Wednesday, June 29, 2016

"Aaah, summer - that long anticipated stretch of lazy, lingering days, free of responsibility and rife with possibility." ~ Darell Hammond

If you are a Pinterest user, you know that you are pinning those recipes, projects, and inspirations because you plan to try it "some day". You also know that you are living vicariously through those people who have already gone where you want to go. How many pinned ideas, dishes, craft projects have I actually tried, let alone accomplished? Not a heck of a lot. This is coming from someone who has 89 boards, and over 15,000 pins. In my defense, I got into Pinterest nearly 5 years ago, when I was first retired. I have had a long time to accumulate all of those boards and all of those pins.


 

Since we have not been in a home of our own for the last couple of months, I do find that I am on Pinterest more than usual. I've taken "living vicariously" to the next level. "I'm going to cook THAT when I'm in my own kitchen!" "And speaking of kitchens! I love those cabinets and countertops!" "I can't wait to dig out my sewing machine so that I can stitch up all of the curtains for my new home!" "Stained concrete floors - I could soooooo do that!" "Who knew there were so many paint colors?! I'm going to have every shade for every room figured out before we move in!" "If all of those other 'Pinners' could do it, so can I!"

Yes, Pinterest is a bit of a rabbit hole - but right now, I am willingly crawling down!

Wednesday, June 22, 2016

"Home wasn't built in a day." ~ Jane Sherwood Ace


It has been a bit since I have shared updates on our housing plans. We are continuing to look at building our next home. There are still many hurdles to jump over and questions to be answered, but we are moving forward. Having built in the past, Bruce's experience helps to quell some of my nervousness - poor guy - he patiently answers every question, and reassures me. He also is practical and knows that there are some unknowns that need to be known as we continue. I told him - just let me know when it's time to pick out kitchen cabinets! Of course I am more involved than that, but you get the idea.

I will share updates when there is something to update. That may include saying that we are not building, but for now - it looks like we are!

Wednesday, June 15, 2016

"I wanna walk and not run; I wanna skip and not fall; I wanna look at the horizon and not see a building standing tall." ~ The Dixie Chicks



This past weekend, my sisters treated me to The Dixie Chicks concert at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center. This was a 60th birthday present (birthday this past February). It was fabulous! This is the third time that I have seen them, and they did not disappoint. The place was packed inside and the lawn was covered with fans. I have tried to get a head count for the event, but couldn't find it anywhere. Suffice it to say that there were many, many thousands of people. I love many voices singing together - and I sang my heart out! My pictures aren't great, and my video clip is poor, but I think that you get the idea!

Thank you Sisters - I love you!






Wednesday, June 8, 2016

"There is a temperate zone in the mind, between luxurious indolence, and exacting work; and it is to this region, just between laziness and labor, that summer reading belongs." ~ Henry Ward Beecher

It's that time of year ~ what to read over the summer! I'm not going to pretend that I will read them all - or even most, but I will try! (All summaries are taken from Amazon.com)


First up is "The City of Mirrors", by Justin Cronin. I know that some of my friends are a bit bewildered by my fascination of post-apocalyptic books and movies - I've no excuse - I just like them!  I have read the first two in this trilogy, and am eager to finish it up with the third and final installment.


The world we knew is gone. What world will rise in its place?

The Twelve have been destroyed and the terrifying hundred-year reign of darkness that descended upon the world has ended. The survivors are stepping outside their walls, determined to build society anew—and daring to dream of a hopeful future.

But far from them, in a dead metropolis, he waits: Zero. The First. Father of the Twelve. The anguish that shattered his human life haunts him, and the hatred spawned by his transformation burns bright. His fury will be quenched only when he destroys Amy—humanity’s only hope, the Girl from Nowhere who grew up to rise against him.

One last time light and dark will clash, and at last Amy and her friends will know their fate.



Next - "Outline", by Rachel Cusk

Outline is a novel in ten conversations. Spare and lucid, it follows a novelist teaching a course in creative writing over an oppressively hot summer in Athens. She leads her students in storytelling exercises. She meets other visiting writers for dinner. She goes swimming in the Ionian Sea with her neighbor from the plane. The people she encounters speak volubly about themselves: their fantasies, anxieties, pet theories, regrets, and longings. And through these disclosures, a portrait of the narrator is drawn by contrast, a portrait of a woman learning to face a great loss.



"Tracing the Bones", by Elise A Miller.

Cynical housewife Eve Myer has two kids, chronic back pain, and a decaying writing career―as well as a stagnant marriage haunted by her husband’s long ago affair.

