Category: Meanderings

Good Morning!  2nd cup of COFFEE today and have a coffee date coming up here shortly.  MMMMM….  friends and coffee.  My mom would be proud :).

My Bob Marley encounters are few put impactful.

A few years ago at the Book Expo in New York I went to a signing of a book by Bob Marley’s son, Ky-Mani.  I had the book dedicated to my son, Justin.

I really felt that would be my last connection with Bob…

Then we went to Cancun a few weeks ago.  At the all-inclusive resort we stayed at they had a drink called the Bob Marley.  The drink was named for it’s coloring, it striped in the glass green, yellow, red.  For me it was a bit strong, but for the ladies I went on this trip with, they really liked it and every day by the pool when the waitress went by it was the requested beverage.

Once we came back home, I wanted to get each of the ladies I went with a little something as a thank you for a trip that had every potential of being very hard on me, but actually turned out ok due to the company we were with.  I wanted to go with something that I had learned about each of them and for two of the ladies *cough Wendy and Julie cough* I wanted that item to be Bob Marley related.

Originally I was thinking a bobblehead doll…. but wow.  On line these babies go for around $75 each!  So I started exploring and discovered great sayings that Marley had said throughout his life that had been made into vinyl to put on your wall.  I have been to each of these ladies homes so I know the layout and thought they may think this is cool.  If not, it is still a fun connection to the trip.

What I did not expect is that while looking around, I would find one for me.   I love words.  I love words on the wall.  If I could go all words and a few pictures I would.  My house should read like a story of my life.  As I look around at books, and pictures, and memories….  I guess it does.  It still did not stop my from picking out one for myself and yesterday I put it on my wall to see what it would look like and to be able to tell the girls how to put theirs up if they choose to.

I

Love

it.

Guess I have a little Bob Marley memory as well. 🙂

Today is a coffee date and a lunch date.  A trip to the store and later reading of the book club book pick for next weeks discussion.  Sounds like a pretty fair kick off to the weekend.

I will leave you with this – not sure if it “THE” recipe, but here is a Bob Marley drink recipe.  This drink may cause you to synchronize swim in the pool, dance a little in your lounger, and talk to people you do not know.  Proceed with caution.  😉

1 oz. Creme de Menthe, green

•1/2 oz. Liqueur, banana

•1/2 oz. Rum, overproof/151 proof

•1 oz. Grenadine

Mixing Instructions

The true Bob Marley is grenadine at the bottom, creme de menthe in the middle, and 151 plus creme de bananna, so it makes the red, green and yellow of the Jamaican flag

Sunday and the last day of January 2016.  While filling the outdoor wood stove this morning (yes, some of us in Minnesota do that 😉 ) I found myself really thinking about this past year.  It is just crazy to think that in two more months it will be a year…

It doesn’t feel like that can be true.

I have struggled daily.  Lately, this last month… I am searching for a way to assemble some sort of life… goals…. a way of going on – NOT moving on, but going on.  This time of my life has been the absolute hardest of anything I have ever experienced.  I am glad at least that I am starting to want to get started with something again and have been slowly working on reconnecting with my contracts and the outside world.

Bitter sweet to see me using an agenda again.  It is one of the geeky things I have always loved to do and I quit last April and didn’t touch my agenda for the rest of the year.  I love to write things down and see what I have completed and what I have planned.  It took a while to bring this back.

 

New books in the house (because apparently I am rambling today….)

Look at these fun titles.  Makes me want to read RIGHT NOW.

The Life We Bury is our book club pick for February.  Minnesota author.

Odysseus Abroad came in from Vintage Books a division of Random House

The Immortals looks fun and is going to be a part of an upcoming giveaway!

The Good Liar has a tasty title doesn’t it?  Harper sent this one.

The total Package…. ahh Stephanie Plum, we have a love-like relationship but I still cant resist seeing what this is about 🙂  TLC Blog tour

The EX I picked up at the library yesterday while changing out the window.  Love the title…. sounds good 🙂

The RAMBLERS has a fun synopsis that has me curious.  TLC blog tour.

 

So that’s all I am going to chat about today.  I have a full day of prepping for two Library related meetings tomorrow.  One in St Paul, and one in my home town.  It will truly be a Library Day 🙂

 

 

 

 

Friday!

What a first week back in Minnesota!  I had big plans of what I was going to accomplish this week and for the most part none of it happened. My life went in a totally different direction and I pretty much became a “Girl Who Lunches” this week.

