Happy Sunday from grey and rainy Omaha! So very happy that it's a long weekend (hope it is for you, too!). It's been a busy week here, filled with a lot of fun things, but I'm needing a day to just rest and recover. In fact, it might just be a day spent curled up reading. 

On last week for my summer Life Goes On photo - can't believe summer is unofficially over already. Going to do my best to enjoy the fall this year. Might be buying a lot of mums just so we continue to have blooming flowers later into the year so things don't look so bleak so soon and winter doesn't feel as long. 

Last Week I: 

Listened To: I finished Isabel Allende's Ripper, which finally all pulled together although I'm not sure it was in time to save the book for me. Just started Harriet Constable's The Instrumentalist, which I learned about at our library's annual Book Bash the other night. Historical fiction, based on a true person, featuring Antonio Vivaldi? Count me in! 

Watched: Lots of volleyball, our Huskers' first football game of the season, and several episodes of Only Murders In The Building. 

Read: I started Ruth Ware's The Woman In Suite 11. 

Made: Teriyaki stir fry, salads, and meats for a taco bar we had last night. 

Enjoyed: Book club Tuesday, the library Book Bash on Thursday with friends, dinner Friday with my niece and her husband who were in town for a concert, and an impromptu engagement party last night for Mini-him and Miss C. 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This Week I’m:  

Planning: I think this will be a quiet week. With the house having been cleaned for company twice this week, there's not a lot of that to be done which should give me time to get back to some family genealogy work. Or maybe a furniture project. 

Thinking About: How smart I was to make a little of the food for last night as possible. Cake & queso from Costco; carnitas, tortillas, chips, salsas, and guacamole from one of our fave Mexican restaurants; and margaritas brought by the bride-to-be's parents. Still busy getting everything pulled together but so much more relaxing than trying to make everything myself. 

Feeling: Tired, y'all. This girl is not used to having so much going on in her life! 

Looking forward to: It's "get my hair done" week and you know how much I love that excuse to just sit and be pampered without guilt. 

Question of the week: Are you celebrating the end of summer or mourning it? 

Life: It Goes On - August 24

Happy Sunday! It's a beautiful day in Omaha today - the sun is shining, it's only 65 degrees, and the windows are open. Yesterday I harvested a giant bowl of cherry tomatoes...to go along with the giant bowl that is already on my counter. This week's menu will definitely be cherry tomato focused, and I'm okay with that. Our other tomatoes? Not doing much so the Big Guy has gone off to the farmer's market to find a couple of tomatoes that will work for BLTs and an egg dish I want to try. 

Last Week I: 

Listened To: Isabelle Allende's Ripper still. Almost half way through and we are still meeting new characters that we're getting a lot of background on. Please let all of the start coming together in a way that ties back to what I thought the book was about. 

Watched: Only Murders In The Building, the last episode of season 2 of Shrinking, football and the kickoff of the college volleyball season with our Huskers (ranked #1) defeating Pittsburgh (ranked #3). This season is going to be so much fun! 

Read: I finished Geraldine Brooks' Memorial Days and it's one of those books that I was said to finish. Today I'm headed over to the library to pick up Ruth Ware's latest, The Woman In Suite 11 and Clare Leslie Hall's Broken Country. 

Made: Lots of salads this week and last night I made caprese lasagna roll ups, which I'm excited to say we'll have for leftovers today. 

Enjoyed: I have a four-day weekend and it's been so nice to just leisurely work on things that need to get done but also have plenty of time to relax, read, and even take a couple of naps. Best yet is knowing that I don't have to go to work tomorrow so I can fully enjoy Sunday! 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This Week I’m:  

Planning: Trying to put together a couple of long weekend trips, since we haven't gone anywhere all summer. 

Thinking About: What a small world it is. Last night we went to a new-to-us place for a glass of wine. The place was empty so we struck up a conversation with the bartender, who told us that he used to live in Alaska. Of course, we said that's where our kids lived; and, of course, he asked where in Alaska they live. I told him the town and then started to tell him where that was in relation to Anchorage, but he cut me off exclaiming, "That's where I lived!" What are the chances?

