Bookclubs

I like to read. A lot. I can't imagine life without books. Or the library. I am part of four bookclubs, which rarely meet at the same time. But this month three of them are on the same weekend. I typically try to read the book right before bookclub, but I now need to get a move on three books before next weekend. The first book is Jimmy by Robert Whitlow for Saturday, the next is The Human Comedy by William Saroyan for Sunday and the last is The House at Sugar Beach by Helene Cooper for Monday. I love meeting with other people that enjoy books and I also get exposed to books I wouldn't have necessarily read on my own.

Here is an excerpt from The Human Comedy, page 17: "You must remember," she said, "always to give, of everything you have. You must give foolishly even. You must be extravagant. You must give to all who come into your life. Then nothing and no one shall have the power to cheat you of anything, for if you give to a thief, he cannot steal from you, and he himself is then no longer a thief. And the more you give, the more you will have to give."

This is challenging....made me stop and ponder what I give, what I give freely, and what I hold on to, let alone what I cling to.

Game Night!

Thursday night- Pizza and Game Night at the Balderrama's. Well, instead of pizza tonight, we went to the Texas Roadhouse in Tracy, one of our favorite recipes. Nothing like steak and ribs and loaded sweet potatoes! My husband sat next to James and he was a fantastic multi-tasker. He managed to feed James all kinds of different food from the table (bread, crackers, sweet potatoes...not sure if any french fries snuck in) while engaging in conversations and eating his own food. What an awesome guy! We then came home and played a few games of poker and one round of Hearts.

What else has been keeping us busy? Community Bible Study started up yesterday. How nice it was to be back together with friends and learning more about God's word. Playgroup was also yesterday and there was a great turnout. I am trying to walk to as many things as possible and it is great being able to have the time to do this.

And how could I forget the big event of today....today was the Geography Bee that Maria and William both participated in. Granted, we did all of no preparation for this, but it sure was neat to listen to the answers. Thirteen students participated and William made it to the second of three rounds and Maria ended up tying for third place. I was very impressed with both of them.

Mat Pilates

I did a mat Pilates class today at Diamond Hills Sports Club. Ouch! I found out I am not as limber as I once was. But what a beautiful club with great facilities. I am taking four free classes there this month and that has gotten Ken and I to start talking about possibly joining a health club again. So we will be looking at Diamond Hills along with Club One and In Shape. While the price per month is a definite factor, the bigger factor is which one would we actually use. That is the real trick to a health club....not getting a membership, but using the membership consistently!

I just finished reading Blood River today which is the true story of journalist Tim Butcher's recreating a Victorian gentleman's journey on the Congo River. This was an amazing book. The areas he travelled were more modern in the 50's than they are today...it is one of the few places on earth that the grandparents have lived more progressively than their grandchildren. This was also where The African Queen was filmed, so now I am watching this film. I am fascinated by how various books and videos come into my life. I sometimes go to the library and get books off the hold shelf, and I have no idea why I put them on hold, but they will be gems.

Had one of the freezer meals today- Playoff Burgers. Yummy. How nice that was to have sitting in the refrigerator, waiting to be cooked. It took away all the temptation of going out to dinner and it was so nice to sit down as a family at the table. James joined in, but he ate banana, sweet potato, oatmeal and apple sauce instead.

The End of the Soup

We had the Herinks over for dinner tonight and while the food was good, the conversation was even better. I love listening and participating in conversations that run the gamut from politics to religion to economics to Star Trek to families to homeschooling to computers to community to recipes to travels to gambling to books to .... you get the picture! A whole lot of talking over a wide range of topics.

Earlier in the day the soup kitchen was open. Holly came over and grabbed some of the Black Bean Salsa Chicken soup and we had a nice visit with her. Then the Herinks were served the two different soups. And at the end of dinner, Sonya came over and was able to take the rest of both of the soups. We are happy to see them go since we have been noshing on them for a few days and there still isn't room in the freezer. Plus, it is great to see things like this being able to be shared. I want to live my life more communally and sharing food either at our table or with other people to take home helps satisfy that desire. So...if you want to come on over and break bread with us, we would love to have you.

Lunch out with Auntabelle

Woo hoo! I got to see my sister Annabelle today! James sure loves hanging out with his Auntabelle.

We met her today at her friend Serafine's new home in Concord. We went out to lunch at Sorrento Italian Restaurant and it was fabulous. I had the Pasta Salvietto which was a fresh pasta roll with ricotta cheese, spinach, mozzarella cheese and tomato sauce served with sauteed fresh vegetables and choice of soup or salad. My mouth is watering just remembering it.

I came home to a house cleared of all Christmas decorations and fairly picked up overall. BIG GRIN! My mantra needs to be declutter, declutter, declutter. New things keep coming into the house every day it seems...even the mail is a struggle for me.

Right now as I am blogging, James is snoozing and Ken and the older kids are playing Nintendo Monopoly which William got for Christmas. I would have been playing....but for Maria's monopoly wiping me almost all the way out and then William cleaning out the rest of my money. Sigh.

Free Food!

We were going to have some friends over for dinner, but due to a few members of the family being mildly sick, we decided to postpone our gathering. But, I have a huge pot of Turkey Soup and a huge crockpot (new for Christmas!) full of Black Bean and Salsa Chicken, which is a bit thicker than soup, but basically soup like. I was getting ready to freeze it when I realized there is no room in my freezer. So, I have some soups available for anyone that is interested! Drop me a line or give me a call and I can bag some of either kind or both for you.

Cooking galore!

I did it! I completed the cooking I set out to do today. Granted, I didn't move to the next thing on my list, which was to take down Christmas decorations. But, I felt pretty good about the cooking. Yesterday I made 4 meals and today I made 10 meals. Granted, most of these were just the main entree, not complete meals, but this will certainly make my life easier for this month. Now I just need to think about side dishes to go with meals, and I pretty much have the month loosely mapped out in terms of meals. And Thursday nights were easy....they are our family pizza and game night. Where did we go tonight? Straw Hat because we had a coupon and we played Rook for the first time.