Red Rum

I'm in the process of cleaning up after my husband's murder spree, and let me tell you, it's a hard job!

Okay, maybe that's not EXACTLY true, but regardless, what I'm doing is certainly a deterrent to doing any actual bloodletting in the future!

Stoney was making chili, turned around to add the crushed tomatoes and lost his grip on the can. Bang! Splat! It hit the floor so hard that the bottom of the can is dented and the tomatoes. . . well, the blood sauce went EVERYwhere! Truly, it covered about 20 feet, into the next room and nearly into the next! We were amazed it didn't hit me!

Here, in my to-scale, amazingly detailed, wonderful drawing, you can see where all it did go. The wall and fridge and cabinets and floor of the kitchen, then into the living room floor, on its wall and across the living room ceiling and on the far living room wall. It stopped right in the doorway to the office, with just a few splats, where I was sitting all innocently with my back to the mishap.

The most amazing thing is how it even got BEHIND the calender in the kitchen. BEHIND it. Wow!



I'm cleaning while he goes to get more tomatoes (I have the lesser of the two evils, believe you me!) and have discovered that Clorox wipes are doing the best job, but it's still a pain to stand on a step stool and rub tomato guts out of textured ceiling! On the bright side, the fridge outsides are the cleanest they've been since we got it!

The Toss of a Lemon

The Toss of a Lemon
Padma Viswanathan (4/5 stars)
Hardcover: 640 pages
Publisher: Harcourt; 1 edition (September 8, 2008)

The Toss of a Lemon is the beautifully written, gently told lifetime story of Sivakami, a Brahmin woman, and her household. The reader follows Sivakami from her marriage ceremony in 1896 at ten, through her widowhood at eighteen, her establishment of her own household (against custom) and then watches the paths taken by Sivakami and her children and grandchildren until death in 1962. The focus easily changes between Sivakami and other family members, presenting a full and fascinating picture of a Brahmin household and of life in India at that time. This was a book I read slowly, not because it was tedious or difficult to read, but because I wanted to savor it, and not miss any, even minor, detail.

Unlike many historical novels, The Toss of a Lemon is very realistic in that, though there are many major historical events happening, they are not generally immediately effecting Sivakami and her family. This was quite refreshing and gave this novel the feel of real life.

In a way, I was reminded of the novels of Jane Austen, in which not a whole lot happens that might be considered earth shaking and yet, one must keep reading. Sivakami and her family were so well fleshed out, their lives so fully drawn, that I grew to know them, and their domestic concerns were of great importance to me, as well. And while it is a family epic, so to speak, I was not overwhelmed by length of the story or by many changes in characters.

The one discordant note in this lovely work is that Ms. Viswanathan tended to switch back and forth between present tense and past tense verbs. I found that to be distracting and as a result, could not give The Toss of a Lemon a full five stars.

Despite that, The Toss of a Lemon is truly a wonderful book that brought alive a time and place and culture of which I had no previous knowledge. I most certainly recommend this!

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Despite the fact that Ms. Viswanathan is not a Indian citizen, I'm choosing to use this book for "India" for the ORBIS TERRARUM Challenge. She used her grandmother's own stories as a base for The Toss of a Lemon and did quite a bit of research. I learned so much about India through this book that I feel I can safely use it for that challenge.

Thanks to the Amazon Vine program for the Advanced Reading Copy! :)

Meet AquaWoman

I was able to get my hair appointment bumped up to Thursday night, so I've got new hair color now! :D Off with the purple, and on with the Atomic Turquoise.

Mandy did an awesome job bleaching in new highlights, which I then went home and colored. Well, Stoney colored them, cause he's The Man.

The photo doesn't do the color justice, since it was a bit cloudy out today and the camera just couldn't catch the depth of the color. I'll try again later when we have sunshine. But, I LOVE it! It's my new favorite--go Manic Panic!

Goody Two Shoes Here

I saw the link to test blogs over at B&b ex libris and had to check mine out, too. I had "no bad words" at all in my blog. None of the even questionable things that made the hubby's PG. Really funny, actually, considering the books I post about, etc. I guess I'm more of a gentlewoman than I thought!

It's Alive!

Yeah, um, I'm still alive. Big time stress at work makes for big time tiredness at home. I have over 200 email messages I've not read, I'm behind on book reviews AGAIN (blast it all, I just got caught up!) and the dishes are being sneaky and trying to pile up. But, each year, my classroom each year is my all consuming focus and I tend to let everything else (book reviews, house organization, correspondence, etc) slide, with the exception of immediate family, until the summer. I don't regret that and wouldn't for a moment change it. I just wish I could add about two more hours into the day so it wouldn't happen! And it's not that I'm a workaholic, I was never like this about any other job, it's just that these kiddos are always in the back of my mind when they aren't on the forefront and I spend a lot of time in though brainstorming how to help certain things or looking for materials for other things or just being doggone tired from all the expended energy of the day. But, it's worth it. How many other people get to say "I LOVE my job" and really mean it?

I'm changing my hair color at the end of this month and realized that I had never posted a photo of my recent color. It's been purple since November and no photos! Here's one Stoney took in July. I had blue for the months in between green and purple, but as far as I can find, there were no photos taken. Ah well.


Your author sporting Purple Haze by Manic Panic.

Finished a REALLY good ARE; most of the review is written, just needs to be polished. I'll get that up soon I hope, because it was a super book and deserves to be read! I have just a few pages left and I'll be done with my non-fiction challenge. (And then I'll have two reviews to post for it *bangs head on desk*.)