Category Stuff About Me

Ferragosto

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I created an Italian holiday for myself last week and the weather wasn’t too cooperative!  Very very sultry and a little stormy, so I spent a lot of time inside the cabin with books and movies!  Not a bad way to spend time!  So I read a few books early in the week.  I finished “Water for Elephants,” which I really enjoyed; I read “The Next Thing on My List,” and “Away.” The movies I watched were “Days and Clouds,” “Il Postino,” “The Night of the Shooting Stars,” and “Under the Tuscan Sun.”  The first three were Italian and the first two I’d seen before!  I love “Il Postino.”  And “Under the Tuscan Sun.”  I can watch that over and over again.

I really liked “The Next Thing on my List.”  It was a book I’d picked up several times but couldn’t bring myself to read, because the premise is that a girl named Marissa dies in a car accident.  Too creepy.  Anyway, she has a list of 20 things to do before her 25th birthday – so the girl who was driving the car decides that she needs to complete the items on the list.  It wasn’t a great book, but I like lists so enjoyed it.  I also had the book “Flip-Flopped” by the same author and realized after 50 pages that I’d read it before.  “Away” was a book about an immigrant who learns that her daughter may still be alive so she attempts to get back to Russia via Alaska.  I also have a book of short stories by that author and have read a few throughout the week.

Now I’m reading “Beatrice & Virgil” by Yann Martel (author of the Life of Pi).  It’s weird.  No chapters.  It’s about Henry who is a writer and Henry who is writing a play.  And a donkey named Beatrice and howler monkey named Virgil.  And taxidermy.  And the Holocaust?  I’ll let you know if I figure it out when I’m done.  I’m halfway through it.  And then who knows what will be next.  I still have quite a pile at home and a few more from the library.  So many books.

Nicole Baart is doing an online book discussion about Donald Miller’s “A Million Miles in a Thousand Years,” and I’d like to join!  Maybe I’ll run to B&N tomorrow and see about it.  I read part of a Donald Miller book and had bought a few but they went down with the flood.  Interesting author.

Well, off to read!

When the Lights Go Out

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First Advent and first candle is lit

If there were a power outage, I would gather candles, my journals, a great book, and a glass of wine and I would spend quiet moments with words! I might write about things that are going on in my life, or I might write a few haikus on "the dark," or I might just read. If it was daytime, I might play piano and if it was later in the night I'd probably sleep. But since I am not one who flounders in silence or who needs to fill silence with noise, I would be ok.

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I went to work with my mom…

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Before I worked in restaurants, I used to go to work with my mom. She worked in an office and I would answer phones and help prepare mailings. Put on labels, sort by zip code, etc. I worked in the summers and on holiday breaks, as the office was 20 miles from our home. I probably did this when I was 14-15 and started waitressing at 16. I'm sure I made minimum wage at that job – probably $3.15 or something an hour. When I started waitressing I made $2.85 an hour plus tips.

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The Movie That Moved Me

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You Can Count on Me (2000) starring Mark Ruffalo and Laura Linney was a moving movie that everyone should see! Ok, maybe not everyone, but people who like movies about relationships.

It was a moving portrayal of a brother and sister, and not the most functional brother and sister. She appears to have it all together – or to want to have it all together – and he appears every now and then, when he needs something. When he arrives this time, he needs even more than he realizes and ends up staying for a while.

I love the performances. I laughed with them. I cried with them. I wished them the best of everything.

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Magazines

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I’m about half done with August’s Oprah magazine!  I haven’t been this caught up in the ten years I’ve been a subscriber!  Crazy.

I am faithful to the O Magazine.  As I said, I’ve been a subscriber for ten years and my current subscription will run out in February of 2012.  I read it cover to cover and use book marks, take notes of things to look up (books, music, websites) and keep them all on a shelf.  I love almost all the columnists – especially Lisa Kogen and Martha Beck.

I just started reading Eating Well and enjoy it a LOT but it doesn’t take a lot to sit down and read it – and then it ends up being kind of a reference in the recipe book cupboard.  I discovered it when I received vouchers for lots of free magazine subscriptions for my Northwest Airlines points.  So I get Wine Enthusiast (which costs almost $80 a year????), Travel & Leisure (who has the money for those trips?), W (a waste of paper) and Eating Well.  I renewed Eating Well and will continue to enjoy it.  I just put out many issues of the other magazines in the recycling this morning.  I know I should have donated them somewhere, but for the sake of getting them out of the house they are now recycled.

Once I subscribed to the New Yorker.  I thought it would be fun to get a literary magazine, but I found that I didn’t read it that often.  The O Magazine is one that I’ve stuck with – and now have a rule that I won’t subscribe to any others because I don’t have time for any others.  Now that the subscriptions to those crazy magazines are starting to expire my paper clutter will also diminish a bit, right?

I used to love reading Cricket when I was younger – about 12.  I still like to go and look at them in our elementary library and I always encourage kids to check them out.  They are “literary,” too, so not interesting to many.  Just story geeks.

Are there magazines that you are a faithful reader of?  How do you read them – cover to cover or by looking at the table of contents for what interests you?  What do you do with them when you’re done?  What’s the craziest magazine subscription you’ve had?  Or one that you wish you were brave enough to get?

Well, off to read!


Get-To-Know-You Questions

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One of my favorite books was written by my “friends,” the Satellite Sisters. They had an amazing upbringing and each contributed chapters to the book. Most people know that I have followed the Sisters since I read the book – their radio show, their radio show on podcast, then after the demise of the show, through their blog and now one Sister’s blog and podcast The Chaos Chronicles.

So my close friends, the Satellite Sisters, posted this blog about using these questions to get to know the women in your life a little better. I thought a few were interesting and so I thought I’d post them, as well!

Comment away!
Off to read….

What would you rather win– an Oscar or a Nobel Prize?
What job are you not qualified for?
Did you ever abuse “hold” or “layaway” privileges?
In what fashion trend do you most regret taking part?
If you really wanted to shake up the Supreme Court, who would you nominate?
Do you lie to your doctor?
What great book do you claim to have read, but never really have?
If you could change any part of you with plastic surgery, what part would it be?
Are you intimidated by your hairdresser?
What’s the worst job you ever had?
Where were you when you heard about the death of Princess Diana?
What is you personal theme song?

Hello world!

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Here we go!  Tonight was the first official meeting of the Walkie Talkie Book Club – Rochester Branch.  We discussed “The Help” by Kathryn Stockett and what a great discussion it was!  It was followed by a great walk around the mall.  And the added bonus of spying on jewelry buying lovers!  🙂  Ha!

We started creating a list of books we’d like to read.  It’s an ever-changing list, but we’d like to nail down a plan for a year (or so) at a time.

We also decided that we would meet on the first Monday of the month (or maybe the first Friday of the month occasionally).

So our next meeting will be March 1 and we will be discussing “The Moment Between” by Nicole Baart.  I won a dozen (it must be a dozen as I still have 10 copies here!) from the author and follow her blog (http://nicolebaart.blogspot.com/).  She’s fun to read, and if you’re interested in learning more about the writing process (or about adopting beautiful children), she’s a good go-to-gal!

This is it for a first post.  I’ll create some more topics – such as What Would You Like To Read; any discussion of “The Help” from other branches, etc.  Yippeee!!!!

Danette