Spring Cleaning

I've been Googling spring cleaning checklists for the past month, but never actually doing anything on said lists. (Here's a great source for any level of cleaning you might want to do.) I did a pretty thorough cleaning last week for my parents, but none of that curtain washing/comforter fluffing/washing down the fridge stuff I probably need to do. (Side note: Shelby's helping me clean the windows as I type. She's sitting on her new favorite perch--the bed in my office, which now has a mud-stained pink comforter that I need to clean--licking the window sill for some only-a-dog-understands-why reason.)

And instead of doing any spring cleaning to the house, my focus this week is to do some life spring cleaning--that is, going through my to-do pile and actually doing what needs to be done: changing my name on one last final thing, which actually started said pile, listing wedding stuff on craigslist, filing away bills and statements in our handy-dandy notebooks, RSVPing to some showers (yay!), and coming up with a way for me to keep all of my random notes to myself somewhere other than whatever I can find to write on. Plus, there are some projects I started on that I probably need to finish: finishing a design for my dad, the bag I started yesterday, wrapping gifts, mother's day cards . . .

But I also want to spring clean the blog and my etsy store. Methinks I took on too much when I started being an "at-home everything" in January. Not too much in terms of actual tasks, but motivation and heart. I want to start focusing (one of my 2011 words) on my etsy store a little more and really commit to it--be the pig. (I took that from an old Grey's Anatomy episode I watched recently. In a breakfast, the eggs are involved, but the pig is committed.) While I am mildly happy with what is in my store now, I don't have the products I wanted to sell when I started in the first place. And maybe that's why it moved down on my priority list.

Same goes for the blog. I have some exciting stuff planned for next week, and I also have some changes to the actual site, such as different about word fancies sections and maybe a few new tabs. Maybe I will even succumb to peer pressure from my dear friend Leah and join twitter.
I also want to get a better start on my novel. I know, for a blog that I intended to start to discuss the process, I don't talk about it very often. And so, you will find me at Panera for the rest of the afternoon, because I think it will help me to have a little field trip.

Aside from your house, what do you need to spring clean this week? Will you be joining me on a spring "re-focus"?

Our Easter Company

We had some special visitors this Easter weekend. My parents came to us, and their dog, Macie, came to see Shelby.

Macie is a newfoundland puppy who is not quite a year older than Shelby. They met previously at Macie's house in January, back when Shelby was not quite so fond of playing/seeing/being within 50 feet of another dog. But now, she was quite happy to have a playmate, even one that was much larger than she was. They played and played and played.

Shelby also loved giving Macie kisses. Though we couldn't tell if she was kissing Macie or using Macie as her personal water fountain.

It was a very quick trip, so we fit a lot of stuff in just a couple of days.  We went over to see my mom's great-uncle and her cousins when she got in Friday afternoon, leaving my dad with the dogs. We had pizza and watched "The Fighter," because so many people had told my mom how good it was. And the dogs played.

Saturday morning, we went over to the nursery and picked out Nathan's Easter/birthday/our anniversary present, which were three hydrangea bushes and two other bushes. While Nathan planted those, my mom and I went to JoAnn's to get supplies for the baby present we made for my friend Meagan, who is due in June. We worked on that, and the dogs did this.

A trip to Lincoln wouldn't be complete without a visit to campus, so we loaded the dogs in the car and drove down. My cousin Jeff came with us as we explored, and the dogs (scandalously) got to be off their leashes and wander around.

We went out to dinner that night at Dish, which is probably my new favorite restaurant in town. It was a great location, delicious food, and great company. I had the salmon, and we had creme brulee for dessert, wine and chocolate martinis, and scallops.

Sunday, we had to say goodbye. We had Easter breakfast at Burger King after packing up the car. We all miss them still.

P.S. Sorry for the bad pictures. I only used my phone to take them, so they aren't the best!

