Amanda from Seattle

Burts Bees Shimmer equals puffed up Lips!!

2012-02-09T20:45:00.001-08:00

I love Burts Bees lip balm. I use it all the time. And the other night I could not find a single tube in the house, so instead, I used what I thought was the next best thing, the Burts Bees Shimmer.

The one on the left in this photo that has some red color to it. Well, I walk back into the living room and Ryan asks me what's wrong with my lips. "They look all puffed up," he says. "It's just chapstick," I say. "I don't like it," Ryan says. "Looks like Clown Lips," he says. Seriously, I thought that puffed up lips was what guys wanted. After all, why do all the movie stars get their lips pumped up? Why is Angelina Jolie so popular? Supposedly, it is all about the pouty lips. But not in my house. My boyfriend likes plain old chapstick lips. :-) Good, cause that is what I like too!

Monday's Postcard: Peabody Ducks

2012-02-06T06:58:00.000-08:00

The Peabody Hotel in Memphis is famous for it's ducks who live on the roof and march through the hotel to frolic in the fountain in the lobby.

Books I read in January 2012

2012-02-04T14:47:00.000-08:00

I know you guys were wondering if you would see this again this year!
I really wanted to quit posting my reading list, but I had emails from so many people asking me to continue.

Writing the little "reviews" of each book was so much work and that was what I was resisting, so this year, I am not going to review EVERY book that I read. I will give you the list and perhaps write a bit about the books that were my favorites each month.

Also, I want to add the books that I abandon. These are books that I start that I never finish. There were many every month last year. Often I get a recommendation and I start the book and I don't like it, so I don't bother to finish it. So this year, you will get that list too.

Photo is from Kansas City, KS public library.

Miracle Cure by Harlan Coben

The Cutie by Donald Westlake
First Cases ed. by Robert J. Randisi (short stories)
Make the Bread, Buy the Butter by Jennifer Reese (library) ***great, I recommend to my foodie friends!!
The Boy in the Suitcase by Lene Kaaberbol (library) dark thriller

Haunting Jasmine by Anjali Banerjee (library) romance with a literary twist very cute
The Distant Hours by Kate Morton (library)
The 13th Hour by Richard Doetsch (library)-time travel thriller
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks By Rebecca Skloot (library)
The Piano Teacher by Janice Y. K. Lee (library)-- set in Hong Kong, if you like Empire of the Sun/Lisa See etc.
The Faculty Club by Danny Tobey (library) fantasy
Walk the Blue Fields by Claire Keegan (library)-short stories
The Exile by Diana Gabaldon (graphic novel)--cartoons for adults :-)

Nancy Drew The Legend at Miner's Creek by Carolyn Keene

Nancy Drew The Legend of The Emerald Lady by Carolyn Keene
Three Day Town by Margaret Maron (library) one of my favorite authors, but I prefer when her protagonist is in NC. In this one, they visit NYC.
What the Night Knows by Dean Koontz
Swamplandia by Karen Russell
Clemmie by John D MacDonald

The Total Tragedy of a Girl named Hamlet by Erin Dionne (library)-YA fun

Murder One by Robert Dugoni (library)

Abandoned:

Veracity by Laura Bynum (library)--scifi fantasy and I just got tired of this stuff too, couldn't finish and got other books from the library that I wanted to read more!
Smoking Poppy by Graham Joyce--just got tired of this author

21 books, Hard to pick a favorite.

Wild Card: Yosemite

2012-02-02T17:46:00.000-08:00

Today's wild card is from my good friends, Diane and John Steele. They were visiting Yosemite last year and sent me this gorgeous card. I just love these retro advertising posters for the National Parks!!

Monday's Postcard: Point Pleasant, West Virginia

2012-01-30T06:53:00.000-08:00

Point Pleasant, West Virginia, this park is the site of the first battle of the American Revolution! I received this postcard from my Granny.

Monday's Postcard: Sebastian Inlet, Florida

2012-01-23T06:50:00.000-08:00

Florida is where you want to be in January! I love the beaches along the east coast of Florida. I could walk them for miles.

Wild Card: Isle of Wight

2012-01-18T17:41:00.000-08:00

This wild card is from my good friends, Slade and Tammy Lewis when they visited the Isle of Wight in 1991! A blast from the past! They were having a wonderful time and waiting to board a ferry when they wrote this card to me. Thanks you guys!!

Monday's Postcard: La Ceiba

2012-01-16T06:43:00.000-08:00

I received this postcard from Ryan in 2002 while he was in Honduras learning Spanish.

Monday's Postcard: Snowmass

2012-01-09T06:48:00.000-08:00

I received this postcard from my parents while they were vacationing at Snowmass in 2005.

New Year's Resolution: December Update

2012-01-03T18:31:00.000-08:00

My final post for my reading in 2011! This is a used bookstore in Chester, UK. When I was stuck in Manchester, England during the Icelandic Volcano eruption in April of 2010, I traveled to Chester to do a little sightseeing and of course I visited all the used bookstores!

From Those Wonderful Folks Who Gave You Pearl Harbor by Jerry Della Femina (library)
Mennonite in a Little Black Dress by Rhoda Janzen
Dreamside by Graham Joyce
The American Heiress by Daisy Goodwin (library)
The God of Animals by Aryn Kyle (library)
The Ballad of Tom Dooley by Sharyn McCrumb (library)
This Beautiful Life by Helen Schulman (library)
Next to Love by Ellen Feldman (library)
A Good Hard Look by Ann Napolitano (library)
Maine by Courtney J. Sullivan (library)
The Maid by Kimberly Cutter (library)
11/22/63 by Stephen King
The Accident by Linwood Barclay (library)
Furious Love by Sam Kashner and Nancy Schoenberger (library)
The Mysterious North ed. by Dana Stabenow (short stories)

The Partly Cloudy Patriot by Sarah Vowell

I am a huge fan of the TV show Mad Men and 'From Those Wonderful Folks..." is about NYC advertising agencies in the glory days of the 60's and 70's. Like the book, "Coffee, Tea or Me" which was about the glamorous airline business of that era, "From Those Wonderful Folks..." tells about the advertising world from a fellow who lived it. If you like Mad Men, give it a whirl.

Mennonite in a Little Black Dress is a memoir about a girl who was raised Mennonite, but rebelled a bit. And how her family and her faith are there for her when she is in her forties and getting divorced and hitting rough patches in her life. I was reluctant to read this thinking that she was going to just be all about rebelling and trashing her upbringing. But it was refreshing to hear her acknowledging that it was not such a bad way to grow up. And she explains the difference between Mennonite and Amish :-)

Dreamside, another creepy book by Graham Joyce and I think I am getting tired of his stuff. I really liked Silent Land and had such high hopes for his other books, but I am just not enjoying them as much. Dreamside is a bunch of college kids who get involved in some dream experiments and the line between the dream world and the real world is dissolved. Odd stuff.

The American Heiress is a romance novel plain and simple. It was pretty good. But basically a bit of fluff.

The God of Animals is another "young girl coming of age" novel. The protagonist lives on her family horse ranch and there is all sorts of dysfunctional family stuff going on, I enjoyed it quite a lot.

The Ballad of Tom Dooley is a fictionalized account of the true story that inspired the song. Loved it.

This Beautiful Life is a cautionary tale of the damage that can be done by sending videos over the internet. In these days of bullying and facebook and everyone's personal business being sent over the internet for the whole world to access, it is worth thinking about the things that could go wrong. Very similar to another book I read this year, "Want to Go Private?" by Sarah Darer Littman Very Good

Next to Love is a novel about WWII, the women who are left behind when their husbands go off to war and how they respond when their men come back...or not. It reminded me of the Elizabeth Berg novels about the same time period. So if you like Elizabeth Berg, I would recommend this one too.

A Good Hard Look is a southern novel about Flannery O'Connor. It is a fictionalized account of the last years of her life through the eyes of her neighbors in Georgia. I enjoyed it more than I do O'Connor's own novels. Very melodramatic.

Maine is one of those sprawling novels about a dysfunctional family. It was recommended to me as a great beach read. It features a large Irish family full of alcoholics and repressed emotions. They have a summer house in Maine that features in the plot. I enjoyed it.

The Maid is about Joan of Arc and I enjoyed it. Another historical figure that I did not know that much about (like Cleopatra, who I read about earlier this year). So it was good to learn about her.

11/22/63 is the newest Stephen King novel. I loved it. Of course I am a huge fan. I got this one for Christmas and read it immediately. I loved the time travel part about life in late 1950's early 1960's. It got a little boring for me when it delved into the minute details of Lee Harvey Oswald's life prior to his actions on 11/22/63. For those that do not like horror or are afraid of the horror aspect of Stephen King, there was not anything worse than the "everyday horror" of men who beat their wives and children. The only supernatural part of the book was the ability to time travel. And yes, I read it in about 8 hours. I can't be sure, probably less. I was at work and had to keep getting up to answer call bells and get people drinks etc. :-) I read it in two days, first day on a 4 1/2 hour redeye flight and the next day a couple of hours while waiting to go to work and then about 2 hours on the 5 hour flight back to the West Coast, After all, I was WORKING! They don't pay me to sit around reading all day (if only!! :-)

The Accident is Linwood Barclay's latest thriller. I liked it a lot, his books move quickly and get you swept up immediately in the story.

Furious Love is the story of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. The Original "Brangelina" who originated the Paparazzi. Before them scandal was the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Taylor and Burton lived their romance totally in the public eye. They got together at the end of the Hollywood studio system and the beginning of the swinging 60's. A fascinating story.

Mysterious North is a collection of short stories about Alaska lots of famous mystery authors contributed. Sue Henry, John Straley, Anne Perry and more. I love to read these on the plane, I can read a story and then do some work then read another story.

Another Sarah Vowell book, this one is a collection of different essays on all kinds of subjects. I kept wanting to read stuff aloud to Ryan.

Only 16 books read this month. 250 books read in 2011.

favorites were:

The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein

At Home: A short history of private life by Bill Bryson

The Borrower by Rebecca Makkai

Buried Prey by John Sandford

Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell

InZanesville by JoAnn Beard

and 11/22/63 by Stephen King

Monday's Postcard: Rome

2012-01-02T06:46:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year! The Weekly postcards on Monday's were so popular last year, I have decided to do them again in 2012. The Spanish Steps in Rome, one of my favorite layovers.

And don't forget, you can now subscribe to my blog and get emails each time there is a new post.

Monday's Postcard: Munich

2011-12-26T06:30:00.000-08:00

The Christmas Markets in Germany, lovely and the epitome of Christmas spirit!
It's been a great year of postcards and I hope you guys have enjoyed it as much as I have, Have a great new year!

Monday's Postcard: The Christmas House, Hampstead, NC

2011-12-19T06:30:00.000-08:00

This shop in North Carolina was the first I ever knew that sold Christmas items all year round. Folks would come from miles around to shop here and they always had the latest and most extensive collection of ornaments and decorations. This was fancy Christmas before it got fancy! It opened in the late 70's and unfortunately burned down, but I still have fond memories of shopping here.

Monday's Postcard: Stratford Upon Avon

2011-12-12T06:30:00.000-08:00

When I was in England in 2006 for my 40th birthday, Ryan and I kept getting bumped off airplanes and the gate agents even told us not to come back for several days, so we traveled to Stratford to see the Shakespeare sites there.

Our Christmas Present: A New Deck

2011-12-08T13:38:00.000-08:00

It appears that our old deck was never maintained. The deck gets constant exposure to the sun and rain here in the PNW. Just walking around on the deck and you could hear and feel it splintering and giving out beneath your feet. The wood was splitting and warped. We had fungus growing on the boards. It was not a matter of cleaning and resealing or even repairing the deck, it would have to be totally replaced. We researched our options and decided to go with a composite deck instead of another wood deck. The composite decking is made from recycled materials and it is lower maintenance than the traditional wood decking. We still have to keep it clean, but we will not have to seal or stain it every year or so. And it has a 20 year warranty.
So the first day of the installation of the new deck was devoted to ripping out the old deck and cleaning out the space beneath. The deck rests on an area of torchdown roofing and there are drains located in the two far corners of this area. Once the deck is in place, we will have access to the drain areas so that we can keep them free of debris throughout the year. (a type of maintenance that was previously never done as far as I can tell!)
Day two of the Deck rebuild was spent putting down the new decking and repairing a leak that was flooding the outdoor storage closet (the leak was coming from the deck area above us!) We had to get the condo association involved to access the deck in the condo above me and it was then that we found out that we had certain criteria to follow when putting in the new deck flooring.
Despite several emails and phone calls I had made to the condo association trying to find out anything about putting in a new deck and I was always told that the deck "was the responsibility of the owner" Okay, then I can pretty much do whatever I want....well it seems that that is not the case. There needs to be access to the drains underneath the deck flooring and they were not happy with the way that my contractor had proposed to do this, so we were going to have to rip up the work already in progress and redo the flooring design. Also I was going to have a built in bench/storage. This was also going to have to be reworked. It would have to be totally portable and able to be moved, not an actual part of the deck. So annoying when I had been emailing and calling for months prior trying to get just this sort of information. AAaaaargh.

So it just added another couple of days to our project. But now we have dry storage in the outside closet and two lovely benches on the deck, (that can move), access to the drains below and fantastic twinkling icicle lights dripping off the eaves. :-) We will be enjoying sunsets for many years to come!

Many thanks to Mike and Jason at UrbanBuild for doing such a great job! I highly recommend them for any rebuilding, remodeling or handyman jobs that you might have, no job is too big or too small or too complicated for these guys to tackle. I will be consulting them when it is time to redo my bathrooms.

Monday's Postcard: Colorado

2011-12-05T06:30:00.000-08:00

This is a card from the Continental Divide. I traveled to Colorado in 1996 with my Granny and took her up to the Continental Divide. We had a wonderful time visiting old gold rush ghost towns and antique shops. We had high tea at the Brown Palace and toured the Molly Brown House.

New Year's Resolution: November Update

2011-12-03T13:06:00.000-08:00

Here I am at Valley of Fire outside Las Vegas, Nevada trying to reenact the cover to a Nancy Drew book!

Pretty close representation I think!!
I am standing in front of the rock formation that is in the artwork. Although you can't see all of it in the photo. We should have been further away to get it right.

Here are the books I read in November:

Sammy Keyes and the Night of Skulls by Wendelin Van Draanen
Indigo by Graham Joyce
The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh (library)
The Ice Princess by Camilla Lackberg (library)
The Best American Essays ed. by David Foster Wallace (library)
Boys and Girls Like You and Me by Aryn Kyle (library)
The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka (library)
The Preacher by Camilla Lackberg (library)
You Know when the Men are Gone by Siobhan Fallon (library)
Dexter by Design by Jeff Lindsay (library)
The Good Wife by Elizabeth Buchan
Inside Scientology by Janet Reitman (library)
Destiny of the Republic by Candice Millard (library)
Resistance by Owen Sheers (library)
Tooth Fairy by Graham Joyce
Naughty in Nice by Rhys Bowen

What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarity (library)
Smoking Seventeen by Janet Evanovich (library)
The Story of Charlotte's Web by Michael Sims (library)
Loose Diamonds and other things I 've lost (and found) along the way by Amy Ephron

In honor, of Nancy Drew we start off this month with a modern girl's series book. Night of Skulls is a really fun book set during Halloween and All Souls Day. Lots of great info about All Souls Day and Day of the Dead traditions and a fun mystery starring Sammy Keyes, a modern day Nancy Drew.

