The holidays have arrived... in the mailbox!

Last week My Heart's Desire and I noticed that the holidays have started to arrive via catalogs in our mailbox. We already have received at least a dozen catalogs, from Crate & Barrel to Heifer International. We have decided to save them all from now until Christmas Day and see how many we get, with a friendly wager. I bet that we will receive 44lbs of catalogs (oh, our poor mail carrier!) and he put his wager on 25lbs.

Promises to Keep

I liked Jane Green's early books, like Jemima J, so much that I have read most of her books, hoping against hope for the good stuff. Alas, I'm still waiting. I got Promises to Keep from the library, having learned my lesson many novels ago that they aren't worth cold, hard cash or even warm, soft gift cards. 72/100

Hallelujah! The Welcome Table

I listened to Maya Angelou's Hallelujah! The Welcome Table and was utterly charmed. Read by the author, I loved hearing her tales and found this book a real treat. Any reader will feel Maya's love for food, writing, and travel (from Stamps, AR to Italy). The only downside? Now I'm craving caramel cake. 71/100

Today I am grateful for the lovely flowers My Heart's Desire surprised me with last night, a good night's sleep, magazines, beautiful fall days, honeycrisp apples, bargains at the library used book store (this week I bought 7 books for $16 - I used a coupon!), that it's almost flannel time, jazz, and knowing that the only constant in life is change.

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender is a novel about Rose, a girl who can taste what people are feeling when she eats what they've cooked. A gift or a curse, Rose fears what she'll find out in every bite of food cooked by someone she knows, and seeks out junk food made my machines. Rose has her own struggles growing up and a complicated home life. This book was pretty good. 70/100

The Magician's Assistant

Ann Patchett's The Magician's Assistant is a beautiful novel that does everything right - characters, plot, action. Sabine is the title character, and Parsifal the magician was her companion and friend for 20 years. After Parsifal's lover dies, Parsifal and Sabine marry. When he dies (I'm not giving anything away, the first line of the book is "Parsifal is dead") she discovers he was not the family-less orphan he claimed to be. Tender, funny, and touching, this book was the best I've listened to in ages. 69/100

Om

In the spring, when my half marathon training kicked off, I realized I wanted to be outside more. So I quit the gym, happy to be no longer paying the monthly dues, and saw the world as my gym. Well, the world and some workout DVDs I borrowed from Netflix. Considering what I paid for swimming and race fees, it probably worked out to the same amount of money, but because I had so many different experiences, I feel like I got a lot more.

Since I am done with the walk/run training (yay! but I do miss it sometimes), I've been keeping my eye out for something new to try. When there was a deal for 10 yoga classes for $29, I bought them. I've done yoga with Rodney Yee for ages. I had a VHS tape of his A.M. yoga, which I actually wore out after watching and rewinding it for years and years so I replaced it with a DVD.

The yoga classes I've taken before were either at my fancy gym in L.A., or at a hippie studio that smells like nag champa. So that's what I was expecting when I went to the fitness studio for my yoga classes. Instead, I found a youngish guy who said peace about 15 times in 50 minutes and we practiced yoga to Bob Marley. No nag champa, no hippies, not even a dreadlock!

Mama Said

When I was in high school, I was surprised when my boyfriends (aged seventeen or eighteen) would be interested in playing video games with my little brother, who was then eleven or twelve. At first I thought they were just trying to get in good with the family by being nice to my little bro, then I realized that they were geniunely having fun.

My mom told me then that some guys, no matter what their age, are just big boys. The last three books I listened to proved her point.