Bucket List: Two Easter Bunnies

When I think about my "list," that is, the certain things I want to accomplish in my lifetime, I realize that there are some pretty random, silly things that I have put on there: milking a cow, for example. But when I think about it, those random, silly things are the ones that I've accomplished already, so they must be pretty important to me, no matter how weird they seem to be to everyone else.

Aside from milking a cow, the second most random accomplished item on my list was to be the Easter bunny at the neighborhood Easter Egg hunt, which occurs every year on Palm Sunday. We attended the Easter Egg hunt as kids, moving up the age divisions as we got older and then graduating to wearing the bunny costume as a high schooler. (Well, only my sister followed me there, but you get the idea. So here is Easter Bunny Whitney, and I'm grateful that the costume is not as creepy as it could be, being an Easter Bunny and all.

This year, we had another bunny come visit us. The Shelbunny.

After coveting ears at the pet store and deciding NOT to buy them because Nathan would hate them, I made Shelby some yesterday and forced her to wear them, though Nathan gave her lots of treats for "putting up with mommy's crap." She really didn't mind them, though she HATED the basket. I'm not quite sure why she was so scared of it. It was filled with chocolate deliciousness, after all.

Book Review: Paper Wings

Today is April 20, and it's been 12 years since Columbine. Before I came to Lincoln, I never realized how much this one event had changed me--it essentially thrust me into the world of being a grown-up, much like September 11 did two years later. But being away from it and having people always ask me about it whenever I was asked where I was from, made me confront my feelings about it, and I ended up writing about the experience a lot in my English classes. This helped me understand my feelings, express them, and remember.

One of my favorite classes I took was Women in Literature (or a title close enough to that). I loved everything about the class--the books, the teacher, even my fellow students--and it was one of the few I really felt comfortable enough in to actually participate in class discussions. We read many great books by women authors, and one of my favorites was Paper Wings by Marly Swick. This book is about a girl in the 1960s and how her life was changed after the JFK assassination. The following is the response paper I wrote for that class after reading the book.

English 215J
Swick Response Paper
April 13, 2006

One of my favorite things about this class is that I am able to start every response paper with “I really liked this book.”  Each book that we read has made me think in a different way, which is exactly the reason that I like to read so much.  O Pioneers helped me realize what my life in Nebraska has come to mean to me.  American Indian Stories provided a new perspective of what life was like for Native Americans, and gave insight into the beliefs and ways of life that have since been lost. In The Awakening, I was able to see what life was like for women in the 1900s.  This work especially opened up my eyes to the roles women have in society today.   Their Eyes Were Watching God gives us a strong female character to relate to, while The Color Purple really helped me see a completely different life.

But out of all the books we have read, Paper Wings was a book that I was personally able to relate to more than any book I have ever read. Since I was able to relate to this book so much, I would like to do something a little different for my response paper and look at the major similarity between Suzanne’s life and my own. I feel as though the lifestyle I have lived, and the experiences I have had are a more clear similarity to look at.

I grew up in a neighborhood similar to that of Suzanne’s, and like Suzanne, I had a best friend from my neighborhood.  Bow Mar had an illusion of perfection and safety.  But like Suzanne, this image was shattered with one event.

On April 20. 1999, two students opened fire at Columbine High School, about 1 mile from my house and middle school, killing 13 people and themselves.  Twenty-four others were injured on that day, which was also the day that my generation was essentially forced to grow-up.  Our illusion of perfection was shattered, just as Kennedy’s assassination shattered the image of the perfect family in the 1960s. 

Like Suzanne, I found out about Columbine at school, but was not sent home early.  In fact, we were released to our parents 30 minutes after we were supposed to get out.  It was the only day my Dad ever picked me up from school; we normally just walked home.  I remember going home and watching the news for at least four straight hours.  While we had more than three channels, there was only one story on all of the stations, and I flipped from channel to channel, essentially taking everything in.  We were under lockdown for about three hours, completely clueless about what was going on.  I think that this explains my need for information after I got home. 

