Book Club Titles

This was our book club selection for May, so you can see I'm a little behind.  Anyway, it was a fabulous read, in my opinion.  I read it on my Ipad and I couldn't put it down.  It was on the New York Times list of best 2011 books.  It's about a star college baseball player.  But it is more than a book about baseball.  It's a campus novel and a romance.  It's also a book about life, searching for perfection, literature, and finding yourself.  I highly recommend it.  Most everyone in our book club loved it.  I have a bias towards baseball since both of my nephews are stand out players and I've been to lots of games in my lifetime.



Our June selection is this: 


I'll be on vacation so I won't make the meeting.  I want to read it though, it's all tips on being "happier".  And who doesn't want that?

Our July read is a decadent beach read.  We chose Norah Roberts, Sacred Sins.We decided most of us take a beach vacation sometime during the summer and take a sexy romantic novel to read with us.  So we decided to pick one, spend a few hours at the beach, and get it done.  No stress, analyzing, looking up words in the dictionary, literary guides for us in July!

On The Line

This is a great little pattern I bought at a fabulous shop in South Jordan, Utah at Material Girls.  It's a fun little embroidery project that I've taken my time completing.  I planned to give these to my mom and sister a couple of years ago for Christmas.  Well, I just walked my sister's over to her and said a very late or very early "Merry Christmas".  It just depends on how you look at it.  Anyway, here's my finished projects.

I just love them and think they are so sweet to hang in the laundry room.  It's funny, my sister was just putting another load in the washing machine when I delivered this to her!

The Smith Center

We've spent lots of time and paper (money and tickets) at an outstanding new venue.  It's the Smith Center and opened in early March.  In fact, the grand opening gala will be featured on PBS sometime in the next year.  It was a star studded event featuring Jennifer Hudson amongst many others.  This place is what our city needed and the response to it and their events has been overwhelming.  I know my husband and I joke about our biweekly trip to it.  We've had fun seeing many shows including The Color Purple, Yo Yo Ma, The Pink Floyd Experience, Good Night Gracie, Million Dollar Quartet, Nevada Ballet Theater's Gala, and Mary Poppins.  Here's their website if you'd like to check it out, www.thesmithcenter.com.  We are Broadway Series subscribers and look forward to next season already.  We still have Memphis to see next month.  We are making a night of it and finding new restaurants (to us, anyway) in the downtown area.  So far we've enjoyed Le Thai, Lola's Kitchen, Mundo, Main Street Station's Brew Pub, and Dona Maria's.  Maybe we'll drop into Triple George before Memphis.

Bake Sale!

My daughter is responsible (with a small group of 3) for fundraising $10,000 for the Big City Mountaineers at work.  They are a group of mountaineers that go into urban areas and get youth outdoors hiking.  They had a BBQ that raised a nice sum.  Their next project was a bake sale last week.  She asked me to donate some items, she knows I love to bake and had time for it.  Well, as you can see by the picture, I got a little carried away.  This filled a really big box and was a big hit.  My items sold out immediately and the bake sale was a huge success due to lots of great donated items.  I made Rice Krispie Treats, Scotcheroos, Popcorn Balls, Snickerdoodles, Brownies, Strawberry Cream cupcakes, banana bread, Cranberry Macadamia Nut White Chocolate Cookies, Chex Mix, and my sister made Carmelitas.  We did some pretty packaging too.  They made a nice total and the company CEO matches all the funds raised.  She has some other fun ideas to reach their goal and it's wonderful they get so much support.

Father's Day

Our Father's Day was pretty laid back, just what my husband ordered.  He went on a long mountain bike first thing in the morning.  There was discussion about a hike in the mountains but our girls would have to get up way too early on a Sunday, so that idea was scrapped.  The girls came over about noon and we ordered out from Lucille's BBQ.  We didn't want the crowds in the restaurant so opted to eat here and swim.  So we picked up our family meal and oh it was delicious!

Don's gift was just what he ordered too!  It was a new Webber grill for the RV, still portable and easy to store, but lots more BTUs!

And he needed some great cards for being such a wonderful dad and husband all year.

 He truly loves Napolean Dynamite -- the girls found this fun talking card for him.  We swam for several hours then served him Lemon Meringue Pie for dessert, his favorite.  A great time was had by all.

I've been away for 5-6 weeks.  It seems I was so busy with finishing another school year, traveling, UFO's and just life in general.  I just took some time to change up the look of the blog, it still needs some work but I'm rolling on it.  I'll be back tomorrow to finish a couple of things and add a real post.  I have lots of pictures and ideas.

April Book Club

 

We read Bossypants, by Tina Fey, for our April selection.  Our book club tries to be eclectic, a little drama, classic, historical fiction, comedy, annual summer beach read, etc.  So it was time for some comedy and we picked this right!  This is a great, funny book.  We heard from a members son the audiobook is even better because Tina herself recorded it.  This is a very easy read and definitely something you can put down and get back to much later if that's how life is rolling right now.  Tina is so funny and in the end filled with the same joys and worries as all of us.  She is a mom first too.  There are so many funny stories about her life in a normal middle class family growing up, college, and getting her start in Chicago.  I guarantee this read will be worth your time.  And it sounds like it's an even better "listen".