great, now i'm turned on. again.

It's really too bad that wedding season is coming to an end, but Christmas will be here before you know it and I know the perfect Secret Santa or Hanukkah Harry gift, Fifty Shades of Pleasure: A Bedside Companion by Marisa Bennett. Seriously. Not only is this the perfect naughty guide for your nightstand, it is also filled with slightly pornographic quotes that if said in my ear, I can't promise a lady like response. Yowza. Honestly, it's not much different from the others out there. Bondage, binding, etc. it's the writing and the format that sets it apart. Bennett shares the description of the move, and then ways to make it happen - including what NOT to do. Thanks girl.

On to the next one...

My immediate reaction after opening Fifty Shades of Ecstasy was....WHOA! And I mean WHOA.  And then I preceded to gorge myself on pizza rolls because there was nothing to be done with the WHOA at said time. I'm a stress eater. Marisa Bennett means business here people. In this little self-help piece of loveliness, she describes in detail (and pictures) fifty sex positions that aim to please. I highly recommend this pleasure packed collection, only like ten of the positions look terrifying. And you probably won't be able to look at an exercise ball at the gym the same again.

you need this.

I've never met a "missing manual" that I haven't liked. O'Reilly makes a habit of filling us in on everything we need to know about the latest technology. They are at it again with David Pogue's OSX Mountain Lion: The Missing Manual. Keeping the same mantra, "the book that should have been in the box"

OSX Mountain Lion is known as the the world's most advanced desktop operating system, for those of you who don't know. It basically makes your Apple products (the Mac, iPhone, etc.) work even better. No one really knows how to fully use this system, and I feel confident saying this after attempting to get through the Missing Manual myself. There is so much information, information that you NEED.

All of the twenty-one chapters are here to help with such a new up and coming program. Beginning with the basics, and then moving on to the more important things - like organizing your stuff, backing up your documents, burning CD's, setting up iCloud, printing, and downloading the many free programs at your disposal. Throw out a Mountain Lion lifeline friends, David Pogue has got your back.

the kind of novel you stay up late to finish.

It's 1948 in a very small town of Virginia. Nothing exciting every happens Brownsburg, and everyone would like to keep it that way. Then Charlie Beale arrives, with two suitcases filled with all of his possessions, ready to build a new life. He quickly falls in love with the very pretty, Sylvan Glass, who is married to the town's richest man. The love affair is explosive enough to jolt this sleepy town awake.

Author, Robert Goolrick created a very unique narrator in Sam, the little boy who witnessed the affair and is now an old man telling the tale. In Heading Out to Wonderful, you will be twisting and turning until you hit a very haunting end.

this is just impressive.

We've all been there. Fit, then fat, and fit again...then fat again. It's called yo-yo dieting, breaking up with your boyfriend, binge drinking, etc. Longtime personal trainer, Drew Manning decided to do it all on purpose. He realized that he didn't fully understand what he was asking of his overweight clients. As a really fit guy, he didn't comprehend how difficult getting to fit from really fat was. So he did it himself.

Fit2Fat2Fit is an amazing story. Manning gained 75 pounds,  putting himself in the shoes of so many of us who struggle to drop the excess weight. For six months he stopped exercising and ate the way, well, the way I do actually. The next six months was spent dropping the pounds, and shares every aspect of the journey on his website. Totally above and beyond the call of duty of a personal trainer, really, you can't help but respect the guy.

you carry more than you think.

Carry the One by Carol Anshaw begins rather abruptly. In the hours following a wedding reception, a group of guests leave the wedding wasted and run over a ten-year-old girl on a back country road, killing her. Whoa. This accident is a defining moment for the novel's characters.

It was Carmen's wedding, and the story is told from three different perspectives, switching between Carmen and her two siblings Alice and Nick. Basically the novel deals with the twenty-five year aftermath of the accident, flashing back and forth between these siblings lives. This is not a conventional story, so those of you who don't find yourself hooked right away, keep trying. It is worth the effort.

meals that heal.

 

(I received this book for free to read and review.)

 



Hey! Those of you who were not born with stomach's of steal like yours truly, do I have the recipe book for you! Julie Daniluk's Meals That Heal Inflammation is (duh) a book that gives you recipes for meals that won't upset those tender intestines of yours. Kind of gross, but it's reality.

More than 110 million people in North America have digestive problems. Reality. Manfriend is super into digestive enzymes, which I'm thinking Daniluk would approve of. I take them every so often when I overeat a pile of junk and they make me feel sooo much better. Digestive enzymes can't fix all of your crazy belly's, so you need to seriously take into account what you're putting into them.

