort of coveted on my many walks around the neighborhood.  

 

The sunflowers, so gorgeous in their self-situated beauty (in my neighbor's yard), have not germinated well at all.  I had two come up, and one is already toast.  Of all the seeds, the gaillardia packaged seeds have done the best so far - that's the one in the front, second from the left.  I'm probably going to plant more sunflowers this week and hope I get a few more plants.  

 

This week I went and got a selection of small peat pots from Meijer because I wanted my tomatoes to do as well as they could, including on the transition from pot to garden.  Some of the seeds will have to be sown directly, including the peas and potatoes which I will be putting shortly, but some of them need a bit of extra TLC and a bit longer growing season.

 

I also found someone on Craigslist who was giving away horse manure, so we took the truck and got two loads.  It was surprisingly un-gross, I assume since it's just partly digested grass.  I spread that all over my small garden plot, grateful for the volume, the price, and the lack of plastic bags to throw away after.  I started to dig it in on Thursday, and discovered a bunch of rocks which will have to be sifted out of the soil before I can turn over the manure and add more.

 

So far, the costs this year are as follows:

Money:

• $34.51 - seed order
• $8.42 - incubator 
• $5.46 - peat pots + 1 packet zucchini seeds (all 20% off)
• $1.50 seed potatoes (I'm going to try using small potatoes that have already sprouted in my basement and see if that works)
• $5.50 - gas for truck (2 24 mile round trips @ $2.00, averaging 19 miles to the gallon)

Total: $55.39

Sweat:

• 1 hour choosing seeds (more browsing, but I'm counting that as entertainment)
• .5 hour planting flower seeds
• 5 hours picking up and spreading manure.

Total:  6.5 hours