Planning a shower can be a daunting task--especially since contemporary showers are no longer reserved strictly for female guests to honor brides and expectant mothers. Spectacular Showers for Brides, Babies, and Beyond takes the guesswork and anxiety out of planning and hosting a shower. It covers every type of shower party, from traditional bridal, couple, and baby showers to specialty showers for retirements, going-away-to-college, grandparents, and more. The author serves up a generous helping of recipes, practical checklists, and economical suggestions for decorating and catering.
Planning a shower can be a daunting task--especially since contemporary showers are no longer reserved strictly for female guests to honor brides and expectant mothers. Spectacular Showers for Brides, Babies, and Beyond takes the guesswork and anxiety out of planning and hosting a shower. It covers every type of shower party, from traditional bridal, couple, and baby showers to specialty showers for retirements, going-away-to-college, grandparents, and more. The author serves up a generous helping of recipes, practical checklists, and economical suggestions for decorating and catering.
Presenting a nuanced story of women, migration, community, industry, and civic life at the turn of the twentieth century, Carol Lynn McKibben's Beyond Cannery Row analyzes the processes of migration and settlement of Sicilian fishers from three villages in Western Sicily to Monterey, California--and sometimes back again. McKibben's analysis of gender and gender roles shows that it was the women in this community who had the insight, the power, and the purpose to respond and even prosper amid changing economic conditions. Vividly evoking the immigrants' everyday experiences through first-person accounts and detailed description, McKibben demonstrates that the cannery work done by Sicilian immigrant women was crucial in terms of the identity formation and community development. These changes allowed their families to survive the challenges of political conflicts over citizenship in World War II and intermarriage with outsiders throughout the migration experience. The women formed voluntary associations and celebrated festas that effectively linked them with each other and with their home villages in Sicily. Continuous migration created a strong sense of transnationalism among Sicilians in Monterey, which has enabled them to continue as a viable ethnic community today.
Alexa’s always played it safe. Until one wild weekend changed her world! After a romantic fling left her breathless—and pregnant—heiress Alexa Mayhew never expects to see Chance McClaren again. But when she bumps into him while on vacation, the truth comes out. Instant daddy Chance wants to do the right thing for his baby—and Alexa. But is the globe-trotting adventure junkie ready to give up his career to be the family man Lexi craves?
By the early 1950s, Jane Russell (1921--2011) should have been forgotten. Her career was launched on what is arguably the most notorious advertising campaign in cinema history, which invited filmgoers to see Howard Hughes's The Outlaw (1943) and to "tussle with Russell." Throughout the 1940s, she was nicknamed the "motionless picture actress" and had only three films in theaters. With such a slow, inauspicious start, most aspiring actresses would have given up or faded away. Instead, Russell carved out a place for herself in Hollywood and became a memorable and enduring star. Christina Rice offers the first biography of the actress and activist perhaps most well-known for her role in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953). Despite the fact that her movie career was stalled for nearly a decade, Russell's filmography is respectable. She worked with some of Hollywood's most talented directors -- including Howard Hawks, Raoul Walsh, Nicholas Ray, and Josef von Sternberg -- and held her own alongside costars such as Marilyn Monroe, Robert Mitchum, Clark Gable, Vincent Price, and Bob Hope. She also learned how to fight back against Howard Hughes, her boss for more than thirty-five years, and his marketing campaigns that exploited her physical appearance. Beyond the screen, Rice reveals Russell as a complex and confident woman. She explores the star's years as a spokeswoman for Playtex as well as her deep faith and work as a Christian vocalist. Rice also discusses Russell's leadership and patronage of the WAIF foundation, which for many years served as the fundraising arm of the International Social Service (ISS) agency. WAIF raised hundreds of thousands of dollars, successfully lobbied Congress to change laws, and resulted in the adoption of tens of thousands of orphaned children. For Russell, the work she did to help unite families overshadowed any of her onscreen achievements. On the surface, Jane Russell seemed to live a charmed life, but Rice illuminates her darker moments and her personal struggles, including her empowered reactions to the controversies surrounding her films and her feelings about being portrayed as a sex symbol. This stunning first biography offers a fresh perspective on a star whose legacy endures not simply because she forged a notable film career, but also because she effectively used her celebrity to benefit others.
