I Have The Cutest Cell Phone In The World!

My makie stickers finally arrived from Japan today. Instead of doing my usual Saturday tasks, I've been applying the stickers to my phone. Is it not charming?! I love it!

Even cuter is this darling note from the company, Strapya World. I'll recopy it verbatim for you here:

"Hiya :) Thank you so much for your patience!

Here you go ;) you finally got what you had waited for!

Please love the stuff and let us know if you need a help.

By the way, we really wish this new year, 2009, will be fruitful, hopefule &

fruitful for you. Many layoffs, salary cut and chilly winds & snow,

tough time's still been over here and it's so sluggish

Oh, but look! here you go! bright happiness with this tiny gifts. Bless You!"

I love the Japanese. Almost as much as Italians.

My Son

Lesley tagged me for a photo meme. (Find your fifth photo file. Find the fifth photo in it.) She's a fantastic photographer; she even has her own photo blog. So when I first found out I was tagged I thought, "File folder? Like, on my computer?" 'Cause I've just recently abandoned the whole album thing in favor of digital. I'm not exactly what you call technologically savvy. But, there it was, a real live photo tag, and so here's my response:

Here's my boy. My only son. I never dreamed I'd have a son with a goatee kind of thing over his chin, and a 24k white gold stud in his ear, and a UFC hat on his head. It's probably a good thing you can't see his Grateful Dead tee-shirt under the leather coat he received for his birthday.

He's teaching me lots of lessons. Like when moms with long fur coats, and equally long nails, ask me what college my son has chosen? I don't slap them any more. I just shrug, and smile, and say, "He's undecided."

He doesn't like school. He calls it "ridiculous." In many ways, he has a point. It's become antiquated, and full of busy work, and it's hard to see how Algebra 2 applies to anything in real life. So, he may graduate this June. Or, he may not. His ACT is almost ten points higher than mine was; he's not dumb. He's just undecided.

But, I've decided something. I'm not going to worry. I'm not going to nag. I'm not going to wring my hands in despair about a future none of us can see. I'm trusting God for my son. I'm waiting to see what they'll do together.

The Year The Swallows Came Early: Day 3

(Vote for your favorite of all the tour stops here.)



You can't read The Year The Swallows Came Early and not mention food. Chocolate covered strawberries, to be exact.

Groovy is an expert at making them. Her friend, Marisol, is an expert at decorating them with white chocolate swallows. I am an expert at eating them.Here is a recipe from the internet. Better yet, here is Kathryn Fitzmaurice's recipe from Groovy:

