Book Review



If I don't immediately write a review it just doesn't happen. I finished this book this afternoon. My thoughts: Weird...but I like it...I think. This book was an experience.

From School Library Journal:

Oskar Schell is not your average nine-year-old. A budding inventor, he spends his time imagining wonderful creations. He also collects random photographs for his scrapbook and sends letters to scientists. When his father dies in the World Trade Center collapse, Oskar shifts his boundless energy to a quest for answers. He finds a key hidden in his father's things that doesn't fit any lock in their New York City apartment; its container is labeled "Black." Using flawless kid logic, Oskar sets out to speak to everyone in New York City with the last name of Black.-Matthew L. Moffett,

I have not read Jonathon Safran Froer's first novel Everything is Illuminated so I had nothing to compare it to. Therefore I didn't find it gimmicky and I didn't feel manipulated. I enjoyed the ride of his abrupt writing style...the inclusion of pictures...blank pages...illustrations...imagery...craziness...and hilarious prose.

I loved Oskar. He cracked me up and he broke my heart. I loved everything about this poor broken tambourine playing kid. And...he uses my ultimate favorite phrase "What the?" Which I said prior to reading this book. But I also found myself busting out with "raison d'être" just the other night in a conversation with my mom. In addition, could there be a more apt description of sadness/depression than "heavy boots?" Oskar Schell, you are awesome. I enjoyed getting to know you but I had a really hard time believing that you were a nine year-old boy.

During the course of Oskar's quest for the mysterious lock I enjoyed many of the eclectic characters we meet along the way...particularly Mr. Black the 103 year-old former journalist and Ms. Black who lives at the Empire State Building. As for the interwoven tale of Oskar's grandparents, their suffering, and consequently their shattered lives following the bombing of Dresden; I was moved by what they experienced and I felt for their psychological pain and grief but I found that I didn't like either of them at all. Oskar's mother was even more difficult to understand.

The real beauty of this book is that it brings the tragedy of September 11th back to the forefront of my mind. I loved the poignancy of Oskar learning to live with his father's death. As for the ending...I found myself asking "What the?"

Non-traditional? Yes. Odd? Yes. Worth reading? Yes.

My rating: Good

The Weekend: The Fun, The Good and The Truly UGLY

The weekend stated off great. My mom, Stacey, and I attended the lovely Mad Hatter Vintage Sale at the Five-Mile Grange put on by the wonderful women of Junebug Furniture and Design...vendor friends of ours...and found some fun things. I got several Christmas presents for the girls. Super cute things!! We want to be in that sale next year. We loved it.


Then we had dinner at one of our all-time favorite restaurants...Linnie's Thai. It never disappoints. We also crashed Kelley's book club and I had fun putting my two cents in on the book These is My Words.

Saturday and Sunday were General Conference and we were actually able to watch all sessions. Conference was great and there were some fantastic and inspiring talks. We also ate some delicious food. Our peach crepes were amazing...thank you Tyler. The kids were great and watched all the morning sessions. Reilly even whipped out snicker doodle cookies and Mexican Casserole which was delicious. It was so nice not to have to cook this weekend!!

My favorite talk was given by Elder Larry R. Lawrence of the Seventy:

His talk was for parents of teenagers and the subject was being "courageous parents." I loved it and can't wait to download it onto my Ipod to listen to again.

My favorite quote was from President Uchtdorf. I really loved his talk too.

"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication"

It wasn't until Sunday evening around 7pm when disaster struck...this would be the UGLY part of the weekend. A horrible plumbing nightmare that started with Kameron hopping in the shower and ended at 9pm with a bill of almost $800.



We have had problems with our shower for years and last night everything broke...we had water that couldn't be stopped...the entire faucet sheared off...all the plumbing in the wall was shot. Literally everything had to be replaced...on a Sunday night...for emergency service...for double the pay. I wanted to vomit. Still do. Oh well. What is done is done and that shower has been a disaster for years. Now it works like a dream. A horrible $800 hellish nightmare dream but it is repaired and we can cross another project off our list. Let's hope this week takes a turn for the better!!

Cross-Country


Kameron is running Cross-Country again this year and he LOVES it. He ran last year for the first time and sort of liked it but this year he really loves it and has had the best time. He has practice four days a week after school and runs about two miles a day. His coach was saying that he can't believe how much Kameron has improved and what a great job he is doing.

Kameron's first meet was on Wednesday. The weather was sunny and in the 80's. It was perfect. Last year we were freezing our butts off. Kameron ran against 43 other 4th graders from about six different schools. They ran a mile. Kameron came in 11th. So exciting!!

