Snapshots Saturday! 5/21/16

I'm linking up at West Metro Mommy Reads for Snapshots Saturday. All photos were taken by me or a friend or relative and are appropriate for all eyes.  Join us.

Today is our oldest granddaughter's birthday. She lives nearby, so we see her and her family often. A few pictures of her from the past.

Here she is at about four. She was in a small dance group and this is one of the photos taken.

This is a school picture, I think she was a 1st grader.

 This was taken at a Mother's Day tea. Teddy Bears were collected for the children's wind at our hospital. Trista is in the yellow dress. She is twelve here. Also is me, her mom and her baby sister.

Senior pictures were a big deal in 2004. 

Her mom had a professional photographer friend that took pictures. We have lots. This is one of my favorites. 

And this one is pretty current. Last year. I need to take more of her, but I focus on her son these days. She is weeks from delivering baby #2, a girl. We are excited. I will share more then. 

Happy Birthday, Trista!  She is 31 today!  

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? 5-16-16

It's Monday What Are You Reading is hosted by Kathryn at Book Date. Share what you are reading, what you read recently or what you hope to get to in the coming week and then link up with Kathryn at Book Date. It is a great place to see what is going on in the blogosphere and to add to your reading lists.

Still on my phone/Kindle:  I probably would have finished this one, but there was a bit of a snafu regarding listening while driving. Traveling with Mr Busy dictated that he listen and I re-listen to Ready Player One. Not that I minded, but it did cut into my own personal listening time. 

  

Really enjoying this one. It is so fun to hear her own voice and the voices of her guests. There is a lot of name dropping, but she is in show business and it is all about who and when and with whom. I love it. Must speak to my inner voyeur! 

On my nightstand:

Tamra Wells has loved Charles Lane since her early teens, and he has loved her. The only child of a school principal and his socially ambitious wife, Tamra didn't let love keep her from her goal to become a scientist. She went on to college and then to Paris where she worked for five years before returning home, a beautiful and worldly woman ready to marry Charles, a brilliant young man in a family that owns more land than any other African-American family in Nanticoke, Maryland. This passionate and elegantly written novel is the story of a man and a woman who love each other and have everything except what they really want: a happy marriage. It is also the story of two families that are strong and loving, yet have their problems. Seth Wells, Tamra's father, is a respected school principal whose drinking habits create tension at home. The family stays together, but Tamra like many children of alcoholic parents, suppresses an anger that she can't verbalize. Charles's father, Harlen Lane, is a man of tradition who expects his sons to follow him, and Charles does, forsaking his own dreams of becoming a major league baseball player, to run the family farm. He takes on the task with a vengeance, determined to expand the modest business into a major agricultural complex. Two successful people raised in stable families, neither Charles nor Tamra see how closely they mirror the patterns of their parents' successes and failures. Despite their early - and continuing - passion over the thirteen years of their marriage they find themselves too often angry and resentful to see their own children frightened by the tensions of their otherwise comfortable household. Does their failure stem from Charles's relentless drive to succeed in business? Does it take its toll from a death in the family? Is a lecherous relative a contributing factor? Or is it all simply the let down of a college-educated woman who fears becoming "just a housewife"? 


I finished The Hurricane Sisters and will have a review after my book clubs meets tomorrow evening.  Then next up is a collection of Cozy Mysteries from Leighann Dobbs.  There are four titles; Ghostly Paws, Bake, Battle and Roll,  A Zen for Murder, and Dead and Buried.  I am really looking forward to starting these. 

As I was searching for a cover that I could share, I discovered that a couple of these titles are not the first in the series. That may be a problem for my OCD self. I will see!!

Saturday Snapshots - Mother's Day Retreat

Linking up with Melinda at West Metro Mommy Reads for Saturday Snapshots. Join us.

Last Saturday I was away from home at a 4.5 day/4 night quilting retreat with my quilter's group. I have posted pictures of the location before, but for those of you who haven't seen it, it is nice enough for a repost.  This year our theme was Hawaiian and everyone went all out with their decorations for the dining table and the special touches on the "forever luau " table (snack table).

