Friday Challenges

It's been another fun week in our house. It was the last week of our short summer Mother's Day Out program. *sniff, sniff*

We're going to miss the wonderful Miss Jennifer. She was so good with Andrew and he just loved her.

We'll have three full weeks at home before we start back up in the fall. I can't decide if this is good timing or not with the baby coming any day now.

Also, I finally, finally finished Ken Follett's Fall of Giants this week. I'd started it back in March. I'm pretty sure it's never taken me that long to finish a book. I enjoyed it, but I was kind of happy to move on to something else.

I decided to start The Hunger Games books. I'd been hearing good things about them, and I wanted something short and fast after 1,000 pages of World War I.

I've already finished the first book and I loved it. It wasn't at all silly or Twilight-like. I'm reading them on my Kindle so I've already downloaded the second book and I'm going to start it this weekend.

Here are a few fun shots from our week. It's been the hottest week I've ever lived through so we've tried hard to leave the comfort of our air conditioning as little as possible. I don't have a lot to share, photo-wise, but I'm pretty excited about a few of these.

We did get out and play a bit this morning while it was still a comfortable 95. I just love the soft colors of this one.






And then I found this lizard, and it sat still long enough for me to capture it.





I couldn't believe it let us stare it down. Andrew was fascinated!





This poor kid is so tired of playing inside. Hopefully just a few more weeks and it'll be bearable out there so we can get back out for more than 15 minutes in the morning.

Y'all have a great weekend!

Reading as an Olympic Sport

Brian calls the summer Olympics the Super Bowl of swimming. As a swimmer it's not too often that the whole country gets super excited about his sport, and so Michael Phelps is a very popular guy in our house this week.

I've been staying up way too late watching all the swimming and gymnastics and beach volleyball. I always forget how much I enjoy the Olympics in the two years that they're not on TV.

I've also been reading the Stephenie Meyer Twilight series books. They are just so much fun, and they're quick reads since they're technically Young Adult books so you can knock 'em out pretty fast. Which is good, because I've joined a book club and Breaking Dawn is most definitely not our first book.

I'm supposed to be reading A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini who wrote Kite Runner. I hear it's an amazing book, and I loved his first novel, but I'm having a hard time putting down the high school romance to read the grownup book club book. At least I have until Aug. 27 before we meet. Surely I can find the time to finish it before then.

I'm in a serious cooking rut. We eat the same things for dinner all.the.time. Does anyone have any great suggestions for healthy, fast meals that I can throw together and not have to do much actual cooking? That's probably asking too much. It's just that when it's 100 degrees outside I really don't have the energy to hang out in the kitchen for more than 15 minutes at a time. I guess I'll just have to wait until October to start cooking again. I'm sure Brian won't mind at all.

Outlander: MP3 Edition

I spent the summer after my freshman year in college back home in Tulsa. I was going through that ugly phase where I thought I was all grown up, but I wasn't, and I had to live at home, with my parents. Oh, the injustice! I was also doing the Atkins Diet which I don't suggest if you want your friends and family to love you. My brain needs carbs, people!

The bright spot of that summer was taking walks most evenings with my friend Ally (also home from college) and my mom. We'd chat and walk and just have a grand time. Mom suggested we read the book, Outlander, by Diana Gabaldon to help us through the summer. So Ally, Mom and I all read it (and the followups, that aren't nearly as good) and discussed it on our walks. We had such a blast chatting about Jamie and Claire out there in the Scottish Highlands.

A few years later Ally and I were able to take a backpack tour through the Highlands. One of the stops on our trip was the battlefield at Culloden. We shed a few tears thinking of Jamie and the stubborn Scots fighting the British to the death out there on that field. We do know Jamie and his pals weren't really there fighting for their freedom, but there were thousands of real-life Scots who had done just that. It was a truly touching scene.

I've read and re-read Outlander a few times since that summer at home. I'm enjoying it again now only I'm not reading. I'm listening to it on my iPod in my car and at the gym. It's so fun to hear those amazing stories told in Scottish and English accents! I'm just loving it. And it makes my runs so much fun. And I have 32 hours of Jamie and Claire just waiting for me every time I get in the car!

Book Worm

One week! One week people! Wow, I have a lot left to do before Christmas. And all I want to do is read. I've been getting my books together for our trip to Colorado the week after Christmas. Brian will be skiing for three days which means that I will be reading and receiving spa treatments for three days.

I love to read on vacation. You don't feel bad about spending hours with your nose in a book, because you're not supposed to be doing anything else. At home I feel like I have to squeeze reading in between the laundry I need to finish or the piles I need to go through, but on vacation I'm worry free!

I'm taking World Without End which I haven't gotten around to reading yet. I went back to read the last few chapters of Pillars of the Earth before I started its sequel and I got drawn back in to it. It's just so good! And I finally picked up Rebecca the classic novel by Daphne duMaurier. It's been on my nightstand since June but I decided to pick it up this week before Christmas, read a few pages, and make sure I wanted to read it on vacation. Arg...I just should have waited because now I can't put it down.

My co-worker Erin has been listening to Outlander on tape in the car on her way to and from work. I've read it three or four times, but it's been years so I think I'd like to go back and read it again just for kicks. So that's three pretty hefty books I want to read (and one I need to brush up on) between now and the new year.

Do you have any good suggestions for heavy vacation reading? The TV writers are still on strike so I should have lots of time for reading in January, too.

A Good Read (I Hope!)

It's here! It's here! The follow up to Ken Follett's amazing The Pillars of the Earth is now available at your nearest book store. (My preference is Barnes & Noble, but it might be because I pay that $25 a year to get their discounts.)

I first read The Pillars of the Earth in high school for history class and what a story it is! It's an amazing, historical epic that spans decades, and thoroughly captures the reader as men spend their entire lives building a cathedral in England. I read it again earlier this year to get prepared for the follow up, World Without End, and was reminded of why is stands out on my pretty long list of all-time favorite books. Mom and Ally read and loved Pillars as well, so I'm hoping they'll read World Without End with me so we can discuss. It takes place in Kingsbridge with the cathedral, but is set two centuries later.

Enjoy your weekend and try to pick up a copy of World Without End. I'm sure we won't be disappointed!