A book club first

My book club: Michelle, Therese, author Karen McQuestion, Lisa, and Me

My book club has been going strong for awhile, I believe I've been a part of it for at least 7 years. We had a first at our meeting a couple of weeks ago. THE AUTHOR JOINED US FOR DINNER... IN PERSON!

The book was "A Scattered Life" by Karen McQuestion. Karen could not possibly have been more lovely. I highly recommend checking out her books. She's also got a pretty darned amazing story. She self published her books on Kindle. They did pretty well, so they were picked up by Amazon's new imprint, Amazon Encore! I really enjoyed "A Scattered Life." It's a relationship driven story about three women who's lives intersect in a Wisconsin town. The Wisconsin part is special to me given that it's my adopted home, now. But the setting of this book very much reminded me of my hometown, Galesburg, IL. (If any of you Galesburg folks read the book, tell me if the bookshop doesn't seem like something you would find on Seminary Street!!!)

Any way... I encourage you to check out Karen's books! We spent a lovely couple of hours at dinner with her!

Next up: "The Wishing Trees" by John Shors. (Oh, and he's going to call in for a discussion with us too!! AWESOME!)

Book Club Review - "The Help" by Kathryn Stockett

It been awhile since I blogged about a book, but now that my Book Club has met and discussed our last pick, I finally can post about it.

Run, do not walk, to your favorite book store to get "The Help" by Kathryn Stockett. Or if you are a library person, go put your name on the waiting list at your local library branch. Yes, I already know there will be waiting list. No I am not psychic. The book is that good and word about it spreading like wildfire.

Set in Mississippi in the sixties, it's the story of a young woman named "Skeeter" and the relationships she has with her parents, her friends, and the hired help who work not only for her family but for most of the families in her hometown. Skeeter has gone away to college and come back with a much broader view of the world than her sheltered friends. Her friends that went away to college only went there to find men or bide time until they were married. When Skeeter returns to her home she is shocked to find that her mother has fired the housekeeper who helped to raise Skeeter.

She is also shocked at the way her friends treat their "help." They have hired these African-American women to raise and care for their children and their families, yet the way the "help" are treated is abominable in most cases. One of Skeeter's friends, Hilly, is on a mission to make is a requirement that all homes that have African-American help build separate bathrooms outside their homes. Skeeter is appalled. She ends up befriending one friends maid, Aibeleen. This friendship will change the course of the lives of both women. Skeeter decides to interview as many of the Black maids as she can about their experiences working for the white women of the town. Their experiences are all unique and vastly different, but certainly the experience was eye-opening for Skeeter. It is eye-opening for the reader as well.

This book is Stockett's first... and I hope she is able to continue crafting such brilliant stories. I could not put this book down. These characters made me feel such a range of emotions... I think that's the mark of a good writer. Even the characters who made me mad... I still wanted to know what happened to them. I actually found myself slowing down toward the end of the book because I did not want it to end.

This was by far one of the best books I've read in the last 10 years. I highly highly recommend it!

Poor Poochie!

Poor Shadow had to have surgery on Monday. She had a lipoma (benign fatty tumor) that's been growing for a little over a year. A couple weeks ago, Craig took her in to the vet for an ear infection, and the vet decided it was time to remove the lipoma. I'm happy to report our little four legged patient made through the procedure just fine. She's just really sore and in a lot of pain, because the growth worked its way into her muscle. We're keeping her rested as best we can, but keeping her from jumping and scratching has been a challenge. I'm just so thankful she's okay! The dog may drive me nuts sometimes, but she is such a good companion and is turning into a such good playmate for Alex! Her stitches come out next week.

One more update... my bookclub meets tonight. Our latest read was "The Shack" by Wm. Paul Young. I'll save my review for later tonight or tomorrow.

I also realize I haven't posted pictures from Halloween. It's been a hectic week. Hopefully by Friday I'll have some time to post pictures!

I've been reading... a LOT!

I've gotten a little behind in talking about my book club... so here's the latest. My bookclub read "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society" for our last pick. We all loved this book. The characters were so believable and well written. It's set on the island of Guernsey following the end of WWII. I learned about an interesting piece of WWII history while reading this book and fell in love with the characters. I wanted to go over to Guernsey and be a part of their book club.

