KathleenMacIver

LOTS! I actually re-read more than I read new. I'm a very picky reader, in what I enjoy... and knowing how the story ends never ruins a story for me. Sooo... I re-read my favorites all the time! The one I've read the most? That's got to be The Mage's Daughter, by Lynn Kurland. It's only been out a year, and I think I'm up to about 11 reads.

My favorite book is The Mage's Daughter, by Lynn Kurland. If you want to know why, see the "Favorite Character" thread. :-)

My favorite character is Miach, from Lynn Kurland's The Mage's Daughter. Other characters I love: Lizzy, from Pride and Prejudice Jem, from the later Anne of Green Gables series Ummm.... I know there are more, but I can't think of them!

Okay... I've got to try this!!! Do you just sprinkle them with lemon juice, or do you have some sort of lemon-y sugar or something like that? (And what if they end up on the floor while I'm trying to toss them in the air??? The dog gets those, I guess. LOL!)

Sounds delicious! Anyone have a recipe for me to try? (Oh... American pancackes are good with jam, jelly, or perserves, too!)

I HAVE to ask... how are our pancakes different than yours?

I'm one of those who can't put a book down (when it's good), until it's finished. :-) So I read in spurts... I get going and read 3-5 books in a few days... and then I feel guilty for not getting anything else done and go for a while without reading anything... but I still write. :-)

Welcome! I'm reletively new, too, but this is a nice group!

I have three double-wide bookcases that line my dining room walls, making it look more like a library. Theyr'e mostly filled with my nicer books. But then, since the house is on the market and these can't be too crowded, all of the shabbier and mis-matched books are in boxes behind the sofa... as well as the kid's books. Then there's a small stack beside my bed that I'm reading now or just finished. I don't think I've got as many books as you guys do... I try to stick to reading library copies, and only buy books if they're good enough to read over and over and over again, or if I think they'll be hard-to-find when my kids are older and will want to read them.

Well... the Bible, definitely... on a continuous basis. Otherwise... This might sound kind of strange, but I'm thinking of Lynn Kurland's romance novels. This wasn't an earth-shattering change, but a gentle slight one that I believe God used to show me other things. Her heros are fantastic heros, not because she's given them fantastic abilities (they're only slightly better-than-average in the world they live in). They're fantastic because she portrays them to show how wonderful the love of a sometimes-grumpy, often-stubborn, very normal MAN... can be. AND she portrays quite well, in some of them, how much the strongest of men still need a woman to stand by them. They changed my life in how I look at my husband and my own marriage. Now I am better able to see the romance and the love that's under my own husband's prickly exterior. Now I can see more easily how my husband's over-protectiveness is nothing more than the modern version of the protective instinct, prompted by a desperate love, that the knights of old felt when they'd do anything to protect their women. I love it in the books... why didn't I love it in modern life? Just because I don't perceive modern life as being as dangerous, doesn't change the fact that MY man is protective because he's not sure how he'd go on living without me. It was just little tiny things like that, that helped me look at my husband in a new way, and that's really enhanced my marriage and made me appreciate the manly things that used to drive me nuts. :-)

Sounds great! That's exactly the kind of town I want to live in! I don't WANT to have so much shopping and everything so close. When we want to "do" something, we end up shopping... and spending money we don't have to buy stuff that we don't need and don't have any room for. There's nothing else to do, since we don't care for the beach. You can't go for walks without taking a shower in bugspray first. You can't go for a hike through the woods, because FL's version is scrub with stinging plants that will eat you alive if you stray from a cleared path. And then, my dh has a rough time avoiding junk food because he works on the road and there is fast food and convenience stores on every corner! We want a healthier lifestyle where there's hiking right outside our backdoor to do... we want to live in a place were we can have a garden, and were we can hopefully get fresh milk from a nearby farm or something. *sigh*

Well... I miss spring, fall, and winter, and I'm TIRED of so much summer!!! I miss the seasons, I miss the doffodils and crocuses and lilacs... I miss the fall leaves... I miss the snow and the sharp sting of cold air on your face... I miss cool evenings, all bundled up in a sweater or sweats... I miss trees with leaves that ripple in the breeze (palm trees don't)... I miss shade (FL has precious little, since palm trees don't shade much more than their trunks)... I'm tired of annual fire and hurricane seasons... I want to be close enough to family that we can go for a drive to visit them on the weekend... I miss seeing hills and/or mountains in the distance (the highest point in FL is something like 500 ft.)... and so forth. And THAT'S why I love Pennsylvania and would gladly move from here to there if I could!

PA is short for Pennsylvania... North East USA.

I think most people really liked it. I really liked the concept of it, and I think that it was done very well, emotionally. ie: the love aspect of it was very believable, even though there were holes in the "how is this supposedly possible" part of the plot. I found myself wishing that it had been based on a book, so I could read the book... but it wasn't. *sigh* (Note, it's NOT based on Persuasion... nothing like it. Persuasion is simply the book that the heroine reads.)

