When Neil and I started dating, this was the first book of mine that I had him read–after I managed to partially recover from the shock that came with finding a boy to date who actually likes books. Having him read Perks  was definitely a (probably not-so-subtle) dating test, a “I cannot date if you if you don’t see the obvious beauty that is this book” kind of test. The result? He stayed up until 4:00 a.m. that night to finish it. And now we’ve been dating for almost a year.

I’m going to try not to wax poetic here. What I love most about Perks is easily Stephen Chbosky’s awareness of life and his way of communicating that to us. He takes emotions, situations, and struggles that we’re all familiar with and finds a way to name them, concisely and beautifully. Things you didn’t even know could be described. But he does it, and you know exactly what he’s talking about.

Given, the book is full of teen angst. It is high school, after all. But really now, who didn’t have their fair share of angsty years? And isn’t it good to be reminded of it all? If I could, I would quote the entire book to you, but that would be quite illegal, so I’ll stick to my favorite moments of soul-speak.

Perks is written as a series of letters from an anonymous boy to an unidentified recipient, and it has one of my favorite opening lines ever–one of those things that I love so much but can’t quite explain why.

“I am writing to you because she said you listen and understand and didn’t try to sleep with that person at that party even though you could have.”

(page 2)

It also has one of my favorite descriptions of those perfect moments of friendship and life where everything just . . . clicks quietly.

“But the amazing thing was that it wasn’t a bad sad at all. It was just something that made everyone look around at each other and know they were there. Sam and Patrick looked at me. And I looked at them. And I think they knew. Not anything specific really. They just knew. And I think that’s all you can ever ask from a friend.”

(page 66)

Then finally, what I feel may be the most perfect line ever, the most perfect description of the indescribable.

“And in that moment, I swear we were infinite.”

(page 39)

I’m writing this post because tonight I get to go see the movie! It’s opening night and I am pumped! Not as pumped as I was to receive a SIGNED COPY OF THE BOOK, though. My friend Stephanie worked on the movie and when she found out how in love I am with the book, she offered to try to get me an autograph and she got it! Now I have my original copy (complete with underlines and highlights from my angsty years), my signed copy, and plans to get the movie edition to complete my little collection!

Both versions! (Also a bit of a shameless plug for the fantastic book When the Dust Settled, written by Tamara Littrell and edited by yours truly!)

My autographed copy! *Squeal* So kind of Stephen Chbosky!

Now I’m off to see the movie I hope does justice to my favorite book! And sit through all the credits until I see Stephanie’s name!

Premise

When the author’s only daughter, Amy, unexpectedly dies at age thirty-four from a rare heart condition, everyone she leaves behind is hurtled into the fog that comes with figuring out how to lead a life you no longer understand. For Roger and his wife, Ginny, this means rediscovering how to traverse the world of small children, as they leave their home to move in with Harris, their son-in-law, and their three grandchildren, Jessie, Sammy, and James (“Bubbies”), ages seven, four, and one, respectively. Suddenly thrust back into the world of birthday parties, soccer games, and bedtime stories, Roger and Ginny learn to take each day in stride. Three generations come together as Roger, Ginny, Harris, and the children begin to reassemble their lives, reconstruct their family, and support each other as they navigate the course of their grief.

Review

The main issue I take with many memoirs is the sense of self-importance that can so often accompany this genre. It’s understandable, I suppose, given the nature of telling your own story. (That’s where a good editor comes in!) However, Making Toast does not for one second fall into that sticky tar pit. Instead, Rosenblatt paints a witty, honest portrait of grief, showing us that it is—perhaps surprisingly—rather other-centric.

Making Toast follows a relatively nonsequential (though loosely chronological) format; for anyone well-acquainted with grief, you know this is the only way to write a book like this. Your endeavor to keep up with the hops, skips, and jumps of Rosenblatt’s flashbacks, memories, and present-day activities earns you a day pass to the surface level of Rosenblatt’s grief experience. This entails most notably his unabated anger at a God who shows no benevolence and whose presence will not be found with their family. Unfortunately, the book never seems to penetrate any further than this, as Rosenblatt keeps up a wall around his deeper feelings, leaving you constantly wishing to see just a little bit more.

The most impactful aspect of this book was the reminder to me of what a beautiful thing it is to be known. Several sections of Making Toast focus simply on personality traits and quirks of the characters—Jessie’s favorite winter coat, Bubbies’s way of sitting with his hands locked behind his head, Harris’s stoicism, Sammy’s favorite Power Ranger, each child’s breakfast preferences as R0senblatt engages in “the one household duty [he has] mastered”: making toast. And Amy. Amy as a child, Amy as a teen, Amy in medical school, Amy the doctor, Amy the wife, Amy the mother.

