Girls in White Dresses by Jennifer Close (a review)

 

 

 The novel Girls in White Dresses had a very real, post-graduate, quarter-life crisis feel. The real feeling, characters and story included, had a strong reality that didn’t seem forced. You could picture yourself, or your friends as characters and situations in the book. The book follows the lives of three single girls Mary, Isabella and Lauren in the trials and tribulations of careers and men. Also, the book happens to be set in New York City giving it a very Sex and the City-esqe vibe. Other characters enter and exit throughout the book, sometimes with commentary about how their life turns out and other times not, another similarity to Sex and the City.

The book rotates between tales from each girls’ perspective with no one main character, though in my opinion Isabella is the main character because it seemed that more chapters were from her point of view than the other two “main characters”. For instance, smaller gaps occurred in her life where the reader didn’t know what was happening in her life, but for the character Mary she pops in and then disappears for a time. The plot is basically of life, as the girls try to find themselves, who they want to be and what they want out of life.

One of my complaints is that the book is that it is billed as a book filled with weddings. While the book did contain a few weddings there wasn’t much in the way of the main characters being involved in the going-ons of the weddings. So in my opinion the title is a bit of a misnomer and something better suited might be Girls Post-College.  

Overall though the book was entertaining in some parts and I give it a solid B.

10 Things I Hate About You: A customer's survival guide for a pleasant retail pharmacy experience

I've been contemplating this post since we started this blog. Truth be told, any person working in a retail pharmacy probably has a list twice as long as the one i've created (so far!), as do most people who work in a customer service setting. We joke around with our coworkers about "the rules," bitch about the people who don't have common sense, and long for the perfect customer. Then we snap out of it and realize this will never happen.... BUT! That does not mean we stop our complaining! Nohoho, we most certainly do not. We continue to roll eyes and walk away swearing to ourselves.

So I have decided, in honor of all people out there in customer service, and especially my fellow retail pharmacy folks, i'm going to include some of my top peeves fro the pharmacy, in hopes that perhaps someone, somewhere will read this and realize "hey, I do this all the time...maybe I should cut that shiznit out so I don't cause my pharmacist to pull her hair out every damn day."... Or something like that :).

KNOWLEDGE IS POWER

My first peeve often involves a husband who has been given the task of prescription pickup. Twice in the past week I have been chewed out by some woman on the phone who tells me her husband didn't know any better than to pay $XX.00 for their/their kids prescriptions and they want to know if they can return it/get a refund because honestly they shouldn't have to pay blah blah blah blah blah.....

C'mon folks! First of all, if the person you sent to pick up your stuff doesn't know better than to pay (in one case) $70 for ONE prescription, or that you NEVER (according to you) pay a copay for meds, why then did you send them? Yes, I know some people are unable to come in themselves. I get it! But stop blaming the pharmacy. Give 'em cash, give 'em a budget, or give 'em a clue. Don't call and blame me.

On this same note, I realize you think it is unfair of me to not take back your prescription, because of course you kept it in the original bag, of course the receipt is still stapled. Of course it was kept at a nice cool, dry place and not in your minivan in the sweltering Georgia heat for the last 2 hours. But you know what? I don't know that. And, in most cases, it's against the law. I cannot, by law, or in good conscience, redispense that product to someone else. Sorry, so sad.

In the same category, but a tad different.... Today a guy walked in with a prescription for his girlfriend/wife/sister/whatevs..... No clue what the date of birth was, or phone number, or address.... Yea... so, what do you want me to do with that? NEWS FLASH: A name and a piece of paper does not get you a filled prescription. Please for the love of all that is holy, if you are sending someone to drop off your prescription, give them your birthday, your address, your phone number, and your insurance card. These are all helpful things for your pharmacy staff to have..... 

I'm sure stories could go on and on, from both myself and others. But it all comes down to this: Come to the pharmacy yourself, or send a well-informed person in your place. I'm filling your prescription, not your burger order!

