January 2017 Book Report

Animating Maria (1990) by Marion Chesney

The 5th book in the Regency series The School for Manners. The spinster Tribble sisters have a business of taking unmarriageable young ladies and training them to become suitable wives for the nobility. Lighthearted and fun. And Maria ends up snagging a Duke!!

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The Shadow of Sin (1975) by Barbara Cartland

Another Regency, but in Cartland’s own style. These always involve young virgins, innocent of the evils of the world. Bad men try to seduce them. Good men ultimately save them. All ends happily and the young bride is pregnant within moments. The best thing about a Cartland novel is the historical research she does. I usually learn something new about the era.

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Closed Casket (2016) by Sophie Hannah

Another excellent mystery by the successor of the Agatha Christie mantel. Poirot and Catchpool are invited to the home of a famous children’s author. She’s about to announce the changing of her will and is expecting someone to be murdered. She’s right…

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Turbo Twenty-Three (2016) by Janet Evanovich

A Stephanie Plum adventure. I never tire of these books. This one involves rival ice cream makers. Ranger hires Stephanie to go undercover in each of the factories to see if she can determine what is going on. She also comes to some interesting conclusions regarding her relationships with Ranger vs. Joe.

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The Magnolia Story (2016) by Chip and Joanna Gaines

I have totally fallen in love with this adorable couple from the HGTV show “Fixer Upper.” I already had a great admiration of their faith, work ethic, family values, etc. before reading this autobiography. Now it’s even greater. They are a fun couple to watch and read about.

Bookworm, Bookaholic or Bibliophile

I will answer to any of the above. I have rarely met a book I didn’t want to read. (Other than my school textbooks, of course)

I have written about this obsession love of mine before, and how I have recently started to really go through the books I have amassed over the years to do some pruning, as it were. Get it? Books have ‘leaves’ so I’m pruning?

It hasn’t been easy. I have a tendency to retain a death grip on my books. A book that was ho-hum or not that enjoyable is fairly easy to let go. Some were great and I knew I would enjoy reading them again, such as my Agatha Christies, Qwillieran books, and Janet Evanovich. A lot of the sci-fi books remain as well.

One thing that has always bugged me. Being in a place that uses books as decorations. Usually these are pretty old looking and you know they are there as theme books. I’ve been in restaurants that have had old books in displays. I want to take them down and look through them!! Or when I see a picture of a table with a stack of books as the table support, I dearly hope those books were read before they were glued together or drilled through! Lately, I’ve been watching Fixer Upper on HGTV, and Joanna Gaines uses lots of old books when she stages the house showings. I’ve seen this done on other home decorating shows. If I’d had my house done by Joanna Gaines, I would insist on at least looking through some of those books before she took them back.

I saw an ad on FB about ‘Books By The Foot’ and you can just imagine how my heart started racing at the idea of that! When I looked into it I was a bit disappointed that it was mainly geared toward decorators. If they wanted to stage a house or whatever and needed a certain color scheme of books for the shelves, this is where they would go. A red themed room could have all red books or a complementary color of books. If they wanted books that were all about the same size, ditto. The site did have genres as well, for someone serious about that kind of theme. At $7 a linear foot, you could get a fair number of books. I have no clue as to what the shipping would be, as it depends on several things.

As for all the altered books I make, I HAVE READ EVERY ONE OF THEM before I turned them into art!! And if I have deemed a book to be worth being read by others, I will donate it and get a different book to alter.

‘The Bookworm’ in Oroville is a wonderful place to find used books. And everything is in alphabetical order!! And Ron is super helpful and a fun guy to talk to. ‘The Bookstore’ in Chico is awesome, but their books aren’t in strict alpha order. Just by general letter. All the ‘D’ authors, all the ‘F’ authors, etc. ‘ABC Books’ in Chico is pretty good, too. My favorite one in the world is ‘A Book Barn’ in Clovis. THAT place is my Disneyland!! The people there are wonderful and very helpful in finding just what you’re looking for.  