Feeling: Rested and happy to know that I've reached the point with my PTO that I'm going to have to schedule more of these long weekends to make sure that I don't reach the point where I max out on PTO. 

Looking forward to: Another long weekend this coming weekend, although I know that BG will try to fill up all three days with activities. 

Question of the week: Next weekend marks the unofficial start of autumn. Are you looking forward to fall, or are you like me and wish that summer could hold on for a few more weeks?

Life: It Goes On - August 17

Happy Sunday! I'm finally getting to this, just before I go to bed. Made a quick trip to Kansas City (left here at 10 a.m. yesterday and got back at 11 a.m. this morning) and came home with a headache that has had me mostly just sitting all day. Am I getting too old to make a quick trip to K.C.?! Last Week I: 

Listened To: I finished Kim Michele Richardson's The Book Woman's Daughter and started Isabelle Allende's Ripper. Three hours in and I feel like we're mostly just getting to know characters. 

Watched: The main reason I went to K.C. was so that Miss H and I could go see Freakier Friday together. Freaky Friday is one of those movies the two of us have watched dozens of times and always quote so I'm glad we got to see the follow up together. Verdict: we both liked it and laughed a lot. Does it live up to the original? No, but almost nothing does. It tries a little too hard and tries to do a bit too much. But almost everyone from the original is in it and there are a lot of fun throwbacks in it, including the band playing the song from the Battle of the Bands in the first movie. And there are a couple of Easter eggs in it that we both loved. Two thumbs up from us. 

Read: I started Geraldine Brooks' Memorial Days, which I had forgotten was a memoir about her grief process after losing her husband. 

Made: Monster cookies and onion dip to take down to have with my girl. 

Enjoyed: Dinner with friends Friday night at one of our fave places and time with my girl with just the two of us. Big Guy had a "gig" with his old band so couldn't come. Sometimes it's fun to just have girl time!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This Week I’m:  

Planning: I'm hosting book club Tuesday (yeah, it wasn't last week, it's this week) and we're going to be watching a movie based on a book. So I'm planning which movie to watch and what to serve. 

Thinking About: Family genealogy. I'm on a kick now to get all of my previously notes organized and put into a readable format. Then I'm looking forward to filling in the blanks. 

Feeling: Still tired, still a dull headache so I'm feeling ready to crawl into bed. 

Looking forward to: Seeing my friends on Tuesday and a four-day weekend next weekend that I have to take so I don't max out on earning PTO. 

Question of the week: Have you ever looked into your family history? If so, how far back have you been able to track your family? Thanks to my mom and BG's mom's side of the family, we already have most of the work done to track our family back to Europe on all sides; my job is to track it on his dad's side. 

The Art Forger by B. A. Shapiro

 

The Art Forger by B. A Shapiro 

Read by Xe Sands

10 hours

Published October 2012 by Algonquin Books

Publisher's Summary: 

On March 18, 1990, thirteen works of art today worth over $500 million were stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. It remains the largest unsolved art heist in history, and Claire Roth, a struggling young artist, is about to discover that there's more to this crime than meets the eye. 

Making a living reproducing famous artworks for a popular online retailer and desperate to improve her situation, Claire is lured into a Faustian bargain with Aiden Markel, a powerful gallery owner. She agrees to forge a painting-a Degas masterpiece stolen from the Gardner Museum-in exchange for a one-woman show in his renowned gallery. But when that very same long-missing Degas painting is delivered to Claire's studio, she begins to suspect that it may itself be a forgery. 

Her desperate search for the truth leads Claire into a labyrinth of deceit where secrets hidden since the late nineteenth century may be the only evidence that can now save her life.

My Thoughts:

Claire Roth is a woman who feels that she has been done wrong by the art world. She's not wrong, which we'll gradually learn. But she uses this as an excuse for agreeing to forge a copy of one of the pieces of art that was stolen, solely on the basis that the man who hires her insists that he will give the original back to the museum once the copy is sold to a shady character who doesn't deserve to have the original. In exchange for that, Claire will get to have her chance to finally become the artist she might have been if she had not been so blinded by her love of a man many years ago. 