Graham Joyce was recommended by Stephen King and I read "The Silent Land" last month and really liked it. Indigo was weird, I think I liked Silent Land better. I did not find Indigo as creepy/scary as I had hoped. But I will be reading more Graham Joyce. Indigo is about how the color indigo does not exist, but everyone knows about it, so it must have existed at some point...and perhaps it is a portal to invisibility or another dimension or something. Like I said, it was weird.

The Language of Flowers is about a girl growing up in the foster care system. It reminded me a bit of White Oleander (the descriptions of foster homes and foster parents etc) I enjoyed it and would recommend it. It is the first book from this author.

The Ice Princess and The Preacher are by Camilla Lackberg. She is the number one best seller in Sweden and is just now gaining an audience in the US (after the success of the Stieg Larsson Girl books). She has the same English translator as Larsson. Murder mysteries, very dark.

The Best American Essays included a story by JoAnn Beard (InZanesville and Boys of My Youth) When I say that I am going to read everything that someone has written, I am not joking. I will even try to find old copies of New Yorker or Vanity Fair to track down stories by authors that I really like. I am like a reading stalker that way! Some of the essays I had read when they were first published in New Yorker, and I quite enjoyed one by Molly Peacock and will be looking for her book.

Boys and Girls Like You and Me is a collection of short stories. I liked it a lot. Chick lit stuff, I got the recommendation from Elle Magazine. And I will be reading more of this author.

The Buddha in the Attic is about "picture brides" brought from Japan to the US during the early 1900's. If you like Lisa See's books about the Asian experience, you might enjoy this one too.

You know when the Men are Gone is a short story collection about the soldiers who leave for the war in Iraq and Afghanistan and the women they leave behind in base housing and their families and the experiences they have when they return home on leave etc. etc. I liked it.

Dexter by Design is one of the latest Dexter books by Jeff Lindsay, these are the basis of the Showtime TV show. Of course, you get a lot more of Dexter's internal life in the books and they have departed from the books in the TV show plots. But if you like gory serial killer stuff, you ought to give these a try. They are really interesting. I hate to say they make murder and mayhem fun, but I guess they do...

Inside Scientology. I am always fascinated by other religions. Especially when they are in the news as much as Scientology. I don't really know any more about Scientology than I did when I started the book! I do know more about it's history and L. Ron Hubbard. But I guess in order to really get to know Scientology, you have to pay the money!! What I got out of this book is that Scientology is basically a business in the business of making money.

Elizabeth Buchan also wrote a book called "Revenge of the Middle-Aged Woman". I enjoyed that one and I enjoyed this one too. Some folks might think this is the basis of the TV series The Good Wife. The only similarities are that the wife of the title is a politician's wife and yes the politician did cheat on her, but in the book there is no scandal, no "stand by your man" stuff. It is more about how the wife gives up her life and goals to be a public partner for her husband. When their daughter is leaving the nest and her father passes away, the wife is at a cross roads and feels the need to change things.

Destiny of the Republic continues my obsession with President Garfield. After reading Assassination Vacation, I became intrigued with Garfield and wanted to know more. Ryan and I had the opportunity to visit his home and grave site in Ohio this year! This book is about his brief presidency and assassination. I enjoyed it very much. It is especially poignant that he could have survived the gun shot if the Doctors had known more about germs and the importance of sterile instruments.

Resistance is one of those 'Alternate History" books. What if Germany had invaded England in WWII? This story looks at a small community in Wales that is occupied by German soldiers. I enjoyed it a lot.

Naughty in Nice was yet another fun murder mystery about the Lady Georgiana Rannoch, 30th-something (or is it 40th-something ?) in line for the throne of England. The Queen has her spying on her son and Wallis Simpson, this time on the French Riviera and she is to retrieve a stolen snuff box. Historically accurate details about Coco Chanel are in this outing!

Tooth Fairy is another creepy book by Graham Joyce. This one is about a Childhood Tooth Fairy who is an evil type of fairy godmother to one boy in England. The boy sees the Tooth Fairy, very much against "the rules" or the laws of nature or something and then continues to see this gremlin for the rest of his adolescence. Very weird.

What Alice Forgot is a really fun Chick Lit book. The premise is that Alice hits her head and does not remember the last 10 years of her life. It is 2008 and she is in the midst of a custody battle over her three children while divorcing her husband. She thinks it is 1998 and she is still pregnant with her first child and still madly in love with her husband. Awkwardness ensues. I liked it a lot and would read more by this author.

Another Stephanie Plum book by Janet Evanovich. I used to really look forward to these, but it is all the same jokes again and they are just starting to really run together in my head. Stephanie never grows up, her situation never changes and I am getting tired of that. There were fun parts, but they are the same situations that we have seen in previous books. So I didn't laugh as much, didn't laugh as hard as in the past. I am getting tired of these.

The Story of Charlotte's Web is about E. B White. I loved it! It is basically a biography, looking at his life and what led him to write his wonderful children's books.

After meeting Amy Ephron on the airplane this month, I read her latest book. It is a collection of essays about her life. Those Ephron sisters (Nora and Delia and Amy) are all so talented and come from such an interesting Hollywood/New York family.

20 books this month

Wild Card: Venice

2011-12-01T06:50:00.000-08:00

This is my mom's birthday and in memory of her, I am posting a card that I sent to her in 1997, while I was on vacation in Italy. She had saved all the postcards I sent to her over the years.

Monday's Postcard: Big Bear, CA

2011-11-28T06:30:00.000-08:00

Another card from Ryan when he was on his PCT hike. We were often away from each other for weeks at a time and I loved getting postcards from him. He thought he had a lot of snow on the trail in 2010, and there was even more snow this spring! And they have already had snow this winter season as well!!

Wild Card: Wrightsville Beach, NC

2011-11-24T06:00:00.000-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving. This postcard shows one of the houses that I lived in growing up! In this postcard, you can see my Dad's boat on the first dock at Seapath Marina! I had a terrific childhood in North Carolina and I will always be thankful for that.

Leonids at 35,000 feet

2011-11-22T15:06:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite perks of my job is the ability to view meteor showers, comets and the northern lights from 35,000 feet! Just this past week, I was able to get an awesome view of the Leonid Meteor Shower. And I will never forget the times I was able to see the Hale-Bopp comet while flying cross-country. The Leonids are associated with the Tempel-Tuttle comet. They get their name because they appear to radiate from the constellation Leo. I was working a redeye flight across the country from Los Angeles to Philadelphia the other night and it was prime viewing time for the Leonids. The Northern Lights are another phenomenon that I really enjoy and living in the continental USA, you usually don't get the opportunity to see them that often, but when you are at 35,000 feet at night, you can get glimpses of stuff that folks on the ground might not be aware of!

Monday's Postcard: Chester, UK

2011-11-21T06:30:00.000-08:00

When I got stuck in Manchester in April 2010, during the whole volcano ash incident, I was able to visit this lovely town in England. The city was originally founded by the Romans and it is one of the best preserved walled cities in the British Isles. Plus another of those Now and Then photos that I enjoy!

Monday's Postcard: Kauai

2011-11-14T06:30:00.000-08:00

The year is 1978 and my parents and my sister and I traveled to Kauai, Hawaii. It was awesome.
I was 12 years old and my previous knowledge of Hawaii was from the Brady Bunch episode where they are cursed by the Tiki and Nancy Drew's adventures finding the Secret of the Golden Pavilion! It was so exotic, it delivered on all my expectations!

Traveling along the Laura Ingalls Wilder Highway

2011-11-10T06:50:00.000-08:00

As promised, I am blogging about Little House on the Prairie today! Last month, I read The Wilder Life by Wendy McClure about her travels to all the Laura Ingalls Wilder sites around the midwest. I was very excited about this book because I had been to those places too! In 1997, I took my Granny on a trip along Highway 14, The Laura Ingalls Wilder Highway across Wisconsin, Minnesota and South Dakota to see the places depicted in the Little House books.
Our first stop was Pepin, WI and the site of" The Little House in the Big Woods". The woods are no longer there!! Everything must have been cut down long ago. I always imagined a "Black Forest" style forest, but it looks awfully a lot like prairie here now. And the cabin is only a replica.

We stopped to pick up rocks along Lake Pepin just like they do in the books! And Wendy McClure did it too in her travels.

Next stop was Walnut Grove, MN and "On the Banks of Plum Creek". Not much to see here now, but the town does a Wilder Pageant and a Pioneer Festival every year in July. Walnut Grove gets a lot of visitors because of the 70's TV Show starring Melissa Gilbert and Michael Landon. In the book, Walnut Grove is not even mentioned. Supposedly Laura explained, "At the time, I did not realize I was writing history."

Our last stop was DeSmet, South Dakota and the site of "Little Town on the Prairie". They have a Pageant that is held every year during the last weekend in June through the first two weekends in July. The Ingalls lived in the surveyor's house as depicted in "The Long Winter". At the Homestead site, there are 5 cottonwood trees that were originally planted by Charles Ingalls. One is in the foreground of this postcard photo!
Laura lived on this homestead from age 13-18 and it was in DeSmet that Laura met and married Almanzo Wilder. The homestead that she and Almanzo established (in the book "The First Four Years") is just 1.4 miles North of DeSmet and a historical marker there honors Rose Wilder Lane, their daughter.
My Granny and I had a wonderful time visiting all these places and I highly recommend it as a family vacation destination! We flew in and out of Minneapolis, MN and had a rental car and stayed in Bed and Breakfasts the whole time, but there are also lots of camping options as well, and motels like Super 8 and Days Inn along the way.
When I would take my Granny on vacation, I would create a scrapbook for her with all the photos and postcards and brochures that we picked up along the way. So that is how I have all this information at my fingertips today. We did the trip in August and missed all the pageants. I had a book called Laura Ingalls Wilder Country by William Anderson to help me plan the trip.

Monday's Postcard: Stockholm

2011-11-07T06:30:00.000-08:00

Oh, how I love this place. I was flying here in 2009 and didn't know how lucky I was and we stopped serving Stockholm. I would love to go back sometime and spend a lot more time exploring this wonderful country.

New Year's Resolution: October Update

2011-11-02T10:00:00.000-07:00

This photo is of a piece of art in front of the Denver Public Library. Did not have a ton of time for reading in October. We spent a good portion of our time painting and remodeling the new condo and moving, so I often would collapse in bed too exhausted to even pick up a book.

Here are the books I read in October:

A Wild Surge of Guilty Passion by Ron Hansen (library)
The Gardener Heist by Ulrich Boser (library)
Mule by Tony D'Souza (library)
Fear Less by Gavin De Becker (library)
The Boys of My Youth by Jo Ann Beard
Garnet Hill by Denise Mina (library)
The Silent Land by Graham Joyce (library)
Iron House by John Hart (library)
Long Gone by Alafair Burke (library)
Heart of the Matter by Emily Griffin (library)
The Wilder Life by Wendy McClure (library)
The Girl who fell from the Sky by Heidi Durrow (library)
Malled by Caitlin Kelly (library)
The Lying Game by Sara Shepard (library)

A Wild Surge of Guilty Passion is a fictionalized account of the true life murder that was the inspiration for Double Indemnity (book and movie) and The Postman Always Rings Twice (book and movie). I enjoyed it quite a lot!

The Gardener Heist is about the theft of $500 million worth of artwork from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston in 1990. I have visited the museum and seen the empty frames where the artwork used to be. So I was very interested in this story.

Mule is about a man who is hit hard by the recession and becomes a drug trafficker to make ends meet. If you like the Showtime series Weeds, then you ought to check out this book. It is very much about a guy who is "NOT A DRUG DEALER" getting involved in the drug trade and finding out that he has a talent for it.

Fear Less by Gavin De Becker. (His book the Gift of Fear is really great.) Fear Less focuses on the fears of terrorism after 9/11. Many people rarely see the effects of 9/11 on our world, or don't even notice them so much. But it totally affected my job and my life, so I found this interesting.

The Silent Land by Graham Joyce, can't wait to read more by this author. This was a creepy surrealistic book about a couple who are trapped in an avalanche, and how they survive. Very good and Stephen King recommends another book by this author called Indigo, so that one is on my TBR list now too.

The Boys of My Youth by JoAnn Beard, I read her "InZanesville" last month and loved it. So I am now reading everything that she has written. This is a collection of autobiographical essays and once again, I was sad to see it come to an end. I could read her stuff all day long.

Garnet Hill is a mystery/psychological thriller set in Glasgow, Scotland. A woman having an affair with a therapist (but not her therapist) finds him dead in her apartment and she is a suspect in the murder. Kind of dark, the characters are not cracking many jokes in this one, but an enjoyable read if you like this kind of thing...fans of Minette Walters, Kate Atkinson etc. might want to try Denise Mina.

Long Gone is a thriller much like the movie starring Liam Neeson, "Unknown". A girl finds a perfect job in an art gallery and one day comes in to find a body. It turns out that everything she thought about her life was a lie. The art gallery, her boss, it was all a set up for this murder....I quite enjoyed it.

Iron House is a thriller by John Hart, he was recommended to me. And it was pretty good, but I did not like the female characters. I was very annoyed by one of them and hoped that she would be killed off, so I did not have to read about her spineless whining anymore. I don't know if I will read any more by him, perhaps I will give him a chance at a later date.

Heart of the Matter is a chick-lit book by Emily Giffin. She has a huge fan base and authored Something Borrowed, which was made into a movie. This one is a look at infidelity in a marriage, it was okay.

I loved the Wilder Life and I might just have to devote an entire blog entry to it! McClure traces her journeys to visit the Laura Ingalls Wilder tourist sights around the country and talks about her fascination and love for the books (and the TV show). Since I dragged my granny to see the sights along the Laura Ingalls Wilder Highway across Wisconsin, Minnesota and South Dakota, I was very familiar with much of the book. If you are a Laura Ingalls Wilder fan, don't miss this one!!

The Girl who Fell from the Sky was a book about a bi-racial girl who is abandoned by her (black) father when her (white) mother commits suicide. She is sent to live with her paternal grandmother in Portland, OR. I enjoyed this look at the bi-racial experience.

Malled is about the retail life much like "Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America" by Barbara Ehrenreich. Caitlin Kelly also had a lot of information from Paco Underhill, the author of "Why We Buy: the science of shopping". I used to work retail and what I do now is not that much different from retail. I always like this subject matter.

The Lying Game: I said that I was not going to read another Sara Shepard, Pretty Little Liars book, but this is a stand alone title about a twin who is murdered and the twin who takes over her life. Sounds a lot like a certain Sarah Michelle Geller TV show called Ringer that is currently airing.

Only 14 books read in October.

Monday's Postcard: Big Moose Lake, NY

2011-10-31T06:30:00.000-07:00

This is an antique postcard and was not sent by any one I know. I just like the story behind it.
In the spirit of Halloween, this postcard has a murder attached to it. The Glenmore Lodge on Big Moose Lake was the setting of Theodore Dreiser's An American Tragedy, based on a true murder which took place there in 1906. An American Tragedy was made into the movie A Place in the Sun with Elizabeth Taylor. Another good book about this story is A Northern Light by Jennifer Donnelly.

