Browsing Archives for June 2008

Mother Fails To Wear Appropriate Fan Garb to Son’s Games AGAIN!!!

June 27th, 2008

My eldest son had a basketball game tonight.  Evidently, four boys playing baseball is not enough so we had to throw in one more sport.  I had to take him to his basketball game, which was very hard on me as I am still weak and shaky from his birth thirteen years ago, but somehow… someway… I gathered all my inner strength and hobbled off to his game.

I struggle mightily with how large of a place sports seem to occupy in my family’s life.  I really, really, really wish my boys could content themselves with pogo sticks, and tricycles and little bits of sidewalk chalk out on the driveway, but those days seem to be over. 
I’m sorry to tell you this, but even in my most heroic moments of motherhood I find it difficult to muster more than a dry raspy hoorah when my kids win an athletic event.
hoorah – I whisper weakly two minutes after one of my kids scores a basket…
woohoo I say thirty seconds after one of my boys cracks a line drive…
I find that I often clap for the wrong team, because I am clapping when others clap and not when my son’s team actually does something good.
I think the other team parents think I have a learning disability. 
There goes Calder’s mom clapping for the other team again!  Do you think she even knows which team her kid is on???  Do you think she even knows which kid out there is hers?  
I do have a hard time following the games. Mostly because I am too busy watching the unicorns play in the shadows, but also because the sparkly elfin nymph druids have just asked me to dance in the magic circle of pines.
Over the years, as sports have progressed like an aggressive scabby disease all over the face of my family, I have perfected a few ways to GET OUT OF GOING to all these games. With four sons playing ball and one son playing even more ball this has become increasingly difficult to do.  Still, I manage it occasionally and will now share with you a few of my well worn tactics.  
The optimal word for you to remember is wedge.
CD – Rechelle, can you take Ethan to his game tonight?  I have to coach Drew’s team up north in Onaga.
Me – Gosh honey – gee..  that is too bad… unfortunately I seemed to have wedged myself underneath the sofa and I can’t get out, so you will just have to take care of it…
CD – Um Rechelle – There is no way I am going to be able to get all four boys to all their games tonight as they all start at 7 PM and they are all in different towns.
Me – Oh wow that is really awful – but gosh – I don’t know how it happened but I seem to have wedged myself in between the window screen and the glass and I can’t get out…
CD – Dear!  Really!  I’m not kidding!   Tonight there is no way you are going to be able to sit at home wedged inside of anything because we have nineteen games in a row starting at 6:30 and ending when Hell freezes over.  You are going to have to show up.
Me – What… huh… I can’t seem to hear you as I am wedged inside of the microwave and also the dishwasher  and my legs are stuck inside the bathtub drain and my fingers are wedged up in the ceiling fan…and I…. I…. I am really stuck good this time.  You might have to call the fire department.  
But tonight - it didn’t work.  I couldn’t seem to wedge myself in or behind or underneath anything and was thus forced to attend a basketball game.
Which brings me to a super fun survey!
Tell me gentle readers… where does you and yourn fall along the spectrum of youth sports obsession???
29 comments
Filed under: General Lunacy

Country Book Giveaway Number Five Hundred and Sixty Two

June 24th, 2008

This is it folks.

The last of the country life book giveaways for my fabulous summer reading program.

Was that a huge sigh of relief I just heard?

Was it?

WAS IT???!!!?!?! 

Now listen here people, I happen to have a big place in my heart for books about wackos who go off and live somewhere hard and learn to survive off the land and build their own houses out of the twigs and mud and berries and make their own clothing from raw wool right off the back of a baby sheep. But I like to think there is more to me than just crazy fantasies of life in a cabin on a farm on a precarious cliff overlooking the ocean with no one to help but a three legged goat and a husband who prefers to work in the nude.

I like to think there is more to me than just that!

I also like mysteries…

and also…

um also…

I occasionally read books about… 

um…

uh…

Sometimes I glance through…

cookbooks!

Yes!

And sometimes I read…

magazines.

But other than that, I admit to being a little bit stuck in the genre of country life/ gardening/ people who build their own houses/ type literature.

So for the last go round of this genre I am offering three books on the above mentioned subjects that I absolutely adore.

And then we will move on.

I promise..

For a little while at least…

All the books are again from Alibris so don’t go thinking that I am stealing books from public libraries! 


Here are the selections.


Back to the Damn Soil by Tulsa, Oklahoma writer, Mary Gubser.

This book tells the story of a young couple who move out to the country and guess what?

Go on guess!

Can you guess?!?!

They start up a little farm and build a little farm house and the resulting tales are full of humor and inner strength and character and wit… etcetera, etcetera, blah, blah, blah…

But seriously, Mary Gubser lived her farm life adventure during WWII. Her husband, a young lawyer was recruited to run one of the airline factories during the war and he virtually disappeared, working very hard to keep American pumping out bombers. Mary was forced to run a farm and raise three small boys alone. She tells of breeding cows and horses and her crazy neighbors who ran an illegal bar and kept their illegal hooch buried in their illegal garden.

It is a great story both because it captures a snippet of extremely interesting American history, and it also is a funny country story which I yes, um, yes, happen to love.

Did you know I called Mary once?

Yes I did.

I fell so madly in love with this book, that once while staying with a friend on Grand Lake of the Cherokees outside of Tulsa, I called Mary Gubser to ask her for directions to the old farmhouse! I knew we were very close to it and I had to try and find it or I would die.

She was very nice and happy that people were still reading and falling in love with her book. She gave me directions and my friend and I set out to find it.

We eventually did find a house that looked like it may have been the right one, but it was no longer a solitary farmhouse miles from Tulsa. Instead, it was very much a part of Tulsa in a neighborhood that had probably sprung up in the 50′s or 60′s. So I did not exactly get to see the farmhouse the way I had always pictured it.

