Saturday Snapshot- Pumpkin Patch

This is from last month.  I took my kids for the yearly pumpkin patch trip.  We walked through the corn maze and played in the pumpkin patch.

We started coming to this patch when we moved her seven years ago.

The first year my daughter was younger than my youngest is now.  I remember her in the maze in her winter coat, hat and gloves.  We were lucky to have a warmer day this year.

I always wonder what they do with the left over pumpkins after Halloween.  Are they used for pies?  Sold for animals?  Used for pumpkin chucking events?  Canned?  Or do they just use the seeds for next year?

Courting Cate by Leslie Gould Review

About Courting Cate :
 
When Amish farmer Pete Treger moves to Paradise Township, Pennsylvania, seeking a better life, he meets sisters Cate and Betsy Miller. Both are beautiful, but older sister Cate is known more for her sharp tongue and fiery temper than her striking appearance. Betsy, on the other hand, is sweet and flirty--and seems to have attracted most of the bachelors in Lancaster County!

However, the sisters' wealthy father has made one hard and fast rule: elder sister must marry first, before the younger can even start courting. Unfortunately for poor Betsy, and for the men who want to court her, her older sister, Cate, doesn't have any suitors--until Pete comes to town, that is.

Though he finds both sisters attractive, something about Cate's feisty demeanor appeals to him. Soon the other bachelors in the district convince Pete to court Cate. She hardly seems receptive to his overtures, though. Instead, she's immediately suspicious of his interest.

Book 1 in The Courtships of Lancaster County series.

Link to buy the book: http://ow.ly/eSNfb 

My thoughts:
I participated in this blog tour as a reader for Litfuse Blog tours.  I love reading books that are based on classics.  My favorite version of The Tempest is Kiss Me Kate and that made me want to see how it could be done in an Amish community.  I love how a lot of Cate prickliness can be traced to misunderstandings and miscommunication and how relying on God's guidance helps her.

Cate has always been the care taker for her sister Betsy.  She started when she was very young and her mother died after giving birth.  She is very responsible in all things, but she does not care for housework and loves to read.  Going to the bookmobile every week is the highlight of the week for her.  After some problems with male members in her community she has given up on finding a husband and hopes to become a published writer, until her father issues and edict, Betsy is not allowed to court or go to social events if Cate doesn't go with her.

When a new man comes to town, an Amish man who loves to read, Cate is intrigued but thinks he will only be interested in Betsy.  The last man who showed interest in her was really only interested in her father's money so she is very skeptical about why he would want to spend time with her.

Over the course of the novel Cate comes to see that her prior relationship and its demise has colored her whole life.  Not only has she pulled away from other prospects for marriage, but she pulled away from God and stopped looking for his guidance in her life.  When she starts to listen and really pray again, she starts to find herself again.  When she stops trying to lead her life in the directions she thinks she is supposed to be going and trusts that she will get to where she is supposed to be if she listens she changes in ways that her family can perceive.  It can be hard to get past misunderstandings, but often times the one who is getting in the way of success and happiness is ourselves.



Meet Leslie:

Leslie Gould is the co-author, with Mindy Starns Clark, of the #1 bestselling The Amish Midwife and The Amish Nanny . She is also the author of numerous novels, including Garden of Dreams, Beyond the Blue (winner of the Romantic Times Reviewers' Choice for Best Inspirational Novel, 2006), and Scrap Everything . She holds an MFA in creative writing from Portland State University and has taught fiction writing at Multnomah University as an adjunct professor. She resides with her husband and four children in Portland, Oregon.

Learn more at www.lesliegould.com.

Landing page: http://litfusegroup.com/author/LGould
 

Courting Cate by Leslie Gould Blog Tour

A retelling of the Taming of the Shrew! Leslie Gould is celebrating the release of Courting Cate with a fun Kindle Fire Giveaway and a Facebook Author Chat Party (11/20)!

One lucky winner will receive:

• A Kindle Fire


• Courting Cate by Leslie Gould

Enter today by clicking one of the icons below. But hurry, the giveaway ends on November 19th. Winner will be announced at the "Courting Cate" Author Chat Facebook Party on 11/20. Connect with Leslie, get a sneak peek of her next book, try your hand at an Amish trivia contest, and chat with readers just like you. There will also be gift certificates, books and a Book Club Prize Pack to be won (10 copies for your book club or small group)!

So grab your copy of Courting Cate and join Leslie on the evening of the November 20th for a chance to connect with Leslie and make some new friends. (If you haven't read the book - don't let that stop you from coming!)

Don't miss a moment of the fun, RSVP today. Tell your friends via FACEBOOK or TWITTER and increase your chances of winning. Hope to see you on the 20th!

We lost power last week for three days.  I did manage to get some reading done, but I also managed to get in some extra sleep.  Dark cold houses make you want to sleep!  My book lights and headlamp just didn't cut it so my evening reading was all on my kindle!  Here is my week;

Finished:
Passion by Lauren Kate
Crossed by Ally Condi

Still reading:
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (audio)
Blink
Big Sky County by Linda Lael Miller
Courting Cate

I feel like I should have read more, but I managed to get through a ton of magazines and read the newspaper as well.

Saturday Snapshot--Halloween!

Trick or Treating the Friday before Hurricane Sandy.


 

 For the second year in a row bad weather essentially cancelled Halloween and trick or treating.  Once again we were without power for a number of days.  (Three this year versus five last year so it wasn't quite as bad.)  Luckily we were invited to a party and to trick or treat with friends before the storm hit, so we had a chance to experience Halloween.  I also took my children to some other local events the weekend before as well.  We went to Boo at the Zoo, saw Hotel Transylvania, and went to the local amusement park for Boo Blast.