For whatever reason, I had a lot of connections this week.  Calls and messages to have coffee or lunch.  On Wednesday I had two coffee dates and a lunch date.  I am not complaining, I like my friends and I like seeing them.  When hanging out with one group this week one of the ladies said, “You just know so many people within the different things that you do.”

That made me think.

My son Justin was a connector.  If there is such a  thing (and if not I am making it a thing right now), Justin brought people together.  His work friends met his life friends, his hang out friends met his college friends, and so on.  The nice thing about this connecting is that these people (kids really) now have each other in his absence and they will say again and again how it was Justin who brought them together.  I am so glad they have that kind of connecting support.

This week I spent some time thinking of myself as a connector.  For whatever reason I decided to make a chart this morning of the different relationships we probably all have within our lives in something like this:

Some of the titles may change, but you probably have a similar grouping if you wrote them down.  Mine are defined as:

Book Friends:  People I relate to through books.  My book club, authors, publishers, well… YOU.

Adventure Friends:  The friends I can call up to do a 5k, mud run, stomp the grapes dressed as Lucille Ball…. they know who they are.  😉

Work Out Friends:  The friends that will take walks with me, ride bike, meet me at the gym

School Friends:  The people I still connect with from my school days either on Facebook, email, and occasionally in Real face to face life.

Church Friends:  Friends I have made through church.

Movie Friends:  That awesome list of people I can text to go to a movie with.

Family Friends:  Family members who are friends to me as well… they fall into several f thee categories.

Friends You Volunteer With:  I may have met these friends through volunteering somewhere.

Library Friends:  Friends I have made through my love for the library.

Coffee Friends:  You know who you are… we catch up over a great cup of Joe….or two…. or three

Group Friends:  Friends I have made through a group I hang out with.  These are people I usually meet up with when we are doing a group thing.

On-Line Friends:  People I have met through this blog and through other on line things I participate in.  While some may argue that is not a friendship, I beg to differ.  Quite a few of you who I have “met” through this website, I have also met in real life. I do consider you friends.  A few I have not met in RL have sent me cards and encouragement this year.  I consider you friends.

Friends Of Friends:  People I met through your friends.  I may not go and do something without the mutual friend, but some day I might.

Phone Friends:  I think we all have them.  They are friends, they re people we know in RL… but for whatever reason can never get together and basically keep up through phone calls and texts.

Work Friends: The people I met through a job and enjoy.

Lunch Friends:  These friends I mainly hang out with over a lunch date to catch up.

Common interest friends:  Friends I made through taking a class or doing a study.

Business friends:  People I have met through our business or my Freelance business who could fall into one of these other categories.

 

I should have a point to this.  I think I do.  When I look at these groupings I can see where a friend may have started in one but is now also in one or more of these groups.  For instance our book club started through a job I used to work at.  Since Bookies started that way, the initial start up group was work friends, and some that are still in the book club so the work friends also become book friends.  Business friends would be like the people we went to Australia with last year who, because of that trip, we also took this trip to Mexico this year and they also fall into Lunch Friends, where we meet and catch up.

Anyway… I am constantly in awe of connections and how they work into our lives.  This weeks connections led me to two potential job opportunities through my freelance.  That was a bonus to my meet ups this week. So while I did have other plans for my week, these meet ups really worked out well in the direction I was planning on going this week anyway which was to start working on lining up a few freelance jobs.

It’s funny how things can work out.

 

Tuesday.  Afternoon really…. no longer morning.

My morning had consisted of a COFFEE run, mailing, a phone call, coffee date scheduling, lunch planning, and yes… I am writing in the agenda book again which still carries mixed emotions for me (I struggle a lot with the idea of “life going on”, but I do what I can as I can.  I am trying to wrap my head around positive plans for this year and putting me back on some sort of track, even if it does seem to be in the slow lane at this time.

I created a post card this morning for the Gatsby event in March and I am confirming authors for Wine and Words in 2016.  I enjoy looking up authors and watching what books are receiving hype and I love to extend the invite.  I have to say the Publishing Houses as well as the authors I connect to are all so nice and polite.  I would say from the invites I send out, 98% respond, even if it is to say thank you but the event does not fit in their schedule this year.  I appreciate the response.

In other news…. last evening I finished my first book of the year.  I have thoughts….