Monday's Postcard: Puerto Rico

2011-10-24T06:30:00.000-07:00

Love the layovers in Puerto Rico. Again, great food. Look at all the fruit in this photo! Back in the day, the hotel van would stop at a little diner for us to pick up food to take onto the airplane with us, but I don't think they are allowed to do this anymore. Oh well.

Monday's Postcard: Olympia, WA

2011-10-17T06:35:00.000-07:00

Closer to home, this is the waterfront in Olympia, WA. Great shopping and eating, (try the Oyster House) and quirky artwork! Each piece of art on Olympia's mile-long, waterfront Percival Landing boardwalk has a red sign noting a phone number you can call from your cell phone for a recorded message about the piece. How cool is that?!

Monday's Postcard: Penang

2011-10-10T06:30:00.000-07:00

Here is another Postcard from my Dad in 1992. He had a layover in Penang. Great Seafood he says. I haven't visited, but it is on the list!

Wild Card: Gibraltar

2011-10-09T06:50:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday to my friend Jenny! This "wild" card is from a trip I took to visit her when she lived in Spain. We went to see Gibraltar and do some grocery shopping :-)

Monday's Postcard: Intercourse, PA

2011-10-03T06:30:00.000-07:00

There is a letterbox or two or three in this town!! I have visited the Amish Country in PA several times, once for a Nancy Drew convention (anyone remember The Witch Tree Symbol?)

New Years Resolution 2011: September Update

2011-09-30T18:11:00.000-07:00

A photo of me reading while on vacation at Warner Springs Ranch in California last year.

The books I read in September:

The Deep Blue Good-by by John D. MacDonald (library)
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (library)
Pretty Little Liars by Sara Shepard (library)
A Lesson in Secrets by Jacqueline Winspear (library)
Want to Go Private? by Sarah Darer Littman (library)
Buried Prey by John Sandford (library)
The Summer of the Bear by Bella Pollen (library)
State of Wonder by Ann Patchett (library)
The Tragedy of Arthur by Arthur Phillips (library)
In Zanesville by Jo Ann Beard (library)
Lost in Shangri-la by Mitchell Zuckoff (library)
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert (library-the Lydia Davis translation)
Mockingbird: A portrait of Harper Lee by Charles J. Shields
Deadly Housewives ed. by Christine Matthews (short stories)
Stories I Only Tell My Friends by Rob Lowe (library)
The Year We Left Home by Jean Thompson (library)
Down by the River Where the Dead Men Go by George Pelecanos
The Four Million and other stories by O. Henry (short stories)
The Return of Captain John Emmett by Elizabeth Speller (library)

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children read a lot like a YA novel. (I saw it in Barnes and Noble in the Young Adult section, so I guess it IS a YA novel!!) Young Boy adrift... his parents don't understand him, his grandfather ( who he idolizes and loves) dies under mysterious circumstances and he must find the truth of what is going on and in the process discovers things about himself ( strengths that he did not know he had, etc.) It is totally set up for sequels also. I would love to find out what happens next.

Pretty Little Liars, more YA, this one was made into a TV series and is the start of a series of 8 books. I don't know if I will read more of them....maybe. And I don't have any interest in seeing the TV show either.

Want to go Private? Again with the YA theme (Young Adult for those who have been wondering what YA means). This one is every parent's nightmare, and pretty disturbing to read if you have kids I imagine. From the point of view of a 14 year old with poor self esteem. She is groomed by a pedophile in an online chat room and ends up running away from home with him. A formerly straight A student, supposedly the Smart One in the family. Want to Go Private tells the whole story from the young girl's seduction by the pedophile to her friends and family feeling guilty for not seeing the signs that she was vulnerable to this kind of predator. Very serious subject matter, I would think great for book clubs and moms to read with their daughters (and sons).....

Buried Prey is the latest in the Lucas Davenport series by John Sandford. If you read these, you know that Davenport is now in his 50's and has a wife and a couple of kids. So it is getting kind of odd having him run around on no sleep, beating up the bad guys and then have him come home in time for dinner with the wife and kids. Sandford solves this problem by having most of this book exist as a flashback to Davenport's early days on the police force when he was the kick-butt king and a crazy womanizer to boot. The Prey novels are generally about serial or spree killers and this one is no exception. The bodies of two young girls are found, that had been buried for 20 years. Davenport was a young cop on the case 20 years ago and was never satisfied with the outcome of the case. Now he gets the chance to revisit the crime and finally solve all the loose ends to his satisfaction, running down the serial killer who got away with it.

State of Wonder by Ann Patchett is about a researcher who dies in the Amazon and his colleague who goes searching for the truth about his death. The research team in the Amazon has found a tribe of women who never go through menopause. They continue to have babies into their 60's and 70's. A major drug company is funding the project to study this tribe and find the secret to their fertility. The project is shrouded in secrecy and the head of the research team never wants any contact with the outside world, other than taking the money that the drug company provides for their work. This book reminded me a lot of stuff like Hot Zone by Richard Preston or some of Michael Crichton's stuff. So if you like that kind of thing, you might pick this one up.

The Summer of the Bear is the story of a family whose diplomat father dies mysteriously during the Cold War. They have retreated to the mom's childhood home on a lonely island in the Hebrides. It was kind of depressing. Lots of stark, cold war imagery and their retreat to a remote Scottish Island does not bring them together after the death of the father, but seems to isolate them from each other as well as from the rest of the world.

The Tragedy of Arthur has an interesting premise. The protagonist (Arthur) is given a previously unheard of, unknown Shakespeare play by his father. (The Tragedy of Arthur)This is a coup for the publishing and theater world. However, Arthur's father is a conman and forger who spent most of his life in jail. Does Arthur trust that this could be a real Shakespeare or is it just another incredible forgery from his conman dad? An interesting read if you are a fan of Shakespeare. The entire play, The Tragedy of Arthur is included!!

InZanesville, was one of those books where I did not want it to end, I just wanted to go on living in that world that the author had created. It is a coming of age story, much like Are you there God, It's Me Margaret. Just a slice of 1970's life in a small town in Illinois from the eyes of a 14 year old girl. I loved it and am going to read more by this author. Maybe it spoke to me because I was that age in the 70's? There is a nice Nancy Drew reference for you Nancy Drew fans!!

Stories I Only Tell My Friends. I had been waiting to read Rob Lowe's memoir ever since I read an excerpt in Vanity Fair Magazine. Quite enjoyed it and now have to dig out my DVD's of About Last Night, Outsiders, Oxford Blues and St. Elmo's Fire

Lost in Shangri-la is another story of WWII survival. Very entertaining. A group of WAC's and service men on an aerial sightseeing tour over the New Guinea jungle crash and there are only 3 survivors. Their story of their encounters with the native tribes (known for their violence) and their rescue by paratroopers (FilipinoAmericans!) is the basis of this book. There are lots of great photos of these true life events.

Madame Bovary, a favorite classic that I have already read a couple of times. This translation by Lydia Davis is very nice. If you are a fan of the book you should definitely try this translation.

Mockingbird is a biography of Harper Lee. I found it interesting. I might be the only English Major in the world who doesn't love To Kill A Mockingbird. I think it is okay, but not something that I want to read again and again. Not that fond of the movie either.

Deadly Housewives is a collection of short stories by mystery writers, featuring housewives. Some of my favorite writers are represented. Sara Paretsky, Nevada Barr, and Nancy Pickard

The Year We Left Home is a nostalgic novel. Great for those of us who have Protestant Work Ethic and Guilt about leaving our hometowns and doing something different than what our families expected. It follows a Lutheran, Iowa farm family from the 1970's til present day as the siblings grow up, change, move away, stay at home, and deal with their family. I enjoyed it because I identified with it.

George Pelecanos writes thrillers/mysteries set in the Washington, DC/Baltimore area. He is most famous as a writer for The Wire on HBO. I like his stuff and read it from time to time. This one had a great mystery and features an alcoholic detective in DC.

The O Henry short story collection was great, it contains The Gift of the Magi which is always a favorite and of course we love O Henry because he is from North Carolina!

Going along with my theme of reading English WWI-WWII era fiction here is another one. The Return of Captain John Emmett is a mystery set in Post WWI England. I'm only part of the way through and will finish it tonight. For fans of Ian Rutledge and Maisie Dobbs, you might want to put this one on your list as well.

19 books read (reading)

Monday's Postcard: Graceland

2011-09-26T06:30:00.000-07:00

Whenever I say the word, Graceland, I hear that Paul Simon song in my head. But of course, it is the touristy home of Elvis Presley. I visited during a Memphis layover early during my flight attendant career. 1989

Monday's Postcard: Costa Rica

2011-09-19T06:30:00.000-07:00

This card is from a 1990 trip that I made to Costa Rica with my sister and parents. Unfortunately, this was the best view we ever got of the volcano. We drove up to view it, but the fog never lifted and we could barely see a few feet in front of our faces. We were there during the rainy season and had pretty dismal weather the whole visit. I went back to Costa Rica in 2002 with Ryan and hit the rainy season again!

Monday's Postcard: Manzanar

2011-09-12T06:30:00.000-07:00

If you are not familiar with this period in American History, then you really need to read up on the Japanese Internment during World War II. Manzanar was one of several internment camps around the country. There is a wonderful museum there, I highly recommend visiting. Plus it is really a gorgeously stark landscape as you can see from the postcard.

Wild Card: Pittsburgh, PA

2011-09-11T06:55:00.000-07:00

On 9/11/2001 I was on a layover in Pittsburgh, PA. I got stuck there for 5 days while the planes were grounded. But the hotel was wonderful, and the weather was terrific. Not such a bad place to be stuck! You can see the hotel on this postcard :-)

Monday's Postcard: Madison, GA

2011-09-05T06:30:00.000-07:00

When I was working in the film business in Atlanta, GA, we went on a location shoot to Madison, GA. I think we actually used the house on the postcard, if I remember correctly. This is the Hunter House and an example of "Gingerbread" Victorian Architecture. And I think the commercial was for mayonaise.

New Years Resolution 2011: August Update

2011-09-02T16:26:00.000-07:00

This photo of me is in front of the New York Public Library in Manhattan. I was there in 2003 for a Nancy Drew convention and we visited the Stratemeyer Archives at the library. Lots of interesting information about the creation of the Nancy Drew series and many other children's books by Edward Stratemeyer.

As most of you know, I was participating in the WTA Hike-a-thon during August and I spent a lot of time hiking, when I might have been sitting around reading! A BIG THANK YOU!! to everyone who donated for Washington Trails. Anyway, here is what I read in August:

Bimbos of the Death Sun by Sharyn McCrumb
The Masque of the Black Tulip by Lauren Willig
The House at Riverton by Kate Morton (library)
Nothing Daunted: The Unexpected Education of Two Society Girls in the West By Dorothy Wickenden, (library)
Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell (audiobook)
The Red Door by Charles Todd
Paths of Glory by Jeffrey Archer (audiobook)
The Watery Part of the World by Michael Parker (library)
Unfamiliar Fishes by Sarah Vowell (library)
Divergent by Veronica Roth (library)
Royal Blood by Rhys Bowen
Untold Story: A Novel by Monica Ali
The Memory of All That by Katharine Weber (library)
Payback at Morning Peak by Gene Hackman (library)
When the Killing's Done by T. C. Boyle (library)
Zombies of the Gene Pool by Sharyn McCrumb
Darker than Amber by John D. MacDonald (library)
Postern of Fate by Agatha Christie
The Tale of Halcyon Crane by Wendy Webb (audiobook)

Bimbos of the Death Sun is a fun murder mystery set at a ComicCon style convention for SciFi/Fantasy fans. I have read this book several times (and the follow up, Zombies of the Gene Pool) and love it every time.

The Masque of the Black Tulip is a continuation of the Pink Carnation series that I started last month. The action moves along during Napoleon's time, but the present day story is yet to be resolved. I will have to read more books in this series to find out what happens to our modern day heroine!!

The House at Riverton was really good. I had watched Season One of Downton Abbey and loved it and this book is very reminiscent of that TV show. The book concerns a great house in England during the time between WWI and WWII. The Upstairs/Downstairs aspect of life was coming to an end with the advent of WWII.

The Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell was great fun and I think I liked it better than her book about the Pilgrims that I read earlier this year, "The Wordy Shipmates".
Assassination Vacation was about her road trip to see sites relating to the murders of presidents Lincoln, Garfield and McKinley. Ryan and I had been to many of the Lincoln sites and I was able to relate to the tourism aspect of poking around cemeteries and whatnot. Plus I learned a bunch about Garfield and McKinley that I was not aware of before! I think Garfield is now my favorite president. Just because he loved to read and he made a wonderful commencement speech at a college graduation extolling the value of leisure time!!! What a guy! I listened to this as a book on tape because I was spending so much time driving to trailheads this month for the Washington Trails Hike-a-thon. Sarah Vowell reads the book and her voice is high and squeaky like David Sedaris. Sometimes I would think it was an 8 year old girl reading to me! I wasn't sure I would enjoy it, but like David Sedaris, her observations were often quirky and fun, so it turned out alright.

The Red Door by Charles Todd, first of all, Charles Todd is a mother and son who write these books together. They are set in the aftermath of WWI, the same time period as The House at Riverton and the Royal series by Rhys Bowen. So I have been reading tons about that time period in England. The protagonist of The Red Door is Ian Rutledge who has returned from the war and is plagued with "shell shock" We get to see how this is effecting him, his personal life and his job (he is a police inspector). And these Charles Todd books are mysteries, my favorite, if you haven't figured that out already.

Nothing Daunted was great fun. Two society girls from New York State travel to Colorado to teach school. It is a true story and a wonderful look at that time in the "wild west". (early 1900s) I think the author did a great job of bringing this story to life. It could have been really dry and boring. It reminds me of bits of the Anne of Green Gable series when she goes off to teach school in those small one room school houses.

Paths of Glory by Jeffrey Archer is the tale of George Mallory, the mountaineer who may have summited Everest before Hillary. It is a fictionalized account of Mallory's life and what led him to Everest. I listened to this one as a book on tape, while driving to trailheads for hike-a-thon this month.

The Watery Part of the World, I thought I was going to like this one, it is set in NC along the Outer Banks and has some interesting true history interwoven into the story, and it is pretty compact, around 250 pages. But I just could not get interested in the characters. The only reason I even finished the book and did not throw it down was it was the only thing I had to read on my flight to work the other evening. It was this or the USAirways magazine and the USAirways magazine only occupies me for about 30 minutes and that is if I do the suduko. So I do not recommend it. (this book or the USAirways magazine!)

Divergent by Veronica Roth was a great YA book, much like the Hunger Games. So I can't wait for the next ones in this series. I must say, I liked the Hunger Games series and this, Divergent much better than Twilight, maybe because not so much romance --although there is a little bit of romance, but Twilight was just all about Edward and how gorgeous he was all the time, Ugh--that got old fast. These definitely have more "girl power" in them.

Royal Blood by Rhys Bowen: Another of the Royal series by Rhys Bowen, this time Georgie is in Transylvania! Vampires?! Now I have to wait for Ms. Bowen to finish another book as this is the last of the series to be published!!

