A little bit about books, a little bit about life.

Monday, April 13, 2009

Have I got cookbooks for you! Weekly Geeks.


Today is my frist time being a "Weekly Geek".
Here is the question (or assignment, as the case may be..... )

What shall we cook today? It seems that for most of us, a bit of our book obsession would carry over to the cookbook genre, so this week for Weekly Geeks, let's talk cookbooks! Here are some ideas to get you started:--Describe your cookbook collection. How many cookbooks do you own? A lot? Just a few? None at all?--Do you even buy cookbooks? Or do you gather family cookbook compilations and/or recipe files instead?--Do you like to collect certain types of cookbooks? Say, from certain chefs? From places you visit? From a particular food group or style?--When buying cookbooks, what do you look for? Does it need to have pictures? Spiral binding? A specific type of font?--What is your favorite cookbook? Tell us the story behind it.--Tell us about your most well-used cookbook. Is it different from your favorite cookbook? Or are they one and the same?--Take a picture of your collection. How and where do you organize it?--Share a recipe from one of your favorite cookbooks. Include a picture if you can.
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I'm sorry if you arrived here expecting a long blog post about my cookbooks. Only sorry, because I'm going make you go here, to my cooking blog.


Please click on the link......Please check it out. I just didn't want to explain all over again about what a cookbook addict I am. You can just hit the link, go over to my post about my cookbooks (over 200 of them) and take a peek inside my strange life.
I collect cookbooks like I collect books.... and then I can't bear to part with them. I can read a cookbook just like a book.
In fact, my standard book bag, when we go on a trip includes this:
the book I'm reading
a book for when I finish the one I'm reading
a cookbook
2 magazines

and that's just for a day trip to Reno. You don't' want to travel on a long car-trip with me. I'm one of those lucky people who can read, write, journal, organize address books, in the car. And I do it too. (what else do you do when you're in a car for 8 hours?) (well, one time I took a picture every 15 miles or so of our 500 mile trip...so I could journal about it. Hmmmm, weird? yes.)

This is my first time to Weekly Geeks, but I know I'll be back.

Let me leave you with this.... go to my cooking blog and read my cookbook post. (It's one of my better posts. LOL )

Sunday, April 12, 2009

Musing Mondays and a bookmark



Today’s MUSING MONDAYS post is about blog comments
How do you respond to the comments on your blog? Do you try to email individually or comment on post yourself answering the comments above? What do you think is the best way to respond to comments and do you respond to all of them? Do you feel slighted if you don't receive a response back from the blog owner? (question courtesy of Jenn)


...oh the guilt...THE GUILT. I don't respond as often, or how I want to.
When I read the comments people leave to me, I think, "oh wow, I know how she feels," or "how kind of her, I need to let her know, " or "that reminds me of..."

But I don't always answer as I should.

When I do, I either comment on a blog post of theirs, or I e-mail.
At first I felt e-mails were intrusive to people, but I don't think they really are.... are they?
I mean, I don't mind getting e-mails at all from bloggers when I comment. In fact, I rather enjoy it.

I don't feel slighted if I don't get a reply when I leave a comment.... I figure that if everyone ALL THE TIME, commented on everything, it would take up their whole day.
I understand there is some unspoken courtesy in the blogging world about trying to reply to or acknowledge as many comments as we can.... and this is why I am feeling the guilt.
There has to be an easy way. What can it be?
A personal assistant?
LOL

Seriously....
blogging
twittering
facebook
myspace
and on and on......

If we are not careful, the quality of our lives will be solely limited to "techo" things. So, no, I don't feel slighted if someone doesn't answer me. I just like to be pleasantly surprised when they do.
We all have lives!!
I have two blogs....this "semi" book blog and a cooking/food blog. Both things take up a lot of time.
They are my hobbies. I love to read, I love to cook, I love to blog and read other blogs, I like to walk/hike, all these things take time. OH...and I have a full time job also, one that includes being present at "events" in the community, and husband, and children/grandchildren, I belong to book clubs, go to church.

WHAT THE HECK? I don't have time for a blog. I don't have time to comment.... I have to go clean my house, that never seems to get done.... LOL LOL

I will try to be better about replying to comments on my blogs. But I'm going to e-mail them from now on. And like I said, if I don't hear from people whom I've commented to.... it's all okay, there are worse things in the world.

I'll end with my bookmark for today....
with a quote from Tallulah Bankhead




Thursday, April 9, 2009

Booking Thru Thursday




Today's booking thru Thursday question.



