Share Your Shelf-May

It's the first Thursday of the month which means it's time to share what we read the month prior. May was a mix of fiction, non-fiction, memoir, and classic. I listened to one (very long) book on Audible, but the rest were read in hardback copy. 

I'm still trying to read one classic each month, and I've also inventoried my Goodreads 'want-to-read' list, and am reading at least one that's been sitting there a while too. Years in some cases. Okay, here we go-

Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra 

Starting off with a doozy, so strap in.

A few months ago, I bought tickets for my daughter and me to see the ballet Don Quixote as part of her birthday gift. My husband has had the novel Don Quixote on his to-read list for a while now—he’s big on biographies, particularly of presidents, world leaders, and military figures. Oddly enough, this fictional Spanish knight keeps popping up in those circles. According to my source, aka the Internet, leaders admire Don Quixote for his unwavering commitment to his ideals—even when those ideals seem ridiculous, misguided, or doomed to fail. Interesting.

Especially because the book is actually quite funny.

I don’t remember ever reading Don Quixote before, but I knew I wanted to experience the story before seeing the ballet. Given its reputation and historical context—not to mention that it's set in 17th-century Spain—I figured audio was the way to go. It's 40 hours long, so there's that.

I chose to listen solo since my husband and I weren’t going to have enough shared car time to get through it before the ballet. (He can start it whenever he wants now—I’ve done the heavy lifting.)

Often described as the first modern fictional hero, Don Quixote debuted in two parts, published in 1605 and 1615. The novel is not only one of the most translated books in the world but also among the best-selling. It’s widely considered the first modern novel.

The story follows the adventures—or more accurately, the misadventures—of Alonso Quixano, a minor nobleman who reads so many tales of chivalry that he loses touch with reality. Believing himself a knight-errant, he dons an old suit of armor, renames himself Don Quixote de la Mancha, and sets out to revive knighthood and serve his country. He’s accompanied by Sancho Panza, a down-to-earth farm laborer who becomes his squire and constant foil. The contrast between Quixote’s lofty delusions and Sancho’s dry pragmatism is the heart of the book’s wit.

The first part of the novel does require some sticktoitiveness—but it’s worth it. As an aside, I'm really glad to have read the book prior to seeing the ballet, although I think you could enjoy the ballet either way. My daughter and I both loved the show and felt they captured the essence of the book very well. The ballet, including intermissions, was a little over two hours. 

The Heart of Winter by Jonathan Evison

This is the story of a long marriage with all its ups, downs and sideways. The author weaves past and present together as we follow Abe and Ruth, a couple who've been married for seventy years, and who've called Bainbridge Island their home for nearly all of that time. Through a series of present day events and past experiences we watch as they navigate parenthood, tragedy, infidelity, sickness, and more in their long life together. Abe and Ruth are opposites in nearly every way, yet their marriage has endured. 

This book came with a lot of hype and five star reviews but it was just okay for me. I loved the premise and there was a lot of honesty I thought when it came to how aging was portrayed, but I didn't find Ruth or Abe all that endearing. Especially Ruth.  

Also, the kids? I didn't think we were given enough of their back story to really care about any of them. They were lacking something. 

I definitely enjoyed the present day storyline more than the look back. This one started off strong, but felt flat in the middle. The author wrapped it up pretty nicely in the end. Three stars for me.  

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

This is one that's been sitting on my Goodreads 'to-be-read' list since 2012. Yup. A long time. Coincidentally my book club is reading this book for our June meeting so it was an easy pick from my long list. 

Question for you...how does your book club choose books? We vote on ours after everyone has submitted two or three titles for consideration, and then will have the entire year's calendar laid out up front. We like this format which allows you to read ahead if you want to do that. Unless it's a classic we don't normally read something I'll call newly old. But someone suggested it, and the title received a lot of votes since it seemed most in our group had not read it. We do try to read one non-fiction book each year so this one also fit that bill. 

Henrietta Lacks or He La as she's known to scientists, was a poor African American tobacco farmer who,  while a cancer patient at Johns Hopkins back in 1951, had her cells taken from her without her knowledge. These cells became the first 'immortal' cells grown in culture and are still alive today, decades after Henrietta's death. Her cells became one of the most important tools in medicine and were key to developing the polio vaccine. In addition her cells have led to advances in cancer treatments, cloning, and gene mapping, along with many other gains in the fields of virology, medicine, and science. 

The family has not benefited in any way from the use of their mother's cells, and the issues of informed consent, patents and profits, and medical ethics are all things we continue to grapple with today. 

