Confessions

The traffic in Jersey was bad. But at least there weren't any large animals in it.

Confessions is a hilarious account of Susan McCorkindale's adventure in becoming a farm girl. Complete city girl through and through, Susan allowed her husband to convince her to move to the middle of nowhere to help out his brother and to get away from the scary fast paced city life. After much convincing, Susan gives in and goes for the much sought after country life. Unfortunately for her, there isn't a Starbucks in site, DSW, salon worth a blowout, or anywhere to wear her brand new stilettos. Adjusting to living on a farm is hard enough - going from a top exec job in the heart of NYC to the backwoods of farm country.. well hard doesn't even describe the transition.

Well written and humorous throughout, this book left me laughing and begging to add a chicken coop to the land we have in PA. Maybe even some cows. Throw in a horse or two while you're at it, okay Matt? Wait- maybe I should slow down... Susan did warn me that the only grass thats greener is the stuff you're smoking.

Not only is every chapter full of parallels to my life (Irish Italian? You betcha! Sounds like Carmella Soprano when angry? Check! Big Italian ass? Uh huh! Slightly crazy? Yep!) but also they are full of great information and tidbits about farm life. In between chapters she has nifty little charts and lists, complete with a "glossary" of farm speak at the end, and footnotes scattered throughout the book. All which make the book even more comical.

Originally beginning as a side project stemming from her need to contact the "real world" of her past life, emails and blog posts began to form this memoir. Throw in a dash of her side splitting column in the local news, and you've got the recipe for a great memoir! Well worth looking at - whether you're a farm girl already or a city girl thinking about moving to the farm... or just in need of a good laugh - grab Confessions of a Counterfeit Farm Girl, sit back and laugh out loud! Just try not to scare the cows.

the 4th

I didn't have my DSLR with me, and I have to admit I had more than a few beers in me, so they are not the greatest by any means. However, I still love love love the first one.

I took them at Laurel Lake in PA at my friends lake house. The first picture is the neighbors fireworks - right over our head (literally). They went on for 2+ hours... amazing amazing amazing... I'm talking big show, as in the kind you drive hours to a beach to go see! The people who live at Laurel Lake (or summer there) have huge gorgeous houses and probably each spent a good few thousand on fireworks- and pretty much EVERY house does them. The reflection in the water is beautiful (my friend went out into the middle of the lake in his kayak) and the sound was thrilling! I wish I had video of it all! Can't wait for next summer :)

The Bell Jar

From the back: "The Bell Jar chronicles the crack-up of Esther Greenwood; brilliant, beautiful, enormously talented, and successful, but slowly going under- maybe for the last time. Sylvia Plath masterfully draws the reader into Esther's breakdown with such intensity that Esther's insanity becomes completely real and even rational, as probable and accessible an experience as going to the movies. Such deep penetration into the dark and harrowing corners of the psyche is an extraordinary accomplishment and has made The Bell Jar a haunting American classic."

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath is a "semi-autobiography", originally written under the pseudonym Victoria Lucas. Plath is know for her poetry. The Bell Jar is her one novel (all other compilations of her letters and journals were published posthumously). Shortly after its publication, Plat committed suicide by blocking off the doors and window frames in her kitchen and turning on the gas stove. It is under great debate whether she intended to fully go through with the suicide; a note stating "call Dr Gordon" suggests she wanted someone to find her before the very end, yet the autopsy reveals that Sylvia actually stuck her head inside the oven. Sylvia's suicide will always be under speculation. Literature lost an amazing artist that fateful day.

The novel is beautifully written and thrusts the reader deep into the madness of Esther. Esther describes her predicament as living under a bell jar- where the air is stale and she can't break free. Falling deeper and deeper into her own despair, Esther's trials mirror those of Sylvia. Interning at a magazine in NYC, breaking down and suicide attempts were all a part of Sylvia's life- which to me is why the novel is so well written- it boarders on memoir. Much of the novel is obviously embellished for literary reasons, but the backbones are built around the truth of Sylvia's life.

..from page 77.... "I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and one by one they plopped to the ground at my feet."

