Your Favorite Book Book Club

When I left Salt Lake I left behind a book club that I loved. To sort of get that going again, but without the hassle of recruiting members and picking a book and then feeling guilty for not reading the book, I decided to have a "book club" where everyone would bring their favorite book. I also wanted a chance to have people over to my loft.

Last night my friends descended and we all shared our books. Some people didn't have their actual favorite (many of my friends are students at KU so they don't have all their belongings with them), but brought a book that they liked anyway. Here's what everyone brought:

• Me: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (I shared a lengthy introduction on why I loved this novel and Jane and Mr. Rochester, relating how I bought it in highschool but didn't really read it until I lived in New York.)
• Andrew: Locked On by Tom Clancy (follows the story of Jack Ryan's son, Jack Ryan, Jr.)
• Janae: A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park (a true story)
• Aaron: War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (a classic, but no one else had read it)
• Will, brought a bag of books to share, a few of them: Catch-22 by Joseph Heller, To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoyevsky, The Natural by Bernard Malamud, A Separate Peace by John Knowles (this is the one he decided to share an excerpt from)
• Paige: Elephants on Acid & Other Bizarre Experiements by Alex Boese
• Tomas: Times Alone: Selected Poems of Antonio Machado (he read a poem to us in English and Spanish)
• Steven: Angels & Demons by Dan Brown (the book is crazy but a fun read)
• Emma: Silas Marner by George Eliot (I've never heard of this book) and, for fun Flirting 101 which we all had fun with
• Sherri:  The Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder (she's visited the home of Ma and Pa in South Dakota and shared pictures)
• Jessica: Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand (the most political book of the night, although we steered clear of political discussion)
• Kate: Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type (she read it aloud to us librarian-style; it was a perfect book to end on

 

 

Also, upon first seeing Biscuit everyone exclaimed how large she is! Yeah, she's fat and I love her.

Glow Run 5k

The Glow Run 5k in Lawrence was kind of amazing. First of all, similar to sporting events, everything is better at night. Add on to that glow sticks and amazing people to run with, and you have all the makings of a perfect time.

 We re-used our tutus from the Color Vibe and snazzed them up with colored tights.

I'm so proud of Amber and how far she's come! It was April when I suggested to her doing a 5k, telling her all she needed to do was get an app on her phone and start slowly. Amber has amazing motivation and dedication, and after our first 5k she just kept going. She's been eating better and exercising, and since April she has lost over 50 pounds!

I ran the whole race, setting my best time yet for a 5k (the course was actually only 2.75 miles)! Amber's friend Bridget and I just kept running, knowing that if we stopped we wouldn't get going again. With it being race day and the adrenaline and the atmosphere, I felt great! Thanks to Amber for keeping me motivated!

Old Foto Friday

Grandma with Ivy. I think was when we were out there for the Fourth of July 2002. I guess it could be 2001; I have no idea how to tell how old babies are. Does Ivy look like she's 3 months or 15 months? Probably 15, right?? At any rate, this is grandma great with another one of her grandbabies. I love that in the back is a photo of grandma holding a grandbaby.

 

My grandma always loved wearing lipstick. I love that about her.

Losing It: Moving Sucks

I have lived in my loft for seven and a half months. Before this, I lived in my apartment in the avenues for two years. Everything had its place and I knew where it was. There are still a few things I haven't unpacked yet, but my books and picture frames were the two things I had to get out to feel settled.

I have unpacked all my books and all my picture frames, and I'm missing some! I have picture frames from Hawaii, Hollywood and New York and I can't find them anywhere. All my picture frames were in two boxes, both of which have been completely unpacked. Just tonight I realized that I am also missing my copy of The Book Thief. My friend Pam gave this to me and I love it. All my book boxes have been unpacked and it is nowhere to be found. Perhaps I've lent it to someone, but I got it back from my best friend Lindsay just before I moved so this seems unlikely.

I am convinced there is a random box somewhere with these items in it. Maybe it went to the DI on accident. Maybe it fell off the truck. Maybe I never put it in the truck. Whatever the reason, I'm super bummed that I've lost these things.

Ren Fest and The Goonies

Saturday, with near-perfect weather, Amber, her friend Jenn, and I made the small drive to Bonner Springs to check out the Renaissance Festival. Amber goes almost every year and really wanted to share the experience with me.

It was a pretty fun time. There are people dressed up in all sorts of renaissance garb, and a surprising amount of "Dr. Who" costumes, just walking around eating turkey legs. We checked out the shops, the jewelery, the Jolly Rogers, the jousters, the food and the people. Amber bought a pretty sweet outfit, I bought a pair of earrings, and Jenn bought some perfume she's been looking for for awhile. We all left satisfied (well, almost....there's a story with a ring that I found but was too small) and tired.

Then Amber and I headed to the State Capitol to watch The Goonies on the south lawn. It was a little chilly (the temperature had dropped nearly 30 degrees from the day before) but perfect. Movies outside in a park are one of my favorite things of summer, and I was bummed that there didn't seem to be any of them in Topeka.

 

The Goonies never gets old. 

Old Foto Friday

I cam across this photo when I was at my grandparents' home after my grandma's funeral in July. We must've decided to get a picture of all the girls on the porch. In the back row is my mom, my cousin Marilyn and my cousin Phaedra. The middle row is my Aunt Kaye, my cousin Allison, my cousin Kristine and my Aunt Virginia. Emily and I are in the front. Note that Emily is smiling and happy! I remember wearing this dress to my pre-school graduation (I loved it), so this is sometime in '88 I'm guessing. I'm really loving all our outfits.

We are on the porch of my grandma and grandpa's home in Moroni, UT. The porch looked out on Main Street, and we'd always end up there on cool nights watching the world go by.

Trivia Champions!

Saturday afternoon, with the rain cancelling Amber's and my plans to go to the Renaissance Festival, my friend Susan invited me to be on her team for the Library's Trivia Challenge. Susan has lived in Topeka all her life (except her stint at a missionary and her time matriculating at BYU) and knows all the cool things to do in Topeka. This is really nice, especially because there's a general perception around here that there is nothing cool in Topeka and you must travel to Lawrence if you want to do anything cool.

Our team of six had a  lot of knowledge, which is what you want on a trivia team. Some people excelled in many areas, while I was obviously only good for the round dealing with movies and television shows. We ended up tying for the win and had to answer a tie-breaker question correctly. We did because we're awesome and won a trophy, which you can us proudly displaying on the library's website.

My Accent

A couple weeks ago I was having a conversation with someone at work. She told me, after a little while, that I had an accent and she could tell I wasn't from Kansas. She said certain intonations of mine were different than what it used here. I have always wanted to have an accent, so this was a pretty cool moment. But I wondered what kind of accent I had. Idaho? Utah? Intermountain West?

Then, last week I was having a conversation with someone from Idaho. And I noticed that certain words they said were in a similar way I or someone from Idaho would say it--just in the enunciation of a vowel in a word.

When I visited my friend Pam in PA once I noticed how the radio DJs pronounced Allegheny and Carnegie much differently than I did, putting their emphasis in different places. I think people in Kansas definitely have an accent. Or at least a regional way of speaking, such as adding 'r's to their words (warsh, instead of wash) or saying catty-corner instead of kitty-corner.  And we all know that people from Idaho call it pop instead of soda.