This is Ranch A in the beautiful Black Hills of Wyoming/South Dakota. Actually it is located in Wyoming but the Black Hills spill over the state line of course. It is log construction, there are 8 rustic bedrooms and bathrooms on the upper level. There is a large kitchen, we cook our own meals and the lower level has a huge room with a rock fireplace where we sew. This year there were 22 of us.

 Friends Marva and Lynn with their design walls (actually flannel backed table cloths taped to the logs)  behind them

 Mimosas on the beverage table for one mornings brunch.  Some with and some with out champagne.

 The central dining table with flowers, a sandscape centerpiece and place cards that were tiny yellow rubber ducks on a paper pond with our name in English and a sort of Hawaiian interpretation.

 Snack table had fruit, sweet stuff, macadamia nuts etc. The decorations were great. Below is a piece of fabric on display. I think the name is  Fruit Ladies - whimsical bathing beauties featuring ladies with strawberries or peaches for their Big Bottoms  or something like that. It is a hoot!

 We had a great time, many projects were finished and I may have some photos next week of those. I can't show mine yet, they are gifts.  Shhhhh!


Stay Busy and Stay Happy

Wondrous Words Wednesday 5-4-16

Kathy at Bermuda Onion hosts Wondrous Words Wednesday. A chance to highlight words you find while reading or occasionally by listening. Share your words then link up with Kathy's blog so we can all learn a new wondrous word.

I have not discovered any wondrous words in my recent reading. So I will share a couple from my Word of the Day emails from Merriam Webster. 

weisenheimer:  noun     smart aleck

I was just tickled to find this word this morning. It was one of my Mom's favorite words, when one of the four of us was acting up. "Quit acting like such a weisenheimer!"  she would say. 

moil:   verb     1) to work hard   drudge     2) to be in continuous agitation   churn, swirl

I can see me using moil to mean in continuous agitation.   I often moil about the goings on around me. Like the current political scene!

What words have you discovered recently? 

Stay Busy and Stay Happy

First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros - Hurricane Sisters

Diane at Bibliophile By the Sea hosts this Tuesday meme. It is a place to share the first paragraph in the first chapter of a book you are reading or hope to get to soon. It is a great place to see what others are reading and add to your ever growing list of title to explore. So let's share. Write a post and then go link up at Diane's blog.

The Hurricane Sisters
Dorothea Benton Frank
Harper Collins April 2015


Prologue

According to Liz

My husband, Clayton, and I were at the police station getting my mother, Maisie, out of jail for brushing up against the wrong side of the law. Her actual charges were still unclear. She claims it is not against any law in the state of South Carolina to take a llama for a walk on the open road. He was, after all, on a leash. The local police beg to differ, saying it is an act of animal cruelty, endangerment, and reckless behavior. Legal or not, it wasn't normal. I was glad they brought her in to the police station until I could get there because her behavior surely demonstrates a lack of sound judgement. Or not. Maisie was crazy like a fox and we all knew it. So I sat and waited while Clayton made it right between the Town of Mount Pleasant and Maisie by writing a check. 


So have you read The Hurricane Sisters?  Would you read on?  Have you read any of Dorothea Benton Frank's other novels?  


Stay Busy and Stay Happy

April Month in Review

Again I am behind in my book reading goal. Goodreads says I am4 books behind. I have read a total of 16 books. Twenty would keep me on my goal of 5 books per month. Yikes. I had better kick it in gear, again!



APRIL:

13.  Bossypants by Tina Fey

     1. New to me author
     2. Libary print book
     3. Non-Fiction, Memoir
     4, What's in a Name 2016 challenge


14. The Chili Queen  by Sandra Dallas

    1. Women's Literary Fiction Challenge
    2. Libary print book
    3. What's in A Name 2016 challenge


15. Witch is When It All Began  by Adele Abbott

    1.  New to me author
    2.  E-book
    3.  Read the Books You Buy challenge
    4.  Women't Literary Fiction Challenge
    5.   Cruisin' Thru the Cozies Challenge


16.   Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

        1. New to me author
        2. Audio book
        3. Read the Books You Buy Challenge.


I am linking up with Kathryn's at Book Date for Month in Review.