Untold Story: A Novel by Monica Ali is a fantastic premise, what if Princess Diana faked her death and has been living a normal life in the USA after plastic surgery? I totally enjoyed it and highly recommend it.

Unfamiliar Fishes is another book by Sarah Vowell, this one is about Hawaii from the time the missionaries arrived to annexation by the USA. Very funny and interesting and I learned a lot of the history of Hawaii that I did not know before!!

Payback at Morning Peak by Gene Hackman, Yes, THAT Gene Hackman, "American Film Icon" as it says on the back of the book. If you like westerns, you will enjoy this one. It is a classic formula western. But nicely done. It did not suck (my new catch phrase)

When the Killing's Done by T. C. Boyle was a good book too. Environmentalists clash over the Channel Islands off the coast of Santa Barbara. This is fiction and I just love Boyle's descriptive passages. She was describing a ship wreck in the beginning of the book and it was making me seasick just reading it!! The colors of the landscape, the smells, sounds, the feelings in the air are all made very real by his prose.

More Agatha Christie and John D. MacDonald, always good.

The Tale of Halcyon Crane is a ghost story and very spooky. Lots of hours in the car this month back and forth to trailheads! :-)

Only 19 books read this month, but I hiked 50 miles, went on my first ever backpack overnight and raised $1250 for the Washington Trails Association.

If you are waiting til the last minute!!

2011-08-29T22:58:00.000-07:00

For those folks who have been promising to donate something to Washington Trails, but just haven't gotten around to it yet, I just got this message from the WTA. Pledges made on Wednesday, August 31st will be MATCHED!

This week's fundraising tip: Your pledges go twice as far with a match!
Thanks to a group of generous donors, pledges made on August 31st will be matched dollar-for-dollar for the first $2,500 donated online that day! So you know all those folks who said they would sponsor you but just haven't gotten around to it yet?? Well now's their chance to push you twice as far! (We'll take care of the matching dollars on our end as they will not be reflected in your fundraising thermometers.)

All pledges and forms must be received by the WTA office no later than September 9.

I was able to hike for 2 miles along the Alki trail between errands on Sunday, between grocery shopping, hardware store, storage unit etc.

Then on Monday, I did 2 miles on the White River Trail in Auburn and another 2 miles on the Green River/Cedar River Trail in Maple Valley. Finding 11 letterboxes on both days!

Tuesday I have an appointment to get my hair cut, etc. So I hope I can get a mile in or I might just be out there at the last minute on Wednesday hiking 4 miles to make my goal!!

So far we have raised $1, 175 and I have hiked 46 miles!! Only 2 days left and only 4 more miles for me to reach my 50 mile goal!!

You can still support Ryan and me with our hike-a-thon for Washington Trails Association. The website will be accepting pledges through September 9th.
Our Team Page
Amanda's Page
Ryan's Page

Monday's Postcard: Ireland

2011-08-29T06:30:00.000-07:00

This is from a layover in 2005 in Shannon, Ireland. I had just read 'Round Ireland with a Fridge by Tony Hawks and was wishing I could spend more time in this country. Always a favorite place to spend time!

We have been making great progress on our WTA Hike-a-thon. But we still need your help! Check out our WTA fundraising pages
Our Team Page
Amanda's Page
Ryan's Page
and make a donation. It's not too late we can take credit card donations up until September 9th!! Keep Washington's Trails open and hikeable!!

Hurrah, we made over $1,000 for the WTA

2011-08-28T05:47:00.000-07:00

Thanks so much to everyone!! We have exceeded our goal and have raised $1,126 for Washington Trails Association. Now if I could only get off my butt and meet my 50 miles goal. I have 40 miles under my belt so far and only 3 more days left to hike. I think I can do at least 10 miles in 3 days!!

Yesterday, I was out at Redmond Watershed park in Redmond, WA and I hiked 4.3 miles on the trails there. (and found 21 letterboxes!!) It was very busy, being a Saturday --now I remember why I prefer to get out on the trails in the middle of the week. Horses, Mountain Bikes, Trail Runners, other hikers....it was Grand Central Station out there. Like Ryan says, if you want solitude, you have to go more than 2 miles. :-)

You can still support both of us with our hike-a-thon for Washington Trails Association. The website will be accepting pledges through September
Our Team Page
Amanda's Page
Ryan's Page

Last days of hiking

2011-08-27T23:13:00.000-07:00

On August 24th, I met with my sister in San Francisco and we did 3 miles in Redwood Regional Park along the Bird Trail and the Stream and Bridle Trails. I got a couple of more letterboxes that I missed on my last visit to this park on August 1st.

When I got back to Seattle, I drove out to Squak Mountain and did 3 miles on the May Valley Loop Trail. Did some letterbox maintenance and I just can't resist the little Pretzel Tree Trail that is right at the parking lot. It is super cute with a little story of a field mouse venturing into the forest to see the Pretzel Tree. They have these wonderful signposts that tell the story. It is charming.

We have raised $876 and I have hiked 34.7 miles.

You can still support both of us with our hike-a-thon for Washington Trails Association. The website will be accepting pledges through September
Our Team Page
Amanda's Page
Ryan's Page

1st backpack trip EVER!

2011-08-23T16:13:00.000-07:00

This week I started out with a little hike in Bellevue at Kelsey Creek Park along the Lake to Lake trail. Earth Corps folks were out there doing repair work on a couple of turnpikes. Just 1 mile to add to my total. Like I have been saying, every little bit helps and one mile a day can add up to at least 31 miles by the end of August!! :-)

Then it was back to work and I was in SFO on a layover. My friend Lea and went out to Marin County and did some letterboxing.
Saw this little kitty cat graffiti on a fence post. I just love it!
Got a spooky one! And I had an egg cream ala Harriet the Spy. I got in a mile along the Bay Trail (mainly a bike trail) from Niven Park to Remillard Park, saw folks windsurfing! Awesome!!

Now about the famous backpack trip of the title. Believe it or not, I have never backpacked before now! Car camping, sure. Boat camping, yes. I have used the "hike in" spots at some campgrounds, but until Saturday night, I had never been more than a mile away from a motorized vehicle!! Ryan and I hiked in for 2.6 miles along the Baker River Trail (near Concrete, WA) to the Sulphide Campsite. Ryan cooked me a lovely dinner on his alcohol stove. It was a horrible mac and cheese, (he will never be buying that store brand again!)It was the thought that was lovely, the mac and cheese more like orange glue. The second day as we hiked back out, Ryan continued on the Baker Lake Trail around the lake for another 14 miles (can you see him on that bridge across the river?)
while I got in the car and drove around the lake to meet him at the other end. I hiked 1 mile on that end of the lake. So I am no longer a backpacker virgin. I carried my own gear and water 2. 6 miles into the back country! Starting out slow. We actually got the idea for the hike from a Hiking with Children book. I think I am ready for a 4 mile backpack hike now!! :-) I am just going to ease my way into this back country thing.

We've raised $811 for WTA hike-a-thon and I have hiked 29.7 miles.
You can still support both of us with our hike-a-thon for Washington Trails Association.
Our Team Page
Amanda's Page
Ryan's Page

And you can read more about our adventures together on Ryan's blog at www.anotherlongwalk.com

Monday's Postcard: Sanitary Fish Market

2011-08-22T06:30:00.000-07:00

A Blast from the Past!! We used to take the boat up the Intracoastal Waterway from Hampstead to Morehead City and dock at this restaurant for dinner. I grew up eating seafood here. On the back of the postcard is the recipe for Hush Puppies, I'll go ahead and give it to you here:

1 lb fine corn meal
1 egg
1 tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
pinch soda
1 cup buttermilk
serving for 6 people
stir adding water to thick consistency. drop in deep fat (preferably Duke's Peanut Oil) cook in temperature of 375 degrees.

And to work off the calories of those hushpuppies, I think I will take a hike!!
We have been making great progress on our WTA Hike-a-thon. But we still need your help! Check out our WTA fundraising pages
Our Team Page
Amanda's Page
Ryan's Page
and make a donation. Keep Washington's Trails open and hikeable!!

Slow Week for Hiking

2011-08-18T18:49:00.000-07:00

I had such plans!! I had BOS, LGA and SFO layovers that I had planned to hike during layovers and then I was under the weather and couldn't work. So I was home, but I didn't get anything done here either, because of being under the weather!

Such a bummer. I did do a mile on the Green River Trail in Tukwila when I picked up Ryan from his several miles of trekking along the same trail.

Once things were back to normal health-wise, I was able to do a mile at Nisqually (of course, Ryan did 4 miles) and a mile at Big Creek trail near Cougar, WA. I was dropping Ryan off for his WTA work party.

We went camping along the Lewis River outside of Cougar, WA, just south of Mt. St. Helens. We brought along the telescope to do some stargazing, but the mostly full moon stymied our efforts. We did see a couple of shooting stars, part of the Perseids meteor shower and we did the native american eye test, looking at the double star of the Big Dipper. The second star from the end of the handle is an optical double star. You should be able to perceive this separation of these two stars with the naked eye.

I did a couple more miles along the Lewis River trail between the lower falls and the middle falls. And stopped off for a letterbox and did the Two Forests Trail near Ape Cave. So I got in 4 miles before I had to leave for work.

I got to Switzerland and did 2 km along the Zurich Vita parcours near our hotel. (about 1.25 miles)
By the Zurich Airport is a little town called Regensdorf, Switzerland. This is where we layover. There is a Zurich Vitaparcours just behind the Strafanstalt Poschwies Prison! :-)

This is a fitness trail, like an outdoor gym. They were huge in the 70's and I discovered that the original parcourse was invented in 1968 by a Swiss architect!
They appear to still be hugely popular over here and just about every town has one. In West Seattle, we have one at Lincoln Park, but it is mostly in disrepair, I don't think anyone uses it.

On the map in the photo, the buildings shown in red (#27) are the prison. The green area is where I hiked, the course starts at #99 and my hotel is #11. The green area beside the hotel is a cemetery. One of the cutest that I have ever seen. They have the prettiest tombstones in there.

We've raised $771 for WTA hike-a-thon and I have hiked 21.5 miles.
You can still support both of us with our hike-a-thon for Washington Trails Association.
Our Team Page
Amanda's Page
Ryan's Page

And you can read more about our adventures together on Ryan's blog at www.anotherlongwalk.com

Monday's Postcard: Wiesbaden

2011-08-15T06:30:00.000-07:00

This is from February 1995. I had a layover in Wiesbaden, Germany (Frankfurt Airport) I was most impressed that the TV got 24 channels and only 2 were in English, CNN and MTV. :-)

We have been making great progress on our WTA Hike-a-thon. $671 dollars raised, but we still need your help! Check out our WTA fundraising pages
Our Team Page
Amanda's Page
Ryan's Page
and make a donation. Keep Washington's Trails open and hikeable!!

Monday's Postcard: Portland, ME

2011-08-08T06:30:00.000-07:00

If I wasn't living in Seattle, I'd probably be living in Portland, ME. Love this town. Always a great layover. I miss this city, don't get up there as often as I would like.

We have been making great progress on our WTA Hike-a-thon. But we still need your help! Check out our WTA fundraising pages
Our Team Page
Amanda's Page
Ryan's Page
and make a donation. Keep Washington's Trails open and hikeable!!

First couple of hikes for Hike-a-thon 2011

2011-08-06T18:57:00.000-07:00

August 1st: First day of hikeathon in Oakland, CA, I hiked 4 miles in Redwood Regional Park, with little dips into Joaquin Miller Park and Roberts Regional Recreation Area. Found 14 letterboxes along the West Ridge Trail, Tres Sendas Trail, The Big Tree Trail, Robert Ridge Trail and others!

The next day found me back in Seattle and I hiked along the Green River Trail to and from the Russell Woods park trailhead for 2 miles. I walked down to the Neely Soames House and back. The Neely Soames House was built in the 1800's and is one of the oldest homes in Kent. It is listed on the State Register of Historic Homes. It can be rented for parties or events and the gardens are open to the public year-round. This year is the 10th anniversary of the house being open to the public and they are having an open house with tours and stuff on August 21st.
The Green River Trail in this area is closed to bicycle traffic. A line of giant sandbags marches down the trail straight down the middle! This is to protect from flooding. The Howard Hanson dam up stream is awaiting repairs and the sandbags will be up until the dam is repaired. The bags were put up in 2009, so it has already been 2 years.

Wednesday, The Interurban Trail in North Seattle generally follows the route once used by the Interurban Trolley that ran from downtown Seattle to Everett from 1910 through 1939. I hiked 2 miles along a section in Shoreline. Saw some really neat public art called Flipbook by Jennifer Dixon.

The next day, I met up with Cari, Sandi and some other friends at Squires Lake in Alger, WA. At this letterboxing mecca, I was able to log 47 finds!! That's over 10 per mile during our 4.5 mile hike.We hiked around the lake and up to the Pacific Northwest trail. Had some great views back down to I-5!!
Today, I put in a mile on the Preston-Snoqualmie Trail. Not much, I know, but every little bit counts and it can all add up to bigger things! Just like that one dollar I have asked everyone who reads this to send. Only one dollar from everyone who reads this blog can add up to hundreds!!

I haven't hiked with Ryan yet, but maybe later on in the month.You can still support both of us with our hike-a-thon for Washington Trails Association.
Our Team Page
Amanda's Page
Ryan's Page

So far we have raised $641 and I have hiked 13.5 miles

Wild Card: Dry Tortuga's National Park

2011-08-04T06:50:00.000-07:00

Today is my Dad's Birthday and in memory of him, I am posting this card that he sent to me from the Dry Tortuga's. He had been there on a trip for his birthday in 2000.

Ryan and I have been making great progress on our WTA Hike-a-thon. But we still need your help! Check out our WTA fundraising pages
Our Team Page
Amanda's Page
Ryan's Page
and make a donation. Keep Washington's Trails open and hikeable!!

New Years Resolution 2011: July Update

2011-08-02T06:24:00.000-07:00

This is a photo of a postcard from Hilton Head Island, SC. Nice Sculpture in their Harbor, called "Out to Lunch"

Summer reading is in full swing! Here is what I read in July:

The Last Illusion by Rhys Bowen (library)
The Hare with the Amber Eyes by Edmund De Waal (library)
The Three Miss Margarets by Louise Shaffer
Dirty Little Secrets by C. J. Omololu (library)
Room by Emma Donoghue (library)
Dead in the Family by Charlaine Harris (library)
Dragon Bones by Lisa See
A Bullet for Cinderella by John D MacDonald
Operation Mincemeat by Ben MacIntyre
The Husband by Dean Koontz
Bless the Bride by Rhys Bowen (library)
The Gap Year by Sarah Bird (library)
Her Royal Spyness by Rhys Bowen
Cat O' Nine Tales by Jeffrey Archer (short stories)
Speaking with the Angel ed. by Nick Hornby (short stories)
Royal Pain by Rhys Bowen
The German Bride by Joanna Hershon
Loch Ness Monster and Raining Frogs by Albert Jack
Murder in the Adirondacks by Craig Brandon
Royal Flush by Rhys Bowen
The Secret History of the Pink Carnation by Lauren Willig
By the Pricking of My Thumbs by Agatha Christie
The Borrower by Rebecca Makkai
N or M? by Agatha Christie
Ruth Fielding at Cameron Hall by Alice B. Emerson
Alice Bliss by Laura Harrington

Okay, for folks interested in how fast I read, I took the time to clock my reading for a book. Her Royal Spyness by Rhys Bowen: this standard paperback book is 324 pages. I started it at 12:50am and finished it at 3:40am. 2 hours and 50 minutes of non-stop reading on the airplane on my way to work one night. It was a fun and easy book to read. I really liked the character and will definitely be reading more of these books. Bowen writes the Molly Murphy books that I have been reading this year. But I think I like this protagonist even better! She is a minor member of the royal family during the 1930's, has no money and is trying to get jobs all the time, but can't really work because of the embarrassment it would cause to the family. This book was the first in the series and she gets involved in a murder mystery where she and her brother are the prime suspects.