Eleanor Robinson's

(perfected) secret recipe for

chocolate-covered strawberries

~~~

INGREDIENTS:

• 
  
  10-15 large ripe strawberries with the stems intact (as gigantic as you can find)


• 
  
  8 ounces dark (semisweet) chocolate


• 
  
  4 ounces milk chocolate


• 
  
  1/4 cup shortening (Crisco)

DIRECTIONS
ask an adult to help

• 
  
  Wash and dry strawberries


• 
  
  In a medium-size saucepan (or a double boiler) on low heat, melt the dark and milk chocolate and shortening. Stir constantly.


• 
  
  Using the stem as a handle, dip each strawberry into the chocolate mixture and twirl it until it is mostly and evenly covered with chocolate. Do not cover the stem part.


• 
  
  Place the berry on a tray lined with waxed paper to dry.


• 
  
  Refrigerate for 39 minutes or more.


• 
  
  Serve.
  
  P.S. To draw the swallow (like Marison did), after your strawberries have hardened for 30 minutes in the refrigerator, melt a small amount of white chocolate (1/2 cup of white chocolate chips works well for this) mixed with a teaspoon of shortening. Dip a toothpick into the mixture while it is still warm, and let the white chocolate drip off onto your strawberry into a pattern. (It is a good idea to practice first on a napkin.) Place strawberries in the refrigerator again until the chocolate is hardened.

Thanks, Groovy. I think I will.

The Year The Swallows Came Early: Day 2

What do you want to be when you grow up?

I jokingly say to myself that I want to be a stay at home mom. You know, one with a scrumptious dinner on the table every night, a perfectly cleaned house at all times, no laundry to catch up on during the weekends.

Maybe the Lord didn't grant me that wish because He knew that I was meant to be a teacher. I decided on that vocation when I was in third grade, and I've never really varied. (Okay, I've entertained the occasional fantasy about working at a Chanel counter, but who am I kidding? I'd take home all my earnings in product!)

The characters in The Swallows Came Early, the young girls to be specific, each have their own very clear idea of what they want to be when they grow up. Groovy yearns to go to cooking school, to be a chef. Her friend, Marisol, yearns to be an artist. One of the beautiful parts of the book is when Groovy makes chocolate covered strawberries to sell at her friend's restaurant, gives up the idea in her despair, and is brought back to it when she sees that Marisol has decorated them with tiny swallows made with white chocolate and a toothpick...

I was delighted to discover that our author, Kathryn Fitzmaurice, was also once a teacher. She visited my blog before the tour began, and we struck up a bit of a conversation. She asked if she could interview me, to which I thought, "Hey! Isn't it supposed to be the other way around?" Apparently, she's going to post an interview with me on her blog, but before she does, let me post the few questions that I asked her.

Bellezza: What grade did you teach? Did you leave teaching in order to write?

Kathryn Fitzmaurice: I taught first, second, and third grades. One year, I had a 2/3 combination class. I left teaching to write and be at home with my two boys. I remember the first day they went to off school that September. I turned on my computer at 9;00am, and wrote, Chapter One, Coconut Flakes. Then I worked until I had the first paragraph. The next couple of days I read it over and wondered if it was enough to give me an entire story.

Bellezza: How did you get the idea for this novel?

Kathryn Fitzmaurice: When I sat down to write the story; I had two ideas in mind. The first was that I wanted to include the swallows because I have always been amazed at how they return to same spot at the same time each year. Their annual migration reminds me of a promise that can’t be broken. Also, I wanted to write about how my own grandmother had left me a big box of unfinished manuscripts when she passed away, which has always been a huge inspiration for me to someday write my own story. My grandmother was a science fiction author, and so ever since I was very young, I knew I wanted to try to write a story of my own. It took about three years to get this one finished.

Bellezza: When a child is hurting from his or her family life, what advice do you have other than the most critical: to forgive?

Kathryn Fitzmaurice: Well I think every child’s disappointment is very different, but sometimes, it’s probably best to just support the child, but also not to push, maybe even leave them alone until they can come to whatever opinion they need to in their own time. I don’t think you can force anyone into the place of forgiveness. It has to come when it’s ready.

I can see that she has chosen a perfect career for herself: educator turned author. That way, she can bless those who read her books as much as those who would have been in her classroom.A Christian Worldview of Fiction, All About Children’s Books, Becky’s Book Reviews, Booking Mama, Cafe of Dreams, Fireside Musings, Homeschool Buzz, Hyperbole, KidzBookBuzz.com, Looking Glass Reviews, Maw Books Blog, Never Jam Today, Novel Teen, Reading is My Superpower


Other stops along the tour can be found here:

The Year The Swallows Came Early

The Year The Swallows Came Early

by Kathryn Fitzmaurice

Publisher: The Bowens Press (Harper Collins), 2009

Number of pages: 271

What's worse than having a mother who checks her horoscope every day in order to plan her life? A father who steals from you. Such is Groovy Robinson's life, told through her eyes in a poignant and beautiful story about what it means to be thirteen. About what it means to have flawed parents.

