I have this sweetie of a girlfriend in town, one Leslie Gould.

Quick! Go look how pretty she is. Sweet, no?

I met her through a friend, who was helping me land a freelance job. Leslie became my editor, then my friend, then my buddy. Usually I don’t use my friends’ real names on this blog, because of, y’know. This, and maybe this and a whole lot of this. I don’t want to identify the mommies cuz I don’t want to identify the kids. Sometimes we need our privacy, yes? (What happened to my Friday Advice Column, anyway? Any questions? Fire away. I had a batch and, uh, misfiled them in a sub-folder and now who knows where they are. Truth is out. I cannot file.)

No anonymity here though — Leslie must be outed, because you need to buy her books. Besides, what wouldn’t I do for her? She is that kind of girlfriend to me. She lives in the neighborhood where I grew up. The woman is a career Army wife. Brave? Yes. She has four gorgeous kids who play soccer and are brilliant artists and gifted, and kind, to top it all off. Her family is involved in their church, and their community, and oh, yeah. She writes. She writes and writes and writes.

In her spare time.

On October 10th her third novel, Scrap Everything, arrives in stores.

Perfect for the crafty types in your life, for your best friend, your family members, your child’s teacher, a neighbor — it’s a great book. It’s about two women, Elise and Rebekah, who strike up an unlikely friendship and bond over scrapbooking, their families and their faith. Her two previous novels, Beyond the Blue and Garden of Dreams are equally incredible. Beyond the Blue is about international adoption and its impact on two families; Garden of Dreams is about two women friends, in love with their husbands and their kids; the community they live in and sometimes struggle with; and a secret.

If you love to read about friendship, faith and dreams, you will love these books.

Day 2 of No Idiot Box: Going well. Wacky Boy had one major freak-out over no Saturday a.m. cartoons, but I distracted him by teaching him to burn CDs. We went out for breakfast and the kids were angels. Life, she is sweet. Huevos rancheros and fresh fruit for me, Greek omelet for Hockey God, ginormous pancakes for the kids with a pound of butter and a half-cup of syrup apiece. Hot cocoa for them because we were worried the syrup wasn’t giving them all the sugar they needed. Coffee for the grown-ups… hot damn. It was good.

Wacky Grandma is bringing over her favorite movie, The Apple Dumpling Gang, to watch with the kids so that kills making this an entire day of no TV.

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“I had a friend down the hill, in the long shadow of our building, whose mother cooked us meatloaf. When I discovered meatloaf, and that other mothers regularly cooked it for their children, I went home and said, ‘Other mothers cook. Why don’t you cook?’

Without hesitation Mom said, ‘Other mothers don’t write books.'”

— from Sean Wilsey’s “Oh The Glory of It All”

Just found this one…

PTA Parents’ Book Club

Hello everyone. I find myself with a large stack of review copies here and thought I should maybe, you know, at least open a book this summer.

(A book other than Lu and the Swamp Ghost, that is. Wacky Boy gives this book, by political guy James Carville, two big thumbs-up. It comes with a CD so you can figure out how to pronounce the French. I appreciated this.)

Let’s start with travel, then move right into the health and classic Biblical names section, shall we?

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My favorite kids’ cookbook title, until today, was Feed Me! I’m Yours. As of today, it is Just Two More Bites! Helping Picky Eaters Say Yes to Food. ($13.95/paperback, Three Rivers Press, 294 pages; Linda Piette.net)

(What is it with the exclamation marks! And parenting books! We are the world! We are the parents! De-exclamate, already.)

Yes, nutritionist and dietitian Piette has brought us the recipes we’ve been waiting for: Poop Goop I and Poop Goop II:

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No, said Nanny, an echo in Melena’s mind (and editorializing as usual). No, no, you pretty little pampered hussy. We don’t go on having babies, that’s quite apparent. We only have babies when we’re young enough not to know how grim life turns out. Once we really get the full measure of it — we’re slow learners, we women — we dry up in disgust and sensibly halt production.

from Wicked by Gregory Maguire

This whole vacation-from-blogging thing? Yeah, it went OK. But I have a lot to say and dammit, this is the place to do it. Like the quote? I frickin’ love that quote. Thank you L for sending it to me.

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Great series by Chris Raschka, “Thingy Things,” includes our Wacky Favorite, “Doggy Dog,” along with “Goosey Goose,” “Moosey Moose” and “Sluggy Slug.” Get the whole series — they’re too cool. Fanciful illustrations, funny words. Wacky Boy is ga-ga for them.

What we’re reading at Wacky House:

Kids:
1) The “Fudge” books by Judy Blume (too funny) and the Babysitters’ Club series.
2) Anything with dinos.
3) Anything with helicopters, planes, monorails and other “Things that Go.”

Grown-ups:
1) Ethan Canin — “Carry Me Across the Water” — This made me cry it was so good. All about a grandpa’s memories of World War II and how it changed his life.
2) “Babyville” by Jane Green — Great chick lit. And I mean that as a compliment.
3) Anything by Philip Roth, especially his new one, “The Plot Against America.”
4) Mona Simpson, Mona Simpson
5) Alice Munro
6) The New Yorker and The Nation

ttfn, and have a great weekend!!!

WM

“The willingness to accept responsibility for one’s own life is the source from which self-respect springs.”
— Joan Didion

“The world is wide, and I will not waste my life in friction when it could be turned into momentum.”
— Frances Willard (1839-1898)

Check out this site:

http://www.dearreader.com/

I’ve been getting the non-fiction and fiction reads for a few months now — great way to preview a book.

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