Summer Reading

If you are looking for a good book to read this summer I highly recommend Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline. This read may not last you a long time though. I powered through this novel in merely 3 days after receiving it for my birthday.

hope it get adopted soon...

Being an immigrant myself I am a total sucker for any literature about immigration. This one hit the spot. Orphan Train is the story of a young Irish girl who loses her family in a fire shortly after her arrival at Ellis Island from Ireland in the 1929. I had never heard of this part of US history - about the many orphaned immigrant children who were sent from Eastcoast cities by train out West to be adopted, or  rather, as happened in many cases, to be enslaved by families in midwestern towns...

Baker Kline's gripping tale not only talks about the plight of the orphan children from long ago; she manages to intertwine their story with the plight of the modern day orphan child struggling to survive in the US fostercare system.

Other than some very negative portraits I have observed on various TV shows and the stories I have read in the newspapers, I really don't know much about the US fostercare system. There must be decent people out there who do take in orphaned children and do a good job of it one hopes... But from the depiction in Baker Kline's  novel one definitely gets the idea that a lot of children suffer from abuse and do not fare well in this system. I found the parallels to the orphan children from long ago quite astounding.

I hope you give this book a try. And as you read don't forget that somewhere down the line your folks came from another place. How often were your ancestors haunted by this question: What would my life have been like if I had stayed in my home country? I leave you with one of the many passage that touched me deeply...

"My parents left Ireland in hopes of a brighter future, all of us believing we were on our way to a land of plenty. As it happened, they failed in this new land, failed in just about every way possible. It may have been that they were weak people, ill suited for the rigors of emigration, it's humiliations and compromises, its competing demands of self-discipline and adventurousness....

In Kinvara, poor as we were, and unstable, we at least had family nearby, people who knew us. We shared traditions and a way of looking at the world. We didn't know until we left how much we took those things for granted." (page.32)

Thinking about Food Matters

I have been thinking a lot about food lately. This time of year I miss a lot of the special foods from Germany. But then again, I think it's just well I can't have them. German Christmas treats aren't exactly healthy. Still, I can't help but feel I ate much healthier food when I lived in the Vaterland.

Needless to say, I was a bit shocked when I came back from my trip to Germany this summer, and hopped on the scales. REALLY. I had gained 8 pounds in less than two weeks? That's crazy. Is there something wrong with my memory? Or was it just that everybody fed me sweets and cakes when I came to visit because they missed me so much?

I have worked really hard since June to get rid of the extra pounds. When I need a break from sewing I go to the gym. I try to go a minimum of 3 times a week. I am proud to say I can withstand an hour of torture on the elliptical machine these days. Don't even feel winded afterwords. Still, I have not been able to shed all the extra pounds. I hover around the same weight. And it's driving me nuts. What is it with your body not cooperating any more once you hit 40? What happened to the good times? I can't even have a glass of wine any more without waking up the next morning with a bad headache.

So I went to the library to check out some books on nutrition and dieting. It's not that I am overweight. People who know me laugh at me when I say I need to lose weight. Why you? You are skinny. That is nuts. I just don't like the lack of energy. I don't enjoy feeling tired all the time.

Why not try a new approach? I stumbled upon Mark Bittman's book Food Matters and I have decided that it's perfect for me. It expresses a lot of the thoughts and emotions I have had around food and eating. From the day I moved to the US I have struggled to adjust to the different diet. I guess what I miss mostly from home is bread. In Germany it was one of my main food staples. You know, the daily bread thing goes a long way when you are a poor student in Berlin. But here? If I want to buy a decent loaf of bread I have to drive 50 miles and spend oodles of money. I highly recommend the Prussian Rye at Whole Foods Market! It comes closest to what people eat in Germany.

The first couple of years I tried to bake my own bread. Unfortunately it didn't go so well. I found high altitude baking in Colorado very challenging. I finally gave up and resigned myself to the stuff they call bread in the grocery stores here. It has about 5 million ingredients, including sugar and preservatives. Even the supposedly "healthy" overpriced loaves are full of sugar and sweeteners.

