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Will you look at this? It has loft -- a loft! -- windowboxes, a dutch door, and dormer windows. Behind the facade lies a whopping 180 square feet of whitewashed living space:



Thursday afternoon, I stepped inside and lost my mind.

I bought it the very next next day. Never mind the fact that I am unemployed. Never mind the fact that the WIP is still unfinished. Never, never mind.

Surely, this qualifies as low-level insanity, but I. DO. NOT. CARE. I've always had a thing for playhouses, treehouses, and even those campers you perch on the back of pickup trucks. How could I resist? Besides, I couldn't beat the price, ever -- it was like a miniature foreclosure. Without the mortgage, thank you very much.

Every now and then the practical voice in my head bobs to the surface and hollers something along the lines of, "WHAT ARE YOU THINKING??" But everyone else in there rushes out to hold her down and stuff the gag back in her mouth. We've got her limited to the occasional feeble cry now. Practical Sarah can get her kicks doing price comparisons on insulation and paint at Home Depot from here on out.

Loads and loads of photos are likely to follow as I deck this thing out. You can bet your bottom dollar that the sign from HDS will be prominently featured inside.

It looks to me like I no longer need to be wildly jealous of Marla Frazee's studio. (Click on the little moon icon to see its rampant cuteness.)

So, what shall we call this little hidey-hole of mine? Being a Peter Pan junkie, I offer two choices:

Bonus points if you can name the place and/or the artists....

If you're trying to get something done -- say, a rough draft -- don't put shortcuts to games on your desktop or dock. Just don't. Sheesh.

A signed copy of Barbara O'Connor's new book, that is. Which means I can cross Greetings from Nowhere off my books-to-get-my-grubby-paws-on-somehow list!

Here's the amusingly illustrated proof.

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Currently reading:


The Luxe
by Anna Godbersen

For those of you who remember the headcheese and calamari incidents...

I just ate a piece of chicken liver, and a bite or two of gizzard. I did not even gag. I have no idea why I feel the need to post this info on a book blog, but as Gus likes to say in My Big Fat Greek Wedding, "There you go."


For what it's worth, I still haven't had any takers on the eat-headcheese-and-get-a-Little-House-book challenge. (See the headcheese link above if you don't know what I'm talking about.)

No! That's Wrong! by Zhaohua Ji and Cui Xu.

Oh my...Kane/Miller has brought us a delightful book from China!

A pair of ruffly red underpants blows off a clothes line and lands near a little white rabbit who immediately places them on his head. "It's a hat," he says. The text at bottom corrects him, "No, that's wrong. It's not a hat." But the rabbit doesn't seem to listen and goes about placing the underpants on the heads of other animals. It takes a donkey to set him straight and let him know he's wearing underpants on his head.

But, if the donkey is right, and they really ARE underpants, where does his tail go?

Along the way, the story introduces a number of adjectives and opposites. For example, the "hat" is too small for an elephant, but too big for a fox, and it's simply amazing, magnificent, incredible...you get the drift.

I really can't think of anything that's much funnier than a bunch of animals with hilarious facial expressions wearing underpants on their heads, and children will laugh out loud at this book and its illustrations. I can just imagine them yelling, "No! That's Wrong," as they turn the pages. Even the back end papers will elicit giggles as readers see a number of animals incorrectly wearing articles of clothing and other objects on their bodies.

If you're looking for a funny book that will make your child (and you) laugh and also introduce some new vocabulary words along the way, this would make an excellent choice.

Release date: March 1, 2008 (available now!)

Betcha some of you thought I was on my way to Germany yesterday, huh?

Wrong.

The Germans are here -- a pair of them. Now. Sleeping off their jet lag. And because I'm a little wienerschnitzel, I like to call them "Germs."

Thus begins what I refer to as the Schnell, Schnell Shop-a-thon. It's basically the outlet mall equivalent of a decathalon. Fortunately for me, I now have lots of peppermint Ritter Sport and gummi candy to keep me pepped up. Unfortunately for you, this means blog posts and other booky sorts of things are likely to be even fewer and farther between for the next little while. Unless I put a paperback in my pocket for the road...

Auf Wiedersehen!

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Occasionally attempting to read:


House of Dance
by Beth Kephart

Printable word searches and quizzes from Kane Miller:

by Yukihisa Tokuda illustrated by Kiyoshi Takahashi Kane/Miller paperback 2006 originally published by Fukuinkan Shoten Publishers, Japan 2003 Do you know why the pill bug lives near humans? Do you know how a pill bug deals with an ant? What about a frog? True or false: a pill bug eats concrete. True or false: a pill bug eats its shell once it's shed. True or false: a pill bug sheds half it's