After Columbine, nothing and everything changed.  Despite the sheltered life I had before, I learned that bad things do happen, and impact you in ways that you don’t necessarily understand.  I know that for me, personally, it took leaving Littleton to realize how much Columbine really impacted me.  When I’m there, it’s as though nothing happened; when I’m here, everything comes rushing back to me every time I say where I’m from.  It brings back this feeling of guilt, essentially, to even be impacted by something that really had no direct impact on my life.  I knew no one who was killed or injured, and I never attended Columbine.  But it also brings back a feeling that I have come to realize is similar to fear.  I remember what it was like to be there, at my middle school, clueless about what was going on and scared.  But I also remember the sense of community that happened after: the memorials, the support system, the little things that people did to remind everyone that there is good in the world.

I think that Columbine, for me, and Kennedy’s assassination, for Suzanne, are very similar, because I see them as events that have marked our lives.  I think that I would have become the same person with the same experiences if Columbine hadn’t happened, or even if I wasn’t so close to it, and I think the same thing for Suzanne.  The realizations we had to come to in order to grow up would have happened eventually, I think, but because these events happened, we have something to stick them to.  These events didn’t essentially cause our lives to change, but simply serve as the exact time we started to grow up. 

After Columbine, I remember my best friend’s mom saying that this would be an event that would shape us, her children’s generation, just as the Kennedy assassination shaped her generation.  She said that anyone who was alive during Kennedy’s assassination would always be able to tell you exactly where he or she was during the assassination, and that it would be the same for our generation and Columbine.  I know that I will always remember where I was during the Columbine shootings, and I know that I will continue to learn and grow from the experience, much like Suzanne learned and grew from Kennedy’s assassination and the events that followed.

Living Room: South Wall

Today is the last day you'll see the paint job on the living room, and I have to warn you, I saved the least exciting wall for last. All we have is . . . a loveseat.

But while this wall is boring now, it's also a blank canvas. I'm currently working on framing some wedding photos and making a family tree of sorts.

Let me just tell you, the loveseat was my favorite craigslist find. I stumbled across it early enough in the day that there was no way anyone else had contacted the poster about it. Wrong. I was heartbroken (also, over-dramatic) but she said if the other person didn't want it, we could be next. And the stars aligned just right and the person who had the coveted first spot in line had wanted something that folded out into a bed, so we got it. I think we paid less than $50 for it and drove it home in the Matrix, which is a bigger car than it appears to be.

We plan to re-cover the existing cushions in a dark brown to match the chairs, and it's a good thing this was my plan all along, because I somehow managed to get paint on one of them. And when I went to flip it over, I discovered red paint on the other side, I'm assuming from the previous owners. Luckily, I won the sewing machine game yesterday and might actually be able to accomplish this project now. And I discovered a very gratifying hobby. But that's a post for another time.

Living Room: West Wall

All right, today we're going to continue the tour de living room once again. And I hate to do this to you, but I'm going to jump around. If our living room is a square, which it is, you saw the north wall Monday and the west wall Tuesday. And today, we're skipping over to the east wall, which was previously the accent wall, painted a metallic blue. This is where the bookshelves were originally.

We originally planned to keep this wall, until I found my perfect curtains, and decided that it would be neat if we extended our accent wall color into the kitchen. So we painted the former accent wall the same color as the rest of the room and moved the accent wall to the north wall. Got it?

This is not super exciting right now, and let me tell you, the table is never that clean. But let me tell you about that table. Nathan's dad built it for us when we moved in, and we designed it to work with the small space. It's long and skinny to fit on the wall, and it also has two big leaves for when we have company. Nathan also wanted his dad to build it a bit taller than normal tables so it was better for him. Alas, we did not consider the fact that making it taller would make it too tall for me, so a lot of the time I have to sit on my knees on the chair, even though my mom tells me how bad it is to do so. The other issue we ran into was that the custom size does not make tablecloth shopping easy. However, we learned that fabric shower curtains are the perfect size.

