What are you reading Mondays is hosted by J. Kaye’s Book Blog

I’ve just finished reading :

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

From Wikipedia.org:

The novel begins in 1939 with the arrival of Josef Kavalier as a refugee in New York City, where he comes to live with his 17-year-old cousin Sammy Klayman. Besides having a shared interest in drawing, the two are also fans of the Jewish stage magician Harry Houdini… Read the rest of this entry »

These are some highlights of my week. For the details, see my blog at the Grace in Small Things site.

1. A generous sponsor who allowed me to watch the entire three days of the Send Out Cards United We Send convention, via live-streaming from Salt Lake City

2. The smell of roasting pork with apples & saurkraut

3. The Julia Child & David Letterman video that Schmutzie posted

4. Scratchy clean outdoors-smelling towels, fresh from the line.

5. How my cats come running together across the yard when I call them for supper

Wage a battle against embitterment and take part in Grace in Small Things .

[tags]grace in small things, saurkraut & apples, Julia Child, David Letterman, David Letterman show, Send Out Cards, United We Send convention[tags]

For all of my pre-country life (50 years), I lived in homes heated by natural gas. It was just as the ads say: clean, easy & relatively inexpensive. The gas supplier also sold the furnaces & provided maintenance service. We never gave heating a second thought, really.

When we moved here, we had a rude awakening. Read the rest of this entry »

What are you reading Mondays is hosted by J. Kaye’s Book Blog

I’ve just finished reading :
Junior’s Cheesecake Cookbook: 50 To-Die-For Recipes fpr New York-Style Cheesecake
I just love reading cookbooks and this one was easier than most. I learned lots, including the story of Junior’s and their cheesecake, why to use melted butter in the sponge cake crust, Junior’s two-step mixing technique for the cheesecake filling, how to bake a cheesecake without any cracks, and how to cut a cheesecake properly.
Most of all, I learned I want to go to Junior’s in Brooklyn and taste how the professionals do it!
(Of course, I also I drooled over the recipes. I don’t have any immediate plans to actually bake a cheesecake, but when I try out a recipe from this book, you’ll be the first to know the results, dear reader.)
Read the rest of this entry »

For the rest of my week, see my blog at the Grace in Small Things site.

1. A cookbook that I read like a novel Junior’s Cheesecake Cookbook

2. Having my summer clothes all packed up, including those needing ironing so…

3. My ironing pile has gone down by half!

4. A full night’s sleep

5. Bed socks

Wage a battle against embitterment and take part in Grace in Small Things .

[tags]grace in small things, Junior’s Cheesecake Cookbook, Alan Rosen, Beth Allen[tags]

Michael Crummey was born & raised in Newfoundland, lives there still, and has set all of his meticulously researched novels & collections of short stories thus far in this beautiful, windswept, and harshly-demanding Canadian province.

GALORE is set in the outport villages of Paradise Deep and The Gut, joined by the Tolt Road over the headland between them, in an undefined period that covers most of the nineteenth century and the first few years of the twentieth. The novel chronicles the lives of two rival families (the Sellers and the Devines) for six generations, and I often referred to the genealogy chart at the front of the book, especially during my first reading.

Inspired by the works of Read the rest of this entry »

What are you reading Mondays is hosted by J. Kaye’s Book Blog

It’s the week of the “Michaels”.

I’ve just finished reading for the second time:
Galore

“An intricate family saga and a love story spanning two centuries…propelled by the disputes and alliances, grievances and trade-offs that bind the Sellers and Devine families through generations.”

Michael Crummey surpasses my (very high) expectations in his third novel about Newfoundland life. I promise a review this week.

I’m currently reading:
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

“Joe Kavalier, a young Jewish artist who has also been trained in the art of Houdini-esque escape, has just smuggled himself out of Nazi-invaded Prague and landed in New York City. His Brooklyn cousin Sammy Clay is looking for a partner to create heroes, stories, and art for the latest novelty to hit America–the comic book.”

Technorati Tags: Galore, Michael Crummey, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Michael Chabon, Pulitzer Prize winner, Newfoundland history

For the rest of my week, see my blog at the Grace in Small Things site.

1. My heating pad

2. A Marimba band performing in the village club

3. With no cover charge

4. Incredibly blue skies & golden sun

5. Date squares from the Mennonite bakery

Wage a battle against embitterment and take part in Grace in Small Things .

[tags]grace in small things, Marimba Stew, Fables Club, Mennonite bakery, Country Bread Basket[tags]

We had a weekend obligation in Summerside PEI, so we drove the two hours to Confederation Bridge which connects the island of Green Gable fame to the Canadian mainland.

