Our First Book for the Blog Book Club

12 votes were made, and they were evenly split among the three books, how interesting! I had to write down the names and choose one at random, and Middlesex wins!



The book is divided into books rather than chapters. There are four books. The plan is to read one book a week. Starting July 31 we'll begin discussing pages 3-63. I think that's plenty of time to get the book and read. Look for my blog post that Friday! For those that have already read it--please feel free to join the discussion. As far as the other books that were voted on, we can read those next to make it easy, or I can find new selections. We'll figure it out later.

Happy Reading :)
XOXO

Live Inspired Giveaway!

I am so excited to announce this giveaway! You may remember me blogging about these inspirational cards a few weeks back. I was contacted by Compendium Incorporated and thanked for posting a blog about their items for Operation Love and Rainbows. I asked them for something to give away, and I was sent a whole bunch of stuff I'm giving to you! Lucky! You will receive 4 packs of cards to gift someone or keep for yourself, and 2 adorable note books.















To enter the giveaway you must:

♥ Leave an inspirational comment, and don't forget to include an email address!

Dante might be choosing the winner again, but I may have to if he doesn't want to work that day. Your name will be drawn at random from a dish.

The giveaway will end on July 31, 2009 and I will announce the winner on August 1, 2009.
Good luck!

XOXO

Birthday Boy

I haven't had a lot of free time lately because I've been prepping for an exam and J's birthday. My class ended a day before J's b-day, and I am tired. I plan to sleep for many hours and enjoy this little piece of summer I have left before round two begins in the fall.

J and I enjoyed our day together. I made him a special brunch; I also wanted to take him out to dinner, but he thought our afternoon was quite enough, so we ordered in while he played with his new stuff.















I made J one of his favorites: sausage gravy with biscuits. I found a simple recipe and whipped it up. I also made scrambled eggs and freshly squeezed orange, blueberry and apple juice with a splash of sparkling water. Along with these decadent morsels, I offered bakery bought cinnamon buns that are to DIE for.







♥






It was a great day!

I want to share this silly commercial just because it makes me laugh and smile:



XOXO

B's Blog Book Club

Okay, so I had that poll going for a few weeks asking if you would participate in my book club. Here are the results:

♥ 3 people voted Definitely.
♥ 10 people voted Yes, but please blog about it and give us the scoop!
♥ 2 people voted No, I don't read. Read a book and enrich your mind!

Here's how I'd like to see it work:
I will post book choices and a poll. I'll give everyone a week to vote. Once we choose a book we'll give everyone time to obtain the book. After a week or so I'll post a blog about the first 5 chapters, or certain number of pages. I'll pose some discussion questions, and others can discuss and pose questions or thoughts on what we've read so far. I'd love to throw in some art and photography books for fun in the future. Now, we read literature.



♥ Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenide
"I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974." And so begins Middlesex, the mesmerizing saga of a near-mythic Greek American family and the "roller-coaster ride of a single gene through time." The odd but utterly believable story of Cal Stephanides, and how this 41-year-old hermaphrodite was raised as Calliope, is at the tender heart of this long-awaited second novel from Jeffrey Eugenides, whose elegant and haunting 1993 debut, The Virgin Suicides, remains one of the finest first novels of recent memory.




♥ How to (Un)Cage a Girl by Francesca Lia Block
For the girls...
Choose to believe
the ones who see what
you may not choose to
believe in your own myth
your own glamour your own
spell your own beauty
all of us are one
all of us are love.




♥ When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris
David Sedaris's ability to transform the mortification of everyday life into wildly entertaining art," (The Christian Science Monitor) is elevated to wilder and more entertaining heights than ever in this remarkable new book. Trying to make coffee when the water is shut off, David considers using the water in a vase of flowers and his chain of associations takes him from the French countryside to a hilariously uncomfortable memory of buying drugs in a mobile home in rural North Carolina. In essay after essay, Sedaris proceeds from bizarre conundrums of daily life-having a lozenge fall from your mouth into the lap of a fellow passenger on a plane or armoring the windows with LP covers to protect the house from neurotic songbirds-to the most deeply resonant human truths. Culminating in a brilliant account of his venture to Tokyo in order to quit smoking, David Sedaris's sixth essay collection is a new masterpiece of comic writing from a writer worth treasuring. - Seattle Times

This should be fun! I can't wait to see which book wins.

XOXO

Balloons for Breakfast

David Sykes Photography

I love this!

XOXO