Armchair BEA Day #3

Today is the 'interview' day at Armchair BEA.  Where we were supposed to sign up to interview another blogger.

It was really hard to not chirp in with a Tweet on Monday, saying  "me too, me too.  I need an interview buddy".   I didn't because I did not know if I would have  the time...it's  been kind of a crazy  at home and work (renovations/remodels in both places), so instead, I am going to  showcase a few of my favorite bloggers.
(which is okay too....that is the alternative assignment)

My favorite book bloggers, that is.  (I don't want my favorite food bloggers to feel left out)

 Sheila from Book Journey.   I think she will make a lot of 'favorites'  lists. 
I love to go for a walk early in the morning and come home grab my own cup of coffee and sit down at my computer to see what she has written in her Morning Meanderings. And ya gotta admire someone who posts 2x a day, every day!

 Kathy at Bermudaonion.  She comments all the time whenever I write ANYTHING  (plus she has great book recommendations for adults,  YA and children.  I keep track of what she suggests) and I'm not even strictly a book blogger, but more of a random blogger who loves books and food.   Even tho I've never met her, she makes me feel very good about myself.  Almost as soon as I've posted a blog---I hear a little 'ding' for my email and I smile to myself and say  "oh, it's Brermudaonion"  and it always is. 
I'm sure she makes everyone feel as comfortable, but I like to think it's just me.

 Beth Fish Reads.  I love her Weekend Cooking meme/round up.  And I love her reviews too.  She is so prolific and productive.  She makes me tired just thinking about how dedicated she is to reading/books....and....and COOKBOOKS!  She wrote once that she stored most of her cookbooks and rotated them a few times a year, because she has SO MANY.   That made me feel better about my 200 cookbooks.


Those are just a few of the Book Bloggers I read regularly and I love.  It's funny, because between a morning meandering on Book Journey and a Tweet about hot dogs from BEA, I've seen photos of all these  wonderful women having the time of their lives in New York this week.

There are other bloggers, whom I admire, and even more that I've found this week by participating in Armchair BEA.
It's been a fun week!  It'll be fun to follow my new friends too.

Armchair BEA Day #2 My Favs for 2011

Yesterday was so much fun---visiting new blogs and learning about new bloggers.  Following Twitter was also a blast--just getting those little snippets of what's going on at BEA.

I don't have anything to give-away today, but be sure and check out the site (Armchair BEA) for some links to great blogs that are doing some give-aways today.

I do have, tho,  my best for 2011 list ready to go!

The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown

The Lonely Polygamist by Brady Udall

Room by  Emma Donoghue

Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by  Tom Franklin

Sing You Home by Jodi Picoult

And....  for my, a personal favorite  Christmas Mourning by Margaret Maron.  (if you love a good traditional mystery series, with Southern charm, family ties--this series is for you!)

I really enjoyed all these books, a few I even LOVE.   A few have been controversial,  one is a bit dark, a couple are funny, all have kept my interest and made me 'not want to do anything else" but curl up and read until they are done.   And....leave me wanting more.  I think that is the sign of a good book....not wanting it to end.

I am not linking to any reviews, because there are reviews galore out there...just giving you a taste of what I like to read. What my Favs have been so far for 2011.
Now off to visit other Armchairers to see what they like to read!

So much to Blog about, so little time--oh,and It's Monday, what are you reading?

Since I know Sheila from Book Journey is in New York City for BEA, this will be a short "It's Monday, What are you Reading" post.  Shhhh.....don't tell her, but I have other things to write about this afternoon.
One would be how much fun it has been to read all the introductory posts for Armchair BEA.   I can't wait for the rest of the week and all of our assignments/events.

Before I get too far away from It's Monday, let me list the books I read last week.

I finished   Ten Little Bloodhounds (the one I had started last week) and enjoyed it very much.   Its number 5 in a 6 book series, so....soon I will be done and there will be no more bloodhounds. The author, Virginia Lanier, has passed away.    




And I read "Death of A Butterfly" by Margarot Maron.  This is her 2nd in the Sigrid Harald series.  I love her Deoborah Knott series and it would be bad if I said I was forcing myself to read the Sigrid series, wouldn't it?   I am not forcing myself....they are good.  I just started with Deborah and it's hard to backtrack. ( I love the Deborah Knott Books.)

