suziebeezieland

describe it in three words

I played this and thought we should try it here, because it was so fun. Here's how it works.

I start the game by writing a random word.

The person who posts next after me describes that word in three words (and only three words, or your answer will be null and void), then posts a new word for the next person posting to describe in three words.

For example, if I post the word "apple," the next person might describe it as "a crunchy fruit" or "Snow White's temptation," and then post the word "zoo" for the next person.

Get it? It's simple. In the unlikely event that two people post at once, the next poster (after those two) can just choose either word to describe.

It goes without saying that this needs to remain G-rated.

Ready? The first word is "glue".

:)

green

1. Illustration Friday: GREEN, 2. Seeds of the Future, 3. natural hand warmer, 4. A Home Tour, 5. Summer Suspension, 6. Woohoooooo!, 7. green beans, 8. Euphorbia / Wolfsmelk, 9. GREEN-YELLOW -- School, 10. de Coeur, 11. Wheat Grass., 12. new batch, 13. Green!, 14. One Green Bottle.jpg, 15. V-Dub, 16. Apples

a delightful interview with our melanie h.

Suzanne: I'm here in the studio today with our Melanie H., who has graciously agreed to talk to us about her love of books. Hi, Melanie! First off, tell us a bit about you and your family, for anyone who doesn't know you.

Melanie: Anything I tell you about myself will naturally involve my family. I've been married for 12 years to my high school crush. And we have three boys who are 10, 7, and 5. We are also expecting a girl in June. (Yikes.)

We live in Maryland. My husband and I both grew up in the DC area. I can tell you fun stories about learning to drive on the Washington Beltway. Both of our families are local, too, which makes everything easier. Besides reading, I like baking, scrapbooking, and shopping for shoes, purses or housewares. I wish I knew how to sew. My favorite place is the beach. Any beach will do as long as it's clean, but I'm partial to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. When I'm not reading, I spend way too much time online, driving my kids to sports or school, and making grocery lists. Notice I didn't mention housework. Something's gotta give. My current project is the baby's room.

Suzanne: Ha! Ain't that the truth. What's your educational background?

Melanie: I graduated from Elon College (now University) in North Carolina with a B.S. degree in Accounting. This was not my first choice, but my parents threw down the gauntlet as far as being employable after college instead of anything requiring graduate school. I probably would have majored in history or English . . . and who knows. But I can't deny the accounting skills are useful, and it balances out my right brain. And I developed a love of graph and ledger paper. I have considered taking online classes to become a professional indexer, but the wee babe has thrown a fun pink wrench into my future employment plans. And I couldn't be happier about that.

Suzanne: So tell us about your blog, Lit Chick. When did you start it, and what do you enjoy most about it?

Melanie: Lit*chick began in the summer of 2007, somewhere between a whim and a mission. I've been in a bookclub for about eight years now, and found that I read more books than most people I knew. This was kind of surprising to me. It truly didn't occur to me that other people didn't read much. Soon I became a resource for new titles, book news, background info . . . and I came by it through a natural curiosity (and lots of Googling). I constantly heard the refrain "How do you have time to read?" I followed lots of scrapbooking blogs and looked around for book blogs that spoke to me. Oddly, I didn't find any until after I started my own. Now I follow those blogs, too.

Anyhow, I really wanted to encourage ladies, specifically, to read more -- it's my first line of defense against stress -- but I knew that busy mamas carry guilt about all the things they don't get done, and I wanted to lighten that load a bit. You know, sometimes it's worth saving that load of laundry for the next day :). And finding good books is tough -- the market is saturated with junk -- which is another deterrent to reading.

I enjoyed recommending books to my friends, and trying to fit books to their taste, while still secretly challenging them. I also wanted a place to dump all the info I carried around in my head that didn't necessarily make me a hit at parties.

Suzanne: Ha! Oh, I love you.

Melanie: So hence, lit*chick was born -- mainly as a resource for my friends and a way to keep my family in the loop. Funnily enough, my in-real-life friends read the blog the least and I have all these lovely ladies spread around the country checking in and sharing their lives (and their books). That's the biggest surprise to me -- online friendships. I never would have thought. And of course one of those ladies (Elizabeth) led me to suziebeezieland. But definitely meeting people who have become my friends has been the best, and bonding over books is a bonus.

Suzanne: I've noticed we have several of the same favorite books: Jane Eyre, Pride & Prejudice, and To Kill a Mockingbird. Also, the first ten Nancy Drews. :) When you think about the books you enjoy the most, can you see any common themes among them? What are your favorite "elements" in a good read?

