Sunday Salon: The Calm Before the Storm

Good morning friends! Hope you are all having a peaceful Sunday. I've enjoyed what will probably be the last normal week for awhile. I always find that once Thanksgiving hits, everything kicks into high gear...decorating, shopping, parties, Christmas concerts...so much unadulterated fun that a body can barely take it all in!

I had warm and sunny weather to help me break the hundred mile mark in my 100 Mile Fitness Challenge. I hit 15 miles this week, which brought me to 111 miles overall. During any other time of year, I think I could go on to hit 200 miles by the end of the challenge, but with the kids home next week, and all that raucous fun that I was talking about, I think I'll keep my sights on 150. Feeling pretty good about it however!

A little update on the stinky dead raccoon (apologies to my Facebook friends who already heard this). Right after my husband left for a business trip this week (of course), I came home to find that said raccoon had been extricated from its hiding space by another animal (cat? dog? vulture?) and was strewn across my driveway. After I'd screamed a bit, I realized the problem could no longer be ignored. Let's just suffice it to say that this was a seriously UGLY mess. I had to man up, poured bleach on the worst part of it to remove the smell and the blowflies, and fling it all over the fence into the vacant lot with my shovel. I proceeded to call my husband and inform him that I deserved a present, then spent the rest of the day nauseated. By the way, he did bring me a book (The Monster of Florence), so I was somewhat mollified.

I've been slowly planning my Thanksgiving feast. It will only be the four of us, so it isn't quite the event that it might be were my parents here or if we had friends coming over, but nevertheless a feast it must be. So far, I know that I'll be making my Maple-Glazed Turkey with Sage Butter, my homemade macaroni and cheese (because my kids don't like potatoes), Dawn's Chunky Cranberry Relish, traditional Polish apple carrot salad, and a three berry pie. It's a good start!

I had a very productive reading week. I finished The House at Riverton on audio, which I enjoyed and reviewed this week. I also listened to a WWII memoir called Let Me Go by Helga Schneider (recommended by Melissa at Shhh...I'm Reading) which rattled me. That review will be coming sometime in December. I then started the 20 disc Dennis LaHane book called The Given Day. It is starting out a little dry for me, but I'm going to roll with it for awhile, give it a chance. The kids and I are STILL listening to the Goblet of Fire, with only about four discs left. Hopefully we'll knock this one out this coming week. I continued to get a good start on my Shelf Discovery Challenge books that I will review in December, and read Then Again, Maybe I Won't and Forever by Judy Blume. Then I received another copy of Run At Destruction by Lynda Drews in the mail (this was the ARC I lost!) and I'm diving in to try to get it finished and reviewed by next Friday.

Hope you all have a blessed Thanksgiving, and for those of you that are participating in the Thankfully Reading Weekend, have fun!