Sunday Salon: Celebrating another year of life

Good morning friends!  I'm slightly groggy this morning after celebrating another year of life yesterday.  We spent the weekend over at New Smyrna Beach, where friends have a condo.  We come over here a couple times a year (usually once around my birthday) and it just confirms the fact that we need to move over here for good once the kids head off to college.  What a great little town.  Anyway, on "my" day yesterday, I went for a long walk with my audiobook in the morning, I sat on the beach and read, watched a little World Cup, then went out with our friends.  Being over here is good for the soul.  Living in Florida doesn't always suck.

Fishbowl gin & tonic at Spanish River Grill

My view this morning

Besides the beach, though, it was a relatively uneventful week.  My daughter and I have been going to Andre's for his morning women's class and my son has been going to a later class with the hard core group.  My daughter has started her morning cross country runs.  I very bravely made a trip to the outlets with my daughter for various shopping needs (a horrid thing, but good deals).  And a week wouldn't be complete with one or two doctor appointments.

I can't believe we are heading into the late part of June already.

On audio I finished up Ben Winters' "Countdown City", the second of three installments that combine a police procedural with the impending apocalypse.  It's really good fun, which sounds twisted, but whatever.  I have faith that the asteroid will not hit earth and end our days.  We will find out for sure in the third installment "World of Trouble" which comes out mid-July.  I'm now about halfway through Ann Patchett's "This is the Story of a Happy Marriage", a collection of essays that she has written over the years for various magazines.  It is really wonderful.  She covers it all...marriage, divorce, writing, dog ownership, aging.  She narrates it herself, and does a great job.  It reminds me so much of "Too Many Candles, Plenty of Cake" by Anna Quindlen (and I always get these two confused).

In print I finished Uncle Stevie's "Mr. Mercedes", and I thoroughly enjoyed it, giving it four stars on Goodreads (if I could have I would have given it 4.5 stars).  Ti asked me why not five stars?  I guess my benchmark for Stephen King novels is "11/22/63".  Blew my mind, it was clever, it was heartfelt, it just made my brain buzz.  "Mr. Mercedes" did not.  The ending was a little too perfect.  But it entertained me, made my heart pound, and made me love the characters.  I'm pretty jacked that it is a trilogy, so I'll see those characters again.  Then I moved on to Karen White's "The Strangers on Montagu Street", which is the third installment of the Melanie Middleton series.  I do find these books a little predictable and silly, but I do like them.  And so far I think this one is my favorite.

Today I'm planning on another long walk, some beach time, and some fit-throwing and belligerence when my husband insists on going back home.  I don't want this to end yet!  Hope everyone has a great Sunday!