Wild Card: Mont Saint-Michel

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

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

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

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

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??

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

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

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

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

Enter your email address:

Delivered by FeedBurner

Monday's Postcard: Campobello Island

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

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

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

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

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!

You can now subscribe to my blog. You'll get an email each time it is updated with a new post.

Enter your email address:

Delivered by FeedBurner

New Years Resolution 2011: February Update

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

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

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

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

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

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

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