Billy Whiskers - Frances Trego: A story of a goat's adventures.
Little Black Mingo - Helen Bannerman: A companion book to Little Black Sambo.
Maida's Little Shop - Inez Haynes Gillmore: A once lame girl now needs to do something with herself, so she opens a little shop and has nice times with her neighbors. Very adorable.
Railway Children - Edith Nesbit: A family torn apart, a move to the country, secrets and activities at the Railway Station. A very engaging read.
How Ethel Hollister became a CampFire Girl - Irene Benson: Ethel's uptight gold-digger mother wants Ethel to have nothing to do with the CFG, but Ethel manages to get involved anyway and has the best experiences.
Marjorie Dean, HS Freshman - Pauline Lester: Marjorie has to move schools. Many trials and tribulations are rewarded with life-long friends.
Jack of both Sides - Florence Coombe: A Boy's school story. One boy, Jack, shows both sides of the school they can get along.
The Motor Maids at Sunrise Camp - Katherine Stokes: This was a GREAT read. A group of girls motors out to the mountains for a holiday and meet all kinds of characters and have exciting, and mildly unnerving happenings happen around them.
The Motor Maids' School Days: Katherine Stokes: Not as good as Sunrise Camp, but enjoyable just the same. A typical school story.
The Outdoor Chums, The First Tour of the Rod, Gun and Camera Club - Quincy Allen: I was so certain I'd read this, but upon going back to it and reading the first bit, I don't recall this story at all.
The Red Cross Girls with the Russian Army - Margaret Vandercook: A group of young women become Red Cross Nurses in WWI and end up in war ravaged Russia. A predictable, but yet engrossing read.
And how can I not list favorites that I read more than a month ago?
The Bobbsey Twins - Laura Lee Hope: A group of 2 sets of twins, brothers and sisters all, have mysterious adventures and exciting vacations.
The Scotch Twins - Lucy Fitch Perkins: One of a series of TWINS books set in different geographical regions. This one, of course, was Scotland. I ADORED this book. LOVED IT!
Grace Harlowe - Jessie Graham Flower: A school story of Grace and her chums. (I've read the whole HS series, but not college or the Overland Riders themes)
The Outdoor Girls - Laura Lee Hope: A group of young women form a camping, and tramping club and go neat places and solve mysteries and have assorted adventures. The Outdoor Girls is MY FAVORITE SERIES so far...
Ruth Fielding - Alice B. Emerson: Orphan Ruth goes to live with her Uncle and goes off to school and other places. My second favorite series... so far...
Other books I've read in the past 6 months:
A Little Miss Nobody; or, With the Girls of Pinewood School - Amy Bell Marlowe: Loved it!
Boxcar Children - Gertrude Chandler Warner:
Trixie Belden - Julie Campbell:
Adventure at Brackendale - Linda Peters:
Strawberry Girl - : I found some of her other Regional stories in the library (I was amazed to find them!) but they were awful. Not nearly any of them as great as Strawberry Girl. Disappointed.
I know I've missed a few books that I can't place now, but at least I have this mostly complete list and it seems every time I go back to the Series Bookshelf at Gutenberg there are several new serieses (is that right, serieses?) listed, I'll be happily reading till I'm wearing Coke-Bottle lenses.
The thing to do as a kid on Saturday morning in the 70s was get up early, grab a bowl of cereal and some Pop-Tarts and park yourself in front of the TV for Saturday Morning cartoons.
I can distinctly remember two sounds (and a song.... Saturday morning was over and it was time to go outside and play when you'd hear the theme song to American Bandstand) - the Screen Gems bumper, and the In The News theme from CBS.
Listen, watch and be transported back....
What’s the first thing you do when you log on to your computer every day?
I check ASHLEIGH BRILLIANT'S Pot-Shot of the Day.
On this day in 1965, yummy, delicious Pop-Tarts were born! YAY! Pop-Tarts!
I miss the old foil wrappers, and am disappointed that it is nearly impossible to find one of the only three UN-frosted varieties (Strawberry, Blueberry, and Brown Sugar) anymore...
but I still love my plain Blueberry Pop-Tarts as much as I ever did- when I can find them!
Here's some Christmas Creep for you.
Bah Humbug:
Buy Nothing Christmas (Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping)
Alternatives to cut Christmas Trees
Something for your Festivus needs
Dear Santa letter generator (NSFK) Not safe for kids
A Santa by any other name:
Holiday Helpers:
The Yule Cat, Jolakotturinn
The Yule Goat, Julbock or Julbukk
Other:
I love the OUTDOOR GIRLS series books by Laura Lee Hope.
I found two (non-fiction) books that might have been read by the girls and boys of Deepdale, had they (the boys and girls of Deepdale I mean...) been real:
On The Trail, An Outdoor Book for Girls
and Camping for Boys
If I can't live one hundred years ago - and I do wish I could, I can still wish my friends and I could take a month off and camp out like this:
What's the oldest article of clothing you own? Bonus points if you show us a photo!