I feel that that passage might be the most inspiring and well written piece of the book. It just makes sense - especially to me - someone who not too long ago was coming off of a time wondering what to do with my career, where to move and generally wanting it all. Esther was so unsure of herself, and with so many expectations put upon her from her mother, they began to smother her and the bell jar was slowly closing in around her, leaving her gasping for breath.

Overall, I LOVED this book. I read it fairly quick (for me) while enjoying the last bit of sunshine that New York has to offer. (I swear it rained every single day at one point or another)

Coming up:

I've begun Confessions of a Counterfeit Farm Girl by former city slicker Susan McCorkindale. So far, I love it. I can relate and it is laugh out loud funny. Matt even picked it up and read the first chapter and laughed!

Also...

We are seriously beginning to look at houses - get a small move-in ready as a starter and build our own?... put a modular on our land and later build on?... continue to rent and start building on the land? Decisions decisions! At least I know what I want my INTERIOR to be. I am a total country girl. So anyway, I figured we would be starting within a year (any of the above options) so I better get started on some interior additions- like cross stitch designs. Soooo I will have a few of those that I am starting to share at some point.

Everything Austen

I am FINALLY getting around to my Everything Austen post - I was on a little mini-vacation camping for the 4th at my friends lake house.... more on that insanity later (I have awesome pictures). So, on to Everything Austen.....

This contest is hosted by Stephanie over at The Written Word. It runs 6 months (July 1 - Jan 1) and all that you need to do is find 6 Austen-themed things to completed. Basically anything is game- books by Jane Austen herself, Austen-themed books or Austen-inspired books, and any of the MANY movies out there! Austenprose did add another challenge on top of this challenge - from 6 to 12! Since I don't have the summer off this year (I teach 6 weeks out of the summer) I am staying on with the original 6.

So, without further ado... my everything Austen list:

(I have listed 7 books and 3 movies to give myself some wiggle-room)

Books:

• Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen
• Emma by Jane Austen
• The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler
• The Lost Memoirs of Jane Austen by Syrie Jamies
• Becoming Jane Austen by Jon Spence
• Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict by Laurie Viera Rigler
• What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew by Daniel Pool
  

Movies:

• Pride & Prejudice
• The Jane Austen Book Club
• Becoming Jane

You only die once.

Did you know that Michael Jackson will only die once?

{fast forward to around 30 seconds}

Terrible as it is, I laughed a lot at this clip when I saw it on The Daily Show. You know someone was behind the camera telling the news anchor to stretch... too bad he stretched in this direction. I may use that as a catch line for a while.

ps: if you love MJ and I've offended you, sorry!

pps: sorry this video is grainy- it was the only one I could find that was right to the point.

Cut by Patricia McCormick

Blurb from the back: Callie cuts herself. Never too deep, never enough to die. But enough to feel the pain. Enough to feel the scream inside. Now she's at Sea Pines, a "residential treatment facility" filled with girls struggling with problems of their own. Callie doesn't want to have anything to do with them. She doesn't want to have anything to do with anyone. She won't even speak. But Callie can only stay silent for so long...

Cut is a young adult novel about a girl at a residential treatment facility- what landed her there and her life within the walls of an institution. I picked it up because I work at a RTF and a lot of my residents cut. I wanted to understand from their perspective, from inside the mind of a teenage girl who feels so much pain she knows no other way to deal with it. Granted, this is fiction, but I see it every single day and I must say- Patricia McCormick really did do her homework.

Callie runs. Callie cuts. Callie refuses to speak. Throughout the book you have to ponder why. What is she running from? What pain is she releasing from her superficial cuts? What is she hiding and how long can she hide behind her own wall of silence? Slowly we peel back the layers to find a troubled girl with a heavy burden on her shoulders. Understanding where she is coming from is easy- we all have troubles and we all have suffering in our lives. But why does she address this pain with self injurious behaviors?

Cutting releases pain for many people. Feeling the burn of skin opening and revealing the crimson color of blood. The pain of cutting relieves the internal pain because it brings that person back to reality- the reality of physical pain to numb the emotional pain taking over the mind.

