Dear Reader Column 05-16-11

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Muffins and Mayhem, Recipes for a Happy (if disorderly) Life

I'd love to meet you in person. I'll be blowing bubbles, sharing some
of my homemade chocolate chip cookies and reading from
my book, Muffins and Mayhem at Bookstore 1 Sarasota.
Can you make it? I hope it's a date...See you at 6 p.m., on May 24th.

Dear Reader,

There's unusual stuff in every room of my house and each thing tells another story about the quirky side of my personality. I think I have my grandparents to thank for this delightful personality trait.

When I was a kid Grandma and Grandpa Hale lived in a two-story house that had three bedrooms upstairs. Open a door on the first floor, climb the steep staircase, pass by a wall filled with huge ornately-framed photographs of relatives long gone, walk down the hall, turn to the left, open another door and there it was--the most interesting room in my grandparents' home. And lucky me, whenever I visited, it's the room I got to sleep in. It was a kid's dreamland, because the spare bedroom was overflowing with interesting stuff--stuff that needed a place when it wasn't being used. Grandma never had to tell me a bedtime story after she tucked me in, because all I had to do was look around the room and every single thing I saw told me a story.

The set of plaid suitcases over there in the corner, my grandparents and I used those suitcases when we went to visit Aunt Inez. Aunt Inez was my favorite aunt, she never forgot my birthday, even when I was 25. See those stacks of stained berry boxes? Grandma's back yard was filled with red and purple berry bushes and even gooseberries. Word got around and almost every day there was a steady stream of berry customers stopping by. Helping Grandma Hale pick raspberries, strawberries and grapes was one of my favorite things to do in the summer. And over there, that's Grandpa's brown rattan fishing basket. He'd sling it over his shoulder whenever we went fishing together, and we'd use that same basket in the fall to collect walnuts in the woods.

Grandma and Grandpa grew popcorn, too. Once a year the entire bedroom floor--the guest bedroom I slept in--would be covered with rows and rows of popcorn cobs drying on top of newspapers, which was pretty entertaining for a kid, except at night when I tip-toed barefoot through the popcorn to get to the bathroom.

I loved sleeping in the guest room filled with "stuff" at my grandparents' home, and those memories and stories are probably why I feel right at home with the odd and interesting stuff in my own home today.

There's a fish and fishing pole hanging from my ceiling, a wedding gown in my bathroom, a huge circus tent mallet in my living room, and more. Let me show you some of my "stuff". Go to:
http://tinyurl.com/2o7jbc

And while you're looking at my stuff, you'll discover today's giveaway. Read the story behind it and enter the random giveaway drawing. I'm looking for a good home for one of the interesting things in my house.

* I'd love to meet you in person. I'll be blowing bubbles, sharing some of my homemade chocolate chip cookies and reading from my book, "Muffins and Mayhem" at Bookstore 1 Sarasota. Can you make it? I hope it's a date...See you at 6 p.m., on May 24th.

Thanks for reading with me. It's so good to read with friends.

Suzanne Beecher
Suzanne@EmailBookClub.com
www.MuffinsandMayhem.com

AUTHORBUZZ: Lorna Seilstad, today's featured author, writes...

When you think of summer what comes to mind? For me, it means baseball, lemonade, beaches and fun. Travel back to 1901 and meet the Bloomer Girls baseball teams. It's hard to imagine the great crowds that turned out to see the "spectacle" of women ball players.

To read more about A GREAT CATCH (Book two in the Lake Manawa Summers Series) goto: http://authorbuzz.com/dearreader

This month's Penguin Classics book is IOLA LEROY by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper. Start reading now and enter to win a Penguin totebag. Go to: http://tinyurl.com/May11Classics

Comments

[Tyrone Swopes]

That's a lot of relics from the past... no wonder they could all induce into you some kind of narrative. A home is a sort of time capsule, too. You discover that you have a lot in common with the people sharing the same roof with you.

[Alice Byrne]

It seems that you had a good life living with your grandparents back then. Those lovely memories of you being with your grandparents had a very big impact on your life today. That's nice. I love the quirky stuff in your house, and the wedding dress in your bathroom is a pretty unique idea. Hehe.