Rambling #34 Cover Girls!!!!!

I must start this rambling with a little background. I have loved reading as far back as I can remember, we spent weekends going to the library, in fact my parents used it as a punishment for bad behavior, if we didn't obey we weren't allowed to go to the library. For some reason starting about this time last year I stopped reading. I'm not sure why I just did, it was like I didn't have a desire to even crack open a book.

So last fall when my friend Leah got us together to start our book club, I thought this would be a great way to reignite my love of reading. Well it did. I'm so glad it did because I have started flying through books. Lately it has gotten crazy out of control, I feel like I am at the library every other day returning and checking out new books. So I thought I would give you a list of what I have been reading lately.

I had finished our book club book for April (I'm not a over achiever, it's just my name came up at the library and I decided I would just read it instead of canceling and trying to get my name to come up on the hold list again.) We hadn't chosen new books yet for book club so I went to the library and started picking out books. I had read the other three books in the Queen of Babble series but I had never finished the series. So I started with:

This series is light, cute, and funny. It's about a girl named Lizzie Nichols who happens to be amazing at restoring vintage wedding gowns and moves from the Midwest to New York City to make her dreams come true. Along the way she struggles with finding jobs, bad boyfriends, true love, and her Spanx!

It took me a little while to remember all the details because it has been a long time since I read the other books but after a couple of chapters I was in and I was hooked again. I enjoyed the whole series, Lizzie was a great relateable character that made me laugh and root for her.

I decided to continue with Meg Cabot because I really love her writing. So I picked up the books in the Heather Wells mystery series. Starting with:

These books are about Heather Wells she is a former pop star turned resident hall assistant director at New York College. Her roommate, Cooper is a PI and the brother of her ex-fiance and fellow pop star. When people end up murdered in the dorm where she works she has an uncanny knack for ending up involved in the investigations.

Heather is honest, smart, and quirkly funny. The books are were easy and interesting to read. I loved the whole series.

One of my other favorite authors is Sophie Kinsella. I loved her Shopaholic series, Becky's mind sounds uncannily familiar to my own sometimes. So I decided to pick up:

Lara Lington's life is crazily out of control, her boyfriend dumped her through email, her business partner went on vacation indefinitely, and she has to attend the funeral of her great-aunt she can barely remember. Her life becomes even more complicated when she starts seeing and hearing her late great-aunt. But once she starts following her aunt's directions her life starts going in a directions she never would have dreamed.

I thought this was going to be a little out there, I wasn't sure about the whole ghost coming and talking to you but it was a great book and I loved reading this one, I went through it in like two days.

I sometimes really love the comedy of Kathy Griffin. I also like her show My Life on the D-List, even though I am not a faithful watcher I love the episodes when her mother is on. Her mom always cracks me up, one of the things she always says is "Tip it Kathleen!" (she means when it looks like your box of wine is out you tip it so you can get every drop) I saw this and thought it might be funny. It is her mom's thoughts and opinions on her childhood, late husband, her children, and life. Kathy apparently got hold of the manuscript before it went to press and added her own comments and thoughts about her mom's stories.

It was a very quick and funny read. It was interesting because from watching the show I have heard both of them talk and in my mind I could hear Maggie, like she was reading the book aloud to me. Then there would be a comment by Kathy and then I would hear her voice come in, with correct sarcasm and wise-cracking.

Since I was on a reality TV kind of mindset and on Abbe's reads she had said she had read this and it was a pretty interesting book I decided to read Tori Spelling's first book and I then followed it up with her other two books.

This was an interesting look into the childhood and life of Tori Spelling. I found that she was open, honest, and very candid. She talked about how she viewed growing up as Aaron Spelling's daughter, life behind the scenes of 90210, the plastic surgery, and meeting Dean. While she never came off as awww poor me, poor little rich girl, I did find myself thankful that even though my parents never had the money to throw elaborate, over-the-top parties like hers they always made sure to spend time with me and my sisters. Overall I liked the book, obviously since I went on to read the next two.
In this book she explored what it was like to be a mom in Hollywood. She talks about her desire to have the normal block party, hanging with neighborhood families, trick-or-treating neighborhood she dreamed of growing up. And the perceptions those moms have of her as celebrity mother. It was also quite interesting and entertaining. I really like her voice, she writes like she's in the room talking to you.
Her last book was about figuring out where their lives are going now after they have stabilized work, finances, family matters, and dealing with paparazzi. It was a nice way to round things out.