Even though the wall is bare now, I have been doing some projects this week (slash this morning) that still need to be hung up. I shall call them "travel art." Here are the three pieces all together, followed by a tutorial on how to make them. It's pretty easy, but there is math involved.

Let's start with the collage frames, because they are the easiest and really only take about 10 minutes each. You will need scissors, tape, a pencil, exacto knife (if you have one), pictures, a frame of some kind, and an atlas. I went thrifting with Nathan's mom to find an atlas and we had no luck, and then she realized they had an old one at home. So she brought me the atlas from 1977 and it was perfect.

Ideally, you want the maps to be the same approximate size as your frame or the matte you're going to use--you can see what I mean here.

First, you choose the map you want to use. I wanted to use the one of the entire country, but I only had one and two frames. So I decided on Nebraska and then spent a lot of time thinking about what other state had meaning for us. It took me longer than I'd like to admit to decide on Colorado, considering I lived there for the first 18 years/majority of my life, but it eventually came to me.

Next, you cut out your map pages with the exacto knife. Try to get the line as clean as possible, and I learned that if you turn the page and cut from the back on the second one, it's easier. You want to be able to match them up nicely.

Your third step should be taking the photos to the matte. I learned this the hard way; the first one I did, I had all of the maps taped down and then had to maneuver the pictures in just right. So learn from my mistakes. The photos I used are ones of us in the places we've been: California, Monte Carlo, Rome, Pisa, Dallas, Bahamas, and two South Dakota places, Mount Rushmore and Laura Ingalls Wilder's house. That's where the map idea came from--I wanted to show off the travel photos, but we haven't been 16 places yet and so I wanted something to fill in the empty space.

Once your photos are in place, put the map behind them, making sure the two pages line up. You'll probably have to cut away part of the map to make it work, but I found what needed to be cut was the close up of the bigger cities that are off to the side. Now, just tape the map down (regular tape is way better than double-stick tape, and put the frame back together. Repeat if necessary. You're done!

Now, onto the small frame. I originally had an L thing made to go in the middle, but then I came across a cool print on etsy (via younghouselove) that said "Let's Go Anywhere." I had planned on buying that, until I found these really cool travel-themed letter stickers at target yesterday that would let me do something similar and make it myself.

I googled travel quotes and thought of some on my own. The front runners were let's go everywhere (similar to the one above), love is an adventure, not all who wander are lost, let's go together, etc., etc. And then, when googling adventure, one of the more "popular" searches was "Up" adventure quotes, which turned out to be "Adventure is out there." The movie "Up" is one that we have not seen a gazillion times, but we went and saw it in the theater after looking at engagement rings, and out of all the Disney movies, I think it paints such a realistic view of marriage. We used the main theme song, married life, at our wedding, and Nathan liked the quote best, so I chose that to use.

I thought this would take me no time at all. Put some stickers on a piece of paper and be done with it. Wrong.

First, I cut a 12x12 piece of paper down to 8x10 using the fake photo that came with the frame as a template. This was a bad idea, because it actually was too big, as I found out later. So used the inside of the matte to trace a rectangle on your paper before you do anything else.

Then, I did some math. I spelled out my words and the measured the width of the corresponding stickers, accounting for spaces on the second line. Then I accounted for spaces between the letters, added it all up, and subtracted that number from the total width. Then I divided that number by two to get everything centered right. For example, my top line was 1.5 picas of space on either side--yes, I did everything in picas because it's easier for me to do the math.

I did similar math when trying to figure out how to center the words on the page. But instead of figuring out space on either side, I was trying to get the words centered. I measured the height of the letters, which was standard: 8 picas. Then I found the center of the page and made a mark. I accounted for two picas of space between the lines, so I added one pica above, then 8 for the letter height, and drew a line 9 picas above the middle, followed by a line 9 picas below the middle. I drew a line straight across--the top line was for the top of my first-line letters, the bottom line for the bottom-line letters. Got it? Here's a not-very-good shot of what it looked like, but it might help you visualize.

