Tag: reading

Valentine’s Weekend Things

Lauren2 Comments

Right now, I am listening to good music and thinking back over all the goodness that happened this weekend.  Like Friday night movie watching, Saturday massage, beer brewing, making a heart pizza (!!!) and just about every single second of Sunday, aka Valentine’s Day, aka one of my favorite sappy days of the year.  We’re on a real roll with this weekend stuff.  I keep waiting for a disappointing one to come along, but NOPE, they just keep on making me insanely happy.

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This smiley little balloon was floating in a tree outside our house and when I saw it Friday afternoon, I just knew it was going to be a good weekend.  We ate Red Beans, rented Bridge of Spies (we’ve now seen all the Best Picture Oscar Noms) and then I totally got into bed embarrassingly early.  I SnapChatted Jenn that I was in bed before 10 PM and that my life is boring… but that I kind of like it.  Send help! 🙂  P.S. Bridge of Spies was alright, but definitely closer to the bottom on my Best Picture rankings.

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I not-so-subtly emailed Joey the recipe for these honey-sesame pancakes on Friday and was totally shocked when he made them for us on Saturday morning.  Or, maybe not shocked at all.  Same thing!  Oh and we used our new scale to make coffee in our Chemex and it came out really good.  I look forward to my once-a-week cup of coffee so so much and even more so when it tastes as good as it does in a Chemex.  Hipster coffee brewing for life!

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I got a massage that afternoon and brought along some goodies for my mom and sister.  If my mom is going to give up a Saturday spot to give me a massage free of charge, the least I can do is bring her a present, right?  Mascara from my favorite little all-natural make up store.  I hope they love it as much as I do.  P.S. My massage was amazing and I really really love my mom.

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My dad just got back from Mexico and brought me back these earrings!  He’s always been so good at picking out jewelry for me and these were no exception.  They’re beautiful 🙂Read More »

A Book Review: The Paying Guests

Lauren2 Comments

“My wife, the rare library card holder.”  This is how Joey described me as we drove to the Denver Public Library a few weeks ago.  That’s right, I DO go to the library still and I kind of LOVE it.  As soon as I walk in, I feel such a sense of inner peace.  This is my place and these are my people.  But being a library goer also means waiting for the books you want to read, having to return books when you haven’t finished them yet, and the worst… waiting weeks then getting slammed with three books at the same time.  Book time management is the name of the game.

I was lucky enough to be able to check The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters out with plenty of time to spare before January Book Club and actually finished it weeks ahead of time.  Gold star for me!  I also made it through this one pretty quickly, though that doesn’t necessarily mean I liked it.

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I’ll spare you the recap and just say that my biggest issue with this book was that it seemed to have a split-personality plot disorder.  Meaning, it was headed one direction for the first half of the book, then BAM! took a turn in the middle and went a different path entirely.  Our meeting was really interesting because it was pretty divided between those who were really into the first half of the book and not so into the second half and those who felt the exact opposite.  (Or those who just straight hated the whole thing, start to finish…).

As for me, I’m choosing to focus on the redeeming factors.  The historical fiction aspect — it takes place in post-WWII England — and the actual writing, which I thought was well done and especially descriptive.  Sarah Waters was such an expert in the way she described the house that most of the plot took place in.  You could just picture it so clearly and it wasn’t until after our meeting that I realized how big of a roll that house played.  If only the plot had been a little more focused and the ending hadn’t wrapped up a little too cleanly to be realistic.

Have you read The Paying Guests?

What are you reading right now?

Do you have a library card?