author robert leleux

sometime last year (or the year before, i lose track of time) robert leleux ordered calling cards from pixelimpress. shortly thereafter i was browsing thru lonny and i see a familiar name. i email robert and ask if my customer is the one and the same features editor of lonny mag. YES! it's him. a few months later, i see this in the nov/dec 2011 issue of lonny. robert and his husband michael's apartment. omg. it's gorgeous. as in, drop dead. do yourself a favor and head over there and check it out. there's more photos of his gorgeous home.
it's the type of home where you know the owners have a story to tell about EVERYTHING there. and you know you can sit for hours listening to them share those stores. i love that.

in that same article, it mentions that robert has a book coming out in a few months. well, that book is out. and i caught up with robert on one of his stops on his book tour, right by my house. here's robert and i a few nights ago.
it was a pleasure meeting robert! he's just as i imagined him. funny. contagious laugh. and a storyteller. if this tells you anything, his signature matches his personality...look how good his book looks sitting on my end table with my domino book.
head over here to see if robert's coming to your town.

books!

i haven't read a book in so long that i wonder if i've forgotten how to read. i hope to pick up a book after christmas. life is just too busy right now. but... it didn't stop me from making a book. after reading about blurb on stephanie's blog awhile back and having a need to make a book, i decided to give it a shot a few weeks ago.

remember our family outing to dealey plaza in dallas a few weeks ago? well, my brother-in-law asked me to send him the photos from the visit so he could show his dad. rather than just putting the photos in a photobook, i decided to try out blurb. there was a slightl learning curve with my first attempt. it took me about 3 hours to put together a 26 page book. next time i'm sure it'll go a little quicker now that i know what to expect.

i got the book a few days ago. here it is. the cover...
i decided to make pixel the author, since she and her uncle bobby have a small love affair going on.i put jfk quotes on the back cover.
i'm really pleased with the quality of the book. the dust jacket is a quality, glossy paper. the book itself is covered in black linen. i ordered the book with premium paper pages and they're gorgeous. they have a slightlustre. i'll definitely do more books with blurb.

and speaking of books, have you seen this one?? menagerie by sharon montrose. you can buy a signed copy here.
i'm a huge fan of her photographs. i can never decide which one to buy... with this book i could enjoy a bunch of photos!

to bring a smile to your face, head here and watch this super cute video on sharon's site.

and.... looks like pioneer woman has another cookbook coming out in march. i have her first one and use it a lot. her comfort meatballs are a favorite!
the book comes out in march but you can pre-order it.

and.... one more book... little brown pen has a book coming out titled 'paris in color'. i love her photographs and have several throughout my home. you can preorder her book here.

this is my latest favorite photo of hers.

my staycation

my family was in town last week. at the request of my history-lovin' brother-in-law bobby, we visited dealey plaza in dallas, the site of jfk's assassination. yesterday marked the 48th anniversary of jfk's death. (steve and i just so happened to catch a documentary the other night on the national geographic channel showing actual footage of that very sad day.)

i took my new camera. steve just used the word obsession and camera in the same sentence in reference to me and my new toy. and it's true. i love it. i took 249 photos this day, between dealey plaza and the dallas arboretum, which i'll show you another day. (if you click on any picture below, it will enlarge and produce a slideshow of all the photos in this post)

anywho, here's the famous former texas book depository. now the dallas county administration building. the open window (2nd row from the top) is the one where lee harvey oswald was claimed to be.
just down the block from the former texas book depository (grassy knoll in the background).
this is ron, our tour guide. we happened upon him when we arrived at dealey plaza. he gave us a walking tour of the area. he was a very interesting man and knew everything there was to know about this site.
my brother-in-law
and steve paid very close attention to ron.the grassy knoll.
a plaque in commemoration of john fitzgerald kennedy.
the area is know as the west end historic district.
another shot of the grassy knoll.ron was intriguing. he spewed off tons of information about that fateful day, 48 years ago yesterday.

on a related note, stephen king has a new book out titled 11/22/63.
it's an 849-page novel of an alternative history of that day. the new york times has an article regarding this book here. i think i might read this.

and, on another related note....my friend denise just heard stephen king speak at a local high school. she has a great post over here about that night. pop over and read about what scares stephen king!

almost the weekend....

what's on your agenda? i think i'm going to start this book. i hear it's good... i'll let ya know.
and oh, how i wish i was reading it here. in a lounge chair, by a pool, with sunshine. smelling the peonies. with a cold drink. interspersed with naps and dipping in the pool. and perhaps even a butler will appear with lunch so i can dine al fresco. wouldn't that be lovely. can you tell i need a vacation?

via

speaking of books, have you seen this website, what should i read next? simply put in a name of a book you liked and it recommends similar books. genius. i found out about the site here. and if you're still stumbling to find your next book, you can read thru the 338 (at press time) comments from her readers about their favorite books!

have a good weekend!

snippets from our sunday

there was an open house. we had to leave. i didn't feel well and just wanted to crawl back in bed. the rain and cold temps (seattle has yet to realize it's late spring) didn't help. we headed to the nearest coffee shop and read our books. steve was engrossed. i told him it was a good one. he hesitated reading it because he watched the movie with me and doesn't like to read the book after the movie. he's almost done with the book, after just one day. he's a speed reader.
i read this for our book club meeting friday night.
and the coffee shop is dog friendly so this one got to join us inside.

moving right along

i just finished reading middlesex by jeffrey eugenides.
middlesex is a pulitzer prize winning book (2003). and in 2007, oprah chose it for her book club. i had the book in my possession for a few years, probably since 2007 when oprah named it for her book club. i finally read it. and i'm glad i did.

according to wikipedia, "middlesex is the story of narrator and protagonist Cal Stephanides (initially called "Callie") as an intersexed man of greek descent with a condition known as 5-alpha-reductase deficiency, which causes him to have certain feminine traits. the first half of the novel is about Cal's family, and depicts Cal's grandparents migrating from Smyrna, a city in
Asia Minor, to the United States in 1922. It then follows their assimilation into the American society. The latter half of the novel, which is set in the late 20th century, focuses on Cal's experiences in his hometown Detroit, Michigan, and his escape to San Francisco where he comes to terms with his modified gender identity."

it took me a little while to immerse myself in middlesex. but once i did, i was hooked. i found eugenides writing exceptional and extremely articulate. his descriptions of callie's angst-filled pre-teen and teen years were phenomenal. i struggled through the section where callie escaped to san fran. mostly because i wanted a different scenario at that juncture. that aside, i really loved the book.

so, now i'm on to the next. water for elephants by sara gruen.
this is our first book in our book club. did i tell you i'm in a book club?! yes, my neighbor and i started one. i've always wanted to be in one. when i told steve that we were starting a book club, he asked if we were meeting once a week. seriously. steve's in the fast reader's club. i'm not. it's annoying when we read in bed at night and my reading is distracted by how fast he's turning pages.

and perfect timing for reading water for elephants. the movie version comes out in april, so i hear. and look who's in it. that's right. twilight boy.

***

it's been awhile...

since i've had a free weekend day to sit down and read. our drizzly weather this past weekend certainly helped me out also. nothing like a rainy sunday to sit and read, and ok, maybe nap too. i bounced between these two.
a great read. i'm only halfway thru but would totally recommend it based on just the first half.

and lonny magazine. where i fell in love with lulu de kwiatkowski's (of lulu dk fame) los angeles home. check it out. i think you'll agree, it's pretty fabulous.