But I did get to talk to Mary.

And that was pretty cool.

The second book in this giveaway is Acres and Pains by S.J. Perelman.


Here is my copy of the same book.

I think that cover pretty much says it all.

I wish the copy I was giving away had the same cover but alas, I ain’t giving up my copy.

If you are unaware of the sterling contributions to American literature and theater made by S.J. Perelman you can get a small sampling here.

His writing was the humorous backbone of the New Yorker for years. He is simply one of the great American humorists and more people should read his books now. Right now! Right this very minute!


Finally – Ken Kraft and his book The Land of Milk and Omelets.

This is a book my sister and I both love dearly. So if you don’t trust my literary tastes, perhaps you will trust April’s. After all, she does homeschool her kids, so her moral superiority is clearly self evident. She also has pigs and chickens and a real live garden and I think this is all because I once let her borrow The Land of Milk and Omelets and the next thing I knew she was buying a flock of chickens.

And yes, it is just another book about people homesteading in the post WWII era. But it is written with so much spirit and enthusiasm and yes humor, that you can’t help but be entertained and even have crazy thoughts about going out and buying your own flock of chickens.

This book giveaway has come to an end

0 comments
Filed under: Book Giveaways, Country Life Books, Ken Kraft, Mary Gubser, S.J. Perelman

Grey Gardens Fashion Show

June 22nd, 2008

When last we spoke, I was sitting in my parent’s home trying to make myself disappear so I wouldn’t have to help my sister re-decorate every single room in the house in which we grew up.  Unfortunately, April would not leave me alone until I got up and helped her move furniture and rearrange photos and hang pictures and dust shelves and move around knick knacks.  
April wanted to start in the foyer… which is directly adjacent to the coat closet… which is full of my mother’s old coats… and a few other things…  
And well… 
Um… 
Once we saw the old coats….  
Um well we just sort of got them out…  
And well… 
Then this happened…

This is me modeling my mother’s old fake fur coat.  


This is April modeling my mom’s old rabbit coat from the 1980′s when my mom was deeply into her J-Lo fashion phase.


We don’t know much about this coat, except that it is very orange.


And it makes you totally rock out.


Totally!


We decided that the chocolate brown coat looked a little too “now”.  


So I found one of my mom’s old evening gowns.


Which is clearly not now.  


And we moved outside…
For better lighting.


April, the fashion editor on the set that day, suggested we try for a Grey Garden’s look. 

And since I do everything April tells me to do, even though I am the older sister…


I went all Grey Gardens…


Then April had to go all Grey Gardens.
The Country Doctor wondered if April was undergoing chemotherapy.  
He does not know about Grey Gardens Chic.
We moved to the grass, as it was more Grey Gardeny.
We kept our head scarves firmly in place.


This is April working it.  


This is April maybe working it a little too hard…


My turn!  My turn!


Oh please no.


>


No!


I think this is the worst, most awful, most awkward photo I have ever seen of myself!  I look like a gypsy cadaver creeping up to get a pail of murky, bitter water out of that there well and use it to kill off someone’s chickens.  

Then we put our Grey Garden Garb away and finished the foyer. 
 
I brought that orange dress home with me.
I just couldn’t leave it behind.
I can’t wait to find another excuse to put it on.  
Like maybe next time I walk out to the mail box… or need to go get a gallon of milk…. or maybe parent/teacher conferences… 
45 comments
Filed under: Supreme Silliness

The Country Doctor’s Wife Learns Photoshop So That Her Blog Will Become Rich and Famous Too.

June 19th, 2008

I have been analyzing and assessing and using my critical thinking skills and walloping my victuals, and sawing the callouses off my big toes with my thumb nail, and ruminating, and obsessing and lying on my bed in a twisted heap of pain, and staring at the ceiling fan… and I have finally decided that my sinking blog stats having nothing to do with me.  

Nothing…
Nothing at all!
As usual it is the fault of other people that are causing me to fail.  
This is how it has always been.     

Example Number One Of Other People Causing Me To Fail – Or Math Suicide
My poor math grades… throughout my entire life… including the remedial math class I was forced to take in college and also failed are actually not my fault… but the fault of other people…

Mostly my poor math grades are the fault of  my math teachers who did not seem to understand that when they spoke in numerals… all I ever heard coming out of their mouths was “blah, blah, blah, number, number, protein, legume, nitrogen, blah”.  
Why could they not speak my language instead?   Why could they not read aloud long segments from Nancy Drew Books and later the startling literary revelations of V.C. Andrews and Jean M. Auel?  I would have especially liked for my math teachers to explain in great detail the weird sex stuff in those books that completely riveted my fourteen year old brain and held it captive for entire semesters at a time.   
Why could they not replace word problems with fashion shows…
And geometry with silent sustained reading of Seventeen magazine?  
Why did they not consider letting me make up cheerleading routines instead of taking tests?
And how about writing our boyfriends names in our notebooks instead of homework?
If only they would have taught me math the correct way, I would have succeeded and I would now be a nuclear physicist with a second home in Shropshire,  instead of a failing blogger and general lunatic.
Problem Number 2 – IBS or Irritable Bowel Syndrome
Did you know that I used to suffer quite dramatically from Irritable Bowel Syndrome?  
Did you?  
Do you want me to tell you all about it?  
Do you?  
I started to suffer from IBS soon after my first son was born.  The unusual thing about my particular case of IBS was that it only struck whenever my husband’s family was due to show up at our house en masse at any minute.  
Suddenly and quite tragically,  I would be overcome with such violent twisting stomach pain that the only cure was to lie motionless on my bed in a curled ball of agony until everyone had left our house.  
Note to readers – The Country Doctor’s family is huge, vast, as numerous as the individual grains of sands on all the beaches in all the world.   
My own family of origin is tiny.  
I had a bit of trouble adapting.  
But again this is not my fault.  
Why could not The Country Doctor have noticed my pain for just a teensy second instead of merely stepping over my throbbing intestines on the way to open the door to the first wave of dinner guests?  
Why could not The Country Doctor have insisted, just one tiny time, that perhaps I was too weak and shaky to host a massive flood of virtual strangers and force everyone out in a gallant and brave act of uncompromising love?  
Why could not the Country Doctor have realized that although my tummy troubles only struck at the onset of a visit from his family, that did not mean I was in any way, shape, or form a faker. I was simply allergic to his family.  An allergy I have overcome with the help of meditation, prayer, and the ability to escape into my own cloud of happy unicorns at will.
Problem Number Three – The Crimson Girls
Just this evening, I was pestered with yet another phone call from the University of Kansas asking for money.  I had no intention of giving them a dime as well… you know… I already gave KU a lot of money.  
A LOT OF MONEY.      


