Sunday Salon: The search for happiness

 Good morning all!  The Nawrot family is now officially all back in Florida.  Vacation over.  It is always good to get back to your own bed and your cats, but you know there are always things you face that aren't so great.  A yard overgrown with vines (all it takes is two weeks down here), a problematic pool, a smashed wall that still isn't fixed and an insurance company that is being uncooperative, awful neighbors that won't leave me alone, kids getting ready for school and all the drama that goes with it, a dirty house, a cat with a urinary tract infection...on and on it goes.  My eyelid is twitching again.

I'm also deeply troubled by the sudden eruption of total chaos all over the world.  Normally you hear the news and keep moving, but it is hard to ignore two passenger planes going down, gunfire between Israel and Palestine, explosions in Libya causing evacuations of all Americans, and freaking Putin with a God complex and an arsenal.  It's really scary.  If I were traveling ANYWHERE overseas right now, I would not go.

So for that reason, I thought Michele Jacobsen (Reader's Respite) had a wonderful idea on Facebook the other day.  She is paying it forward, offering to do something nice for five people sometime over the next year.  Could be an encouraging note, a ticket, a book, something homegrown, sent unannounced.  In return, those five people do the same thing to five other people.  Like a chain letter of happiness.  We can all use a little more of that.

So I don't want to be all doom and gloom.  We had book club this week and that is always nice.  We discussed "We Were Liars" this time around with mixed emotions.  Some loved it (me included) and some were not impressed.  But there was wine, food and desert and that is good.  Next month we are reading "The Three" by Sarah Lotz.

I'm back to working out at Andre's, and the hubby and I played a (very sweaty) round of golf yesterday.

Reading always brings happiness too, right?  When you have time for it.  In print I finished "The Strain" by Chuck Hogan and Guillermo del Toro (review coming sometime today on Goodreads), and I enjoyed it.  Leave it to Mr. del Toro to come up with some nasty version of a vampire...that man is DARK.  It is fun to watch the book come to life with the series on FX.  Now I am plunging into a little graphic novel fun today with "Saga" and "Snowpiercer".

On audio I finished "Sinful Folk" by Ned Hayes, complements of the author and TLC Book Tours.  I said this on Facebook, and I'll say it here...this is one awesome historical fiction book.  It takes place in Medieval England and is narrated by an ex-nun who is hiding incognito as a man.  Five boys have been burned to death and a group of the villagers (including the nun/man) take their dead children on a journey to the king for justice.  There are secrets, including who killed the boys, including the history of the nun, that are slowly revealed.  Highly recommended...Goodreads review coming soon.  I'm now four discs into "The Silkworm"!!! WOOT!

Hope your Sunday is filled with reading and happiness!

  

Sunday Salon: Vacation lazies

 Good morning, I mean afternoon!  I'm moving really slow today, as my last few days of vacation roll out in front of me.  We return to hot Florida on Tuesday, where I can look forward to a variety of enjoyable tasks.  In the 95 degree heat and 95% humidity.

The week has been very laid-back, in comparison to our normal pace.  I don't think I've been up before 7:30 or 8:00am, which is not normally how I roll.  But I have walked every morning, and the weather here has been GORGEOUS.  Usually when we are here, they have record-breaking heat so we are loving this.
We have watched a couple of movies this week.  "Lone Survivor", which I really enjoyed, and "The Monuments Men", which I did not.  That was a huge waste of premise and talent.  Also watched the first installment of "The Strain" on FX which was pretty cool.

My daughter, husband and I took a very in-depth tour of Purdue University, one of her potentials.  (It is only about 20 minutes from my parents' house in West Lafayette.) We took a general tour, and had meetings with the departments of Engineering, Chemistry and Pharmacy.  Pharmacy seems to be what interests her the most, and this is only the beginning of the search process.  It is pretty exciting.

My daughter and I "helped" my mom go to the animal shelter here in town and find a kitty to adopt.  My parents have outside cats, but they are (sort of) willing to try an indoor one, assuming it doesn't have any fatal flaws like peeing all over everything.  We chose Mimi, a 3 year old who is a little...curvy.  But very sweet and calm.  My daughter and I love her, and hope it works out.

Mimi, airing out her belly

I had my 30 year high school reunion last night (OMG I am old) and had a good time.  It was a small group, and most of them I've stayed in touch with and have seen over the last year or two.  We were all cracking ourselves up over our conversations (the pros and cons of menopause, aching bones, and who were the hot grandmas, LOL), and all felt we were still 25 in our hearts.

Reading has been slow.  I always have such expectations when I go on vacation, but realistically when I am here, I am busy doing other things.  On my walks, I usually have a kid with me, so very little audio progress.  I started "Sinful Folk" for TLC, a historic murder mystery type of thing set in the 1300's, and is great so far.  I will definitely breeze through this once I'm home.  I'm itching to start "The Silkworm"!

In print, I finished "The Three" by Sarah Lotz for my book club.  It was pretty creepy in the best way, and clever.  What I liked was that the whole plot didn't fizzle like many apocalyptic stories do, and Lotz leaves some things unexplained and open for interpretation.  I really look forward to what the other book club members think.  I am now about 75 pages into "The Strain"...I know, a little late since the series has started, but I'm hoping to get caught up.  Like "The Three", this one starts out with trauma on an airplane also.  Haha!

We are looking forward to visiting the local county fair today to see the animals and ride the suspiciously rickety carnival rides.  That is probably all we will manage to do, at the pace we are keeping.  I will leave you all with a picture I took one morning (before going back to sleep) out the back door overlooking the pond.   