So how did you like Emma?

Hi Korrie! I'm a US stay-at-home mom, too, and I'm reletively new here. There aren't very many authors here that I recognize either, but I think it's because of the sheer number of books that are out there! Anyway... I'm an unwilling Floridian, wanting to move to PA if God ever sees fit to make this dream a reality. (Where in PA do you live?) I'm also an aspiring author, trying to polish my first finished manuscript. As for your list of authors... the only one I recognize is Beverly Lewis. If you like paranormal romance, there's a LOT out there, so you've got lots of reading ahead of you! Me... I like historical romance and time travel... Lynn Kurland (who also writes some paranormal, such as Stardust of Yesterday) is my favorite author. Nice meeting you!

Well... I love cheese. :-) I have this other recipe I make where I sautee garlic and herbs, and then cook down some cream and white cooking sherry, so it's a very light garlic cream sauce... then I dump it over rotini noodles and steamed broccoli and red peppers and bite-sized chicken. That sounds more like what you'd like. Yeah, I think you're right. Sometimes, when I hear food lovers go on and on like you do, I've wondered if I'm missing out. But then, I think of the mile-long list of things that I already love to do and can't find enough time in the day/week/year to enjoy... and I can't help thinking that maybe it's good that I don't have that on my list as well.

Hmmm... well, I love home-made macaroni and cheese... noodles with home-made cheddar cheese sauce dumped over them. It's simple, but I love it! I don't go for microwave food either, but for health reasons. They say that microwaved foods alter the chemical make-up of the food, so your body can't use the nutrient... that even microwaved water kills plants! So I only use mine in emergencies. As to food being the greatest pleasure in the world... I have to admit that I've never understood that point of view. I eat because I have to to survive. Sure, there are a number of foods that I love enough to get a hankering for, but if I could somehow survive and not have to worry about ever cooking and eating, I'd really be quite happy! I'm weird, I know...

Nice to meet you Renniemist!

Here are some of my favorites: I no particular order: - Elizabeth Bennett (Pride & Prejudice) - Jem (Anne and Gilbert's son, from the Anne of Green Gables series... don't ask my why I love him... I don't know!) - Miach (from Lynn Kurland's Star of the Morning... at least so far. I'm assuming that the next two in the trilogy will complete the character that this book hinted about) - Harold (You guys are going to think this is funny, but this character is a young boy who only appears in the Prologue and Epilogue of Lynn Kurland's "The Tale of Two Swords" novella, found in the To Weave a Web of Magic anthology... but I love him!) - Jason de Piaget (another of Lynn Kurland's characters... he is a side-character in This Is All I Ask, and From this Moment On, but his own love story is told in the novella, To Kiss In The Shadows, which happens to be a RITA winner.) - Miss Marple (Agatha Christie's murder-solving old maid) - The Scarlet Pimpernel (the original hero-in-disguise, from Baronness von Orczy's books)

So WHERE can you not buy Macaroni and Cheese? Geesh... here, they have a whole macaroni and cheese section of the store! There's about four brands of the regular powdered-cheese versions and you have your choice of about five different shapes of noodles, two brands of Organic in three shapes of noodles and types of cheeses, two brands of Velveeta-style cheese, then there's Betty Crocker's tuna and/or hamburger helper macaroni and cheese, and that usually comes in different kinds of cheeses... then there's the "one serving throw it in the microwave" ones... and I'm sure I'm missing some. And then I buy the real cheddar cheese, regular organic pasta, and come home and make it from scratch. OK... for US folks... what are Tim-Tams, Penguins, and Vegemite?

Hi KW and Liz! Pp, I'll be taking you up on that! :-) Thanks for the offer! Fish and Chips... I found it! Your town is nice and clear in Google Earth... lots of great photos of the castle, too. Cool!!! Now I can say I know someone who lives near that castle! My kids will think that's awesome!

I love all of your lunch names!!! I wonder why lunch and dinner got so many different names, while breakfast is pretty standard? (at least to my knowledge). Anyway... I made pizza bagels for the kids and I for lunch today.

I voted for the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe because I REALLY liked Peter... but the Voyage of the Dawn Treader was my next choice. The Silver Chair gave me nightmares when I was a child, after I read it (tons of playground slides that disappeared into the ground and went on forever, LOL!)... but it's okay now. I liked The Last Battle, too... the other three I had a hard time getting into.

Sounds great! I'll look into it! The Black Watch always makes me think of Saturday mornings growing up. My Dad usually had work for us to do, so he'd put on his Black Watch album really loud and walk through the hallway clapping really loudly, and we'd come awake to the bagpipes playing Scotland the Brave. Some Saturdays I liked it, others I groaned and rolled my eyes, but they're fond memories now.