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Showing posts from 2010

Getting Settled

We’ve been here just under a month and I’m still getting used to the fact I can go out and buy food at any time of the day or night. And the shelves aren’t empty and if they do run out of something, they’ll restock it in a few days, not a week or month or never! It’s crazy. It’s freezing here so I am now the proud owner of two new winter coats (my previous one was a show pony, not a work horse) and have lost many a glove all ready. I am truly my father’s daughter. My mom used to threaten to make him wear mittens on a string and really, that would be the economical choice for me. I’m happy to say this year feels like Christmas. When you’re in a place where the coldest it gets is 60-something and there’s no snow, it doesn’t feel very Christmas-y. Also, the Portuguese decorate a little different and with the streets being so narrow, it’s not easy to drive around to see the decorations like it is in the U.S. So walking into stores here and seeing tons of décor and trees and all the snow i

This time I'm getting interviewed!

Writer Claudette Young was gracious enough to interview me on her fabulous blog. Check out the piece here: http://claudsy.wordpress.com/2010/10/01/interview-with-krysten-lindsay-hager/

My Illegal Adoption

I'm really not sure why I still remember this, but today, September first, is both my Cabbage Patch Kids' birthdays. So happy birthday Sandra Kate & Amanda Nicole wherever you are, which, knowing my mother (your fake grandma) you're both probably in a landfill somewhere. So sorry, what can I say? I don't even think your adoption was legal. I still remember getting Amanda (formerly Paula Geraldine) for Christmas and my mother was trying to get me to name her Amanda Stacey Selby (Selby for actor David Selby from "Falcon Crest" so her initials would be A.S.S. Great parenting. Two years later, Sandra Kate arrived and she was a World Traveler from the Netherlands. Gotta love the foreign adoptions. My mother told my grandpa to bring his camera over to take her passport photo. It was so frustrating because I wanted her passport to look exactly like the one on the box (with just her face) and he kept getting a pic of her propped up on a chair and you know air

Remembering Carolyn and John

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I first heard about Carolyn Bessette back in high school where I was obsessed with fashion and spent more time pouring over magazines than my school books. I was in sociology class when I first saw a picture of her at a dinner with John F. Kennedy Jr. I had, like every other female with a pulse, thought he was adorable since he tamed his huge hair. I remember going to New York in 1997 and telling my sister we had to save our film when we went to Central Park in case John was playing football there. I literally took the camera from her and said, "Take all the pictures you want when we get more film, for now, get your priorities straight." When I first heard the news in 1999 that their plane was missing I felt sick. I felt worse when they found the wreckage. But what shocked me in the days that followed was the way Carolyn's name was smeared in the press. They blamed her for a late take-off, for possibly using her phone while in flight, and accused her of everything under t

Seraphine DVD Review: PopSyndicate.com

Check out my review on this French film about a cleaning woman who went on to become a famous artist. Seraphine DVD Review: PopSyndicate.com

Five Minutes of Heaven DVD Review: PopSyndicate.com

Check out my review! Five Minutes of Heaven DVD Review: PopSyndicate.com

A Night of Long Knives (Hannah Vogel) by Rebecca Cantrell Books Review: PopSyndicate.com

Check out my review! A Night of Long Knives (Hannah Vogel) by Rebecca Cantrell Books Review: PopSyndicate.com

Remembering a great man who meant a lot to me

A few years ago, I got an assignment to cover a school anniversary and I chose to write about the priest who made that school a success. Father Bush was not just the priest who baptized me, but who helped teach me about God and how to be a good person (stop laughing, I have my moments). He retired when I was little, but still came around the school and church and we frequently ran into him in town. He always acted as if I was just the person he had wanted to see. When he died, a different newspaper didn't exactly do a great job in summing up his life. To be honest, that particular paper had a knack for less than stellar pieces on those who had just passed away. So writing about him was my way of paying tribute to him--the tribute he deserved years ago. Oddly, I wrote the article in the early spring in 2007, but they decided to hold on to it because they were running graduation stories. It was then that I realized the anniversary of his death was coming up on the very day the paper

Live to Tell by Wendy Corsi Staub Books Review: PopSyndicate.com

Live to Tell by Wendy Corsi Staub Books Review: PopSyndicate.com Posted using ShareThis

Interview

Check out my interview (where I'm the one being interviewed for a change!) at The Gift: A Blog for Caretakers of Sensational Children from Lily Wolf Words. http://lilywolfwords.blogspot.com/2010/04/q-with-expert-krysten-hager-writer-and.html

April's Fool

April Fools' Day has never been one of my favorites. Maybe it's because I don't enjoy pranks or perhaps it's deeper than that. I have a feeling my mom might have a little something to do with my fear of this day. It started when I was a little girl and my mom was pregnant. She called me into the living room and told me we should play an April Fools' Day joke on my dad. Her joke? She told me pregnant women faint a lot and it's no big deal, so run outside and tell dad that she passed out and she'll lie on the floor when he comes in. So like an obedient little idiot, I ran outside and told my father, who was innocently cutting the grass, that my mom was now sprawled out on the floor. He ran in (who knew my dad could sprint like that?) to find her on the floor. As he panicked, she began laughing. To his credit, he laughed it off, but looking back on it....yeah, not so funny. Then there was the time when I was in fifth grade. My mother came into my room and

An Award!

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Marjolein from Marjolein Book blog (http://marjoleinbookblog.blogspot.com) just gave me the One Lovely Blog Award! Thanks so much, Marjolein! I'll be looking for other blogs to give it to soon.

Best of 2009: Books Books Review: PopSyndicate.com

Best of 2009: Books Books Review: PopSyndicate.com Posted using ShareThis

How to Be DVD Review: PopSyndicate.com

How to Be DVD Review: PopSyndicate.com Posted using ShareThis