Reading. Little Stalker

I am definitely not allowed to call this 'chick lit'. According to author Jennifer Belle, that terms sets women back 200 years. So I won't. But it's hilariously funny and sadly moving with a unique, wry voice and centres around a neurotic 30-something single writer heroine who is obsessed with a movie director. I picked it up from the library today and I haven't regretted a word of it yet. I'll have to find Belle's previous two books now. For more, check out this interview with her. 

Thinking. A great read

I was lent Longing for More by Ruth Haley Barton a few weeks ago, but only really picked it up tonight. What a great book.

It talks a lot about her journey from growing up in a church with a very restrictive view of women's lives and her journey to finding a different view of the Scriptures leading her to more freedom in Christ for ministry using all the gifts God gave her.

There is also a whole chapter on telling the truth in relationships which is exactly what AP and I learned to do in the crisis days of our marriage. 'Tell the truth' has been our motto ever since.

Reading her book makes me think, "I'm not alone." It's nice to feel that.

Ruth Haley Barton has written the book I wanted to write, but I since she's done a much better job than I could ever have done, I'll just recommend it to everyone else.

Reading. Velvet pears

I picked up this luxurious tome at my friend's house and fell in love with the photography. It's the story of Susan Southam's garden, Foxglove Spires, in Victoria. She began it on an old dairy paddock and now has a lush idyllic piece of paradise.

Unfortunately, I just don't believe the text, which paints a picture of bountiful, organic and home-made country life, lived in dirt-free, dappled sunshine.

She gives an account of turning her daughters' cubby house into a laundry. She paints it out, installs quaint cupboards and some laundry-type accessories. Now she loves to do her ironing outside on the gravel path. She uses jasmine-scented laundry spray in summer, and rose-scented spray in winter.

Nowhere does it say how many trips she took to the hardware to get the right kind of fittings for the cupboards, nor how frustrated she was when the drill bits needed replacing and she screwed in the brackets the wrong way. She doesn't write about the paint spots that ended up being tracked into the house, nor how long she had to wait for the electrician to come and install power into said cubby house. She doesn't tell us how she trips as she carries out the ironing board, and how it never quite folds up properly, nor how the iron bruises her legs when it falls out of her hands as she's carrying the board and the iron together to save time. And what happened to all the piles of dirty washing that I collect on my laundry floor? Does she have washing fairies who launder and hang it out and then bring it to her to iron on her gravel path? And where does she store the extension cord for the darn iron anyway?

Either she's not telling the whole story, or she's incredibly uptight with so many things to do (and to do properly) or she's just an incredible woman who shouldn't write books because she makes other people feel like failures.

Or am I just a bit bitter and twisted?

Look at it for the photos.

Reading. The Office

Watching counts as reading in these multi-media times, so let me rave about The Office. I've been watching the second season of the american series with Steve Carell in the main role of office boss Michael Scott. He's painful, annoying and I wouldn't last 6 minutes in the room with him, but the show is fantastic.

My favourite love-to-hate character is Dwight K. Shrute, a power-hungry yes-man with no sense of humour and an amazing amount of pomposity.

A quote from Dwight: "I never smile if I can help it. Showing your teeth is a sign of submission for primates. When I see someone smiling, I don't see a person. I see a chimpanzee begging for its life!"

It's the back story and the relationships between the other actors which keep me enthralled. In a way Michael and Dwight are just there to bring those out into the open more.

I can't wait to get Season 3.

Reading. Must be tired.

The cute bookmobile comes around to Kangaroo Valley every fortnight, so I grabbed a few books today and settled down to read them tonight.

Unfortunately I found that I just didn't care about any of them. It wasn't that they were badly written (one was an Alexander McCall Smith), it's just that I was uninspired.

I must be tired.