Hello friends, I'm settling in after a business trip and a crazy busy week. I'm looking forward to tomorrow afternoon... after two weeks without an oven, a new one will be installed. I can't wait to bake something!Isn't this photo lovely? I see the simplicity that summer brings. I know most of us have had strange weather this year so I won't dwell on fog and overcast skies, but I'm ready to enjoy my deck, relax with friends, watch the sunset, listen to the tree frogs.
LEARNING
Today I'm planning to catch up with the eClass I'm taking through Blogging Your Way. This is a wonderful class; I will share a recap of my experience after I complete the readings/assignments.
You will see a few tweaks to my blog over the next week, tips I have learned from the class but also from visiting dozens of professional blogs. Most of the changes I plan to make will be so small that many of you will not even notice (this is good right?).
For my homework last week I paired up with Meg, blogger behind De Petites Merveilles. If you like making jewelry, you should visit her blog, focused on European glass beads and handcrafted jewelry. It's amazing to see the process and read the stories she shares.
GARDENING
My garden is half planted, this weekend I need to plant the herbs, which will grow on the deck. I also bought a tomato plant that requires just six hours of sun... interesting right? Time will tell if it produces fruit.
READING
I haven't made much progress with the books I'm reading right now, but hopefully I will find time to finish A Paris Apartment this weekend. I'm also listening to Life after Life. I'm anxious to finish both but only because I have a long list of books that I can't wait to read.
After I finish A Paris Apartment, I plan to read The Marrying of Chani Kaufman. Have you read it? Do you have a copy and plan to read it? This book made the Booker long list and appears to be a book I will enjoy. I can't wait!
Synopsis: London, 2008. Chani Kaufman is a nineteen-year-old woman, betrothed to Baruch Levy, a young man whom she has seen only four times before their wedding day. The novel begins with Chani standing “like a pillar of salt,” wearing a wedding dress that has been passed between members of her family and has the yellowed underarms and rows of alteration stitches to prove it. All of the cups of cold coffee and small talk with men referred to Chani’s parents have led up to this moment. But the happiness Chani and Baruch feel is more than counterbalanced by their anxiety: about the realities of married life; about whether they will be able to have fewer children than Chani’s mother, who has eight daughters; and, most frighteningly, about the unknown, unspeakable secrets of the wedding night.
As the book moves back to tell the story of Chani and Baruch’s unusual courtship, it throws into focus a very different couple: Rabbi Chaim Zilberman and his wife, Rebbetzin Rivka Zilberman. As Chani and Baruch prepare for a shared lifetime, Chaim and Rivka struggle to keep their marriage alive—and all four, together with the rest of the community, face difficult decisions about the place of faith and family life in the contemporary world.
WEEKEND
The World Traveler is home so we will be catching up on several things around the house. I have to submit expense reports, run, restock the kitchen (we have no food), etc... just every day life stuff.
Do you have any exciting plans this weekend?