Melanie: I have to say, Jane Eyre is my inspiration as far as choosing good books. It was a turning point for me -- before I read it in my mid-twenties, I read fluff, and reading was purely entertainment. I remember thinking after I read it, "Will there ever be another book this good?" and then I tried to find some. It completely raised my standards -- not to say I don't still throw some fluff in -- but I continue my quest for that kind of complete story.

So let's see . . . common themes in my favorite reads would be subtle humor, a truthful depiction of human nature, and a little bit of darkness with some ultimate redemption -- not necessarily a happy ending, but with a resolution that fits the story.

Suzanne: It's so good to have those reading benchmarks, isn't it? I know exactly what you're talking about. So let's talk about your Christian faith and how it affects your reading.

Melanie: I became a Christian around the same time I read Jane Eyre, which also altered my discernment level for the better. A good story doesn't have to be peppered with bad language and lots of sex -- sometimes language is necessary, because you aren't going to have people in certain situations saying "golly." But I'm definitely not a fan of gratuitous sex, violence, or language. And I do read some things that stretch those boundaries -- but if I only read Christian fiction . . . well, don't get me started on the disservice that Christian publishing is doing to the minds of its readers.

Suzanne: I absolutely agree. One would hope that Christian novels would serve as a standard of excellence, but so many are very, very poorly written. Thank goodness for C.S. Lewis, Madeleine L'Engle, and Dorothy Sayers. Speaking of a good read . . . you "do" Goodreads, don't you? Can you sell it to me? I haven't quite jumped in yet, although I have an account. Tell us why we should do Goodreads.

Melanie: Oh, do I do Goodreads! Only recently have I embraced my husband's claim that Goodreads is really Facebook for reading nerds. :) I'll own it. Goodreads can be daunting at first glance.

I would suggest for a first time user, glomming onto friends. I'm mellymel at Goodreads, and there are tons of suziebeezieland ladies on it if you're looking for friendly faces. You can browse their books and add them to your list. It already has some categories built in -- read, currently-reading, to-read -- and you can create your own categories, too. I wouldn't be worried about adding every book you've ever read on the first go-round. It's extremely user friendly. I love getting a real-time view of what my friends are reading, or the new titles they discover. And it keeps my to-read list nice and neat, as opposed to the hundreds of scraps floating around my purse, counters, journals, etc. It can be a bit of a time commitment in the beginning, but now I can check in for five to ten minutes a couple times a day.

Suzanne: Tell me about where you do most of your reading. Do you have a favorite chair, or what? :)

Melanie: I do most of my reading in bed at night or in the car, while waiting to pick up the boys from school. My youngest will still nap in the car, so we leave a little early -- he gets to sleep and I get a half hour of uninterrupted reading. As far as reading at night, I'm a night owl, so reading doesn't put me to sleep, and some nights I can't sleep until I've finished! I also read fast, which helps.

Suzanne: I read in the car when I'm waiting to pick up Claire, too. That's a valuable chunk of time there! Do you buy your books, or hit the library, or both? Where do you shop for books?

Melanie: I'll take books wherever and however I can get them. I do buy a lot of books -- it's my one big indulgence. And I rarely enter a bookstore without buying something, even if it's for the dudes. I'm a big library fan, but that goes in spurts. Right now I'm on a library fast because I was finding too much good stuff. I'd bring home ten books, race to finish them before the due date, and never get to any of the books I had bought. So I'm trying to get through the stacks I own. I've also got a good trading system with the DC suziebeezieland gals: Jill, Elizabeth, and Deb. Since I've started the blog, I've begun to get ARCs (Advanced Review Copies) of books, but they aren't always things I would have bought or even read otherwise.

I order lots from Amazon and Barnes & Noble -- our local store is a B&N. It's always crowded and I like to sit and watch what people are buying (lots of magazines . . . I get it, but urgh). Before I buy from the big A or B&N, I check Bookcloseouts.com to see if I can get anything on my list even cheaper. But I love small independent stores and want to buy more from there -- it's just with the volume of books I buy I can't always justify spending more at the independents -- it's a constant struggle.

My favorite independents are Politics & Prose in DC, Duck's Cottage in the Outer Banks, and a new one about 20 minutes away I just discovered: A Likely Story in Sykesville, Maryland.

Suzanne: Hey! I know Politics & Prose. I used to spend a lot of time there. So tell us about your favorite library.