Lisa had the next book club pick... and I loved how she set it up. She commented that the last few books we've read have been so good, that she had

a hard time selecting the next one. She actually felt pressure to keep the bar up

high... and I think she has. She picked "Rooftops of Tehran" by Mahbod Seraji. I just started this book and I think I'm going to like it!
In between these two book club picks, I managed to squeeze in "The Queen of the Big Time" by Adriana Trigiani and "Under the Tuscan Sun" by Frances Mayes. I enjoyed both books... but "Under the Tuscan Sun" was not at all what I expected. It's NOTHING like the movie, other than being set in a villa in Tuscany. I enjoyed this book, but it's definitely more of a travelogue/memoir of restoring a house.
I think I'm reading so much right now, because I know that after this baby comes in December, I'm not going to have as much time. So I'm trying to knock some more books off my "to read" list by then!

Great Book Club!

Had another great book club meeting last night.

We discussed my latest pick, "Loving Frank." I highly, highly recommend this book. It was a fascinating read, a fictionalized account of Frank Lloyd Wright and his love affair with Mamah Borthwick Cheney. I've long been fascinated by Wright and his architecture (for awhile in junior high and high school, I thought about becoming an architect) so this was really an enjoyable read. Makes me want to visit some of the nearby write architecture here in Wisconsin. His home in Spring Green, Taliesen is just a few hours away from here. Wingspread, a conference center he design for SC Johnson, is in Racine. He designed the Annuciation Greek Orthodox Church here, which is right by my house. There's also a group of homes on the South Side of Milwaukee that are open for tours. And don't even get me started about the idea of road tripping to Chicago and Oak Park to check out all of his works down there!

-Sigh-

The book is heartbreaking and fascinating all at the same time. I don't want to wreck it... all I can say is, if you're going to read the book DO NOT GOOGLE WRIGHT and DO NOT READ HIS BIO ON WIKIPEDIA! It will wreck the story! (Sorry I didn't warn you sooner, Therese!)

Our next pick is "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society." It looks like another good one... just ordered it from Amazon.com because I can't wait for it at the library. I'm really looking forward to it!

I also hit an amazing milestone on GoodReads today. I now have 1000 books on my list. Now, I've only read just over half of them...I think I'm at 507, cruising toward 508. It's kind of a daunting "to read" list, but since I discovered the site almost 18 months ago, I haven't once had to say "what am I going to read now?!" I have a list I can keep going back to that is helping me feed my reading habit!

Book Club

We met last night to discuss our latest pick and it was a good one! "Beside a Burning Sea" by John Shors. I absolutely love this author! I discovered him through my old job in TV. I saw a story on our network affiliate feed about this author who was meeting with any book club willing to read his debut novel, "Beneath a Marble Sky." He would either come in person or he would do a conference call. While we never set up a meeting with him I have been interested to see what he would write next.


I absolutely loved this book! It's historical fiction... but the keyword is fiction. It's set against the backdrop of WWII in the Pacific Theater. It's the story of a group of people who survive the sinking of a hospital ship. I highly, highly recommend it!



Our next pick is "Very Valentine" by Adriana Trigiani. I'm equally excited about this book! I've read three of her other books. She was a guest on my show when I was a producer, so I have one autographed copy of "Lucia, Lucia." I believe I read it in 2 days time. Great story teller. You can just get lost in her books and you want to be friends with her characters. Ms. Trigiani is going to be doing a reading at a local bookstore early next month and I'm going to try to go.

I'm also in a book club at work. We're reading "How to Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie. It was a great chance to read a classice leadership book and network with other people in my company (we're grouped up with people in other departments). I just thought it was a great opportunity.

So I've got a bunch of great books to read over the next few months. They should help me beat the winter blahs!

More Chicago Pictures

Macy's On State St. (Formerly and Forever in my heart, Marshall Field's)

All decked out for the Holidays

Christmas window... this one was my favorite

A close up of the very cool Santa

Ford Oriental Theatre, home of "Wicked"

Therese, Me, Lisa, Michelle outside our hotel Sunday morning.