Still reading the Sookie Stackhouse books and the Molly Murphy books. I only have a couple more til I am done with these series and then I just have to wait for the authors to write more!!
And as I said, I am also trying a new series by Rhys Bowen with ties to the royals and enjoying it immensely. I tried to start the Shakespeare ones by Charlaine Harris, but didn't really enjoy them that much, so I am giving them a pass.

The Three Miss Margarets was another southern/race relations type novel. So again, if you liked The Help or Dry Grass of August (which I read last month), you might like this one too. A scandal in a southern town. And secrets that go back to the 1960's.

Dirty Little Secrets is a YA novel about hoarding from the point of view of the children who live with the hoarders. This is a pretty disturbing book. I am still not too sure how I feel about the way the author resolved this one. It sends a message that I don't like. The parts about hoarding and the stigma that the kids feel is great. But the conflict resolution was not to my liking. There is the prerequisite "cute guy at school and does he really like me" subplot for YA girls.

The Hare with the Amber Eyes is the story of the Ephrussis family. They were a major banking family in Vienna, that was torn apart by Hitler's Nazi Anschluss. Mr. de Waal traces his family history thru a set of netsuke that were handed down over the years, the only thing left from a huge fortune and collection of artwork.

Operation Mincemeat was a really cool story of an espionage plan during WWII. Spies created a false identity for a dead man and planted him with decoy papers to fool the Germans. Much like the person that Cary Grant is mistaken for in North by Northwest. A phantom agent!! A fun book about the espionage business during WWII. True Story, Lots of photos etc.

A Bullet for Cinderella is another John D. MacDonald thriller. This book was only 160 pages and I read it super fast. Husband by Dean Koontz is another thriller, not spooky like some of Koontz's stuff. But a real page turner! much like the thrillers by Harlen Coben or Linwood Barclay. I read Husband on a single airplane ride when Ryan and I were traveling to the Terrapin Event in Massachusetts, but I did not clock my actual time reading for that one, less than 4 hours definitely.

Dragon Bones by Lisa See is a murder mystery set in China, you might be more familiar with books like Snow Flower and the Secret Fan or Shanghai Girls by Lisa See. This is a more modern take on China and a good mystery. This is the second in the series.

Room by Emma Donoghue was intense, but I really enjoyed it. A "ripped from the headlines" story similar to the Jaycee Dugard kidnapping, this book is told from the point of view of a child who was born in captivity. He and his mom escape and what happens next. Again, I didn't clock this one, but it was read in less than 4 hours.

Gap Year was a good read. The story of a single mom and her teenage daughter who is about to leave the nest. It was told by the two different points of view in alternating chapters. I think that is what I really enjoyed about it, seeing the same story from two different voices.

Cat O'Nine Tales is a collection of short stories by Jeffery Archer. When he was in prison he heard all kinds of tales of mischief and mayhem and he put them down in this book with the names changed to protect the innocent and the not-so-Innocent. Fun and enjoyable read.

Speaking with the Angel is also a collection of short stories, compiled by Nick Hornby of About A Boy and High Fidelity fame. Proceeds from the sales of this book go to help fund a school for autistic children. Nick Hornby has an autistic son, who knew?? Anyway, a great collection of authors from Helen Fielding of Bridget Jones fame to Roddy Doyle of The Commitments fame! Even Colin Firth (Mr. Darcy himself!) contributes a story. Another fun and enjoyable read.

The German Bride is a western story of a German/Jew girl who immigrates to America as a young bride and her experiences in Santa Fe, New Mexico. It was very good and an interesting look at frontier life at that time (post civil war)

The book by Albert Jack, was just a bunch of stories investigating mysteries, urban legends? and oddities of the world. An easy and fun read, I was familiar with most of the stories already...like the Bermuda Triangle and D. B. Cooper, but I had no idea that band leader, Glenn Miller had disappeared mysteriously?! And there were questions surrounding Edgar Allan Poe's death?? I had no idea. Well, now I know!

Murder in the Adirondacks: I loved it, but then I am fascinated with the Gillette murder case. This murder was the basis for Theodore Dreiser's American Tragedy (awesome book!) and the movie, A Place in the Sun with Montgomery Cliff and Elizabeth Taylor. This book is a report on the true story of what happened at Big Moose Lake in Upstate New York. A Northern Light by Jennifer Donnelly is another look at this murder for the YA crowd.

The Secret History of the Pink Carnation is a romance novel/historical fantasy with story lines in present day and Napoleon's time. I enjoyed it and will read the rest of the books in this series. A lot like "Possession" by Byatt. Or if you liked Winter Sea or the Outlander books, you might like this one too. It concerns a girl researching the Pink Carnation (like the Scarlet Pimpernel) for her dissertation. The letters and documents she reads lead to the Napoleonic storyline about the Pink Carnation who is a spy in Napoleon's French Court and is set on bringing down Napoleon and restoring and/or avenging the monarchy.

The Borrower was WONDERFUL, I think my favorite book I read this month. I read it in less than 2 hours, just tore through it! Could not put it down. It is about a Children's Librarian who gets involved with a boy who visits her library. She thinks he is being abused by his family and she ends up kidnapping him away from them. Would make a great book club selection because there is so much to talk about. How can you step into someone else's life and help them? What if you are the one who is wrong...censorship, the role of libraries and the freedom of information. Just tons of topics. AND it is funny and interesting and you just have to love the characters.

Royal Pain and Royal Flush are the further adventures of Lady Victoria Georgiana Charlotte Eugenie of Glen Garry and Rannoch, 34th in line to the throne of England. Great fun and I read Royal Flush on the way to Scotland and much of the action takes place in and around Balmoral, so that was fun.

Alice Bliss by Laura Harrington is about a young girl who is growing up and her father is deployed to Iraq. How it affects her and her family, especially since she has had such a close relationship with her father and misses him so much. Lots of YA type storyline, such as her first kiss etc.

Ruth Fielding at Cameron Hall is a girls series book written by Mildred Wirt, who also wrote many of the Nancy Drew series. In the Ruth Fielding series, Ruth unlike Nancy Drew, grows up and ages throughout the series. In this particular volume, she decides that she does love her childhood sweetheart and they are to be married. The action part of the book is a bank robbery and Ruth's honey has mysteriously disappeared and is one of the prime suspects, so she must clear his name.

This run of Agatha Christie novels are part of the Tommy and Tuppence series. Miss Christie's lesser known detectives after Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot. They are my favorites and I love revisiting them every couple of years. I have no problem rereading mystery novels. Often I will have forgotten key details. Things will seem familiar and I will have a nagging feeling that I know whodunit, but sometimes I am way off base. And Tommy and Tuppence are such fun characters, I know them so well and I like them so much that I really enjoy reading about them again and again. It is like looking through a family scrapbook. You have seen the photos before and you probably were even there when they were taken, but you still like to look at them and be reminded of those times! Rereading favorite books is like that for me.

26 books read this month!

August is WTA Hike-a-thon month and I don't know how much time I will have for reading!! We'll see on the first of September when I post what I have read in August. Make the sacrifice worth my while by donating to the cause. Check out our WTA fundraising pages
Our Team Page
Amanda's Page
Ryan's Page
and make a donation. We need your help to keep Washington's Trails open and hike-able!!

Monday's Postcard: Sydney

2011-08-01T06:30:00.000-07:00

Here is another one from my Dad, in 1992. He had a 2 night layover in Sydney. Plenty of time to discover great Italian restaurants, and a tour of the Opera House!

It is August 1st and the
beginning of the WTA Hike-a-thon. Dig out those coins from between the sofa cushions and make a donation!! Check out our WTA fundraising pages
Our Team Page
Amanda's Page
Ryan's Page
We need your help to keep Washington's Trails open and hikeable!!

Support Washington Trails or a trail in YOUR neighborhood!!

2011-07-28T19:09:00.000-07:00

Now in 2011, I want you to support Ryan and me with our hike-a-thon for Washington Trails Association.
Our Team Page
Amanda's Page
Ryan's Page
But I have a challenge to put out to all of you for next year and beyond! Seeing that list of California State Parks that are closed this summer should be a wake up call to everyone, that it could happen in your state, to the trails that you love to hike.

For all my friends in Oregon who have been lamenting that they don't have anything like the Washington Trails Association
Trail Keepers of Oregon is here!!
They don't have a Hike-a-thon YET, but you can definitely sign up and get out there and work to help maintain trails in Oregon!!

Anywhere along the Appalachian Trail you can get involved through the Appalachian Trail Conservancy.
In California, Oregon and Washington, there is the Pacific Crest Trail Association.

Mount Washington in New Hampshire has a great hike-a-thon over a weekend every year called Seek the Peek . It is already over for this year, but perhaps next year some of you guys could get involved!

In Colorado, there is the Colorado Trail Foundation.

In Tennessee there is The Tennessee Trails Associaion

Ohio has the Buckeye Trail.

In Florida, there is the Florida Trail Association and goodness knows the Florida Trail could use some work!!

Texas has the Texas Trails Network.

New York has the Finger Lakes Trail Conference.

Another great way to get involved in your neck of the woods is to see if the Sierra Club has an active chapter in your state.

We like to get out and use the trails, and there are a million ways for us to support the trails with our time and money. I am sure that you have seen a bridge over a stream that was an Eagle Scout project! But we can't always rely on the Eagle Scouts to maintain our trails!!

So be sure to check out our WTA fundraising pages
Our Team Page
Amanda's Page
Ryan's Page
and make a donation. We need your help to keep Washington's Trails open and hikeable!! And shoot me an email if you'd like to get together to do a hike. I will try to work you into my schedule. Ryan and I would love to see more of our friends and family out on the trails.
Checks should be made out to WTA and can be sent to PO Box 16131, Seattle, WA 98116

The best laid plans for Hike-a-thon 2011...

2011-07-27T13:07:00.000-07:00

Every year before Hike-a-thon, I pour over my hiking guides, I make lists and check out all my maps. I print out letterboxing clues and I try to decide where I am going to hike this summer.

On my short list this year are:

Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge
Cougar Mountain
Tiger Mountain
Redmond Watershed Preserve
Sammamish River Trail
Squires Lake

and I am considering Mount St. Helens for a camping trip or maybe Steamboat Rock or geez, it is so hard to decide!!

We are so lucky in Washington!! In California, they are closing 70 state parks this summer!! SEVENTY, that leaves over 200 parks open, but still a huge cut and there are some parks that I was hoping to utilize during my San Francisco layovers, like Olompali SHP, China Camp SP and Henry W. Coe SP. And there are many parks on this list that Ryan and I have enjoyed in the past, like Castle Crags SP and William B. Ide Adobe SHP.

Anderson Marsh SHP
Annadel SP
Antelope Valley Indian Museum
Austin Creek SRA
Bale Grist Mill SHP
Benbow Lake SRA
Benicia Capitol SHP
Benicia SRA
Bidwell Mansion SHP
Bothe-Napa Valley SP
Brannan Island SRA
California Mining & Mineral Museum
Candlestick Point SRA
Castle Crags SP
Castle Rock SP
China Camp SP
Colusa-Sacramento River SRA
Del Norte Coast Redwoods SP
Fort Humboldt SHP
Fort Tejon SHP
Garrapata SP
George J. Hatfield SRA
Governor's Mansion SHP
Gray Whale Cove SB
Greenwood SB
Grizzly Creek Redwoods SP
Hendy Woods SP
Henry W. Coe SP
Jack London SHP
Jug Handle SNR
Leland Stanford Mansion SHP
Limekiln SP
Los Encinos SHP
Malakoff Diggins SHP
Manchester SP
McConnell SRA
McGrath SB
Mono Lake Tufa SNR
Morro Strand SB
Moss Landing SB
Olompali SHP
Palomar Mountain SP
Petaluma Adobe SHP
Picacho SRA
Pio Pico SHP
Plumas-Eureka SP
Point Cabrillo Light Station
Portola Redwoods SP
Providence Mountains SRA
Railtown 1897 SHP
Russian Gulch SP
Saddleback Butte SP
Salton Sea SRA
Samuel P. Taylor SP
San Pasqual Battlefield SHP
Santa Cruz Mission SHP
Santa Susana Pass SHP
Shasta SHP
South Yuba River SP
Standish-Hickey SRA
Sugarloaf Ridge SP
Tomales Bay SP
Tule Elk SNR
Turlock Lake SRA
Twin Lakes SB
Weaverville Joss House SHP
Westport-Union Landing SB
William B. Ide Adobe SHP
Woodson Bridge SRA
Zmudowski SB

Sobering, isn't it?

So be sure to check out our WTA fundraising pages, so far we have raised over $600 for Washington State Trails!!
Our Team Page
Amanda's Page
Ryan's Page
and make a donation. We need your help to keep Washington's Trails open and hikeable!! And shoot me an email if you'd like to get together to do a hike. I will try to work you into my schedule. Ryan and I would love to see more of our friends and family out on the trails.
Checks should be made out to WTA and can be sent to PO Box 16131, Seattle, WA 98116

Monday's Postcard: Carmel Mission

2011-07-25T06:30:00.000-07:00

I've said before, I love these Now and Then postcards. This is the Carmel Mission and I visited here during a Nancy Drew convention in Monterey, CA.

August is just around the corner and that is WTA Hike-a-thon month. I will have some layovers in the SFO area and plan to do some hiking there, let me know if you are interested in meeting me on the trail for a letterboxing exchange!! Also be sure to check out our WTA fundraising pages
Our Team Page
Amanda's Page
Ryan's Page
and make a donation. We need your help to keep Washington's Trails open and hikeable!!

Hike-a-thon 2011: Every Little Bit Helps

2011-07-19T07:58:00.000-07:00

Wow, the fundraising for WTA Hike-a-thon 2011 is going great guns! We have already raised over 300 dollars, but I don't want you guys to be intimidated by big numbers. If everyone who reads this gives just one dollar, I'd have over $2,000 dollars raised for Washington Trails!! So fold up a George Washington and slap a stamp on the envelope for me. Ryan and I will make sure the WTA gets it and once those dollars add up, all sorts of great things can happen.

$250-749 Is enough for the WTA to purchase three crosscut saws to help keep wilderness trails open.
$750-1499 The WTA crew leaders need wilderness first aid training to help ensure the safety of volunteers, this is enough to train two crew leaders!
$1500-2249 This much helps complete the annual maintenance on a popular trail.
$2250-2999 Enough to send two back country response teams to improve wilderness trails
$3000+ Helps to create the next generation of trail stewards by providing for 6 or more high school volunteers with an unforgettable week maintaining trails.