That is where the Country Doctor went to Medical School and um yeah… so anyway – when they called they asked for $100.00 and I said no.  Then they said what about $50.00?  I said no…  Then they said okay, you are really pathetic, but would you give $25.00 and I said no.  You know why I said no?  

I think if you look back at the Crimson Girl line-up between the years 1987 and 1991 you will notice a huge sucking hole where I SHOULD HAVE BEEN!!!  
And yes – NOT MY FAULT
Which brings us to Problem Number Four That is Not My Fault – This Blog.
Why is this blog sucking wind?
Why is it turning into a vacuum of endless night?
Why is this blog becoming the black hole of burning gas from the nether regions of Planet Xerxes?
Clearly this is not my fault.
I show up everyday… well almost everyday… and blather on about the same inane, stupid, ridiculous, things… and put the same blurry, ill focused, vague  
photos up of a bunch of people that no one knows and occasionally a long mindless video of my family watching TV… and EVEN with all that – the blog still declines!
After a lot of soul searching I have decided just whose fault it is and I hereby Pronounce PHOTOSHOP as the evil that so infests blogland that it is impossible to succeed without it.
Yes,  Photoshop is the culprit.  
Photoshop is The Enemy 
The Devil 
Satan’s Scourge 
Yellow Puss Boil Weed
Rocky Mountain Hippie Stink

and Death in A Pasture. 
It is Photoshop’s fault!
You see, I don’t do photoshop on this blog.  Not even for a nanosecond.  The idea of manipulating a photo is as foreign to me as the idea of eating live earthworms.  
I mean here is the photo.  
It is already done.  
Why would you do more to it???  
This is sheer madness.  
If someone were to give you a piece of hot cherry pie with a scoop of vanilla bean speck ice-cream on top, would you feel the need to highlight the vanilla bean specks before you ate it?  
If someone gave you a puppy that was the exact breed and personality and calm quiet potty trained cuteness that you had always dreamed of, would you send him back for a more misty background?  
If suddenly you were handed a pair of keys… to a house… on the beach… in Italy… and told you that you would never have to work again, but to just go, live your life, take all your friends and family (or not) and just go and never worry again… would you insist that the sky in Italy be just a tiny bit more blue before you accepted the offer?
Photoshop is nuts.
Pure NUTS!!!
But then So Am I
So I went out and I bought PhotoShop. 
And I quickly became a genius photo manipulator.
I now give you the Country Doctor’s Wife Capitulation into the Realm of PhotoShop Whosit Whatsit, Whatever…

Here is the Country Doctor before I photoshoppped him.
Here is the Country Doctor after I photoshopped him.

Here are my kids before I photoshopped them and used actions.
 

Here are my kids now…
Here is my sister before….
eating unphotoshopped pie and drinking unphotoshopped coffee.
EGADS!!!

Here is my sister now.  Do you see how I highlighted her hair and sped up
 the motion by applying an action which I invented myself which I hereby name the “Great Balls of Fire” action.
And finally…

Here is me before Photo Shop… before actions… before painkillers… but just after birth.  Just after the birth of one of my boys… I don’t even know which one…
If ever there was a photo that could use a little help…
Add a little Photoshop…
And here is me now…
I can’t wait to see what this does for my blog stats.  
Tra La La,
Rechelle
70 comments
Filed under: Supreme Silliness

What A Cow Wants, What A Cow Needs…

June 16th, 2008

A few nights ago, we headed out to Kay’s ( one of the CD’s Nurses) other farm which is located 40 miles north of us. The County Extension Agents were hosting a prairie walk through one of Kay’s pastures. We were under the impression that the walk would focus on wild flowers and native plants…

Which it did, but with an unusual twist…

When we arrived at Kay’s farm a large group of people were being told that this year’s tour will not focus on wild flowers….

Instead…

This year’s tour will focus on prairie plants that are good for a cows healthy diet…


Cows

Healthy
Diet
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

WHAAAAAAAT!!!

For the next two hours we wandered around a pasture, while our guide who was a very interesting mix of pointy headed plant person and down to earth farm guy explained in GREAT DETAIL the twenty seven different types of plants in that particular pasture that are GOOD FOR COWS TO EAT… AND WHY… AND HOW…. AND WHERE… AND ON AND ON AND ON AND ON AND ON AND ON AND ON AND ON AND ON AND ON AND ON AND ON AND ON AND ON.

Except that it was actually more like nine thousand plants, because every once in a while, as we walked from plant three to plant four or plant six to plant seven or plant twelve to plant thirteen, our guide would bend over, swoop up another plant and say…

This plant is not on the tour…. but let me tell you about it anyway...

And then he would tell us ALL about it. Every detail… Every part… Every single square inch of that plant… and when a cow prefers to eat it, and whether or not it is palatable and whether or not it is a legume or a forbe, or good for nitrogen, or protein, protein, protein.

Here is a typical explanation from our guide and how the crowd responded…

Guide – Anyone know what this plant here is called?