Michelle,Therese, Me, Lisa

Outside American Girl Place in Water Tower Place

A Truly Wicked Weekend

My friend Michelle is celebrating a milestone birthday this year. She turned 40 and wanted nothing more than a weekend in Chicago with her girlfriends, shopping and seeing "Wicked."

We are finally making it happen! We leave this morning for the Windy City (one of my 5 favorite cities in the world!). We'll spend much of the day shopping and sightseeing. Then Sunday we go to see "Wicked." It's Michelle's favorite musical. She picked the book for one of our bookclub picks and even made each of us CDs of the soundtrack. So we're all super excited about the trip!

I have to say, I'm so grateful to Craig for allowing and encouraging me to spend so much time with my girlfriends. I truly have an awesome husband! I have bookclub once a month, plus I get together with some of the girls from my old job at the tv station to watch "Grey's Anatomy" at least once a month if not more. I'm telling you this girl-time is what keeps me sane and I'm so lucky to have a husband who is cool with some solo Daddy time. Hopefully things will calm down on the activity front and we'll be able to do another date night soon!

Where did she go?

I just realized it's been over a week since I've posted anything. And I have a ton to catch up on!

We managed to test drive three types of cars, the RAV-4, the CRV, and the VUE. I think we're leaning strongly toward the RAV-4. We really like the hidden storage, the back gate opens to the side, and I think we'll be able to get the 4x4 version. (important, given last winter's 100+ inches of snow!)

I've had to reschedule getting my haircut 3 times, which puts me almost a month overdue. I'm going to attempt to get it cut tomorrow night, but may have to take Alex with me so Craig can go visit the car dealership without a 3 year old climbing all over him. JOY! I'll pack lots of snacks, books and toys.

My book club finally met last week, too. We hung out by the fire pit, sipping wine, snacking on smores, talking too loud (me) and discussing a pretty great book, "Belong to Me" by Marisa de los Santos. It's the continuation of her first novel, "Love Walked In." "Belong to Me" was good, but the author's style changed a bit. This one wasn't as lyrical as the first one. Still, it was a great story with characters we already knew and loved. It was my turn to pick, so I selected, "The Girls" by Lori Lansens. Looks like a good one!

So in case you've wondered what's been happening with me, I've just been busier than usual. Not a bad thing, but I've just been so busy I haven't had much time to read or write much of anything lately. My event a week ago went very well. I need to dig through and see if any of my pictures turned out. Race for the Cure is next weekend. I'm hoping to get in two or three more traning runs this weekend. Thanks to all of you near and far who donated! If you still would like to donate, check out my giving site by clicking here. I'm hoping I'll be able to run the whole 5K! I know I can do it! So that's it. Life is just super busy right now. I've got another post I'm going to schedule for this week. Hopefully October will be a little more calm!

I have some wonderful friends

I've been lamenting my daycare woes here the last couple of days. I am blessed to have some truly wonderful friends. I honestly don't know what I'd do without them. Alex's daycare, which is in a church basement is flooded. We get an update every afternoon as to the status... so far, still closed.

Sara watched Alex yesterday, amidst dealing with her own three children and a flooded basement. He had so much fun and talked about them all day yesterday.

Lisa from my book club is watching him today, with her own three children as well. I feel so awful imposing on my friends, but I hope they know what comes around goes around and I will be happy to bail them out when they need it!

Michelle from book club's two daughters are done with school today, and if daycare is down again tomorrow, they may be getting some work out of this.

Therese, she even offered up some nieces to babysit if I need them! I'm really lucky to have such a great network of friends.

Speaking of book club, here's a picture of the fabulous book club babes from earlier this year:

We had a great meeting last night. We discussed "Love Walked In" by Maria de los Santos. This book was AMAZING. I can't even accurately describe it. I haven't had this strong of a reaction to a book in a long time. I recommend it to everyone. Her writing is something to behold. It's a quick read, but you will want to take your time with it and savor every word. I can't wait to read her next book. Our next book club book will be "Comfort Food," by Kate Jacobs, who also wrote "The Friday Night Knitting Club."

Switch it, change it, rearrange it

It turns out the book selected next for book club is the second book by the same author about one character. So we're going to change the book to "Love Walked In" by Marisa de los Santos.