I am still reading, in fact I just started a new book. I am so thankful to the Cover Girls, not only for helping me reignite one of my first loves but also the fun we have when we get together. I went in knowing some of the girls really well, and others only as acquaintances, and some not at all but when we are together we all get to talking and laughing about all kinds of things, not just the books. The weeks we are getting together I almost cannot wait for the week to end so that I can see my fellow Cover Girls! Tonight we are meeting to pick new books and I am so excited to see each girl, I love them all!

Rambling #33 Cover Girls-The Pursuit of Alice Thrift

February's Cover Girls book club was Leah J.'s book called The Pursuit of Alice Thrift.

Alice is a resident who one day aspires to be a plastic surgeon who works on wealthy clients so she can afford to fix people in third world countries. She is smart but a little inept when it comes to social customs and interactions. This story follows her realization about who she is and whether she should stick with the profession she has devoted years and time to.

It was an interesting book. I thought it was slow and it took me awhile to get into it but after I finished the book I realized I had liked the book and somewhere along the way I went from being disinterested in Alice to rooting for her.

We all met at her house one February night and like in the book we had sub sandwiches. We all sat down to talk about what we thought about Alice, the book and the author. After we had been chatting awhile Leah announced she had made fudge just like Ray's (a character in the book). Her fudge was delicious. She made two kinds: chocolate and peanut butter. We had a great time.

I apologize again I was unable to take pics because of the lack of camera.

Rambling # 32 Cover Girls- Catching Fire & Mockingjay

January was originally supposed to be to talk about Leah W.'s book but instead we met to finish up the Hunger Games Trilogy with Catching Fire (2) and Mockingjay (3). Amy sent out an email inviting us to meet at her house to eat and chat about the Hunger Games Trilogy and whether we are Team Peeta or Team Gale.

So Friday evening we all headed to Amy's (she has fantastic parties, she and her sister host our Twilight parties). She had a magnetic board up where we could cast our vote for Peeta or Gale. Then we helped ourselves to all the fixings for Tacos or Taco Salad. We sat around talking about the books, who we thought would be great in the movie, and any other random topics that came up. After we had all finished with dinner Amy announced that dessert (a cherry chocolate brownie trifle) was ready and we had a choice of hot chocolate or coffee to go with. We all got comfy on the couches while Jennifer asked us questions about the book.

We all stayed too late and too long but it was such a blast hanging out and chatting about these books with these girls! When we left Amy had made us all arena survival kits. Each kit came with a bottle of water, crackers, some jerky, worms (candy), red berries (candy), night glasses, and a token from Peeta-a pearl.

It was such a blast! I apologize for the lack of pictures but over Christmas break my camera broke! Hopefully I'll pick a out a new camera soon! Our next book is Leah J.'s pick!

Rambling # 31 White Christmas in Kentucky

I feel it is totally fitting that after I post about my Mr. Schuester Valentine Card I follow it up with another holiday~Christmas! My family had a long and lengthy discussion about where and who was hosting Christmas this year. We finally came to the decision that Christmas would be in Kentucky at my sister Melissa's house. My mom, Sookie (my dog), and I went up there first. Followed a couple of days later by my dad, sister (Donna), Blink (parents dog), and June (Donna's dog). My sister had totally decked out her house, including her fridge. When you opened the fridge to get something out you would find this:

The cute little snowman had several songs he would sing when you opened the door. You could turn it off but it was kind of fun. Here's the living room with their beautiful Christmas tree.
Every time we go to her house we go to a Christmas Eve service at this little church up the road. Right before we started to head out to the church it started snowing (yes we had a white Christmas, like in Christmas Story) so Donna and I went outside and took some pictures in the falling snow.

the inside of the church where we attended the candlelight Christmas Eve service

The next morning Melissa made us (that were awake) breakfast and we got somethings ready for lunch later in the day. Once we were all awake we sat down and opened presents. After years of asking I finally got this:

My green apple Kitchenaid Mixer!!!! I totally love this thing! I used it right away. It was a great Christmas. The next morning we all went to breakfast at Toast on Market to celebrate my mom's birthday and it started snowing a little again. Then my mom, Sookie, and I left to make the trek back to Texas.