But like I said, I am tired of feeling tired, and I am ready to try Mark Bittman's approach. I want to cut out as many highly processed foods, white sugar, and as much meat as I can. Maybe I'll  even give baking my own bread another try. Just hope hubby won't suggest burning it in the woodstove again. That's what happened to that last German-style sourdough bread I baked years ago.

Today is the Day!

Today is the day I am leaving for Germany. My heart is pounding. I could barely sleep last night. Flying, I have to admit,  is not my favorite form of transportation. My personal favorite is the train. Hope I get to ride the trains in Germany and one of them will take me to Berlin...

If you want to teach your kids about Germany I wanted to recommend Jean Blashfield's new book on Germany to you.

It just so happens that our daughter is doing her country report for sixth grade about Germany. This book is written for kids between 8-12 years of age. It covers lots of topics such as history, economy, government, sights, and food. It was the best book I found at the library.

You can tell that the author put a lot of love and research into this project.

Check it out!

Not sure if I will have time and a computer to post while traveling. But I did leave a couple of recipes on the blog to post while I am gone. Hope you enjoy them!

Book Review: A Magical Book For You

Have you seen this book?

This book was recommended to me by my friend Linda Dawkins. I am ever so grateful to her for telling me about it. It is a really wonderful book when you are feeling down in the dumps and very negative about the world.

It's a type of self-help book. I am usually not so much into those and find them kind of cheesey. 

But this book was somehow different and drew me in when I started reading it. It just seemed to make so much sense. One could say the main motto of this book is:

Stop saying the cup is half empty! Look at what you have in your cup right now and be thankful!

The book is organized around a bible verse which is complimented by quotes by famous writers and thinkers.  Rhonda Byrne argues in this book that the main reason people are unhappy in this life is that they lack gratefulness for all the good things they have received. But even more so, Byrne says that the less gratitude we show the less good things we will receive. We are sort of stuck in this vicious cycle of negativity that can only lead to more rather negative things happening to us. It's almost like a magnet.

At first I was very dubious about the book. Being more of a rational human being, a German headperson, I thought some of the exercises that were suggested to me were rather silly. For example, the author suggests that you go outside, pick up a rock, and talk to it every night, telling it about the best thing that happened to you that day.

Hmm, seems a tad strange. But if you are not into rocks there is so much truth and wisdom in Rhonda's book. The author says that we spend so much time thinking negative thoughts and focusing on all the negative aspects in our life that we become blind to the good things we have.

I did not do the rock exercise but I followed the author's other advice. I started making lists of all the good things I have received. I also started to be more grateful and express gratitude to people around me.

 And guess what?

The Magic does work!

One of my favorite quotes from the book was by Buddha:

Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn't learn a lot today, at least we learned a little,  and if we didn't learn a little, at least we didn't get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn't die; so, let us all be thankful.

I hope you get a chance to read this book and find the magic. I promise it will change your life - even if you don't believe in that sort of stuff. =)

What are you reading? A Thousand Splendid Suns!

It's been a while since a book took hold of me completely. In a different life, before I had children, I used to be an avid reader. These days I am lucky if I can manage to get through ten pages before I fall asleep at 9pm on a weekday night. The other day, I came across the book A Thousand Splendid Suns, by Khaled Hosseini. I admit, I have never read The Kite Runner - Hosseinis other famous book turned into a movie. A little while ago, it seemed, everybody was talking about it: parents at school, people at church, friends and relatives, every reading group in town was discussing it. Except for me. I don't really know why I avoided it.

My husband is an English teacher, so he often leaves "a book or two" around the house. This week I stumbled upon A Thousand Splendid Suns laying on the sofa and started reading it. I could not put it down all afternoon - only stopping for brief periods, when the kids came home from school, or when it was time to cook dinner and set the dinner table. I read until late into the night. I just had to finish it.

A Thousand Splendid Suns tells the story of two Afghan women, during the tomoultous times of Russian occupation and the taliban regime, from the 1960s through 2003.