In the other part of my life, Craig and I are trying to get healthy enough to reschedule date night. We were supposed to go out to dinner and a movie last weekend, but Craig ended up with pink eye, ear infection and a bad cold. I've had a bad cough and congestion myself. In fact, I didn't sleep much at all last night. Today I finally went to the doctor to get some meds. I hope they work because I've got a busy week ahead of me at work. I figured the best course of action was to get medicine, get rested up this weekend, and I'll be good as new on Monday.

Back to date night... we're planning dinner and a movie for Saturday night. My friend Sara is coming over to watch Alex. We're trying to get caught back up on our babysitting share. Then Sunday we're going to the Brewers game. I'm excited because I'll get to spend Mother's Day with my two favorite boys!

And the next Book Club pick is....

"Belong to Me" by Marisa De Los Santos. Therese picked it. We had a great meeting tonight. Lots of catching up, lots of crocheting, it was great. We all have fun projects that we're working on now, and I feel like I get more accomplished when I have people to talk to while I'm crocheting. My blanket is nowhere near done, but it's getting there. It's late and I'm not feeling so hot, so I'll add the cover of the book to this post tomorrow, and I'll take a picture of my crochet project so far, and post it tomorrow.

Book Club Eve, Again

Tomorrow night is Book Club Night and I'm hosting it at my house.
I can't wait! We're going to talk about "Garden Spells" which was my pick. I'll post more about our discussion after we meet. The gals are coming over here, we'll discuss the book, and then feast and drink with a Cinco de Mayo theme. Craig makes AMAZING margaritas, so those will be served along with lots of salsa, guac, chips, etc. Oh, and everyone is supposed to bring their latest crocheting projects, so we can stitch while we dish. Should be a great time! Plus, I can't wait to see what our next book will be!

Fun With Yarn

So back to the whole "Don't drink and crochet" thing.

My book club friends and I finally had our crochet night. It was a BLAST! Michelle is extremely crafty, and crocheted the other three of us in the group beautiful baby blankets back when the three of us had babies within a few months of each other. We have tossed around the idea of having Michelle teach us to crochet, but just never did anything with it... until Tuesday night.
Lisa was so excited she went to the library, checked out some books, and crocheted a tiny blanket for her daughter before we even got started as a group!

We all came, armed with wine, food, yarn, and hooks. We chatted for well over an hour, and then we finally got down to business. It wasn't easy. As I've mentioned before, I've been knitting, which requires two needles, different hand/wrist motions, etc. Once I got out of those motions I was on a role. But apparently I was sipping a bit too much wine. I was finishing what i thought was my second row of single crochet stitches, when Michelle took a look at my work.

"Did you mean to stop halfway across and turn it around?"

Um, no. WOW. How did that happen?

Oh well, I took out that messed up row and played with it some more last night. My plan is to sneak out tonight or tomorrow afterwork and buy a giant hook and some really soft yarn and make a blanket or two just doing single crochet stitches. I'd really like to make one for my grandma, who turns 90 next month and is recovering from having a pacemaker put in last weekend.

Craig apparently didn't realize I was going to be crocheting with my Book Club buddies Tuesday night. My frantic search in the basement for yarn I bought nearly 10 years ago when I learned my sister was pregnant with her first child (who just turned 9 last month) was not enough of a clue that I was working on something. My digging through my late grandmother's old yarn basket for a decent color/texture of yarn didn't tip him off either.

He said "Wow. How boring are we husbands that the four of you need to get together and play with yarn on a Tuesday night?"

Boys. They just don't get it.

B is for Book Club

My book club met tonight, and as always it was wonderful. We really chewed on the last book, "The Friday Night Knitting Club." We all enjoyed it, but to varying degrees. I highly recommend the book to anyone looking for a good read. I'm hoping to start knitting a scarf this weekend. We also are planning a "stitch-n-bitch" session soon. Michelle crochets and all of us want to learn, so she's going to teach us. Should be great fun, with a few bottles of wine thrown in for good measure.

It was my turn to reveal the next pick. It's called "Garden Spells" by author Sarah Addison Allen. I think it will be an intersting read. I have to admit, I've already started it and am almost finished. But I'm not going to post my thoughts on it here until after our next meeting. I'm also not going to put my review on goodreads.com yet, either. I just don't want to taint anyone's impression of the book.