In Meals That Heal Daniluk spells everything out for you in green light (healing), yellow light(caution), red light(hurting) charts for fruits, vegetables, grains, fish, meat, diary and seasonings. Very easy to read, a kindergartner could figure it out. Then there are 120 recipes for you to choose from.


*FOR A CHANCE TO WIN A FREE COPY OF THIS BOOK!!! Email your name, address and this book title to: jenileerose@yahoo.com - please US and Canadian residents only.

"i needed to do something different, something that i could be proud of if i saw a picture of me doing it."

Oppen Porter is not your average Joe. He's a twenty-eight year old, self proclaimed slow absorber, who appears to be pretty regular until you get to know him. He's in the hospital on his supposed death bed, wanting to leave behind a recording of his life for his unborn child.

Oppen spent his childhood in a small town where his innocence was accepted, but clearly not respected. He was constantly teased, which I'm sure was excused as good natured rather than douche baggy. Oppen spends most of the novel telling of the time after his father unexpectedly died and he went to move with his Aunt Liz in Panorama City.

Antoine Wilson creates a wonderfully unique narrator in Oppen, who is determined to become a "man of the world" and realizes that the world is just not acceptable. Oppen has a voice worth hearing, and Panorama City is a book worth reading. Pick it up September 25!

 

indian meets vegan.

I love Indian food. And I am talking Indians from India here people, I AM politically correct after all. I had my first experience with these delish dishes on my first trip to London, two years ago. Loved it.

Indian food in London.

I've never actually had home cooked Indian food, you know, cooked by the people who know it best. My cooking out of Anupy Singla's Vegan Indian Cookbook does not exactly count as homemade in my eyes, but it was still really yummy. Turning Indian food vegan does not seem that difficult for Singla, considering her cookbook is filled with 140 recipes. The spices make the food, and she includes pages and pages of information on them, so that you can make your food the way you like. Very spicy to not spicy and everywhere in between.

I made the Chickpea Poppers on page 100. Pretty much the easiest dish ever. I have yet to brave the whole curry situation. It's a work in progress here people.

bobby dolla holla.

Bobby Dollar is an angel. Yes, his name is Bobby Dollar AND he is a real life angel. Do angels get to choose their own street names? Anyways. In the latest urban fantasy novel by the ever popular Tad Williams, Bobby Dollar is an advocate for all of the lost souls caught between Heaven and Hell. Try not to let the idea of purgatory discourage you, it's really quite the ride.

The Dirty Streets of Heaven is different from Williams' usual. Bobby Dollar as the sarcastically funny first person narrator really makes the story. He's pretty busy fighting off demons from stealing all of the lost souls and putting them up in a queen sized suite in Hell, but he still has time to be funny. The action is constant, the characters are great, what more are you looking for? So, yeah. I'll consider you all sold on this one, folks.

great message.

I hope you all had a great first day of school. Today was my first day, in my own classroom, with my name outside of the door and everything. It went freakishly well. I love working in a small school district. Not quite as many hood rats.

As a parent, you all want to set the right examples for your children. As a teacher, I want to set the right examples for my students, even at the 9th grade level. Even if the crazy has already set in. I want them to look at me, and see kindness and goodness. For this to work, I have to actually be kind and good. Another one of my work in progress things.

The Captain McFinn and Friends series of children's books may be too young for my students, but they are absolutely perfect for the elementary level. Each of the three books in this series has a lesson to be learned. How to be a buddy and not a bully. How to use your words and actions for a greater good. How to help the environment and each other. Themes that every child should have instilled in them. Creator Phyllis Cafaro's mission is to use these books to help children feel valued while also building their character. I think we can all agree that the youth of America needs all the help we can give them.

sometimes it IS what's on the inside that counts.

It is common knowledge that Sparky Anderson was not the best baseball player in the world, or America, orrrr any of its states. Skill is not the main reason why Sparky Anderson was inducted into The Baseball Hall of Fame in 2000. You know the expression, those who can’t do, teach? Well that was Sparky Anderson, one of the best baseball managers who ever graced a baseball diamond.

Anderson’s very best friend, Dan Ewald wrote a book about their friendship titled, Sparky and Me: My Friendship with Sparky Anderson and the Lessons He Shared about Baseball and Life. Yes, their 32 years of friendship was a main focus, but really the book is about the person that Sparky Anderson was. He was a good human being, that’s the best way I can describe it. Don’t worry fellas, there is a ton of baseball history mixed in.