There is NO excuse for not having something to read on hand AT ALL TIMES!!! I usually have 2-3 books going at any given time.

And of course, there is always your local public library, and school libraries. That’s where I got my start on this long and winding road. So far, I see no end in sight…

Now, as to what is wrong with the picture at the top…so many things!!!

She has a dog cuddled up with her instead of a cat.

There should be a light above her head to ease any chance of eye strain.

There is no small table by her elbow for her wine cooler (summer) or her hot toddy (winter).

There is no library ladder to access those top shelves, WHICH ARE SHAMEFULLY EMPTY!!! I mean REALLY!!! What are they there for IF NOT TO FILL WITH BOOKS?!?!?

Biggest fault of all: it’s a model laying there reading, NOT ME!!! *sob*

Now the Resolve

In 2017 I Resolve to Never…

…wear Spandex in public.

Now, I have never done this in the past, and for everyone’s comfort and sanity, I will continue to not do this. Even if this was the last thing in my closet and I HAD to go to Walmart, I would sooner wear Marv’s floor-length bathrobe than go out in Spandex.

…wear pajamas in public.

Same as above. Now, you might say that Marv’s robe would be included in the category of pajamas, but you’d be wrong. If I was wearing his robe I would say I was a Jedi and to get out of my way. And I bet people would get out of my way…

…drunk dial an ex.

Mainly because I don’t HAVE an ex!! Marv is and has always been the first for EVERYTHING in my life!! Makes things so much easier. And if I did drunk dial him, we’d both be at the same party, so I don’t think he’d mind…

…eat an entire container of dip in one sitting.

I only did this ONE time in my life, and I learned my lesson! I was pregnant with Paul and had just made some yummy onion dip and decided to cut up an ENTIRE stalk bunch of celery and sit and watch TV while munching on this. Cream cheese and celery is healthy, right? Boy, was I sick. Marv had NO sympathy for me, either…

However, I DO Resolve to…

…learn how to work the remote for the DVD player.

I had this down cold before we got Uverse and hooked things up with the computer. Now it’s all different and involves 3 remotes. I don’t do different very well. I’m a Lutheran…

...learn how to move pictures from my phone and put them on the computer.

You would not believe how difficult it was for me to learn the basic stuff on my new phone. I went into the whole thing knowing that the phone was already smarter than me. Sad.

…start using my good china again.

Growing up, I learned that part of being an adult was having a full set of good china that was used for holidays and special occasions. In the first few years of marriage I got the china. I can probably count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I’ve actually gotten it out, dusted it off and used it. This will change.

…make an altered book for ME

Over the years I’ve made at least 24 altered books for various people. I still have people on my list to make ones for, but I think it’s time to make one for ME. Pull out the stops and go wild. I would like to incorporate some of my poems and short stories into one and see where it goes.

…try at least THREE (3) of the one million recipes I’ve collected from Facebook.

I’m trying to be a bit more discriminating on the ones I save now. I look at the directions and list of ingredients and ponder if I REALLY think I want to do that recipe. I probably have at least 10 slightly different egg and hash brown casserole recipes. Same with beef stew. Same with certain desserts. I could probably DQ half of them right now. But they LOOK SO TASTY in all the pictures!!

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P.S. Whoo-hoo, I’ve already knocked 2 off my list here since writing this:

I have CONQUERED the DVD player. It involved sitting down with a paper and pen and listing each freaking step while Marv went through the steps with me. I even had to draw a picture of one of the buttons on one of the remotes because the button didn’t have a name on it, just a picture. BUT I DID IT!! “Veni, vidi, vici!”

I also learned how to put the pictures from my phone in a computer file. I did the same thing with this as with the DVD player. Copious notes for each freaking step while Marv talked me through it. Now I got swagger, yo!

So this old (Lutheran) dog has already learned TWO NEW TRICKS this year!! Look out, 2017!!!