Farmer 1 – Bovine Tongue Rot

Farmer 2 – Wiggle Bush
Farmer 3 – Sticky Sticky Cob Cob
Farmer 4 – Ladder to Hades
Farmer 5 – Prickly Papoose
Farmer 6 – Demon Thorn
Farmer 7 – Goat Grief
Farmer 8 – Pickle Thick
Farmer 9 – Old Squaw Hunchback
Farmer 10 – Rocky Mountain Hippie Stink
Guide – That’s right, but it is also referred to as the genus Tratteriopsis Florabunda Pasturiticulum goodohforocowoh. Now, can anyone tell me what type of plant this is?
Farmers – LEGUME!

Guide – That’s right! Can anyone tell me what the Native Americans used this plant for?

Expert Plant Lady With Magnifying Glass and Sketch Pad – They boiled the roots and made tea.
Guide – That is right!
…And then the guide would launch into greatly detailed description of the plant saying things like protein protein, protein, palatable palatable, palatable, forbe, forbe, nitrogen, nitrogen, protein legume legume, legume, mama cows, baby cows, palatable, protein, forbe…
Somewhere in the middle of his description my eyes would begin to itch and then stream with tears, my hands grew numb, all of my ligaments felt like they were on fire, my nerve endings recoiled in horror and my legs quivered like marshmallow jello.
Finally.. at the end of my strength… I fell back hard on the tall prairie grass… and I laid there motionless making tiny whimpering sounds which everyone around me completely ignored, especially the Country Doctor.
As the group moved onto the next plant that is good for cow’s to eat, I would dig down deep and tap all my inner reservoirs of iron clad perseverance and I would rise like the phoenix and hobble over to the next plant only to quickly fade once again.
Clearly, I was going to die if something did not change quickly.
Then the guide would pick up a new plant and hold it aloft saying…

Guide – Does anyone know what this here plant is called?

Farmer One – Sticklewort.

Farmer Two – Brisbane

Farmer Three – Snakebite on a Squaw

Farmer Four – Indian Blanket Bush

Farmer Five – Trickle Track

Farmer Six – Shropshire

Farmer Seven – Horns of the Devil

Farmer Eight – Satan’s Whip

Farmer Nine – Scourge Whip Scourge

Farmer Ten – Slippery Skunk Scrote.

Guide – Yes, yes that is all correct. Do you know what the Indians did with this plant?

Expert Plant Lady With Dictaphone and Belly Pack – They boiled the roots and made tea.

Guide – Correct.

Farmer 1 – Those Indians sure made a lot of tea.

Guide – Yes they did. Now, lets’ disc

uss palatability, protein, forbes, leave whorls, legumes, nitrogen, and did I say palatability yet? Oh! Looky here! Here’s a plant that is not on the tour, but it is very interesting. Anyone know what this is called?

Farmer One – Teensy Puffs

Farmer Two – Mock Lemon Daggers

Farmer Three – Nebraska Red Darts

Farmer Four – Prickle Pines

Farmer Five – Stinkbait

Farmer Six – Opossum Piss

Farmer Seven – Indian Feather Foot

Farmer Eight – Papoose Punch

Farmer Nine – Squaw Squaw Squaw Diddly Squaw Dee

Farmer Ten – What the… What? Huh? Squaw What?

Guide – You are all correct and do you know what the Indians did with this plant?

Everyone – They boiled the roots and made TEA!!!

Guide That’s right!

Finally, after miraculously awakening from my nineteenth coma of the evening, with my hair full of cockleburrs (also known as Cat Claw, Devil Dip, Indian Briar, Satan’s Scourge, Angel Tears, Sobbing Squaw, Bitter Life of Turmoil, Death in a Pasture, Choke and Die Slowly, Yellow Puss Boil Weed, and Sticker Patch) I decided to entertain myself by wandering off and taking some pictures.

As I walked away the rest of the group drew a big sigh of relief and a few applauded.


Then they turned back to the guide who was saying something like, legume, legume, nitrogen, legume, forbe, mama cow, baby cow, protein, protein, protein.


The sun began to sink.


We tried to take some “holding the sun pictures”.


We failed.


I took a picture of Kay who is pictured here driving the Gator. She is sitting beside a lady whose family homesteaded nearby land many years ago. The lady told Kay a story about her family’s homestead burning to the ground. At the time of the fire the kids were grown and married and gone, but her elderly father still lived on the farm. He did what any farmer would do whose place had burned down. He moved into a cave on his property and lived there for TWO YEARS!!!

Once during his two year cave stint, while taking a bath ( because you know, you can live in a cave, but not without a BATHTUB) a black snake dropped from the ceiling of the cave into the tub. The elderly man calmly took his cane beside the tub, and tossed the snake out.

And that’s exactly what I will do too.

Someday…

When I am elderly and use a cane…

AND LIVE IN A CAVE!!!!!


Then Kay took my boys off to her pond to do some fishing…

And left me alone on the prairie with a bunch of people talkin’ legumes…


Please don’t leave me here…

Please!

Please!!!!!


Take me with you!!!!!

Come Back!

Come!!!!

Back!!!!


And then the sun set on the prairie.
The end.

15 comments
Filed under: General Lunacy

CDW Readers Recommend…

June 13th, 2008

Below, I have listed the favorite books and authors that were mentioned in the comments of The Summer Reading Book Giveaway Number One. I am listing them both for myself and for anyone else who is looking for a good read.

The first part of the list includes only the names of the books and authors that were mentioned. Following the list, are the comments and descriptions that were left with the books. The comments are helpful if you want a bit more information about the books. I trimmed the comments down just a tiny bit to make it easier to read. 

I hope to eventually get through this list of books myself, though it may take years. Several of them are old favorites of mine, a few of them are books I re-read every year, but many of them are completely new to me and I am looking forward to checking them out.

