Book Nostalgia

The week has been filled with walks and yoga and car trips and packing up an old house.  Monday we took a quick trip to New Hampshire.  I call it a maintenance trip.  John needed a haircut and I was able to get my nails done.  Imagine driving 2 1/2 hours there and 2 1/2 hours back just for a haircut.  I guess if you have as full a head of hair as John does, finding someone to cut it properly is a challenge.  I was also able to make a stop at my favorite book store in New London and managed to walk out with over $100 of wonderful new books to read.  Yes, I have an iPad and I have the Kindle app on it but frankly, I don’t like reading books on the iPad and certainly not when I am outside in the sunshine or any bright area.  I actually love reading real books that you can turn the pages and put a book mark in and it has some weight to it.  Thus I love hard cover books over paper back books.

Over the years I have been very lucky that my mother and I shared a love of the same kind of books.  She would buy batches of them and then inform me that I needed to come into Montreal to pick up all the books she had been saving for me and I needed to do it sooner than later.  It was Christmas in July for me.  I loved weeding through the bags of books and finding a treasure hidden somewhere near the bottom of the bag.  There were lots of favorite reads, mostly cozy English mysteries but every once in awhile she would get a book that I just couldn’t put down.  Mum and I both loved series books and we would start at book 1 and work our way through the series until we finished it.  Towards the end of her life, Mum wasn’t able to read the way she used to so she ended up rereading many of her old favorites.  She even got to a point where she thought a book was a new one but it usually was one that had been reprinted and was one she already had read.  I just smiled and read it anyway.  When we were done with the books we discovered there was someone else in the village who loved the same kind of books that we did so I would take them to her.  When she was done with them she gave them to a good friend who was a nurse at the hospital and she would take them into the patients there.  There aren’t many English books to be had in the local hospitals so these books were welcomed warmly.

Walks Few and Far Between

Monday was a loss because we were in the car.  Tuesday I walked to Yoga and back which was great and Wednesday I did a great walk with my brother and the dogs to one of our favorite hiking trails.  The dogs had a challenge to find water in the streams because we haven’t had much rain – until the end of the week.  After that I was in the city to attend the closing event of daughter Katie’s convention which was held in Montreal this summer.  The final event was held at the Grand Pier in Old Montreal right on the water.  The building is usually home to the cruise ship business but when available it can be rented for private events.  It is enormous and very beautiful.  The views of the city are spectacular with sweeping vistas looking from the water front through the old buildings and the tall sky scrapers up to Mount Royal.  It was such fun to walk along the old streets that make you feel as if you are in a European city, passing the some of the hundreds of cafes and bistros that are all over the city.  Some of them with outdoor, on street dining.  It was magical and a side of Montreal that I don’t get to see very often.  So my walking took a back seat to other things this week.

The food was spectacular too.  One company was the caterer and he set up different dining stations to represent the different ethnic areas of Montreal.  There was a Little Italy station and a Chinatown station as well as a poutine truck and wonder of wonders a donut and ice cream truck.  No one starved who attended that event and it was such fun for us to see our daughter at work along with my sister who was the local support and their translator.

Meditation, Yoga and Food for Thought

As I have mentioned before, I sign up for the Deepak Chopra and Oprah Meditation free series when they offer them.  This week started a new 21 day series and I love waking up early and listening to the meditation for the day before everyone wakes up.  Am always amazed at how my heart rate slows and my mind floats as I listen to their voices and the message they are trying to convey along with the soft music in the background.  It is a very pleasant 20 minutes or so.  I actually tried to get Miss Bean to listen to it this week but she was having nothing to do with ear phones.  I figured it might calm her down some but first thing in the morning she is a typical baby full of energy and ready to go.  The person who leads our Yoga class has a very soothing voice too.  I wonder if she would make some recordings for us to listen to when we are not in class.  Anyway, here again I find myself zoning out and my heart rate slowing down as I push myself through the various warrior ones and twos and a downward dog or maybe a happy baby pose.  It’s all about slow motion movement and is so very, very good for my body after I have been walking over hill and dale.

I heard a very powerful sermon in church today and while the priest did not give it a title I would say it was called “When is Enough Enough?”  It has given me something to really think about this week.  How do I apply that question in my own life.  Have I walked enough?  Have I slept enough? Have I eaten enough, enough vegetables, fruits, and all the other “good”  foods? Have I loved enough? Have I listened enough? Do I have enough in my life that I don’t need more?  I plan to take some time to think about these and other ways I can ask that question.  In a world where we perhaps think in terms of scarcity instead of abundance, when is enough enough?

Packing up 55 years of Junk

Part of the trip into Montreal was to make a major push to get my mother’s house cleaned out before it is listed for sale.  Mum lived there for 55 years and, as it turns out, our family was only the second owners of the house.  Not much has been done to the house in those 55 years and certainly not much was thrown out.  My mother always said it was pretty tidy and that she hadn’t kept much but boy was she wrong about that.  What I think happens is that you get so used to seeing something a certain way that you don’t see it anymore.  Therefore, the stack of old books and magazines that had been in the house for 20 or 30 years just never seemed in the way as they had always been there.  My husband can attest to the fact that the same magazines were always on the coffee table, for years and years.  He said it was like walking into a museum as everything there had always been there and in the same place.

Well not anymore!  My friend Annie can attest to the fact that when I make up my mind to pack up someone and get stuff moving you don’t get in my way.  On Thursday night I made an on-line appointment with 1-800-Got-Junk for 8:00am Friday morning.  Two young guys arrived right on time and in two hours we had a full to the brim dumpster of junk.  The two fellows that came were so nice and willing to do whatever needed to be done to get the junk out of the house.  We had four rooms in the basement full of stuff, old record players, t.v.s, speakers, couches, golf clubs and tennis rackets from the 50’s, clothing, books, knick knacks, decorations, book cases too horrible to describe, curtains, throw rugs.  Well you get my drift, junk.  All gone and the house looks much, much better.  Exhausting but there is a huge feeling of accomplishement that goes along with the exhaustion.

Last Week’s Recipe, This Week’s Hope

I did not get around to trying last week’s recipe but I found another one that I did try for dinner with good friends on Friday night.  It was very easy to make which was a good thing as it had been an early start to the day and we had to drive back to the country.  So here is the recipe and I hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

Mediterranean Chicken Thighs with Tomatoes and Basil
from The Cleveland Clinic

Ingredients
6 skinless boneless chicken thighs
3 Tbsp olive oil
2 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
6 plum tomatoes, chopped
½ red onion, chopped
1 handful chopped basil
12 kalamata olives, pitted, halved
¼ tsp salt
White or black pepper, to taste

Preparation
Preheat oven 375°F. Spray a baking dish with non-stick cooking spray.
Put thighs in a baking dish. Mix olive oil, balsamic vinegar, tomatoes, onions, basil, olives, salt and pepper in a small bowl. Cover thighs with tomato mixture and cover dish with foil.
Bake 30 minutes, or until cooked through.