Book #80: That Old Cape Magic

Title: That Old Cape Magic
Author: Richard Russo

Jack Griffin grew up with miserable parents-- snobby English professors who thought that they'd been exiled with their tenure-track jobs in the mid-f*&%%-west and lived for the time they spent each summer on Cape Cod. After years of infidelities and acrimony, they eventually divorced. Griffin grew up not wanting to become them, but in his early fifties he's also an English professor, also set in his ways, also a lover of Cape Cod, and also in danger of losing his marriage. He's also carrying his father's ashes in the trunk of his car, but is somehow unable to part with them.

Russo is my favorite kind of author-- readable and smart. My only criticism of the book is that Griffin is a little too wrapped up in his head, and it seemed at times that he might not pull his head out of his butt enough to do the right thing. But the characters, even the supporting characters and most memorably Sunny Kim, are all full of life. The book is a quick read, but it's memorable and thoughtful and funny. And you just might look at your next wedding invitation with different eyes.

Book #79: The Bellini Madonna

Title: The Bellini Madonna
Author: Elizabeth Lowry

What makes a reliable narrator? Someone who observes keenly, who doesn't have a personal stake in the events at hand,  whose vision isn't clouded by mind-altering substance or illnesses. Thomas Lynch has none of these characteristics, and as he tells the story of The Bellini Madonna, I was alternately confused, repulsed and charmed by the story.

Lynch, a former art history professor specializing in the works of Renaissance painter Giovanni Bellini, has been searching for a lost Madonna. His quest leads him to wrangle himself an invitation to a rundown estate in the English countryside, where he believes the painting is hidden. During the weeks he stays there, he doesn't know if he's the one doing the duping, or if he's being duped by the women who live in the home. Lynch is almost completely unlikeable as a person, and it can be hard to follow the narrative at times (a drunken narrator isn't very reliable), but the book is still pretty enjoyable, and the dynamic between Lynch and the women in the home is entertaining.

Book #78: The Children's Book

Title: The Children's Book
Author: A.S. Byatt

I loved A.S. Byatt's Possession (and I even liked the movie, unlike most of the world), so I was thrilled to hear that A.S. Byatt was coming out with a new book. The Children's Book is dense and epic, and like Possession, includes stories within stories (Olive Wellwood, the story's matriarch, is an author of children's books), which is part of what I found most charming about Possession. The Children's Book is essentially the story of the Wellwoods and a half-dozen other families, bound together by their Fabian sympathies and artistic inclinations, who live in the South of England. It takes place over a period of about 30 years, culminating at the end of WWI. I loved the first several hundred pages (it's 700+ pages), when the Wellwood children were small, but as they grew, I started to dread reading about their lives and the lives of their friends.While Possession is charming, though long, The Children's Book is too sprawling, with too many characters to care intensely about their tortured lives. I felt like Byatt felt somewhat the same way, since the death of two characters early in the novel took up many chapters, but a half-dozen others were bumped off in the space of a couple of pages later on. It's a beautiful book and a rich book, but eventually not engrossing enough to make me want to read all 700 pages.

Book #77: Mountains Beyond Mountains

Title: Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, A Man Who Would Cure the World
Author: Tracy Kidder

Paul Farmer is a man with a mission, a man who has likely done more to advance access to medicine in the third world than anyone else in the century, a man worthy of sainthood. But I wouldn't want to be married to him. He works 20-hours days (and has for decades), travels between Boston and Haiti and Russia and Cuba and Peru (is it Peru? I can't remember, it's been a while) and France with great regularity, has at least three full-time jobs (but very little wealth to show for them), and has revolutionized both access to medicine in Haiti and treatment of multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis on several continents. He loves what he does, and Kidder does a great job showing both the humanity and the superhumanity of Kidder. It's an interesting book about an interesting man, but reading it both made me feel guilty for the comforts I enjoy and made me feel like a lazy slacker.

Book #76: Persepolis 2

Title: Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return
Author: Marjane Satrapi

I loved Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis when I read it a few years ago. Persepolis 2 takes place where the first graphic memoir left off, with a teenage Marjane being sent from Iran to Germany, where they hope she'll be safe during a time of political upheaval. While the original Persepolis was dark, with war and fear and death always looming close to the surface (as I'm sure it must for people who live in countries like Iran), it was also told from the point of view of a child, so there was still some of a sense of wonder as Marjane learned to live in her fractured world. In Persepolis 2, she's mostly grown up, and while the story is just as entertaining, it's also darker-- she lives on the streets for a time as a teenager, feels her alienation as a woman without a country very powerfully, worries about not being wanted anywhere, marries the wrong man, and generally feels pessimistic about her future. While Satrapi presents the story of her life convincingly, it's not something I relate to easily since my life has been perfectly conflict-free in comparison. It's interesting that this book (which I read about two months ago) only took me a couple of hours to read, yet it sticks in my mind better than many novels I've read since. Maybe I should stop discouraging my kids from reading picture books instead of chapter books!

