One of my manly Beasts

Coco has taken over the sofa and the best that can be done is to put a bunch of blankets on it to provide a funk barrier. He recently went to the vet for his shots and to have a place on his tail checked. The diagnosis is he has too much testosterone and is experiencing some male pattern baldness. He is a manly and macho dog and the good part of that is he is protective of his people. The bad part is he at times get confused and thinks he is the pack leader and then he and I go around. You have to pick your battles...

Retro TV Dinner

My friend Amelie made me a TV dinner to try. She goes on different kicks and right now she is in the 50's. She is addicted to Mad Men and recently purchased a pen on a chain to wear to work. After going through some recipe's from that time she decided to do a retro TV dinner. She designed the tray and filled it with goodies. I had instructions to take from freezer. Cook in preheated oven at 450 degrees for 30 minutes. It was delicious and fun, especially the cherries.

Its' hard to tell in the picture what the bottom two trays contain. Left is brown rice and right is salmon with a sauce she made up.

I love when she gets inspired...you never know what will happen. This time I pulled out a little TV tray and had a nice little meal with no fuss.

Guess who I Gent to IM with?

A couple of weeks ago I was checking my yahoo account and was surprised to see under my "buddy list" Chantal was online. I thought, "Could she really be right there and I can talk to her?". Yep she was and we did. It was great. I haven't seen her in person in years.

I know she is happy to be home and she's having many adventures and that helps but I do miss her.
My job changed last year and now I don't travel much at all. I use to go to Europe at least twice a year and I would plan extra time to visit with Chantal and visit different cities/countries. I look at the pictures from our trips so I can keep her face in my mind and our memories together fresh. I'll share with you a few pictures from Gent, Belgium.

I never get tired of the cities with canals. So beautiful.

The Siblings

Miya and Hiro get to visit when Kurt and I get to visit. We get along kind the same as Miya and Hiro. When we were younger we were just close enough in age to get on each others nerves and now that we don't live together everyday we enjoy our visits.







Now that we are "adults" we are definitely on the same team instead of struggling for our independence of each other. He of course gave me the best gift I have ever gotten and that is this little smidgen of love.











She is mine and I am just letting them raise her. Something she and I have in common is the love of...

SLEEP.

I have been taking pictures of her sleeping since she was born. She doesn't have a sibling and I guess its not too late but I don't think the parents are planning to give her one. I think it will work out fine either way.

I'm glad I've got mine. He has a lot of strengths that I don't have, that I want to learn and I'm glad he's teaching some of them to my little one.

Ocean vs. Biscuit - not a hard decision

I am just now getting around to the pictures from the trip we took over the Thanksgiving break. It was one of those that it was so cold that we didn't make it to the ocean. We did a lot of shopping which was fun. The highlight of the entire trip was playing this this little one, Anne a.k.a. Biscuit. I wonder if she be called that in high school. It seems to work for her though because she is about as sweet as a biscuit with honey poured on it.

I love the age - just before 1 and she is crawling and make all kinds of crazy faces and noises. She is one of those babies that is a pleasure and just goes with the flow.

This trip we had some fun at a local bar on the waterfront and my new fav drink is "pain killer". I believe it to be the first time a marketing claim was honest because after 4 I was feeling no pain. I was making faces just like Biscuit. Luckily we had our 20 year old designated driver. Thanks Renee!

Just going through these pictures makes me miss my fam and friends. I will be crazy with work until April/May and then I hope to get to see everyone and I bet Biscuit will be walking.

Bentley didn't get to go on this trip but hey, he got a t-shirt. (Thanks mom) It's his new favorite. Don't you love new favorites. You might notice the Life is Good theme running through this entry. I love the brand and wish I could find one like Biscuit's for myself.

Life is good. http://www.lifeisgood.com/

How To Be An Explorer

I just got this book and so far I'm loving it. When you start working and paying bills and all the other boring stuff it's easy to forget how much fun it is to be an explorer. When I was a little girl, I loved grabbin my lil brother and trekking through the woods and investigating. We did some pretend games but for the most part we were just looking around at trees, plants, leaves, flower, etc and seeing what there was to see.