Melanie: Hmm, libraries. Well, I'm blessed to live in a county that has a ridiculously good library system. They get new titles quickly and I can request and renew online. I don't know if I have a fave library. I always loved going to the U of Maryland library when I was younger. I'd love to go to the NY or Boston Public libraries. Anyone want to take a library road trip?

Suzanne: Why, yes! So tell us about a book you think we should all read, and which you get excited discussing.

Melanie: Anytime I have a "Jane Eyre moment," when I finish something completely satisfying, I want to talk about it. My latest favorite is Still Alice by Lisa Genova. But the book I will promote without fail is Peace Like a River by Leif Enger. It has all the elements I love in a story, and is as close to perfect writing as I've seen. If I could buy hundreds of them I'd hand them out to strangers and give them to schools for required reading. Yes, it's that good. My only hesitation with the gushing recommendation, is overhyping it -- but no one I know was sorry they read it. They didn't necessarily love it like I did, but that's okay. Last year, I met the author at a book signing, and my devotion to his storytelling skills was complete. What's yours?

Suzanne: I usually tell book-loving friends to read 84, Charing Cross Road, just because it's so good and, because it's nonfiction, folks have often missed it, somehow. Thanks for asking. It's as if you know that book-loving people like to talk about books. :) I haven't met too many ravenous adult readers who were not also ravenous kid readers. Can you remember the books that grabbed you when you were little?

Melanie: That's a really interesting observation -- and now that you mention it, I totally agree. I lived within walking distance to our library growing up so that was a real refuge for me. I dragged a lot of books home. I distinctly remember loving Madeline, and the Anatole books by Eve Titus. Chapter books I loved were Beverly Cleary, the Little House series, Anne of Green Gables, and Nancy Drew -- no big revelations here. I remember the excitement of finding a new series -– "You mean there are more??" My son gets that same twinkle when he realizes there are multiple books by an author he likes.

Suzanne: I'm writing down "Anatole books" next to "Peace Like a River" here on my notepad. I've never even heard of these. How exciting. So let's say that I have a cold, I have a rainy afternoon, I have a cup of tea, I kind of want a romancy-mystery something (I don't want anything heavy, but not chick-lit, either, which I hate), and I don't like swearing or smut. Can you give me some good Melanie choices? :)

Melanie: Well, that's a pretty tall order...but I have similar requirements. Here goes:

The Beekeeper's Apprentice by Laurie R. King (first in a series, but don't go any further)
The Maisie Dobbs series by Jacqueline Winspear
Love Walked In by Marisa de los Santos and the "sequel," Belong to Me
The Sunday Philosophy Club series by Alexander McCall Smith
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

And a little lighter but still fun:

the Kick Keswick series by Marnie Davis Kellogg (Brilliant, Priceless, Perfect -- I may have the order wrong)
Catering Mysteries by Diane Mott Davidson - the recipes are good too. I've tried some (1st in the series - Catering to Nobody).

Have you read the Georgette Heyer books? I'm waiting for your report on those :)

Suzanne: Not yet! But I will report back when I do. :) I am so tickled that you took the time out to talk with me about all this. I wish you lived closer. So what else do we need to know about you, Melanie? Tell me some more stuff.

Melanie: Well, as if I'm not enough of a total geek, my dream is to have a traveling cafe bookmobile, where people can check out books -- or keep them. And I can park it, set out some chairs, and get to know all the people over snacks and coffee/tea. Plus have storytimes and lots of young adult books. And no junk.

Suzanne: I've been wanting a good mobile librarian since I saw Kit Kittredge this past summer. Maybe you and Joan Cusack could pair up! I'd sit there all day with you, reading and eating cookies. :D Thanks, Melanie!

Melanie: If you are ever in need of an excuse to drop everything and read, send me an email -- I've got lots of good rationalizations at the ready.

lately

You wouldn't think to look at her that this kid has been so sick, would you? I love my cheerful girl. She's still home, but ready to feel better and enjoy the pretty weather. She misses the fun of school.  She's being treated for both a sinus infection and virus-induced asthma symptoms, so the newest "organizational bowl" around here is just a bowl full of medicine. Blech.

I have thanked God at least a hundred times this week that I can be at home when she's sick. (I've got the cough, also, so am thankful to be home with it, too.) This is really a blessing, and I have the utmost respect for moms who work outside the home and simultaneously deal with sick kids, and their own illnesses, during this season of germs. God bless you hardworking, sick, and exhausted mamas! I salute you.

Claire has to be fever-free for 24 hours before I can send her back to school, and have less coughing. I'm very encouraged this morning because her coughing is down (that inhaler seems to be working!), but she's been getting a fever every afternoon/evening, so I have to wait and see how that goes. I'm so thankful for good doctors. 

