Bayou Bytes Blog

Mrs. Jeffries & the Mistletoe Mix-Up by Emily Brightwell Find in Catalog The book begins with Inspector Witherspoon's household preparing for Christmas and the McCourt family holding an afternoon gathering. Daniel McCourt has gathered a group of acquaintances to brag about his acquisition of an ancient artifact, although no one, including his wife, knows what it is. Before he has a chance to reveal his acquisition, he is brutally murdered with his own sword. Inspector Witherspoon is called in to investigate the case. As in other "Mrs. Jeffries" books his household assists, without his knowledge, in solving the case by subtly interviewing people of society and members of domestic staffs to find out if they can contribute any information about the crime. Mrs. Jeffries cleverly pieces together information she and her colleagues (Mrs. Goodge, Smythe, Wiggins, Luty, Ruth Cannonbury, Hatchett and a few others) learn and information she learns from the Inspector and figu...

It's the new year and perhaps while packing away the Christmas decorations and recovering from the hustle and bustle of the holiday schedule you've noticed that things aren't as ship shape as they could be. Take some time this month and get organized! Here are a few tips (and resources) to help you tackle home organization. 1. Take a deep breath! Realize that you will not be able to organize everything in your life in one day. Plan which areas of your home you want to organize, and conquer one item at a time. 2. Purge! Get rid of things that you no longer use, need, or are just plain broken. (If you haven't gotten around to fixing it yet, you don't really need it.) Have a garage sale, donate them to Goodwill, or find a church that runs a community garage sale. 3. Turn all of the hangers in your closet around. As you wear clothes, rehang them the way you normally would. In June, any clothes that are on hangers that are still turned around should be gotten rid ...

If you follow the books read by the Central Library's Book Club but haven't been able to make a meeting, you can now discuss each month's selection online! You can find our Online Book Club at http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/59472.Central_Book_Club  , or go to Goodreads.com and search groups for Central Library Book Club and join the group! You must be a member of Goodreads.com to join the discussion (membership is free.) Discussions will open on the first day of every month and close on the last. The current book up for discussion for January is Hillary Jordan's Mudbound . We look forward to reading everyone's comments on each month's novel!

This year will make the 37th year that Lake Superior State University will publish their banished words list. It all began in 1976 when the LSSU public relations director and a group of his friends compiled a list of expressions they didn't like and has grown into an event that gets thousands of nominations each year for words and phrases to be banned. In past years the list has included words and phrases such as: "viral," "refuidiate," "epic," "just sayin'," "you're fired," "weapons of mass destruction,"  and "the american people." At the top of the 2012 list is: Amazing ! Other words and phrases from this year's list are: baby bump , occupy , man cave , and ginormous . You can submit a word or phrase or find all of this year's list and past lists at www.lssu.edu/banished .