Tag Archives: Sunday Salon

Bookish Talk, Life

The Sunday Salon: It’s a Brand New Year

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Hello! How are you all doing this fine Sunday? It’s a little after 10 a.m. here and I am just finishing up my second cup of coffee for the morning. The Hub is VERY excited about the Green Bay game scheduled for later today. The weather is going to be interesting. I seriously do not know how those guys play in such conditions. It’s crazy to me!

Speaking of weather, so many of you are dealing with record snowfall and here in California, we are dry as a bone! So dry, that the news stations are talking about nothing but water rationing which makes me very nervous. My house sits on a quarter acre which is mostly landscaped with grass. This takes a lot of water. If money were not a concern, I’d hardscape half of it but that is not an option for us right now.

A lot of my friends went skiing this past weekend and there was no snow! No REAL snow. Without snow pack, we are gonna be toast comes summer. I sure hope we get some weather soon. I do not want to deal with brush fires so early in the year.

Anyway, enough weather.

Yesterday we took a drive to Santa Barbara. We had delicious pizza for lunch AND I hit one of my favorite bookstores, Chaucer’s. It was incredibly busy and it was really hard to walk around. BUT, I was on a mission to find a copy of A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami and guess what? After teetering on a step stool to reach it, and trying it get it down with this very pushy lady refusing to move over, I got a copy!

A Wild Sheep Chase

I managed to also snag an audio copy from the library, but I am trying to collect print copies of all of Murakami’s books so I was happy to finally place my hands on this one.

After roaming around Santa Barbara all day long, we headed home but stopped for steak and shrimp fajitas. Boy, were they good. I am still thinking about that meal.

Today? We are just hanging around. We’ll watch football of course but my plan this week is to enjoy my  last week off from work. One more week and then it’s back to the grind.

Sunday Salon

What am I reading?

I have done a lot of reading or at least it feels as if I have. I finished The Rosie Project and loved it. I also finished The Last Days of California by Mary Miller and adored that one. If I can surround myself by books like those, all year-long, I’ll be a happy camper.

What am I cooking?

I haven’t been in a cooking mood. I think the warmer weather has kept me from wanting to cook. That said, it’s been cooler at night so of course it’s then that I am wanting soup or something warm and there’s nothing around to eat!

 What am I watching?

Oh, there has been a lot of watching. With the kids home, we have been watching lots and lots of movies. Mostly old stuff, because that is what we seem to like but we’ve been catching up on recorded shows too. In a little bit, I will be watching Rear Window. That is such a fun movie. The Girl is not into it but I am hoping to pull her away from her Kindle by having it on in the background.

What are you all up to? Did you do anything fun this weekend? Cooking anything good? Any resolutions you want to share? I am HORRIBLE with resolutions so I don’t make any, otherwise I’d share.

I just can’t believe that we are in 2014 now. The holidays flew by and so did my time off. My plan this week is to stretch out my last week home. I want every day to count. The Otter Pup is sure going to miss us when we all head back to school and work. She’s been my little lap dog for well over two weeks now. Who am I kidding? She probably can’t wait to have us out of here so she can return to all day snoozing.

Bookish Talk, Life

The Sunday Salon: Are You Ready for 2014?

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Sunday Salon

It’s taken me until now to realize that it’s Sunday. My clock is off. Always happens when I am off for a long period of time! Well, the day started off lovely but now The Girl is tossing her cookies. I knew something was up after she got up two times last night. She never gets up and when she did, not once, but twice, the first thing I said to The Hub was, “God, I hope she’s not sick.” Oh well! She’s perky. No fever. I have her camped out on the couch right now, just to be safe.

We didn’t have plans today anyway. In fact, my plan for the entire week is to just camp out here, but the kids might have something to say about that. Both the kids and Hub cannot lie low for any length of time. They get antsy. Me? I could hole up on the couch for days on end. Just throw some snacks at me every now and then, maybe some iced tea to go with them and I am good to go.

By the way, it’s like summer here. So Cal can be very unpredictable this time of year. We have a wind warning and man, is it windy! But it’s warm and sunny and so NOT like December. My Christmas stuff is still up and will be until after the new year. Speaking of which, The Teen is going to a New Year’s Eve party at the church he attends. Yes, he attends a different one than we do. Long Story I think we plan to order Chinese food and just hang out at home. New Year’s day will be spent at home as well.

Are you ready for the new year? I enjoy a fresh start and have already cleared out some clutter from the year. Also, between you and me, I really like the even years. I am hoping 2014 is a good year. I’d like to spend more time as a family and not be so stressed from extra-curricular activities and all the back and forth that goes with them. I’d like certain members of the household to be a little more responsible when it comes to schedules. YOU know who you are.

What am I reading?

I took a year off from book club and have been thinking about attending again. The book for this Thursday’s meeting is Canada by Richard Ford. I’ve never read him before but I started Canada yesterday and I am about 60% done. I am enjoying it but the last chunk is not as enjoyable as the first half.

I got my Goodreads year-end report the other day and noticed the numbers were off so then I had to go through alllll of my reviews to see which ones I forgot to add. I HATE that. Now my stats report is off for the year. What can you do? My numbers were down anyway. I hope this year will be a better year for reading. I just wasn’t into reading this past year. Funny, coming from a book blogger.

What am I cooking?

The weather is like summer so we will be grilling these ginormous steaks I picked up. And to go with them? Nothing less than ginormous baked potatoes and buttered green beans. I’ll be careful eating the potato. By the way, my throat is feeling much better. Not sure if The Girl will be able to eat but I’ll fix some soup for her if she can’t.

What am I watching?

We’ve been watching a lot of movies. Mostly, stuff we have on Netflix. We saw The Great Outdoors and Only You (Robert Downey Jr. version) last night. Oh, we also saw Death Becomes Her. Remember that one? It’s so old. I’d like to see a drama tonight but The Girl is all about comedy and rarely lets us see a drama. I’d also be okay watching back-to-back episodes of The Wonder Years. I love that show.

What are you doing today?