What have I done today (11/10/11)... Reading edition...

I promise that I don't only read, cook & eat!!  I did finish a diy decorating project that I hope to blog about later today, but first I finished another book!

This is one by another of my FAVORITE authors Chris Bohjalian! Now this book, Idyll Banter, is not like a typical Chris Bohjalian fiction book.  This book is a collection of his newspaper columns from the Burlington Free Press newspaper.  To put it right out there... I love it!!

Now I was born in State College, Pennsylvania (no I am not switching the topic of this post over to the Penn State/Joe Paterno issue, even though I definitely have my opinions about the whole thing).  We moved from PA when I was still a baby, and besides from a trip last year to New York for 4 days, I have spent NO time in the Northwest.

This book describes a lot of small town life in Vermont and after reading it, I am ready to move there!!  It sounds perfect for a shy, homebody like me!!!

Now the first grouping of columns was a little slow as it talked a lot about farming and cows, which isn't really isn't my biggest interest, but starting with the next grouping of columns it was wonderful and a very quick read!  I highly recommend this book to everyone!!!

What have I done today... Reading edition

So I finished another book, I have to admit though it was just kind of... meh (which is an official book reviewing term, in case you were wondering ::wink wink::

The book I finished is The One that I Want by Allison Winn Scotch.  Now don't get me wrong, I love myself a good chick lit book every once in a while to lighten things if I've been reading a lot of heavy, dark, or "deep" books.  This book just seemed to be like it was trying to be chick lit, but also trying to be a little deeper than a chick lit book, and it just didn't work so much for me.

The book was very well-written, and did keep my attention, but the main character starts having "visions" of the future so it went from a fun, believable, chick lit book to a somewhat silly unbelievable book.  But if you like that kind of thing, then I highly recommend this book!!

Thanks for reading and now back to reading... I have a lot to finish... here's a picture just of the books that I requested from the library this week!!!!

What I did today: Cooking edition...

Ok, so I actually made these yesterday, but I didn't get a chance to blog about them until today...

We get our fruit and vegetables from a box (that's what my kids say!).  And it truly is a box.  Our school is in a co-op with Door to Door Organics.  The school receives 10% of every order placed by a member of the co-op, so not only do we get to eat all organic fruits and vegetables (most of which are locally grown) but we give money to the school... what could be better?!?!

So every Tuesday afternoon a box is delivered to the school full of fruits and veggies for our family.  I love it... you can make up to 5 substitutions a week so I get our staple fruits and veggies but I usually also get some fun new things to try.

So we got our new box yesterday, but I had several leftover apples and a cup of cranberries so I decided to go to one of my favorite websites... Allrecipes where you can enter in ingredients that you have and it will pull up recipes for you.

It pulled up this recipe... Cranberry Apple Muffins, so I got started making these muffins.  And let me tell you, the prep time on this recipe is off (at least for me) instead of 20 minutes it took at least 45 minutes to prep everything, and most of it was because of all the shredding!!  But let me tell you, it was worth it!!  The muffins are super yummy... I might change one thing if I make them again, I think I would only use a half cup of cranberries and a half cup of raisins.  The cranberries were very tart so I think I would have used a little less of them and some sweet raisins to counter-act the tartness of the cranberries!  Yummy!!

Also, this recipe makes a ton of batter/dough...(it's thick so it's more like a dough even though it is a batter!).  It makes about 20 full size muffins!!

Look at these beautiful yummy muffins!!!!

Three random things for today (11/8/11)...

Just 3 things that happened today...

1. I understand that you need to sell candy bars to go on your trip, but 1.) it's the week after Halloween and we have so much candy here already... not good timing, 2.) it's after dark, you don't need to be ringing my doorbell when I'm trying to get my kids in bed! and lastly, 3.) I have a "no soliciting" sign in my window and yes selling candy does qualify as soliciting... ok, I'm done with my vent!!

2. Conversation with the 7 year old...
D: mom, what happens when lightning strikes your house?
Me: well it can start a fire.
D: who has that happened to?
Me: well nobody that I know personally
D: well then how do you know it can happen?
Me: ummmm, I've seen it on the news?!?!?!
D: well what was the name of the person on the news that it happened to?
Me: I don't remember.
D: well then how do you know that it can really happen??
Me: I give up!  Isn't there a show on TV you want to watch or a video game you want to play???

3. My 4-year old has become a complete homebody.  He gets upset whenever we have to leave to go somewhere.  I don't know it that's a good thing or not??  I am a complete homebody and could easily become a hermit if I didn't have any obligations outside of the house.  It's really hard to encourage your children to do something that you yourself have a hard time doing!!

Please feel free to comment and give your opinions/advice to any of the above-mentioned items!!

What have I done today: reading edition...

If you don't know me very well, then you probably don't know that I read a lot! And by a lot, I mean A LOT!!  like in finish a book every day or every other day.

 Today I finished one by one of my all time favorite authors... Ken Follett.  You probably know of him from his Oprah's bookclub pick Pillars of the Earth, but before he wrote Pillars, Ken Follett wrote a bunch of other books.  And they are fabulous!!

The one I finished reading today is The Hammer of Eden.  It is about a domestic terrorist who steals a seismic vibrator (get your mind out of the gutter!!!) - it's a piece of heavy equipment used my oil companies to jackhammer down into the Earth's crush.  The terrorist steals this machine in order to cause earthquakes.  (Funny thing... on Saturday night while laying on my bed reading this book, there was a 5.6 magnitude earthquake in Oklahoma which I felt while reading about earthquakes... very ironic!!)

I highly recommend this book as well as all of the other Ken Follett books!!!

Testing, Testing...

Yes I'm back to blogging.  Just want to be able to share with other people some of the things that I do... not that anyone would care, but just in case I can inspire someone else... here it is!!!

So this is my test post to see if I have everything all set up right...