Why am I bothering, you ask?  Because in November the 17th Deborah Knott book is coming out and she goes to NYC and meets Sigrid.  So, of course I must know all about Sigrid too.  (there are only 8 in that series--6 more to go before November)

Having said all that.... I do like Sigrid.  She is hard to get to know, but once you do, I feel like she will become a good friend of mine.  (that's how I feel about series mysteries)  Sigrid is a Detective in NYC circa 1970, when women in positions of power were new, there were no cells phones and smoking was common place.  It's kind of a fun read since was a teenager circa 1970's.

Next week, I have to read  "Same Kind of Different As Me" by  Ron Hall and Denver Moore, for my Lit Wits book club and   "The Last Lecture" for my Totally Lit bookclub. 
I'll be busy all week.

******************************************************

Now....back to my birds.  

As you know, I went to Spring Wings  last weekend with my friends, the Bird Nerd Herd and they are  waitig paitently for more pictures and more bird blogging.

Yes, I was a newbie at this bird watching thing.  I have been a backyard birder for some time....but to go on a 'tour'?    Sounded kind of weird to me, but I'm game for anything. 

Guess what?  I had THE BEST TIME EVER!

If you care, here is my first post about the weekend  and here is my second post about the weekend.

And now....I have to tell you...

The Rest of the Story 

This is Carson Lake.

In between and all around these ponds, lakes, puddles are county roads.  Dirt roads.  And it's very big (the wetlands known as Carson Lake).  There are roads that go off of any map--that you can't see on  a map.  The water  ebbs  and flows depending on rain and irrigation.  You have to be very careful, because if it has been rainy, a road could be covered, or if you are caught in a rain storm,  a road you might have taken into the wetlands, could possibly be part of a lake when you try to get out.

Here is a map:

and a more detailed map:

On Saturday afternoon,  we sign up for the tour of Carson Lake, hoping to see some good birds.  Jane is our driver.

Jane is in the middle. In blue.

We are so excited.  Over the whole weekend we saw over 50 species of birds.... and on this afternoon, probably 25 of them.    We are beyond excited!  We go off in search of the Yellow  Warbler!   
Jane takes off.  We are a fun group!  Mitzi and Jolina sing.  We are the singing van tour!  (one thing I've learned is that when you travel with Mitzi and Jolina,  you can break out in song at any moment).  We are having a grand time....Jane heads farther and farther out.... and finally   we come to a thicket of trees and lo and behold, there are Warblers!    We also had to contend with a bull, who was mad!    He thought he owned the thicket where the warblers were.  He didn't care for us being there.

This is all fine.  This is all good.  But.... we then have to find our way back thru the maze of roads.  We were late to begin with....but then...then we couldn't find our way out.  We kept going down roads that led to nowhere.  Dead ends.  The sun was setting  (not really, that is literary license to exaggerate), but we were late!  We were also hysterical.  Not in the  "I'M LOST PLEASE HELP ME" kind of hysterical, but   laughing our arses off  kind of hysterical.   We all had to go pee!   We were late.  We were being stalked by a bull. And we couldn't find our way back to the town.   But we were having the best time.

More pictures of our weekend

In the (lost) van.

Pat, Mitzi and Maris

Mitzi and me with our BIG CAMERAS

Maris and Jolina with their little cameras.

Let's go look at birds!!

The Black Ibis

The Long Billed Curlew  (I think)  Or maybe  A Willet

Hot Chicks!   Oh...I mean, me, Jolina and Mitzi.

Black Necked Stilts (my favorite) and Phalaropes

A Snowy Egret

Mitzi took this pic with her BIG LENS.

Most of the time, we all looked like this:

Pretty Birds!

and finally....Our tired hosts.

Who did so much for us! 

Thanks Maris and Tim.

The end.

Welcome Armchair BEA

Book Expo America (sigh) ....I wish I was there.  But this is the next best thing! Armchair BEA.
(for those (4) of you, who read my blog regularly--this week I'm participating in Armchair BEA.   For all of us who couldn't go to the Book Expo America convention in NYC,  today is an introductory post)


At first look, you might think...what the heck? this doesn't look like a book blog, more like a food blog.   Well, this blog kind of has an identity crisis.  Books, food, gardening, bird, etc.    But if you look at it closely, books are  in, out, and all around this blog.  Books go good with food  (especially baked goods).  Books go good with gardening...I mean what's better than having a nice garden to go read a book in?  We hang a hammock and that hammock and a book?  It's HEAVEN, I tell ya, Heaven.   And while lying in that hammock, eating a homemade chocolate chip cookie, (which I have most likely blogged about), besides reading my book, I am noticing all the different birds which come into my backyard.  Books go good with EVERYTHING.

