More Alphabet Soup NOP

N – Nautilus

I’ve always been fascinated by the seashell, but even more so by Captain Nemo’s ship. I’ve read 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea many times and have seen at least 2 different film versions. I love all of Jules Verne’s books. He wrote Steampunk and didn't even know it!

O – Oblio

I’ve always loved the songs of Harry Nilsson, and when he came out with the movie The Point in 1971 filled with wonderful songs, I was truly entranced. I got several of the songs on 45s and listened to them over and over. Then when the album for The Point came out, I got that. Several years ago I finally got the movie on DVD. Now my happiness is complete. Oblio and Arrow will always be in my heart...♥

P – Patchouli

You may not know this is a bush in the mint family, but if you grew up any time during the 60’s or 70’s you know the aroma! There was a great little store at the old mall called Taj Bazaar, filled with Indian cloth/fabric for bedspreads, tablecloths, whatever your little hippy heart desired. All sorts of brass incense burners and assortments of incense. Wonderful dangly earrings. And of course as soon as you walked through the door you were hit by the exotic smell of patchouli. All I have to do is see or hear the name and my mind immediately goes all swirly colors, paisley shapes, sandals and sitar music. Groovy, man!!

Dead Stuff

I was hitting the wall again, trying to come up with something for the blog. I decided to go through some of my many files on the computer and see if something sparked. Nothing was happening, but I was able to tidy things up a bit and delete some garbage. I was almost ready to click out when I saw an old word document with bookmarks. I started glancing at them and was saying “Oh, I remember that one!” and took a look. Some were dead links, of course, but some where still there but not updated. I chose a couple that I had really liked, were no longer updated, but still available.

Hamletto the Hamster   http://www.hamletothehamster.com/

This is a really cute little cartoon, well written and drawn. I was very sad when the author quit, but kept the link. You can go to the drop down window and scroll to the first one and read the entire series. If you want something gentle on the brain and also happen to like hamsters, this is a good comic.

interactive material – art   http://www.idlegreen.co.uk/interactivea.htm 

Not all the links work here, but the ones that still do are tons of fun. Good info, too. You’re given examples of different styles of art, a tiny bit of trying the style out, and instructions on how to make your own piece of art. Good for kids AND adults. I couldn’t save a picture from this site, so I went to another art site where you can make a Mondrian (one of the artists featured)  and saved a pic from there:(http://www.enchantedlearning.com/paint/artists/mondrian/coloring/matrix.shtml)

craft corner   

http://craftcorner-the19crafter.blogspot.com/

This one hasn’t been updated in well over a year, but has such great examples I’ve kept the bookmark. The picture here is from one her early entries, showing how to do an embossed tile. She does many different type of crafting and her work is lovely.

Jessica McLeod   http://www.webcomicsnation.com/jessica/

Another really cute web comic site. She has several here to choose from. All wonderful. I think Tea With a Space Rabbit is my favorite.

Catalog Living   http://catalogliving.net/

NOT DEAD YET!!! They say they’re on hiatus due to the birth of their baby, so hopefully they will be back with current stuff. If not, at least we have what is here. 

It’s hilarious…check it out!

The Lost Snowflake

When I was about 11 years old, I wrote a book of poems titled “Snowflakes.”

I had one of those soft cover compositions books, and I covered the front with black construction paper. I don’t remember how I did the title, but I cut out several snowflakes to paste on the front. My reasoning was that no snowflake is the same as another, so my poems would all be different.

The one essential thing that I thought I lacked was a poem titled Snowflakes. I just could not come up with one. I wrote a lot of poems, but none about snowflakes. I thought of maybe using the poem The Snowflake by Walter De La Mare, which I absolutely loved and was the inspiration for my book, but knew that would be cheating and that I would never really be satisfied with doing that.

I did several pages of poetry and then lost interest. Every once in a while I would see my book and lament that I had no snowflake poem. Over time the book was lost, but I never forgot about it or my lack of a title poem.

Fast forward about 30 years…

I woke up in the middle of the night and the words suddenly started coming. The perfect snowflake poem! I got up and sat at the dining room table and wrote out my poem. I worked on it for maybe an hour or so and was so pleased that I finally had my snowflake poem. Now all I had to do was get together some “real” poetry and I could cobble up a book. This was the time period when my kids were young teens though. Angst. In major portions. It’s also when my parents started really going downhill and needed more hands-on tending. Time went by. A few years went by. I suddenly realized I had no idea where my poem was. I started going through all my files (these were still the dinosaur years…no computer…REAL files in REAL file cabinets) and did get some major weeding done as far as recipes, crafts, etc…

No Snowflakes. I could see the scrap of paper I wrote it on so clearly in my mind. I knew the shape of the paper. I went through the files again and tidied up even more. No poem. Of course I can’t remember ANY of it, not even one line. I just know it was perfect and I loved it and was proud of it.

