Julia London's Blog, page 74

PICTURE THIS!

PICTURE THIS

I love photos.  I collect picture frames and love grouping them around my house, filling them with my favorite photos of special times.  Loving photos is a bit of problem in this digital age because as fun as it is to look at pics on the computer, I prefer holding the photos in my hands.  Flipping through actual photo albums.  Even though we have a nice digital camera, I've still kept a cheap disposal camera at the ready.  Once I filled it up, I'd pop over to Costco and an hour later I could look through my pictures.

Not so much nowadays.  First of all, I now live an hour and a half away from the nearest Costco (this kills me, people—KILLS ME!).  Not only that, but my Costco no longer develops photos!  Horrors!  They'll only print from digital files–not film.  Of course I can get my film developed at the local drug store, but it costs about three times the amount Costco used to charge. 

Anyway, the point is, I love having photos around my house and I decided to share a few of my personal favorites with my Whine Sisters.  This one is my all-time favorite picture of my husband and son. 

I call it I'm Too Damn Tired To Put On My Pants.  My son, who will turn 21 in July, was about a month old here.  Anyone who's ever had a baby knows the state of utter exhaustion you hit at about one month in.  You're just so tired you can barely remember to swallow your own saliva.  And when the kid finally goes to sleep, all you can do is collapse and stare into space and wonder how on earth you can love something that exhausts you so much.

This is another fave pic of my son because it just makes me laugh.  We were at a BBQ at my sister-in-law's house and she had this funny game where you put that silly hat on your head.  It had Velcro strips on it, and the object of the game was to toss the Nerf balls at the person's head and try to get as many points as possible. 

I'd just scored some points on my kid's head there–heh, heh, heh.  And he doesn't look too happy about it–heh, heh, heh.  I also loved that little shirt he wore–very handy in case anyone forgot his name.

Next up are two of my favorite photos of my mom and dad.  I love the one of them on their boat.  They look very happy and relaxed and we had a lovely time that day. 

 

And this pic was taken at their 50th wedding celebration in 2009.  We bought them those goofy 5O glasses 'cause, well, that's just how we roll in my family!

Happy 50th Mom and Dad!

Last but not least is this photo taken last fall of me and Joe at our neighborhood party to kick off the SEC football season. 

Go Dawgs!

 We decorated our golf cart (and ourselves–please note my Bulldog purse!) to show our love for the University of Georgia.  We had a great time and loved those banners so much, they're still on the golf cart! (and no, we don't golf—we just ride around the neighborhood in the golf cart, LOL!  Because in case you can't tell, we're pretty silly!)

So tell me—do you keep lots of framed photos around your house?  Just a few?  What are they pictures of?  What's your all-time favorite photo?  Are your photos organized or in a big box that you plan to organize "someday"? Or are you completely digitized and all your pics are now on your computer?  Have you ever made one of those photo scrapbooks?  If so, how did it turn out?

That time again- Prom!

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Pretty in Pink?

My daughter's senior year of high school has zoomed by with the speed of lightning! I can't believe she is only weeks away from graduation. Her Senior Picnic is this week (which, honestly, is not good because it's still very cool here with rain predicted all week). Her prom is at the end of May! Never fear. We shopped early. I started hounding her in February. By March, we still hadn't gone to look for dresses and she started hounding me. So mid-March, we made the big foray into Prom Shopping.

What do they wear these days? Believe me, I had a pretty good idea. We went through websites. She knew what she did not want, and what she might consider. The girls in her class set up a Facebook page, so they could post their dresses "I bought this one!" and try to avoid duplicates. Clever! But, to me, no fun. Now they all know who is wearing what before the big day. No surprises. Though, if it were me, I would post the wrong dress on purpose and just keep watching to make sure no one else picked mine. Devious! "Oh, you thought I was wearing white? Surprise, red!"

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Prints are in! Well, maybe not that one...

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Some girls choose short dresses.