So, there you have it.  That is the introduction to me.  Debbie. I like to read, cook, read, garden,watch birds, and spend time with my grandchildren. I have 9 of them. Oh...and my kids too.  I have 4 of them.

I guess by now you have kind of figured out that I don't 'review' books per se, but I love books more than anything, and so when I found out about Armchair BEA, I thought---why not participate!    Even tho I'm not an official book blogger, I have worked in libraries in the past  and now I'm on the library board in our little rural Nevada town.  I love to talk books.  I belong to  5 bookclubs:
The Lit Wits  (we cook too.  It's a book and cook club)
Totally Lit
Word Shakers on line book club
The Literary Guild
and my church has a quarterly book club that I participate in. 

I think I pretty much read 'across the board'.   If I had to pick a favorite genre, it would be  series mysteries.  I love the character development.   But I read everything.

The BEA organizers wanted us to post a random fact about ourselves.  This is really hard because I think I blab everything about myself all the time.

Ummmm.....  in the fall of  2009, I did the  Susan G. Komen 3Day-60mile walk for breast cancer.  It was the most amazing thing I've ever done.
I've walked in the "Bay to Breakers"  12k walk in San Francisco 3 times.  Also an amazing  thing.  (and so much fun!!)
Last month, I walked in the March of Dimes walk for babies in Sparks, NV.  It was also amazing, because my little twin grandchilren walked (they are 2).  They were born 8 weeks premature, but are now growing and thriving and walking in a 2mile walk.  Amazing!

Walking seems to be a theme of my life also.  I do like to walk.
I  used to watch a women walk and read a book at the same time. Thank goodness we now have Ipod's so we can walk and listen to a book.  But she held a paperback in her hands and walked and read.  She would walk all over town reading while walking.
I thought I would try it. 
It didn't work for me.  It's not an easy thing to do.    Can you do it?

Last but not least.....for a random thing about me.   My license plate on my car says:

That is BOOK LOVER , not book liver.  and yes, I do need to wash my car.

and that is it for this introductory post.   I'll be back later today to participate in  "It's Monday" and to tell more about my birding weekend.  (no laughing, unless you've tried it)
Come back later and check it out.  (much later---like tonight)

Saturday Snapshot

These are a pair of Canada Geese ( do we use Canadian when there is more than one?) and their goslings.   We took this photo last weekend on our 'birding' weekend at the Spring  Wings Festival.   We were in a tour van, and the  Goose family got in the road ahead of us.  When they saw us coming, they ran for their lives!
It was so cute.  The parents were 'honking' and the kids were running.  Finally, they all got over in the pond at the side of the road.

Does anyone remember the Disney movie "The Rescuers?"  and the duck that had trouble flying/getting off the ground?  That's what these guys reminded us of.  (also an American Coot --but we didn't get a photo of him. He was running to beat the band...and flapping his wings,  and he just couldn't take flight!  Sooo funny.)

I am linking this to Snapshot Saturday at 'At Home with Books'.
Stop by to link up your photo and check out the other great links.

The Last Time I Saw You

I read "The Last Time I Saw You"  by Elizabeth Berg,  last summer and then Sheila from Book Journey chose it a our selection for  her on-line book club 'Word Shakers.'   I have to confess I didn't re-read it as I sometimes do for book clubs if I've read it before.
I didn't re-read it because......(oh heavens) I didn't care for it that much.   I have only read Sheila's review so far, and she loved the book, so I am feeling a bit awkward here, but I guess we all have our own points of view, right?  And we can still be friends, right? 
(this is why I don't officially review any books---I hate hurting feelings.)  (that, and I'm too lazy to keep up)

The book was well written, and I usually enjoy Berg's books, but this time I just didn't like the story.  It was about a bunch of people so stuck in their past it was ridiculous.
Let me back track just a bit...  I liked High School very much.  It was a fun time in my life, but 40 years after the fact, I hope I have moved on,

Here is a review from GoodReads:
From the beloved bestselling author of Home Safe and The Year of Pleasures, comes a wonderful new novel about women and men reconnecting with one another—and themselves—at their fortieth high school reunion.