My method worked perfectly for the top line, because it was only one word. But I didn't account for enough space between the words on the bottom line, which I found out after the first word was placed. So I had to improvise, but everything still fit (thank goodness!). It just doesn't look as clean as the top line, but when it's hanging on the wall, you probably won't notice. At least that's what I tell myself.

Use a pink pearl eraser (my most essential craft supply) to erase all of your crazy marks and put the frame back together. Now it's ready to hang up. 

And you've made it through the longest. blog post. ever. See you tomorrow for our final wall reveal--I promise, next week I'll get back to writing about something other than just one room in my house!

Living Room, East Wall

Today we are on part two of our living room makeover. Here's a before shot of the wall as it was when we moved in.

And here it is now. The curtains you see are the inspiration for the entire room.

These are my favorite chairs ever. Not only are they comfortable but they are dpg-durable, the perfect size, and I think they look just right for what we wanted in the room, which was more seating but but small "footprint," if you will. The only problem with them is that I can never seem to get them angled just right. I need to get them perfect and put tape on the floor, I think.

The other thing that might change is the door color. Right now, we're (I'm) thinking it will be the same color as the wall, though Nathan wants it purple and my mom suggested white. And yes, Shelby did decide to chew up that rug, but we just left it. It's HER rug, where she takes her food and treats and toys and sleeps on. So it can stay chewed up for now.

Book Review: Let's Take The Long Way Home

We interrupt living room reveal week with a book review: Let's Take The Long Way Home by Gail Caldwell. This was a book that ended up on Amazon's Best Books of 2010 list, and as luck would have it, I found it at the library a few weeks ago.

One of the reasons I wanted to read it was because the premise reminded me of one of my favorite books, Truth and Beauty. Both books tell stories of a friendship between two writers who are kindred spirits, to borrow a word from Anne Shirley, or soulmates, to borrow a word from a reviewer. Both books also explore some more serious topics; in Let's Take The Long Way Home, it's alcoholism. And both books also explore what happens when one person is left behind.

The story of friendship in Let's Take The Long Way Home is moving, but what I liked most about this particular book that's different than Truth and Beauty is that the friendship also extends to dogs. Both women were writers, but more than that, both women were dog lovers. And this takes the friendship aspect present in both books to a whole new level, in that this kind of friendship, the soulmate friendship, can also apply to relationships with animals. The book does a really nice job of looking at how animals can become family members, best friends, and dear companions. And pets, too, can be left behind when lives end.

I think the best part of the book is the end, because you think you know what happens, where the story is going, and you do. But the story isn't over, the friendship isn't over, and this turns out to be the most tearjerking part of the book. We also see how to move on from tragedy and live a life that those who have left us would want us to.

Living Room: North Wall

So, I'm very excited to say that we're sooo close to having the living room done. All we have left to do is make/hang up some art. So I'm going to share the room in four parts, not to drag it out any longer, but just in case the two picture-less walls get finished in the next few days.

We'll start out with a before shot, and by before, I mean, way before. This is what the living room looked like when Nathan moved in. Nothing in this picture is in the room today. It's all been moved around, and you'll see the new furniture in the coming days. So, BEFORE:

And here is the after, though I'm only showing you one wall--the one with the picture on it in the before.

It was hard to get the full wall shot on this one (I needed a wide-angle lens or something) but I wanted to showcase the purple with the bookcases. I wanted our living room to be kind of like a library/dining room combo, because we have a full finished basement for our TV. So these bookshelves (which the previous owners actually left behind--score!) are probably my favorite thing. Aside from the fact they are black and always look dusty, that is. And so, really, they are the focus of this post, because I think what's actually on the shelves tells a story about us.

So, here's what we have:
The very top shelves have hurricanes from the wedding and some antique champagne glasses from my aunt, friend Leah, and Nathan's mom. I kind of love them all a lot.