Stay Busy and Stay Happy
Judy

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? 5-2-16

It's Monday What Are You Reading is hosted by Kathryn at Book Date. Share what you are reading, what you read recently or what you hope to get to in the coming week and then link up with Kathryn at Book Date. It is a great place to see what is going on in the blogosphere and to add to your reading lists.

On my phone/Kindle: 

Goodreads:

Amy Poehler is hosting a dinner party and you're invited! Welcome to the audiobook edition of Amy Poehler's Yes Please. The guest list is star-studded with vocal appearances from Carol Burnett, Seth Meyers, Michael Schur, Patrick Stewart, Kathleen Turner, and even Amy's parents—Yes Please is the ultimate audiobook extravaganza.

Also included? A one night only live performance at Poehler's Upright Citizens Brigade Theater. Hear Amy read a chapter live in front of a young and attractive Los Angeles audience.

While listening to Yes Please, you'll laugh, you'll cry, and you'll become convinced that your phone is trying to kill you. Don't miss this collection of stories, thoughts, ideas, lists, and haikus from the mind of one of our most beloved entertainers. Offering Amy's thoughts on everything from her "too safe" childhood outside of Boston to her early days in New York City, her ideas about Hollywood and "the biz," the demon that looks back at all of us in the mirror, and her joy at being told she has a "face for wigs"—Yes Please is chock-full of words, and wisdom, to live by.

Goodreads gives us credit for 8 pages yet I will spend 10 hrs listening to this audiobook. It seems a bit unfair to me.


Audiobook, Unabridged, 8 pages

Published October 28th 2014 by HarperAudio


Print Book:






Goodreads: 

Hurricane season begins early and rumbles all summer long, well into September. Often people's lives reflect the weather and The Hurricane Sisters is just such a story.

Once again Dorothea Benton Frank takes us deep into the heart of her magical South Carolina Lowcountry on a tumultuous journey filled with longings, disappointments, and, finally, a road toward happiness that is hard earned. There we meet three generations of women buried in secrets. The determined matriarch, Maisie Pringle, at eighty, is a force to be reckoned with because she will have the final word on everything, especially when she's dead wrong. Her daughter, Liz, is caught up in the classic maelstrom of being middle-age and in an emotionally demanding career that will eventually open all their eyes to a terrible truth. And Liz's beautiful twenty-something daughter, Ashley, whose dreamy ambitions of her unlikely future keeps them all at odds.

Luckily for Ashley, her wonderful older brother, Ivy, is her fierce champion but he can only do so much from San Francisco where he resides with his partner. And Mary Beth, her dearest friend, tries to have her back but even she can't talk headstrong Ashley out of a relationship with an ambitious politician who seems slightly too old for her.

Actually, Ashley and Mary Beth have yet to launch themselves into solvency. Their prospects seem bleak. So while they wait for the world to discover them and deliver them from a ramen-based existence, they placate themselves with a hare-brained scheme to make money but one that threatens to land them in huge trouble with the authorities.

So where is Clayton, Liz's husband? He seems more distracted than usual. Ashley desperately needs her father's love and attention but what kind of a parent can he be to Ashley with one foot in Manhattan and the other one planted in indiscretion? And Liz, who's an expert in the field of troubled domestic life, refuses to acknowledge Ashley's precarious situation. Who's in charge of this family? The wake-up call is about to arrive.

The Lowcountry has endured its share of war and bloodshed like the rest of the South, but this storm season we watch Maisie, Liz, Ashley, and Mary Beth deal with challenges that demand they face the truth about themselves. After a terrible confrontation they are forced to rise to forgiveness, but can they establish a new order for the future of them all?

Frank, with her hallmark scintillating wit and crisp insight, captures how a complex family of disparate characters and their close friends can overcome anything through the power of love and reconciliation. This is the often hilarious, sometimes sobering, but always entertaining story of how these unforgettable women became The Hurricane Sisters.

Stay Busy and Stay Happy