Category Archives: Bookish Wishlist

December 27, 2011 · 10:56 am

Instead of Top Ten Tuesday…

Hey everybody! So normally I do the Top Ten Tuesday meme, but I feel like the topic (top ten favorite reads of this year) is kind of stepping on the toes of the Bookish End of Year Survey I plan on posting Saturday. Because I’m a freak and feel like I can’t post an accurate end-of-year post until it is ACTUALLY the end of the year. So on Saturday I’ll be doing a Bookish End of Year Survey, and on Sunday I’ll be doing a Sarah Year in Review type post, which will be more personal reflections on the past year.

Anyhoo, so instead of TTT today I’m going to share with you ten of the AWESOME gifts I received for Christmas this year, many of them bookish.

 

 

1. From the honeyman: Claire’s bracelet - So, for every year that we have been together, the honeyman has gotten me a piece of Outlander jewelry from theauthorsattic.com, and this year it was a bangle bracelet with Claire’s wedding ring pattern on it. I loooove it! I grabbed the close-up picture from the actual website so that you could see the pattern clearer, and if you click on that picture it should take you to the website, which is awesome. (P.S. Thank you honeyman <3)

 

2. From the honeyman: BOOKS! - He also gave me Diana Gabaldon’s newest book The Scottish Prisoner, which is a book that is half Lord John’s story and half Jamie’s story (from Outlander). I started it last night, I can’t wait to really dive in to it! He also bought me The Hunger Games Companion book, which I’m super excited to read just in time for the movie coming out in March. (And kudos babe, for being the only one to buy me actual books. That’s why I adore you.)

3. From the honeyman, friends, family, and a co-worker: gift cards! - So, I love gift cards. I know a lot of people feel like gift cards are just kind of a cop-out, but I think they’re great. So as you can see, I have some book shopping to do! I’m actually going to B&N today with a friend to pick out some books and use up my gift cards, plus I can get coffee at Dunkin Donuts while we’re in the mall. And I already have stuff picked out to use my Amazon gift card on – I’m just waiting until payday so I can add to it and put in one nice big order :-)

4. From my big sister Heather: A library embosser! - Do you see the awesomeness?! I can literally emboss the front pages in all of my books with “LIBRARY OF SARAH M *****” Sorry, but I don’t really want to share my last name with ya’ll. But isn’t it so cool? Sometime in January I plan on going through ALL of my books, scanning them into the book catalogue on my phone, and embossing the books I’m sure I’ll always want forever. I can’t wait! Well done, sis.

 

5. From my mommy: awesome Lane Bryant shirt! - I looooove this shirt! I showed it to my mom when she visited me while I was working and I went on and on about how cute it was, so she got it for me :-) Hmmmm… I think I may even wear it today. There’s also a cream & maroon one that I’m going to get.

 

6. From the honeyman: A SEWING MACHINE! – This was my “big” present on my Christmas list, and the honeyman picked out an awesome one for me! I don’t know how to use it yet, but I can’t wait to sit down for a whole day and just figure it out. I’m so excited!!!! I have been wanting to make a long corduroy -patch skirt for ages, but didn’t want to attempt it until I had a sewing machine. Yayyyyy!!!!!!!

 

7. From the honeyman: A wok! - I have been wanting a wok FOR-EV-ER! The awesome thing about a wok is that you can use it to make basically anything in. I plan on making pierogies in this baby ASAP.

8. From the honeyman: CD’s! – Yup, that’s right, I still like to own CD’s. I have been dyyyyying for the Wicked CD. I have the whole soundtrack on the computer already, but I wanted the real physical CD to listen to in the kitchen. And I had that Our Lady Peace CD ages ago but the case is empty and I really missed it, and I love the Jason Mraz CD that I already have, so I hope this one is just as good.