I am very anxious to read To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee as it was mentioned six times! I think I have read this book before, but I am not sure and need a refresher to see what the heck the big deal is all about!

Secondly, I am very interested in the Harry Truman book Letters to Bess. I always liked old Harry.

Thirdly, I was thinking Habit of Being by Flannery O’Conner.

And Then!!!

And THEN!!!!

I am going to have to re-read Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons as that book is hilarious and so is the movie by the same name.

BUT FIRST, I still have to get through all the Beverley Nichols books I recently purchased.

What am I doing sitting here typing!

I’ve got some reading to do!

Favorite Books and/or Authors From CDW Readers

Italicized books are mentioned more than once.

Please feel free to leave your own favorite book in the comments of this post. I will add them to the list.  

Ken Follet, Pillars Of The Earth.

Onions in the Stew

The Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon.

Where The Red Fern Grows

The Kite Runner

An Hour Before Daylight: Memories of My Rural Boyhood” by Jimmy Carter.

Seabiscuit.

Simple Abundance by Sarah Ban Breathnach

Please Don’t Eat The Daises by Jean Kerr.

The Ivy Tree Mary Stewert

The Witch of Blackbird Pond

Elizabeth Speare

Rosamunde Pilcher

Louis L’Amour

Anything by Mauve Binchy

Confederacy of Dunces.

To Kill a Mockingbird

Follow the River by James Alexander Thom.

Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood.

The Secret Garden

Strawberry Girl by Lois Lenski.

Cross Creek by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings.

To Kill a Mockingbird

Little Women

The Outsiders

Anne of Green Gables

Suzanne’s Diary for Nicholas

My Sister’s Keeper

The Man who Loved Clowns

Spirit Bear.

The Kitchen God’s Wife by Amy Tan

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, or Joy in the Morning, both by Betty Smith

Little House on the Prairie.

Pride and Predjudice

Karen Kingsbury

Dee Henderson

Beverly Lewis

David Baldacci

John Grisham

Lynn Kurland.

Philippa Gregory

Little Boy Blue” by Eugene Fields.

Peace Like a River by Leif Enger.

Cold Comfort Farm

Cold Mountain

Snow Falling on Cedars

Memoirs of a Geisha

Jane Eyre

Pride and Prejudice

To Kill a Mockingbird

She’s come Undone by Wally Lamb.

Gone with the Wind

Where the Red Fern Grows

Jane Eyre

Sacagawea – By Anna L. Waldo

The Memory Keeper’s Daughter

The Girl with the Pearl Earring

The Red Tent 


The Egg & I   

O Rugged Land of Gold by Martha Martin.

Twilight and Eclipse and New Moon by Stephenie Meyers.  

Brendan O’Carroll – The Mammy, The Chisellers, The Granny

Those Who Save Us by Jenna Blum 

The Family Secrets of Nazi Germany

Little Women   

The Plague and I, By Betty McDonald

To Kill a Mockingbird

The Encyclopedia of Country Living

Taking Charge of Your Fertility

Nourishing Traditions

Living with Chickens

The Shack

The Secret Life of Bees

Mama Makes up Her Mind by Bailey White  

The Princess Bride

Jane Eyre

To Kill a Mockingbird

The Kite Runner

The Velveteen Rabbit

The Ordinary Princess

Julie Garwood’s historical romances

He’s God and We’re Not by Ray Pritchard

Max Lucado

David Jeremiah

Luci Swindoll

Marilyn Meberg

Dear Bess by Harry Truman

Anne of Green Gables series

The Memory Keeper’s Daughter

Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurty

the Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder

One Man’s Island

Cathie Pelletier books

Pride & Prejudice

Raney, by Clyde Edgerton.

James Herriot books

Were the Red Fern Grows

Sandra Dallas, Chili Queen.

Betty MacDonald’s Egg & I   

Many Waters by Madeleine L’Engle

Or Northanger Abbey

The Cat
Brother Cadfael  

To Kill a Mockingbird

Jane Eyre

Pride and Prejudice

The Habit of Being by Flannery O’Conner

A Prayer for Owen Meanie (Meany?)

Because of Winn Dixie.  

My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult.

Bloody Kansas by Sara Paretsky.

The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner

And Now For the Comments With The Books!

Pillars of The Earth By Ken Follet

I`m sassy, said…
Not normally my kind of reading but turned out to be a surprisingly wond
erful book.

suze-oz said…
Onions in the Stew

is one of my favourites. My mother loved it so much she has kept my copy. I have chuckled my way through it many times. The world was such a different place. If I ignored the smoking and drank a little my gp would approve…he often tells me that there is not enough scotch in my blood! He is a wonderful man who has a sensible view about life.  

 

chocolatechic said…
I have lots of favorites, but one series of books that have griped me ever since I read them was the
Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon.
Wow!
The Kite Runner
There is just something about this book and I love how it wraps around you.  

Where The Red Fern Grows
justaroundthecorner said…
I love this story and tend to chase people down in the kid section of the bookstore and suggest they read it.

donna said…
“An Hour Before Daylight: Memories of My Rural Boyhood” by Jimmy Carter.

Or Seabiscuit.
Honestly, who can pick just one favorite book?

gina said…
Simple Abundance by Sarah Ban Breathnach (I am the self help queen…maybe I can send some along to you?…Not that you need any self help…I mean, just a suggestion…I’m pretty crazy, but you just may be nuttier than me :)

melissa said…
I have always loved Please Don’t Eat The Daises by Jean Kerr. I read it when I was 15 and have always had a copy on my book shelf. I just reread it again about a month ago. She makes me want to write.

stephanie said…
OMG I have way to many to mention..Off the top of my head
The Ivy Tree Mary Stewert
The Witch of Blackbird Pond
Elizabeth Speare
Rosamunde Pilcher
Louis L’Amour

jeanette from texas said…
Anything by Mauve Binchy. I love the settings in Ireland.
I have one all time quirky favorite, Confederacy of Dunces. It is weird, funny and for some reason I love it.