Monday's Postcard: Budapest

2011-07-18T06:30:00.000-07:00

Thanks again to friends traveling the world, I get postcards from places that I haven't been yet that I would like to visit! This is the Parliament Building in Budapest. Definitely on my bucket list.

Don't forget August is coming up and that is WTA Hike-a-thon month. If you would like to schedule a hike with me, be sure to shoot me an email. Also be sure to check out our WTA fundraising pages
Our Team Page
Amanda's Page
Ryan's Page
and make a donation. We need your help to keep Washington's Trails open and hikeable!!

Wild Card: Sequoia National Park

2011-07-14T06:40:00.000-07:00

Today is Bastille Day, so you might expect a postcard from France, but it is also the birthday of someone special in my life!! And he helped to rebuild the fence around the General Sherman tree in the early 90's during a volunteer vacation. We visited Sequoia so he could show me his handy work :-) and you can also see it on this "wild card"

Don't forget August is coming up and that is WTA Hike-a-thon month. Ryan will be doing more trail work here in Washington State. We might not have a General Sherman, but we've got some awesome trails!! Be sure to check out our WTA fundraising pages
Our Team Page
Amanda's Page
Ryan's Page
and make a donation. We need your help to keep Washington's Trails open and hikeable!!

Hike-a-thon 2011 is just around the corner!

2011-07-12T14:39:00.001-07:00

Wow! Time flies, it seems like just the other day I was meeting Ryan on the PCT and getting in a couple of miles for the hike-a-thon. We always have a great time hiking for Washington Trails and this year looks like it won't be an exception! Ryan has already signed up for a Backcountry Response Team trip. This is basically a backpacking trip with trail work. And my schedule has me keeping close to home with a bunch of trips to San Francisco to make things interesting. So be sure to check out our WTA fundraising pages
Our Team Page
Amanda's Page
Ryan's Page
and make a donation. We need your help to keep Washington's Trails open and hikeable!! And shoot me an email if you'd like to get together to do a hike. I will try to work you into my schedule. Ryan and I would love to see more of our friends and family out on the trails.

Monday's Postcard: Belden Town, CA

2011-07-11T06:30:00.000-07:00

This is from Ryan's PCT hike last year. I actually bought this postcard and then he sent it to me later. The PCT travels right through the rest area where this old Mill is located. This photo was taken from on the Pacific Crest Trail! :-)

Monday's Postcard: NYC

2011-07-04T06:30:00.000-07:00

For the 4th of July, I thought this image of the twin towers in New York City was pretty poignant. This postcard is from 1987 when my Granny visited the city with her church group.

New Years Resolution 2011: June Update

2011-07-02T18:22:00.000-07:00

This photo is from the 1980's, reading and breakfast aboard my Dad's boat...

Reading is a great way to improve your vocabulary, here are some words that I found in books this past month that I did not recognize, or that I want to add to my daily lexicon:

raillery - Good-humored teasing
tulgey - Thick, dense, dark (originally in reference to a wood) credited to Lewis Carroll
inimical- Tending to obstruct or harm, unfriendly or hostile
tumbril - A two-wheeled cart, especially a farmer's cart
oligarchy - a small group of people having control of a country, organization or institution
hegemonic- ruling or dominant in a political or social context
comity -Courtesy and considerate behavior toward others, mutual courtesy; civility.
codified - Arrange according to a plan or system, To reduce to a code
lapidary - One who cuts, polishes, or engraves gems
aspidistra - A bulbous plant of the lily family, with broad tapering leaves, native to Asia and often grown as a houseplant
meretricious - Attractive but having in reality no value or integrity, attracting attention in a vulgar manner
koan- A paradoxical anecdote or riddle, used in Zen Buddhism to demonstrate the inadequacy of logical reasoning
micturition- urination

And here are the books I read in June:

Serenity Found: More unauthorized essays on Joss Whedon's Firefly Universe ed. Jane Espenson
Emily Alone by Stewart O'Nan (library)
One Day by David Nicholls (library)
All Together Dead by Charlaine Harris (library)
The Winter Sea by Susanna Kearsley (library)
Cleopatra by Stacy Schiff (library)
In Dublin's Fair City by Rhys Bowen (library)
Sing You Home by Jodi Picoult (library)
The Terror of Living by Urban Waite (library)
Tell Me Pretty Maiden by Rhys Bowen (library)
The Early Work of Philip K. Dick Volume II (library)
Dirty Secret: A daughter comes clean about her mother's compulsive hoarding by Jessie Sholl (library)
The Dry Grass of August by Anna Jean Mayhew (library)
From Dead to Worse by Charlaine Harris (library)
In a Gilded Cage by Rhys Bowen (library)
So Much Pretty by Cara Hoffman (library)
Something Borrowed by Emily Giffin
Miss Zukas Shelves the Evidence by Jo Dereske
Ups and Downs: The misadventures of a crusty old fart and his bouncing son as they trek through the Alps by Don and David Kassin Fried
The Body Finder by Kimberly Derting
Hell at the Breech by Tom Franklin (library)

Stewart O'Nan, I'm a big fan and I tend to read everything he writes, so this one is his latest. Basically the story of a woman whose husband has died and most of her friends are dying and she is being left alone and how she deals with growing older and alone.

One Day by David Nicholls is a "When Harry Met Sally" type of story. We follow a couple from the day they meet and then revisit that one day in their lives every year for 20 years or so. They are together, they are apart, you get that little snippet of one day of the year to figure out their lives. Very gimmicky, but very enjoyable!

The Winter Sea is pretty much a historical/time travel/romance, but very well done. Scotland setting and Jacobite history.

Cleopatra, I was not familiar with her history...I had never studied it in school and reading this book felt a bit like being back in school. I found it a little dry at times, but Ms. Schiff takes the stereotypes and things you have heard about Cleopatra and looks at the historical record of what really could have happened. So I feel like I learned something.

Jodi Picoult, Sing You Home, again, I am a big fan and read everything that she writes. I have been on the waiting list at the library for this one for a while, but it was worth the wait. Gay Rights and Frozen Eggs/Embryos

The Terror of Living is a great thriller about drug runners along the PNW border with Canada. I read it in a mere four hours!!

Dirty Secret, I read a book about hoarders and hoarding in January, " Stuff: Compulsive hoarding and the meaning of things" by Randy O Frost and Gail Steketee and this book was also mentioned, there are more books in the bibliography of this book that have me fascinated about hoarding also, so I will be reading more of this type of stuff this summer.

The Dry Grass of August, If you liked "The Help", you need to try this book as well. A wonderful story of a family taking a vacation with their maid in the 1950's while Brown vs. Board of Education was being enforced in the South. Also reminded me a bit of "Summer of My German Soldier"...because the young female protagonist has more in common with her Black Nanny than her own family.

Philip Dick, I am continuing to read his short stories in this collection

More Harris and Bowen again this month, almost finished with these series! Also Serenity, another collection of essays about the Firefly TV series.

So Much Pretty got great reviews as a look at a murder in a small town. I found it hard to read. Each chapter is from a different character's point of view or a different piece of evidence. I had trouble figuring out the different voices and I would have to look again at the title of the chapter to see who was supposed to be speaking. Also there is much flashback information from the past and again, I would have to refer to the titles of the different chapters to make sure I could figure out what the heck was going on, is this the past, the near past, the current day? It was confusing. All in all, it was hard to enjoy the book because it was such a difficult read. I read about 2/3 of it before I could enjoy it. Loved the ending. But it was a lot of work for just a thriller type book.

Something Borrowed is Chick Lit and was made into a movie, haven't seen the movie yet and I will be interested to see what parts of the book made it onto film.

Miss Zukas is written by a local PNW author and one of my favorite "cozy" mystery series. She's a librarian in a small Washington town that seems to resemble Bellingham, WA. She is very stoic and terse, but through the course of the series, she has been opening up and it is hard not to like her.

The Body Finder is a YA book. The plot (sub-plot?) of the boy who was my best friend, but now I want him to kiss me...and will he ask me to the prom? (or homecoming dance in this case) is very familiar to this genre. But the twist here is the heroine of our story has a sixth sense where she can find dead things. Animals and People. A serial killer is abducting young girls in her neighborhood and she is key to finding the bodies and eventually the killer.

Ups and Downs is a fun travel memoir of a father and son who trek through the Alps. If you like Bryson's A Walk in the Woods or if you like reading Ryan's accounts of his AT and PCT treks, this would be a book that you would enjoy! I found it at a used bookstore on my Denver layover this month and read it in mere hours on the way home.

Hell at the Breech is based on a true story from 1890's Alabama. Mr. Franklin writes very descriptively, not beautiful, but gritty and violent. An accidental shooting sets off a feud between the poor white share-croppers and the rich landowners, with the sheriff stuck in the middle, trying to keep the peace. It sucked me in and I couldn't look away, like a car wreck!

Another plus for reading so much! My local library is having a summer reading event and for every 3 books you read, you can enter to win a Nook! How cool is that?

21 books in June

West Seattle Murals

2011-06-29T16:21:00.000-07:00

West Seattle has a bunch of great murals and they have been featured in the book West Seattle 101 and on the West Seattle Blog .

(The Barnecut's Mural isn't included in the original 11 West Seattle historical murals.)

The Murals of West Seattle were created to represent images of West Seattle’s past. Spearheaded by Earl Cruzen and funded by a partnership between the West Seattle Junction Association, the City of Seattle’s Neighborhood Grants Program, and many local businesses, The 11 Murals employed gifted artists from all over the United States and the project won a national Neighborhood of the Year Award from Neighborhoods, USA in 1992.

1. West Seattle Ferries

2. The Junction

3. Midnight call

4. Mosquito Boat Land

5. The First Duwamish Bridge

6. Morgan Street Market

7. Alki in the Twenties

8. Tuesday’s Bank Day

9. The Hi-Yu Parade

10. The Old Mud Hole

11. Press Day

I was out and about today and got some photos of some of the murals that were not pictured on West Seattle Blog.

MOSQUITO BOAT LANDING

Located at California and Alaska, this mural depicts a 1910 Sunday landing of the S.S. Clan McDonald at Alki. The paddle-wheeled vessel provided the major form of turn-of-the-century transportation around Puget Sound.

MIDNIGHT CALL

Painted by local artist Don Barrie, this mural was created from an old photograph of a horse-drawn rig leaving the Junction Station from its mural location at 44th and Alaska. It has a 3-D element which is really cool, but it needs refurbishing, it is quite faded.

TUESDAY’S BANK DAY

Anyone who can recollect school days of the ’20s knows all about “bank day.” This mural is located at California and Oregon (on the north side of the Chase bank building) and depicts a 1923 classroom as students line up to make “deposits.”

PRESS DAY

This mural depicts the West Seattle Herald pre-WWII. It is located on 44th between Alaska and Edmunds.

The Old Mud Hole

Located at 44th and Alaska, this mural depicts the swimming pool in Lincoln Park installed by local philanthropist Laurence Colman. A tide gate filled the pool with saltwater from Puget Sound.

The heated, saltwater Colman Pool began as a tide-fed swimming hole in 1929, and was periodically hosed out by the fire department to rid it of accumulating mud and debris. It became so popular that residents began asking for a concrete bottom and sides - much to the chagrin of the city, which wanted to abandon it entirely. The pool took final concrete form in 1941, when Kenneth Colman, son of Laurence, donated $150,000 to have it built in honor of his father.

Monday's Postcard: Catalina Island

2011-06-27T06:30:00.000-07:00

I have fond memories of traveling over to Catalina Island on the ferry from Newport Beach with my niece and my Dad. We met with my Stepmom from her cruise ship and we took a golf cart around the island. It was great fun.

Monday's Postcard: Denver

2011-06-20T06:30:00.000-07:00

Another favorite layover. This card is from 1994 and we still flew into Stapleton International Airport. The new Denver International Airport opened in 1995. There was a kiosk at Stapleton where you could get caramel corn and regular popcorn mixed together. Not at the new airport. I loved that stuff, now I have to create it myself by buying both caramel and regular. I have been enjoying Denver layovers again this summer!!

Wild Card: Coconut Grove, Miami

2011-06-19T06:00:00.000-07:00

Happy Father's Day! This "wild card" is from my Dad and shows the Coconut Grove Marina where he lived for several years on his boat.

Monday's Postcard: Rome

2011-06-13T06:30:00.001-07:00

One of my favorite layovers in Europe is Rome and I love to wander around and look at all the fountains there. Here is one of my favorites in the Piazza Navona. This is also the location of a wonderful Christmas Market during the holiday season.

Monday's Postcard: Davidson, NC

2011-06-06T06:30:00.000-07:00

Here is a postcard of The Chapel at Davidson College. I got this card from my Granny in 1995. "what a lovely morning" she says. She always could see the bright side of things. I hope I can always be as optimistic and happy as my Granny.

New Years Resolution 2011: May Update

2011-06-01T21:47:00.000-07:00

What do you like to read at the beach? Classics? Thrillers? Tearjerkers? Trash novels? I am a fan of the HUGE epic novel, give me Gone with the Wind, or Anna Karenina...Outlander or Pillars of the Earth, I want 600 pages or more of sweeping drama! Something that totally transports me to another world for days!!

Also I have started adding if books are from the Library or not, because I think that most of my books do come from the library. This month all the purchased books came from used bookstores, except for the Butch Cassidy book, purchased at the Territorial Prison Museum gift shop in Cheyenne.

Here are the books I read in May, and not a saga among them,:

Don't Look Behind You by Lois Duncan
In Search of Butch Cassidy by Larry Pointer
Once Upon a Time There was You by Elizabeth Berg (library)
Finding Serenity: Anti-heros, Lost shepards and Space Hookers in Joss Whedon's Firefly ed. Jane Espenson
The Unnamed by Joshua Ferris (library)
Black Widow by Randy Wayne White
Star: How Warren Beatty Seduced America By Peter Biskind (library)
Dead as a Doornail by Charlaine Harris (library)
Oh Danny Boy by Rhys Bowen (library)
I don't know how she does it: The Life of Kate Reddy, Working Mother By Allison Pearson (library)
Good Behavior by Donald Westlake
The Mapping of Love and Death by Jacqueline Winspear (library)
Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand (library)
Started Early, Took My Dog by Kate Atkinson (library)
The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud by Ben Sherwood
ABC Murders by Agatha Christie
The Veiled One by Ruth Rendell
House of Prayer No. 2 by Mark Richard (library)
Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin (library)
Empire of the Summer Moon by S.C. Gwynne (library)
Definitely Dead by Charlaine Harris (library)
A Widow's Story by Joyce Carol Oates (library)

I got the Butch Cassidy book while we were on our Road Trip from NC to WA. We stopped at the Wyoming Territorial Prison Museum (which was terrific) and Butch Cassidy had been there for almost 2 years, July1894-January 1896. This book is about whether or not Cassidy was really killed in Bolivia (like in the movie with Robert Redford and Paul Newman) or if he returned to the USA and went straight for the rest of his life, dying in Washington State of cancer. Lots of evidence compared and contrasted. Fascinating!!

Continuing to read the different series by Bowen, Harris and Winspear. I have noticed that the Sookie Stackhouse books by Charlaine Harris are best read in order. The ones this month, Dead as a Doornail and Definitely Dead really have a lot of characters that you have met in previous books and to understand all the relationships between the different characters, it really helps if you have read the other books first.

