Book Reviews

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

I avoided reading this for the longest time due to its likely appeal to Oprah. I ended up liking the book well enough, with the exception of the ending for Aibileen.

Stories I Only Tell My Friends: An Autobiography by Rob Lowe

A pleasant read, far different from the usual TMI of tell-all autobiographies. Rob came across as funny, pleasant, and intelligent. After reading Melissa Gilbert's sordid details of her life with Rob, it was interesting that he mentioned her name a total of about three times.

Banished from Jehovah's Witnesses by Dwight A. Hayes

Interesting, self-published book written by a local man describing his life as a Jehovah's Witness, from his childhood through his years as an elder. After acknowledging Christ as his Savior, he was "disfellowshipped." The focus of the book was various JW techniques, beliefs and "teachings."

In My Time: A Personal and Political Memoir by Dick Cheney

Okay, I like Dick Cheney. I liked him before, I like him as much, if not more, after reading his new book. I'd love for this man to hold the Executive Office in our country, but between his health and my belief that the idiots are running the asylum (referring to the voters), that's not going to happen.

Winter Garden by Kristin Hannah

She's a popular author, and this book caught my attention at the library. I enjoyed the main part of the story, about two women who grew up at odds with their mother. After their father dies, the mother fulfills a promise to her husband to complete the fairy tale/bedtime story she's told the daughters since they were children. Several dozen pages are devoted to the telling of this fairy tale story throughout the book. BORING! The "fairy tale" is of course retelling events of the mother's previous life with her first husband and earlier children as they lived (and died) through the Siege of Leningrad in the early 1940s. You'd think I'd like this historical aspect, but it was stupid in the context of this book.

The daughters take the mom on a cruise to Alaska, the mom confesses her role in the "fairy tale," and they discover that the owner of a Russian restaurant who served them a meal is really the mother's long lost first daughter, who she thought died in the siege.

Stupid. A perfect example of why I shy from popular fiction.

I finished this book the morning that the clocks turned back. It's hard to complain about having an extra hour; at least I didn't waste one of the usual 24!

The Only Best Place and
All in One Place by Carolyne Aarsen

A mindless fictional story set on a ranch in Montana. Nothing stellar, but I read through both books in the storyline.

Outlier: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell

Outlier. A scientific term to describe things or phenomena that lie outside normal experience.

In this case, "outlier" refers to those who have achieved success far and above the expected norm. Gladwell explores various reasons why Bill Gates, the Beatles, and others have achieved success--they were in the right place at the right time, but other factors played heavily.

An absolutely brilliant book. I've already checked out his prior book Blink and can't wait to begin!

Just My Type: A Book About Fonts by Simon Garfield

Quirky reading. Who can imagine reading through an entire 356 paged narrative on type fonts? And that it was interesting enough to continue reading until the end?

Beyond the Blue by Leslie Gould

Christian fiction with parallel stories about an infertile Oregon couple drawn to adopt in Viet Nam, and a poverty-stricken, unwed mother who desperately wants a better life for her children. I enjoyed the historical aspect of the book (effects of the Viet Nam war), the cultural descriptions, and learning a bit more about the international adoption process.

Recipe - Incredible Pork Loin Roast

Another recipe with amazing reviews that I found online. I was a bit skeptical too of the cooking time, but as I read the reviews, I remembered our favorite roast beef recipe is cooked the same way--turning the oven on high for a short period of time, then turning it off for a longer time for the meat to continue to cook.

PORK LOIN ROAST

one pork loin--the original recipe says 1 lb. Other reviewers cooked significantly larger roasts; mine was 3.5 lbs.

The success of this cooking method will depend on the accuracy of your oven and how well your oven retains heat. I guess mine is fine with both.

Determine the EXACT weight of your roast from the meat wrapper. The EXACT weight will determine the cooking time.

Preheat oven to 500-550 degrees. (Mine only goes up to 500.) Remove meat from fridge; season as desired. (I did nothing to mine.)

Place seasoned meat in uncovered roasting pan. (I added small potatoes and chopped carrots which had been tossed in oil, salt and pepper. I pushed them toward the edges of the pan so that the meat sat on the bottom of the pan.)

Bake EXACTLY 5-1/2 minutes PER POUND. Adjust +/- according to your oven's accuracy and heat retention. Turn oven OFF and DO NOT open the oven door for ONE hour. Remove from the oven and let sit for five minutes before slicing. Roast will be done, very slightly pink in the center, and very moist and tender.

For the recipe in its entirety, along with reviews, click here.

Recipe - Meatball Subs

I found a package of meatballs in my freezer and decided to use them in a dinner. I found this recipe and was thrilled by its high rating. Of course, I used my already-made meatballs instead and tweaked the recipe a little more. Everyone liked it (which is saying "even Holly," when I don't expect her to). It was sooooo easy, good, and inexpensive. I can't wait to make this for a crowd!

