Frankly

This is awesome. But so are these.

Scraps and eyes

A while back I read a most unsatisfactory book about Warsaw, Poland during the Holocaust. That book was riddled with issues that made reading it not so great. However, the book did share a snippet of a tale about Janusz Korczak. Further looking into this heroic man turned up the fact that he's mentioned in Milkweed so I had to check it out.


This book is a YA novel. It's told from the point of view of a very young orphan boy who sees a lot of atrocities - many of which he doesn't understand at all at first. It's a quick read and there's some humor but of course an avalanche of heartbreak. I will admit to kind of wishing that the story had cut off a bit sooner, but I'm okay with that.


I highly recommend this one. I give it an 8.


And you know I can't help sharing well written lines when I read them:


The children who lived were all scraps and eyes. This was the ghetto where children grew down instead of up.

Marseilles Dress - Shabby Apple Giveaway

Ooooh - so pretty and versatile. Shabby Apple has so many lovely dresses.





I'm throwing my hat in to win this delightful frock:

Although their styles are pretty affordable as well as darling.

Marseilles Dress SHABBY APPLE GUEST GIVEAWAY!!!!

Stereotypes = bad

American Teen is a documentary that follows a handful of teens throughout their senior year of high school. I refuse to use the cover that imitates The Breakfast Club.

This film has a few delightful moment (Hannah's grandparents are the cutest things ever), but it was so obnoxious how they tried to fit every person into a mold. Instead of trying to bypass the stereotypes, this film leapt whole heartedly into them and crammed all the footage to fit. MTV can and has done better looks at teenagers' real lives. This just sort of sucked.

Two stars - one each for the darling grandmothers in the pre-prom picture taking scene. I'd watch a movie about them any day.

Just to say

I've taken to refering to wine as "nap juice". Not a good sign for my health initiatives. But highly effective in making sure I am able to sleep during stressful times.

On wood

I really like many paintings done on wood. Especially when they are as sweet as this.

Such edifices are notoriously fragile

I'm a big fan of Margaret Atwood as well as a girl determined to stop passing over books she owns in favor of library books which have that attraction of only being lent for a fleeting time. So I picked up Alias Grace.

It's a novel based on a true life account of a serving girl suspected of murdering her boss and another maid. There's a lot of ambiguity in this book and the story reveals itself in a deliciously slow manner.

There's a wonderfully chilling paragraph early on:

But underneath that is another feeling, a feeling of being wide-eyed awake and watchful. It's like being wakened suddenly in the middle of the night, by a hand over your face, and you sit up with your heart going fast, and no one is there. And underneath that is another feeling still, a feeling like being torn open; not like a body of flesh, it is not painful as such, but like a peach, and not even torn open, but too ripe and splitting open of its own accord

And inside the peach there's a stone.

How awesome is that? I liked the book but didn't love it. Maybe its because that wonderful, wonderful made a promise to me that the book failed to fulfill.

Another line I really liked - "His father was self-made, but his mother was constructed by others, and such edifices are notoriously fragile."

I give this one a 5 out of 10.

Also, as I'm terrified of clutter, I'm offering this up to the internet world. Anyone who wants it should leave a comment on this post. Sunday I shall send it off (and if more than one person wants it, I'll pick a name from a hat.)

At least not that kind of nerd

I'm not a typical anthropologie nerd, but this rug could convert me.

The temptation I did give into

One booth at the festival was seriously happy-making and pulled me in everytime I passed. By the time I left, I knew I needed to take some of the happiness with me.

Take a look at Rick Loudermilk's art:

I walked away with the print below:

Bag perfection

Spotted at the Columbus Arts Festival, Pistol Stitched bags are the cutest!

The designer even makes the wooden handles for the bags. These were a serious temptation.

Magic

In my world foxes = magic. I've seen one once on a camping trip. We crested one hill and he was at the top of the next looking over at us. The experience amazed me.

So I of course had to see The Fox and the Child. Its part nature documentary and part fairytale. A little loner girl chances upon a fox and decides she's going to mae friends with it. Besides capturing the gorgeous fox, the camera takes in all sorts of breathatking wildlife.

As a grown up, I found myself very anxious at times for the girl who rambles the countryside stalking this fox. If I'd watched this as a kid, I think I would have been smitten with the whole story.

The filming is stunningly gorgeous and the girl has a great laugh. And foxes! I give this a 5.

Blue parakeets

Forever ago I fell in love with intres' super cute towers, and now I find out they have equally adorable trees. Squee! Felt is magic.