Speaking of red, yes, that's the color my daughter picked. She is wearing red. And she looks fabulous in it. I never thought I would see my daughter in a prom dress, much less stand outside the fitting room watching her come out- happily! gloriously!- in dress after dress after dress. Normally, we don't shop well together. But prom dress shopping? It was a pretty magical experience. As magical as you imagine when they are babies and you put them in the frilly pink dresses before they're old enough to say "No, Mom, gah! I want to wear camo pants. Maybe I'll join the army when I grow up!" (Yes, we really had that army phase, at about age 8, but good news for me, she outgrew it!). In just about the past year, my daughter has embraced her feminine side. Makeup, different hairdos, the occasional (gasp) low-cut top. She has great personal style. She knows what she likes and what works for her. How did this happen? But back to PROM.

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Beading, full skirt.

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One shoulder looks, also popular.

All I can say is– thank goodness for David's Bridal. You know those commercials, "You'll love David's Bridal!" Yep, it's true. I do. All the other prom shops (and we stopped at a few) had one sample size and they could order your size. Then you would have wait to see if it actually looked good on you in your size. That's the way all bridal-prom shops worked when I was younger, too. But David's Bridal carries all sizes! What a relief. She got to try on dresses in the right size and decide what worked. This was a huge help. Huge! And when The Dress emerged from the field, we were able to buy her shoes, her handbag, her jewelry, her underthings– everything right there. One Stop Prom Shopping. I was ready to buy anything just to save myself the hassle of returning to shop again. And now, she has a date! A very decent boy we've known for years and trust. Yay! Everything is just falling into place. Thank you, Universe.

Our next mission? We need a white dress and shoes for graduation.

Do you remember prom shopping? Have you been prom shopping lately? What did you wear to the prom? Or did you rebel and avoid such a ceremony?

 

Jane Slayre

"Reader, I buried him."

A TIMELESS TALE OF LOVE, DEVOTION… AND THE UNDEAD.

Jane Slayre, our plucky demon-slaying heroine, a courageous orphan who spurns the detestable vampyre kin who raised her, sets out on the advice of her ghostly uncle to hone her skills as the fearless slayer she's meant to be. When she takes a job as a governess at a country estate, she falls head-over-heels for her new master, Mr. Rochester, only to discover he's hiding a violent werewolf in the attic– in the form of his first wife.

Can a menagerie of bloodthirsty, flesh-eating, creatures-of-the-night keep a swashbuckling nineteenth-century lady from the gentleman she intends to marry? Vampyres, zombies, and werewolves transform Charlotte Bronte's unforgettable masterpiece into an eerie paranormal adventure that will delight and terrify.

0011001100

Fair warning — I'm thinking deep thoughts. Or semi-deep, anyway, as I'm sitting here at the computer, drinking coffee and scrolling through the latest edition of Smithsonian magazine.

I'm thinking about the history of the world. (I warned you) We started out pretty vague, right? Clans, tribes, groups of humans, with their oral histories and stories passed down among groups and families. Eventually passed in songs or poems, because that's easier to remember than just your average story. But writing came along, and it was great for keeping records. Cuneiform, hieroglyphs, etc. Words carved into stone tablets–it doesn't get more permanent than that, right? But then those cultures discovered early paper, but paper doesn't last. So from an historian's point of view, there's a dark age when the paper records are missing, but the earlier stone records are still around. Ancient Greece and Ancient Egypt both have such periods. And it's a shame, because even if the stone is just telling how many bushels of wheat a customer bought, that's still significant.

So, fast forward to today's world. Here we all are, saving trees (which is a good thing) but recording so many significant transactions in digital forms. And I can't help but wonder what's going to happen five hundred years from now. Will the technology still exist to let those historians see what we were doing? Or will so much of our culture be lost in a digital haze? (I suppose the books could be lost in 500 years, too, but there's definitely a higher level of permanence there. Perceived, anyway. Maybe digital is more permanent…so long as you have the key for retrieving the information.)

And, yeah, I wonder if I'm the only one who wonders these things. But it seemed more thought provoking than a discussion of the implications of buying tons of Easter chocolate for the kids…who will be bouncing off the walls in, oh, 24 hours.