The first lap around...Kameron is in a black Under Armour T-Shirt

Kameron's cheerleaders

Crossing the Finish Line

Bryn watching the action

Kameron and his cute "little buddy" Addie who was cheering her heart out for him. (At school they pair up older grades with younger grades for "big buddies/little buddies" and the big buddies come into their little buddies classrooms and help them with reading and other things they need help with. This year Kameron got paired up with Addie which was fun because Addie goes to our church and is in my primary class. She is a kick. Love that girl!!)

Good job Kam!! We love you!!

Fun Weekend

This weekend has gone by in a flash. It was fun and memorable. It all started out with Tyler and I going on a very classy date....to IHOP. Do NOT underestimate the tastiness of the Rootie-Tootie-Fresh-and-Fruity Meal. It was delicious. Then we attended the wedding reception of one of my previous young women. It was fun to see Stephanie all aglow with her new husband and to visit with old friends but it made me feel quite geriatric.

I then spent all Saturday bumming around with my mom. Always a great time. We found some great finds for our next Sisters Creed Sale...which will be the Palouse Christmas Sale. Here are a few of our finds. Yes...I am turning my mom into a blogger. The mere fact that she actually posed with all of our junk shows you just how far she has come. I love it!! :) Check the Sisters Creed blog for more photos of our finds.


We also attended the wonderful Angel's Attic Autumn Open House and Sale in the Five Mile Area that was put on by our new vendor friend Kristen. You can check out her blog here. She and her mom had some great things. My mom and I did some early Christmas shopping. We also had lunch at a fun Vietnamese/Teriyaki restaurant and then hit some garage sales and thrift stores. It was a good junking day.

I celebrated my dear friend Ramona's birthday...a few days early. Ramona is one of the sweetest friends I have and I absolutely love her!!

Ramona, Janyse and me

Not everyone can wear a sombrero with such style and panache. I was laughing so hard while she got a festive and very enthusiastic sombrero-birthday treatment that I ended up turning off the camera while I was filming and only caught the top of Ramona's sombrero. Tragedy.

The Birthday Girl

On another note, yesterday was quite momentous. Bryn went to nursery at church!! OH HAPPY DAY!! She even stayed the entire time...no crying or hysterics. It was FABULOUS. She actually won't be 18 months for two more weeks but she got to go in and check it out and she apparently did so well that she stayed the whole time. She could have cared less when Tyler left. She is more like Reilly who marched right into Nursery and never looked back...and... thankfully not like Kameron and Ailey who howled every single day of Nursery and most of Sunbeams. What a relief. But after church...we looked like horrible parents when one of the Nursery leaders brought Bryn to us. She was the last one in Nursery and no one ever came to pick her up. WE FORGOT HER!! She had to be brought to my Primary class. Who forgets their child?! Apparently we were so caught up in our heady joy and delight that we forgot we actually had a nursery age kid!! Oops.

Then for Family Home Evening Reilly planned a great lesson. She recreated a spiritual object lesson from Girls Camp in our yard. It was awesome.

She set up a huge and difficult obstacle course that Tyler and the kids had to navigate blindfolded and in the dark while Reilly (the Holy Ghost ) was guiding them by whispering encouragement and me (representing Satan) who was trying to tempt everyone to let go of the Iron Rod (in this case a garden hose) that was wound all around our yard and ending at our Mountain Ash tree that was she had lit with white lights.

You can see some of her set-up here...it went down the hill and under the deck.

Kameron going first

Then Ailey

Tyler and the kids at the "Tree of Life" everyone made it!!

Then we had our Family Home Evening under the beautifully lit tree. Our next door neighbors kept peeking out their window trying to see what in the heck the "crazy Mormons" were doing. Hilarious.

Reilly gave a great lesson. It was a very powerful experience for our family...I can't even imagine how neat it must have been for the girls at Girls Camp.

Uncooperative Brynnie with her fruit from the "Tree of Life" which she kept hurling at my head all through Reilly's lesson. Crazy girl.

Hope you all had a good weekend!! Now for a week full of softball games, cross-country meets, ballet, scouts, jazz, piano and about one hundred other things.

Treasures In the Mail

A couple weeks ago I got a treasure in the mail. My sister-in-law Lori sent us package of all kinds of fun things and these beauties were inside. They are cookbooks belonging to Tyler's Grandma Johnson. I was so excited. I love old cookbooks. I think they are such a treasure trove of family history. I love leafing through them and seeing the pages that were obviously favorite recipes...ones that are smudged and sticky. I love it when the previous cooks made improvements in the recipe and wrote notes in the book. (I do that.)

