All the pretty pages

... free books.. go by all the pretty pages's new blog.. she (he?) is giving away ten (10) books. Ten! Free books. Ten 'of em.

It's fantastic.

Go see a poem

Usually it's go read a poem or go see a movie.

But you can actually go see a poem that I wrote (and others that others wrote) at Rachelle's blog (in the comments).

She's giving a away books if you write a swell poem that she chooses as her favorite.

Maybe I'll win. Maybe you'll win if you write a rhyme.

Give it some time.

Some of the highlights of the year

First and foremost - this has to be one of the cutest video posts ever. Kiersten wrote it. She's absolutely adorable.

And we really lived most of it

Louisa May Alcott wrote of the simple, the true, and of what she really lived (most of it). So inspiring.

Christmas is over

Well, it is.. over.

Now - on to the in-between week. The days between Christmas and New Year. Gotta work.

Christmas Eve Gift!

This is what we say in the deep old south on this day -- the morning of the day before Christmas..

Christmas Eve Gift!!

Here's a link to last year where it's explored. It's a greeting with love on a special day born of simplicity and grace.

Highway 20 Ride

From Zac Brown's Band . . . it's awesome. Have some tissue in hand.

Books For Free

It's true.. go see.. they're at Redlady's Reading Room.

When Christmas Spirit Calls

If you read nothing else this morning.. let it be this. It's a link to an article in Parade Magazine today written by Pat Conroy about his ghosts of Christmas past. Pat Conroy is a man who makes love to life and words and ... the spirit of love.

His novels are good - his memoirs and remembrances are so much better. One of the best books I've ever read in my entire life is My Losing Season. One of the next best is also his - The Water is Wide.

Talk about changing a life ...

These are the true stories.

Santa will find you

The loveliest Christmas music ever (in a very long time).. and I don't have a habit of disappointing my fans (all couple dozen of them).

Here's Mindy Smith - from her Holiday album. Santa Will Find You (remember to turn down or turn off the music already playing on my blog - scroll down to the very bottom).

Free Books and a Kitchen Sink (the sink's not free)

Look.. book giveaways.. go look.

The first one is from writesthoughts blogger and the free book is by Lena Nelson Dooley.

The next book is from bookwormbooklovers blogger and that book is your choice (one of three).. my choice would be Going Bovine by Libba Bray.

And then there's another book giveaway from Colletta's Kitchen Sink blogger. She's sharing the book Chicken Soup for the Coffee Lover's Soul (that would be me).

Also.. Grossgrainfabulous blogger is giving away Sew Liberated.. Love it.

Finally, there's this one - from Janette Rallison's blog and it's titled, How To Take the Ex Out of Ex-boyfriend (for the YA readers you know.. maybe that's you.. I know I've done it.. read YA that is).

Did ya do it?

Books do furnish a life

"I have not spoken to anyone since Monday. The radio is playing 'Downtown' by Petula Clerk. I've been reading some Shaw -- Man and Superman. I'm wearing jeans, my cable knit sweater and my Keds. I've made coffee and am waiting for it to cool. Let it be recorded that at this moment I am happy." - Roger Ebert

Books do furnish a life. So said Roger Ebert (here).
And so said I.



















I took these photos this morning at random places around my home. The books and magazines and music are in just about every corner and surface of my life.



As you can see, my tastes are eclectic. From John Grisham to Anne Rivers Siddons to little known authors from long ago .. all great stories.

One of my computing areas.. full of books and photos.. and one of the old books is my mouse pad.

Books of the moment stacked by my makeup table .. The Lovely Bones (excellent), Peachtree Road (just now getting into it) and Breaking the Silence (could NOT put it down).

What books furnish your life?

Do tell..

Giveaway!

Little Giant of Aberdeen County is being given away by blogger, A Circle of Books.. go see. Someone wins free.. hope it's me. But, if not me, then you.

Well, somebody has to win.

Was I deaf and dumb?

True story about me.

Shortly after I began kindergarten, my teacher sent me home to my mother with a note pinned to my shirt:

"Is your daughter deaf and dumb?"

I would not talk. I remember this like it was yesterday. I would not talk to my teacher, nor to most people - unless they were related to me and/or I knew them very well. I was a selective mute. Painfully shy does not describe it effectively enough - although I was absolutely (still am) painfully shy. It hurt to talk. It hurt to think about talking.

So I didn't.

And I don't talk very much now. I don't know why really. I had a fairy tale growing up childhood/family life. No trauma. No bad relatives. No bad memories.

I was just quiet. Afraid? Anxious. Unsure of myself in certain social situations. I didn't want to be embarrassed. And I often felt that way.

Why tho . . . I really don't know why the level of intensity for me, particularly at that time, was so deep. I may never know . . . and maybe that's fine.

Here's what I do know: Diane Chamberlain's new book (or new to me - she sent me a signed copy of my own this week ... thank you very much Diane!) Breaking the Silence has a plot involving a little girl who suddenly becomes silent. Why?