It's a particularly interesting question for me because I'm trying to do so much digitally now. Even my journal is digital, since I lost the habit of writing one by hand years ago. Now I send tidbits and photos into an Evernote notebook directly from my iPhone. Voila, instant record. For me at least. For those historians (or alien invaders), that information may not be accessible at all. Of course, I'm not sure the historians or the Aliens care that I saw Limitless last night or that the girls have an upcoming piano recital.

How about y'all? Are we opening ourselves up to a whole new Dark Age? Does this stuff bug you at 2am? What Deep Thoughts are on your mind lately?

Good Scents

With the arrival of spring, I've been looking for a new signature scent. I usually wear Estee Lauder's Beautiful (violets, lilies, roses, with orange and woody tones). It works with my body chemistry to be soft, powdery, pretty. On others, maybe it's sweet and overwhelming.[image error]

There's nothing worse than overwhelming fragrance. I get migraines if I'm around someone who goes too heavy on the scent, or if I walk by the fragrance counters at department stores. For a few years, I didn't want to risk the headaches and I went without extra fragrance. But lately, I'm getting back into it. Sephora lets me add samples to my online orders and, in a moment of bravery, I picked up a few samples at the makeup counter.[image error]

I've tried: Michael Kors Very Hollywood (mandarin, gardenia, and bergamot). Jimmy Choo, which surprisingly did not smell like shoes (pear, citrus, orchid, toffee). Dolce & Gabbana Rose The One (heavy on rose, also with citrus and peach). Marc Jacob Daisy, which I liked enough to buy only to find that it really suits my daughter most (vanilla, woods, gardenia, jasmine, strawberry). And Chloe (cedar, honey, freesia, magnolia, peony). So far, Chloe is the winner. But I keep trying more. I think I can do better.[image error]

Fragrance is a big money-maker. Jennifer Lopez, Britney Spears, Jessica Simpson, and Elizabeth Taylor (one of the first celebrities to land a signature fragrance deal), to name a few, have made millions off their fragrances. I'm sure the Kardashians are in on that action (confirmed, Kim has a fragrance and her sister Khloe and husband are developing one). Rumor has it that Karl Lagerfeld is coming out with a book scented perfume called Paper Passion. Wild! Stephen Colbert was talking about  a bacon scented perfume the other night, made me laugh.

Unrelated: The sweet smell of becoming part of pop culture. Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? did a question on my book the other night! "Who coauthored Jane Slayre, the 2010 classic with a bloodsucking twist?" The answer was… Charlotte Bronte. And the contestant got it right. Awesome! Now back to perfume.

What's your go-to scent? If you made a perfume, what would be in it? Is there a celebrity that should consider a fragrance? Kate Winslet? Ellen Degeneres? Colin Firth's Darcy perhaps?

Comfort Food

[image error]Living in New York City affords me the opportunity to eat at some pretty fabulous places, both high-brow and low-brow.   And during Restaurant Week, nothing is off limits.  But recently,  I was thinking about how much I enjoy just staying home and cooking dinner with my husband.  Which then brought to mind the idea of comfort food.

Comfort food is a catch-all phrase because in reality it means completely different things to different people.  And these individual feelings are guided by a person's background, location and personal tastes.  One of the both vexing and intriguing things about moving away from the Southwest to the Eastern Seaboard was the change in what's considered comfort.[image error]

Here in New York there are lots of different "comfort" foods.  At a diner, you'll find the obligatory coleslaw and pickle with every meal but breakfast.  And for breakfast they seem to be really fond of white fish, which I have to admit makes me a little queasy.  Although I'm totally a fan of the bagel (as long as it's the right bagel and of course I'm talking about H&H).  In Austria, comfort food usually involves meat and potatoes—quite possibly mixed together in one skillet forming some kind of hash.  And cheese is also a staple of this still agrarian culture.  Which worked great for me as Kase Spatzle (sort of an Austrian mac and cheese) and Frulings Kase (Spring cheese—lots of garlic) became new comfort foods for me.