This is hosted by Alyce at At Home with Books.

Go the F*ck to Sleep byAdam Mansbach and Richardo Cortez

Overview from Barnes and Noble:

Go the F*** to Sleep is a bedtime book for parents who live in the real world, where a few snoozing kitties and cutesy rhymes don't always send a toddler sailing blissfully off to dreamland. Profane, affectionate, and radically honest, California Book Award-winning author Adam Mansbach's verses perfectly capture the familiar--and unspoken--tribulations of putting your little angel down for the night. In the process, they open up a conversation about parenting, granting us permission to admit our frustrations, and laugh at their absurdity.

With illustrations by Ricardo Cortes, Go the F*** to Sleep is beautiful, subversive, and pants-wettingly funny--a book for parents new, old, and expectant. You probably should not read it to your children.

Seriously, Just Go to Sleep, a children's book inspired by Go the F*** to Sleep and appropriate for kids of all ages, is forthcoming from Akashic Books in April 2012 and available NOW for pre-order.

My thoughts:
I borrowed this on my Kindle after hearing so much about it online and from friends.  It was highly recommended to me that I look for the audio version with Samuel L. Jackson doing the reading but I haven't gotten around to looking for it yet.

I would be very interested in reading the version of the book that is appropriate for all ages as I think my children would get a kick out of it and there are definitely still nights when I just yearn for everyone to go to bed, even if they aren't asleep, so that I can get a few minutes of quiet to get some things done and relax before going to bed myself.  I think all parents have had those moments when they need the delay tactics to end and for their children to just realize how much they really need to sleep, something we as adults now want more of and children seem to resist.

Product Details

• ISBN-13: 9781617750250
• Publisher: Akashic Books
• Publication date: 6/14/2011
• Pages: 32

Meet the Author

More by this Author

• Rage Is Back: A Novel
• Seriously, Just Go to Sleep
• ¡Duérmete, carajo!
• The End of the Jews

Adam Mansbach's novels include The End of the Jews, winner of the California Book Award, and the best-selling Angry Black White Boy, a San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of 2005. His fiction and essays have appeared in the New York Times Book Review, the Believer, Granta, the Los Angeles Times, and many other publications. He was the 2010-2011 New Voices Professor of Fiction at Rutgers University. His daughter, Vivien, is three.

Ricardo Cortes has illustrated books about marijuana, electricity, the Jamaican bobsled team, and Chinese food. His work has been featured in the New York Times, Vanity Fair, Entertainment Weekly, New York Magazine, the Village Voice, the San Francisco Chronicle, and on the O'Reilly Factor and CNN. He lives in Brooklyn, NY, where he is working on a book about the history of Coca-Cola and cocaine. To see more of his work, visit: Rmcortes.com.

 

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

Overview from Barnes and Noble:

A mysterious island.

An abandoned orphanage.

A strange collection of very curious photographs.

It all waits to be discovered in Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, an unforgettable novel that mixes fiction and photography in a thrilling reading experience. As our story opens, a horrific family tragedy sets sixteen-year-old Jacob journeying to a remote island off the coast of Wales, where he discovers the crumbling ruins of Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. As Jacob explores its abandoned bedrooms and hallways, it becomes clear that the children were more than just peculiar. They may have been dangerous. They may have been quarantined on a deserted island for good reason. And somehow—impossible though it seems—they may still be alive.

A spine-tingling fantasy illustrated with haunting vintage photography, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children will delight adults, teens, and anyone who relishes an adventure in the shadows.

My thoughts:
I bought this book for my Kindle, but kept putting off reading it so I borrowed the audio version from the library.  I alternated between the two versions, sometimes listening and sometimes reading.  Even though the audio version came with the photographs that are sprinkled throughout the book, I think they worked better on the page as you came to each at the appropriate time in the story.  I debated letting my children read or listen to this one, but decided some of the references the relationships between men and women seemed to be more than what I feel they are ready for.  I checked the recommended age for the book and it is older than they are, I do believe when they are older this is one that they will enjoy!

Jacob has been seeing things his whole life that everyone tells him are all in his mind.  He has been working with a therapist because of how strongly he has always believed his grandfather's stories.  Then a tragedy unfolds and he ends up going to Wales to see where his grandfather lived during the war in an orphanage on an island.  The problem is the orphanage is a ruin, but somehow when he is there he feels like there more to everything than what meets the eye.  He can hear them when no one should be there.  He finds the secret to the past which opens up a lot more questions about the future.  Jacob finds out the truth about his grandfather, himself and a part of the world he was always told did not exist.  The way the book ended was a bit open ended which made me wonder if there is supposed to be a sequel or if this book is intended to be a part of a fantasy series. 

I loved the way the author used photos he found at flea markets and similar places to come up with back stories about the characters and to lend an authenticity to these children who have such unusual talents.

Product Details

• ISBN-13: 9781594744761
• Publisher: Quirk Publishing
• Publication date: 6/7/2011
• Pages: 352
• Sales rank: 971
• Age range: 13 - 17 Years

Meet the Author

Ransom Riggs grew up in Florida but now makes his home in the land of peculiar children—Los Angeles. Along the way he earned degrees from Kenyon College and the University of Southern California’s School of Cinema-Television, got married, and made some award-winning short films. He moonlights as a blogger and travel writer, and his series of travel essays, Strange Geographies, can be found at mentalfloss.com or via ransomriggs.com. This is his first novel.