When a new family moves in next door, Eve becomes consumed with curiosity about beautiful life coach Anna, and with powerful lust for Billy, a sexy alternative healer with a troubled, mysterious past. As Eve begins healing sessions with Billy, an unthinkable tragedy strikes Anna and her small son. Eve's obsession invites even more suspicion and mistrust into her marriage and as her life unravels, her sessions with Billy intensify, culminating in an alternative, experimental trip deep into the woods―a freezing winter’s journey that threatens the remaining bonds of Eve’s marriage and finally uncovers the reason for Anna’s death.



"Home Going", by Yaa Gyasi

A novel of breathtaking sweep and emotional power that traces three hundred years in Ghana and along the way also becomes a truly great American novel. Extraordinary for its exquisite language, its implacable sorrow, its soaring beauty, and for its monumental portrait of the forces that shape families and nations, Homegoing heralds the arrival of a major new voice in contemporary fiction.
            
Two half-sisters, Effia and Esi, are born into different villages in eighteenth-century Ghana. Effia is married off to an Englishman and lives in comfort in the palatial rooms of Cape Coast Castle. Unbeknownst to Effia, her sister, Esi, is imprisoned beneath her in the castle’s dungeons, sold with thousands of others into the Gold Coast’s booming slave trade, and shipped off to America, where her children and grandchildren will be raised in slavery. One thread of Homegoing follows Effia’s descendants through centuries of warfare in Ghana, as the Fante and Asante nations wrestle with the slave trade and British colonization. The other thread follows Esi and her children into America. From the plantations of the South to the Civil War and the Great Migration, from the coal mines of Pratt City, Alabama, to the jazz clubs and dope houses of twentieth-century Harlem, right up through the present day, Homegoing makes history visceral, and captures, with singular and stunning immediacy, how the memory of captivity came to be inscribed in the soul of a nation. 
            
Generation after generation, Yaa Gyasi’s magisterial first novel sets the fate of the individual against the obliterating movements of time, delivering unforgettable characters whose lives were shaped by historical forces beyond their control. Homegoing is a tremendous reading experience, not to be missed, by an astonishingly gifted young writer.



"Hidden Bodies", by Caroline Kepnes

Hidden Bodies marks the return of a voice that Stephen King described as original and hypnotic, and through the divisive and charmingly sociopathic character of Joe Goldberg, Kepnes satirizes and dissects our culture, blending suspense with scathing wit.

Joe Goldberg is no stranger to hiding bodies. In the past ten years, this thirty-something has buried four of them, collateral damage in his quest for love. Now he’s heading west to Los Angeles, the city of second chances, determined to put his past behind him.

In Hollywood, Joe blends in effortlessly with the other young upstarts. He eats guac, works in a bookstore, and flirts with a journalist neighbor. But while others seem fixated on their own reflections, Joe can’t stop looking over his shoulder. The problem with hidden bodies is that they don’t always stay that way. They re-emerge, like dark thoughts, multiplying and threatening to destroy what Joe wants most: truelove. And when he finds it in a darkened room in Soho House, he’s more desperate than ever to keep his secrets buried. He doesn’t want to hurt his new girlfriend—he wants to be with her forever. But if she ever finds out what he’s done, he may not have a choice...



"The Nest", by Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney


Every family has its problems. But even among the most troubled, the Plumb family stands out as spectacularly dysfunctional. Years of simmering tensions finally reach a breaking point on an unseasonably cold afternoon in New York City as Melody, Beatrice, and Jack Plumb gather to confront their charismatic and reckless older brother, Leo, freshly released from rehab. Months earlier, an inebriated Leo got behind the wheel of a car with a nineteen-year-old waitress as his passenger. The ensuing accident has endangered the Plumbs' joint trust fund, “The Nest,” which they are months away from finally receiving. Meant by their deceased father to be a modest mid-life supplement, the Plumb siblings have watched The Nest’s value soar along with the stock market and have been counting on the money to solve a number of self-inflicted problems.
Melody, a wife and mother in an upscale suburb, has an unwieldy mortgage and looming college tuition for her twin teenage daughters. Jack, an antiques dealer, has secretly borrowed against the beach cottage he shares with his husband, Walker, to keep his store open. And Bea, a once-promising short-story writer, just can’t seem to finish her overdue novel. Can Leo rescue his siblings and, by extension, the people they love? Or will everyone need to reimagine the futures they’ve envisioned? Brought together as never before, Leo, Melody, Jack, and Beatrice must grapple with old resentments, present-day truths, and the significant emotional and financial toll of the accident, as well as finally acknowledge the choices they have made in their own lives.
This is a story about the power of family, the possibilities of friendship, the ways we depend upon one another and the ways we let one another down. In this tender, entertaining, and deftly written debut, Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney brings a remarkable cast of characters to life to illuminate what money does to relationships, what happens to our ambitions over the course of time, and the fraught yet unbreakable ties we share with those we love.