9. From the little brother EJ and the honeyman: DVD’s! – Have you seen The Proposal yet? Cause it is freaking hysterical, one of the best romantic comedies I’ve seen in ages. And I could have sworn I owned The Wizard of Oz on DVD like 5 years ago, but it’s been missing (and I actually received two copies for Christmas, and I’m keeping them both just in case I lose one again, lol.) And Pushing Daisies was a great show – sadly season 2 was the last season, but at least now I have it and can re-watch the adorableness.

10. From Heather: Wine & “bookish” necklace! – Heather also gave me a bottle of my new favorite wine, with a little metal-stamped necklace that says ‘bookish’. So cute! And my goodness Relax Riesling is my new favorite wine (and the first grown-up wine I’ve ever really liked, lol).

11. From a friend: Cute striped shirt! – So, this sweater is ADORABLE. This is a terrible picture of it, but it’s black with stripes, and the stripes are like pastel-rainbow colors. And there’s two square pockets on the front, and yeah it’s awesome.

 

Apparently I just couldn’t stop at 10, lol. And I got a bunch more awesome stuff too – gaming dice, cell phone covers for my Droid 3, scarves, bath stuff, Christmas serving dishes, etc. etc.

Also, I have to finally say that I was SUPER excited for some of the gifts I gave to people this year. For my honeyman, I basically got a bunch of survival type gear – a big army bag, a tin with waterproof matches / fishing line / iodine tablets / compass, etc, more water purification tablets, a big hunting knife, a handcrank solar lantern, etc. I was soooo excited, and he seemed pretty surprised with it all. It was definitely fun picking out stuff that would fit that theme. And of course, I got him some video games that I knew he was dying to play so he was glad about those too.

For my sister Heather, I got her a Harry Potter mug – it says “I solemnly swear that I am up to no good”, but when you pour hot liquid in it, it says “Mischief Managed”. Ironically, I got this for her when she repinned it on Pinterest, and she got the library embosser for me when I repinned it on Pinterest. LOL! So YAY for Pinterest for helping to find awesome gifts!

So all in all, Christmas was great. EJ and I went over to my dad’s the night of Christmas Eve and played pool and ate food. It was an okay night, although I was exhausted afterwards. I had to go to work like 4 hours later, and Christmas Day at work was okay. I relaxed, the honeyman visited me (we ate breakfast together and shared some hot chocolate), and I finished season 6 of How I Met Your Mother. I came home and got in my Christmas PJ’s and we opened presents together, which was so fun and wonderful. Then we relaxed for a bit and went out to visit his family. His mom made us chicken lasagna, which was yummy. I was SO TIRED when we got home and fell asleep almost immediately. And yesterday we both had the day off, so we lounged around the house and then went to my mom’s for my family’s Christmas get-together. We ate and all hung out and exchanged presents and it was fun. Plus, I got to see all of my nephews and niece, including L who is HUUUGE. He’s only 5 months old but man that little man is chunky. His ELBOWS are fat! ELBOWS! I love it, lol.

I love Christmas-time. The lights and decorations, the food, the visiting family and friends, the cheesy movies and the general cheerfulness. But now it’s back to the real world… the honeyman is back at work, and I am going to go book shopping and then it’s game night tonight.

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday! What did you get for Christmas?

~Sarah

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December 17, 2011 · 11:40 am

Practical Jean by Trevor Cole

Ohhh man, I’m excited to write this review. I hope I make sense…

So, Practical Jean is a novel about Jean Vale Horemarsh, a middle-aged woman in a small town. She’s got a nice quiet life – she makes and sells ceramics, she has a nice ordinary husband, and she has a nice circle of close girl friends. After watching her mother die of a devastating cancer, Jean comes to an epiphany – no one deserves a long, painful, drawn-out death by old age or illness. And so Jean comes up with a plan, to save all of her closest friends this terrible ending – she’ll give them one last moment of beauty and happiness, and then kill them.