[image error]But at the end of the day—when I really want to eat something that makes me feel like the world is going to be okay, I head back for my roots.

Which means several things—but primarily,  breakfast for dinner.   My father traveled a lot, so my mom was usually cooking for just my brother and I.  And to top that off, once a week we had to head out for allergy shots.  Not exactly a fun afternoon. And to counter that, my mom often would bring us home and fix pancakes.  Really really good pancakes.  And so to this day when I'm feeling really blue, pancakes can lift my spirits.

Comfort food can be easy to make or sometimes quite difficult.  I adore chicken fried steak, but have never quite been able to make it come out as fabulous as I know it can be.  Now, when living[image error] in Texas that wasn't a very big deal.  But now, living here in the land of southern-not, it's not so easy to find good chicken fried steak out there.   So if any of you have secrets to share—I'm listening!

Waffles (I know, I know, I've got a breakfast thing going on) are also a comfort food for me.  And like pancakes, it's about the memory.   This time with my dad.  We'd often have them on a

Saturday morning.  Waffle iron on the table.  And although of course my mom had made them, my father cooked them.  I can still see the extension cord stretching across the kitchen. Wonderful times, those.  We weekend waffles in our house now, too. I mix 'em, my husband cooks them and we all chow down.

I have lots of other comfort foods, but I'm so hungry now, I need to head for the kitchen.  So I'll leave you with my waffle recipe:

[image error]Dee 's Waffles:

2 eggs

1 ¾ cup milk (1% up to half & half)

½ cup melted butter

2 cups flour

4 tsp baking powder

3 Tb sugar

½ tsp salt

½ tsp vanilla

Beat eggs until fluffy.  Add milk and melted butter.   Add the remaining ingredients, stirring until smooth.  Heat waffle iron.  Spray with cooking spray.  Cook waffles until no steam escaping.    Serve hot.

What's are some of your favorite comfort foods?

 

Princess Kate, Princess Kate, Princess Kate

Yesterday, I was watching CNN, cranking on the treadmill, and they had some really interesting things to say about the Rules for Royals.

First of all, Kate will not be known as Princess Kate, but Princess Catherine, because you know, Kate is too plebian for the House of Windsor.

Sure, she's going to be a Princess, marrying like the most eligible bachelor on the planet, but SERIOUSLY? She has to change her name? I can imagine the scenario of how this went down.

"Sweetheart, we need to talk."

"Wills, you rotter! What have you done?"

"I've done nothing. It's about the rules, Kate. There are certain… expectations."

"I'm bloody well aware of that."

"It's your name."

"My name? What sort of expectations concern my name?"

"It's not royal enough. Kate. It's… common."

"Common? As common as William?"

"Calm down, Kate.'

"Kate. Don't call me Kate. It's 'common'."

I haven't read much about her disposition, but she looks very spunky-heroine type, and I like to believe she put up a big row about the name-change thing.

No Shrimp for Kate

Also, as a Royal, she cannot eat shellfish. Because of fear of food poisoning. I'm sure there were times when a crustacean might have been more contaminated than say 'ground beef' or 'spinach' or 'cheese' or 'any Johnson & Johnson product made recently' but today? Really? Kate, for the bachelorette party, splurge on the scampi. You don't know if that succulent sea creature will ever pass your lips again.

The other rule which cracked me up is apparently royals do not play the board game Monopoly. I was conjuring all sorts of anti-colonies sort of reasons that Brits have sworn off Monopoly, but apparently, the Royals get vicious when playing Monopoly. Cricket, not so much.

So, before I envied Kate. And now I want to call her Kate, simply to flaunt the rules and respect the person that she is.

So here's my question. Would you give up your name for love? Would you give up your name for Prince William? Do you think Kate should have some rules for Wills? And if so, what? I think she should make him do laundry. And possibly put down the seat.

Epic TV

We've discussed our unfortunate addictions to some reality shows. I'm currently guilty of Survivor, American Idol, ANTM, Celebrity Apprentice, and occasional food shows. But if there's one thing to get me away from reality TV, I have discovered it to be those cinematic hour-long dramas on premium cable, like HBO, Showtime, Cinemax. My latest?