Don't Look Behind You is a YA thriller and by the same author who wrote "I Know What You Did Last Summer"--bet you didn't know that one was a book first too!!! :-) And she also wrote "Hotel for Dogs" which was also made into a movie.

Elizabeth Berg writes "chick lit" often very sad, tear jerkers! I love her stuff and this one was not my favorite of hers (I like her period ones about the 1940's better) but it was good.

The Unnamed is about a man struggling with his mental health and the toll it takes on his marriage and his relationship with his daughter.

Black Widow by Randy Wayne White is a murder mystery set in Florida (Sanibel Island area). When I lived down there, my boyfriend at the time was drinking in a local bar and met the author! He got some books signed for me and I continue to read the latest by White whenever they come out, I am a bit behind as this is book number 16 in the Doc Ford Series and number 18 is out in hardback right now!

Star is Warren Beatty's biography, I have been on a biography kick, I read J.D. Salinger's last month and I want to read the new Rob Lowe autobiography....There is a new one out about Robert Redford too!

The Serenity book is a collection of a bunch of essays about the Firefly Television series and movie, Serenity directed by Joss Whedon of Buffy the Vampire Slayer fame.

Good Behavior by Donald Westlake, these are really fun heist novels. His Dortmunder series is great and I had not read this one yet. Lots of his stuff has been made into movies and there is a lot of action and comedy.

Started Early Took My Dog by Kate Atkinson, I am a huge fan and read everything by her when it comes out. She's British, and her books are set in England with a British Private Eye as the protagonist. This one concerns adoption and a woman trying to find out about her birth parents.

Charlie St. Cloud was made into a movie with Zac Efrom. Ben Sherwood also wrote "The Man who ate the 747". Very weepy, reminiscent of Nicholas Sparks' stuff.

Another Agatha Christie and another Ruth Rendell made the mix I always have these around in paperback for reading on the airplane.

House of Prayer No. 2, another southern memoir like "Little Boy Blues" by Malcolm Jones that I read earlier this year. I just am drawn to southern authors!
Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter is also a southern story with a really good mystery at it's core. Totally enjoyed it and read it in mere hours!!

Empire of the Summer Moon is a great non-fiction book about the Comanche Indians. Lots of fascinating history of Texas and the Indian Wars of the 1800's.

A Widow's Story is a look at the devastation that a death can have to your life. I read Joan Didion’s "The Year of Magical Thinking" previously and this is another look at that topic.

22 books in May

Monday's Postcard: Blind Pass

2011-05-30T06:30:00.000-07:00

This is an aerial view of Blind Pass between Captiva and Sanibel Island, Florida. My parents were boating along the west coast of Florida in the late 90's.

Monday's Postcard: Alaska

2011-05-23T06:30:00.000-07:00

Such a cute postcard of Alaska. I got this one in 2010 when we started flying from Philadelphia to Anchorage. One of my new favorite layovers!!

Monday's Postcard: Disneyworld

2011-05-16T04:15:00.000-07:00

Disneyworld 1981. Epcot was brand new and I was a little old for Disney at 15, but still loved it. Continued to go back again and again all through high school and college. Any excuse to visit the mouse :-) Inspired to post this one by my cousins recent visit!

Monday's Postcard: New Zealand

2011-05-09T06:30:00.000-07:00

In 1995, I had the great opportunity to travel to New Zealand and stay with friends of my parents on a sheep farm. It was great fun. I was there during March which was the end of their summer.

Wild Card: Panama

2011-05-08T06:00:00.000-07:00

Happy Mother's Day! This "wild card" postcard is from Panama. Ryan and I visited in 2005 to see an Eclipse and now my stepmom is living down there! Pretty cool

Monday's Postcard: Yosemite

2011-05-02T06:30:00.000-07:00

Can you believe that I have never been to Yosemite? Not yet anyway....this is a postcard from my sister from 2003. El Capitan.

New Years Resolution 2011: April Update

2011-04-30T18:40:00.000-07:00

Super creative, a bench made of books! I want one at my house :-)

I had mentioned last month that I also read magazines and someone wanted to know what magazines I read, well Ryan and I have subscriptions to Entertainment Weekly and Newsweek and Backpacker, but I also get magazines that are left onboard the airplane and at a magazine exchange at our local library, and our used book store also sells used magazines for 25 cents. So I get them there too. Most months I read those previous three I mentioned and Sunset, Outside, The New Yorker, Smithsonian, Southern Living, Discover, Astronomy, O, Time, Esquire, Redbook, Allure, Elle, Glamour, Us, People, Ladies Home Journal, Real Simple, In Touch, Self, Woman's Day, Consumer Reports, Seattle and Good Housekeeping.

Other magazines that I might read only a couple of times a year are New York, Popular Mechanics, Fitness, Men's Health, Travel and Leisure, Town and Country, Vanity Fair (great article about Rob Lowe this month!), Harper's Bazaar, Vogue, Outdoor Photographer, Just Cross Stitch, Reader's Digest, Islands, Coastal Living, Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, Cross Stitcher, Firsts, Country Living and Memory Makers Magazine. I am sure that there are many more that I am not thinking of at the moment...I will often pick up a scrapbooking or cross-stitch magazine at craft stores like Michaels or if Ryan and I are going on a special trip somewhere, we might pick up some magazines to read on the plane as a special treat.

Here are the books I read in April, Thanks so much to everyone who sent me boxes of books for my birthday!:

Messenger of Truth by Jacqueline Winspear library
Club Dead by Charlaine Harris library
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell library
Sins of the Fathers by Ruth Rendell library
Dead to the World by Charlaine Harris library
All We Ever Wanted was Everything by Janelle Brown library
The Best Man to Die by Ruth Rendell
Paris Wife by Paula McLain library
An Incomplete Revenge by Jacqueline Winspear library
Squirrel seeks Chipmunk by David Sedaris library
The Early Work of Philip K. Dick Volume One: The Variable Man and other stories library
J. D. Salinger: A Life by Kenneth Slawenski library
Starvation Heights by Gregg Olsen
Full Dark, No Stars by Stephen King library
The Winter of Our Disconnect by Susan Maushart library
For the Love of Mike by Rhys Bowen library
At Home: A short history of private life by Bill Bryson
Burning Bright by Ron Rash library
Among the Mad by Jacqueline Winspear library
In Like Flynn by Rhys Bowen library
Heat Wave by Richard Castle

Cloud Atlas was very interesting. I started it and was not sure if I liked it or not, but the more I got into it, the more I liked it. It felt a lot like a collection of stories, but they all intertwined and circled back to each other. In the end I was fascinated. It was a finalist for the Booker Prize. The Man Booker Prize for Fiction is a literary award for the best original full-length novel, written in the English language, by a citizen of the Commonwealth of Nations, Ireland or Zimbabwe each year. Previous winners are The Remains of the Day, The English Patient, and Life of Pi. Since 2001, they have revealed the runners up. The year Cloud Atlas was a finalist (2004), The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst won the Booker.

The Ruth Rendell mysteries are great, these are Inspector Wexford ones that were also made into a series on British TV. More Jacqueline Winspear this month and more of the Sookie Stackhouse novels by Charlaine Harris, the Molly Murphy mysteries by Rhys Bowen too, I will be reading more of these all through the summer.

All We Ever Wanted was Everything is a story about divorce. Very much a chick lit type of book....depressing not funny, similar to Picoult, Shreve or O'Nan, but I enjoyed it.

Philip K. Dick....can you believe I haven't read Philip K. Dick??? Neither could I! The author of Blade Runner, Minority Report, and Total Recall!! This is a collection of his short stories.

I enjoyed Paris Wife quite a bit and will probably be rereading some Hemingway now. It is the story of Hemingway's first marriage told from the point of view of his wife, Hadley Richardson.

David Sedaris, I am a huge fan and found this selection of stories pretty funny (and disturbing too) I would love to see Sedaris read in person.

Starvation Heights is a non-fiction telling of the murder trial of an Olalla, WA doctor who ran a sanitarium where folks were starved to death. She (a female doctor in 1910!!) advocated fasting as a remedy for most all disease. It promised to be a spooky and exciting tale, but soon became mired in the notes of the trial.

Stephen King, I am always a huge fan and happy to say that these stories are much better than some of the books he has had out lately! Creepy stuff, highly recommended!!

J.D. Salinger, again, I am a huge fan, so of course fascinated by this biography. I am always intrigued when people acquire fame and then hate it so much.

Bill Bryson, Huge fan! :-) and gave me lots of ideas for other books to read!

The Winter of Our Disconnect has me wishing I could disconnect a little more. If I wasn't blogging, watching reality TV online and playing games on Facebook, I'd have more time for reading :-) A mom with 3 teenagers pulls the plug on Electricity (for 4 weeks!!) and on Cell Phones, Video Games, Ipods, TVs, and Internet for a total of 6 months. This is her story. There were loopholes, one daughter basically went to live with her dad (they are divorced) for much of the time and the kids could use internet, play games etc. at their friend's houses or internet cafes. They were also forced to use libraries to complete homework assignments on the internet. But all in all, it was an interesting experiment and I enjoyed this book.

Burning Bright is a selection of short stories by a NC author. Very Appalachia, much like Winter's Bone in the tone. Very good though, quite enjoyed.

Heat Wave by Richard Castle is a promotional book created for the ABC tv series Castle. I hate to say it is a "fake book" but it is... and entertaining none the less. Wonder who the ghost writer is??? Of course I was grinning all through the reading and looking for parallels to the tv show. I catch maybe every other episode of the TV show, so I am not 100 percent clued in to all the nuances of Beckett and Castle. But I think you can get a lot out of the book that maybe you don't catch while watching the show. It is told from "Nicki Heat/Beckett"'s viewpoint, and of course is written by "Castle/Rook" (Rook is the writer character in the book) A fictional world within a fictional world! I love stuff like that.

21 books

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Monday's Postcard: Winchester Mystery House

2011-04-25T06:30:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite places!! In San Jose, CA, the Winchester Mystery House. I visited here as an impressionable preteen and it spoke to all my imaginings of mystery and spookiness and ghosts and obsession! I just love this place. And I really enjoy these type of Now and Then photos.

Wild Card: Mont Saint-Michel

2011-04-24T06:10:00.000-07:00

Happy Easter and enjoy this "wild card" of Mont Saint Michel, one of my favorite places in France! Absolutely amazing. My sister and I spent the night on the Mont in 1996. I was inspired to visit by Disney World. If you go to Epcot and visit the France Pavilion, they have a 360 degree film of France. I was blown away by Mont Saint Michel and it immediately made the the top of my life list of places to visit.

Monday's Postcard: the Old Charlotte Coliseum

2011-04-18T06:30:00.000-07:00

Wow, now a vacant field, here is what the Charlotte Coliseum used to look like out near the airport. The city skyline is a bit different now too! This postcard is from 1989.

Glass Fun Part II

2011-04-14T15:48:00.000-07:00

Oh my, just got a box from Virginia today in the mail! Two of our glass projects were included....one is still in transit. But for those who were curious, here is Ryan's finished Chicken! And my Nancy Drew themed Suncatchers!

Monday's Postcard: Thailand

2011-04-11T06:30:00.000-07:00

This is a postcard of the Damnoen Saduak Floating Market outside of Bangkok. I went there with my stepmother in the spring of 1994 and it was just a riot of colors and smells and sounds.

Stained Glass Fun at the Nancy Drew convention

2011-04-09T14:46:00.000-07:00

So last week while in Charlottesville, VA for a Nancy Drew convention,
we went to a place called The Glass Palette - Interactive Glass Art Studio
It was so interesting. Like one of those paint your own pottery places. You could just walk in off the street, no classes, no reservations and create a "stained glass" masterpiece. Everything is food and dishwasher safe too!! Amazing.
Why were we making our own glass creations you ask? Well, the theme of the Charlottesville Convention was The Hidden Window Mystery. Nancy Drew is looking for a lost stained glass window that came over from England and has been lost for centuries.
She believes that the Charlottesville area is the perfect place to search for this window. While in Virginia, she tours Monticello and Ashlawn, so we did that too. She also goes canoeing, but we didn't do that. Sometimes you just can't fit in all the Nancy Drew activities!!
Most of the folks at the convention created Peacock stained glass items. Again a nod to the Nancy Drew book. In the book, peacocks at an old southern mansion are considered spooky and mysterious. Also the Hidden Window of the book's title depicts a knight with a peacock on his shield. The cover of the Original Nancy Drew book also features a peacock.

Here are some examples of before and after firing of one of the pieces made by our group. Gina Travis created this peacock and it will be molded into a "sushi dish". We had several different options of items to make from dishes and jewelry to sun-catchers and picture frames. The prices depend on the size of the item you want to make. Everything was very reasonably priced. It is not true stained glass, but fused glass. The pieces of glass are melted together in a kiln.
It was so much fun to work with the glass pieces. We had tools for cutting the glass into smaller pieces and there were so many colors!! There were even little sparkly sand like pieces that created some interesting effects.

I enjoyed the glass making place so much that I took Ryan back there after the convention was over to make some more glass items. I knew that he would enjoy it too. Ryan decided to create a Chicken for his mom!

I was hoping that there would be some place similar in the Seattle area but it seems like most places don't let you just drop in and work, you have to take scheduled classes, but if you are interested in making your own "stained glass" creations here is a list of some places all over the country: Glass Fusionplaces

Tea Bricks? Who knew??

2011-04-06T14:11:00.001-07:00

I am a huge fan of tea. In the past week I have encountered a type of tea that I never knew existed before! The tea brick. It was featured on the Amazing Race. And during a tour to Monticello and Ashlawn in Charlottesville, VA, they demonstrated how to use a tea brick, saying that this was the type of tea that would have been used in the New World during the 1700's. Tea Bricks would have been the tea that was thrown into Boston Harbour during the Boston Tea Party. Not tea bags, not loose tea. Supposedly, the tea bricks can be transported easily and won't succumb to the elements (mold and wet) the way loose tea would.

The bricks have sections imprinted onto them and could be broken up and used as currency and in trade. I had been to Monticello in previous years and did not remember this part of the tour! It seems like all of a sudden there is this interest in the authentic tea brick that was not there previously.

The Amazing Race did not show you how you used the tea brick. You would grate the tea off of the brick and into your cup and add the hot water!

So of course, I bought a tea brick and I can't wait to try it!!

Monday's Postcard: Greektown, Detroit

2011-04-04T06:30:00.000-07:00

This postcard is from a layover that I had in Detroit in the early 90's. We went to Greektown for dinner. I just remember the food being wonderful!!