Book #75: The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance

Title: The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance: A Memoir
Author: Elna Baker

A few years ago, I was listening to a podcast of The Moth while running one morning. Many of the storytellers at The Moth sound like they've been around the block a few times, but this girl sounded so sweet and squeaky-clean. It was a huge change of pace to hear her after stories of alcoholic parties and attempted murders (more typical topics for The Moth). As I listened to the girl talk about how her parents married young and had five kids, I said to myself, "Wow, this girl has GOT to be Mormon." And sure enough, a sentence or two later, she outed herself as one of the tribe. I've been a fan of Elna Baker ever since, and couldn't wait to get my hands on The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance (which I'm sure would have come through on my reserve list much more quickly had we still lived in Texas, less competition than in Utah). 

In New York Regional.... (the title is stupidly long) Elna talks about trying to live life as a faithful Mormon while living single in New York City. It's sort of a Sex in the City (without the sex, but making out aplenty) meets The Singles Ward (although Elna would have a much hipper soundtrack). Elna honestly talks about her doubts about her faith and her desire to cling to both her beliefs and her culture, and the obstacles that make staying faithful in her profession and at her stage in life difficult while living in one of the most worldly cities in the world. She also writes about her battle with her self-image (she lost 80 pounds in her early twenties), and her family relationships.

As a Mormon, I'm firmly in Elna's camp. I think the book is funny, well-written, and shows that there are lots of different ways to be LDS, and that it's possible to explore doubt and stray occasionally from the straight and narrow without wanting to leave it permanently. Yeah, it's a little bit self-absorbed (but c'mon, it's a memoir!) and there are some places where a conservative Mormon might roll her eyes and wish that a lesser-known publisher had released the book, but overall, I'm proud of one of my girls making it big!

Three!

Maren turned three on Wednesday, and since she loves all things pink, and the Pinkalicious books, we jumped on the bandwagon blazed by my good friends Lei at My Many Colored Days and Alicia at Growing Spuds, I threw her a Pinkalicious birthday party for her very first "friends" party. We were a little bit nervous that it might not be well attended two days before Christmas, but amazingly enough, everyone came!

Aunt Jilly and Uncle Carl transformed the dining room into a little girl's pink paradise. There were LOTS of streamers, you just can't see them all in the picture.We played Freeze Dance, decorated cupcakes, read Pinkalicious and Purplicious, blew out candles, drank pink hot chocolate, and opened presents. I think the girls had a good time, and I know that Maren loved her birthday! She's already telling me what she wants to do when she turns four.

Christmas festivities

I posted about the house, now here's the people in the house. All ten of them. My mom and dad, sister and brother-in-law spent Christmas week with us, and we partied hard!

Isaac in his favorite outfit (he wore this Woodstock as reindeer shirt nonstop for most of the month of December) out shoveling the back yard.

Fairies dancing in their Halloween costumes.

Decorating the traditional gingerbread house with Aunt Jilly and Uncle Carl. Notice the Coke Zero in the foreground. I think we went through eight 12-packs of Coke Zero and Diet Dr. Pepper during the week.

Making flourless chocolate cake while looking like the Unabomber.

My mom would like the record to state that she worked on the gingerbread house too.

Bryce and his auntie. Notice the mark on Bryce's upper lip. He decided to try out shaving, while holding the razor sideways. Youch!

Freezing our buns off at Temple Square. All except for me, because my coat is big and puffy enough for the whole family to hide inside. And Eddie, because he had to work. And Jilly, who took the picture. We only lost one child while we were there. We always lose at least one.

Isaac was awfully proud of himself for spending Monday skiing at Brighton. He had to be dragged (literally) into the morning lesson, but was navigating the bunny slope like a champ by the afternoon.

Bryce and Eddie head over to the Majestic lift for his first foray off the bunny slope. Bryce really got the hang of skiing and was sailing down the hill pretty confidently by the end of the day!

Annie may never forgive me for posting this picture of her, but this is about as happy as she got during the afternoon of our ski trip. She had a great lesson in the morning, but got nervous when it was time to test out her skills without an instructor. 

She perked up considerably by the time we took her to The Nutcracker that night at Ballet West.

