Backstage with Julia

Hola!!!

I finished book 7 late last night - Backstage with Julia.  It was sweet, interesting story of a woman who worked very closely with Julia Child and was a very good friend of hers.  They not only worked on TV shows and books together, but they traveled all over and cooked together, because Julia always said, "Isn't cooking together such fun?!?!"  Man, she was such an AWESOME person!  She traveled well into her 80's and she TRAVELED, as in carried her own luggage, stayed up all night, and partied like a teen!  She said thinks like, "You are only as old as you feel..." her and her husband Paul never wanted to live in a "retirement community" because they were full of "OLD" people, even though they themselves were in their 70s when considering a new home!  She wasn't diet crazy or even healthy food crazy - yet she lived a full and happy life cooking REAL and lovely food.  Thats my kinda woman;)

I highly recommend this book, if you are interested in Julia Child and/or cooking.  I give it a 3.5 - because you know I reserve 4-5's for books I absolutely can't put down...this one is a long read because it chronicles a lot of Julia's work.  I loved it, but I know enough to know not everyone will.  Its a really good read though, if you are into that sort of thing!

 Because of work, I am WAY too exhausted to sew tonight, so I will be creating my first apron from the Martha Stewart book this weekend.  By the way, I can already say I love the MS sewing and fabric craft book.  It's hard to rate a book like this but I'm going to try.  I'm giving it a 4 because all the craft pictures were great, the instructions are great, she breaks down and defines everything and the book comes with CD that has printable patterns on it.  Perfect for a beginner, like me!! 

Now I have to sew that apron, that will be the end of Book 8.  I will start "How to Bake a perfect life" tonight and try to finish that over tonight, tomorrow and Saturday.  Then Sat - Mon is Dave Ramsey time - which will be tough because I have to take NOTES for that one....lol...not really but I want to take time and try to apply it.  Dave is going to read it again too, after I'm done (he doesn't have a Feb 28th deadline, like me!) I'm cutting it close this month, but in my defense there ARE only 28 days in Feb!!  That's 2-3 days less than most months, which is enough time for me to finish 1-2 books;)

Ok, I'm exhausted and am ready for a hot bath and a good book!  My first day went great!  Ready for my second...

Oh and I'm linking up with this beautiful blog My Romantic Blog for a show and tell Friday, showing my craft room progress:)

Moving right along...

Yay I am onto book 7!  I finished Breaking Free yesterday.  I kind of already talked about how I feel about this book - I did learn a lot from it, even though it's not the type of Bible Study I like to do.  She talks about the ways we live in Christ, the obstacles that parallel those truths, and breaking free from any bonds that hold us back.  Essentially it is a great topic to talk about, but like I said - I am not interested in reading about it from a broken, sad place.  Maybe it's because I'm not in a broken, sad place in my life?  I've had times like that, for sure - and I'm really not sure that I'd like the way this book is written even in those times.  I'm such a tough love type of person.  Suck it up, pray about it, give it to God, get over it.  But then, even though I have tragedy in life, but maybe not to the caliber that some people have where they could get a lot out of Beth Moore.

I am moving on to Backstage with Julia: My Years with Julia Child by Nancy Verde Barr.  It is a memoir of Julia Child from a friend she worked with organizing cooking demonstrations.  Julia's life fascinates me, because she basically taught herself how to cook, with help from classes here and there, and she traveled and live all over (including my FAVORITE FAVORITE city, Paris!!!), and is just generally a fascinating person.  I'll let you know how it is!  I found this book for $4 at Barnes and Noble, randomly.

To kick off this book, I am making Boeuf Bourguignon (fancy beef stew) from Mastering the Art of French Cooking: Volume 1.  This is one of Julia's best recipes in the cookbook.  Dave loves it.  I love it.  I can get Ashley to eat mushrooms with this dish - they taste just like the beef!!  It's delicious!!

I only have 1 week and 1 day to finish 4 books - Feb is a short month!!!  Can I do it?!?

Craft room is coming right along, I am custom making a desk today and tomorrow!  Can't wait to post pics;)  Have a happy Sunday!

Iceberg, right ahead!

I'm reading my Titanic book - it's awesome!  Its called Lost voices from the Titanic and it has all sorts of letters and oral responses from people who built the ship, were on the ship and survived, and even some words of those who perished.  They had a mail room and from the journey from Southampton to Cherbourgh and then to Queenstown some of the passengers wrote letters and had them mailed from these cities.  It is very interesting.  The accounts of these people really put the whole thing in perspective!  You know what surprises me?  Of all the people who voiced their stories, not one of them talks about how cold the water was?!?  I feel like that is all I think about when I imagine what it must have been like to try to survive this disaster, jumping into the freezing water and getting to safety.  No one talks about it!  I guess with the fear and adrenaline people were just not concerned about it?  Although, they do talk about their friends and families that died of exposure and frost bite, so you KNOW it had to be cold.  Interesting! 

It is heart breaking reading the accounts of the women and children who lost their hubbies and dads, the tearful goodbyes as they were thrown into life boats!  The book also has the stats on 1,2 and 3rd class and how many from each category lived and died.  By far the most were 3rd class men, its so sad!

Which gets me thinking, how grateful I am that our social classes, while they still exist, don't give us the upper or lower hand for survival as much as it used to.  I know these circles still exist and sometimes it does matter, but if a cruise ship went down in the middle of the Atlantic, no one would be saying 1st class first!  Only woman and children, sorry!  If a man wanted to get on a life boat with his wife and kids, he would be allowed!  Of course, most men would probably choose to let women and children get off first, but at least they have the choice!  And these days, there are enough lifeboats to go around, so really my hypothetical is moot;) 

The lifeboat situation itself is absurd, there was enough space for 64 boats, which was more then double the amount of passengers on Titanic's maiden voyage!  They only used 16 - 16?!?!?  Because the space looked too cluttered.  Not that is actually WAS too cluttered, it LOOKED that way.  There would have been plenty of space.  So stupid!  I'm glad that as a whole, our society is not collectively that dumb these days.  Someone, somewhere would say...hey....don't you think we at least need enough for the people aboard?  And they would fight until it happened, involving the gov or safety people or something. 

I'm more than halfway through this one.  I'm giving it a 3.5. It's really good and informative, but it gets a 3.5  because it's not a suck-me-into-it story, it is just really interesting.  If you've always wanted to know more about Titanic, this is a great book to read!  Don't watch the movie, it's not all accurate, that was Hollywood's version, the real life stories are much better!!

Oh and I've replaced my 10th book, that stupid Cholera one...I'm reading another non-fiction called, "My Years with Julia" written by Nancy Verde Barr.  She was a friend of Julia Child, so I get to learn a little more about this amazing woman's life and stories. 

I really love learning;)