New Years Resolution 2011: March Update

2011-04-01T06:25:00.000-07:00

This photo is at an awesome book sculpture in downtown Charlotte, NC

Some folks were wondering where I get the idea to read certain books. For new books and current authors, my favorite resources are magazines. Entertainment Weekly, The New Yorker and even People and Elle magazine. They all have book reviews of new stuff that is coming out. I will also see blurbs about books in newspapers and USAToday. If it interests me, I will write it down and then I go and reserve it at the library. If the library doesn't have it, then I will look for it when I go to used bookstores. I will also check out the staff recommendations at bookstores and libraries.
Once I enjoy an author, I will then seek out everything they have written and read it all. Sometimes I will just see a book in a store and be intrigued by the cover or the title and just pick it up. I also rely on recommendations from friends and family. By the way, in addition to reading books every day, I also read magazines and newspapers! Like anyone else, sometimes I just can't keep my mind in a book. So then I like to read something quick, magazines are great for this (and I also read short story collections for this reason as well)

Here are the books that I read in March:

The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell
Winter’s Bone by Daniel Woodrell library
The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler
Possum Living: How to Live well without a Job and with (almost) no money by Dolly Freed library
Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear library
Grifter's Game by Lawrence Block library
Bad Move by Linwood Barclay library
Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris library
Murphy's Law by Rhys Bowen library
Little Boy Blues by Malcolm Jones library
Birds of a Feather by Jacqueline Winspear library
Death of Riley by Rhys Bowen library
Stories from the Twilight Zone by Rod Serling
Farewell My Lovely by Raymond Chandler library
The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham library
Pardonable Lies by Jacqueline Winspear library
The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown library
A Red Herring without Mustard by Alan Bradley
Living Dead in Dallas by Charlaine Harris library
The Bird Man and The Lap dancer by Eric Hansen
The Sinus Cure: 7 simple steps by Debra Fulghum Bruce and Murray Grossan, MD library
The Lady in the Lake by Raymond Chandler
At Random the Reminiscences of Bennett Cerf library
Maud the Life of L.M. Montgomery by Harry Bruce
What the Dogs have taught Me by Merrill Markoe
Black Book of Secrets by F. E. Higgins
The Secret of Lost Things by Sheridan Hay
Raven Stole the Moon by Garth Stein library

The Wordy Shipmates is about the Puritans who came to America and settled in the Boston and Plymouth areas. It was okay, I enjoyed another book better. A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World by Tony Horwitz. It is about what happened in North America between 1492 when Columbus arrived and 1620 when the Pilgrims came. It is 100 years of history that we pretty much ignore most of the time. I will say that Sarah Vowell is an entertaining writer and I did enjoy her slant on her subject. But much of the book was very dry, I hate to say, boring.

Winter's Bone, you might have heard of the movie, the actress was up for an academy award....the book was great and I plan to read more from this author.

A Red Herring without Mustard by Alan Bradley, this book was a birthday present and the third in a new YA series that I absolutely love!! Flavia De Luce is a wonderfully fun and clever heroine. "The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie" is the first in this series.

Maisie Dobbs is the start of a murder mystery series set in post WWI England. I enjoyed it a lot and will be reading the rest of these books by this author. It was very similar to another series I started reading last year by Charles Todd featuring a WWI Nurse, Bess Crawford. The first book in the Bess Crawford series is "A Duty to the Dead" and I look forward to reading more of those also!

Little Boy Blues is a memoir of a man raised in 1950's NC. Being from North Carolina I enjoyed it. If you were raised in the south, you will see lots of similarities. I always enjoy southern writers for the familiarity that I have with their subject. I already KNOW all these characters, I have eaten the same food and been to the same places.

Dead Until Dark is the first book in the Sookie Stackhouse series that the True Blood HBO TV series is based upon. I watched the first season of True Blood, so now I am going back and reading the books that the TV series is based on.

The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham This one was made into a movie in 2006 with Naomi Watts and Edward Norton.

Maud the Life of L. M. Montgomery is a biography. I was rereading the Anne books and realized that I had never read a biography of L. M. Montgomery, even though I have visited Prince Edward Island (where Montgomery is from and where the Anne books are set)!!

The Weird Sisters I recommend. I enjoyed it a lot. If you have a sister (or sisters), if you like reading, if you like Shakespeare. Reminded me a little of some Jane Smiley or Carol Shields. Great descriptive passages: "Bean pulled a heavy towel from the stack of laundry, unwinding it from the lascivious position it had gotten into with a pillowcase." I just love stuff like that!

At Random the Reminiscences of Bennett Cerf, I got the idea to read this book from a documentary I watched about the history of the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. They mentioned a "Bennett Cerf Joke Book," so I went online looking for info about Bennett Cerf and found this book at my local library. It is his autobiography, turns out he was one of the founding fathers of Random House book publishing. The book is an amazing account of his adventures meeting famous writers like Truman Capote, Ernest Hemingway, Theodore Dreiser, Dorothy Parker, William Faulkner and many many more. I was captivated.

28 books

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Monday's Postcard: Campobello Island

2011-03-28T06:30:00.000-07:00

Campobello Island is a lovely place in New Brunswick, Canada. It is attached to the United States by a bridge at the easternmost tip of Maine. Franklin D. Roosevelt had a summer home on the island and it is now a wonderful park and museum. I went there with my Granny in 1994.

Monday's Postcard: Boeing Field Airplanes

2011-03-21T06:30:00.000-07:00

This is a postcard of Seattle's Boeing Field with the brand new airplanes lined up and ready for delivery to their airlines. Notice the America West and Piedmont planes lined up side by side!! gotta be early 80's.

Wild Card: Bray, County Wicklow, Ireland

2011-03-17T06:40:00.000-07:00

Happy St. Patrick's Day and here is a "wild card" from Ireland! I was on a homestay in Bray in 1986. I just last year reconnected with my host family who are now living in Scotland! Shout out to Barry, Derek and Lana Lord! Hope to be seeing more of you guys in 2011 and beyond. This was another wonderful educational opportunity. I highly recommend it for high school age children.

Monday's Postcard: Fort Wayne, IN

2011-03-14T06:30:00.000-07:00

This is downtown Fort Wayne, IN. This postcard is from my Grandmother Arkebauer, written to me in 1982 when I was away at an academic summer camp. My Grandmother Arkebauer lived in Fort Wayne and I didn't get to see her as often as my Granny Knox who lived in North Carolina where I grew up. I was at the Governor's School of North Carolina for the summer and it was a great honor and opportunity, but when you are 15 years old, you aren't really thinking about your future, you are more likely thinking about the cute boys that you can meet at Governor's School. I attended at a small college in the middle of nowhere (Laurinburg) NC. And it was very exciting to receive mail. Obviously, I kept this postcard from that time in my life. I must say that looking back, even though I was only interested in meeting boys, Governor's School did a lot to prepare me for college and I made a lot of great friends there.

Monday's Postcard: The Maldives

2011-03-07T06:30:00.000-08:00

Extra points to all you folks who can point to the Maldives on a map. I didn't know where it was until my Dad started flying there. He would have 4 day layovers in paradise. Definitely on the bucket list of places to visit!

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New Years Resolution 2011: February Update

2011-03-03T15:25:00.000-08:00

These pictures are of a book vending machine!! How cool is that??!! This is at an airport in Europe.

Folks were asking WHEN do I read? I commute to work from Seattle to Philadelphia. The flights are usually around 5 hours or so give or take. Plus with getting to the airport an hour prior and getting into Philadelphia several hours prior to when I actually go to work, I have lots of downtime to read. I ALWAYS have a book with me. I cannot sit and wait without something to read. Doctor's office, getting on oil change, waiting for a friend at a restaurant etc. And when I am not wasting time on facebook or watching reality tv....it's the season for Amazing Race and America's Next Top Model, not to mention Survivor!!!, when I am not wasting my time watching tv (usually catching up after the fact online--thank goodness for CBS.com), I am usually reading. And I will definitely reread books that I have enjoyed. Especially if it has been 10 years or more since I read them....for example, in February, I reread 1984. I had not read it since high school/ college.

Still keeping track of the books that I read in 2011, here are all the books that I read in February:

Primal Threat by Earl Emerson
1984 by George Orwell
Great Son by Edna Ferber library
The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein
Ordinary Thunderstorms by William Boyd library
The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe library
Running Dream by Wendelin Van Draanen
Murder in the Marketplace by Lora Roberts
Loitering with Intent by Stuart Woods library
Anne of Avonlea by L. M. Montgomery
Norwood by Charles Portis
The Wild Cat Crime by Carolyn Keene
Pit of Vipers by Carolyn Keene
What the Dog Saw by Malcolm Gladwell library
Christmas Mourning by Margaret Maron library
The Tinder Box by Minette Walters library
Anne of the Island by L. M. Montgomery
The Known World by Edward P. Jones
How Evan Broke His Head and other secrets by Garth Stein library
The Confession by John Grisham library
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro library

I loved The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein and will be looking for other books that he has written.
Edna Ferber wrote Giant and Showboat. Great Son is about a Seattle family, found this book while just cruising thru a local used book store. Lots of interesting Seattle history from pre-WWII
Ordinary Thunderstorms was pretty entertaining. It is a fictional thriller that might give you a different view of homelessness! It inspired me to reread the Lora Roberts mysteries, her protagonist was homeless in the first book in this series (Murder in a Nice Neighborhood)
The Carolyn Keene books are Nancy Drew books I was reading and thinking about writing an article about for one of the fanzine's
Never Let Me Go has been made into a movie with Keira Knightly. I got into a rant last year because I read The Unit by Ninni Holmqvist and got it confused with Never Let Me Go because they do have similiar themes. (I will say that I prefered The Unit) The Unit revolved around a 50 year old woman and I was going off because I thought they had Keira Knightly doing this role..changed the whole thing for younger actors etc. Turns out, I was thinking of the wrong book. :-)
PS Here is my RANT:

"The Unit is being made into a movie as we speak. I am not too happy about this and i will tell you why. The book was wonderful I enjoyed it immensely. The synopsis is that once you reach the age of 50, if you have not reproduced and if you do not have a job that is deemed indispensable then you are sent to the UNIT and you are used as a lab rat for tests and your organs are farmed out to people who are more worthy..until you make the final sacrifice and donate your heart or lungs etc. (*In Never Let Me Go,the people being farmed for organs are clones, created for this purpose) It seems that artists are not deemed worthy and most of the folks in the UNIT are artists, writers, store clerks, film critics and librarians etc.
I am not happy about the movie because I heard it is starring Keira Knightly and some other 20-somethings. OKAY. This is a novel about how you are not worthy if you live your life without procreating. I don't know how they are going to change it so that the 20 year olds are sent to the Unit. But the book was awesome in that it made you question your choices in life and the decisions that you make. To have a child or not,
what kind of career you pursue etc etc."

*I added this info so you would know the differences between the books
Again, I preferred The Unit by Ninni Holmqvist. Maybe I could emphasize better with the 50 year olds than with the school children of Never Let Me Go.

Ryan and I both just finished The Confession by Grisham and were pretty underwhelmed. Grisham's books were so great in the beginning because there was a lot of action and things just moved! Now they are sort of slow and this one for me just never zipped along. I could barely care about the characters.

21 books

Monday's Postcard: The Alamo

2011-02-28T06:30:00.000-08:00

San Antonio, Texas and the Alamo! One of my all time favorite layovers, that I never get anymore. This postcard is from my visit there in July of 1994 and I really miss spending time in that town. I was there for New Year's Eve once too and it was quite fun.

Wild Card: Sierra Buttes

2011-02-27T06:40:00.000-08:00

Today is my sister's birthday and I thought I would post a "wild card" that I got from her in 2005. She had been on a climbing trip here!

Monday's Postcard: Superstition Mountains

2011-02-21T06:30:00.000-08:00

This postcard is from Phoenix, Arizona. I think it is from when I was there with my Nancy Drew collector friends for a convention in October of 2005. I also did a bit of letterboxing in those mountains!

Monday's Postcard: Paris

2011-02-14T06:30:00.000-08:00

Happy Valentine's Day! And today's postcard is Paris. I don't get it, not my favorite city in Europe, but lots of folks think it is super romantic. In fact, two of my favorite romantic comedies ( American Dreamer and French Kiss ) are set in Paris, so there must be something to all the hype :-)

Monday's Postcard: Singapore

2011-02-07T06:20:00.000-08:00

This is a postcard from my Dad when he was flying for EVA Airlines out of Taiwan. He would fly to some pretty glamorous destinations and I got a lot of great postcards from his time in the Far East.
This card shows the night market in the Chinatown district of Singapore.

New Years Resolution 2011: January Update

2011-02-01T19:40:00.000-08:00

Okay, one of my new years resolutions for 2011 was to keep track of all the books that I read this year. I read a lot, but I have never really kept track. I was inspired by several friends who had challenged themselves to read 100 books in 2010 and they either met or exceeded their goals. Ryan also keeps track of every single book that he has read since June 15, 1990!! So this is new for me to keep a running list of my reading.

Here are all the books that I read in January:

A Week At The Airport: A Heathrow Diary by Alain de Botton library
Stickwork by Patrick Dougherty library
The Passage by Justin Cronin library
The Irresistible Henry House by Lisa Grunwald library
Stone Rain by Linwood Barclay library
Stuff: Compulsive hoarding and the meaning of things by Randy O Frost and Gail Steketee library
Packing for Mars by Mary Roach library
I Remember Nothing by Nora Ephron
The Dog of the South by Charles Portis
True Grit by Charles Portis
Mildred Pierce by James M. Cain
Alfred Hitchcock’s Noose Report (short story collection)
Dead Low Tide by John D MacDonald
Soft Touch by John D MacDonald
Matched by Ally Condie library
The Drowner by John D. MacDonald
Almost Astronauts: 13 Women who dared to dream by Tanya Lee Stone library
Riding Rockets by Mike Mullane library
Anne of Green Gables by L M Montgomery
The Idiot Girls’ Action Adventure Club by Laurie Notaro
Malpractice in Maggody by Joan Hess
Alfred Hitchcock’s Killers at Large (short story collection)
The Devil Amongst the Lawyers by Sharyn McCrumb

I read and reread a lot of Children's Literature and Murder Mysteries and stuff from favorite authors. A lot of John D. MacDonald this month, I have been rereading him and Agatha Christie lately. I had never read Mildred Pierce and was fascinated by it, remembering the movie with Joan Crawford. But the book really had me annoyed. Why that woman ever cared what her stuck up daughter thought of her is a mystery to me??!!

Riding Rockets was a terrific look at what modern day astronauts really go thru and I really enjoyed it (It was recommended in Packing for Mars)

The Passage is very similar to The Stand by Stephen King and I might have to reread The Stand this year too! :-)

Matched by Ally Condie is the start of a new YA trilogy that is very similar to The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. I quite enjoyed it.

The photo at the top is from early 1990's when Lea Fox and I were shopping for books at a Nancy Drew (Whispered Watchword/Phantom Friends) convention in Maine.

23 books

Monday's Postcard: Biltmore House

2011-01-31T06:15:00.000-08:00

This is a postcard of the Biltmore House in Asheville, NC. An absolutely wonderful place to visit and I think this postcard is from when I was there on a school field trip in the 80's. I have visited the place many times. It is especially fun to go during the Christmas Holidays when they have the house decorated. I think there are letterboxes in this photo!!

Monday's Postcard: Faneuil Hall Marketplace

2011-01-24T06:15:00.000-08:00

Okay, this card is from Boston from 1982 and shows the Faneuil Hall Marketplace. One of my favorite places to shop and eat in Boston. My parents were vacationing there without me...1982 would have made me 16 years old, I was probably having a wild party at the house while they were gone.

Wild Card: St. Martin

2011-01-20T06:10:00.000-08:00

Wow, will winter ever end?? I have decided to insert a "wild card" here and don't we all wish we were some place like this. The airplane flies right over the beach on final approach at St. Martin. You can get a postcard with just about every airline represented! :-)