Sunday Salon: Back in action

Hey you!  Long time no see!  It's been awhile since I've caught up with all of you.  I returned back from Poland last Sunday night, had three days to do laundry and get over the time change (still not sure if I'm there yet!), then the kids and I flew up to Indiana to see my parents.  We will be up here for a couple of weeks before we go back home, start football and prepare for the beginning of school.  So while I'm back from the land of no Internet and no clothes dryers, I'm still officially on vacation so I'm going to ease back into things.

Lack of Internet and clothes dryers aside, we did have a good time in Poland.  We spent lots of time with my husband's family, allowed his mother to stuff us with wonderful food, and caught up with their lives.  As we always do, we also try to hit a few sights while we are over there.  This time we spent a few days in Warsaw, and saw the castle and the new Warsaw Uprising Museum.  That place deserves its own post...it was amazing.  We also went to the Jasna Gora Monastery in  Czestochowa to see one of the most famous religious icons in the world, the Black Madonna.  Thousands of people have a pilgrimage each year to see the painting.  We visited Auschwitz, which was my second time, but I really wanted my kids to see it.  And we spent a few days in Prague as well.  I have a bunch of pictures, I just have to figure out how and when to share them with you.

Up here in Indiana, we are a little more relaxed.  We visit county fairs, we see movies, eat sweet corn, and catch up with friends.  Every year I have a weekend with two other girlfriends from high school, and we do a download of the year and sometimes will get together with other classmates (this actually was the weekend of the event, and I'm sitting here in our hotel room typing this post!).  Next weekend we will be having a party to celebrate my parents 50th wedding anniversary, so that is going to be fun.

I've been busy with my reading, at least while I was in Poland.  I've read Kate Atkinson's "Life After Life", Mo Hayder's "Poppet", Lionel Shriver's "Big Brother", Marybeth Whalen's "The Wishing Tree", and "How to Break a Terrorist".  All excellent books!  I'm now in the middle of "Requiem" by Lauren Oliver.  On audio, things have been slow since I'm basically always around people.  But I did finish "The Good House" by Ann Leary and "Panorama City" by Antoine Wilson.  Right now I have just started the new IT book that everyone has been talking about called "This Town" by Mark Leibovich, the New York Times national political correspondent.  The real challenge will be getting all these reviews written!

So I will be lingering around, trying to catch up with posts for the next couple of weeks, but it will be hit or miss.  It does seem that things have been slow while I've been gone.  What have you all been up to?