L'Engle Contradiction

I often list Madeleine L'Engle as one of my favorite authors. Upon further reflection, though, I'm very particular about which types of her books are good. I love her young adult fiction, but not her adult fiction. I love her non-fiction autobiographies, but I can't stand her poetry, except for one piece that has more sentimental meaning than literary value for me. Certain Women had its moments, but for the most part I think I'll stick to L'Engle's fiction for children.

Good Times

Our weekend was jam-packed! Friday night we went to a concert at Swallow Hill (my anniversary gift to the Mister). Swallow Hill is Denver's folk music society. The venue was tiny, just 40 people, but the performance was a lot of fun. We'd been wanting to see a concert there since we moved to Englewood and this was the perfect introduction. (image via Stelling Banjo)

On Saturday I went to Miller Farms near Longmont to participate in their end-0f-season produce clean up. For $12 they drive you around their fields and at every stop you hop out and pick organic vegetables to take home. I went nuts! I came home with 15 lbs. of potatoes, 10 lbs. of onions, 6 lbs. of tomatoes, 5 lbs. of green beans, 10 ears of corn, 6 lbs. of red and golden beets, 1 kohlrabi, and a small sunburn. I'm canning the green beans and tomatoes, and the potatoes and onions will go in our basement for storage. Not sure what to do with that many beets, but whatever we can't use will be distributed to friends. I've never canned before, but the dilly green beans look good in their jar. The tomatoes are going to become marinara sauce and get canned later this week.

Saturday night I went out with my dear friend to our favorite Vietnamese restaurant conveniently located just down the street from our house. We had an excellent dinner and a long evening of conversation. She is currently in the middle of adopting a sweet girl from Kyrgyzstan, so if you have a moment please say a prayer that the adoption moves along quickly. Winter is coming and they are expecting rolling power outages. We don't want our girl to get cold!

More updates on my reading later this week...

Four Years

The Mister and I were married four years ago today. It's hard to believe that we've been a couple for almost five. We've been together long enough that I'm having trouble remembering what life was like before him. It's been good--really, really good.

Tickets for a concert have been purchased and we have reservations this weekend at Solera (a restaurant we've never been to). I'm ready for a nice relaxing weekend to celebrate us.

Weekend In Review

Sister-In-Law and Cousin-In-Law were both in town. SIL is visiting from Australia and is getting married at the Oxford Hotel in September 2009, so there were lots of wedding preparations this weekend. We got a chance to see the ballroom at the Oxford on Monday and it is beautiful.

Didn't do much reading, but did get some good recommendations at the family gathering on Sunday. The Boss came in to work with a stack of 20+ doctoral dissertations that he offered to let me read, but I took a pass. I'm bored, but not that bored.

Happy Non-Laboring Day!

My plan for the weekend? Sit around and watch this video!

Don't Waste Your Time

I'm embarrassed that I picked it up, more so that I read it. I had ten minutes to pick up books at the library and I just grabbed it. The worst part? This was the best book in the bunch!

One realization that's come from my 52 book challenge is the sad acknowledgment that there's very little good fiction out there. It's been so long since I've read something that inspired me. I love to read non-fiction, but sometimes it would be nice to read a novel that makes me sing a little bit inside when I finish it. They're few and far between, that's for sure.

Bummer

I've been spurned by the Obama camp. Maybe because I'm an Independent?