There goes Vox, reading my mind again.
I have a pair of gray sweatpants I bought right before I moved to California from Colorado, that was 11 years ago.
They now stay up with the help of a safety pin since the waistband elastic has long since gone and they never had a string. And there is a big air-conditioning run/rip in them right up the back seam.
I have another pair of sweatpants, but I always reach for those old ratty ones I bought while shopping with the only friend I made in Denver... May be that's I why I keep hanging on to them.... one good memory in a 9 month* long nightmare.
*9 months was the time I was in Denver, May to November. It's almost time for my get the hell out of Denver Anniversary. I got the hell out on Thanksgiving Day, and I've never been so thankful to leave a place... but I still wear those ratty sweatpants all of the time.
If you read my blog, I must insist you turn your speakers all the way up to 11 and rock one of these in your living room. I don't care who's watching.
But you know what, when all is said and done - Cheap Trick will ALWAYS win out as my favorite band.
Do you like stories about twins? About Scotland? Then you might like THE SCOTCH TWINS (1919) by Lucy Fitch Perkins. It made me clap my hands with excited anticipation many times. I can't explain why very well... I knew what twists were coming but it was told so well I felt like I was a fly on the wall the whole time. You know what's coming, but you aren't quite sure that's exactly what IS going to happen....
There are other books in the TWINS series, but this great little easy read was an immense delight.
Here's a sample from the Gutenberg E-text:
"At the very moment when Jock and Tam came flying over the fence and down the hill like a cyclone after the rabbit, Angus was kneeling beside the brook to get a drink. His lips were pursed up and he was bending over almost to the surface of the water, when something dashed past him, and an instant later something else struck him like a thunderbolt from behind, and drove him headforemost into the brook! It wasn't Tam that did it. It was Jock! Of course, it was an accident, but Angus thought he had done it on purpose, and he was probably the most surprised as well as the angriest man in Scotland at that moment. He lifted his head out of the brook and glared at Jock as fiercely as he could with little rills of water pouring from his hair and nose, and trickling in streams down his neck.
"I'll make you smart for this, you young blatherskite," he roared at Jock, who stood before him frozen with horror. "I'll teach you where you belong! You were running after that rabbit, and your dog is yelping down a hole after her this minute!" He was such a funny sight as he knelt there, dripping and scolding, that, scared as he was, Jock could not help laughing. More than ever enraged, Angus made a sudden lunge forward and seized Jock by the ear."
I posted about Flea Treats awhile back, let me update you on my experience.
The best thing I can tell you about the FLEA TREAT method of flea control is that:
1. You have to be PATIENT and CONSISTENT.
2. It took 4-6 weeks for it to have the desired effect on my cats. However, they were infested with fleas. I thought it wasn't working and even called the company to inquire WTF? I spoke to the owner and he encouraged me to be patient and consistent. I stuck with it and found it really does work IF you are patient and consistent. I've had success with 2 indoor/outdoor cats for more than one year on this program of 2 treats a day.
2-1/2. You MUST give it to your pet EVERY DAY and at the same time of day if you expect it to be effective.
3. I only have 2 problems with Flea Treats, and they're really only in my head.
3A. My biggest problem with them is the size. I feel like I have to cut them in half to make them more bite sized. It's not like they're so big the cat'd choke on it or anything, but they are hard treats not soft treats and my cats seem to prefer the bite-size it so I do it. I had a pill cutter from forever ago, but they are only like a buck at the drugstore.
Let me preface number 3B with: You do not have to put it in their food. You can give it to them as a plain treat, but like I said above they're hard treats not soft. My cats have only ever eaten soft treats so they are not at all interested, but they eat crunchy food so in the dish it goes and they eat it like any other food morsel.
3B. My other problem is I have two cats that eat together and I now have to watch them eat and make sure they ate the treats - because if they don't eat their treats and walk away the other cat'll come over and eat out of the other's dish thereby getting the other cat's dose. If you only have one cat, no problem.
4. It's more than cost-effective.
5. Funny thing... my cats KNEW what the Advantage/Frontline package looked like, and when they'd see it they'd [expletive deleted] RUN from me. I kid you not.
My one cat had his fur burnt off and skin made raw from one of those insecticides. That's how I discovered FLEA TREATS. It broke my heart to know I was putting something that evil on my cats, so I searched the internet with terms like natural and chemical-free and found Flea Treats.
Anyway, I literally had to chase them down, hold them down and force it onto them. I felt like I was honestly physically abusing them. I am not exaggerating for effect - I felt like I was actually harming them. And I had physical proof with his fur gone and skin broken open, red and raw. How could I conscientiously not at least TRY this thing called FLEA TREATS? I had nothing to lose but the cost of return postage to send the bottle back for a refund.
What would you rather? A poisonous toxic chemical solution poured on your skin OR a tasty * liver flavored B vitamin treat to eat?
*Ok, I don't really know if it's tasty, but they eat it so
I guess it is. It's gotta taste better than [company redacted] 's Napalm in the Morning.
