The story has a charm that takes one from page to page effortlessly. The lives of Nell, Cassandra and Eliza weave around you as their stories unfold in three different time periods.

Morton also wrote some interesting male characters in Linus and Nathaniel and it is a shame that she didn’t allow them to play a more pivotal role in the story line especially as it drew to an end. Linus in particular would have made the conclusion more affective. Instead the ending was predictable and the last few pages insipid but you are so engaged by that point you suffer through the harlequin style dialogue between Christian and Cassandra. I get the romance but Christian was not crucial to the plot that we have been following for over 500 pages.

A woman’s search to find her real family, fascinating fairy tales and a walled garden at the end of a maze all play a key role in everyone’s lives. Underneath all this is the question “How is home defined?” It is the place where we are born? The house that we return to at the end of the day?  Is it being with family or that certain someone? Will one unexpectedly discover home while travelling?  As the book illustrates we know when we have found home, but we don’t know where or even how it may come into our lives.

Kate Morton talks about her book.

With Your Biscotti & Coffee

1 – An Interesting Woman:  Maria Gunnoe
When you fight a big company, a town and a way of life the danger to one’s self and your family is real. Maria Gunnoe took on the big coal industry in Appalachia. Coal Country Crusade by Tamara Jones/More Magazine  

2 - Nine of the most amazing bookstores in the world  from The Huffington Post

3 - American Theatre Wing
An in depth look at what is playing on and off Broadway and behind the scenes.

© Jill Crossland for Life Deco, 2010. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: American Theatre Wing, Bookstores, Kate Morton, Maria Gunnoe, More Magazine, The Forgotten Garden

While this LA museum is celebrating the Renoir’s females down the highway television executives decided that a Lane Bryant plus size lingerie commercial should not appear on certain shows in specific time slots.

“According to Lane Bryant, the ad was rejected from a number of programs that would air at 9:00 p.m. including Dancing with the Stars, Game Shows, America’s Funniest Videos, Extreme Makeover, Home Edition and Wipeout …………..”

So why the puritanical censorship when it comes to this company? The model, lingerie and filming are all stunning. One must assume that they object to the  plus size cleavage but if we ignore for a minute the sales pitch perspective are not commercials just another form of modern artistic expression?

In 2210 when the Philadelphia Museum of Art is exhibiting ‘Women of the Early 21^st Century” will it truly reflect what we see as we dress every morning. For centuries art has been about the  portrayal of the authentic female form but perhaps I am wrong and ABC knows better.

 Written by a sublimely less than perfect woman

© Jill Crossland for Life Deco, 2010. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: art, Lane Bryant, lingerie, Renoir, television

2. Replace your laptop on the dining table with a place setting for a person

3. Attempt to write something dazzling in cards to clients but end up with ‘best wishes’

4. Slip into your office to catch up on work and don’t answer the phone

5. Wonder why you keep buying boxes of crackers

6. Go to farmers markets and expensive bakeries for your ‘homemade’ baking

7. Curl up at 2pm with a book, hot cocoa and no guilt

8. Carry on whole conversations without any interruption

9. Feel like a kid again and actually enjoy the snow

10. Stop planning everything with military precision

…………. remember that the best moments are spontaneous.

© Jill Crossland for Life Deco, 2009. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Christmas, entrepreneurs, Lists, top ten

Feminists a generation ago fought for the title and dreamed of Freedom and Choice and Opportunity; maybe the surest sign that they’ve won is not which title we pick, but that we can have them all at once.

I also like the fact that how we choose to be addressed is now a matter of personal choice not societal mandate. I use Ms. for all things business; preferring the neutrality that it provides.  Whether I am married or single is irrelevant in my professional life.

For business I also use my family name of Crossland and that decision had nothing to do with patriarchy. I like the name and am proud of the English heritage behind it -

English (chiefly West Yorkshire): habitational name from a place in the parish of Almondbury, West Yorkshire, named Crosland, from Old English cros ‘cross’ + land ‘newly cultivated land’.

(English or Scandinavian) Belonging to Crosland/Crossland (Yorks) = the Land of the Cross [Middle English cros, Old Norse kross + land].

Early records of the name mention CROSLAND (without surname) who was recorded as a tenant in the Domesday Book of 1086.

In my own way I keep the family name in a state of perpetuation and part of me imagines how proud my father would have been to see the name being branded in my company and as the byline to my writing.

Googling one’s name is always interesting. Jill Crossland, the pianist comes up first and frequently but I manage to hold my own somewhere on the first page of the search.

For those personal matters such as banking, legal documents. Mrs.  Sadie married lady steps forward.

I have never liked the practice of hyphenating last names unless there is a cultural or social reason; as it gives one the impression of a need to try to please everyone. So this is the only time that you will ever see ……….. Jill Barbara Crossland-Pappageorgiou.

© Jill Crossland for Life Deco, 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: business identity, Ms, My Life, Nancy Gibbs

When was the last time you heard your own bare feet on the floor?

If you are anything like me noise is embedded into your life. I get up, turn on the news so that I can hear what has transpired in the world while I slept.  Feed excited and hungry dogs/cats, water runs, the coffee pot beeps to let me know when the coffee is ready, the toaster dings, my computer says “Good morning, Jill”, a phone rings and the day is underway.

As the hours progress my heels will click on busy pavement or loafers connect with my office’s hardwood but somehow I missed that moment when my bare feet quietly set my life in motion.

© Jill Crossland for Life Deco, 2009. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Beverly Donofrio, lifestyle, O Magazine, Women