Redheads Unite!

Take a look at this even put on by Redheads-World: August 8 North American Gathering.

Just another reason I wish I could attend the Dublin, OH Irish festival, which I was already drooling over because my favorite Celtic band, Gaelic Storm, usually plays there.

Dalek Entry in Hitchhiker's Guide

I love both Dr. Who and The Hitchhiker's Guide. Imagine how excited I was to see this video over at Bookish Gal's blog! Brought back all my high school memories of first seeing the old BBC Hitchhiker's Guide series.

Have a good weekend!

Benny And Shrimp by Katarina Mazetti

Katarina Mazetti was at a funeral, wondering about how a wife would feel if she was burying a husband she wasn't really grieving, when she got the idea for Benny & Shrimp.

Plot Summary: This book is set in Sweden, where Desiree, a librarian, has just buried her husband. He was a very practical man, who had even picked out his own plain and simple headstone. Desiree spends at least an hour there on her lunch breaks -- mostly because she's trying to work up to the grief level she feels is appropriate for a new widow.

The neighboring grave is a very ornate affair, planted with tons of flowers, and tended by Benny. Benny, like his parents (who are commemorated by the gravestone), is a dairy farmer in the countryside.

Under ordinary circumstances Desiree and Benny would never have met. Their lives are complete opposites, other than this connection in the graveyard. Still, after avoiding eye contact for weeks at the graves, they begin a relationship. Unfortunately for them, this a more realistic story than your general chick lit book where boy meets girl and everything goes smoothly. Benny and "Shrimp", as he calls her, have to deal with the real logistics of their lives and the tension in Sweden between the intelligentsia and the small family farmers.

My Reaction: I admit, from the cover I was convinced that this book would be like a thousand other books I'd read before. It makes a huge difference that Katarina Mazetti lived on a Swedish dairy farm for 20 years before writing it. (She is clear in the author interview at the back that this was not an autobiographical book, but the details of life on the farm appear to come through personal experience.)

I'm also not used to reading Swedish novels. This book was originally published in Swedish in 1998, but not translated into English until 2008. That's very different than a book written by someone who just went to visit Sweden and set a novel in the tourist locales there. The author's voice was very different, too. Much more mater-of-fact even, in some places, about sex in ways that was more shocking than the more detailed, flowery imagery I've read in American romance novels.

As someone who didn't get married until my 30s, which included a big change from my single city life to living in a small West Texas town (and talking about having chickens in the backyard), I very much identified with the tension that Desiree and Benny face in trying to blend two established lives into one.

The storyline didn't flow in a way that I expected, but the issues Katarina discussed and the unique voice had me thinking about this book long after I put it down.

Bottom Line: I really enjoyed Benny & Shrimp, primarily because it was nothing like what I expected.

(Thank you to FSB Associates for my review copy of this book.)

Garden Pics -- Wordless Wednesday

Having fun watching our garden grow -- although having to watch out for pests:

See the tomato worm?tiny burr gherkin

first garlic harvest

Click here for more Wordless Wednesday and here for the current quilt update: TexasRed Quilts.

Teaser Tuesday - Herself by Leslie Carroll

Just got back from Dallas. (One of the downsides to living in a small West Texas town is needing to head to Dallas or another big city for medical treatments that are anything more than basic.)

Read lots of good books and, despite having a huge stack in the suitcase, hit the massive Barnes & Noble a few times. I admit -- I picked up Herself, by Leslie Carroll, purely based on the lovely shamrock cover art!

Decided it would be the perfect get-back-in-the-saddle book for MizB's (Should Be Reading) Teaser Tuesday.

To play along with Teaser Tuesday:

(1) Grab your current read;

(2) Let the book fall open to a random page;

(3) Share two (or three) teaser sentences from that page (avoiding spoilers); and

(4) Share the book title and author so others can find the book themselves.

Here's my teaser for today:

"I'll go!" volunteers Brigid. "I'm starved." This has the immediate effect of changing her mother's mind, as Maureen is not about to permit a "nunlet" to spend any time alone with her wayward son and his faith-less (in her view) lady friend.

Garden in Full Swing

We got a bit of a late start this year, but now have all kinds of things happening in our garden!

squash

peppers

gourds

cilantro

swiss chard

Sorry for the sporadic posting. I have some medical things going on right now and am a bit frazzled trying to take care of everything. I should be back to regular posting in 2 weeks or so.

Thanks for your patience!

The Versatile Blog

Wow! Even after several weeks of slacker blogging, Patiently Waiting, another Texas book blogger, passed on this great award to me. Thank you so much (and enjoy your anniversary this weekend)!

I'm supposed to say seven things about myself and then pass it on. Here goes:

(1) I've got my DVR set to record several Cartoon Network shows, even though we have no kids.

(2) I can't see more than 6 inches of my desktop because it's covered with things I need to take care of (oops).

(3) I'm ridiculously excited that there are still flowers blooming in my yard even though it's been in the 90s / 100s.

(4) I've run out of rooms in my house to redecorate. Guess I may have to start over on some of them now.

(5) I've got five quilts either in progress at the moment (plus more in the planning stages).

(6) I'm putting off going through my books to give away to the library book sale because it feels like I'm giving up on them if I put them in the donation box.

(7) My pet prairie dog's new favorite is cocoa covered almonds. I'm "trained" enough to be planing a 50 mile drive to get him more.

I'm passing this on to several fun blogs. Please go check them out and say "hi":

• Lil' Eskimo in Texas
• Shauna Glenn
• Jo-Jo Loves to Read
• The Gypsy Mama
• A Whole Lot of Nothing
  

Thanks again, Patiently Waiting!

New Prairie Dog Bed

Had a wonderful visit with the parents the last few weeks. My parents were so great with helping us out with projects around the house and in the garden.

One of the projects I handed off to my mom during the heat of the day (i.e., when I was trying to get her to leave the garden and come back to the air conditioning) was a new bed for Hoover. He chewed up the corner of his last one quite a bit -- apparently trying to close off the entrance. So, the new house is made from sturdier denim and includes a "door" he can play with. Thanks to my mom's embroidery, it also includes a monogrammed "H."

Gotta love a prairie dog with style, right?

You can check out more Wordless Wednesday, too, as well as my quilting progress at TexasRed Quilts.