That is the end of my rant. Well, for today anyway ;)

~Peaches

Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen (a review)

So I recently read the novel Garden Spells and found the novel cute, sweet and charming. However, be warned that the book does have a touch of darkness/sadness. The story focuses on two sisters, Claire and Sydney Waverley, who grew up in a small Southern town where each family is known for some “characteristic” i.e. Hopkins men always marry older women, whereas the Waverleys are known for being “weird.”

Claire Waverley chooses to stay in the town following in the footsteps of her grandmother, tending the garden and making food with herbs/fruits/vegetables straight from the garden. While her sister Sydney is a bit of a rebel and leaves the town to discover herself. Sydney ultimately returns to the town, with her daughter Bay, some 10 years later, to live with Claire. The plot of the book focuses on identity struggle, fitting in and the two sisters coming to terms with their family name while the garden weaves its own influence into the plot.  

The book is described by some reviewers as a modern day fairy tale much due to the use of the magical realism element. To give a simple explanation, magical realism involves supernatural/fantasy events, but the events are considered normal and no one seems to question the possibility of the events being able to occur nor the unusualness or strangeness of the event. An example straight from the book is when Claire is angered by a remark Sydney makes: “The electricity from her frustration caused the portable radio on the shelf to crackle to life as she passed it…”

Throughout the book the two sisters’ personalities are strongly contrasted in the past and the present. Claire was unpopular in school, is considered unapproachable and is known for her dependability while Sydney was extremely popular, is willing to talk to a stranger and known for taking off and leaving when she feels the need.

Overall I did enjoy the book and read it fairly quickly (I finished it in3-5 days), the books sucks you into the small town setting and the lives of the two sisters. However, I did find the character Claire a tad annoying; she is almost too set in her ways, very stubborn and acts too old for her age of 34, all of which to the point that they affect her enjoyment of life. How I feel about the main character of a play/movie/book spills into my overall rating of the play/movie/book and because of that I rate the book as a B+, as I said I enjoyed the book very much but some of the character’s traits prevented me from giving the book an A.

I am currently reading Girls in White Dresses by Jennifer Close if you would like to read along with me and plan to post a review as soon as I am finished reading the novel.

*Olive*

Wicked Good Cupcakes *review*

It is difficult for me to admit, but I celebrated my fifth 25th Birthday last week.... Luckily, I have amazing friends and family who cheer me up and make me feel very loved. I'll have another post soon of some of the awesome gifts I received from Olive, but tonight i'm focusing on what the ever-lovely Sparkles sent me! I came home from work to a brown box wrapped up tight. Inside was a smaller white box labeled WICKED GOOD CUPCAKES. Immediately, I started to drool. If there is anything our trio enjoys it's a good cupcake, so I had high hopes. Inside this magical box were these beauties....

That's right folks, CUPCAKES IN A JAR! Now, being a good southern woman, I love anything that comes in a mason jar. It makes me feel relaxed, at ease.... very much at home. I scoured the labels to see if I needed to refrigerate, and eventually went to their website to check. Sure enough, they didn't require refrigeration (SCORE!). I learned more about the company, which I assumed (correctly) was somewhere near Boston (thanks to a friend's Bostonian accent and frequent use of the phrase "wicked good"). Not gonna lie here, the more I read, the more I wanted to try these puppies! But, sadly, I had to wait until the following day.....

Perhaps my first mistake was placing them in the fridge. I assumed, perhaps incorrectly, that they would last longer. After all, some of the jars included cream cheese on the label! Well.... I brought one of the jars to work with me the next day: one of the birthday cake ones with yellow cake, chocolate frosting and multi-colored sprinkles. A classic, no? It looked delicious, was very portable, and was easy to eat without getting frosting all over myself (genius, in my humble opinion!). Much to my chagrin, the cupcake was....nothing special :(. The cake was bland. In fact, i've had better cake from a box! The frosting was also lackluster. It just wasn't the quality I was expecting, especially considering those little suckers cost $6 each! SIX DOLLARS! That's more than i've ever spent on a cupcake, even in D.C. and NYC. I have, however, had much MUCH better cupcakes.  I thought perhaps I had just picked the most boring of cupcakes, so I held off on posting my opinion until I had sampled more.