We're also starting to share books more in our group. Therese and I are hopelessly addicted to goodreads, so as I finish books, I'm putting them on a pile for her. She's starting to do the same for me. I figure this will be a great way to save money, and get to read more books. I hope we can keep it up.

Tonight is also my first NaBloPoMo entry for April. I didn't exactly stick to the theme... but as I understand the theme is only a guide. I already have my entry planned for tomorrow, so I may blog earlier than usual tomorrow... possibly over my lunch hour.

Happy Book Club Eve!

Tomorrow is a day I have been looking forward too since our last book club meeting. The next meeting!!!! If you've been following my posts, our latest pick was "The Friday Night Knitting Club." I loved this book, having just finished it recently. So I took the opportunity to squeeze in two other books I hadn't read yet. ("The Memory Keeper's Daughter" and "Kabul Beauty School") Both were decent, easy reads.

Now, on Book Club Eve, I'm in agony! It's my turn to pick. There are four of us in the club, and we pick in alphabetical order by first name. So my letter is finally up! I've been stockpiling books since December, and have 4 brand new ones on the "Book Club Possibility" stack, as well as 2 that I've had for awhile but haven't gotten a chance to read. Each one has it's own merits. One is historical fiction, one a fact-based-fiction, two were made into movies in the last year, one is totally fluffy chick lit, another is set in India and is also chick-lit. Three were published within the last 9 months. I just can't decide!!

So I guess the Book Club babes who read my blog will just have to wait till our meeting tomorrow night! Was that torture enough????

Fabulous Book Club Night

My book club met again tonight, and it was FABULOUS as usual. We discussed the book "Seven Days to the Sea." We all agreed it was a good book. It was the third Biblical Fiction book that we've read ("The Red Tent" and "The Gilded Chamber") but paled in comparison to the others, in my opinion. I just got frustrated with the main charcters on so many levels. It was interesting to read about Moses and the Exodous, but I think I need a break from this type of book for awhile.

So Michelle has the next pick, and she selected "The Friday Night Knitting Club."

As faithful blog-readers will recall, I read this book not all that long ago, and it inspired me to dust off my knitting needles... or, more accurately, go buy a pair and try again. Haven't started the scarf yet. It's on my to do list (which is about as long as my "to read" list... goodreads.com fanatics, you know what I'm talking about!!!) maybe this weekend I'll start. I can't wait to discuss it with the gals in my club. It's not a light book, but it's filled with diverse and complex characters. Definitely a change of pace from the heavy stuff we've been reading lately. Hopefully we'll be able to set a date for our next meeting soon!

On a side note, a big shout-out to my friend Michelle, who doesn't read the blog, but that's okay. She offered to have me drop Alex off at her house, so I could enjoy the book club without a two-year-old date. Aimee and Kierra babysit for Alex on occassion. I think Alex was a little freaked to be in a strange house, even though he was with familiar faces. He went to be very late, but seemed to have had a good time. So thanks to Michelle and her girls for helping out.

Friends

I've seen a lot of my local friends this week. For the longest time, I felt like it was hard to make friends here in Milwaukee. After a few years, that changed though. I made really good friends with a couple of people I worked with. Then good friends from the Quad Cities moved up here, so that was an instant friend! EASY! I joined a FABULOUS book club full of strong women.
Met some more great people through work. Changed jobs, kept up the friendships with the old work buddies, and have even made a couple of new work buddies. I feel really lucky to have such a great circle of friends.

Thursday nights a group of girls from the TV station and me get together to watch "Grey's Anatomy." Unfortunately, because of the writers strike, we're out of new episodes. So we've decided to keep getting together anyway, and we're going to make it a game night. I'm really excited about this, because I like playing games almost as much as I like reading... which is a lot.

I've also managed to keep up with the book club friends pretty well. We're getting together for dinner tomorrow night at my new favorite restaurant, Guadalupe. It's going to be so great to see them!

I also love hearing from all my friends scattered across the country. I hope you're all enjoying the blog. I hope some of you will be inspired to start your own, or drop me an email or post a comment. Friendship is such an amazing gift, and I feel really blessed to have as many great friends as I do.