In third grade I did learn a valuable lesson about exploring and that when you want to press leaves and flowers to be sure an not collect poison ivy. And that its never a good idea to rub leaves on your face, even if they feel good.

My third grade picture has the proof since I developed poison ivy in my eyes and all over my face. Things like that do make you a little more wary of exploration. I went from climbing trees and swinging on a rope swing non stop to rarely going outside. I don't know what happened really but now it's one of my favorite things to do. Get a backpack with some water, snacks, camera, and a friend and just stroll through the woods and see what there is to see. This book is great too because it's not just about the woods. It's just a reminder to take the time, slow down and notice all the beauty around you.

I love the author. She has a great view of life and the simple pleasures. She's an artist that doesn't make you feel like you could never do what she does. Instead it seems most of her work focuses on how to inspire you instead of of impress you. Check her out. http://www.kerismith.com/newtest.html I've got a couple of her other books too so just let me know if you want to borrow one.

Books, Books, Books

I read lots of books. Strike that. I go through spells of reading lots of books. Then I stop and can’t bare the thought of reading and can just barely manage to look at pictures in magazines.

I have 3 library cards. When I go, I usually pick out 5-20 books depending on my mood. I realize I’m not going to read them all within 2 weeks. Bentley reminds me that I’m setting unreasonable expectations when I come out with an arm full. I think I just like to have them in my apartment. What I love about library books is that you don’t have to read them all. You can start to read it and say, “YuK! No.”

When you buy a book, at full price, you are making a commitment of time and money and can only hope it’s going to your next great read and you are going to read it. Period. Many times I have been disappointed. When I’m in a book store I start to feel the crazy vibe and I want them all. There are times I have to stop, put them back and make notes of what I would have liked to buy and find it at the library instead… if I can remember.

I usually go to the library with 1 book or author in mind. I do the little hunt on the computer and I’m disappointed 2 out of 3 times. Then I just walk the isles and let the books jump out at me.

Another issue is when I read a book and a few years later much of it’s lost in my dementia. I start a book just to realize by chapter 3 that I know the ending. It got so bad with Patricia Cornwell that I have just given up. I’m done with her and really I can’t handle any more serial killers hunting her anyway.

I have tried to catalog the books I read so I can remember authors I like, make notes about books so I can remember them and so I can stop checking out or buying the same book again. It would also been nice to keep up with the books I have in my apartment to read verses the books I want to read so I stop having duplicate copies.

My friend Raphaël is always making suggestions, which I appreciate. He believes it his responsibility to assist me in building my culture and character since I’m one of those Americans that can get sucked into the Twilight series, and how sad is that. So he sends me lists and prioritizes them. He has also been known to buy me books – science fiction, classics, mystery, etc. He knows I’ve missed out on some good stuff due to not going to college, living in US and being overwhelmed by pop culture, my disinterest in researching new authors/books, and sometimes just plain ignorance. He is really good about picking the ones I will like. You know the one where the woman is not completely sane, has too much testosterone and superhero strength (mental and/or physical). He likes to set the stage to get me interested. Like “No Name” by Wilkie Collins. He knew that I would love Magdalen and her crazy self and the fact that this book was not well received in its time because at that time people didn’t enjoy reading about women that were independent in spirit or evil in nature. He was right, I loved it.

If you are thinking, “What does she mean because she is American, etc.”. Don’t get me wrong, Raphaël loves the American authors and much of the culture. It is a fact though that he has turned me on to some authors that are just not as well known here and I need help.

One of the Raphaël suggestions I read freaked me out and then I had to watch the movie and yep it was good but scary, icky, nasty – Perfume: the story of a murder, by Patrick Suskind. To pick a word: disturbing. But I liked it. Jean-Christophe Grange is another author I like that I would have never known about. I’m not suggesting anyone run out and pick them up since I must warn you that Raphaël loves incredibly disturbing books. He tries to keep it light for my benefit but his stomach is stronger than mine.