I guess part of the reason this book totally drew me in, is the fact that I grew up in a very disfunctional household myself, and I could relate to the story on a very personal level...Maybe someday I'll be able to write about it. The harsh images of of physical and emotional abuse described in the novel are certainly not for the faint of heart.

Besides being a great book to learn about recent Afghan history, I recommend this book as a great story of survival. Time magazine's Lev Grossman praised it as a "dense, rich, pressure-packed guide to enduring the unendurable." I couldn't have said it any better. Some passages are hard to get through. The kind of hurt that human beings are capable of doing to one another seems unbelievable. In the end the lesson learned to me is, that it does not matter where you live on this planet, you can find abusive husbands and wicked people in any nation under the sun.
Yet in the harshest of circumstances we must keep our chin up and fight for our happiness. Having a good friend by your side is crucial for survival.
Once we get past all the horrors described, we find that the book is a really a celebration of life. Life - in it's most basic form! Don't you ever forget to cherish the simple things: the splendid sunrise over the city, a cup of tea shared with a friend, or the mere fact that you are able to take a breath! Then get up and walk away from the abuse!

Books on Blogging...

Do blogs have birthdays? It's been two years since I started this project. I am not sure whether to celebrate or feel sad. I really feel so inadequate at blogging. In fact, so much so that I went to the library the other day to check out some books on blogging. See picture for the titles I found.

After two years I still don't have a clue how to do many things. I wish I could afford some expert help to spruce things up around here. Then I started reading Blog Schmog by Robert W. Bly, one of the library books mentioned before. Reading the first chapter it's pretty obvious that the man does not think very highly of bloggers. According to Mr. Bly the majority of bloggers are people who don't know how to spell, punctuate a sentence (very true for me =), and the content of most blogs is banal and downright silly. I could go on with his list of put-downs. Wow! That guy really hates bloggers, and his book depressed me.

Funny though that he has a blog of his own and invites readers to comment on it. Should I pay his blog a visit? I am sure his blog is perfection.

Does my blog suck that much? Is it worth the time and energy I have been putting into it?

Luckily I found some other books on the subject that were more positive and hopeful in their outlook. For example, Blogging for Bliss by Tara Frey looks like a fun book. Do you know of any books that helped you along the way? I admit that my biggest challenge when it comes to blogging is the technology part. How does one become an expert and still have time to be a mom and wife, make great dolls, plus run a business and household?

Treasure from the Thriftstore or My Best Chrismas Present

I got this really cool set of books from my husband for Christmas. He had wrapped up two books from the Life Time books series titled "The Art of Sewing". He said he didn't want to wrap all of them. Too much work, you know. But he had hidden "a few more" under his desk in our basement.

All in all I found 13 from the set. It took a couple of days to pry out the information of where he found them: At the local thriftstore. Does your spouse shop for your Christmas presents at Salvation Army? If not you may want to give him a hint. LOL

I love the set! Though I did not get the complete set and at first glance the book content doesn't appear organized and thourough enough to the German reader, I found the books quite entertaining. The series was published in the early 7os. Totally retro! Even if you don't care about sewing but love James Bond movies, you would enjoy this set. Psychadelic pictures of clothing will dazzle you, and every outfit James and his mistresses ever wore in the 70s movies are pictured in the books.

I am not sure about the quality of the sewing tips. The writing appeared to be a bit on the superficial side at first glance. But who cares? Each hardcover volume is beautifully bound in a different fabric. From fine silk to chunky corduroy. My husband loved the thick bright red corduroy one. I am kind of partial towards the pink butterfly book with the title "The Personal Touch".

Unfortunately my set was not quite complete. An internet search for a complete list of titles showed that there are 17 volumes in all in this series. I found that I am missing smashing titles such as

"Exotic Style"

"Novel Materials"

"Boutique Attire"

and "The Master Index" to the series.

Luckily I was able to find and order the missing books. I can't wait to see them in person.