Once my mom bought a huge file box of recipes from either an antique store or a yard sale. I can't recall. Either way we had so much fun going through that box and looking at all the recipes...and handwritten notes. We felt like we knew that lady well by the time that we were through. Most of her recipes were really old ones...from the 40's...it was amazing. I also found the world's best recipe for Rhubarb Coffee Cake.

I have several of my Grandma McKinnon's old ward recipe books. It is so fun to find the recipes that she submitted and those of her friends. I love it. And...the recipes are delicious. One of my most treasured possessions is an old cookbook that my Grandma and her sisters must have learned to cook from. The copyright is 1925. My grandma was one of 6 sisters who all lived very close to each other and were always fighting. This book shows that very well. On the inside it reads: "This book belongs to Kate Andreason" and then it's been crossed out and it says: "This book belongs to Romie Andreason" and then it's crossed out and it says :THIS book BELONGS to Zola Andreason." Then my grandma wrote her name all over on lots of pages...and they are all crossed out with either Romie or Zola having written their names in her place." I find this hilarious. It is such a great representation of how they really were. They also wrote notes all over inside...improvements and critiques like "This recipe is NOT good" or "This peanut brittle did not work at all" and "Delicious." It's like a time capsule that conjures up the voices and memories of these ladies who are no longer with us.

So when I saw these cookbooks of Grandma Johnson's I was so excited to learn more about her. I was not disappointed. She wrote in her cookbooks!!

I can't wait to whip up some of her recipes!!

No More La-La-La-ing For Me



I have finally read it. Whoa. I had put this book on the back burner because life was so crazy and I was waiting for things to slow down a bit to read it. Well...pretty much everyone I know read it immediately and so I had to spend a lot of time with my fingers in my ears, my eyes closed, going "la-la-la" so I couldn't hear what they were talking about. Case in point...at book club this week at Kariann's I had to hide in the bathroom to avoid hearing anything about the book. Another example...Tyler read it right away and I refused to even look him in the eye when he finished it because I knew his face would give everything away. Add to all this that several people I know didn't like the book...or the ending. Hmmm.

Did I like this book? Heck yes. Did I love it? Heck yes. Did I like the ending? Heck yes.

*******Spoilers********

How could I not like it? She ended up with Peeta. WOOHOO. I love Peeta. You people had me scared. What are all of you? Gale lovers? Not that Gale wasn't a good guy. But come on...he's no Peeta.

Many people said that they found the book dark and violent. Um...yes. Did you miss that in the first two books? Kids fighting to the death...violent deaths and brutality. All three books are dark and violent.

Many people said that the ending wasn't a happy one. What did you expect? This book isn't exactly a Harlequin Romance. It is a book about a Dystopian Society...and Civil War...and surviving horrific circumstances. Did you think that at the end Katniss and Peeta were going to get their party on? I think she got her happy ending. She found love, had a family of her own,and lived in peace. I found the ending very satisfying. What more do you people want?

Some have said that Katniss was weak and not the hard-core butt kicker she was in Hunger Games. I say...good. This girl has been through horrific and brutal circumstances. She has killed numerous people; had to fight for her life numerous times; watched people she cared about die violently; her entire district was destroyed; her country was in shambles; she was on the President's hit list; she feels guilty about the deaths of others; she is scared for the future and fate of those she loves. How could she be the same girl that she was in book one? Her life is forever changed. I found Katniss' weakness, vulnerability and difficulty coping very believable...and REAL. The fact that she was able to carry on at all is a sign of her strength and courage. I would be hiding in closets and falling apart too.

Some have said that Katniss had no free will. and that even her choice of Peeta wasn't a choice he was just the one who was there. I disagree. I feel she had a choice to act or not to act throughout this book. Sometimes things were out of her hands but she still had a choice of how to act or react in whatever circumstances she was in. As far as her choice of Peeta over Gale. She chooses him consistently throughout the series. I think she summed it up very well when she said:

"What I need to survive is not Gale's fire, kindled with rage and hatred. I have plenty of fire myself. What I need is the dandelion in the spring. The bright yellow that means rebirth instead of destruction. The promise that life can go on, no matter how bad our losses. That it can be good again. And only Peeta can give me that." (Pg. 388) That is a choice people.

I will say that in this book you get to know Gale much better and see how he and Katniss work together as a team. There was much less Peeta in this book...which was a disappointment to me. Don't forget that in the other books Gale was always a revolutionist. He is also ambitious. Katniss, on the other hand, just wanted peace and quiet. Peeta wanted the same. Gale could never know or understand all that Katniss had been through...unlike Peeta who experienced it with her.