Callie doesn't speak. Refusing to talk is a form of control and power. If you refuse to discuss a topic, then it can't be brought out and waved in front of your face. You don't have to face an issue if you won't talk about it... it is almost like out of sight out of mind. If i ignore the topic long enough, it will just go away. Refusing to speak is also a dissociative trait. Becoming so wrapped up in your own sorrow and pain, reliving experiences and thoughts in your mind, silence is the barrier that needs to be broken to remove yourself from the overpowering intrusive thoughts.

As readers, we struggle with Callie. We feel her pain and understand her thoughts. We feel empathy for her broken soul. Callie learns lessons throughout the book, but also teaches her audience. She teaches us to let go and move on. She teaches us about relationships and how human contact, no matter how small, can help us through our toughest times. And for those of us who have never before experienced life in a residential treatment facility, you see both the good and evil. We get a glimpse at how the population receiving treatment feels and how it looks from the inside.

All in all, I liked this book. I thought it showed cutting and pain in a new light- the protagonist takes us along for a ride. I also enjoyed how Callie experienced the RTF alone and how she experienced it with her peers. Cut is an easy read (literally speaking) but emotionally difficult, especially if you have any sort of tie to the subject. My biggest issue with the book is that it somewhat glamorizes cutting. Many books on the subject do. The blurb on the back says it all - "...never enough to die." Yes, maybe so, but I think the approach - cutting as a way to relieve the pain - is too much for young adults. Young adults are influenced by everything around them- I would hate to see this book end up in the hands of a depressed teen with little comfort and support from her family. While the book does not suggest cutting as a means to get through the pain, it does imply that cutting will release the hurt. Even with Callie landing in an RTF, a young adult going through pain and with nowhere to put it, the implied concept of cutting may be too much.

I recommend this book, but with caution. If you are allowing your teen to read it, kudos! I think they should. But make sure you take time to read it also, and discuss the book. Dig deep into the theme of pain and suffering finding a release. Communication is key.

xox

Getting there..

Today marks my first day of my short summer vacation. 2 weeks off until it is time to teach 6 weeks of summer school to antsy 'tweens who have much better things to do. My plan for these next two weeks is to spruce up the blog, and actually write more than once a week. I just turned the blog into a 3-column last night, and today I have been playing with pretty little backgrounds and such. Eventually it will become a permanent background and I will write a meaningful entry about Cut, list the 2009 books in order and completely, join a Jane Austen contest, and make a complete list of books sitting by my bedside ready to be devoured over the next two weeks. As for now, I am off for a walk while the sun is actually bright and high in the sky... and hope I don't get caught in the thunderstorm predicted for this afternoon!

xox peace

Miss P's 10-hour Reading Program

I went to Barnes & Noble the other afternoon to pick up books for my students. I work at a Residential Treatment Facility and my kids hate to read. I decided to make an incentive with them: if they read for 10 hours, I will buy them the book of their choice (within reason). Ownership is a HUGE deal for my students, because most of their lives they have had their power, dignity, personal ownership and basically every right stripped from them. I wanted to teach them about reaching for a goal, achieving it and feeling a sense of power and ownership. Not only ownership of a material item (the book) but also owning the power to make their own decisions (when, where and what to read) and reaching a goal. Thanks to this incentive to read, my students are eager to do so. Since I started the program, I have had 3 students reach 10 hours of reading... some of which happens not in school, but in their dormitory rooms and at home on the weekends. I am bursting with pride! The 3 who have reached their goal are cheering on their classmates and are excited to start a new journey towards reaching another goal - all while reading their choice of a book. It also makes me ecstatic that many of them want to read over the 2-week summer break (we teach throughout the summer)... I am in the process of creating a documentation format for the dorm staff to track their summer reading while school is on break. To me, reading is one of the most important lessons - not only the act of learning to read and the satisfaction that brings to a new reader, but also the art of reading. Getting lost in a book, learning empathy (and a whole host of other emotions) for a character, learning that different genres can be interesting, finding a desire to read and/or write and just the ability to take a book anywhere you go and be allowed to lose yourself completely. I find all of these to be especially helpful for my students. They need to be able to cope with stress and recognize that everybody has hardship, and reading is one way they can discover that... I hope to take a few courses (or at least read up on) bibliotherapy. I think it would be extremely beneficial for me and my students.

