Book Review: Neverwhere

This book was first publisher.   It's a fantasy novel.  I usually read fantasy, but this is the first time I've read any novel by Neil Gaiman.  It won't be the last.  He weaves a wonderful, believable tale.  Neverwhere was also a television show produced by the BBC in 1996.

Richard Mayhew is a stock broker living in London.  He lives an enviable life, rising quickly through the ranks of his stock firm.  He has a beautiful girlfriend named Jessica, and they are engaged.  Jessica works for a high powered firm and is on the fast track for promotion and power.


That all changes one strange night.  A strange girl literally drops out of a door from the middle of nowhere.  She is covered in blood and unconscious.  Against the will of his girlfriend, Richard stops to help this strange girl and finds himself in the middle of a strange and unusual world.

Two strange men appear at his door the next morning, searching for the girl, whose name is Door.  When they entered the room where she had been hiding, the found nothing.  As he tries to help her find her way home, he finds himself in a strange part of London where he had never been before, speaking to strange people that he had never before noticed.

When Monday morning arrives, Richard finds that he is no longer visible. He could not be seen by anyone, and he could not be heard by anyone.   Tracking down the strange young woman he had helped the night before, Richard discovers the strange world known as London Below - a place where lost people who fall through the cracks end up.

As Richard begins his quest he joins forces with Anesthesia, Hunter, Door and the Marquis as they journey through London Below to find The Key that will unlock their destiny.

But will the key be the solution that they expect?

Lemon Cake

I made this for daughter's birthday last week!  It was much better than I was expecting!  Surprisingly, the biggest expense in this dish wasn't the lemons.  When I took my cruise past the discount produce shelves at the grocery store, I found a bag of six lemons for $1.50.  Well hello!  With those lemons, I was able to make a delightful cake!

Lemon Cake Recipe

2 cups Bob's Red Mill One to One Gluten Free Flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup Earth Balance butter
1 1/4 cups white sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup coconut milk
zest of 1 lemon
1/4 cup lemon juice

Glaze
1 lemon, cut into thin slices & seeded
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup water

Oven 350*

Mix dry ingredients.

In a separate bowl, cream together the butter and the sugar.  Beat in the eggs and the vanilla.  Add the lemon juice and zest.  Alternate adding the flour and the milk into the batter, stirring until just blended together.

Pour the batter into a prepared cake pan.

Bake in a 350* oven for 30-35 minutes.

While the cake is baking in the oven, bring the water, sugar, and lemon slices to a boil and simmer for 30 minutes.  Remove the lemon slices from the water with a slotted spoon, and place on a wax paper lined cookie sheet.

Remove the cake from the oven, poke the cake all over with a toothpick,  and pour the syrup mixture evenly over the cake.

We topped the cake with powdered sugar and the lemon slices.

You can top it with icing, or leave it plain.

NoSpenduary - Week Two

Things We Did to Save Money This Week-

I am working on cleaning through the freezers and pantry.  My goal is to eat through a good chunk of what's in there so that we can get rid of one of the two freezers.  After all, my in-laws left one of the freezers here when we bought the house.  It's over 40 years old.  You can't convince me that it's not eating more energy than it's worth! Sooooo.... this leads to item number one:

1) The big, old freezer has been filled with everything from the chest freezer.  The chest freezer is unplugged, and being defrosted.  Once all of the ice on the sides is melted off, I'll clean it completely out and shift everything back over to the chest freezer.

2) I turned the ceiling fan switches to "winter" mode.  They run backwards, pulling the warm air down from the ceiling and back down to the floor - where we need it!

3) I finally went grocery shopping this week.  I haven't been since before Christmas.  But, we had finally run through the last of the fresh produce in the house, so I made a quick stop at a couple of places to pick up a few things.  I went to two year round farm stands in addition to the grocery store.  At the first farm, I picked up a 50 pound bag of potatoes and a 20 pound bag of onions, and some lettuce.   I also got several bags of their "save these veggies".  These are bags of veggies that are not perfect, and could turn soon, but are awesome if they hit a soup pot in the next couple of days.  At the second farm, I picked up a box of produce and some eggs.   At the grocery store, I  picked up the staples I didn't already have on hand:  carrots, oatmeal, sugar, coconut milk, etc.

