Saturday Afternoon At The Library

I have a confession. I am a total book geek. Yes, I love books. One of my favorite things to do on a free Friday or Saturday afternoon is going to the library and just roaming the rows of shelves for books to read. The library is not the only place I browse, I can also be found in the book section of Goodwill, or at any used book store. Spending two hours at Barnes and Noble is not out of the question.


The idea of picking up a book and being transported to another time, place, or jumping into someone elses life either real or fictional appeals to me. I can live vicariously through all the characters I read about. It's not just fiction I crave, I also read lots of non-fiction. Diet books, spiritual books, cookbooks, biographies, you name it. Right now I am so into reading about Paris and French culture. I guess I will forever have a soft spot for all things French.


I am a firm believer that reading is good for the mind and the soul. The best thing is that I passed my love of reading down to my daughter. How could she not pick it up when the first thing I did when we brought her home from the hospital was read "Guess How Much I Love You" to her.

Our house always has books lying around. I am getting used to the idea of downloading books onto my IPad and reading them that way. I love that I can go to Amazon and buy a book and instantly start reading or check out an ebook from the library through my Overdrive app. Still there is nothing like having an actual book in your hand. I don't think I can give up having those afternoons when I can browse the book shelves of my favorite library.

The Best Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe and Pinterest

My newest obsession is the online bulletin board Pinterest. If you haven't heard of it yet, let me inform you in a nutshell.  Pinterest is another social media place where you can post things that you love all in one place like your own personal favorites board.  You can repin things other users have pinned already, or you can upload your own pins either from your PC or other websites.  You can have followers and follow favorite pinners.

I have put to use some of the ideas that I got off of Pinterest already.  Oh, did I mention that you can get some great ideas for decorating, crafts and recipes?   It is a great place for that, plus you have all those ideas in one place.

I have been in search of a chocolate chip cookie recipe that would knock my socks off and I think I found it on through Pinterest.  Going through recipes one day there I found the best chocolate chip cookie recipe pin first published from the Tender Crumb blog.  This recipe was unique in that it used bread flour and pastry flour instead of all purpose flour.  I had to try it.  I only found whole wheat pastry flour so I used that.  They lived up the the name!  Crisp on the outside, chewy on the inside.  Yummy!!

My next project involved making galley shelves for my living room.  The idea to make my own came from this pin.  This ended up to be the finished product.  It was very easy and cost a fraction of what it would cost if I had bought them.

The way to get on Pinterest is to request an invite through the website (I did this and it took 3 weeks to get approved!), or you can get invited from a user.  I will send an invite to anyone who contacts me.  Check out my pins.

My Top Fashion Blunders Of 2011

I'm sure we all see things that people wear that make us cringe.  After all who hasn't received one of those famous emails of popular WalMart fashions and laughed at those oblivious people who have no idea how ridiculous they actually look.  Maybe they do, nevertheless I never want to end up in one of those pictures.

On that note I have a brief list of the worst fashions of 2011.  Some are from the hot trends of 2011 and some are of my own personal worsts that I see out and about in my area of the country.

The first one is denim jeggings!  Seriously why would anyone want to wear pants that have stitching like jeans and fake pockets but are made out of some kind of polyester.  Uggg!  I just saw the commercial for those pajama jeans.  Yes, those are what Im talking about.  Even Conan donned these because aparently they also became popular with men.  Really I do not want to see that!

I don't think I need to say anymore about them!

Then comes the faux fur vests!  I know this is a hot trend for fall/winter and I must say I fell victim to this in November when I came home from Chicago with a fur collared sweater vest.  I thought it looked good in the dressing room, but when I got home and put it on I felt like I looked like a Green Bay Packer linebacker.  I cant imagine what a full fur vest would look like on me.  I have seen women with them on.  Not very flattering!  I just dont think they look good on anyone except for those cute 20 somethings that are a size zero.  That leaves only about one percent of the population.

Ditto on the bright colored slim jeans.  Again only looking good on that one percent of the population people!

Jumpsuits were back again in 2011.  I had a bright blue satin jumpsuit in the 80s and vowed never to wear one again.  Why is it they will never go away?  Some of these jumpsuits incorporated the MC Hammer pants too.  Most of the time I just saw these on celebrities.  They still did not look good.

Now for a couple of  fashion trends that will not go away.  I see these alot locally.  I don't know about the rest of the world, I'd feel the same if I saw chic parisian woman wearing these trends (which I know they wouldn't).

Why do people think they look okay when they leave the house in their pajama bottoms.  This is always so perplexing to me.  I continue to see this, and I cant even call it a fashion trend, but I have to add it as long as I am talking about worsts.  You honestly never know who you are going to run into at the local grocery store.  I'm not saying that Bradley Cooper would show up at your local Piggly Wiggly, but hey you never know!!

Lastly,  I have to give a shout out to the ever popular bra strap showing.  This shows up mostly in the summer months.  Okay, if you are outside in summer doing you gardening fine (as long as you have sunscreen on!).  It just doesn't look good on anyone over the age of 22.  I don't even like it on young girls, but I am mostly talking about grown women here.  

That's my wrap-up on the worst fashions of 2011. Whatever 2012 brings in the fashion world, I am sure there will be some real blunders.  Gives us something to talk about!  In any case please just make sure you don't find yourself in one of those WalMart fashion emails!!