So she agrees and almost immediately falls in love with Aiden. Despite the fact that he's clearly involved with criminals. Despite the fact that his love of the artwork he owns prevents him from being willing to part with any of it, even when he admits to having financial problems. But he's promised her that he's made sure that she can never be implicated, going so far as to say to her that the painting that he's brought her to copy is, in fact, a copy itself, thereby making her simply someone who is copying a copy. That's all she knows about the deal; the rest is secret. But that's since she's keeping a secret of her own that will come into play later. What could possibly go wrong in a relationship built on secrets? 

Here are the things that I had issues with in this book: 

1. Claire being so gullible a second time. 
2. The interspersed chapters that are letters from Isabella Stewart Gardner which never come to light for the characters in the book. They are merely a way to set up a revel late in the book. 
3. Claire volunteers at a youth prison, teaching art. The point of this storyline appears to be to show us that Claire is, deep down, a good person who is terrified of being locked up. It also explains why she becomes convinced that the painting Aiden has brought her is a forger itself. Seemed to me all of this could have been done in a way that didn't introduce yet another storyline into a story that already had enough going on. 

Here are the things that I enjoyed about the book: 

1. Xe Sands reading of the book. 
2. For some reason, the theft of the paintings from the Stewart Gardner museum has always fascinated me, so I enjoyed reading about the museum and the theft. 
3. Learning about the techniques that Claire and other artists use. 
4. I did like all of the twists and turns the book took and the way only Claire could have solved the mystery of where the original work was hidden. 

Would I read another of Shapiro's work, despite having issues with it? I would - it was a quick read that I found entertaining enough and it looks like I'd get a chance to learn more about the art world if I read more by her. 

 

Washington Black on Hulu

Based on the book by Eli Edugyan, Washington Black (my review here)has been adapted into a mini-series which began airing on Hulu on July 23rd. I loved this book when I read it six years ago so you can imagine how thrilled I was to find that it was being adapted, especially considering that Edugyan is a co-producer and actor Sterling K. Brown is an executive producer and acts in it. 

Reviews are mixed. Variety says it falls short of the book, but whoever writes for RogerEbert.com was very impressed. I'm only one episode in and I'm enjoying it so far. In this episode, we're introduced to Wash in his life in Nova Scotia, with flashbacks to him as a child living on a plantation in Barbados. I'm not sure the horror of the plantation is as great here as it was in the book; we'll see if that aspect picks up as the show continues. The acting, so far, is good and the costumes and sets are wonderful. 

Since I didn't let the Big Guy in on the first episode, I'm going to have to watch the rest of the series without him or watch the first episode again. I think I prefer the first, giving me the chance just to immerse myself in the story without interruptions. I'll give you an update once I'm finished watching so let you know my final thoughts. In the meantime, if you haven't already read the book, I highly recommend it. 

Life: It Goes On - August 10

Happy Sunday! It's been another busy week at Chez Shep! Overnight company for a couple of nights, evenings with friends, sibling dinner at our house last night, and a week of taking care of Mini-him and Miss C's cats while they were in Alaska have me worn out. There is plenty that needs to be done around here, but I think I'll opt for a day mostly filled with rest and reading. 

Last Week I: 

Listened To: The Book Woman's Daughter by Kim Michele Richardson, a follow up to her The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek. Not enjoying it as much as I did the first book; but I'm only about a third of the way through it, so we'll see if it picks up for me. 

Watched: Not much, except some pre-season pro football. 

Read: I haven't had much time for reading this past week so I'm still working on Paul Harding's Enon and Sarah Vowell's The Partly Cloudy Patriot.

Made: Homemade ice cream, bbq chicken, caprese salad, spinach/strawberry salad, homemade chocolate sauce for supper last night. 