Auna-Renee Simpson is at the top of her game working at the Atlanta Chronicle. She’s beautiful, smart, and she just took one of Atlanta’s most eligible bachelors off the market. Her life is perfect until the secret she has buried for years starts to become a problem for her marriage, her career, and her faith.
Living Beyond Nightfall – Troy Buckner's real life journey to wholeness... The world is about to read a true story filled with pain, disappointment and one woman's emotional fight for her life and that of her four wonderful sons. Buckner's story will take you to the very depths of despair and show you peace beyond understanding. It will reveal how her belief in the betterment of her community and love for her culture left her struggling to survive through a felonious alleged embezzlement charge which left her determine to put the fragments of her life back together again. Buckner's desire for penning this book is to ensure that the world never forgets the mayhem committed within our own communities by people who claimed their undying love for us. Buckner is force to cling to the most powerful vestige of her childhood--the wisdom she had been endowed with by her father and her southern community. She was raised by a compassionate father who instilled greatness in her life by examples of his own broken struggles of growing up in the Deep South during slavery. Someone once said, 'home isn't just a place where you live... it's a state of the heart'... However, growing up in the Deep South meant so much more for Buckner. Lake Providence may have held a very small place on the map, but it held a bigger place in her heart and soul – something that she have connected to her entire life. Her community believed in hard work and integrity – most of all having the courage not to give up – not to quit. She was encouraged by her community to pursue an education during a time when no one cared enough to see that black youths had a professional career. On Buckner's fifteenth birthday, her father arranged for her to fly to Las Vegas to visit her mom for the first time in eight years. Later that same year, her father roused with a vision to start a general contractors and plumbing business, despite the fact that he couldn't read or write nor could he add or subtract. Recognizing his limitations, he never minimized the importance of education. Her father instilled in her the value of education and that the mind was too valuable to waste by introducing her to the business world at an early age. He inspired her to see that the greatest equalizer is indoctrinating one's mind with wisdom and knowledge, recognizing that ignorance is the only bridge that separates us. He taught her to set realistic goals, and then work harder than anyone else to experience success as a result of her hard work. He asked her to teach him how to read and write. This moment she would cherish for a lifetime. Buckner was elated to see her father signing his checks - and reading his first book, even though it was on a first-grade level, at the age of 50. Buckner had kept a diary since she was eight years old, and eventually acquired a passion for writing. It provided a natural outlet to help her find that perfect peace in the things that she could not understand nor change. She felt somehow God was preparing her for an unknown journey. Buckner and her family went through five of the most implausible years of their life, orphaned penniless and nearly homeless. Buckner unwavering perseverance forced a victorious triumph in her matter of the heart that was swept up in the chaos of deception, lies and cruel intentions. For over five years, the Institution and CPA Firm attempted to strip her of every shred of her dignity, character and integrity. In a climate of systematic abuse where ignorance is power and justification for wrongdoing, Buckner fights for her improbable survival. Buckner's story will give you hope, and it will confirm the power of faith. Her story will take you through many levels of brokenness – gleaning from her journey will lift you up and help you not only survive but transcend suffering, injustice, and loss. Displaying her extraordinary strength and endurance, Living Beyond Nightfall is a brilliant display of individual resilience.
“May God grant me the serenity to accept the color pink, the courage to not let my house become a shrine to pink and princesses, and the wisdom to know that pink is just a color, not a decision to never attend college in the hopes of marrying wealthy.” - from The Feminist’s Guide to Raising a Little Princess Smart, funny, and thought-provoking, this book shows feminist parents how to navigate their daughters' princess-obsessed years by taking a non-judgmental and positive approach. Devorah Blachor, an ardent feminist, never expected to be the parent of a little girl who was totally obsessed with the color pink, princesses, and all things girly. When her three-year-old daughter fell down the Disney Princess rabbit hole, she wasn't sure how to reconcile the difference between her parental expectations and the reality of her daughter’s passion. In this book inspired by her viral New York Times Motherlode piece “Turn Your Princess-Obsessed Toddler Into a Feminist in Eight Easy Steps,” Blachor offers insight, advice, and plenty of humor and personal anecdotes for other mothers who cringe each morning when their daughter refuses to wear anything that isn’t pink. Her story of how she surrendered control and opened up—to her Princess Toddler, to pink, and to life—is a universal tale of modern parenting. She addresses important issues such as how to raise a daughter in a society that pressures girls and women to bury their own needs, conform to a beauty standard and sacrifice their own passions.