To Kill a Mockingbird was one of the first favorites.
Dee from Tennessee

hw said…
“Follow the River” by James Alexander Thom. I like any of his books. They are all historical; but I read any genre.

jenn said…
My very favourite book is
Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood.

The Secret Garden”.

I just love that book! As a child/preteen, I also loved to read anything by Lois Lenski…since I am from Florida, my favorite book of hers is “Strawberry Girl”.

Deb in Florida

suzanne said…
Cross Creek by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings.

To Kill a Mockingbird is a close second.

I love Rawlings though. I visited her home in Cross Creek, Florida, which is now a home museum. It was like walking into a time machine, back to the old Florida that I remember from the summers of my childhood in the early 1950′s. It was magic.

Although I have many, many favorite books, when someone asks me the title of my favorite book, for some reason, I always think of the books I loved as a child first. My favorite book of all time is

“Little Women.” : )

Mrs. I.

julie said…
I have so many favorite books. I love
The Outsiders,
Anne of Green Gables,
Suzanne’s Diary for Nicholas,
My Sister’s Keeper,
The Man who Loved Clowns,
Spirit Bear.
Oh, how I love books.

noble pig said…
Oh my fave…
The Kitchen God’s Wife by Amy Tan…love it…just love.

I have so many favorites, but right now I would have to say
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, or
Joy in the Morning, both by Betty Smith.

I can read just about anything though. My favorite pasttime.
Wendy Clark

kristin said…
I love so many books it is hard to pick. The book that sucked me into my all time love of reading was
Little House on the Prairie. I still enjoy that one with my daughter. I also recently read

Pride and Predjudice and will read any of

Karen Kingsbury,

Dee Henderson or

Beverly Lewis for lighter reads.

David Baldacci and John Grisham when I’m in the mood for a thrill.

foofeee said…
Right now, anything by Lynn Kurland.
Philippa Gregory is an all time favorite.

How about a favorite poem? I can do that!

“Little Boy Blue” by Eugene Fields.

June 7, 2008 10:37 AM

mer said…
My favorite book is Peace Like a River by Leif Enger. It is a beautifully written story!!

jenny said…
I recently read Cold Comfort Farm that you had recommended on your blog and it was great! Quirky…very, very funny!

When talking about favorites I think I go for romantic, cultural…tragic? – the deep stuff, because my favorite book list includes Cold Mountain,
Snow Falling on Cedars and
Memoirs of a Geisha.
It also includes Jane Eyre and Pride and Prejudice.

leah said…
Okay, I know I sound like a total geek and this is such an un-original choice, but it’s To Kill a Mockingbird. True!

mcatho said…
One of My favorites—I have many as I am an avid reader– is

She’s come Undone by Wally Lamb.

jenni said…
Just one favorite…..um…
Gone with the Wind, maybe. But really I have tons of favorites.

JustAroundTheCorner mentioned Where the Red Fern Grows, just the mention of that book brought a tear to my eye. I haven’t thought of that one in such a while.

karen yvonne said…
Jane Eyre . . . When I was in high school, talking in study hall one day, my English teacher who was monitorint the SH pulled Jane Eyre off the bookshelf, told me to be quiet, and to read the first 100 pages before I decided I did not want to read the book. Of course, long before 100 pages, I was hooked and have read it several times, enjoying it every single time.

heidi in wisconsin said…
Sacagawea – By Anna L. Waldo… I read this book over and over and over again in high school. The one I cherish the most is a smut novel by an unknown author. It makes me fall in love with my hubby all over again – no Fabio is not on the cover! Its a sensual Native American man with gorgeous black hair to his waste. Reminds me SO MUCH of my blonde, blued eyed,geeky, Norwegian husband that I want to have more of his children – that is after I have this one in July. LOL

cheryl said…
Gosh, I have so many favorites that it is hard to choose. I guess

“The Memory Keeper’s Daughter” is the latest one I have read and thoroughly enjoyed.

My favorite book is

“The Girl with the Pearl Earring”. I have never read a book that I felt more in the book than reading it. I heard the sounds, smells the odors and enjoyed the period of time.

Pat
pvpineknot@yahoo.com

kim said…
Off the top of my head, I think,

The Red Tent is my favorite book.

I would like to thank you for the wonderful reminder of,

The Egg & I.
I had forgotten all about this terrific book!

kelly myers said…
O Rugged Land of Gold by Martha Martin. I read it every year about fall/winter time and it does inspire me.

karly said…
I have bunches of favorite books but my favorite so far is

Twilight and Eclipse and New Moon they are great and they are by Stephenie Meyers.

kc said…
They are a trilogy by

Brendan O’Carroll. The Mammy, The Chisellers and The Granny

I have so many “favorite” books that I can’t choose just one!!! I’m currently reading

>Those Who Save Us by Jenna Blum and I am absolutely riveted by

the family secrets of Nazi Germany! SO good!

Kristina in Nebraska

hazel said…
My favorite book would have to be

Little Women. My mother used to read to us when we were very young and this book impressed more on me than any of the others. I think I always wanted to be Jo!!

pat said…

My goodness gracious me…you won’t believe this. I was thinking about Betty M’s Oninons in the Stew, the other day! I would love to read that book again. Even though I was actually on the earth at the time it was first published, I wasn’t old enough to read. I actually read it after seeing the movie and I believe that was about 45 or so years ago! Oh and we have quite a little collection of Ma & Pa K, movies. It’s amazing how much our 18 year old granddaughter loves to watch those movies and has watched them many times over the past few years!

I’ve read The Plague and I, By Betty, also.

