Sunday Salon: A Little Less Chaos Please!

Happy Sunday everyone! Hope you've all had a bountiful week. My cup overfloweth this week, in all ways possible. By Friday night, I was an inert form, lying in my reading/drinking chair in a fetal position, with a glass of wine in my hand, not able to form a coherent sentence.

Let's talk about the underbelly of the week first. If you read my update post Friday for my 100 Mile Fitness Challenge, you know that I had two funerals to attend this week, which rearranged my priorities. One was for my friend's aunt, who recently succumbed to a long, brave battle with cancer. The other was an unexpected heart attack of my 46-year-old neighbor Louie. I don't rebound well from these things, and lost some emotional traction as a result. The cherry on top of all this was on Friday, when I learned that a wack-job started shooting people in downtown Orlando, a mile from my kids' school. The school, of course, went on lock-down, which completely freaked me out, at least while the guy was running loose in the city. We get our share of psychos down here in Florida, that is for sure! On Saturday, my son's football team also lost their championship game...boo.

On the bright side, I had the pleasure of meeting Jennifer @ The Literate Housewife (my first face-to-face blogger experience!) when she was down here at Disney for a conference. We met for dinner at the Grand Floridian Resort, and talked non-stop for three hours. You might be surprised that we didn't just talk about books (although we had a pretty funny conversation about Nicholas Sparks), but about our kids and balancing our lives. It was like we'd always known each other!

I signed up for ANOTHER challenge this week, one that just couldn't be ignored. It is the Shelf Discovery Challenge, hosted by Julie @ Booking Mama, and runs November 1, 2009 through April 30, 2010. The challenge revolves around the book "Shelf Discovery" by Lizzie Skurnich, which lists all those books we read as teens that formed our young literary minds, that we hid in our underwear drawers, that we passed secretly to our friends. I am thinking that in a week or two, I am going to have a Shelf Discovery Read-a-thon, and try to knock out at least half of the books on my list. Maybe my daughter can read SOME of them with me (not all, thank you). Here is my post and list of books I plan on reading.

In my bookish life, I finally finished "Laura Rider's Masterpiece" by Jane Hamilton. It was only a little over 200 pages, but I only picked up my reading pace towards the end. It certainly unearthed some crazy emotions in me. I can't remember the last time I had such a violent, negative reaction to a character. But more on that later...review coming 11/20. I then started and finished reading "The Good Good Pig" by Sy Montgomery, getting back to my farm roots. I don't suppose this book will win any awards, but is a sweet, pleasurable read. I also finished "The Night Watch" by Sarah Waters. I know last week I said it wasn't tripping my trigger. Well now I'm not sure. Waters is like that...she seeps into your subconscious. I think maybe I liked it more than I originally thought. I haven't yet written the review. I think the idea of it needs to brew a little more in my mind. On audio, I started "The House at Riverton" by Kate Morton, but I'm only into the 2nd disc, so it is too soon to comment. The kids and I are still enjoying ourselves with The Goblet of Fire on audio as well.

I'm looking forward to starting fresh in a new week. I am going to aggressively attack my 100 Mile Fitness Challenge, and try to close in on the 100th mile. I'm going to catch up on my yardwork. I'm going to attend another book club meeting. I'm going to start planning my Thanksgiving feast. Hope you all have a wonderful Sunday!