It is in this subtle, quiet way that Rosenblatt reveals the depth of his emotion for his family. Through his awareness of each person, that close familiarity gained through the intimacy of family and tragedy, he pays tribute to each family member. Toward the end of the narrative, Rosenblatt gives voice to my own thoughts:

“Odd that I seem to know Amy more completely in death than I did when she was alive. I do not know her any better . . . but there was so much life that I was unaware of until now. The distance of death reveals Amy’s stature to me” (141-42).

A testament to the powerful force of a united family, Rosenblatt’s memoir reminds us all of the human capacity to live with grief without ceasing to love. However, there is no room for sentimentality in Making Toast. There are books to be read, children to be raised, and, of course, toast to be made.

I thought I’d offer up a few of my favorite treats that I’ve made thus far! I didn’t take photos of every dish I made; sometimes I was just too hungry for that!

• French Muffins: From what I can tell, “French” means “dipped in melted butter and rolled around in cinnamon and sugar while still warm from the oven.” Very few ingredients and super simple to execute! Winner!

• Blueberry Flax Seed Muffins: Much healthier than the French muffin, this was delicious in a more wholesome, less sinful way. The recipe says to top the muffins with flax seed, but I went ahead and topped them with a flax, cinnamon, and brown sugar combination that would make them taste a little less wheaty-y. They made for a great breakfast! 
• Cajun Cauliflower Casserole: Oh, yes. One of those dishes that gets better as you let it sit. Next time I will probably use fewer bread crumbs (trust me, I was just as shocked). I did, however, mix flax seed into the bread crumbs to be sprinkled on top and I think that extra fiber helped make it even heartier. It will make a great base for any casserole, really. Improvise on what else you want to throw in there!
• Caramelized Onion, Mushroom, and Gruyere Tartletts: Just say that name and try not to drool. Definitely add some spinach and bacon to the recipe.
• Dark Chocolate Toffee Bars: Oh. Em. Gee. These bars are amazing. I made them for a work baby shower and they were quite a hit! The base is a shortbread type of cookie, and it. is. fabulous. I can’t get over how good it is, actually. It will definitely become a staple. I’m thinking that for Christmas I’ll be using it with peppermint bark (chocolate and crushed peppermints) spread on top rather than nuts.

This is just a sampling of the endless train of recipes that has been parading through my kitchen for the whole of 2012. For some more ideas, feel free to visit my Pinterest! If I’ve tried out the recipe, I have the verdict written on the post!

Happy cooking!

I’ll spare you the gory details, but here are a few highlights of the past seven months: a mugging at gunpoint (I kid you not); an onslaught of work; falling out of love; getting to know myself and my God; falling in love; spending four hours trapped in a tent by a feral hog (again, I kid you not);  and learning, learning, learning (dare I say growing?!).

All this has left little time for recreational reading, but I’m hoping, praying, desperate for that to change soon. Until then, I leave you (and by “you,” I mean myself) with the reminder that through all the joys and hurts, hope is always within arm’s reach.

“All around hope is springing up from this old ground. Out of chaos life is being found in You.”

–Gungor, “Beautiful Things”

{Check it out here.}

–Virginia Woolf

So many things have gone on in my life in the past three months–what feels like the whole spectrum of the good, the bad, and the ugly–and there’s nothing like approach of winter to remind me to just chill (glorious pun intended) and enjoy everything God has given–is giving–to me. I’ve been thinking a lot recently about what I want out of life, both personally and professionally. It’s an exciting—albeit overwhelming–activity! There is so much that I want to do in this world; to speak in clichés, there’s so much to do and so little time. Worrywart that I am, this bothers me greatly! But then I discovered this Tom Clancy quote:

The only way to do all the things you’d like to do

is to read.

Well played, Tom, old boy. Well played indeed.

It made me think of an article I read awhile back that I just loved. Put out by the A.V. Club, “15 Things Kurt Vonnegut Said Better Than Anyone Else Ever Has Or Will” is full of some of the best Vonnegut quotes of all time. Its one failing is that it doesn’t have my favorite quote–the title of this post–listed. I suppose I can forgive them their oversight.

I encourage you to read the whole article; I promise it’s really not that long! But in case you’re not feeling up to it, below are my favorites of the selected quotes. I was going to go with a top five, but I couldn’t make it less than seven. Just read the article!