The story opens with Groovy and her Daddy walking to town when Officer Miguel stops them. He arrests her father then and there, and takes him to jail, and we're as suprised as Grovvy is with this sudden and unexpected event.

When she tells her mother, the beauty parlor owner and stylist, her mother calmly says, "I know. I was the one who called the police."

We sort through Groovy's life with her, as she develops her deepest desire to become a cook, as she manages the pain of an inheritance lost, a father in jail, a mother who in many ways is superficial. And yet, the story reaches a beautiful conclusion; one of hope and redemption.

In several ways, this new novel reminded me of Sharon Creech's Walk Two Moon, where the strong female heroine must face incrediable disappointment and loss in the process of growing up. Ultimately, however, there is joy at the end of the journey.

Tomorrow, we'll have a brief interview with the lovely Kathryn herself.

Other tour stops can be found here:
A Christian Worldview of Fiction, All About Children’s Books, Becky’s Book Reviews, Booking Mama, Cafe of Dreams, Fireside Musings, Homeschool Buzz, Hyperbole, KidzBookBuzz.com, Looking Glass Reviews, Maw Books Blog, Never Jam Today, Novel Teen, Reading is My Superpower

With No One As Witness

I have just finished one of the best mysteries I've read. Ever. It took me almost all of February, granted, but as I closed the cover twenty minutes ago I felt as much satisfaction as having finished a quintessential slice of chocolate cake with chocolate ganache and a bit of raspberry sorbet on the side: perfection.

The book is swirling around in my brain with these threads teasing out:

• the plot is intricately woven with no possibility of guessing the outcome before its arrival...


• the characters are perfectly drawn: from their physical appearance to their emotional upheavals, I feel as if I've met them and understand them...


• the phrasing, the vocabulary, makes me rest completely in the author's care. No word is out of place, or unnecessarily implanted; no word makes me gag at its awkwardness within the sentence...


• the setting is so accurate, so well drawn, I'm amazed that Elizabeth is from Ohio and not London itself.

Here she is, Mrs. Elizabeth George:

"She has won the Anthony Award, the Agatha Award, and France's Le Grand Prix de Literature Policiere for her novel A Great Deliverance, for which she was also nominated for the Edgar and the Macavity Awards.

She has also been awarded Germany's MIMI for her novel Well-Schooled in Murder. Most of her novels have been filmed by for television by the BBC and have been broadcast in the US on PBS's MYSTERY." (from the author's website)

If you'd like me to send you my paperback edition, let me know in the comments below and I'll pull a name by next Sunday. But, you might want to find your own copy before then.

The winner of the giveaway is Sara!

Friday Fill-Ins

1-3 are courtesy of Mar this week...

1. Give me a box of Fannie May chocolates and I'll eat the whole thing within a few days.

2. Whenever I drive on the toll road I'm scared to death.

3. I wish I established better boundaries without feeling guilty.

4. Chicken Cordon Bleu at Mimi's Cafe was the last thing I ate that was utterly delicious.

5. To live in this world is to be a stranger in it.

6. Other than this one, Princess Haiku is the last blog I commented on.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to finally finishing With No One As Witness, which really is an excellent mystery, tomorrow my plans include attacking the never ending pile of laundry and Sunday, I want to be peaceful!

Often, I can't even find my cell phone

let alone remember to charge it. It's at the bottom of my purse, buried in lipsticks, and usually beeping to remind me that it needs a fresh charge.

I tend to look with scorn at people who are constantly on their cell phones. I've dined with several who have their phone right above the salad fork at their place settings. This behavior is to be expected with the high school crowd; my son's girlfriend texted her friends the entire hour of 24 last Monday. But, from grown ups? On the phone while you're driving? Who the heck do you need to talk to that badly?!

Suffice it to say, I haven't been brought up with the phone. When my son's father and I were engaged he was living in Germany. He'd line up all his pfennigs and Deutsch marks to wait for his turn at the phone booth, and when we had finally connected across the Pacific Ocean he had about ten minutes before my father told me to hang up. "It's costing him money!" my father would exclaim, and it wasn't even his money. It's like that comedienne, I unfortunately forget her name just now, who once said, "If Alexander Graham Bell saw my father's phone bill he'd see no reason to invent the thing."

So, I'm as surprised as anyone at my latest obsession. While idly surfing eBay a few days ago, I quickly typed in "Japanese cellphone charms" in the search box. Do you have any idea how many results you'll get? Any? A LOT! Apparently, one can't have a phone in Japan without decorating it to the hilt: stickers, charms, beautiful hand blown beads which can run almost $100.00.

Those are my weakness. I scorned the idea of an anime, or manga, character. I poo-pooed the idea of a false piece of sushi in charm form dangling from my phone. I imagined myself too old for a plush Hello Kitty head as well. But, these hand blown beads each one unique to another? With a Japanese flower for Spring? Sold!

I'm off to order one now. And, in case you want to peruse the idea further yourself, you can follow me to the store here.

Happy "Valentime's" Day

The day started with children bringing in their supplies. I mean, Valentines.

But, you also have to wear the appropriate accoutrements, such as this rhinestone studded hat...