Sunday Salon: The Smell of Corn

 Today I'm joining you on a rainy morning in Indiana.  The kids and I flew up Tuesday...our annual pilgrimage...and will be here two weeks.  The second I stepped outside at the Indianapolis airport, I took a deep breath and appreciated that smell.  It's the smell of corn, and it is intoxicating to me.  You don't get smells like that in Florida.  (Down there you get the stench of plant decay and sweaty bodies!)  Ahhhh!

The weather has been absolutely heavenly all week.  I've been waking up to low 60's...that is winter temps in Florida!  It begs for long walks, which is exactly what I've been doing.

Just as soon as we got up here, my dad had to have a procedure to remove some blockage in his heart.  He came out of that feeling pretty good, and I'm thankful.  You never know, those things are scary.

This weekend was "girls weekend", something that I do with a couple of my high school friends each year.  Only one of them got sick and couldn't come, so it was just two of us.  But we were not going to be denied.  I look forward to this every year.  We get a hotel room in Lafayette and we eat and shop and act stupid.  This time around of course we hit the Barnes & Noble (like I need more books), hit our favorite restaurants, saw "22 Jump Street" which was hilarious, and got together with other high school friends on each night for dinner.  Fun stuff.

So I finished "Devil's Knot" in print, and WOW.  Incredible story, and really some of the best true crime I've ever read.  What makes it even more immersive is that HBO did three documentaries on this case called "Paradise Lost" that makes it all the more real, to the point where it is creeping into my dreams.  Seriously, even if you don't read the book, look up these documentaries if you have access to HBO on demand.  You won't be able to tear yourself away from them.

I'm now about halfway through "The Three" by Sara Lotz, which I'm reading for book club on the Kindle.  So far I'm really liking it, but am holding out on opinions until I can see how they wrap this up (but it's a trilogy isn't it?).  Just for grins I started reading it on my flight up here, to see if I could freak myself out with all the plane crash stuff.  Ironically, I also brought along "The Strain" in print for those minutes when you have to turn off your electronics.  This book is going to be a TV series on FX soon, and I've been wanting to get to it.  Anyway, it is apocalyptic as well and the story begins on an airplane.  Synchronicity!

On audio I just finished up "The Farm" by Tom Rob Smith (haven't written it up yet on Goodreads, but I will do that today).  It was...good.  Intriguing.  A little sad and twisted.  Way way different than anything else he has written.  Not mind-blowing but definitely worth reading I think, and the narration was solid.  I'm about to start "Sinful Folk" for a TLC tour on audio today.

Today back at my parents' house, we will be having a big party with a bunch of German food to celebrate the final World Cup game.  We have really had a good time with this World Cup.  Crazy good games, so much drama (Brazil - WTF?).

Hope everyone has a great Sunday.  Let me know if you have big plans, or if you are reading something that I need to know about!
  

Sunday Salon: Dead White and Blue

 I'm a little fuzzy here.  I woke up at 4am to use the bathroom (a sign that I'm old I think) and figured why not just stay up and write my post.  We will undoubtedly go to early church, and have a list of things to do today, so no time like the present.  Who needs sleep anyway?

That has been the theme for the 4th of July weekend for sure.  AMC has been running a "Dead White and Blue" Walking Dead marathon since 9am Friday morning.  All seasons back to back.  My daughter has been obsessing over this for weeks, even though she has seen every episode at least twice.  We've not watched every second, but we have watched A LOT.  The binge ends tonight with a Talking Dead that sneak peeks the next season, which is over 3 months away.  An eternity.

And of course we've hopped over and watched the World Cup games as well.  Even though the US is out of the running (we never really had a chance, let's face it) it is still fun to follow.

This is why I get nothing read.

The week was filled with getting multiple estimates for tree trimming, doctor appointments, workouts with Andre, and some long walks with my husband.  My son arrived home from the beach (and proceeded to hole up in his room - typical).  The first hurricane of the season developed and headed north, giving us some rain but of course all the news stations lose their shit.  And the kids and I are preparing to head to Indiana on Tuesday for our annual two week vacation up there.

I always have such aspirations for "summer reading" but there is no such thing.  Even audio is slow-going, since the kids are almost always in the car with me, and I rarely take walks by myself.  I did finish up Michael Koryta's "Those Who Wish Me Dead" which was good...a nail-biter with lots of action, but a fairly predictable plot and resolution.  I've now started "The Farm", the new one by Tom Rob Smith.  No opinions yet, I'm too early into it.  But I'm intrigued, and have no idea where it's going.  I'm anxious to get through it though, as I just received "The Silkworm" on audio from the library.  VERY excited about that one!

In print I'm still reading "Devil's Knot", a true crime story that is enough to chill your blood.  It just defies imagination that in this country, in recent history, three kids could be sentenced to life in prison and/or death with no evidence against them except that they wear black t-shirts and listen to Metallica.  That the police and judge could be THAT crooked.  That a jury's judgement could be THAT clouded.  Just...wow.  I hope to have this one finished before I leave on Tuesday.  Next up will be "The Three" by Sarah Lotz, for book club and to make my flight to Indiana more exciting.

Today I hope to see "Snowpiercer", an apocalyptic sci-fi movie based on a graphic novel.  Also planning on taking in some more Walking Dead, and getting things wrapped up here (pool maintenance, cat maintenance, bills, etc.) for my two week absence.  So here's to an end to a great three-day weekend.  Anyone have exciting plans?