So here are some of my gripes. I did think that Gale was written out rather hastily. I hated that Finnick died. I grew to really love him. I was more sad about him dying than Prim. I hated Katniss' mother. What the? She's a horrible character. I wanted Cinna to be alive some how and some way. I wanted to know more about the rescue of Peeta, the trial of Katniss and other parts of the story that we weren't privy to due to the book being written from Katniss' point of view. I wanted to know more about Haymitch's past. I wanted to have Madge play some role in this book. I also thought that Suzanne Collins got a little "eco-preachy" at times and that bugged me. I did like the new character of Boggs. I liked the twist in the end and the death of President Coin. I liked that the author stayed true to the characters through out the series. There you go.

My rating: EXCELLENT

Savoring the Last Bit (e) of Summer


Winter is coming...I can feel it...and I am dreading it. This summer was cold up here. I've heard people all over town talking about how it never really felt like we had a summer or that summer was over before it started. I have to agree. But...I am trying to hold onto it as much as I can.

With that in mind...Tyler and I headed up to Green Bluff this past weekend to pick peaches. Just us...it was our "date". It was so much fun. I know our kids love to go up there but it truly was delightful not to have tired, whiney, and sticky kids with us. (They can come up when it's time to pick apples and pick out pumpkins.)

I LOVE peaches and we found some delicious ones!!

Tyler in action

The fruit of our labors

Me in action...Is there anything better than a juicy peach right off the tree?

Tyler checking things out to see if there was anything else he wanted to pick.

After our peach picking we stopped at our favorite Harvest House for lunch. We ran into some old friends from our 1st year in Spokane. It was so fun to see them and to hear what they were up too...all while chowing down on a delicious sandwich, peach pie, peach lemonade (heavenly) and hot pumpkin donuts...and relaxing on the grass and soaking in the sun.

While we were out and about we hit some garage sales and and I found some definite "treasures"!!

Then it was home to the kiddos and to pick this from our own garden/yard:

And to make this:

It was delicious!!

Summer, you may be on your way out but I am holding on as long as I possibly can.

Funky Junk Sale


Sisters Creed had the amazing opportunity to be vendors in the fantastic Funky Junk Antiques Show and Craft Market in Sandpoint, Idaho over Labor Day weekend. We had the time of our lives!!


Here are some pictures of our booth...our best one yet. I loved the branches with the lights intertwined. I loved it. It was packed to the rafters with all kinds of stuff and we sold a lot of it!!


It was held in the Oden Hall Grange which was the perfect location. Jennifer and Hollie who are the Funky Junk girls are amazing...as were all the vendors. It was like heaven for me. All these vendors who carry all the vintage-esque items I love. I wanted to buy everything.

I did manage to restrain myself...IT WAS REALLY HARD!! There was so much I loved. I only bought one thing...if you don't count the fudge and cupcakes that I bought...there were some great food vendors. (Can we say Choc-Ole...a Mexican hot chocolate inspired fudge, maple bacon cupcakes...crazily delicious, red velvet, lemon cream cheese, and peanut butter chocolate cupcakes.)

I'll write more about this over at the Sisters Creed blog later. Don't miss this sale when it comes to my town in April. It's so much fun!! We loved it.

Another New Blog




My mom, sister and I just started a new blog for our business Sisters Creed. Check it out.

Hallelujah!!

What is that sound I hear? Silence? No...not really. Bryn is screeching but it is the sound of no one fighting and it is DELIGHTFUL. This summer felt like the shortest and coldest one on record but despite that I was more than ready for the kids to go back to school this year and so were they. Was it all my organizing and cleaning projects that did them in? Or are they just growing up? Hmmm.

Regardless they were all up, dressed, backpacks packed, chores done, and piano practiced by 7am. It was undoubtedly a one-day-wonder but it was nice all the same.

Reilly the 8th Grader

Kameron the 4th Grader

Kameron was refusing to allow me to take a picture in his classroom until his friend Tom's mom made Tom take a picture with their new teacher Mr. Weller. Kameron decided that a quick desk picture would be OK before I got any "ideas" like Tom's mom.

Ailey the 1st Grader

Ailey, on the other hand, was fine giving me pose after pose.

Bryn the What?

Ailey got up from her desk for a split second and look who scrambled up into her seat and was quickly unloading all her supplies. Bryn screeched bloody murder as I dragged her out of Ailey's seat. She thought she belonged right there with the big kids. Before this occurred she was pretty funny as she walked around the room saying "hi" and waving to all the stuffed animals.

Now off to prepare for my sale and to try and contain my little tornado named Bryn!!