rhinestone studded shirt and initial necklace...


and red alabaster necklace over red glossy heart.

One has to play games, such as Bingo, with conversation hearts...

before one can pass out one's Valentine cards. The homemade ones are my favorite.

Joshua's holder bears the face of a dog, with an accompaning, "WooF" on the side.

My example pales in comparison.

Most touching are the handmade hearts, taped in place in Great Anticipation of February 14th.

It was a day of great celebration,

as only a child can truly thrill to.

Do you have any memories from your childhood Valentine parties?

Friday Fill-Ins

1. It seems like it was much easier to teach twenty years ago. Remember when you had recess? That went out with the 80's!

2. Use a bookmark, instead of folding back the page, when you're done, please?

3. If I thought you understood my heart I'd be your friend forever!

4. Laughter is what I think of most when I think of you.

5. To me, Valentine's Day means giving up being disappointed in not having a perfectly romantic evening, and being glad for what I do have.

6. God gives me strength.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to sitting on my fanny, tomorrow my plans include seeing my son and his date off to the Winter Dance and Sunday, I want to fold origami with my cousin and her daughter who requested special lessons!

GTO: Great Teacher Onizuka

You'll never believe it. Not in a hundred million years.

I'm in Japan. Tokyo, to be exact. Well, of course, you might have guessed that. But, you'll never guess who I'm in Tokyo with: a 22 year old teacher in training named Eikichi Onizuka. Yep!

He's from the hugely famous Tokyopop publication of GTO: Great Teacher Onizuka. The genre? Manga!

I'm totally, totally addicted. When I first picked up a manga book last summer, I was completely bewildered as to the process. Okay, backwards first, I got that. But, going from right to left, and especially with the boxes of a comic book which aren't exactly in a straight row, was difficult for this spacially impaired girl. Then, there's the context. Usually, I found manga to be trite beyond belief. Everyone was eating noodles, talking about boyfriends, playing pachinko. Big deal.

But, after I joined Rhinoa's Manga Challenge, and went to the library looking for a set which actually had a Volume 1 on the shelf, I settled for GTO. And now, I can't wait to get home from school and read the next one.

Why am I crazy about Eikichi Onizuka? Because he puts me in touch with the long dormant rebellious teenager inside of me. The one who hates rules, and is constantly looking for a way around them. Because he reminds me of how powerfully I desired to finish my own teacher training days so that I could finally have a classroom of my own. Because of his unorthodox methods of teaching. Most importantly, because he shows me that my eighteen year old son isn't so weird after all.

(Read it here for free.)

Checking Your Child's Homework

Dear Mrs. Jones,

I wish to clarify that I am not now, nor have I ever been, an exotic dancer. I work at Home Depot and I told my daughter how hectic it was last week before the blizzard hit. I told her we sold out every single shovel we had, and then I found one more in the back room, and that several people were fighting over who would get it.

Her picture doesn't show me dancing around a pole. It's supposed to depict me selling the last snow shovel we had at Home Depot. From now on I will remember to check her homework more thoroughly before she turns it in.

Sincerely, Mrs. Smith

Friday Fill-Ins

1. Please don't tell me the future. Let me discover it day by day.

2. Can you wake up alert in the morning?

3. The color green makes me want to sleep in a forest glade!

4. I have a craving for P.F. Chang's Chinese food.

5. If my life had a pause button, I'd pause it when my son was still small. I'd live his early childhood days over again with a deeper appreciation and less annoyance at being "inconvenienced".

6. Eyes are the most beautiful when they're a deep brown.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to going out to dinner, tomorrow my plans include visiting the Russian store with my friend Carol and Sunday, I want to praise His name before taking our one-blue-eyed-and-one-brown-eyed-dog Henry on a walk!

Japanese Prizes Announced

"Knowledge without wisdom is a load of books on the back of an ass." (Japanese proverb)

"Life without endeavor is like entering a jewel-mine and coming out with empty hands." (Japanese proverb)

"An accomplishment sticks to a person," (Japanese proverb) and so without further ado:

Prize #1: Asleep by Banana Yoshimoto (donated by Terri B.) goes to Nymeth!

Prize #2: Coin Locker Babies goes to Chris at Stuff as Dreams Are Made On!

Prize #3: "The Wave" notebook, set of cards, and froggie origami goes to Iliana!

Prize #4: two CDs of Japanese music go to Tanabata!

Prize #5: All She Was Worth and Crossfire go to Dream Queen!


Prize #6: Hear The Wind Sing, and a matching button, go to The Holistic Knitter!

Prize #7: the Japanese cookbook, and a dish with a Japanese Maple leaf, go to Terri B!

Prize #8: The DHC catalogue, with accompanying samples and olive soap, go to Madeleine!

Prize #9: Tanabata's lovely Japanese calendar goes to Raidergirl 3!

and that leaves us with Carl V., Mee, and 3M who, as yet prize-less during the challenge, will be rewarded with a small token of my appreciation.

If all of you will email me your address at: bellezza.mjs@gmail.com, I will send your prizes off in the next week. Thank you, thank you for joining me in the Japanese Literature Challenge 2.

And, for the rest of you, mark your calendars for the JLC3 beginning this July!