Magnificant Monday

ART:
This is my most recent layout. I'm 20 months old and on a "see-saw" which later became known as a "teeter-totter". My mom always sang the little rhyme, "See-saw, Margery Daw..." as she pushed the see saw up and down for me. The song is actually an old English Nursery Rhyme with political meaning as did so many of the rhymes we learned. This was a fun layout to create as I love the work of the designer (Sausan). Stop by catscraps.com to see her work... so fun and whimsical!

Credits: All paper and elements from 'Holy Hoot Cute' kit designed by Sausansdesigns.com (from catscraps.com).

I bought an inexpensive acrylic frame to put my most recent layout in so that I can stand it on my desk. Usually they get mounted on cardstock and placed in in album so quickly that I never really have a chance to look at the layout, critique it for strengths and weaknesses and just plain enjoy it. Problem solved! (My layouts are all 8 x 8 inches)


BOOKS:
I'm currently reading The Cellist Of Sarajevo and enjoying each page. It is a fast read and a real page turner as I embrace each character and their survival.

From Publishers Weekly: Canadian Galloway (Ascension) delivers a tense and haunting novel following four people trying to survive war-torn Sarajevo. After a mortar attack kills 22 people waiting in line to buy bread, an unnamed cellist vows to play at the point of impact for 22 days. Meanwhile, Arrow, a young woman sniper, picks off soldiers; Kenan makes a dangerous trek to get water for his family; and Dragan, who sent his wife and son out of the city at the start of the war, works at a bakery and trades bread in exchange for shelter. Arrow's assigned to protect the cellist, but when she's eventually ordered to commit a different kind of killing, she must decide who she is and why she kills. Dragan believes he can protect himself through isolation, but that changes when he runs into a friend of his wife's attempting to cross a street targeted by snipers. Kenan is repeatedly challenged by his fear and a cantankerous neighbor. All the while, the cellist continues to play. With wonderfully drawn characters and a stripped-down narrative, Galloway brings to life a distant conflict.

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Last year I read Pretty Birds and had my first encounter with life in Sarajevo. I loved the book and read it twice. It gives one such an understanding of what it is like to live in a war-torn country.

Young women served as snipers for both Bosnian and Serbian forces during the siege of Sarajevo; Simon, a prize-winning correspondent and NPR Weekend Edition host, interviewed one of them and has masterfully imagined her life. The book begins with half-Muslim Irena, 17, perched on a rooftop, wearing a black ski mask, sighting down a rifle. Simon then flashes back to the spring of 1992, when Irena, her parents and her parrot, Pretty Bird, must flee their home on the mostly Serb side of the city. When they make it (barely) to her grandmother's apartment, they find her slain on the staircase. Simon's account of the family's refugee life—sans water, electricity and supplies, they eat snail-and-grass soup—is full of brilliant details ranging from the comic to the heartbreaking. When a former assistant principal spots Irena, once a high school basketball star, he offers her a job that quickly has her recruited, indoctrinated and trained in deception and weaponry. That's when the action really begins to move along. Pretty Bird is released for mercy's sake, flies to his old home and is caught by Amela—a Christian and Irena's former classmate and teammate—who concocts a devious and difficult plan to return him to her friend. A deeply felt, boldly told story and clean, forceful prose distinguish this striking first novel.

MOVIES:
We are movie nuts! We watch at least one each evening that we're home. I thought that I'd share... on a regular basis... the good, well-done movies. We are currently watching a BBC miniseries (2 discs) that we are really enjoying. We get most of our movies from Netflix and sometimes from our local video store.

Stephen Collins is an ambitious politician. Cal McAffrey is a well-respected investigative journalist and Stephen's ex-campaign manager. En route to work one morning, Stephen's research assistant mysteriously falls to her death on the London Underground. It's not long before revelations of their affair hit the headlines. Meanwhile a suspected teenage drug dealer is found shot dead. These (apparently unconnected) events expose a dangerous habit within modern government of dancing too closely with the corporate devil. Friendships are tested and lives are put on the line as an intricate web of lies unfolds.

That's it for today... Make it a good one!

Love to all,

Joni