Review: The Help

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



LOVE LOVE LOVE. I literally could not put this book down. My poor son was neglected for a few days...



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Review: My Name is Mary Sutter

My Name is Mary Sutter by Robin Oliveira

My rating: 1 of 5 stars



I really had to force myself to finish this book and am not sure why I bothered. When I get really into a book I FLY through it, so it should say something that I had to renew this one twice. I think the main problem I had with this book was that it felt too much like reading for history class. But I suppose that's what historical fiction is supposed to be like ...

Mary Sutter's story is really interesting, but it is interspersed with snippets from the perspectives of Dorothea Dix, Abraham Lincoln, and other civil war figures. I got lost in battle descriptions and many times found myself reading the same paragraph over and over again. I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone who doesn't LOVE United States history.



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More Cooking and My Birthday

Honey Mustard Pork Chops and Twice-Baked Sweet Potatoes

Trevor loved this meal.  I don't think these two things went together very well, but I wanted to try them both, and they were both delicious .. so why not?  I've never liked pork chops, but these were pretty fantastic.  And EASY.  The potatoes were a bit of work and took a long time to cook (obviously) but if I plan ahead it's not a big deal.  It just means I have to start thinking about dinner at 4pm instead of 5pm.

I also made applesauce muffins this week.  They're so-so, probably because they're healthy.  I'm realizing, however, that while I want to keep trying new recipes, I don't have much to say about it.  I follow the recipe, it tastes good, or it doesn't, and Trevor tells me whether or not I should ever cook it again.  The End.

In other news:  Today is my birthday!  Trevor got me Wii Fit, which I've been wanting for EONS.  I'm so excited!!  I got it all set up only to have the little Wii Fit narrator tell me that I'm obese and then my Mii character proceeded to grow very large hips.  Awesome.  I'm more embarrassed about the fact that my legs are sore from 20 minutes of trying it out.  Yikes, I'm out of shape.  That slalom slope is intense.

To celebrate my birthday (and the fact that according to Wii Fit I need to lose 72 pounds), we got take-out from Chili's and Trevor made Carrot Cupcakes.  I have THE best husband in the world.  YUM.

Maxwell gave me a pretty great present too:  two poops today instead of the usual one!  Good job, little buddy.  Good job. 

Adventures in Cooking: Week 1

I recently decided that it would be a good idea for me to try a new dinner recipe at least once a week; my repertoire consists of tacos, taco salad, chop suey (Chopped Suzy?), macaroni and cheese, spaghetti, any other variety of pasta, frozen fish fillets, hamburgers, scrambled or fried eggs, French toast, and frozen skillet meals.  Parents Magazine makes it sound really easy to cook something clever every night of the work week.  After reading this article, I told Trevor I was going to try an entire week of new dinners.  We both enjoyed a hearty laugh and agreed that one new meal a week would suffice for now.

This week:  Honey-Hoisin Chicken with Rice

I give it 5 stars for being really easy to prepare - especially if you make the sauce and cook the rice ahead of time (which I did during Maxwell's 30-Minute Power Nap).  The sauce is really delicious and different from anything else I ever cook, so it was a nice change.  They recommend serving it with a green salad with "carrot coins"  ...  whatever.  I left out the cash and used grape tomatoes and cucumbers instead.  I also didn't actually use chicken cutlets.  I just cut up chicken breasts into small-ish chunks and called it goodnuff.  Cutlets probably would've been better. 

Trevor gave the meal 4 stars.  I asked him what would earn 5 stars and he said Chicken Tetrazzini.  Well Trevor, Chicken Tetrazzini is a pain in the rear to prepare, so I'll just take my 4 stars thankyouverymuch. Maxwell was unable to partake of this meal, but I believe he fully enjoyed his Squash Puree.

So Week 1 of trying something new was pretty successful.  If anyone has suggestions for EASY and fairly healthy meals for me to try in the upcoming weeks, please let me know!

Trevor Gets Stuck On The Roof

At about 6 o'clock this evening, I noticed two girls peaking through our front door.  I answer the door, wondering if it's Girl Scout Cookie Season already.  "Um, hi, there's some guy on the roof and he said to tell his wife to come talk to him ..???"  I laughed and thanked them, and headed out front to see what Trevor needed.  Yes, I knew he was on the roof, so that part didn't surprise me.  I figured he wanted me to toss up a snack or something.  But, rather than continue writing my own blog post about today's adventure, I've copied and pasted Trevor's own words from Facebook.  Partly because I'm lazy, and partly because first-hand accounts are always best.

So, we want to watch TV in our bedroom, but we can't get any reception inside since our house in brick. Then I realize that there's a giant antenna on our roof! Awesome! I can just bring a cable up there and hook up to that (it's our landlord's, so we're not stealing it from anyone). Great, so now all I have to do is climb out of the attic window onto the roof, shimmy up the front, and down the back side to the chimney where the antenna is attached. Well the window is pretty tiny, so I almost didn't fit out in the first place. Plus, the front of the roof is really steep (about 60 degrees from horizontal). About 3/4 of the way up I thought, "I don't know if I'll be able to get back down from here." But I had come that far and wasn't going to give up before I saw what was what. The back of the roof is much less steep (about 30 degrees), so I had no problem back there. Except I got to the antenna and realized that it's at least ten years old and all the wires connecting it had been cut! As in, there was no way I could connect my coaxial cable. It was at this point when I climbed back to the peak and looked down the front of the roof that I realized this story only had one of two endings: either I'm going off the front into the maple tree (a la Chevy Chase or Tim Allen), or I'm waiting for the next person to wander by my house to ask them to tell Ashley that I was stuck. I chose the latter, and ended up climbing down the ladder provided by the fire company. Of course, all the neighbors saw the fire truck pull up and came out to see what was going on. Ashley went around assuring them that everything was fine, "My husband's just stuck on the roof." She got some good pictures, too, so you should all check them out.

Visit from Gramma

Mom is here (finally) and I am soaking up every second!  Yesterday we wandered around TJMaxx and Wal-Mart (oh yeah, we're classy), with Maxwell being a little angel in his stroller.  He took a couple catnaps, but mostly just gazed up in amazement at all the drool-worthy items we were debating buying.  I got a lovely canister for my coffee; I'm quite enamored with it.

Today is beautifully sunny and chilly - the perfect weather for strolling around town.  We'll probably walk over to the Dickinson campus, check out the shops on Pomfret street, and perhaps mosey by the library to drop off some books.

Tomorrow we are heading to Lancaster to the Whoopie Pie Festival.  Trevor has been talking about this since before we moved down here.  He's more than a little excited about the Whoopie Pie Eating Contest. He says if it's free to enter, "then even if you lose, you're a winner ... because you get free whoopie pies!"  I guess I can't argue with that logic.   We may have to get Maxwell's face painted while we're there, just because.

Review: No Angel

No Angel by Penny Vincenzi

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



I really enjoyed this story and the characters, but I don't know if I enjoyed it enough to bother with the rest of the trilogy. We'll see; I have a pretty long "to read" list at the moment, and they definitely don't make the top five.

Unfortunately, for a book centered around a family entrenched in the publishing world, it didn't have a very good editor. Misspelled words, missing punctuation, uncapitalized words, incorrect pronouns (he instead of she?!); it drove me mad!! The previous reader (I got the book from the library) had actually corrected several of the mistakes. I am tempted to read the book again just to fix the rest.



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