 

 

This is my 4th day home since we returned to Minnesota from Mexico last Thursday evening.  My weekend was fairly uneventful.  I am still battling this cold/sinus infection so low energy and lots of laughing and blowing my nose have been priority.  I cleaned up our vacation laundry… but have not quite got the suitcases entirely cleaned out.  I read a little.  Cleaned my carpets.  Listened to audio.  Caught up on emails.

I always like to see what people are reading when on vacation.  I can not help myself but strain my neck to catch a title as I pass people with their noses in a book while at the pool or laying on the beach.  I no longer ask people about the book they are reading unless they speak to me first…. after the “incident” in Costa Rica many years ago.

The four of us, Al, myself, Justin, and Brad went to an all inclusive resort in Costa Rica.  The resort was beautiful and I spent most afternoons by the pool with a good book.  One day I was walking to the pool when I seen an older gentleman lounging with a copy of The Davinchi code in a different language.  That really should have been a clue.  But no…. I had enjoyed The Davinchi Code so I attempt to strike up a conversation with him, pointing excitedly at the book and rattling on about how much I had liked this book and what did he think of it?  (Picture Hermione talking excitedly about a new spell she has learned…. I imagine I looked something like that).

Crickets.

The man just stared up at me.

AWKWARD.

I smiled and walked away.  Now more than likely, he did not speak English.  Or he could have thought I was rude.  OR both.  Much like how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie pop; the world may never know.

 

Now…. I just look at the titles.

Here are a few of the books I seen in Cancun and this is only a few.  I also seen author names such as Debbie MaComber, Steve Berry, James Patterson, Danielle Steele, Nora Roberts….  I wanted to write down author names but I never did.

The books I read while in Cancun were : The Three Weissmanns of Westport and Maybe In Another Life.  I started The Butterfly Cabinet and read a bit of Angle of Declination given to me by one of the ladies in our group and written by a friend of her and her husband’s.

 

Today I will go to the library to meet with our Head Librarian to discuss the book in the bags and accompanying information to go with them. Book In The Bag is sponsored by the Friends of the Brainerd Public Library.  It is 10 copies of a popular title that can be checked out all at once for reading groups.   I am going to work with this program to help with questions to be included with each title, suggestions to take your discussion to the next level, and food that goes with the book.  I think this will be a fun project.

I am also sending out the letter today for our Annual Friends Meeting that will take place a week from today.  This is an open invite to all of our friends to join us for a potluck supper while we share the past years highlights as well as what is coming up for 2016.  At that time I will also be revealing the authors who have committed to Wine and Words 2016 so far.

I think Mondays may become library days. 🙂

Squeaking in here late morning but still morning.

I did not mean to play the old silent treatment here the past week +.  We just returned last night from Cancun Mexico and this morning I have been a bit slow moving with a nasty sinus head cold. So here I am with coffee cup and ….

Oh, I suppose I should back up a bit.

The Cancun trip had been on the table pretty much all of 2015.  While we had our tickets, I was wavering if I wanted to go and with everything that has happened in our lives over the past 9+ months, I did not want to be the “downer” of the group of ten that were planning to go.

I was so unsure… I was not quite 100% in even the night before the trip.  Although we had made all the arrangements with house sitters, dog sitters, mail, etc… I was still quite willing to bow out and would have been fine staying home.  Al coaxed me.. my friend Wendy coaxed me… and finally I decided it was only 7 days and two of them were travel days so really only 5 days and Justin would have wanted me to go.

I went.

I read a bit… I laid in the sun.  I walked the beach with my husband.  We ate a lot of good food, we tried a couple of new drinks.  I laughed some.  I cried some.

And in the end.  It was all ok and I am glad I went.  Of course, we all have pictures and some I will not have for a while yet and some I will post tomorrow morning.  For now… I will give you a little hint of what is to come…

 

 

Minnesota has finally hit COLD.  Currently as I sit inside with both hands around COFFEE CUP it is 19 below zero.  The coldest temps that we have had yet this year.  The kind of temp that makes Al (hubby) and I talk about moving to some place warm like Florida, at least perhaps eventually like snow birds….gone for the cold months, back for my favorites Spring – Fall.  It is not an easy topic for me because I have so many attachments to my home town.

In the book, Between The World And Me, which my book club will be reading and reviewing tomorrow evening there is a line that works into this topic…

We did not choose our fences.