Jonathan Lethem's Men and Cartoons: Stories wasn't my favorite. Some stories were clever "The Spray," being the standout. The rest of the stories were uneven. I was midly amused by You Don't Love Me Yet, which could best be described as lad lit with a touch of Details magazine. 66-67/100

The Way Home by George Pelecanos takes place in and around D.C., features a middle-class teenaged boy who lands in a reformatory for juvenilles, and when he comes out, he's not still a boy but definitely not a man. Overwritten and tedious, I only finished listening to this book because I couldn't get to the library. 68/100

Today I got up early, made fruit salad, took it to a baby shower, aww-ed over tiny booties, tub toys, and onesies, visited a garage sale across the street from the shower, returned a cardigan, went purse shopping at Filene's (no luck), came home and made a spicy black bean/corn dip, went to a housewarming/new life together celebration for the youth minister at my church who teaches Sunday School with me, chatted up the proverbial storm, came home and shared Chinese food with My Heart's Desire and watched some guilty pleasure television.

A Soft Place to Land by Susan Rebecca White is a good novel. Almost great. This book explores the complicated relationship between two half sisters who grow up together, until a plane crash tears their family apart. The younger sister is sent to live with her aunt in San Francisco, while her sister goes to live with her dad and his new family in southern Virginia. I read this book in 48 hours, then called my honorary grandma to tell her about it. 65/100

2010 Goals: September Progress

I set specific 2010 goals so here's an update on my September progress.

Read/Write/Blog
1. I read 5 books this month, so that's 63 books from January - September. I am confident I will soon reach my goal of reading 100 books this year!

2. I met with half of my writing group in September, and we caught up over coffee and went to an author reading. We heard Carolyn Parkhurst read from The Nobodies Album. I updated my essay for the Real Simple's contest. And...

3. I submitted the essay to the Real Simple contest! Finally, a submission! Now, to focus on a submission mailing.

4. This is my 139th post of the year, so 200 posts this year will likely be here before I know it.

Healthy
5. My goals were: participate in 2 races, raise money for a worthy cause, and go outside my comfort zone. I have participated in four races: Earth Day 5K, Girls on the Run 5K, Race for the Cure 5K (where I raised money with my Furiously Walking team), and in September I participated in a Half Marathon -- way outside my comfort zone! My summer was a blur of long, early-morning Saturday run/walks and shorter training run/walks during the week.

6. My original goal was to eat vegetarian 90% of the time. This month I did not keep track of how many meat vs. vegetarian meals I ate. I focused more on healthy meals, eating plenty of fruits and veggies, and consider myself a flexitarian for now.

Fun & Friends
7. A new thing I tried in September was going canoeing with My Heart's Desire. Of course My Heart's Desire has a canoe (paddles, life jackets, etc.) and we strapped it to his car, picked up sandwiches, and drove to a local lake. For the first time ever, I went canoeing and we paddled around the lake. Then we ate our sandwiches on a bench in the sunshine.

8. Seeing friends. I met my goal of seeing friends at least once a week. I went to a lovely wedding, dined on paella with my honorary grandmother, went to brunch, and celebrated a friend's birthday.

9. My Heart's Desire and I did have fun this month (see #7). We also went for walks, hung out at home, and had weekend breakfasts together.

10. Photo taken of My Heart's Desire and I? No. I'm considering making this a 2011 goal.

Mercury in Retrograde

Amazon recommended Paula Froelich's Mercury in Retrograde to me. After reading the reviews I decided to wait until I stumbled across it at the used bookstore. Lo and behold, I did and parted with $2 for the paperback.

It's easy to tell this novel is written by the former editor of Page 6 and is liberally sprinkled with horoscopes for the various characters, which wasn’t my favorite. $2 is the most I could part with for a book like this. Three stock heroines, a plucky journalist (is there any other kind?) of the Bridget Jones variety, a brave but scared attorney (professionally successful, personal life a blank), and the requisite socialite (financial cutoff from parents ensues shortly). If you need a book to read and leave on a flight for eight quarters or less, look no further. 64/100

Today I went for a quick walk/jog (the first real jog since my half marathon two weeks ago), made a Green Monster for breakfast, for the first time in a long time, when I left for work I was chilly and needed a jacket, said hello to fall, worked, bought honey crisp apples at the farm stand, considered pre-ordering Mariah Carey's new Christmas album (I love holiday music and am already working on this year's mix), hung out with My Heart's Desire, and wished it was chilly enough to require a fire.