To each of the men and women in The Last Time I Saw You, this reunion means something different—a last opportunity to say something long left unsaid, an escape from the bleaker realities of everyday life, a means to save a marriage on the rocks, or an opportunity to bond with a slightly estranged daughter, if only over what her mother should wear.
As the onetime classmates meet up over the course of a weekend, they discover things that will irrevocably affect the rest of their lives. For newly divorced Dorothy Shauman, the reunion brings with it the possibility of finally attracting the attention of the class heartthrob, Pete Decker. For the ever self-reliant, ever left-out Mary Alice Mayhew, it’s a chance to reexamine a painful past. For Lester Heseenpfeffer, a veterinarian and widower, it is the hope of talking shop with a fellow vet—or at least that’s what he tells himself. For Candy Armstrong, the class beauty, it’s the hope of finding friendship before it is too late.
As Dorothy, Mary Alice, Lester, Candy, and the other classmates converge for the reunion dinner, four decades melt away: Desires and personalities from their youth reemerge, and new discoveries are made. For so much has happened to them all. And so much can still happen.
In this beautiful novel, Elizabeth Berg deftly weaves together stories of roads taken and not taken, choices made and opportunities missed, and the possibilities of second chances.




 me again.... okay, it was an easy, quick read.  And  it was 'okay' for me.  But the story...holy cow!   I felt sorry for those people.  I mean 40 years after the fact and you think your life is worthless because you didn't get together with the football hero?  It was pathetic.  SORRY!!!   But it was.   Sure, I had crushes on football players, basketball stars.  I loved the pep assemblies and the clubs and visiting with friends.  I loved Friday nights cruising the drag and going to Zips for burgers and seeing who was with who.  But that was only 4 years of my life.  4 years out of 52.  I can't be stuck there like some people are...and it bothers me greatly that the characters in this book were.  That they didn't evolve over 40 years.  That they didn't have good lives.  It made me sad.


What do I regret about high school?   That I didn't take the time to get to know some really good people.  The people that were in band or in science club or on the tennis team or people who were too shy to 'stick out'.   High School is so cliquish, and I think we really lose out on getting to be friends with great people.  It wasn't that I was  super popular either  (what does that even mean?? ) or super nerdy.  I ran with a middle of the road group.  Looking back it would have just been nice to have been more aware of other groups of people.   I really did enjoy high school.  I just don't want to be stuck in those cliques or pigeon holes at my 40th class reunion as the characters in this book were.
That's what the 10 year class reunion was for  ( laughing, right?  You remember wanting to impress your classmates at your 10th!), the 2oth reunion?  We could all relax and be ourselves and enjoy one another.

So, maybe that's why this book didn't ring true for me....if the setting was when these characters were younger, then I could imagine it, but  in their late 50's?  I just couldn't....see it.  I just hope that all of you/us  have realized our lives are much much more that that 4 year period of time.

I would read more of Elizabeth Berg, because it isn't that she's not a good writer.  I've liked what I've read before.  And as far as the Word Shakers Book group discussion goes....It's been so long I can't remember the characters names, so I'm not a very good 'discusser'.   I am stuck on this one theme.
My apologies.

Booking Thru Thursday

Today's Booking Through Thursday asks this question:
What do you think of censoring books BECAUSE of their intended age? Say, books too “old” for your kids to read?

I'm pretty sure I don't have a "following" since I just write random stuff, BUT I often feel as if I repeat myself over and over (so if you do read my blog regularly, please don't roll your eyes and say  I KNOW, SHE SAYS THAT ALL THE TIME.)

When I was in Junior High School, circa 1971-1973, I  'snuck' read  The Godfather,  The Exorcist, and Valley of the Dolls. (This is where I repeat myself--The Godfather is my favorite book)
All completely age inappropriate.   And I am so glad I read them.  I have fond memories of them all.  Granted, there were a few things I didn't understand at the time  (especially things Sonny Corleone did with his mistress.  I couldn't even find that word in the dictionary!  ~laughing~ ),  but aside from those few things, they were good books and didn't hurt my moral conscience.  I don't think anyway.
So, I have a hard time censoring books.  And honestly, I had boys who I would have PAID  to read anything.  (a confession:  I did pay my oldest son to read The Mouse and the Motorcycle when he was in the 5th grade.  I'm not so sure it took.  He's not an avid reader.  He's 31.)
I think age appropriateness has to be a parental decision and I respect that.

Having said that tho.... I hate it when  the other side doesn't respect my right to let my kids read anything they want.  When they try to censor books in a public  (or sometimes even a school) library.
I had an acquaintance once who, when she thought books were inappropriate, would  take them and shove them behind other books on other shelves.
AAACCCKKK!!!