Top shelf, left. The wooden box thing you see is actually a card catalog drawer from the wedding. It has our guest book cards, cards we've gotten in the mail from Christmas, birthdays, and other misc. notes, and our mail. There's a vase of flowers from the wedding that were in the hurricanes, and I need to find our wedding cake topper to go on the other side.

Second shelf, left. This is my vast collection of Laura Ingalls Wilder. I have almost every book in all of the series, but I'm missing some Charlottes, Carolines, and Marthas. The blue set is a vintage set I got from Nathan, and I have a replica of the china shepardess we bought in South Dakota.

Third shelf, left. COOKBOOKS. I am starting think I like reading cookbooks more than actually cooking.

Fourth shelf, left. Shelby's stuff all fits in those two buckets, and there are also some dog books there, including a dog cookbook.

Bottom shelf, left. This currently has library books, though I think I'm going to move some games up from downstairs to have on hand, at least the ones we play often.

Top shelf, right. Here, we have two more sets of champagne glasses from our wedding and engagement, a wedding photo, Willow Tree wedding gift, and a wedding gift from my aunt, a miniature library.

Second shelf, right. Photo albums, some of which are currently empty, but that will be fixed when Nathan gets his 100 free prints from Shutterfly in the mail.

Third shelf, right. These are all of the books we've gotten each other for Valentine's Day, and also a cool purple bowl we got as a wedding gift that just fits right in.

Fourth shelf, right. A set of Harry Potter books and other kids' books that might be useful should we ever entertain young visitors. I also like having some childhood favorites out for me.

Bottom shelf, right. This is Nathan's Husker and sports memorabilia--books, media guides, baseball cards, etc., etc.

There's your look at our living room, part one. Be back tomorrow with part two.

Trading Spaces, Whitney-Style

Does anyone remember the TLC show "Trading Spaces"? I was obsessed with this show in high school. For those unfamiliar with the concept, two neighbors swapped houses, were given a designer and a carpenter (such as Ty Pennington before he got all Extreme Makeover Home Edition) and had two days to redo a room in the other person's home. Most of the time, the rooms were wild and crazy and themed and people either really loved them or really hated them.

I did my own episode of "Trading Spaces" this week, and I even caught myself doing the corny "Ooooh!! when I opened the paint color and stirred it. And I never understood why the people were so tired and complainy by day two though. Until now. Painting and redoing a room is hard work, especially if you make a week of it. And honestly, it took me way longer than I thought to even get the room just painted.

But, it's done! The walls required two coats of primer and one and a half coats of paint. The other half was re-edging, which I have discovered is my least favorite part of painting. I also went ahead and painted the trim and the windows, so we wouldn't have to move all of the furniture out again. I mean, this is what the living room currently looks like:

Nope, we don't want to do that again. Luckily most of our furniture is mobile, thanks to being lightweight and those little sticky cloth pads that we put on the feet. The bookshelves were the only thing I needed Nathan's help with. And taking the curtains down, of course.

But back to the paint. I'm going to do some before and after photos when the room is put back together, but for now, I want to show you the colors we chose. Originally, as in way back in the day when Nathan moved in, we planned to keep the blue metallic wall and only repaint the weird coppery brown color walls something lighter. And then I fell in love with some curtains. I went online to Pottery Barn to get you a link, but they are no longer available, so you'll have to just check them out when I do the after photos. Basically, they have red and orange and purple and blue flowers on them, and I knew they were the perfect way to bring some purple (my favorite color) into the house.

I kind of love Martha Stewart, so of course, her paint was my first stop. And I found the perfect color there, Purple Agate. The best part of Martha's paints is that they have coordinating colors crossed referenced all over the place, and one of the grayey-beige colors we had picked out already turned out to be a match: Sharkey Gray. Nathan was not quite sold on the gray idea, so we also chose a lighter white recommended with the Purple Agate, Pink Sea Salt. And then, we tested them.