Rambling #30 Cover Girls-Hunger Games

Our book for November was Lyndi's pick, and it is the first book in a trilogy called the Hunger Games. I will admit here and now when we were discussing which of Lyndi's choices to read I wanted a book called Wednesday Wars based on her synopsis I thought I would be more interested in that book. I did read Wednesday Wars and I did like it, I thought it was a great book but I didn't realize or think I would be as interested or enjoy the Hunger Games like I did.

The Hunger Games is about a young girl named Katniss Everdeen. She lives in a future United States that is broken into different districts according to their major product/function and they are run by the Capital. Every year the Capital forces the districts to draw out 2 names, boy and girl, to be tributes and compete in the Hunger Games. The games are a fight, a fight to the death, only one will survive. So I am sure you can see why I thought I didn't want to read this book, a book where children are fighting to their deaths.

In November, our last Cover Girl meeting of the year (we took a holiday break), we headed over to Lyndi's house for some dinner and some competition of our own. Lyndi made us a wonderful Italian dinner and we all sat around eating and chatting about what had been going on and some about what we thought about the book. Then after everyone was done eating we got ready for our competition. She had told us to bring aprons, I brought some of my collection to share and we all suited up!

Leah and I in our aprons! Kelli and Leah
In the book before the tributes actually compete in the games they have a training period where they can hone skills they already have or learn/develop some new ones. One of the skills is the art of camouflage. So Lyndi made cupcakes and had colored tons of icing in all different colors like green, brown, blue, yellow, and orange. Our mission was to take four cupcakes and use our camo skills to make something out of our cupcakes. Here are some girls chatting and decorating their cupcakes:
Here are some of the designs.



Then we named our creations and voted. There was tie for 2nd and 3rd so we had to do a 2nd vote but winners were chosen.
Laura (Lyndi's sis) won 3rd place with a stunning collection but I somehow missed getting a picture of her beautiful creations.
My creation and 2nd place a tree. It is important to the book.
Jennifer's creation and 1st place winner "The Arena"
After the winners were picked the creations were eaten and we all sat around and discussed the book. I never thought I would have loved this book so much but I did. It was great. I mentioned earlier that it is the first book in a trilogy, we all loved the first so much we changed up the schedule of books. We decided that in December we would read books 2 (Catching Fire) and 3 (Mockingjay) to meet and discuss in January. Here are the Cover Girls in a group pic.
Can't wait for January! I love my Cover Girls!

Rambling #29 3rd place all around!

Every year on Veteran's day our Board of Realtors has a chili-cookoff. Since our business is often very closely related to realtors, our office competes in the cook-off. One year their was a poker or cards theme but this year was a red, white, and blue and stars and stripes theme. I had been asked by Chris to make an entry for the dessert competition. I love making pies and so early in the week I made a cherry and a chocolate pie and had the office vote for which pie they would like entered in the competition. The cherry pie just barely edged out the chocolate pie in the office vote.

Thursday afternoon came and so Chris, Kristi, Keith , and I loaded up cars to head out to the board of realtors building to set up our booth. Here are some pics of our booth.



My pie entry for the contest.
We also had to provide a pie for everyone to eat, so here is our public pie. It is not a cobbler, cobblers don't have crust on the bottom. This is still a pie just made rectangular not round.
Some of the other tents or competitors.

They even had one of the local high schools ROTC come over and present flags

We had a great time and in my opinion the best chili and pie. We actually took home 3rd place in both the chili and the dessert!

Rambling #28 Diaper Cakes For M&M

My sister Melissa came down in the middle of October and one of the things she wanted to do while she was visiting was for me to help her make a diaper cake for a co-worker. Since I was also planning to make one for my friend Erik's baby we made and shopped for them together. Her cake had a pink and brown theme to it and she picked out this totally cute bunny to stick out of the top.

Here is Melissa's:



My diaper cake was for my friend Erik's new baby. I was invited to Caroline's shower (Erik's wife) and I saw this monster hooded towel at Target and it was soooo cute and it totally matched the color scheme I was going with, I had to get it! I really loved this diaper cake and I think it turned out great! And Caroline said she totally loved the cake I made for baby Madeline (due near Thanksgiving).

Here is the pink and turqouise Monster diaper cake I made for baby Madeline:



At the shower, her sister Mary-Nan also made this beautiful diaper cake. It sat on the table with all the delicious goodies they offered.
Stacie, Caroline (baby Madeline), and I
Madeline has since made it safely into the world and is so sweet and precious! (That's what happens when you procrastinate so long in doing your posts!)