This book is so twisted… in such a good way. I completely sympathized with Jean (before she goes all kill-y). I’ve been watching my grandmother VERY SLOWLY deteriorate ever since she had two strokes four years ago. She’s 92 now – because of the strokes, her walking is terrible and she has trouble talking. She really just watches tv all day. And she was just diagnosed with pancreatic cancer over the summer. I love my grandma – we were really close as I grew up – but I cannot imagine a more horrible life. I’ve developed a serious fear of getting old and invalid. So I COMPLETELY UNDERSTAND when Jean realizes that no one should have to suffer through old age and terminal illnesses like that. Death really does seem like the kinder option at some point. HOWEVER, Jean then goes off the deep end and decides that she should just start killing off her friends. That’s kind of a no-no.

As Jean goes about trying to decide how to go through with her plan (and which friend is nicest and therefore should be the first), you become more intimately acquainted with her friends and actually grow to kind of like them. Also, everyone had a unique personality, even if they weren’t actually in the story very often. Hell, I actually liked Jean herself. Even though she went off the deep end, she was never a boring character. She was sweet and a bit of a dreamer, but she also had a practical streak. At one point in the book she goes on a bit of a feminist rant about how any time a woman is anything other than nurturing or submissive, she’s described by men as “hard” and I loved that! The writing was precise and vivid – I read this book pretty quickly. There were a lot of surprising, hand-over-my-mouth kind of moments.

Anyways, this book was great. Weird, but great. It’s definitely a dark, dark humor novel, but centered around really serious moral and philosophical issues. It explores death, old age, kindness, practicality, friendship, life…  I’m definitely looking forward to checking out more from this author.

Sarah Says: 5 stars

 

… I also have to say something about this… maybe someone more familiar with publishing companies can shed some light on it for me. Some Harper Perennial books are these “P.S” editions – notice the little P.S. mark in the bottom right-hand corner of the book. That means that there’s cool stuff in the back – an author interview, cool tidbits, and the author’s reading recommendations. I recently read Domestic Violets by Matthew Norman, which was also a P.S. book and really liked it. I’m wondering if there’s a way to specifically search out books with this P.S. stuff in the back?  It seems that I like the books that feature it, and I’d like to read more like these.

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September 14, 2011 · 4:09 pm

My Wicked Wishlist

Hey ya’ll! So as you may have noticed lately, I have totally fallen in love with Gregory Maguire’s book Wicked, and I’ve been listening to the musical soundtrack on the constant and MAN do I want to see the play in RL but it’s not coming to my area this year.

Anyways, I have been browsing the internet and there a ton of Wicked-based things that I’m tempted to blow all my over-time money on right away. Instead, I’m trying to restrain myself by just sharing some of the awesome things that I want with you guys :-) So oooo and ahhhh with me, kay?

I love mugs, and I’m itching for a new one. And this Wicked mug would be perrrrfect! Basically though, I want all of the souvenirs, apparel, and jewelry from The OzDust Boutique.

So after looking around at the Wicked official store, I decided to poke around Etsy and one of the first things that came up was this book-purse! I have this pretty B&N copy of the book, and I would LOOOVVVVEEEE to have this purse, at least to use during fall. But it’s $45 which I’m having a hard time telling myself is a reasonable amount to spend on a purse, even such a cool one.

This is a pendant necklace made out a Scrabble tile. My sister Heather actually makes these, so mayyyybe she’ll surprise me with a Wicked one! *hint hint sis*

This is acually more Wizard of Oz themed, but I’ve always loved that movie and I was SO JEALOUS of a girl in middle school who actually had replicas of the ruby slippers. I want the ruby slippers! But I’d settle for this necklace ;-)

This would be SUCH COOL wall art for the spare bedroom that houses all of my books. It doesn’t come with the frame, but that could be easily remedied.

I love magnets! Although I wouldn’t use all of the ones in this bunch – I’ve gotten so used to listening to Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth and it bugs me to see other people playing Elphie & Glinda. I know, I know that’s just how plays are but still.

Anyways, that’s all I have for the moment. But I had so much fun shopping around the internet and making this list, I might make some future wishlist posts… like an Outlander wishlist, or other ones I can think of…. Hmmmmm….

~Sarah

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