Sunday Salon: Napa baby!

Last night as I fell into bed from the effects of time change and wine consumption, I had given myself permission to skip this Sunday Salon. But alas, I am on Florida time so even though I fought the urge to get up at 3am, I am up at 6. So I might as well chit chat with you since I'm here, right?

My week was primarily spent getting caught up on blogging. I wrote about six reviews, and boy did that feel good! Other than that, it was a pretty low maintenance week. It sure is nice to settle down under the radar now and again. My mind was focused primarily on our upcoming five day trip to Napa commencing Saturday morning. Originally, my mom and dad were going to take care of the kids, but my mom's still struggling in Indiana with her detached retina and just went through her third surgery (please send a prayer her way). So we hired a babysitter, and I had lists and lists of instructions and had to coordinate extracurricular activities. I was moderately stressed about the whole thing.

But now? It's all good now. We arrived in San Francisco yesterday morning, about an hour after our friends, had lunch in the city, then zipped up to one of our favorite places on earth. The smells! The grape vines! The wine! Although we have a pretty full schedule of appointments today through Tuesday, we were unencumbered yesterday, so we tracked down a vineyard up on Spring Mountain, Terra Valentine, getting in by dropping a few names, and had a delightful flight of tastings while overlooking the valley at sunset.

It is going to be an incredible week! Our friends Craig and Kathy own a wine store in Windermere, FL so they have arranged some fun adventures for us with their trade connections. We are also staying at the properties of two different wineries for our accommodations. Last night and tonight we are staying in a little Victorian carriage house (where a lady has been plying us with fresh baked cookies, wine and bottles of water) on the property of Trinchero Wines. Am I really going to want to leave?

So as far as my reading, I finished the audio of David Sedaris's "Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim", and I got my much needed belly laughs. I am several discs away from finishing a book club read "Cane River", which is a decent read. Sort of a miniature version of "Roots"...multi-generational story about a family of slaves in Louisiana in the 1800's. I'm not sure I will have time to finish it while wining, but I'm going to try.

The kids and I went by the library on Monday and gorged ourselves on tons of good bookish stuff. We got the audio "Fallen" (chosen by my daughter...no idea if it is good or not), and I checked out six graphic novels and "Nothing But Ghosts" by Beth Kephart. Woo hoo! I am hoping to read Ghosts and the graphic novel "French Milk" on this trip. I also finished a very strange book I had on my shelves called "The Store" by Bentley Little. I needed to read something I'd gotten from a resale shop to finish a challenge, so I picked this one. It was a slightly cheesier, but equally as scary version of a Stephen King-ish horror novel. King has even recommended this author in the past. Although I used to read this stuff all the time when I was younger, I don't think I could take it for long now. Oy vay.

I hope you all have a wonderful day, and wonderful week! Stay tuned for next Sunday Salon, where I will share a few more winey pictures with you.