Lassie Girl

Middle-of-the-week Randomness

Whew, it's been a long week already and it's only Wednesday!

But, here's a few things keeping me happy right now:

1)  Petit Montebourg

My sister-in-law discovered this at our local Central Market .

It's cheese with the consistency of yogurt and has fruit mixed in. Oh my goodness, this stuff is delicious (it's made with milk from Normandy and is incredibly smooth and light) and the perfect pick-me-up snack that you don't have to feel guilty about! The fat and calorie content is extremely low and a serving size is two of the petite yogurtlike containers, but one really is satisfying.  The wording is in french, so you have to guess at the flavors which is not hard to do thanks to the little smiling fruit drawings!

Apparently they are a limited time only product, but we're hoping that if enough interest is shown ( like, maybe if we buy it all up! ) the store will continue to carry it...

2) Sunshine!! Yay, the sun is out today and we have beautiful blue skies. It's still cold, but I can deal with that.  I don't like cloudy, drizzly, yucky, gray, cold days.  Or not on a long term basis at any rate. 

3)  New spring magazines and books - I'm loving these two right now:

4) North and South

Just finished reading the book ( by Elizabeth Gaskell ) for my book club and LOVED it. I had already seen the movie many times since I own a copy, but decided to re-watch it once I finished the book just to compare. Love it all over again each time. It is a little different than the book, but not disappointingly so like some movie adaptations.

Have a happy Wednesday and I hope your middle of the week is going well! :0)

The Lost Art of Reading

I used to be able to still my mind long enough to read and read and read ( though my mom totally tops me as far as being a book/reading addict! ). As I have mentioned before, I love books and would just as soon bury myself in one as opposed to sitting in front of the TV. I usually have 2-3 going at once. I always take one with me wherever I go because who knows, I might get stuck somewhere with nothing to do. Horrors! But these days I struggle through books in an effort to lose myself in them like I once did ( it has taken me FOREVER to get through War & Peace, which I am currently reading for my book club ), but most of the time I fail miserably and have heard so many people say they experience the same thing.

David Ulin, book editor at the LA Times, has an fantastic article that says exactly what I could not articulate myself regarding this. He writes:

{ Reading is an act of contemplation, perhaps the only act in which we allow ourselves to merge with the consciousness of another human being. We possess the books we read, animating the waiting stillness of their language, but they possess us also, filling us with thoughts and observations, asking us to make them part of ourselves. This is what Conroy was hinting at in his account of adolescence, the way books enlarge us by giving direct access to experiences not our own. In order for this to work, however, we need a certain type of silence, an ability to filter out the noise.

Such a state is increasingly elusive in our over-networked culture, in which every rumor and mundanity is blogged and tweeted. Today, it seems it is not contemplation we seek but an odd sort of distraction masquerading as being in the know. Why? Because of the illusion that illumination is based on speed, that it is more important to react than to think, that we live in a culture in which something is attached to every bit of time.

. . . What I'm struggling with is the encroachment of the buzz, the sense that there is something out there that merits my attention, when in fact it's mostly just a series of disconnected riffs and fragments that add up to the anxiety of the age. }

Sadly, this is SO me!!! I spend so much time on blogs, websites, news sites, etc... because I might miss something if I don't! Why do I feel like I need to be connected ALL the time? If I'm not at home with the computer at my fingertips, I have a cell phone that with one touch of the screen I can pull up my web browser and amuse myself while in line at the grocery store, or waiting at the airport, or in the doctor's office...The internet sucks me in with it's constant stream of information, most of which is pointless. It does not pertain to my life and why do I feel like I need to know about it anyway? Not that there isn't a LOT of useful information out there, but my problem seems to be the inability to draw the line between useful and pointless and it does frequently keep me from more worthwhile pursuits.

If you are also experiencing something similar, I encourage you to read the article in it's entirety. Very thought-provoking.  I'm not saying I'll be successful in reducing the amount of time I spend being in the know, or staying on top of the latest buzz, but I'm sure gonna try!


BTW, Scrap Bags are available again!
{ no international shipping available for these at this time though }



Have a great Thursday!

Booknotes

I am a sucker for books.

 Of any kind. 

I love them.

I collect them.

 I can't think of anything more relaxing that sitting down to read.

I can spend hours in a bookstore.

 I love the feel of a book in my hand.

Which is why I don't know if I'll ever be able to get into the Kindle.

Anyway, this weekend I found some new craft/sewing books that I think are worth mentioning.  I am all about being inspired by other people, and these definitely had my creative juices salivating.

I have never done much in the way of quilting, and certainly not recently, but after looking through this book, I am SO ready to get back into it!



I have three or four picked out to do, so now to choose which one to start with...

This new book by Lotta Jansdotter is another great one for those of you in to sewing for babies ~



Very simple projects, as the title suggests, and again, I'm just not sure which one I want to do first!  Sooo many cute things...


As I try and research how to blog and blog well (just don't feel like I have the hang of it yet), I happened to run across this book in Barnes and Noble this weekend~



LOVE it!!! Just you wait, I'll be a better blogger yet! ;)

And last, but definitely not least, I am looking forward to the arrival of this book from Amanda Blake Soule of the popular SouleMama blog~



I'm all about repurposing and this looks like it will be full of nifty & creative ways to do so! Available on August 11th, I think.

Oh, if you haven't seen the latest issue of Marie Claire Idees (my very, very, VERY favorite inspirational magazine!!),  it is definitely worth getting! The pictures alone are worth every dime spent. 




Does that give you enough reading material for now?  ;)


Happy Monday ~ Wish I could spend mine buried in books, but alas my sewing machine calleth...