His most recent suggestion is Stones Fall (Iain Pears). I receive an e-mail from Random House telling me about this book. I go and find this book in the library. It took me a month, but I leave the library feeling all proud that I am 90% sure I found the book he was talking about b/c I forgot my note with the name and author.
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Here is the e-mail exchange:
Nov 2, 2009 - Raphaël: You have received an email from a friend about a Random House book!
Their message is:Currently reading this and loving it.
Title: Stone's Fall
Author: Iain PearsCategory
Fiction - Historical; Fiction - Mystery & Detective; Fiction

December 12, 2009 - Kelly: I think I got it. I found it at the library - I'll start it this week so I'll let you know when I make some progress.

December 12, 2009 - Raphael: You think you've got it? There's a simple way to be sure: check the cover. If you can read "Stone's Fall" on it, then that's it.Anyway, I finished it a couple of weeks ago, and it's a stunning piece. The plot is absolutely air tight.

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Yes his sarcasm does not go unnoticed.

I found an old file from years ago when I tried to do little book reviews. Now looking back at them I can only laugh. Yep, it helped me to remember the books. I’m going to share a few of the reviews. I only share the endings on the following because seriously, do not read these books. This is for entertainment purposes only:

Watermelon (?)
Claire’s husband, James tells her right after she gives birth that he loves Denise and is leaving her. So she has the nervous breakdown and heads home to Dublin to stay with family. Meets a guy named Adam and eventually does name her daughter… Kate, after her grandmother. After she sleeps with Adam, James comes to visit. Lots of internal, female on the edge, monologue. It’s called watermelon b/c she wore a green overall outfit when she was pregnant and looked like a watermelon. She started exercising and drank mainly vodka for 2 months and so she did lose her baby weight. This one pretty much hurt. I don’t know why I didn’t just stop and I’m not sure how a book named Watermelon ever ended up in my home.

Tulip Fever (Deborah Moggach)
Sophia is married to an old guy that wants a son. He hires a painter to do her portrait and she falls in love with the artist. They decide they can run away together with the promise of selling a huge tulip bulb. It was a time period in Holland that tulip bulbs were the rage and very expensive. Great news, they gave their bulb to a guy to sale for the $. Bad news, he got drunk and ate it. Yep, he thought it was an onion and come on now, really, he was drunk and hungry. It had a side story about the maid having an affair and in the end there was a baby for the old man to raise. Someone got what he wanted. Ok this one was not that bad but I hate books (and movies) with bad and/or disappointing endings, no matter how good they may be.

Shutter Island (Dennis Lebane)
Teddy and Chuck are U.S. Marshalls on an island investigating a mental institution. Weird stuff going on and a bit scary, it’s like you start to hear the music and feel like someone is going to jump out at you. Teddy realizes something is terribly wrong and that he and Chuck need to get off the island. The escape plans are in full throttle when Teddy realizes Chuck isn’t who he says he is and then Chuck disappears. It’s hard to know who is crazy the doctors or Teddy. I guess one interesting thing about the book is you really don’t have a clue until it ends. So, it was great that you didn’t know till the end that he is a psyche patient and they are roll playing, trying to get him to remember his wife killed his kids and then he killed her. Ohh, Just that. He remembers for a short time and they think they’ve got him in reality, but the very last he goes back to wondering how he and his partner Chuck are getting off the island.

Don’t you just love when you invest in a book and then get to the end and turn the last page and think, “Really.” By reading the little reviews above, you can see why I like to have others read, screen, and research on my behalf. I get distracted by the pretty book covers.

When you read a lot you are going to read some great stuff and some really bad stuff. At what point in the story do you just stop and say ENOUGH? I obviously don’t know but I’ll keep on trying.

Maybe I’ll share some book reviews on the ones I love in a future entry. Wouldn’t that be peachy?