• “I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, ‘If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.’” —A Man Without A Country

• “There’s only one rule that I know of, babies—God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.” —God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater

• “She was a fool, and so am I, and so is anyone who thinks he sees what God is doing.” —Cat’s Cradle

• “There are plenty of good reasons for fighting, but no good reason ever to hate without reservation, to imagine that God Almighty Himself hates with you, too.” —Mother Night

• “That is my principal objection to life, I think: It’s too easy, when alive, to make perfectly horrible mistakes.”  —Deadeye Dick

• “So it goes.” —Slaughterhouse-Five

• “We must be careful about what we pretend to be.” —Mother Night

Complementing this problem is the fact that reading for nine hours a day at work and then going home to continue reading doesn’t quite work out all the time (curse you, eyes!). So you can understand that this of course means that I have a whole section of my bookshelf dedicated solely to books I haven’t read yet. Books just begging me to crack their spines, crease their pages, and fall in love with their characters. Drool.

I want nothing more than to grab a giant stack of books, run away from life to a log cabin in the mountains, and camp out until I’ve finished all of them. Alas . . . real life is rude and just won’t let me do that. So I’m left with prioritizing what I want to read next. Here are my current top three to-be-read-as-soon-as-humanely-possible books:

You guys, I want to see this movie! But (surprise, surprise) I've just got to read the book first!

Tina Fey's writing made me smile from the first line I read in the store. I am pumped!

Somehow this book missed all my required reading lists, which is probably a good thing because now I'm actually excited at the prospect of reading it.

Sadly, I forgot to take a picture of the original frame, but it was all gold, with different treatments on the two levels of the border.

I taped off the inside because I liked the way it looked and decided to paint only the outside border. Remember that gorgeous plum color I used for my lamp redo? It strikes again!

Rockin' the painter's tape

I then cut out foam board to fit into the frame. It was much too stark as plain white, so I mixed cream and brown to make a more muted background. From there, I simply hung up my jewelry using pearl-headed pins (of course)! Voila!

'Ello there, 'Arry!

And again!

Happy Wednesday, everyone!

The Premise

After days of misdiagnoses and prolonged severe pain, three-year-old Colton Burpo, the son of a small-town pastor, is rushed in for an emergency appendectomy. After several complications, the prognosis is so grim that the nurses are instructed not to give the family any hope about Colton’s potential for recovery. However, after a particularly intense prayer session hosted by members of the church’s congregation, Colton miraculously recovers, escaping death’s grip and returning to his “smiling and chipper” self. Four months later, Colton stuns his parents with an astounding message delivered in the casual manner of a child:

“Do you remember the hospital, Colton?”

“Yes, Mommy, I remember. . . . That’s where the angels sang to me. . . . Jesus had the angels sing to me because I was so scared.”

Over the course of the next few years, Colton reveals to his parents more details about his trip to heaven, Jesus, and the people he met there–including the daughter his mother lost to a miscarriage.

The Kicker

According to the Burpo family and those that know Colton, it’s a true story.

The Results

I’ll be honest. I went into this book expecting another The Shack, which jaded me. I tend to approach “true-story-God-is-real-and-talked-to-me-and-now-I’m-writing-this-best-seller” books with a certain degree of cynicism, even though I firmly believe those things can really happen. I believed that The Shack was based on a true story, and the combination of disappointment and embarrassment that I felt when I realized I was mistaken scared me away from Christian literature for a little while. Religious literature–Christian, in my case–is tricky. I’ve found that a good chunk of Christian literature falls into approximately three categories: 1) those who are too scared to say anything too offensive or controversial, so they wind up saying little of anything, 2)  those who want to force their beliefs and interpretations onto their readers, as though their word was as good as God’s, and 3) those who are so cheesy that I can’t even make it through (this is mainly, and unfortunately, religious fiction).

Luckily, there is a blessed (see what I did there?) fourth category–the books in which I not only find value, but actually enjoy reading. Heaven Is For Real is undoubtedly one of those books.

Not once did I feel like the authors were pushing their agenda on me, straining to make me see things their way, or censoring themselves for fear of push-back. Colton’s story is presented in a refreshingly simple manner, with what the back cover copy describes as “disarming innocence and . . . plainspoken boldness.” It feels as if you are sitting in the Burpos’ living room, enjoying a cup of coffee while listening to them tell this amazing story. There is an attitude of “This is what happened. We were shocked too. But it’s true.”

The beauty of this book lies in its simplicity and honesty. There is a sweetness to the text that lets you know that these are sincere people with a beautiful story that they want to share with anyone who will listen.

I said it before and I’ll say it again: read this book.

Pearls earned.