Cookies, cookies everywhere

I hope to post pictures soon of our cookie-baking adventures this Christmas season. Until I do, ponder this: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/21/magazine/21food-t-000.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=tough%20cookie&st=cse

She is my role model!

K

Knitting Under the Influence

I almost wrote off Knitting Under the Influence by Claire LaZebnik as a flimsy chick lit book without enough substance to hold up its cover. It took a few pages, but I'm glad I stuck with it because I got to enjoy a heartwarming story about the work and relationship struggles of three friends. Single girls Kathleen, Lucy and Sari meet without fail every Sunday for their knitting circle where they eat, drink a lot, talk, and of course knit. The depth in the story comes from Sari, whose experience growing up with an autistic brother propels her daily work as an autistic counselor, helping kids develop language skills and coping techniques, something her brother never had the opportunity to do. Her budding relationship with Jason, the father of one of her patients, creates internal conflict, for she remembers Jason humilitating her brother in high school. The other women's stories are less substantive, but somewhat amusing--Lucy's story centers on her relationship with James, for whom she starts kntting a sweater (hasn't she ever heard about not making anything for her man until she gets the ring?). Her boyfriend James is a jerk, who the reader has to deal with until Lucy comes to her senses. Kathleen decides to marry for money after she is kicked out of her movie star twin sisters' house and loses her job with them as their publicist's assistant.

Overall, an entertaining, lighthearted read.

K

Confessions of a Contractor

As readers of this blog may have noticed, I don't do male authors. I make a point of not choosing books written by men. Why? Because generally I don't care for the male perspective in escapist fiction (I mean, I'm trying to escape, I don't care what the other side thinks!), and usually male writers get women completely wrong. The few times I have reneged on my no man rule, I have been very sorry (My Legendary Girlfriend by Mike Gayle is one example).

So I don't know why I picked up Confessions of a Contractor by Richard Murphy--maybe it was the salacious cover, maybe it was the similarity of the story to an old Jane Green novel (I think it was Swapping Lives where one of the women thinks about starting something with their carpenter). I don't know why I gave this book a chance, but it was well worth the risk.

Henry Sullivan is a down-to-earth contractor who renovates the homes of the rich and semi-famous in LA (which he refers to as, not City of Angels, but City of Houses). After the completion of a particularly large job, he vows to takes some time off, but instead ends up agreeing to start two new projects at the same time in the homes of two women who used to be best friends. During the course of working in the two homes, he starts a relationship with Sally, while also falling for married Rebecca, all the while trying to uncover what ended the friendship between the two. Interspersed among the relationship stories is notes on how to determine if your marriage is strong enough to withstand the stress of a remodel and information on contractors and construction in general.

Everyone knows that the first rule in home improvement is to never sleep with your contractor, but this novel explores what happens when you break it through insightful observation and subtle humor. Discovering what ruined various relationships is the driving force behind the story, and I enjoyed seeing how all the pieces fell together in the end. This was an amazingly terrific read, and I eagerly await Murphy's next book.

K

Stuck in the Middle

Over the summer, I read a christian chick lit book entitled Stuck in the Middle: A Sister-to-Sister Novel by Virginia Smith. Stuck between gorgeous and pregnant older sister Allie and successful younger sister Tori, middle sister Joan is single, living at home with her mother and grandmother, and working an uneventful job as a rent-to-own furniture store manager. But life starts to get exciting when a young doctor moves in next door. She begins a friendship with the promising doctor, eventually going to church with him, and questions her own views on the Christian walk. Of course, there is a romantic happy ending that won't disappoint. This was a delightful book by an author I was unfamiliar with previously.

K

Knit Two

This afternoon I finished Knit Two by Kate Jacobs, the sequel to The Friday Night Knitting Club. A couple of days ago while reading reviews for new adult fiction books, I read the review of Knit Two, even though our library had already purchased it. I think Margaret Hanes summed up the book perfectly by saying that the novel was about grief and how different people handle their varying reactions to this powerful human emotion. The book picks up the story of the members of the Friday Night Knitting Club five years after the end of the last book, so readers get to see what becomes of Dakota, James, Peri, KC, Catherine, Anita, Lucie and Darwin. I won't say too much about this one, since it came out just a week ago, but it was nice to see how things turned out, especially after reading the first book so recently.

Above all else, this book makes me want to knit!

K

High School Musical 3: Senior Year

While my parents graciously watched our sleeping children the day after Thanksgiving, A and I finally got to see High School Musical 3: Senior Year. You might think it strange for a couple of upper twentysomethings to be so excited to see a film about high schoolers aimed at the tween crowd. That is no doubt true, but after you watch something (like HSM 1 & 2) so much that you have memorized all the words to all the songs, you become interested in the next chapter of the story. (And as our friend Kim now knows, having been the poor recipient of our verbal movie critique, we also spent the whole film watching for the backup dancers who were in the first two films--and we got mad when there was so much action, we couldn't find them!)

Just think of this as our way of screening the film before we let Addie see it--and she will definitely not be seeing it when it comes out on DVD. Too serious, too much real sports action (those basketball players can be rough, I should know), too much talk of the future (which is too much for a little girl who doesn't understand the meaning of "tomorrow" or "yesterday").

Otherwise, the film didn't disappoint, except in its choice of lyrics for the final song (I was practically yelling "No!" over and over again in the theater; don't worry, we were almost the only ones in there) and the final shot of the film. Totally stupid. But other than those two oversights, HSM3 delivered--good songs that have stayed in our heads for days, nice dance moves, and enough cheesiness for us to debate for days.

Fantastic.

K