The Sunday Salon: An Early Christmas

Good morning my friends. I'm happy to still be of sound body and mind, despite the hellish week I've just endured. I warned you last Sunday that I might not be as present in the blogosphere this past week for about a dozen reasons that clogged my calendar and gave me stress-related eye twitches. At the same time, Christmas did come early in unexpected ways. Let me extrapolate on this a bit for you.

First, let's just say that there wasn't a day this week that didn't have a few bits of fun crammed into it. Sports practices, a band concert, a Barnes & Noble event featuring our school, book club, the middle school Winter Ball, a 4th grade field trip to Epcot, a 7 hour track meet and a football game were all a part of that fun.

The Barnes & Noble event was actually pretty exciting, despite the fact that I had to be there and in two other places at the same time. We had a similar event like this last May. In the store, we feature our children's choir, chimes, string group, story tellers, jugglers etc., drawing parents to the store. Our Junior Civitan wrapped gifts for donations. And every sale associated with our school is counted towards a percentage we get back for our library. At the end of the evening, we earned nearly $900 for the library. My heart soared. I contributed to the cause, of course. I bought three books based on your influence: Lisa Scottoline's "Why My Third Husband Will Be a Dog" (recommended by the lovely Caite at A Lovely Shore Breeze), Lionel Shriver's "We Need to Talk About Kevin" (from Jackie at Farm Lane Books, and because I loved "The Post-Birthday World"), and Laura van den Berg's "What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us" (from Rebecca at The Book Lady's Blog.) I just couldn't help myself.

My book club also took an upward turn this month, with the exciting book selection of "The Hunger Games", which I rated 5 stars back in March. We had six participants, most of whom loved the book. In fact, three of them had already rushed out to purchase "Catching Fire". Because the next person in line to choose a book was not present, I got my turn. I chose "The Help" by Kathryn Stockett. Yes, yes, I've already read it, but I thoroughly loved it, and I want to read it again. I've heard the audio is excellent. And I'm pretty sure they will love it too.

My husband surprised me with an early Christmas present...something I've been begging for. Voila...


It is an HP Mini, or in other words, a Netbook. It is hard to tell in this photo, but this cute little thing is about 7 by 10 inches, and fits in my purse. Not a huge amount of hard drive space, but has enough to allow blogging and retrieving my e-mails. The cherry on top? I have a chip in the computer that allows me wireless access to the Internet ANYWHERE (track meets, in the car waiting to pick up kids, doctor's offices, or when I get stopped by a train). I almost wet my pants. Life is good, people.

My other early gift was not so delightful. My new kitten, Ziggy, crawled up to the house Tuesday night, with an obvious issue with his back right leg. He was crying and in serious pain. A quick trip to the vet on Wednesday confirmed a complicated, shattered femur, that required extensive surgery costing about $1,000. Merry Christmas to me and to Ziggy. He is now recovering, and looking
like Frankenkitty.






















I finished my ninth book for the Shelf Discovery Challenge, "Go Ask Alice", and started "Flowers in the Attic", which will be the tenth and will complete the
challenge. I also enjoyed an ARC called "What I Know", a precious collection of
"universal truths from 10-year-olds and 100-year-olds." Look for that review in January. I also finished The Given Day on audio, and started The Little Giant of Aberdeen County. The kids and I continue to plow through "Catching Fire", and will most likely finish it this next week.

OK, so I will shut up now. Lots on my mind I guess. Hope you all have a fabulous Sunday!