My favorite book. The one I go back to again and again and no matter how many times I read it I love it even more is

To Kill a Mockingbird.
I actually read that book when it first came out. I think I might have been late teens or twenty.

pamelotta said…
I don’t get a lot of time to read, so all the books I’m reading right now are in a stack on my nightstand and they are as follows:

The Encyclopedia of Country Living,
Taking Charge of Your Fertility,
Nourishing Traditions,
Living with Chickens,
and the one I just finished yesterday,
The Shack

The Shack is my current favorite. I’ll let you know about the rest. I’m obviously more into non-fiction than fiction.
J

karen deborah said…
I think my favorite is whatever I just read or am reading. I recently finished

“The Secret Life of Bees” it was a great story. MY house is so full of books it looks like a library. I have never heard of this book and some of your other titles so it will be fun to see what they are like. Ma & Pa Kettle were some of my childhood favorites. One you might enjoy that is really funny is,

“Mama Makes up Her Mind,” by Bailey White.

donna boucher said…
So hard to pick.

I will say….

The Princess Bride.

marmee said…
Jane Eyre

To Kill a Mockingbird

The Kite Runner

just to name a few….

maudie-mae said…
I have too many to choose from
The Velveteen Rabbit
The Ordinary Princess

for fluff reading I like Julie Garwood’s historical romances

for serious reading
He’s God and We’re Not by Ray Pritchard
Max Lucado
David Jeremiah
Luci Swindoll
Marilyn Meberg

my problem is that I work in one of those used book stores that lists books on Alibris (as well as a couple of other sites) and anything I want to bring home from the store is MINE MINE MINE to read. I have a stack of books beside my side of the bed that comes to the window sill, and then I have a floor to ceiling book case FULL. Sigh

darlene said…
One of my favorites is

“Dear Bess”.
The letters from Harry to Bess Truman 1910 to 1959.

I learned a lot about President Truman from these letters. A great read.

H
beth said…
It’s so hard to decide, but I can’t help but list the

Anne of Green Gables series.
One of my more recent reads, though, is

The Memory Keeper’s Daughter.

Some of my favorites are

Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurty,

The Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder, and

Alaskan/Canadian memoirs like -One Man’s Island – the author and his wife bought an island off the coast of British Columbia in the 1940′s and homesteaded there. I also love to read interesting and old cookbooks. Nancy in AK

kari said…
Before I started homeschooling (and reading REALLY good books – where every.stinkin’.one is my favorite) I read all the

Cathie Pelletier books I could get my hands on. She has such a warped sense of humor…and laughing inappropriately at situations at home is much more fitting than doing so in real life.

waterside living said…
Well, of course

Pride & Prejudice, but where’s the fun and originality in that? So I’ll mention another of my favorites:

Raney, by Clyde Edgerton. A bust-a-gut funny story of a young bride in small town North Carolina. In fact, its been so long since I read it I might have to go find it and read it again!

liz said…
James Herriot books (English country vet) -I’ve read, re-read, read to my kids and read again. I’ve laughed till I couldn’t read through the tears. His story telling is the best! Warm, funny,sad..it’s all there.

p said…
Gosh I have so many–it does not happen very often that you do notfind me reading something. My son just finished the book Were the Red Fern Grows and I picked that up to re re re read again today. Thanks for the chance.

susan p. said…
Speaking of reading…My favorite usually depends on what I’ve just read and liked. Most recently that was

Sandra Dallas, Chili Queen.

Right now I’m reading a

Dorothy Cannell mystery which is fun.

cynthia said…

I think that my fave is Many Waters by Madeleine L’Engle.

Or Northanger Abbey,

or The Cat who series,

or the Brother Cadfael series

amy w said…
My favorite – “To Kill a Mockingbird”

coffee bean said…
I love so many books… there are just so many wonderful ones out there… but, I’d have to say

Jane Eyre is my favorite if I can only say one.

rachel keller said…
My favorite books is

Pride and Prejudice, for obvious reasons, I cant get over the crush I had on Mr Darcy when I was 16…I go all giggly when I think of it and read the beloved words again!

beth c said…
I love lots of books, but my absolute favorite is

The Habit of Being, which are Flannery O’Conner’s letters. It’s an amazing book on many levels.

jeannie in okc said…
I’m a voracious reader, and I love many books. One adult book that comes to my mind is

A Prayer for Owen Meanie (Meany?). Loved that one!

Since I write for children, I seem to mostly read children’s books. Some of them are great literature. One I just reread while teaching my fourth grade class is

Because of Winn Dixie. It is a beautiful book about loss and forgiveness.

mama bear said…
Too many books to choose from! I read anything and everything.

Harry Potter,
Laura Ingalls Wilder,
Stephen King, you name it! Usually I find one author and if I like his/her book, I read everything written by him/her.

I recently enjoyed reading

My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult. Excellent! I plan to go to the library tomorrow to search out another of hers and will probably have read every one of her books by the end of summer.

mrs. c said…
I have a lawn mower just like Betty’s and I use it!

Oh, but my favorite book. Today it is

Bloody Kansas by Sara Paretsky.

But tomorrow it maybe something else, like the

Happy Hollisters.

June 8, 2008 8:38 PM

marie said…
I can’t seem to get out of the childrens room at the library with all of my kids, so all I can get my hands on is Childrens Lit. I recently enjoyed

The Theif by Megan Whalen Turner.

June 8, 2008 9:33 PM

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Filed under: Book Lists

The Country Doctor's Wife's Summer Reading Program Fabulous Book Giveaway Number 2

June 12th, 2008

For the second book in my summer reading program, I am choosing We Took To The Woods By Louise Dickinson Rich. It may become clear to you as this summer reading program progresses, that I have very specific likes when it comes to books. I strongly prefer non-fiction, first person accounts about people who go off and do strange things in difficult places and have either a rib cracking sense of humor about it or who are so deftly poetic in their writing that I am borne away on the wings of their prose… to another world… full of waving flowers in a meadow… while little elfin antelope deer birds frolick… in the dense fragrant forest… of love…with lutes… and fifes… and bagpipes…and unicorns…

What?