We know that we should look at them in different light, etc., etc., but really, all we did was see if we liked them. And as it turns out, the gray looked more brown than gray, and the pink was much too light. So, those are the colors we decided on, and to hold you over until I put the room back together, here's a preview of how it turned out. This is where the two walls meet. And now I'm off to finish up! I want my house back to normal, and I think Nathan and Shelby want this week's episode of Trading Spaces to be over, too.

Spring Has Sprung

I've noticed that spring is finally starting to show up in my everyday life, and it's about time. The grass in our backyard is turning greener, and yesterday's weather was a flashback to Miami (or close to it, anyway). The tree in our front yard is blooming, and I'm hoping the recently replanted lilac will, too. Nathan started cleaning up the backyard yesterday, and soon it won't be long before the garden is in.

The only one who seems less than enthused about the weather is Shelby. Sure, she likes that she gets more walks that last longer, but she gets hot very easily. She is also having a hard time understanding what it means to be out in the backyard to play. Yesterday, she stayed outside while Nathan worked and did some digging, so maybe that helped.

But the best part of spring's arrival is that I was finally able to paint the living room this weekend. I've wanted to paint since last year, but we were going to wait to paint until we redid the floors. Turns out, I didn't want to wait that long, and all winter the walls were taunting me. I have to just say one thing here: When we looked at this house, we were blown away by how nice it looked. The previous owners did a wonderful job making it pretty. But once we moved our stuff in and bought some new furniture to better meet our needs, I just didn't think it worked as well. Most rooms we kept the same or only adjusted slightly--the bathroom, the two guest bedrooms, the basement--but the living room, master bedroom, and kitchen just weren't us.

So I am pulling a "trading spaces" this week and trying to finish the room, because I just can't wait to see how it all turns out. Yesterday, I painted three walls. Today, I'll be repainting the trim. On the agenda tomorrow is priming the little hallway and painting the accent wall in the living room. Wednesday will be more trim and painting the hallway, and on all days, I'll be doing some projects and putting things back to the way they were. And blogging about it, of course, so be sure to come back to see me and check up on my progress.

Book Review: Nook Books

I actually downloaded six books to my nook from the library, but didn't get through all of them. The two I didn't get two are Reading Jackie and Ten Days In The Hills, but I'm going to definitely try and read them before my three weeks are up!

Here are the four I did read and my thoughts on them.

Salting Roses: This was definitely a quick, fun read--it was about a girl who discovers that she is the sole heir of an estate worth millions, and I can't go into much more detail because I don't want to ruin it. I liked the main character because she wasn't a stereotypical lead character, and I thought the plot was entertaining, but I wasn't totally in love with it. However, if you're looking for something light, it isn't bad.

Wench: This was a historical fiction, set during the Civil War, about a resort where white men summer with their black female slave mistresses. I thought it was definitely an interesting premise, and I think the descriptions were very realistic and made you feel like you were there, but I didn't like it as much as other books I've read set during the same time period. (Note: If you are looking for something of this time period that is very well-written, in a very dark way, check out Valerie Martin's Property. This is a book that I got at the literary seminar I went to and heard her speak about, and I really recommend it.)

That Old Cape Magic: This was a book I downloaded that I wasn't sure about. I thought the plot sounded interesting, but I had read Empire Falls and didn't love it, so I was skeptical. But I actually really enjoyed the book because it felt like real life. It discussed relationships in a non-fluffy way. Griffin is a husband, a son, a father, a person, and the books takes you through how he is all of these things and how each of the other relationships affects the other. It also looks at how different places, for instance, the cape, becomes a part of these relationships.

Alice I Have Been: The whole time we were in the Bahamas, I kept thinking of Wide Sargasso Sea, which I read my senior year, and I'm not quite sure why, because I hadn't really thought of it since. Maybe it was the setting that I was in that was reminding me of it.

