Theme Thursday -- Body Parts -- Wicked by Gregory Maguire

Hosted by Reading Between the Pages

Rules:

*A theme will be posted each week on Thursday
*Select a conversation/snippet/sentence from the current book you are reading that features the theme
*Post it and don't forget to mention the author and title of the book
*Event is open for the whole week
*Link back to Reading Between the Pages

This week's theme is body parts.

"Well, practice makes perfect, and more than once I've been called a perfect asshole."

~page 368, Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire

How could I resist using this line for this week's theme? :)  This was a re-read for me, as it was chosen for this month's book club.  It's never going to be my favorite book, but I think I enjoyed it more this time than the first -- and I know there are allusions I'm still missing.  What have some of you thought of this one? 

Book Beginnings & Friday 56 -- The Phone Book by Ammon Shea

Book Beginnings on Friday is a meme hosted by A Few More Pages. Anyone can participate; just share the opening sentence, or two, of your current read, making sure that you include the title and author so others know what you're reading.

A wonderful and picturesque story about telephone books appears in an old railroad journal from 1935.  An unnamed fruit company in Central America was having difficulty with local bandits, who were hijacking its trains.

The Friday 56 is a weekly meme hosted by Freda's Voice. Check out the rules and join in the fun.

Grab the book nearest you. Right now.
Turn to page 56.
Find the fifth sentence.
Post that sentence (plus one or two others if you like) along with these instructions on your blog or (if you do not have your own blog) in the comments section of this blog. Post a link along with your post back to this blog.

"They tell you to 'write it down' not memorize it.  Try writing a telephone number down in a dark booth while groping for a pencil, searching in an obsolete phone book and gasping for breath.  And all this in the name of efficiency!"

This book, by the author of Reading the OED, was a fun one to read -- lots of telephone-related trivia to impress friends and family.  :)  One bit I keep thinking about -- early telephone users were encouraged to end their call by saying "That's all."  I find this amusing and would like to implement it but I'm pretty sure it's actually too brusque to fit my style.  3.5/5 stars

Today

Today would have been my tenth wedding anniversary.  Instead, our divorce was final last month.  I don't know that I have more to say about it right now, but I wanted to at least mark it here. 

The Simple Woman's Daybook -- Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Hosted by Peggy.

Outside my window...a cooler day with thunderstorms likely for the foreseeable future, sunny and green after all the rain we've already gotten.

I am thinking...about how little I'll see Fiona once school starts.

I am thankful... that we caught the earlier bus home last night from work -- so we didn't have to wait another hour or more!

From the learning rooms...picking Becoming a Life Change Artist back up -- it's one of the few books I've read where it's so rich and dense with goodness that I have to keep coming back to it -- still haven't finished it.

In the kitchen... all the dishes clean -- maybe I should ponder making bread tonight or tomorrow.

I am going...  to work Friday, Saturday, & Sunday this weekend.

I am wondering... what tomorrow will be like.

I am reading... The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Boat of Her Own Making, with Fiona.

I am hoping... to be able to see my out-laws a fair bit when they are here in August.

I am looking forward to...last time I did the Daybook I didn't have an answer for this one so I posted on facebook that I needed something to look forward to -- now I have a letter coming from my friend Beth -- a good thing to look forward to.

I am hearing... Fiona playing happily outside, the kitchen clock ticking, and Song of the South by Alabama playing on Pandora -- always reminds me of road trips with my grandparents.

Around the house...needing to unpack the clothes that are in a breaking cardboard box and wash the sheets.  Kellan, Josie, and Jen will be home soon.

One of my favorite things...rain


Here is picture for thought I am sharing...  Fiona with the three things she bought with birthday and Easter money from Grandma and Grandpa Carlson, Grandma King, Grandma Connie and Grandpa Don -- A new sun hat (the skulls were her choice), a stuffed animal/monster she's named Cross-Eyed, and a stencil art book (and one of the pictures she's made with it)!  She really loves being able to pick things out and buy them with her own money.  Thank you to all of you!!

Teaser Tuesdays -- Flip by Martyn Bedford

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly meme hosted by MizB @ Should Be Reading. To participate, all you have to do is the following:

• Grab your current/upcoming read
• Open to a random page
• Share 2-3 "teaser" sentences from somewhere on that page
• Be careful not to include spoilers!

They mightn't have been brothers at all, their personalities were so dissimilar; but they were brothers, and Alex longed for Sam to turn round.  To look at him.  Just so he could see Sam's freckly face again.
~page 78-9, Trapped by Martyn Bedford

When 14-year-old Alex Gray wakes up in an unfamiliar bedroom, things quickly get stranger after he realizes he is not only in a stranger's bedroom, but in the same stranger's body.  Alex has to navigate being in Philip (Flip) Garamond's body and life while he struggles to learn what has happened to his own body and life.  I didn't love this one as much as I was expecting to, but it was interesting.  Think Freaky Friday set in England with potential consequences that are much more life-or-death.

A day in the life -- Thursday July 7, 2011

the basement bathroom Fiona and I share

Josie

Jen's homemade granola and homemade yogurt

Kellan mopping the kitchen

 reading a classic

Jen baking bread

I'm working on organizing our art/office drawers -- an ongoing project.

Yogurt popsicles

Kellan on the back porch

working on a flyer to post about what I'm looking for housing & second job-wise and listening to Sinatra on Pandora

egg carton flowers I found in the art drawers

A ghost in the kitchen consisting of Fiona, Kellan, and Josie

Jen and I looking super cute -- Fiona took this picture

I forgot that I wanted to take a picture at the end of the day -- we already had the lights out and Fiona wasn't impressed with the camera's flash.  :D

Lots of laughing with Kellan, Josie, and Fiona

Kellan (6 years old) and Josie (3 years old) are our housemates for the summer and they, along with Fiona, were pretty sure this exciting drama needed to be recorded.