Bob's birthday is tomorrow, so today I'm trying to pick up and clean up around here, to make things more cheerful. He opened his big present from us this past weekend (a Wii), and I arranged to have some sunflowers sent to his work tomorrow. We'll go out to dinner tomorrow night if everyone is up to it, and celebrate more this coming weekend, again if the sickies can pull through. :)  I am confident we'll be better soon!

We were able to go out for a couple hours this past Saturday with my folks, and had a really nice time. We had lunch at The Oinkster, and then all walked around the Whole Foods in Pasadena, which my mom hadn't been to. She bought some yummy stuff, and Bob picked up some good beef sirloin to grill. We had it Sunday night . . . he grilled it after marinating it in good ol' McCormick's Montreal Steak seasoning. (Do you ever make that marinade? It really is good.)

I haven't forgotten about our 5-minute mini-assignments, I just haven't felt like doing any lately! But as soon as I do, I'll post the last couple and then we'll move on to some bigger projects. :)

How are you all? We have a lot of new ladies around lately! Please take a minute to sign our welcome post if you're new and feel like it. We'd like to greet you and know who you are.

yellow

1. First Harvest, 2. yellow double wedding ring quilt piece, 3. Yellow Pepper Mill, 4. nature breathes, 5. Vintage Yellow Buttons, 6. yellow flowers , 7. happily happily jumping :-), 8. Cooper's Shop (1847), Shaker Village, Pleasant Hill, Kentucky, 9. Meadow collection, 10. yarn, 11. Sweet, sweet corn, 12. Yellow Rolling Pin, 13. hello.daisy!, 14. perfect pear, 15. sweet peas and lemons, 16. Take a bite

better living in five minutes a day #13:clean your kitchen trash can

I'm sorry this is a photo of a candle and not a trash can, but our kitchen trash can isn't very pretty even when it's clean. :)

Having a disgusting, dirty kitchen trash can is one of those things your brain will register about a million times a day.  It's a small irritation, but it only takes five minutes to make better. Mini-assignment #13 is to clean your kitchen trash can.

1. Take out the trash.
2. Take trash can outside in back yard. (If you live somewhere too cold to do this, stick it in the bathtub.)
3. Spray inside and outside with bleach spray. (Our trash can is one of those big 13-gallon or something white plastic ones. If you have a snazzy stainless one, you probably want to use something besides bleach.) Be careful of your clothes if you're using bleach. I put my painting t-shirt and sweats on before I do this. :)
4. Set the garden hose on "jet" and blast the heck out of the trash can inside and out. (If you're using the bathtub, fill it with water and let it soak a bit.) This will keep you from having to scrub too much.
5. Scrub off any remaining gunk with a rag . . . an old terry washcloth works well. Wear gloves so the bleach doesn't burn your hands.
6. Rinse the can off and dry it with an old towel or two. Make sure you get the bottom dry so it doesn't mildew when you stick a new bag in it.
7. Stick a new bag in it. If you want, stick a new fabric softener sheet in the bottom first. I'm not sure this will actually make it smell fresh, but just in case. :D
8. If you need to, clean the area where the trash can lives, too. (We keep ours in a cupboard, and the floor around it is always disgusting from people throwing stuff in and missing.)

Really, you can do this in five minutes. :)

ps I clean the cat box this way about once a month, too.

ps 2 I clean the bathroom trash cans in the dishwasher. I know this sounds disgusting, but I just do them in there by themselves on the "sanitize" cycle. It is so hot that it kills all the germs. I wipe the bottom out first, spray them inside with bleach, and then stick them in the dishwasher to really get them clean. No, really, I do. They're thick plastic and haven't melted yet. They probably will next time I do it, though, since I've gone and told you.

ps3 I do NOT do the cat box in the dishwasher. That's just gross, people.

a little questionnaire for you

1. What's your favorite musical? :)
2. Are you brand-loyal to anything? What?
3. What are you looking forward to most about spring?
4. Do you have a favorite local restaurant? What is it? What do you order?
5. Can you do a cartwheel?

oh, so loverly

Because we've been sick and housebound for five days, and because I had $9.98 in leftover iTunes credit (from a gift card) and it cost $9.99 (which was clearly a sign), and because it's never too early to introduce your kids to the talents of Marni Nixon, and to sway them over firmly to the opinion that she is every bit as good as Julie Andrews was in the Broadway original, if not better, and because I need new stuff to listen to while I cook, and because we need new music to dance to in the kitchen, and because there is just not much that makes me happier (on a small scale) than whining "Two bunches o' violets trod in the mud. A full day's wages!" and because The Rain in Spain Stays Mainly in the Plain (I think she's got it!), I bought the soundtrack to the movie My Fair Lady today.