Enjoyed: Time with my brother and sister-in-law when they stayed for a couple of nights; time with friends Thursday and Friday evenings; time with the Big Guy's siblings and their spouses. 

But most of all, this: 

Mini-him proposed to Miss C while they were in Alaska and we could not be happier! 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This Week I’m:  

Planning: On a quiet week this week, filled with genealogy research and reading. Unless BG finally decides it's time to work on the garage, which he's been hinting at being ready to do lately. Then I'll be all in for working on that for as long as his interest lasts. 

Thinking About: Leftover homemade ice cream. It might just be my lunch! 

Feeling: Tired, but happy. It was a busy week, but filled with so many good things. 

Looking forward to: Book club this week. We were meant to be either going to a book-based movie OR reading our non-fiction read for the year. But both of those have fallen through so we may just be chatting for a couple of hours, and that's ok. 

Question of the week: What's your go-to meal when you're having company? Does the time of year make a difference in what you're making? 

Life: It Goes On - August 3

Happy Sunday! I'm dragging today and not getting much done. May have something to do with having had more to drink the past couple of nights than I've had to drink in the past couple of months! 

Last Week I: 

Listened To: Marie Benedict's Carnegie's Maid, which I will probably finish today. Not sure what's up next since I have nothing on hold that's even close to being ready. 

Watched: I watched the first episode of Washington Black and My Oxford Year. 

Read: I finished My Friends by Fredrik Backman and started Sarah Vowell's The Partly Cloudy Patriot and Paul Harding's Enon. 

Made: A lot of salads including caprese, cinnamon rolls, some dips, and we grilled burgers and hot dogs. 

Enjoyed: My niece's two little guys - they are busy but well behaved and the oldest became buddies with the Big Guy who got talked into playing jai alai and football quite a bit. We all had so much fun that not a single one of us took a single picture. 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This Week I’m:  

Planning: This week will see me spending an hour or so a day talking care of Mini-him's and Miss C's cats while they are in Alaska, which will mean less will get done around here. I am hoping to get back to some genealogy research this week. 

Thinking About: What I'm going to do with all of the tomatoes we have coming ripe. We'll eat as many as we can but I'll end up with well more than we can eat fresh. 

Feeling: A little disappointed - we were meant to be having the Shep siblings and their spouses for dinner on Saturday as well, but the family patriarch wasn't feeling well so that had to get postponed. 

Looking forward to: I've been so focused on what needed to be done to get ready for this weekend that I haven't even looked to see what's coming up this week. 

Question of the week: It's been a gorgeous weekend here (except for some grey skies), with highs in the mid-70's. We've spent hours and hours that past two evenings on the patio and it's been so much fun and so relaxing. My brother and sister-in-law arrived Friday evening and were here about 24 hours, my brother-in-law has been here since late Friday, and my niece and her family arrived mid-day yesterday and spent the night. So much talking and laughter! 

Summerland by Elin Hilderbrand

Summerland by Elin Hilderbrand

400 pages

Published June 2012 by Little, Brown and Company

Publisher's Summary: 

A warm June evening, a local tradition: the students of Nantucket High have gathered for a bonfire on the beach. What begins as a graduation night celebration ends in tragedy after a horrible car crash leaves the driver, Penny Alistair, dead, and her twin brother in a coma. The other passengers, Penny's boyfriend, Jake, and her friend Demeter, are physically unhurt—but the emotional damage is overwhelming. Questions linger about what happened before Penny took the wheel.

As summer unfolds, startling truths are revealed about the survivors and their parents, the secrets kept, promises broken, and hearts betrayed.

My Thoughts: 

I read my first Elin Hilderbrand book last fall, The Five-Star Weekend. You may recall I wasn't a fan and wasn't sure I'd read more of her work. But as I mentioned then, I own at least one of her books on my Nook and when I saw the cover of this one, I thought it might be perfect for the summer. It looks bright and light, does it not? 

I'd say it's a spoiler alert to tell you that this book is not, in fact, bright and light. But you'll know that if you've read the summary; clearly I had, once again, not read the summary before I launched into the book. 

