Another blog?

Happy Tuesday morning to everyone!  

First, a quick note - a few people yesterday commented that sour milk is gross, icky, etc.  Let me reassure you that it's name may make it sound bad, but I found nothing off in the taste of the pancakes.  It's a perfect substitute when you don't have buttermilk in the fridge, which for me is always.

Now, onto the real reason for today's post.  As you know, I am currently working on my Masters in Library and Information Science.  For one of my courses this quarter, our final project is a young adult literature/resources review blog. I am really excited for this project, as I love YA literature and I am a fan of writing book reviews.

I Claim Them All  will be updated regularly in the coming weeks, and I'm hoping to continue writing reviews on it after the course is finished.

I need to select a genre to focus on for a large chunk of my reviews.  At the moment, I am leaning toward fantasy, as I read a lot of fantasy books when I was younger.  Anyone have any young adult selections in this genre to suggest?

Haaave You Met Stella?

I received a thoughtful and gorgeous gift for Christmas this year made by my loving husband.  Let me introduce you to my girl, Stella.  Tyson built her and I stained her.  It was a family affair.

She's half the size of her big sister, which is housing the majority of our books in the guest room, and fits perfectly next to our tv in the living room.  I also now have an area to display all of the sparkly crystal and glassware we received for our wedding.

Celtic glassware.  Gotta show a little Irish pride!

Say it with me, "Ohhh pretty!"

Just a few shots of my pretties that are now proudly on display.  I may sound crazy but I find myself looking at the bookcase more than the tv when I'm watching a show.  She's just so pretty and really makes the room feel closer to complete.

On top of my Stella is our happy toad that Tyson just couldn't say no to when we went to gallery night downtown a couple months ago.

He's such a happy little guy.  One look at his face and you can see why Tyson couldn't pass him up.

So there she is.  Stella and all of her pretties.

Holiday Baking Line-up

I am thisclose to being done with the third quarter (out of five) of my Master of Library and Information Science!  Very exciting, but even more exciting is the holiday baking that is about to take over my kitchen.  Cookies, cupcakes, bars, and dog treats are all on my to-do list.  (Too bad I don't have a fancy Kitchenaid Stand Mixer....yet...)  Tomorrow, I will be hitting up the store for all my baking needs, so today I'm sharing the starting line-up for Christmas 2011.

Dog Treats
Shadow rolls with a pretty tight crew of pups, so a few homemade treats with a nice Christmas bow will be perfect gifts.
1. Cinnamon Bites
2. Peanut Butter Cookies
3. Puppy Power Treats
All three recipes come from Throw Me a Bone by Cooper Gillespie with Sally Sampson.  It was an impulse buy over a year ago that I just found sitting with the rest of my recipe books.  This will be my first venture into homemade dog treats and I'm pretty excited.

Human Treats
1. Peppermint Bark
2. Graham Bars
3. Candy Cane Cookies
4. Mint Chocolate Chip Cookies
5. Sugar Cookies
6. Pinwheels
7. Gingerbread Softies
8. Plain, old Chocolate Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting (Because I'm a fatty, and have been craving them for weeks.)

Our lovely (fake) Christmas tree.

Here's hoping I can:
1. actually whip all of these up
2. not gain 30 pounds in the process.

Enjoy your week, INM readers.  Keep an eye out for recipe posts with pictures and a new Words on Wednesday.

Reliable References

A few months ago I read a book called Reading the OED by Ammon Shea and found myself seriously enjoying the read. Shea spent one year reading through the whole OED, chronicling his adventure in this novel. Each chapter is dedicated to a letter of the alphabet. He begins each chapter with a little anecdote dealing with how he began his obsession with dictionaries (he owns thousands) to the horrible headaches he got each day as he read through all 21,000-plus pages. After each anecdote he lists his favorite words beginning with the designated letter of the alphabet and random connections he has to them (different dictionaries he's seen them in, varying definitions, etc).

To many this book would be a total bore - reading about someone reading the OED?! Sounds crazy to someone who doesn't have a love for the English language. I don't ever see myself reading page 1 to page 21,730 of the OED, but I can, honestly, see the appeal. Since I read this book I have bought myself 3 new dictionaries/thesauruses (i) and constantly look-up words I do not know. You can never have too many reference books, whether they be your run-of-the-mill dictionary to Bartlett's Familiar Quotations. I know that all of this can be found online (I am now the proud owner of a bouncing, baby Nook), but nothing, and I mean nothing, beats having a hard copy on hand.

I hope to one day have a room in my home that I can call my library, filled with leather-bound tomes, ratty classics, and shelves of reference books. If you see me when I'm 50 and I do not own the OED, then, please, slap me then split the cost of it with friends as a birthday gift for yours truly. You may want to find many, many friends to split it with considering it is over $1,000. And preferably find a nicely bound set. Thanks, friends.