Oh, joy. :)

i've got houses on boardwalk & park place, & i own all the railroads. they're going down.

Claire and I have been sick with that heavy-on-the-coughing virus thing going around, so not much has been happening around here, unless you count the killer Monopoly game (Team Suzanne v. Team Bob & Claire) each night from 7 to 7:30. 

What's up with you?

orange

1. mondays are for color, 2. Orange Clogs, 3. orange toothbrush, 4. Brighter Days......., 5. Lucky No 7, 6. Splendid In Orange, 7. Christmas hydrant, 8. Rainy Days And Mondays Always Get Me Down ... Cheer up girl -- It's Friday!!!, 9. O is for Orange, 10. Pomegranate, 11. Copper Tulle, 12. Website, 13. sprout print, 14. 20071029-PA294088, 15. orange buttons, 16. Orange abstract bokeh

jane cumberbatch's make & do series: valentine's card

petits détails

I've recently found Petits Détails . . . the wonderful Flickr photostream and blog of an American woman living in Paris with her French husband and their son. I know mom and Nicole (and any of our other suziebeezieland francophiles) will LOVE this! :)

1. L'Atelier, 2. Notre Dame Cathedral, 3. Vintage Finds, 4. La Cuisine, 5. Before the Days of E-mail, 6. Vintage French Notions, 7. Paris on a Sunny Winter Day, 8. Corners of the Kitchen, 9. Jar of Ribbon, 10. A Little Linen House, 11. A Red and White Pouch, 12. La Baule, France 1931, 13. Vintage Fabric from My Stash, 14. Paris on a Sunny Winter Day, 15. Corners of the Kitchen, 16. Paris in July

rainy morning fun with shrinky dinks

red

1. button wreath, 2. Shuttered, 3. Strawberry Fluff, 4. Redbowls, 5. Red Girl and Birds, 6. out to dry, 7. Geraniums, The Little Traveler, Geneva, Illinois, 8. Time for coffee , 9. Gettin' religion, 10. Red heart for RED INSIDE: Week 1, 11. Dessert, 12. delivery, 13. miniature tea set, 14. raspberries, 15. The red one, 16. boxing

inchmark

Our Jean, who is new to suziebeezieland but has jumped right in (I love that), sent me a link to a FANTASTIC blog that I knew nothing about. 

It's called Inchmark, and belongs to Brooke Hellewell Reynolds, who used to be the Senior Art Director for Martha Stewart Kids and Martha Stewart Living.  She's also designed some books, including Heather Ross's Weekend Sewing and Joelle Hoverson's Last Minute Patchwork and Quilted Gifts. (I have this one, and really love it, and may even one day make something out of it! Ha.) 

I just clicked on categories and started working my way through . . . great stuff! For instance, check out the sweet, simple, and lovely ideas for this baby shower. The way she does little aerial shots in her book reviews is also very sweet.

This is totally up my alley, Jean . . . thank you! :)

february

There was frost last night and it will rain all weekend starting Friday, but today is beautiful, with a big, clear blue sky. The camellias are in bloom, and the air feels clean, and the grass is freshly mowed, and the cat feels wistful.

blog list

The cool service I used to maintain my blog list, Blogrolling, appears to be down for the long haul, so I went ahead and made a new blog list. It's over there in the left sidebar under comments. :) 

If you are a suziebeezieland regular (you come here periodically) who has commented here in the past couple of months and included your blog URL in the URL space of the comment form, you should be on it. If you're not and want to be, let me know.  (Also let me know if your link is broken or obsolete.) I'll add new links whenever I notice regulars with blogs who aren't listed.

a little tea party

There were some mighty sweet girlies from our church born all in a cluster those first few months of 2003. Here are three of them today having a little tea party to celebrate Claire's birthday.  Where have the past six years gone, Christy and Linda?

bob made pig pancakes last sunday

The directions are here.

better living in five minutes a day #12:throw some clutter into a bowl

I love bowls as much as I love baskets for containing clutter! :) Here is assignment #12:

Find a pile of clutter that is bugging you, then put it into a bowl for storage.

I store the hamster chewy treats in a bowl:

And Claire's wooden beads and strings:

And all my makeup and a couple hair clips:

And some napkins and placemats:

And a beloved animaguri birdie. (She's not clutter. She just needed a nest.)