Imagine that you're Penny's mother, who considered Penny her best friend. She is devastated, but needs to focus on her son, Hobby, who is shattered in the accident in ways that will change his life. Imagine, too, that there are a lot of questions as to why your daughter seems to have intentionally driven her boyfriend's vehicle over a cliff and what got said to her to upset her so much just before she got behind the wheel. Add to that the fact that Penny's boyfriend's father is also the man Penny's mom has been having a years long affair with - a man whose wife is deep in mourning still four years after the death of the baby she'd wanted for years before he was finally born. And Demeter, whose purse was found in the wreckage of the vehicle with a nearly empty bottle of whiskey, who knows what made Penny so upset, who has no friends other than the three that were in the vehicle with her? She's about to spiral out of control without her parents having the slightest clue. 

Yeah, there's a lot going on here. Especially when you add in the fact that Nantucket is a relatively small town, where everyone knows everyone. It seems to make the healing more difficult instead of easier. 

Is it a perfect read? No. There were parts I thought dragged, maybe too much going on. But I was able to empathize with all of the characters and thought the relationships played out well. Even as dark as most of it is, I'm not giving anything away when I saw that things work out as well as they can. And, surprisingly for me, that's exactly what I wanted. 

Life: It Goes On - July 27

Happy Sunday! I really, really need to talk my boss into letting me work four-day weeks so the weekends aren't so short. Sunday always just feels like the day where you race around doing all of the things you didn't get done on Saturday and getting ready for the coming week. 

I still haven't even touched the desk I bought at that auction - it's living in my dining room, just off the front hall where it's a visible reminder that I need do something with it. I keep thinking "next weekend." It wasn't this weekend. Maybe I am getting old - I definitely don't get as much done in a weekend as I used to be able to get done!  The Big Guy, on the other hand, has knocked out getting the kitchen painted, which is making me so happy. 

Last Week I: 

Listened To: I finished B.A Shapiro's The Art Forger and just started Marie Benedict's Carnegie's Maid. Not too far into it yet, but I'm afraid I'm going to struggle with it. Fingers crossed because I really don't want to go to the effort of trying to find another book that I'm interested in that's available right now. 

Watched: We went to see Superman last night. Not the kind of movie that I usually pay to see in the theater, but it's summer so why not see a summer blockbuster. Still not sure if I liked it or not - maybe too much comedy in it and I'm not sure about the dog (that felt a little Disney-esque to me). 

Read: I'm about two-thirds of the way through Fredrik Backman's latest, My Friends. While I love his writing, this one took me a little while to get into the story. I am feeling like it runs on, but I am becoming quite attached to the characters. 

Made: It's summer and it's the week of Mini-him's bday so the food this week reflected that: caprese pasta, BLTs, Asian chicken salad (which is not a salad, but a pasta dish that Mini-him always wants for his bday) and red velvet cake. 

Enjoyed: Dinner Thursday night with Miss C's parents, the movie followed by dessert and drinks last night with friends, and birthday dinner today with Mini-him and Miss C. 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This Week I’m:  

Planning: I have a renewed interest in genealogy so I've pulled out all of my old paper files and I'm working on getting those organized so I can get everything uploaded and start researching again (let's be honest, I'm alway already researching because that's really the fun part!). 

The zinnias are bring in the 
monarchs! 

Thinking About: We're required to take five days of our PTO in one block and I need to figure out when I'm going to do that and what I'm going to do in that week. A vacation would be nice, but I think our kitchen was our vacation this year! I may end up painting cabinets during that week. Or trying to knock out a big organizing project around here - like the garage or photos or the basement. I'd say that would make me as happy as sitting on a beach, but nothing makes me happier than sitting on a beach. 

Feeling: Tired. My anti-depressant seems to be helping in the way it should be helping, but it makes me so tired that I tend to nap as much as possible. Not sure that's tenable long term. 

Looking forward to: Visits from family this week. 

Question of the week: If you had to take a week off of work but weren't going anywhere, what would you do?