Cue yesterday. I brought the salted caramel cupcake to work. Now, what you should know is I am OBSESSED with salted caramel In fact, i'm obsessed with anything salty and sweet in one bite. I make my own salted caramel frosting for cupcakes, and I get lots of compliments when I make it for a crowd (perhaps i'll share the recipe one day!). This salted caramel cupcake was nothing to rave about. In fact, I tasted no caramel! The frosting tasted of cream cheese, but just barely. And there was most definitely nothing "salted" about it. Sadness indeed :(.  I ate less than half of this disappointment in a jar.

Finally, today I brought the cookies and cream jar with me to work. Now, how can you mess up a cupcake that includes chocolate sandwich cookies?? Well.... you make the blandest concoction you can. I saw the cookies.... I *barely* tasted the cookies This one didn't even make it past bite two. And I was hungry.... SIGH.

So, I have one jar left, and quite honestly I don't look forward to trying it. I'm still intrigued by the idea of making cupcakes in jars, however! I believe I will start practicing so I can make them for a couple of cupcake lovers I know who's birthdays will be coming up in the next few months ;).

And now, the first (and certainly not last) gratuitous photo of my gorgeous cat, THEO! He was very interested in the photos I was taking in the kitchen. Ok, he is interested in anything that happens in the kitchen, because he knows that's where food comes from! Also, he detests having his picture taken, so I had to coax a good shot out of him by holding up food above the camera.

 "MOM, where's the FOOD?!"

Until the next post!  ~Peaches

Olive's Introduction

So Peaches gave herself a really good introduction and I thought that I would do just that too, give myself an introduction. Basically I am really girly with an indie, want-to-be hipster flare, living in a not so hipster-filled town. I like cupcakes, kitties, girly movies (but not Nicholas Sparks) and sometimes my girliness, especially my quest to be the next Kim Kardashian, gets in the way of logic, which is why I need Peaches around to be the voice of crazy if I suggest a crazy idea/endeavor. As Peaches said, we are all newly graduated pharmacists, however unlike her and Sparkles, my career future is a little foggy and uncertain.

Keep in mind we are all new to the blogging world so please excuse any technological or grammatical or any other type of errors that we may encounter along the way. Anyways I am really exciting about this blog finally being launched and can’t wait for my next post!

*Olive*

Hello World!

So! How to begin.... This blog has been a solid 3 years in the making. Well, maybe not the "making" but the imagining.  My friends Sparkles, Olive, and I (call me Peaches!) have discussed starting a blog full of the odds and ends of our lives. I know you're probably thinking "aren't there enough blogs out there where people talk about their mundane lives?" And the answer is....definitely SO TRUE. But, perhaps we will manage to lure you in ;)

First things first: Introductions all around! I'll start with myself and then allow my lovely fellow PharmD's intro themselves. I've just started my long haul as a retail pharmacist, and I am (somewhat) loving life. As a single late 20-something, I love use my infrequent spare time to putter around in the kitchen (LOVE me some baking!), prowl Pinterest for new DIY projects around the house, indulge in landscape and nature photography, planning exciting travels with Sparkles and Olive, and cuddling my fat kitty Theo. I consider myself to be a modified southern belle, a Bravo addict, and a complete smartass.

Our friendship is one of oddities, contrasts, and plenty of laughter.  Now that we have finished school, we've moved in three different directions, spreading across the country to pursue our individual paths. But (cue cheesy 80's theme music) not even distance can fray our friendship.

I hope I have sufficiently piqued your interest enough to read on! Up next: Sparkles and Olive :)

- Peaches ;)