Go The F*#% To Sleep!

I know. Shocking blog title isn't it? Sorry about that.

I heard about this bedtime story book Go the F**k To Sleep on last night's ABC Nightline segment {click to see the video} and just knew I had to talk about it.

Meant to be strictly an entertainment outlet for frustrated parents, it actually started as a joke on the author's Facebook page after dealing with his own daughter's bedtime issues. He made a personal video spoof of a fictional book that went viral in record time and prompted the writing of the actual book that is flying off the shelves and being talked about all across the net.

Although written in the style and rhyming tone of a typical child's storybook, including illustrations, the author deems this book as a 'children's book for adults' and says that "you probably should not read it to your children."

"The cats nestle close to their kittens. The lambs have laid down with the sheep. You're cozy and warm in your bed, my dear. Please go the f#@ to sleep."

Okay. I see the humor of it, and in a way I can certainly get it. I was lucky. My son was, and well, in truth, still is, a good sleeper - when he can squeeze it in with work, school, hobbies, and his own two young children. I do know how frustrating being a new parent can be - and that is especially true sometimes when bedtime rolls around. All you want to do is get those little angels to bed and have a little me or we time, right? A little humor couldn't hurt. Or could it?

We have become a potty-mouth society without barely a blink of an eye these days, that is true, and I say that as a collective "we." Words my parents would never consider using are now commonplace, but... is this going just a little too far? What do you think? Funny? Or just downright vulgar?

If you think it's the greatest thing since sliced bread, all I can say is just be sure that you keep it away from wandering eyes. I'm thinking that maybe in this case, the Kindle version or the audiobook, narrated by none other than Samuel L. Jackson, would be more appropriate for the sleep-deprived parent. Or maybe, let's just stick to this instead... and calm those nerves of both the parent and the child in a more traditional manner. Just sayin'...

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Bosom Heavin' Love

Photo Credit: Harlequin Celebrates

I've been hearing a lot on the tube lately that despite the fact that we are in a recession and people are not spending - not on retail purchases beyond the necessities, not on big ticket items or high end clothing, the housing market is in a major slump and car dealerships across the country are closing their doors - there is one thing that is selling like crazy.

Hot, steamy romance novels.

Hey, I'll bet that post title got your attention afterall, didn't it? ;)

Well, 'bosom heaving love' might be a little cheesy and dramatically silly for the sake of attention getting, but in truth, Harlequin, the leading publisher of romance novels, claims that their 4th quarter earnings were up 32 percent from a year ago. So they must have something there, wouldn't you say?

Even my own BFF, a lovely woman just a tad younger than I am, recently got herself all wrapped up in the Twilight series of books over a vacation, so much so, that she has now read them not once, not twice, but multiple times. The. Entire. Series. And that's in a period of just a few weeks. She swears she has to be the only woman her age in the whole wide world who has gotten obsessed with the main character, Edward Cullen, and the whole Twilight storyline.

I told her {though I admit I have not personally read them ... yet}, "my darlin', assuredly you are not."

There are probably as many mature women who have read that series as there are young women even if they don't openly say so to their peers {can I get a show of hands please?}.

So what is it? This draw? Why are sales of romance novels up when everything else is down, and people are losing their jobs and their homes, and nobody has any money for anything, and well, life is in such a turmoil right now? What is it?

"Central to the book is a relationship between a man and a woman and how that develops over the course of the book," she [Donna Hayes, Harlequin CEO] said. "And in the case of Harlequin, the must-have in the formula is that you must have a happy ending. Trials and tribulations as you date and break up, argue or all those things, but at the end you are going to be together with the love of your life and you are going to feel really good about it. So that's the key and that's why people love to read our books."

Source: ABC News
Love Story: Romance Novel
Continues to Sell in Down Economy,
by JOHN BERMAN and TED GERSTEIN

Ah. So that's it. The happy ending. Always.

We do love happy endings, don't we?

Need a romantic diversion yourself? Well, have I got some news for you then!

You can download FREE ebook romance novels right now, courtesy of Harlequin Romance. They've got suspense and paranormal categories. They have passion. Home and family. Romance. And, as usual, historical.