4) I made cakes for the kids' birthday celebrations - sorta.  Daughter had a lemon cake.  I'll share the recipe here later this week.  It took surprisingly few ingredients.  Even better, you couldn't tell that it was gluten and dairy free!  For middle child's birthday, I was working.  His sister made him a cookie cake.  She made a batch of chocolate chip cookie dough, and then spread it out on a pizza stone, leaving about a half inch around the edge.  Her masterpiece was gluten and dairy full, so I did not get a taste of it.  However, since it disappeared within a day, I'm assuming that it was acceptable! 



Dinner-

Teriyaki Chicken
So, this is a freezer meal that's been sitting in the big freezer downstairs for way too long.  I pulled this out, thawed it out and tossed it into the crock pot before I left for work.  We had A LOT of chicken left over.  (This really isn't one of my favorite recipes.  I think that this is why I've had a couple of the pre-made bags laying around the freezer for so long.)

Chicken Wild- Rice Casserole
I found this recipe HERE on The Kitchn's website.  This IS one of my favorite recipes!  It is traditionally a freezer meal, but we can never keep it in the freezer for long if we know it's there.  We really, really like this recipe!  I swapped in the leftover Teriyaki Chicken in place of the raw chicken the recipe calls for.  I also used one of the way too many boxes of Long Grain and Wild Rice that I have sitting in the kitchen cabinet!

Taco Night
 aka Taco Tuesday!  I made 2 huge messes of taco meat, one with real meat and one with fake meat.  I served it along with Corn, Refried Beans, and Spanish Rice.  We ate a lot of it, but not all of it. It was messy and wonderful!  I saved the leftovers to use another night.  (This was dinner on middle child's birthday!)

Taco Salad
Combined with lettuce and a bag of Fritos, all of the taco leftovers make one of the best salads known to our family.  Seriously, it's an easy meal, and picky eaters love it.  (Heck, even I eat it willingly, and I'm not known to love salads!)

Baked Acorn Squash stuffed with Quinoa
I had picked up two big bushels of winter squash for $30 back in the fall.  These hardy winter stalwarts last for a long time, but they do need to be eaten!  Tender acorn squash are sliced crosswise into rounds, and filled with a vegetable quinoa stuffing.  It's filling, healthy, and a great way to warm up the house on a cold winter's evening!  You can find the recipe here:  Baked Acorn Squash.
(I made this for daughter's birthday.  It's one of her favorites!)

Bean Soup
Made with a pound of dried beans.

Baked Beans
I took the leftover bean soup, poured it into a casserole pan, and then drizzled molasses over the top.  Baked at 350* for an hour, I thought it was pretty good!

Monday Musings

It's been a fun week!  Daughter and Middle Child had their birthdays this week!  When on earth did I get old enough to have children who are 20 and 22 years old?  How did that happen?

It's Unfortunate
Do you subscribe to Netflix?  They uploaded A Series of Unfortunate Events over the weekend.  The books were a huge hit when my kids were in elementary school.  We even went to a talk given by Lemony Snicket's personal representative.  It was awesome!  The books seem to have died down in popularity over the past few years, but then Netflix uploaded the series.  Neil Patrick Harris is absolutely phenomenal as Count Olaf, and the series follows to close to the books, it makes me very happy!