Kindle?

To Kindle or not to Kindle, that is the question. (yea yea, that was really lame). For those of you living under a rock, the Kindle is a wireless electronic storage device, meant to make reading portable (because a real book would be just too much to handle) and discreet. Amazon makes 'em and sells 'em at outrageous prices (the newest version is upwards of $480) and then expects you to buy the "books" from them also (about $10 each, unless it is a textbook or a large volume). So I am asked to spend $500 to read ONE book and then another $10 for any other book I plan on reading? Can't I go to Barnes & Noble and pick up a book from their Classics collection for less than $7.00? Oh, and did I mention it is like a phone and has to charge... so lets hope you're not stuck on a plane reading and your battery life hits low... or what about when you forgot to charge it and the power goes out and you're stuck staring at the wall because your paperbacks have all been sold on eBay to pay for the little rechargeable book viewer?? Aside from the obvious pitfalls ($$$$ and battery life), it is good for one thing - discreet reading. If you're into sexy little romance novels but don't want anyone to know, the Kindle is the way to go. If I read those books, I think I would want people to know though - I have no shame. I love carrying books around and reading in public because a book cover can spark a conversation, which can spark a new friendship! Besides, I have always loved to flaunt my new book around. It is also good (hypothetically) for train/bus commuters who have little elbow room... but then again, if I had to ride the train or the bus, I think I would be more interested in people watching than reading from an electronic mini screen.

Personally, I have no idea why anyone would want a Kindle... I know it is convenient if you have the money to blow, but it sure doesn't blow my senses like a book does. A book cover is visually appealing, the book weighs in your bag to remind you of your attachment, it has a unique smell (age, where it was bought, who read it last all effect this), turning pages makes a particular soothing noise, and in a pinch you could eat the book for a bit of fiber. Books offer stimulation to all of the senses, and while a Kindle could do the same, it isn't on the same level. I can't really compare the smell of plastic to the smell of freshly printed pages. And besides, I think a Kindle would suck for survival mode - can't eat it, won't help to start a fire, doesn't work as a cooling fan very well and I can't imagine trying to wipe up anything with it. But I guess you could always signal for help with the reflective glass.

So tell me then, why buy a Kindle? And why on earth are they so expensive? Is demand REALLY that high that in this economy Amazon can charge $489 (plus the book costs) for a glorified memory stick with a viewer?

Let me know.

ps: think this will ever take off and make real book extinct?

The Wednesday Sisters

The Wednesday Sisters by Meg Waite Clayton is an excellent book. It got rave reviews when it came out, and continues to have people talking. Anyone who knows me, knows that I never pick up girlie girl books. The last time I read any chick-lit was when I was in high school. Not to say that this brand of literature doesn't have its place- I just don't love reading these types of books. So, imagine my own surprise when I decided I needed a break from all of my mind benders and non-fiction novels and ended up picking up a book from the "hot summer reads" table at B&N. The tag line was what intrigued me - a story about friendship, motherhood, and writing. And it was set in the 1960s. Without giving the story away... it is a beautiful novel about friends who meet every week to grow and learn from one another. Their kids play together, their husbands work together, and they write together. It is a story about sisterhood - the bond formed between women. The book made me feel excited, enraged, happy, empathetic, disappointed, relieved, strong and a whole host of other things. I laughed, cried, and sang their praises. It was a great ride of emotions and the more I read, the more I was pulled in. I also loved the book because it discusses many notable novels and authors in literature. Books that I believe every person should read before they die (especially Jane Austen). I suggest this book to any woman - young or old, single or married, mother or not. The general pull on emotions will reach any type of woman.

under construction!

...this is going to be a new blog - focusing more on my photography, writing, and passion for reading.

just a tease...
I just finished reading The Wednesday Sisters and I laughed, cried and rooted for those women at every turn of the page.