Huh?

Oh yeah, I like writers that are you know… good writers.

Louise falls into the later category but she is also funny. Kind of funny strange, but also funny funny.

Here is the basic synopsis. In the 1940′s, Louise goes on a canoe trip with some friends. While on this trip she meets a woolly bear who turns out to be a man who turns out to marry her who turns out to sweep her away forever to the remotest corner of Maine, which today probably has a McDonalds and a Home Depot, and at least seven strip malls along a four lane highway that has a Mister Moose Canoe Outfitters and a Lumberjack Backwoods Mountain Man Pizza Grill in each one.

But back then, it was remote. Really remote. So remote that Louise and her woolly bear husband didn’t see other people for months at a time. And they entertained themselves by trying to stay warm and keeping the logging road clear enough for the occasional visitor to get through.

So when it came to having babies and getting groceries and shopping trips to the mall for a new pair of shoes, Louise’s life was kind of hard.


Inside the cover there is map of all the places that were a part of Louise’s very hard, very remote, very no internet or television or even library life.

I love books with maps.


The copy I ordered for you also has a dust jacket with a picture of their cabin. Sadly my own copy does not have the dust jacket. I thought about keeping the dust jacket for myself, but that seemed wrong.

This bloggy giveaway has been forever buried in the sands of time immortal.

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Filed under: Book Giveaways, Country Life Books, Louise Dickinson Rich

CDW Summer Reading Program Book Giveaway Numero Uno

June 7th, 2008

A few days ago I decided to reward myself for catching up on laundry and being a good little garden center worker and for taking care of little boys for thirteen years in a row and for not murdering my husband in his sleep for FOURTEEN years in a row and for Sunday School coming to an end for the year and for my Zumba class taking a summer break and just cause…. So I bought myself some used books from Alibris to celebrate.

During this book shopping spree I couldn’t help but think about my blog and all the people who read it and how they tend to be people that are kind of like me though probably smarter and much more organized with better hair and hopefully not so many paint stained pairs of shorts, but still… kind of like me and maybe they would like the same books that I like, so I decided to chuck a few more into my “shopping cart” while I was stocking up on Beverely Nichols books. 

But you know how it is, one book leads to another and another and another. I started scanning the shelves in my study to remember the titles and authors of my most beloved tomes, even though you would think I would have them memorized because I have read them so many times, but I don’t because of the four holes in my head where the babies came out.

So I started adding a few more books and a few more and a few more and by the end of the night I looked at my shopping cart and at the total cost of my shopping cart and OH DEAR I am afraid I had to go back and get rid of quite a few. The problem is not the price of the books themselves, but rather that Dad Gum shipping!!!

Finally, I whittled the cost down to a manageable amount and pushed the “send” button and here we are at The Country Doctor’s Wife’s Summer Reading Program Book Giveaway Number One. How’s that for a catchy title! Can’t you see it on T-shirts and bumper stickers and wooden plaques for your kitchen walls! ?! 

The first books arrived today! It is kind of exciting to open them as they come from bookstores all over the country. Alibris has it’s own warehouse, but it also is a place where used book stores from all over the world can post their inventory and get their books to the people who want to buy them. When you shop at Alibris, you are not just supporting Alibris, you are also supporting wonderful little bookshops all over the world!

Isn’t that wonderful!

Doesn’t it just make you want to open a wonderful little bookshop!

And even though this post is turning into a post about Alibris and not at all about my Summer Reading Program, I have to tell you that perusing the choices of copies at Alibris is half the fun of finding your book. You will have to decide between the dog eared copy with a few underlines on page 25 from Bob’s books in Bangor Maine and the other copy with minor shelf wear that had a flower pressed in the middle and an inscription that says to Mom with love, Jerry which is located in New Mexico at Martina’s Book Shack. I had to buy the pressed flower copy of course.

The first book I am giving away is one of my all time favorites. Betty MacDonald author of the timeless tale, “The Egg and I” which eventually led to the movie “The Egg and I” which featured two characters from her book, Ma and Pa Kettle, who went on to become part of the fabric of American culture, wrote the book, Onions in the Stew that I am giving away. You may have to read the previous sentence about seventeen times before it starts to make sense.

But Betty MacDonald is far more than the woman who actually lived down the road from the original Ma and Pa Kettle. Betty MacDonald is also the woman who made a tired, overwhelmed, lonely woman with three little boys who’s young husband had disappeared into medical residency, laugh so hard that her gut split wide open and she had to have emergency surgery and got to spend two weeks in the hospital with no-one to care for but herself and her young husband was forced to look in on her at least once a day or look like a cretin to all his co-residents.

Um… yeah – I made that last part up, but Betty and her indomitable spirit did see me though some tough times. She is tough as nails, more resilient than a cast iron skillet and as funny as only a divorced, chain smoking mother of two living on an island off the Seattle coast can be.

Oh yes, she also lived in a great house.

Oh yeah – she also loved to garden.

Onions in the Stew is from the period in Betty’s life after she left her first husband the chicken farmer, moved back to Seattle, married her Scotsman, and found herself living on Vashon Island with a daily commute that involved a pre-dawn ferry boat ride.


This is a picture of Betty. Look at the lawnmower and those bangs! 

I think I will stop complaining about my hair now.

So if you don’t win the book, promise me you will go check it out in your library. Betty deserves it. And so does Don, the bellowing Scotsman. And so do her two girls, Anne and Joan. Go read her. You will laugh yourself silly.

To win Onions in the Stew tell me what you favorite book is in the comments. I will draw a random winner. Contest ends at 8 PM Sunday.

This contest has come to an end.

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Filed under: Betty MacDonald, Beverley Nichols, Book Giveaways, Country Life Books
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