Non-Event
Friday night, many of the forecasters in the Mid-Atlantic region were calling for massive snow and ice on Saturday - with snow amounting to one inch.  Yes, you read that right - one inch.  Ice up to 1/10th of an inch.   Hmmm... I know there was more snow and ice south of us, but the weather was not looking bad for us.  On my way home from work Friday night, I heard that our school system had already cancelled all activities for Saturday.  The library closed for Saturday.  (Not MY library, I work in another county.)  I stopped at the grocery store on my way home for a bunch of green onions and was blown away by the number of people in the store, stocking up on groceries as if we were expecting to be snowed in for a month.  (I decided I didn't really need the green onions after all and went straight home.)  So, how much snow and ice did we get?  Well, I went to work on time on Saturday morning.  We had no ice or snow.  I looked outside a couple of times and saw snow flurries, but nothing ever stuck to the ground.

ALA Youth Media Awards
So, what are these awards?  I'm sure you've heard of the Caldecott, Newberry, Coretta Scott King, and Pura Bel Pre awards for books?  These books are named as the best in their field for that publishing year.  The awards will be announced next Monday, Jan. 23.  I'll be watching the live feed online at 7:30 in my pajamas!  I can't wait to see who the big winners are!  Are you curious to find out more?  The list of awards being given out can be seen here: http://www.ilovelibraries.org/booklovers/youth-media-awards.  I hope you are just as excited as I am to see who gets honored!

Finishing a Quilt

Years ago, when my husband graduated from college, his mother made him a quilt.  Not just any quilt, this was made from 5" squares cut from his old pairs of blue jeans. Tied with blue yarn, and lined on the back with flannel, this toasty warm quilt has always been our favorite.  This was the only quilt he took to college with him, and once we were married, it has always been on our bed. 

Alas, 30 years has taken it's toll on the quilt.  The back tore, and the batting began to fall out.  The back tore some more, and more lining fell out.  Last year, I finally bit the bullet and tore off the remains of the batting and backing.  I picked up a new backing - in the form of a flat sheet at Target, and more batting.

I spent a quick hour on the floor of the church, pinning the layers of the quilt together. 

And now, the time consuming part.  Tying a quilt goes faster than hand quilting, but it's still a time consuming proposition.  The yarn has to be cut, and each tie needs to be hand tied.  I am putting the new ties in the same spots that my Mother in Law had placed them.  Originally, I was attempting to tie the knots in the same direction, but I gave that up as a lost cause after 50 knots.  That was just too much detail work for me.

I began working on tying the quilt before Christmas, but I stopped about a week before and put it away for a while.  I pulled it back out again last night and started on it again.  I'm about a quarter of the way through re-tying it now. I'd like to think that I'll have this finished before the end of January so that I can start on daughter's quilt while it's still cold out and I don't mind having a ton of fabric on my lap!

Pre-Cut yarn, the needle and the quilt.

Getting ready to run the needle into the middle of the square.

One more knot!

Another one done - so much more to go!

Tales from the Classroom

I originally posted this in December of 2013.  Enjoy this trip down memory lane!

Years ago, when I was a full time teacher, I had a situation going on in my classroom.  (It was third grade.)

There was a young woman in my class named, shall we say, Jamie.

Another young man, named, shall we say, Jeff, had a mad crush on Jamie.



I was working at the table with a reading group when I noticed Jeff intently scribbling away on a piece of paper.   This level of passion regarding his work was unusual for him, so I watched the proceedings with curiosity.

Jeff put his pencil down, folded it up into a paper football shape, and wafted it across the classroom in Jamie's direction.

Unfortunately, the football missed Jamie entirely and bonked Michael in the head.  Michael (a very tough kid), scooped up the football, opened the note, and read it.

In the blink of an eye, he was on his feet, waving the note around, shouting at the top of his lungs:  "I am not that kind of a guy!  Who sent this?  Who is this from?  I'll meet you out behind the cafeteria at lunch time!  Who did this?"

I looked over at Jeff, who at this point, had sunk so low in his chair you could only see the top of his head. 

I grabbed the note from Michael, and sent him down the hall for a drink of water.

Reading the note I see the words:  "I love you.  You are so beautiful! I will always love you!  You are the only person for me!"

When I took the kids down to lunch, I let the rest of the class go into the cafeteria, and I pulled Jeff aside.