I had wanted to read Alice I Have Been for a while, and I thought it would be similar--a book imagining what a literary character's life was like. I was definitely wrong, and I'm so glad. The book is a fictionalized, yet heavily researched, account of the woman that inspired Alice in Wonderland. When I first started the book, I expected it to be light and happy. It was the total opposite, to the effect that I thought I had to be imagining some of the dark things that were hinted at but never said. And honestly, I think my surprise to find these made the book very good. It was also well-written, and I think the characters were three dimensional and really stood on their own. There was also this fantastic passage that I bookmarked to share with you.

Finally, Mr. Dodgson told me that he had started to write it down. He said that he had been thinking about it all the time, fortunately, so he hadn't forgotten any of the particulars. He said that writing it down was quite different . . . when you write things down, he explained, they sometimes take you places you hadn't planned . . .

If it were true in stories, it was also true in life.

I thought this gave some insight into the book, the characters, and the overall process of writing. How writing things makes them different, how maybe you're imagining things in your life that may not actually be happening, and how you can't actually be aware of how your choices affect the rest of your life, in a way you hadn't planned.

And so, I think my ereading was quite successful, because even though I didn't love everything I read, I was able to explore some books I may not have chosen otherwise.

Vacation eReading

I've always been obsessive about packing for a vacation. I've gotten better lately--generally I pack only a couple of days before rather than a week before--but it still involves a lot of checklists. (I am having a flashback to the episode of Friends where Monica and the gang go to London. Anyone remember the check! check!?)

While I have a generic checklist saved on my computer that I adjust according to where I'm going and the weather of said location (I know, I know), I always have the most trouble figuring out my books--which ones, how many I'll need. This requires more thought, because I'd hate to lug too many books through numerous airports or get stuck without having enough books to read.

Enter the nook. When eReaders first became popular, I thought that they would be the perfect solution to the above problem. I could download as many as I wanted onto the lightweight device and carry it in my purse, rather than lugging three paperbacks or changing books out of my suitcase.

I have to admit, I haven't used my nook very much since getting it for Christmas. Mostly, it's just easier for me to pick up books at the library and read them without worrying about battery life or maneuvering the touchscreen just right to turn the page. So I had to get the nook ready for the Bahamas, too.

My first step was getting a case for it. I thought about making one quick, but because I have yet to conquer the sewing machine and also wanted something a little more durable, I bought one. Before I even had a nook, I coveted this cover, but it wasn't available in the nook color size. So I settled on this one. It has a durable front and back, yet isn't heavy to carry around, and I like that the way the elastic works. It's quick and easy to open and close it.

And then came the fun part: the books. Rather than picking out multiple paperbacks and having Nathan hide them from me before we left so I wouldn't read them beforehand like my mom used to do for me, I pulled out the nook and started browsing B&N's selection. I had a gift card leftover from my birthday to use on ebooks, but I just couldn't bring myself to buy anything (because I'm cheap . . .). I downloaded some free books that I've been meaning to read--Jane Eyre and Great Expectations--but I also wanted some traditional beach reads.

So, rather than buying anything, I went over to my local library's Web site. Ours is one of the many that have started offering a catalog of ebooks, and I'd browsed it before and found a lot of titles that piqued my interest. And the software seemed easy enough to work.

Well, it was easy, as long as you can read and follow directions. That is not my strong suit, however, so I ended up spending an hour trying to manipulate the software to work on my own, and five minutes getting it to work after reading the directions. Lesson learned.

And so, the nook and I were reading to go. And I have to say, after reading on it so much last week, I'm definitely hooked. I loved being able to carry so many books at a time in my purse, and I even took it up to the martini bar with me while Nathan played in the poker tournament. The battery life was great--I charged it every chance I got at the airport, but it didn't even come close to running out. The only con I can see with traveling with it is that you have to turn it off during takeoff and landing, and it takes longer to get to 10,000 feet than you notice otherwise. So, bring a pen and be prepared to do the sudoku or crossword in the on-flight magazine.

Now, you might be wondering which books I downloaded onto my nook. Check back tomorrow for my full review(s).