Game of Thrones. Adapted from George R.R. Martin's multi-award winning hugely successful fantasy series, Game of Thrones is a set in a medieval sort of world, like Lord of the Rings but with more gripping drama and less magic. Also, major power struggles and liberal sexual pairings. So, kind of like Dynasty meets Lord of the Rings meets the Tudors. Yep, I was instantly hooked.

For a rundown of the action, check out this very thorough blog review. My favorite storyline involved the fair-haired young Daenarys, being basically sold by her brother to promote his agenda to raise an army to restore his father's crown to his own head, of course. But the hulking, scary warrior Daenarys marries turns out to be… maybe not so scary and actually somewhat sentimental? Waiting to see.[image error]

My daughter was not as impressed as I was. Especially with the post-wedding activities, which she blasted as rape. Well, I did not agree entirely. They were married. We discussed women in history and their relative powerlessness, especially in marriage. To my modern daughter, still rape. "You can be married and still be raped, Mom," she wisely observed. "Even by your husband." So, yes, I raised her right. We discussed the issue at length, and how history and other societal expectations might work into the argument. But to me? I didn't read the books (don't be shocked– I am amending that right away!) but I could see where this was headed between Daenarys and Khal Drogo and I don't think rape will be an issue here.

Rape was an issue at their wedding, though. There was sex and murder going on as part of the ceremony! Fascinating, and not for the faint at heart. Also, incest, brutality, more murder. Sex. Sex. More sex. What is it with these HBO-Showtime shows and sex? They can show it, so they will show it, and the viewers really seem to go for it, so… expect more of it. The only way to avoid it is to not watch shows from these channels or to record and watch with your remote handy for scene-skipping. For me, I don't mind it so much. I kind of roll my eyes and think "on with it, yipes" and then I notice that they actually cast women with real breasts, not big fake ones, and wide hips and I find myself sort of impressed somehow. At least they tried to get it right. [image error]

[image error]Most importantly, I really want to read more fantasy books now. It's a genre I haven't paid much attention to, until recently, and I think it probably has a lot to offer a reader like me. I've been looking for new reading material, anyway. I'm also getting into The Borgias. Jeremy Irons! Great clothes!

Do you watch any of the premium cable series? Which ones do you prefer? Vampires, gangsters, fantasy shows? Are you a fantasy reader? Have you bought A LIGHT AT WINTER'S END yet (I'm blogging for Julia London today, so I wanted to get in a plug for Julia's books!)?

 

Spring, glorious Spring!

I spent the weekend doing "it's Spring!" kinda things, and, yes, Spring is my favorite season.

On Saturday, Don and I went to a movie (not really Spring-y, but fun) while the girls stayed with friends and played outside on their trampoline. On the way back, we stopped by Home Depot for mulch and potting soil, and that evening I went to my Mom's to help her unpack some more (Spring Cleaning, anyone?).

Spring Cleaning is what's really got me happy about this particular Spring–that and all the outdoor stuff. We've been in the house long enough, so Spring Cleaning the garage is a necessity. Our shed that was gloriously empty for a few days is now filling up, and yesterday, I dug a hole almost as deep as my knee for a peach tree we're going to buy today (those aren't the only trees I want, but after hitting a gazillion rocks, it is the only hole I'm digging. I'm going to find someone to hire!).

I pulled weeds from the front flower beds and remulched, took the kids' old wagon to some pre-construction lots and found rocks to edge with, planted basil, squash, Armenian cucumbers, and lots of ground cover. Still have a long way to go, but it's starting to look really nice!

And yesterday, we went to the Red Poppy Festival, in part simply to check it out, but mostly because Catherine's choir was singing. Julia joined us, and brought Moose, who is very clearly into the smells of Spring. All in all a lovely weekend.

Now back to reality.

Hmm. That doesn't sound nearly as fun. I think Spring Fever really has sprung!

Are y'all doing spring cleaning? House stuff? Yard stuff?

When Blood Calls