Child 44

Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith opens in the Ukraine in 1933. People are starving and freezing to death, so a mother sends her two young sons out to hunt for food, and one of them is captured to be someone else’s meal. The book then skips to 20 years later in Moscow, [...]

Continuum

Vance has been introducing me to lots of new music this summer. I’d heard of John Mayer before – who didn’t hear about him in his man thong? – but I’d never listened to his music. That all changed when Vance played Continuum. This album has a bluesy feel with fantastic guitar [...]

Happy Birthday, Vance!

Where were you on the night of July 29, 1987? I was giving birth. That’s right, Vance is 21 years old today! He is kind, intelligent, warm, loving, generous, loyal, caring, and precious to us.

Then We Came to the End

Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris is the story of the employees in an advertising agency and how they interact on a daily basis. You learn who’s having marital problems, who’s the office gossip, who’s having an affair, who’s aloof, who’s the slacker, etc. Almost all of the story is [...]

Weeds

I’ve been reading so much about Weeds lately that I decided to buy Season 1. This series debuted on Showtime in 2005. Mary-Louise Parker stars as Nancy Botwin, the widowed mother of 2 boys living in the upper middle class suburb of Agrestic. Left without enough money to support her lifestyle, Nancy turns [...]

Farmers’ Market

Carl and I went to the Farmers’ Market this morning. It’s located in downtown Greenville and features items from local farmers. There was live music and you could even get a massage. Carl tried to sell some honey, but nobody was buying.

There were all kinds of things for sale – seafood, homemade [...]

Weezer (red album)

Weezer’s red album came out in June and I am hooked on it. This album probably won’t be considered a classic twenty years from now, but it has catchy tunes that get stuck in my head. I find myself going around singing The Greatest Man That Ever Lived and Pork and Beans. Vance [...]

miniBookExpo

I found this web site on Leila’s blog. On this site, you can “claim” up to 2 books (be careful, though – not all books will ship to the U.S.) at a time. Once you read the books and review them, you can start all over again. I requested Drumblair: Memories of [...]

I am a Cheesemaker!

Inspired by Barbara Kingsolver’s book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life, I ordered a 30 Minute Mozzarella Cheese Kit from the New England Cheesemaking Supply Company. The kit came this afternoon, and I was so excited, I ran straight to the store to buy milk and purified water. (It calls for [...]

Zucchini with Sea Shells

I made this vegetarian dish for dinner last night. It was easy to prepare and we all enjoyed it.

8 ounces sea shells, cooked
¾ cup thinly sliced carrots
1 cup chopped onion (I didn’t used quite that much)
2 cloves garlic, chopped (I used 1)
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 cans stewed tomatoes
2 medium zucchini, halved lengthwise and [...]