Alyssa Goodnight

The Update

So…it’s been a while. You may be wondering, what’s up with me. Here’s an encapsulation:

Admiring my mention in the April 8th, 2013 edition of FIRST for Women! AUSTENSIBLY ORDINARY is listed in the feature,

“The 6 Paperbacks We’re Reading Now.”

Participating in Julie Valerie’s Chick Lit Chat for Grilled Cheese Month (April 15th)

Watching The Lizzie Bennet Diaries (an online adaptation of Pride & Prejudice). I’m only on Episode 25, but I’m so enjoying it. Misty at The Book Rat recently posted this AWESOME video mash-up of TLBD and Beauty and the Beast (the songs are by far the best part). Even if you haven’t been watching The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, you’ll enjoy it. But you should be watching The Lizzie Bennet Diaries!!

Eating fish tacos almost every Monday. My special treat until school is out…

Watching Mr. Selfridge on Masterpiece PBS, a new mini series by Andrew Davies (creator of the 1995 BBC P&P)

Reading Nightingale Wood by Stella Gibson. Published in 1938, parts of it are reminding me of P&P.

Waiting for His Majesty’s Hope by Susan Elia MacNeal to come out!!

Looking forward to summer swimming, homemade ice cream, and vacations!

Making Philly Cheesesteak Stuffed Peppers and South American Flank Steak…yummers!

Drinking iced chai tea with vanilla soy milk instead of Dr Pepper.

Trying to decide what to make with the bag of Meyer lemons I bought last week.

Planing a family kickball night, wishing for a girls trip…

Writing, writing, writing!

Posted in austensibly ordinary, books, life, Uncategorized on 04/08/2013 05:39 pm | 2 Comments

Book Review Club March 2013

It has clearly been too long since I’ve blogged! My last post was a Book Review Club post from a MONTH ago!!

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@Barrie Summy

Whew, well, clearly I need to make these Book Review Club posts count because who knows when I might be posting again. I’ve been writing, and I’m kinda on a roll, so every time I consider blogging, I think…maybe I should keep the writing up. And I do. And I have, so…sorry. But today, you will forgive me, because today I have a stellar book to blog about! Today, I’m reviewing Attachments: A Novel by Rainbow Rowell.

A summary from Amazon:

“Beth Fremont and Jennifer Scribner-Snyder know that somebody is monitoring their work e-mail. (Everybody in the newsroom knows. It’s company policy.) But they can’t quite bring themselves to take it seriously. They go on sending each other endless and endlessly hilarious e-mails, discussing every aspect of their personal lives.

Meanwhile, Lincoln O’Neill can’t believe this is his job now- reading other people’s e-mail. When he applied to be “internet security officer,” he pictured himself building firewalls and crushing hackers- not writing up a report every time a sports reporter forwards a dirty joke.

When Lincoln comes across Beth’s and Jennifer’s messages, he knows he should turn them in. But he can’t help being entertained-and captivated-by their stories.

By the time Lincoln realizes he’s falling for Beth, it’s way too late to introduce himself.
What would he say . . . ?”

Oh, how I loved this book. So. Very. Much. To keep from getting too wordy and gushy, I”m going to go with a list to explain why.

Things I Loved About This Book

1. The Blurb! This blurb has potential written all over it for anyone who loves a really good romance. (I personally love a really good romance.) You can almost feel the cringe-worthiness of the final confrontation from the back of the book summary. (And it TOTALLY lives up!)

2. It’s written from the point of view of the guy, not too common in a romance. And this guy is nerdy and funny and cute and really, really nice (which is always a pleasure to read). I was rooting for him the whole way through!

3. The emails between Beth and Jennifer are both touching and hilarious. It might be a tad far-fetched to believe these two are writing back-and-forth emails at the frequency the book would have you believe, particularly during work hours, but this was 1999–email was a novelty. Maybe 20-30 emails a day to the same person could be justified. It felt like they were text messaging via the computer system.

4. The setting. 1999? Y2K? Remember the freak-outs about computer systems going crazy? Good times. There are plenty of other pop culture references from back then too.

5. The supporting cast. From the overbearing mother, to the first serious girlfriend, to the Dungeons and Dragons players, they were really the icing on the cake. (I did not much care for Justin. Just sayin’.)

6. The plot twists: Were they going to get together? Was another girl going to waltz in and win the prize? Were things going to work out? Was this going to be a sad book–PLEASE NO!! I was seriously guessing until almost the end.

6. The biggie: the Romance. This romance was so sweet and unique, so fragile but solid, so quirky and funny, that it blew me away. I read wanting to get to the end and not wanting it to end. I want to read it all over again, and I want to read more from Rainbow Rowell.

I LOVED it.

Posted in book review club, books on 03/06/2013 05:00 am | 3 Comments

Austensibly Ordinary Launch Party!

February 2013 018 I know, I know! I should have posted launch party pics a long time ago. Sorry that I’m just now getting to it. If you can’t tell from the photos, it was awesome. We did it at Dunn Bros Coffee in Friendswood, outside on the patio, and it was the perfect venue. The evening was chilly but not too cold, so the coffee, cocoa, and chai lattes went perfectly with the cupcakes. We’d intended to have chocolate fountains, but it was so breezy, the chocolate kept getting flung off the fountains, so we switched to chocolate fondue in crockpots.

There were Scrabble games scattered about, but I’m not sure anyone played. We did have a couple of party games though, which broke the ice and got everyone having fun. We played “Who Am I?” which is basically that Headbanz game, but we slapped stickers on the backs of guests as they came in, each one labeled with the name of a pop culture reference from either AUSTENTATIOUS or AUSTENSIBLY ORDINARY. (Think Elvis, Shrek, Darth Vader, and Doris Day) The party-goers were supposed to do their best impression when they figured out who they were–hilarious!

After that we played a game my husband had created for the launch of AUSTENTATIOUS. Drawing his inspiration from the magical journal, he printed out passages from a few well-known novels and told guests to trim them down to craft fortune-cookie style advice a la Jane Austen. Unbeknowst to me, the passages were a tad racy and the advice, a bit X-rated. Jane would have been shocked! Still, a good time was had by all. I did a brief reading and was told I read too fast. During my reading at the AUSTENTATIOUS launch, everyone discovered that Whitney Houston had died. This year, they discovered that J.J. Watt had been named the NFL’s Defensive Player of the Year. I should probably be pleased fewer people were paying attention. (Readings aren’t really my strong-suit.)

There was an interesting dude roaming around the entire time we were there–through the setup, the party, and the take-down. He shifted seats constantly, managed to sneak into various pictures, and nabbed a handful of cupcakes. We jokingly referred to him as “The Stalker.” It’s probably obvious from the picture that he’s not my target audience. All in all, a great time, planned by a great group of ladies, my Launch Posse.