Now you can print up your own books and bind them and actually make something that looks nice on a shelf. And now that I’ve been doing altered books, I KNOW I could make a knock-out book of poems. But not about snowflakes…

By the way, the snowflake I posted here I made from a wonderful website called Make-A-Flake. Check it out! http://snowflakes.barkleyus.com/

Shirley Temple's Fairyland

When I was about 4 years old, my Aunt Bernice gave this book to me. It has been a cherished thing from my childhood on. 

I don’t recall the exact circumstances, but I was in the back seat of Aunt Bernice’s car, with Auntie, who was my Uncle Paul’s aunt. We were waiting for Bernice to run some sort of errand and she had given me the book to look at. I was bored just sitting there and was singing at the top of my lungs. No song in particular, just making up stuff like little kids do. I was enjoying myself tremendously, and thought I was doing a pretty good job. Auntie looked at me but didn’t say anything. When Bernice got back to the car, Auntie told her about all the racket I had been making, and Bernice turned around and said “Well, we’ll just take this back, then,” and grabbed the book and put it in the front seat next to her. I was stunned. I truly didn’t think I had done anything wrong.

I don’t remember when I got the book back, and I don’t remember ever being read to from it, but I do know I’ve always had this book. It has beautiful illustrations, and once I could read for myself, I read it over and over. Sadly, it got lost among my vast amount of “stuff” and it didn’t reach the light of day until both Sarah and Paul were too old to be read to, so they never got the benefit from this book that I did. But it’s not too late for me to share this with Lia!

Book Report May 2014

The Prodigal Women by Nancy Hale (1942)

A coming of age story about three women who look for love and a sense of self with the wrong men. Leda is ashamed of her humble background and is only concerned with being in the “right” crowd. Her friend Betsy is from the same humble beginnings, but doesn’t care. Instead, she becomes very promiscuous until settling for an abusive alcoholic. Betsy’s sister Mazie has so many fears that when she finally traps a man into marrying her, she has a complete mental breakdown. This was NOT a happy book.

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The Ghost Who Fell in Love by Barbara Cartland (1978)

In Regency England, Demelza is living a very frugal (meaning “poor”) life in the country while her brother spends money they don’t have living the high life in London. When he rents out their shabby mansion to the

Earl of Trevarnon (a notorious womanizer) during Ascot Week, Demelza hides in the secret room in the walls. Of course, this being a Cartland book, there is a very happy ending. I know they’re shallow reading, but I love them.

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Grab Bag by Charlotte MacLeod (1986)

This old paperback that I got from a thrift store contained a lot of Ms. MacLeod’s mystery stories from the 60s. It was interesting reading her earlier works. Her later writing style was quite a bit different. Both styles are very enjoyable.

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Dear Me by Peter Ustinov (1977)

I always loved Ustinov’s movies. I didn’t realize that he was such a prolific writer of plays, and he certainly knew his music, too. He was only in his mid 50s when he wrote this book, so it’s just about his beginnings and early acting career. I would’ve liked to read a sequel, but he never wrote one.

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Time And Again by Clifford Simak (1951)

One of Simak’s earlier sci-fi books. There was a LOT of hanky-panky concerning time travel. It made my brain hurt. If you’re gonna mess around with time, go to some TIME, do stuff, go home, then deal with the consequences. I really don’t care for the endless getting lost kind of thing. Too many loose threads all over. The main character, Asher Sutton, discovers he wrote a mankind changing book way in the future and spends the rest of the book trying to escape people trying to kill him so he won’t write the book. Meh.

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A Kiss of Blood by Pamela Palmer (2013)

This was the sequel to Blood Seduction. I really enjoyed the story. It was a good story. Lots of action and vampires and other creatures. What I got real tired of real fast was the graphic sex. There wasn’t that much of it in the first book. I just wanted to read what happened when Quinn returned to Vamp City with her brother Zack, seeing a cure for his illness and looking for their friend Lily. The story built very nicely, but definitely ended on cliff hanger. If they had spent less time on sex, they probably could’ve finished the story. Now I have to wait for the third book in this series.