We don't have pictures of Tuesday, when Eddie saw BYU win in both basketball and football in Las Vegas, and I almost killed my parents sliding in the ice in our minivan. Once we traded cars, we had the quickest dinner ever at Red Iguana (no wait, appetizers and dinner in about 30 minutes-- the key to eating there must be to go during a snowstorm) and a great time seeing Savior of the World at the Conference Center, reloading our phones for updates on the football game when we could. Wednesday was Maren's birthday, which will get its own post.

We brought cookies and hot fudge to the Christmas Eve dinner at Eddie's parents' house.

Prepping and eating with the girls in the kitchen.

Holy Family?

Chaos reigns on Christmas morning.

Hanging out among the presents

The whole gang for Christmas dinner.

The house at Christmas

I'm now at the "Ring Out Wild Bells" stage of Christmas, eager to ring out the old (meaning the Christmas decorations) and ring in the new (not actually meaning anything new, just a house without a nine-foot tree in the family room), but in the continuing spirit of the holidays, here are a few pictures of our house celebrating its first Christmas (pictures of the kids will come later-- I've got priorities!)

Like how my mom snapped a picture of her food? Apparently I got no pictures of my living room or entryway, or the adorable candy cane chandelier, or the cute little kids' tree in the basement. If I can steal Bryce's camera away from him again sometime today, I'll update it again. 

Master Bedroom Redo

In the other places where we've lived, our bedroom has always been the afterthought. We had bedroom furniture I never really liked, and we just threw our quilt on the bed, slapped up a wall color (or not) and called it good. In our new house, the master bedroom deserved better. But it's a big room (an almost embarrassingly big room) and it took a few months for me to get a vision of what to do with the space. We knew we wanted white linens and a calming feeling overall, and the room was big enough for both an office area and a seating area, so we wanted to maximize all of that. I've been working hard on it for the last few weeks, and here you can see what we've got so far:

A head-on view of the bed. We recovered the headboard yet again (it's been yellow corduroy and white linen in previous incarnations). We also boosted the headboard about a foot and bolted it to the wall. The bedside tables are brand new, from the Thomasville Bogart collection, bought for about 1/10th of the original price from someone's garage in Sandy. Not sure it's legal, but it works for me. The white sheets, duvet cover and bed frame came from Overstock. The matelasse bedspread is from Lands' End. The three fabrics on the bed are by Premier Prints, which I bought from Warehouse Fabics. The headboard fabric is Elizabeth, the larger striped pillows (and the bookcase, visible later) are Veranda and the smaller pillow is Paisley, all in chocolate/natural. The lamps on the nightstands are old, from IKEA, but I replaced the shades with some chocolate brown ones I found on the clearance table there. The turquoise tray on the left nightstand is from Hip and Humble here in Salt Lake City. The prints above the bed are from studiolyon's Etsy store.

This is one of my favorite views of the bedroom. We had pictures taken of each of our kids at six, twelve, eighteen and twenty-four months, and once I got all of them, I had no idea how to display that many pictures. But this house has tall ceilings, and therefore big walls, and even though I've spent years regretting getting the pictures printed SO BIG, I think they work here. Instead of painting an accent wall, we got a two-yard piece of fabric (also from Warehouse Fabrics-- Madison Kelso/French Blue) that I hemmed and nailed up behind the pictures, and gives a lot more contrast between the white frames and beige walls. The couch and mirrors are from IKEA (couch by way of KSL classifieds) and I scored the end tables for $35 for the pair from the classifieds too (I spotted them in the back of an ad for something else and emailed the seller to see if he'd part with them). Eddie got me the cashmere throw from Christmas from Lands' End.

This is kind of a weird shot, but I wanted to show off that there's another bookcase (also an IKEA Billy in black-brown) just like the ones we have in our family room downstairs. This one is backed in the same striped fabric as the pillows on the bed. And speaking of pillows, I made the cases for all of the pillows in about an hour and a half. Envelope covers are so easy. I just kept finding old discarded throw pillows around the house and covered them until the fabric was all gone. 

The rest of the room is still a work in progress. The chair was from Maren's nursery, and will eventually be relocated. Eddie wants a big brown leather recliner, which he will be permitted to have, provided it's not too ugly. We're replacing our single desk with two build-your-own IKEA desks, which will sit side-by-side under the window. The unfinished wood will be painted either olive green or french blue with storage underneath and have either frosted glass or stainless steel tops. The white Tolix cafe chair on the right (the same chairs we have in the dining room) will go with both desks, assuming we can find another one. 

The last picture is of the dressers. They're the Malm four-drawer dressers from IKEA, topped with dark glass. The lamps are big! They're 1950s Eames lamps that I bought for $23 apiece from eBay. I have drum shades ordered for them, but they haven't arrived yet. Eddie also has big plans to upgrade the television.