Well, I'm enjoying reading the book.. and I'll find out why.

TTFN (know what that means?)

Christmas on and off the court

So my daughter plays basketball for the first time this year for her school (last year she didn't make the team after trying out, but was chosen as the manager) ... and she just finished up her second cross country season (for the high school no less, and she's not even in high school yet)...anyway, yesterday was a day of basketball.

... and yesterday was a day of just me and my daughter.

Just me because my husband worked yesterday. Just my daughter because she had a ballgame - my son (now 20) moved to an apartment with his buddies a few days ago (he took his bed, some clothes, a lot of food, and one of my cars that he thinks is his car-and that's ok for now)... son is doing his own thing (working and sleeping mostly...thinking of school I'm sure).

Game was in the afternoon, so we started early doing the fun stuff - Christmas shopping (mostly looking).

Now let me back up a bit for a moment - the day before yesterday, my daughter was reading a book called The Lightening Thief. She was almost finished with it and asked if when she finished it, would I buy her the next book in the series (apparently, it's part of a trilogy or set or something).

Me - You want me to buy you a book?

Her - Yes.

Me - You want to read another book?

Her - Yes.

Me - Um, YES. What is the name of it, who is the author, and does he or she write anything else you will read?

Her - -she tells me, but I can't remember right now her the author is.. irrelevant at this point.. the point is SHE WANTS TO READ IT... hoorah hoorah woohoooo!!

I should point out at this juncture if you haven't figured it out already - my daughter has never been one to enjoy reading. This has been an - ahem, issue in our house.

Me - We'll go tomorrow first thing. Would you like to do that?

Her - Yes.

Me - [smiling excruciatingly.. I know I know.. adverbs..whatever].

Back to yesterday. We went to the bookstore, her and I. Got her book - Sea of Monsters I think it's called. And, of course, I got a book too. The Lovely Bones. I'm halfway through it. Fantastic read.

Then we went to lunch at the Dairy Queen.

Then we went to her game. Sat and sat waiting (it was a tournament, so many other games going on). We watched people. We talked to people. We watched basketball.

She played her game.

I waited for her to come out after her game.. I watched the next game begin.

We left the court. We went to husband's work to retrieve him back home (we're down to one car now because one is in the shop and the other is with son who moved out). Husband, daughter and I went to Arby's.. got burgers and salads and came home.

Got in my jammies, curled up with my bones book and salad and was a very happy person. Daughter read her book into the night.

Still smiling excruciatingly.

- - -

"... Beaver Falls and Ambridge were playing in a Christmas basketball tournament sponsored by the Hopewell Township Lions Club. Brokos, who'd ..." - excerpt from Namath: A Biography, by Mark Kriegel.

I'm a sharp girl

The Birmingham News has a story today that I consider one of a thousand (one in a million really) to read before you die. I have many more posts of stories to read before you die too (here). But this one is special - it's about the bookstore close to my heart, The Alabama Booksmith ... it's in my town ... where I buy books ... it's not a chain store - no, it's run by a guy who has a passion for books and their authors.

And he has a soft spot for southern fiction, being from the South an' all. Here's some of the story.. but go read the rest ... about a cool guy who found his place.

Presenting, Jake Reiss.

Back then, the dapper Reiss ran a tailoring business ... and he made suits for several prominent Birmingham businessmen and CEOs, as well as such celebrities as comedian Bob Hope and Buffalo Bills quarterback and future Congressman Jack Kemp.

Then, almost 20 years ago, already well into his 50s and way past time to be going through a mid-life crisis, Reiss opened a little bookstore on Highland Avenue, grew a ponytail and started hanging out with the Bohemians.

"I started reading," Reiss says, "and I liked it."...

It was similar dumb luck that led Reiss to open a bookstore nearly two decades later.
His youngest son, Frank, opened a used bookstore in Atlanta in 1989, and seeing an opportunity to make some easy money fast, Reiss decided he should do the same.

"I was overwhelmed at his buying used books for pennies and selling them for dollars," Reiss recalls. "So, after going with him on a few book purchases, I asked him, 'How hard can it be?'" Never mind that the older Reiss rarely read books.

"In fact," Reiss confesses, "to give you an indication of my quality of reading, right before my son opened his bookstore, I had a closet full of the books that I had accumulated. It was all I had left after my divorce. There were maybe a hundred books in there, and he took two of them. The other 98, he wouldn't take even for free to put in his bookstore."

So he asked his son to put together a list of 50 to 100 bestselling authors, and then he went from garage sale to garage sale, hunting for bargains. After filling up a spare bedroom with thousands of books, he found a space on the ground floor of the Highland Towers apartment building on Highland Avenue and opened the Highland Booksmith in September 1990.

"I had no plan, no staff and knew nothing," Reiss remembers. "Two weeks before I was scheduled to open, I put a sign in the window: 'New bookstore opening, help
wanted.' I had 70 applications, and half a dozen of them offered to work for free, just to be in a bookstore."

Reiss admits he had another reason for opening a bookstore.