And Harlequin, in celebration of their 60th year of "pure reading pleasure," is giving away not just one book. Oh no. And not just two books either. Harlequin is offering up to women everywhere, sixteen, yep, that's SIXTEEN full length - mostly 250+ page romance novels - to download in several ebook formats - pdf, ePub, MS Reader, or eReader format. To pick up copies in MobiPocket, go here instead and, in fact, it looks like there's a bonus book there for all the formats, so gals head on over, because that's SEVENTEEN FREE FULL LENGTH BOOKS.

Books written by some of Harlequins top-selling and best known authors. A retail value of about $60 bucks - totally free. Absolutely no strings attached. And, if you find yourself kindling a desire of your own to delve into a world of only happy endings on a regular basis, then you can run on over to eHarlequin, sign up and bury yourself in the multitude of choices before you.

By the way, besides the available formats offered by Harlequin, if you own a Kindle you can also get these books converted to be read on your Kindle. Just download the free books in pdf format, and then, using the email address that came with your Kindle, you have two choices:

The frugal free way: by sending an mail from your regular email client (gmail, Windows Live, Outlook, etc.) with the pdf attachment, to youraddress@free.kindle.com - the book will be converted and returned to you at your email address, not on your Kindle. You'll then need to attach a USB to your computer and transfer them over to your Kindle; or,

For only 10 cents each: Send an email from your regular email client with the pdf attachment to youraddress@kindle.com and the pdf will be converted and then sent wirelessly direct to your Kindle. Cost per conversion is only 10 cents for each book, so you can transfer all of these books direct to your Kindle for less than $2. Can't beat that price for 17 books!

I did this and it took literally seconds to convert and return one book straight to my Kindle. Pretty awesome. Keep in mind that sending multiple pdf attachments via your email will take a little extra time, both to send out, and to convert, but it still comes back in no time and ready for reading.

So if you're looking for a little bit of a diversion from the hectic world, why not check it out for yourself?

Now, if you'll excuse me, I believe I hear a bubble bath and a book callin' my name.

On Being Conservative

"70 percent or more of Americans agree on the key issues, with views that are generally conservative. The red state/blue state balance, created by the media, is largely a myth."

Newt Gingrich
from Real
Change

Kindle!

My husband doesn't know this yet, but he bought me a Kindle Wireless Reading Device for Christmas this year. Isn't it so sleek and sexy?

It's really much more than I wanted to spend, but I've been eyeing it for awhile now and then Oprah featured it on her show yesterday with a $50 discount so I gave it another look. I saw that the number of books, newspapers and magazines that are available have increased substantially since it's introduction and so I decided what the heck and bit the bullet. Or I should say Santa did!

I'm already a major book junkie and I have a audio club membership on top of that, so I know it'll get used. With Kindle I can still listen to those audios, but even without an extra memory card, Kindle will let you carry as many as 200 books, newspapers and or magazines with you all at one time!! You can download a new selection wirelessly in about a minute - and there is no charge for the wireless service either - it is included in the price! Oh, and you know how when you run across a word in a book and it has you stumped to the point that you can't really focus or enjoy the rest of the story until you figure out what that word means exactly? Okay ... maybe that's just me, but anyway, just a quick highlight, a click and bam, Kindle looks it up for you!! While you're reading - right there, on the device! No kidding!! Wow. This is so much more than just a book reader - I'm so glad I waited for it. Plus think of all the trees you'll be saving!! I'm sold on it and I am so excited! Can you tell?

The hardest part of it will be trying to leave it alone until Christmas. Oh, oh... I can't wait to subscribe to some real newspapers - the The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times come to mind!!

If you think you might want to add a Kindle to your Santa list too, click on the link and grab one for yourself - and don't forget your discount too! Enter OPRAHWINFREY in the Promo Code box at checkout, but hurry ... the $50 discount is only good through November 1st!! While you're there, grab a memory card and you can carry as many as 4,000 books with you at one time. Now how awesome is that?

Sunday Musings

"May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit."

