Tag: storms

29 days of book love…

This is the perfect book to be snowed in with, the kind of book you could curl up on the sofa and read for the whole day. In front of a roaring fire. I love talking students into reading it-they always come back happy.  It’s mysterious, adventurous, and built on friendship.  A trifecta.

Totally loving my snow day today even though the amount of snow we got is not record breaking. I’m soon to head out to take some snow photos of Groovy Girl and her BF, BF’s brother and little sister building snow people.

Peaceful Reading…

Weekly Update

It’s been a week of quick meals, crazy schedules and yet I’ve managed to create a few recipes to share.

{Janssen’s granola and photo}

I’ve been meaning to make Janssen’s granola recipe for quite awhile now and when the last few clusters of my TJ’s ginger mix landed in my morning yogurt the opportune moment was upon me.  It took me 3 days to gather ingredients and find a space of time to make and bake it.  It’s delicous!  Just because it’s my nature I will play with it next time. This time I did add in some mixed nuts (cashews + pecans) because they were sitting in our nut jar and some chopped dried mango.

Last night I hosted book club and I gave the granola away in little cloth giveaway bags (that I made from white cotton squares).  It was a combination Earth Day/May Day gift from me to all my book club friends.  Hopefully it brightened their morning yogurt.

I also whipped up a jug of ginger beer this weekend.  Jenny from Dinner; A love story introduced me to the Dark and Stormy and ginger beer is a major ingredient.  I don’t like the jacked-up expensive price of ginger beer ($10 for 4 bottles) so I thought it would be worth it to make my own.  Now I know why it’s not cheap…it’s hard to make.  I chopped up two large roots and then squeezed it through my mesh strainer to just barely produce 3 tablespoons.  I rinsed cold water through the pulp to eek out 1 more tablespoon.   I thought with the added yeast in this Epicurious recipe that it would be fizzy but it is not.  It does have ginger flavor though and I will use it. Maybe this weekend I will test run it with a Moscow Mule.  I will probably have to add club soda though to give it that extra POP and zing.

I planned to make Dark and Stormys (we’ve had rain + the last time I hosted we had a tornado warning) for book club but I changed plans when I wasn’t happy with my fizz-less mixture.  Luckily we had plenty of wine.  And delicious food.  My favorite was Katinka’s Greek salad.

What I’m reading:

Book club:  Orphan Train by Christine Baker Kline  ( I read this months ago so didn’t have much to contribute)
School: The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart
Groovy Girl: Nest by Esther Ehrlich

Next up: Swamplandia by Karen Russell

Peaceful Reading…

Torn Away by Jennifer Brown

{Release date: May/2014}

On a typical day after school Jersey Cameron is bored by her mother’s requests and her little sister Marin’s attention.  She just wants a little quiet time to zone out and watch television. When Marin and her mother head off to dance and Jersey, reluctantly, begins to make dinner a storm hits and it brings a large tornado swooping through town.  Jersey has enough time to get down to the basement with her cell phone and a book but she is left with fear about her family.  Her stepfather is maybe at work or possibly with friends and her mom and Marin still at dance.  She makes one fleeting phone call to her mother and her mother simply tells her to take cover.

It’s days before she is reunited with any part of her family as she works to make sense of the devastation left behind in the wake of the tornado.  Very accurately described with true emotion Jersey’s story is one I’d never thought of; what happens to children abandoned after a natural disaster here?  Her stepfather, deeply depressed with grief, is not interested in raising her.  Her biological paternal grandparents agree to take her in but their house is filled with hatred, drunkenness, and bitter feelings.  Jersey’s only known the security of her mother’s love and even with the adjustment of cute little Marin her life was calm.   
Eventually she ends up with her mom’s parents, estranged after a fight with her mom years ago, Jersey does not want to share her life with them. Her mom left home as a teenager with her dad, a drunk, and her parents told her if she was going to stay with him, to not come back.  And she didn’t reconcile with them even after she kicked out the drunk and it was just her and her baby, Jersey, alone.  Grudges.  Lies.  Anger.  Lucky for Jersey she finds a way to see that even though her mother rejected them she can begin again with her grandparents.  Through this relationship she can begin to heal.

I enjoyed this story.  I’ve never actually been through a tornado experience but I have had to wait it out in the basement many times.  The tornado is a terrifying monster and one that will shape the rest of Jersey’s life as well as many other residents of her small Midwest town just as a tornado does in real life.  Vilonia, Arkansas and Moore, Oklahoma residents can attest to that.

Peaceful Reading…