"I was an aging bachelor," he says, "and I thought sharp girls would go to a bookstore."

I guess I'm a sharp girl.

Giveway - Great Christmas Bowl

Like free books?! I do.. I entered a contest this morning at CamiCheckettsBooks.. go see... you could win a book - it's the Great Christmas Bowl by Susan May Warren.

The Lawyer Who Blew Up His Desk

It wasn't me (well, I'm not really a lawyer anyway).

Found this over at that place (the Heim Binas Fiction blog). For your Christmas book loves... all you really ever need (in the book dept).

'O happy day.

- - -
Ok, taking a suggestion (many of them from many different sources).. question for you!--anybody-- what off the beaten path books are actually on your bookshelves that you would recommend? No hyped up recent best sellers please. Isn't that Oprah's dept? I'm an indie gal -- only the least likely but yet still fabulous please... and thank you.

Sisterhood of the traveling story

If you are a writer, click here and then click on the link to the slight left on the screen that says 'click here to watch' ... and watch the video.

If you are a reader, watch it ...

If you are a woman, watch it ...

If you like history, watch it ...

If you are a Southerner, watch it ...

If you are a lover of stories, watch it ...

If you long to be in the sisterhood of Southern women writers who have stories to tell, watch it ...

Honestly, this is one of a thousand things to do before you die. What it is - three interviews: One with Anne Rivers Siddons, another with Mary Alice Monroe, and the last is with Patti Callahan Henry (with a surprise bit with Cassandra King -wife of Pat Conroy).

You will love it. I did.

Things I swore I'd never do

I think I'm so gonna do this ... go see ... you might like to do it too.. Someone will win a Sony Reader (something I swore I'd never use).

Yeah - and I swore one time many years ago, that I'd never work for lawyers. Now I'm trying to be one.

Puppies Part Two

These guys make me smile. I love coming home and they're so happy to see me. Tugs at your heart.




Snuggly. Awwww.

That's all today.

There is so much more to say than I'm saying

I've noticed something about me lately (past few weeks and months even) - I'm becoming stingy with my words. Not just words, but my words. I'm liberal with other people's words.

It's my words that cause me pause to publish here. It's like I need to save them for later... almost like a protective thing.. am I crawling into my shell? Maybe. Probably.

Oh dear.

What am I to do... There is so much more to say than I'm sharing in print. It's almost like you (others aside from me) must be kept in the dark about me.

Self absorbed is what one of my family members said of me once (and it wasn't my brother). He reads this thing on occasion. Lest you think there's anything super secretive or great or anything newsworthy that I'm not telling - forget about it. There is nothing to report like that.

Just being quiet about the quiet -- and quiet about the maybe that I think are possibilities (or fretting about the possibilities that once were and now what is the what else...).

I think I'm just trying to figure out where my innocence went. Can I get it back, and can I bottle it and open it back up for a rainy day - to celebrate the what? I'd walk a mile on broken glass to do something else... would I do ten miles tho? Perhaps.

My intentions are mostly pure I think. I try (usually) not to say things that are not necessary. I am an expeditious person (at least in spirit). I want the biggest result from the least effort. I figure out ways that can be done. I fail at that effort. I want the best for my children (but I don't provide it always, often). I get tired. I try to figure out what went wrong. I figure out I am only one person. I am human. I am not what I want to be all the time, most the time.

Throw me in the hurricane ... that's what I often desire ... so that I can say I made it (and you didn't). Pitiful. I wanna be a success at something. I wanna survive. With grace - with something positive intact.

Basically, I want to come across looking like an angel while acting like a devil to get that purpose accomplished.

What if you really knew me. I wonder if you'd laugh. From joy? From wonderment? From confusion. Why does it matter. What if I felt like I was accomplishing something? Would that make a difference. Yes.

Yes ... to make a difference, to have treated you better. So, for today, I'll share these words. Just words, confessions of a human. It's a big hard world.

I'm doing what I can. It most definitely is not enough, but it is what it is. Some effort counts.

Breathe in, breathe out. Do it again with rhythm.

Life.

Uber awesomeness

This is another post (among thousands a/k/a dozens - link here) to read before you die. Truly inspiring and funny. It's a story of a writer getting an agent - described as the uber-awesome Bernadette Baker-Baughman of Baker's Mark Literary Agency.

Apparently Twitter played a role.

I'm gonna have to figure out that Twitter thing.

Curtis and Leroy

This is a post to read before you die. There are thousands you know (there will be). Found it over at The Gingerbread Shed's blog.

It involves a mule, about a hundred bucks and the bailout program.

You might laugh out loud.

One of the brightest stars

Really lovely song. Really.

Cecelia Klingele

I wrote about Ms. Klingele recently here. I found another article about her this morning at this link.

According to what I've read, Ms Klingele (mom of six) has served as a law clerk at every level of the federal court system, most recently finishing a term as clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens.

She has returned to Wisconsin and is doing research to hopefully provide answers to prison overpopulation problems.

Don't know this girl, but I sure do like her spirit.