MEATBALL SUBS

1-2 onions, sliced
1-2 green peppers, sliced
meatballs, homemade or prepackaged; I used 6 frozen meatballs per person, which equaled one serving
jar of spaghetti sauce
sandwich rolls
provolone cheese

Pour ~1T. oil in skillet and preheat to med/med-high. Saute onion and green pepper to desired doneness; set aside.

Put meatballs in saucepan; pour in enough sauce to almost cover, but not quite. Heat meatballs thoroughly, stirring occasionally. My frozen meatballs took about 20 mins.

Cut open sandwich rolls. Pull extra bread out of the middle of rolls, so the meatballs will have a nice place to lay inside. Spray rolls with cooking spray, and place in 350 oven for 5 mins. to toast. Remove rolls from oven, fill one side with meatballs, and cover with one slice of cheese. Fill other side of rolls with cooked green pepper and onion. Return to oven, turn off heat, and let sit in residual heat for 5 mins.

Remove from oven, close sandwiches, smooshing slightly.

More photos from Virginia mountains

These were from our trip to the telescope in West Virginia last month.



Holly took all of these out of the window of the moving car.



At every twist in the highway, I would exclaim over the scenery.




Holly and Trevor got a little tired of me!



But the colors were truly breathtaking.


If summer must end, at least this is the way to go . . .

Weekly menu

This is part of my name-that-food-budget game, as in "I can feed this family for less than $450 per month." So far, we seem to be doing well, although Thanksgiving might put a bit of a dent in that.

Sun. - Greek soup
Mon. - Meatball subs
Tue. - Robert's choice
Wed. - Chicken souvlaki, hummus
Thu. - Husband's Delight, garlic bread, salad
Fri. - hot dogs?, deviled eggs, cabbage or potato salad?
Sat. - ham steak, grits, mashed potatoes, corn

On the back burner:
subs
French onion soup
pasta
breakfast burritos
giant burritos
cheeseburgers
breakfast
veal patties
chicken lettuce wraps

Sunrise this morning

No better way to start a day!

Heard at my house this morning

Trevor: This may seem totally random, but I'll never be a serial killer.

Mom: That's good, right?

Trevor: Yes, I usually have waffles for breakfast.

Oh, some of the things I find . . .

I thought this had been posted two months ago. I know I have "lost" photos that haven't made it here yet, and maybe I'll catch up some time.

Back at the beginning of September, Trevor's Civil Air Patrol squadron had its annual picnic at a local park.


It was a nice night, and the boys played soccer and football, and we had a potluck dinner.


Robert and I don't know a lot of the parents. We hung out with the one mom that we did know. Not a surprise, you know how unsocialized those homeschoolers are . . .


But seriously, it is a great group of young men from conservative families, including many homeschooled kids. For the most part, I don't believe any of the leaders have children in the program, but they are dedicated to the goals of CAP and continue to devote their time to this squadron. We are blessed to be a part of this group.

Blog musings

At the end of this month, my blog will be five years old. It's been such an amazing way to document our lives, post pictures for us to look back on, and share with family and friends just the day-to-day events, sometimes big, sometimes inconsequential. I never dreamed I would be able to do it for this long.

I've been contemplating why blogging just isn't grabbing me as much anymore. I want to do it, yet I am no longer feeling the pressure (good or bad) to make daily posts. As my kids get older, there are less "new" things. A day in the life of an 8 (or 12) year old changes more often than the day in the life of a 13 (or 17) year old. We are settled into longer, lasting routines. I'm enjoying every minute of it, but I don't feel the need to post every little bit of it either.

Oreo Brownie Bombs

Holly made these a few weeks ago. They were unique and AWESOME!

Oreo Brownie Bombs

1 box brownie mix for an 8x8 pan
24 oreos
1/2 c. creamy peanut butter (I'm sure chunky would be fine too)

1. Line a 12 cup muffin tin with paper liners.

2. Prepare brownie mix according to package directions. For each cupcake cup, spread 1 teaspoon of peanut butter over two oreo cookies and stack them on top of each other inside a muffin cup. Spoon 2 tablespoons of brownie batter over each set of stacked oreos and let it run down the sides of the cookies. Divide any leftover brownie batter into cups.

3. Bake at 350 for 20 minutes until brownies are cooked through. Let cool completely before serving.

Makes 12.

(Why don't I have a picture of these?)

Pumpkins

Robert's pumpkin came from the garden. I think we ended up with a pepper, a handful of tomatoes and a pumpkin.



Holly and Trevor waited until Monday to carve the others, while I was at work.

Holly's pumpkin

We watched the original Halloween movie with Jamie Lee Curtis. Haha!

Trevor's pumpkin

I'd asked Trevor to make me a puking pumpkin. We'd seen a similar one online last week, and I thought it was too cute!



We set the lit pumpkins out along the sidewalk to the house. We only had five trick or treaters, little kids, and I later realized we'd never turned the porch light on. :(

On the plus side, someone has to eat all that candy now. I think there are several of us here who are willing to make that sacrifice. For the good of the family, you know.