"The Woman in Cabin 10", by Ruth Ware - I read her "In a Dark, Dark Wood" last moth and loved it!

In this tightly wound, enthralling story reminiscent of Agatha Christie’s works, Lo Blacklock, a journalist who writes for a travel magazine, has just been given the assignment of a lifetime: a week on a luxury cruise with only a handful of cabins. The sky is clear, the waters calm, and the veneered, select guests jovial as the exclusive cruise ship, the Aurora, begins her voyage in the picturesque North Sea. At first, Lo’s stay is nothing but pleasant: the cabins are plush, the dinner parties are sparkling, and the guests are elegant. But as the week wears on, frigid winds whip the deck, gray skies fall, and Lo witnesses what she can only describe as a dark and terrifying nightmare: a woman being thrown overboard. The problem? All passengers remain accounted for—and so, the ship sails on as if nothing has happened, despite Lo’s desperate attempts to convey that something (or someone) has gone terribly, terribly wrong…

With surprising twists, spine-tingling turns, and a setting that proves as uncomfortably claustrophobic as it is eerily beautiful, Ruth Ware offers up another taut and intense read in The Woman in Cabin 10—one that will leave even the most sure-footed reader restlessly uneasy long after the last page is turned.


"Truly Madly Guilty", by Liane Moriarty (Love her books!)

In Truly Madly Guilty, Liane Moriarty turns her unique, razor-sharp eye towards three seemingly happy families.
Sam and Clementine have a wonderful, albeit, busy life: they have two little girls, Sam has just started a new dream job, and Clementine, a cellist, is busy preparing for the audition of a lifetime. If there’s anything they can count on, it’s each other.
Clementine and Erika are each other’s oldest friends. A single look between them can convey an entire conversation. But theirs is a complicated relationship, so when Erika mentions a last minute invitation to a barbecue with her neighbors, Tiffany and Vid, Clementine and Sam don’t hesitate. Having Tiffany and Vid’s larger than life personalities there will be a welcome respite.
Two months later, it won’t stop raining, and Clementine and Sam can’t stop asking themselves the question: What if we hadn’t gone?
In Truly Madly Guilty, Liane Moriarty takes on the foundations of our lives: marriage, sex, parenthood, and friendship. She shows how guilt can expose the fault lines in the most seemingly strong relationships, how what we don’t say can be more powerful than what we do, and how sometimes it is the most innocent of moments that can do the greatest harm.


"Behold the Dreamers", by Imbolo Mbue

Jende Jonga, a Cameroonian immigrant living in Harlem, has come to the United States to provide a better life for himself, his wife, Neni, and their six-year-old son. In the fall of 2007, Jende can hardly believe his luck when he lands a job as a chauffeur for Clark Edwards, a senior executive at Lehman Brothers. Clark demands punctuality, discretion, and loyalty—and Jende is eager to please. Clark’s wife, Cindy, even offers Neni temporary work at the Edwardses’ summer home in the Hamptons. With these opportunities, Jende and Neni can at last gain a foothold in America and imagine a brighter future.

However, the world of great power and privilege conceals troubling secrets, and soon Jende and Neni notice cracks in their employers’ façades.

When the financial world is rocked by the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the Jongas are desperate to keep Jende’s job—even as their marriage threatens to fall apart. As all four lives are dramatically upended, Jende and Neni are forced to make an impossible choice.


"The Widow", by Fiona Barton ~ I'm about half way through and loving it!

When the police started asking questions, Jean Taylor turned into a different woman. One who enabled her and her husband to carry on, when more bad things began to happen...

But that woman’s husband died last week. And Jean doesn’t have to be her anymore.

There’s a lot Jean hasn’t said over the years about the crime her husband was suspected of committing. She was too busy being the perfect wife, standing by her man while living with the accusing glares and the anonymous harassment. 

Now there’s no reason to stay quiet. There are people who want to hear her story. They want to know what it was like living with that man. She can tell them that there were secrets. There always are in a marriage. 

The truth—that’s all anyone wants. But the one lesson Jean has learned in the last few years is that she can make people believe anything…
Happy Reading!

Wednesday, June 1, 2016

"I get by with a little help from my friends." ~ Ringo Starr


Having relied upon the generosity of friends for the past month, we are now settled into our summer rental. As much as we are grateful to those who put us up, it is nice to be in a spot of our own for the next three months. We are in the process of unpacking the few things that we have and and making it our home!

We continue our housing quest, with a lean toward building at this point. There are many questions to ask, and answers to gather, before this is a done deal however. 

In the meantime, here are some parting shots from our last home away from home!