"I wouldn't mention this if I were you."  I told him.  "I wouldn't sit near either him or Jaime at lunch today.  We'll keep the author of that little note a secret just between us."

He nodded his head. 

Ah.... young love. 

To this day, the memory of Michael, standing there, waving that paper around and screaming for vengeance, and the look of sheer horror on Jeff's face takes me back 20 years and makes me smile...

Urbana Library

I was roaming around Frederick County last week, and I decided to stop by the Urbana Library.  Built in a new part of Urbana in the middle of a planned neighborhood - adjacent to the grocery store and other shopping, the Urbana Library is strategically located in the middle of a thriving and rapidly growing area. 

I always love driving up to the front of this building.  It's such an impressive place!  (I park in the back, but the front makes such a dramatic statement, doesn't it?)

Once I wend my way around to the back, this is the entrance that I use.  The Senior Center is on the lower level, and the library occupies the top two floors of the building.  Do you see that glass enclosed space on the levels above the entrance?  Those are a couple of unique spaces that the library has put to excellent use!

I'm sorry the picture is blurry.  I didn't realize just how blurry they were until after I got home.  

The first floor houses the children's collection.  If you enter from the back, you walk up a set of stairs and enter just off to the side here.  If you enter from the grand front entrance, this is where you come in.  I love the big windows!  Everywhere you look, the space is light, bright, and airy!

Above and below, more of the children's section.  Don't you love the beautiful frosty winter village on the bookshelves? 

Do you remember the glassed in area over the entry on the back side of the building?  This is that area on the first floor.  It is designed with the kids in mind!  2 train tables, a puppet theater, and filled with hands on toys (currently residing on the shelves, as there were no children hanging around at 1:00 in the afternoon!)  I can just imagine this space full of kids and parents, talking, playing, and having some quality time together. 

Both of these pictures were taken on the first floor in the chapter books.  I don't know if you can tell from this picture, but the check out/reference desk is just on the other side of that book shelf that's facing directly towards me in the picture.

Take a look at the picture below.... I took it from the landing at the top of the second floor.  You can see the puppet theater for the children in the middle, and the doors for the back entrance at the bottom.  I really like how the central atrium has been left open to allow light through to all levels of the building.

Looking around the second floor, I found the Young Adult (YA) books as well as the adult books, a meeting room, and the public computers.  It's a grand space, with lots of quiet nooks and crannies for spreading out and getting some work done!

This pathway through the book shelves leads to this wonderful quiet study spot.  (Below)

Here's the YA section!  I adore the origami paper stars above the bookshelves!  They look so festive!

Do you see that glassed in wall back behind the book shelves?  There's an area back there for groups to work and talk, as well as a couple of public access computers. 

I found this beautiful wreath on an office door!  Gorgeous, isn't it?

This picture is taken at the far end of the second floor, next to the large, boxed in window area over the back entrance.  You're looking at the adult fiction collection.  The shelves along the atrium walls house the books on CD's and Playaways.

This has always been one of my favorite library spaces!  Filled with big, comfortable arm chairs and low tables, this area invites you to sit down and stay for a while.  (So I did!)

The book tree!

Walking away from the window and back towards the stair well, you come to the public access computers.  There's a meeting space/classroom off to the right, just past the computers.  Unfortunately, I couldn't take bigger pictures of this area, as the rest of the computers were filled with people on the computers - and I most certainly don't have permission to post their faces on the internet.  Trust me, it's a beautiful space.  If you're in the area, stop by and check it out!

Again, this is the view through the atrium.  This is from the other end of the atrium, looking towards the stairs and the grand entrance in the front.   The picture below, I took at the ground level, looking up towards the top of the atrium as I was walking out towards the back doors.

The welcoming crew as you walk in through the big front doors!

Frederick County Public Library Website: http://www.fcpl.org/

The Urbana Regional Library: http://www.fcpl.org/branches-hours/urbana-regional-library