One of the very first questions ever at Booking Through Thursday.
Back from 2005 when Laura owned the blog but, because it was so new, it didn’t get as many responses as it does now … so, why not revisit?
Here’s the question:


Some people read one book at a time. Some people have a number of them on the go at any given time, perhaps a reading in bed book, a breakfast table book, a bathroom book, and so on, which leads me to…
Are you currently reading more than one book?
If so, how many books are you currently reading?
Is this normal for you?
Where do you keep your current reads?

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As of right now, I have two books going. Occasionally I will read more than one at time, but not that often.I always have my current read in my purse when I go out. (what if...what if, I were caught somewhere unexpected and had to wait? )
Sometimes I have a "car" book, which is a book I want to read but am having trouble getting thru. That way, if I forget my current read a home, I will have something available to me. I am one of those people (which I assume most of you are) who can read for 1 -2 -5 -10 minutes here and there all day long.

At home....well, I have books laying all around the place.
Book on one table for my "face to face" bookclubs, books on a bookshelf for my "TBR challenge"

And that is where I keep my current reads.
Have a great day!

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Teaser Tuesdays




TEASER TUESDAYS is a weekly event, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading, where you ‘tease’ others with a little bit from the book you’re currently reading, making them want to read it, too! Feel free to play along! You just…



Here is my teaser, from "I'm With Stupid" by Elaine Szewczyk.
"the bathroom door opens and William comes out wearing the yellow tracksuit. He's a banana. Everyone turns. He hands me my cigarette pack, "you left your cigarettes in the bathroom,' he says, "here you go." I gingerly hold the box between two fingers and glance at my mother. I quickly explain that the cigarettes are not mine. "Are you sure?" asks William, "they look like the ones you were smoking last night. "

Sunday, April 5, 2009

My Monday bookmark




I finished "The Big Love" in one day.
It was a 24 hour piece of Chick-Lit fun. I'm not normally a huge Chick-lit fan, but this book was such a fast and fun read, I thought I'd try my hand at another Chick-Lit that has been city on my bookshelf for months. "I'm with Stupid"

I figured, that maybe I am just in the mood for something lighter right now.
If you don't follow my food blog, you don't know that my daughter in law is expecting twins and she has been put on total bed rest. We need her to hang in there for at least 7 more weeks. 13 more weeks would be full-term.
We are hopeful.

But...I am enjoying these books that I don't have to concentrate very much on.
I've discovered that this is a great "escapism" book (The Big Love). It made me laugh out loud and took my mind off worrying for awhile.
It's about Alison, whose boyfriend goes out to pick up some butter, and never comes back. This during a dinner party. The story is a funny telling (in first person) how she is looking for the real thing, LOVE. And she thinks she had it with Tom (the man who left her). It's about that "back and forth" of breaking up and learning to know what love really is.
But it's funny. It'll give you a good chuckle.

Here is my bookmark for Monday!
In my book-club "Totally Literature", one of our members (my friend Jolina) used to make us bookmarks to use. She cut, pasted,created personal bookmarks. She always left room for us to write down page numbers of things we wanted to remember or bring up from the books when we met to discuss it.



I miss our bookmarks. I wonder if she'll bring them back.


This one was from January 2008, when we read "Chasing Fireflys" by Charles Martin.

(a great book!! )




Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Birds of a Feather




Birds of a Feather
by Jacqueline Winspear



Finished! I wish I could cross it off a list, but I just read it for fun. Not a book-club, not a challenge, not for school.
Actually, maybe I'm glad it's not on a list of any kind. There is a point of being too regimented. (I'll never see that point, but..... )

It was a great "classic" mystery novel, with a heroine I fell in love with.
The second in the Maisie Dobbs series, it is set somewhere between the 1st and 2nd world wars. The aftermath of WWI in England, is as central to the story/series as the mystery itself.

Ack!! I tried, but I cannot write a review. I feel too much pressure....like I'm in school.
Now I can write a "column" anytime.... a column where I can meander and talk about random things that mean nothing much, but then they all come together at the end. But, a book review, no.

I liked the book.
The ending left me wanting to know more about what's going to happen in Maisie's life.
If you've read it, leave me a comment and let me know how you liked it.

Teaser Tuesdays


Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading.

Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

Grab your current readOpen to a random pageShare two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that pageBE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

from "The Big Love" by Sarah Dunn.
page 55.

I was going to say that he and Kate Pearce deserved each other. I was going to warn him that she was going to leave him again, just like she had the first time, and he'd better not come crawling back to me, because I won't take him back, not in a million years, not for all the tea in China, not if he was the last man on earth.
*****