In the book, Ta-Nehisi Coates is writing to his son about the ways of our world and in this line he is referring to the fences that contain us.  More pointedly he is referring to the fences of being born Africa American, however as I look around my home this morning… the home that I have lived in since my mom built it after the fire in 1980, the home I inherited after her accident in 1996, the home that sits next to the property where I had lived since I was 3 and used to play with my sister in the back yard that is now the home of our business; I believe we all have fences.  The same home that I celebrated my teenage birthdays with friends and cake, where I spent hours talking with my mom about all the things that teenage girls talk to their moms about, the home where I raised my two boys from ages 6 and 8, the home where we laughed and worked on school projects and made Harry Potter capes out of blankets and watched movies as a family and baked cookies and painted bedrooms football team colors and planted gardens and completed years of homework and celebrated school sports wins with popcorn mixed with gummy bears and m and m’s, and handed over keys to first cars and sat up into the night talking about first love and heart break, the home of laughing until it hurt, holding tight to the past, and the home that now has 2 trees planted in the back yard in memory of my son…

We all have fences.

Well.

Wow.

Where the heck did that come from?

I am going to need a second (who am I kidding) third cup of coffee.

Anyhoo.  I think fences will be an excellent discussion point for our group tomorrow.  As this book is different than anything we have ever read, I have been creating some good discussion topics.  I love books that stretch us, think our of the box – or in this case out of the fence.

What fences do you have in your life?

 

 

 

It is Sunday morning.   EARLY.  I am sitting here with COFFEE CUP contemplating the direction of this post.  I had a different title in mind…. something I thought of yesterday but decided I dare not use. Yet.  But it was a good one.  😉

I adore my book club.  Yes, yes, feel free to insert eye roll here.  I know I say it like ALL THE TIME.  I can’t put into words everything this group of women mean to me but you know I like to try.  After a whirlwind month of holiday dodging and extreme emotion, I did not pick up the book club book,  Between The World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates.  Yesterday I put out a plea to my book club and one of the gals in our group delivered it to my door.

“Did you read it?”  I asked her.

“I did.” she said.

“How was it?”  I asked.

“It’s black.” was her response.

“Yes.” I said, and knew her comment was not demeaning or derogatory, just stating a fact.  It is a different style of book than we have ever read as a group before.  As I opened the book myself last evening, I understood what she was saying even more.  Between The World and me is written as letters to Ta-Nehisi to his 15-year-old son and it covers what it is like to grow up in a world that can judge you by the color of your skin.  I am proud of our book club for choosing this book and look forward to an interesting discussion this coming Tuesday.

For myself, the book so far is poetic, and metaphors, and very real.  This morning I opened up my laptop and looked up what others were saying about this book.  The reviews are mixed but interesting.  I am not done reading but it is a short book and I will be done today.  It is the kind of read where I sit with a notebook next to me to write down profound points and questions.

 

In other thoughts… books came in my house this week.

The History Manor and Still Well are both from Michael Phillip Cash and he always sends little treats with his books.  The candy is nice, but the little yellow highlighter is what made me smile.  I do love highlighters.

The Opposite of Everyone by Joshilyn Jackson is squeeeee worthy.  I love her writing and can not wait to dig into this one.

This Is Not The Story You Think It Is by Laura Munson caught my eye in the latest bookmark magazine.  I picked this one up at our library yesterday morning.

Carry On by Rainbow Rowell is also a library pick on CD.  I hope t start listening to that one today.

 

Last night, my husband and I went out for a bit with our son Brad and his friend Andy.  I was talking to Brad about book reviews and he said, “I didn’t realize you are still doing that.”

I told him I was, not at the pace I once was, but I didn’t and I don’t want to give it up.  So much has come out of this thing I have created in Book Journey.  As I look back at when I started this in 2009 I would have never dreamed that in 2016 I would still by typing away talking books, life, whatever.  I told Brad that Book Journey has been such a big part of where I am today.  This blog has brought me friendships, book connections, events like the book expo in New York, real life connections and a big one – this blog is why I was in St Paul on April 1st and 2nd with my son Justin preparing to interview Scott Eastwood.  That was the last time I seen my son and if not for that book connection….

well.  Let’s just say I am so thankful.  In the months to follow, a bench was placed at the Brainerd Library with my sons name on it.  That bench was from the connections I have made here at Book Journey.  Seriously… my heart is full.

Book Journey and I are not done yet.  I will continue to read and write, share and connect.