Romans 15:13

First, I have to say that Sarah Palin was pretty funny last night on SNL and I was glad to see that the audience applauded her and treated her kindly and with respect and that nothing really happened that would give fodder to the haters and the pundits. It's going to be a long hard road for the McCain/Palin ticket this year with all the Obama infatuation and idolizing that is going on, but I have no doubt that Gov. Palin has a great future regardless of what happens in the Presidential election. As I have said many times over with this election, God is in control and whoever it is that ends up in that office will be there by His choice and to serve His purposes, whether it is my candidate or not. I have and will continue to pray about it, but in the end, God is in control of the situation. As far as SNL, I haven't been a fan of that show for a long time, because with the exception of this recent resurrection from the '08 election, for a long time now SNL has been much more silly to me than it has been funny - still, I have to say that I thought Palin did a great job both in starting off and ending the show.

I spent the day today dusting off and re-organizing my cookbooks. I should have been studying, but it is amazing the things that I can find to do to avoid that task!

Anyway, I have cathedral ceilings in my family room that extend into my tiny kitchen - I think they call it a galley style kitchen, you know the type... where two people can't really turn around in it at the same time... and so that leaves a nice space above the kitchen cabinets on both sides of the kitchen where I keep all of my cookbooks. I have added a few cookbooks to my collection over the last couple of years and needed to move some of them around for a bit more accessibility to my favorites. Truth is, I probably could let go of more than a few of them, but books - books of any kind really - are very precious to me. My office is overrun with four bookshelves that are overflowing, and yet I still have some difficulty with letting go of any! But, back to the kitchen.

Of course that area where the cookbooks are is pretty dusty - so while I had the taller ladder out and was up there anyway, I dusted and cleaned it up a bit too. Thankfully I remembered to take my allergy medicine this time though, so hopefully I won't be suffering later. I have about 154 cookbooks, not counting the small booklets, magazines and appliance manuals, and some of those cookbooks date back into the 50s - some actually could even been older than that, but the covers and often front pages are missing on several of them.




I was glad that I took on this chore today afterall though because I happened to flip open an old Tupperware cookbook that used to belong to my Mom and saw a page in the back where in my mother's handwriting was written a recipe that I had tried to replicate and had never quite gotten right. This recipe is for cookies that she used to make every Christmas - a light, buttery cookie loaded with pecans that we in the South call "Finger Cookies" because of the way they are shaped, sort of like a finger. I thought I had seen a recipe for them written somewhere but never quite remembered where, so I am very pleased to have finally found her authentic recipe to have on hand for this Christmas. My mother died 11 years ago this coming Christmas and seeing this recipe written out in Mama's beautiful cursive handwriting really comforted my heart, made me smile and made the effort of all that cleaning worth every minute I spent at it today.



My sweet hubby Richard has just taken off after a disappointing Saints loss to the Panthers to spend a few hours watching the Nascar race with a friend of his who is going through a difficult time right now with his marriage. I separated him from a dozen of the chocolate chip cookies I made for him the other day and asked him to drop them off at my son and daughter in law's house on the way. I was there briefly on Friday to visit and see my grandson but my husband was off at a meeting and not able to be there.

I had brought them some freshly made yeast rolls that day, which I have since made another batch of. After being on a long mission searching the internet for the perfect yeast roll - a roll that would serve as equally well as a dinner roll as it would as a small sandwich roll - one that has a bit of a crusty exterior, but with a fluffy soft inside ... much like french bread, or more appropriately I suppose what would be called a french roll. I finally found two of them, and both were right in my own cookbooks! Both are good, but one turned out just perfect - well, perfect for my needs - as I do find that other's recipes that I have tried which they deemed to be "perfect" rolls weren't quite my kind of perfect! Anyway, I can't do much for the kids these days as far as financially since I've been out of work for so long now, but I can and do bring them home baked goodies occasionally. Last week I brought frosted banana bars, and the time before that, chocolate peanut butter bars. All of these are my favorites and I'll get around to posting the recipes here soon.

So now, I am going to sit and catch up on some TiVo instead of studying. There are quite a few movies saved on there and begging to be watched to make room for new stuff! I am just about finished watching Transformers, which is an interesting movie that I'll bet the kids loved. Transformers were very big when my son was a little boy - I recall that he had a few of the toys. Not sure what is next, but I'll be flipping through some of my cookbooks in the midst of it looking for something to drum up for dinner here shortly. For once I haven't a clue what it will be.