The bridge is 12.9 kilometers (8 miles) long & Read the rest of this entry »

Our property is 2.5 acres, the back one-quarter of which is a swampy area with a “creek”, the foundation of the old barn, and scrubby trees & burdocks. But, near the edge of this bramble lie some wild blackberry bushes.

The berries ripen in late August and so last week we picked a bunch and, Read the rest of this entry »

Hurricane Bill is barreling up the Atlantic coastline and due to brush Nova Scotia tomorrow. It is, of course, the talk of the town.

The year we moved here (2003) was the first year in a very long time that Nova Scotia had been affected by a hurricane to any extent. But that September, Hurricane Juan Read the rest of this entry »

What are you reading Mondays is hosted by J. Kaye’s Book Blog

Noted this week: two classics of 1950s literature (Hannah Fowler, Village School) and the hottest new diet book to hit the pre-publication market.
Read the rest of this entry »

For the rest of my week, see my blog at the Grace in Small Things site.

1. Finding the ventilation on my Air Cast

2. Cool breezes

3. Making plans for our grandson to visit

4. Friends who insist they must clean my house

5. Cream for my “crutches’ underarm rash”.

Wage a battle against embitterment and take part in Grace in Small Things .

[tags]grace in small things, Air Cast[tags]

What are you reading Mondays is hosted by J. Kaye’s Book Blog

Completed this week: a fun murder mystery (Taken to the Cleaners) and an exciting recent Canadian entry (Jade Peony). Read the rest of this entry »

For the rest of my week, see my blog at the Grace in Small Things site.

1. Cooler temperatures – at least temporarily

2. Extra fans to share with friends

3. Homemade vegetable-lentil soup

4. Poached eggs on toast

5. Phone calls from concerned friends

Wage a battle against embitterment and take part in Grace in Small Things .

[tags]grace in small things[tags]

One of the most rewarding ways to use your larger outdoor living space in the country is to gather your family members for a reunion. Perhaps it’s a small group that gets together annually, or a large one whose far-flung members attend every two or five or even 10 years.

Whether large or small, a reunion is a wonderful opportunity to knit families closer together through shared stories. In the much-underrated 1990 film Avalon, a Russian immigrant to 1940s America relates the disintegration of his family ties. In his young manhood, his children gathered at the feet of older relatives during family gatherings and listened to tales of their heritage and history. As television took hold of society in the late ’50s, children and adults alike opted for the entertainment of television personalities, instead of the stories of their roots.

And just as the art of listening to stories has gone by the wayside, so has the art of telling them. Here’s how to re-start a tradition of storytelling at your family reunion. Read the rest of this entry »

What are you reading Mondays is hosted by J. Kaye’s Book Blog

I’ve just finished reading these. Reviews are coming soon.

1. The Daughter-in-Law Rules
by Sally Shields
101 Surefire Ways to Manage (and Make Friends with) Your Mother-In-Law
“In her hilarious new book The Daughter-In-Law Rules author Sally Shields lays out 101 simple and witty ways to aid wives of all ages in mastering every element of MIL relations.”

2. Galore by Michael Crummey
“An intricate family saga and a love story spanning two centuries…propelled by the disputes and alliances, grievances and trade-offs that bind the Sellers and Devine families through generations.”

I’m currently reading these:

1. Taken to the Cleaners
by Dolores Johnson A Mandy Dyer mystery
Mysteries, especially themed such this one is, are my snack food of reading. My secret vice. This is the first one of this series that I’ve seen. “Mandy is making a go of [her late uncle’s Denver dry-cleaning company]…Then Betty the Bag Lady comes in with a man’s suit, slashed and stained with blood.”

Technorati Tags: The Daughter-in-law rules, the mother-in-law rules, Sally Shields, Galore, Michael Crummey, Taken to the Cleaners, Mandy Dyer mystery, Dolores Johnson

For the rest of my week, see my blog at the Grace in Small Things site.

1. Clean sheets

2. Two paying gigs in two nights!

3. The Fabled Pig ham sandwich

4. Sent home on glass plates

5. That we’re trusted to return.

Wage a battle against embitterment and take part in Grace in Small Things .

[tags]grace in small things, Fables Club, Fabled pig[tags]

The front page of the daily paper in our nearest town carried this picture last Thursday morning. The picture is in color and measures 7½” x 9″.
As you can imagine, it WAS the front page story. Page 3 continued with the headline: “Tatamagouche sunflower thief has business owners up in arms” over a smaller b&w photo of one such owner displaying the holes in her flower arrangement.

Six years ago, Read the rest of this entry »

For the rest of my week, see my blog at the Grace in Small Things site.

1. Pulling weeds

2. Ice water

3. Being able to delete spam comments

4. A warm shower to wash off the garden dirt

5. Green

Wage a battle against embitterment and take part in Grace in Small Things .

[tags]grace in small things[tags]