In terms of non fiction the book is written in a relatively easy to read fashion. There was more science than I was expecting, but it held my interest. There are essentially three parts to the book, although they're not labeled as such. We have Henrietta's personal family history, there's the medical piece, and finally there is the author chasing down the story. Skloot developed a close relationship with one of Henrietta's daughters, and she inserts herself into the story in a way that didn't feel quite right to me. 

Interesting, thought provoking, and still very relevant...four stars for me. 

Lasting Ever: Faith, Music, Family, and Being Found by True Love by Rebecca St. James and Cubbie Fink

I've liked the music of Rebecca St. James since she first became popular way back in the 1990's. I'm also a fan of her brother's music (King and Country).  I saw her book as I was checking out of Hobby Lobby recently, and hubs and I had just watched the movie about their family (Unsung Hero) so it caught my attention. 

I will say up front I'm not the demographic for this book, Their story is aimed more at young adults, women especially, who are navigating the world of relationships and also singleness. Rebecca and her husband both delve in to what it has meant to lean in to God's promises and His love for us, in both the good times and the hard times too. Their book details how they met, and we hear Cubbie's side of the story too. In some spots it felt a little saccharine, but they seem genuine so that didn't bother me. Many who know them in real life say they are exactly as they come across in the book. 

Rebecca was at one time, more or less the face of the True Love Waits movement, a movement that was g was taken to extremes by some, and was used in harmful ways by others.  All of that is addressed in the book.   

Three Days In June by Anne Tyler

Anne Tyler has a gift for taking the ordinary experiences of life and making them feel a little less ordinary. She creates stories you enjoy reading and this 165 page novella is no exception. 

Gail Baines is a 61 year old woman who walks out on her job after she's passed over for a promotion mostly, she's told, because she lacks 'people skills'. She's never been told this before and it both surprises and wounds her. 

That's day one of three days in June, which will also include her daughter's wedding, and her ex-husband turning up with a cat, but no wedding suit. Just before the rehearsal the bride shares with her parents something about her fiance that has them feeling conflicted, and this all combines for a heart warming humorous tale with far more depth than expected. 

I love Anne Tyler's writing and this novella with it's quirky yet relatable characters, managing life amidst a wedding weekend, is another winner.  Four stars for me. 

So what have you been reading? What's next on your to-read list? Hop over to the host blogs (My Joyful Life , Memphis Bridges, The Other Side Of The Road, and Slices of Life) to see what others are reading too. 

Retirement Day 3,665

Linking this post today with Talking About It Tuesdays hosted by Joanne

There was a blog link up yesterday that a lot of bloggers I follow participate in, but I didn't have it together to make that happen which, let's be honest, is par for the course here. 

The link up is called Share Our Lives and this month's prompt was A Day In the Life. The way it works is you choose any day in your week (usually the week prior to the linkup), and then share in words and pictures what you've spent the day doing, hour by hour.  

I love to read these posts and enjoy seeing all the ways we're different, but mostly how we're the same. People everywhere are doing laundry, making meals, solving problems, managing the everyday ordinary bits of life. 

Ten years ago (plus a couple of weeks) my hubs retired. I looked back at my blog and found three posts with similar titles to today's-Thoughts On Retirement Day Six, Retirement Day 47, Retirement Day 183, and then one entitled Five Minutes of Today written at the five year mark. 

And suddenly another five have passed. 

Retirement isn't anything like I thought it would be. 

Well, maybe a little bit but mostly no. 

I imagined every day would look a lot like the one before and instead every day is different. I read the Day in The Life Posts and the bloggers who participate are mostly people who are still working and raising their families. Their days and weeks are defined by jobs and children's needs and activities so their weekdays especially are by necessity fairly scripted. 

In retirement you can be all over the map if you want to be. You can stay in your pajamas all day every day, skip dinner because you went out for a big lunch, go to bed at 8 PM or stay up all night, see a movie on a Monday afternoon, go out to dinner last minute, invite friends for dinner last minute without wondering if your house is a mess because in all likelihood it's not. You can fill every hour of every day or none at all, and just let the day take you where it will.

You are the boss of your calendar. Mostly. In retirement while you do get to decide how much or how little you want to do every day, some of that will depend on your health. A lot will actually. So you make a conscious effort to take care of yourself, because if you don't have your health it's going to affect you in ways you never gave a passing thought to at age 40. 

Or maybe you did, but when I was 40 I was young lol. Back then if we were out with friends the topic of conversation was never about our knees or the ache in our shoulder. We try not to be those people now, but we are not our 'parents retirees'. We're golfing, hiking, kayaking, playing tennis and Pickleball, and truthfully sometimes just sleeping wrong. 

I imagined in retirement I'd spend a lot of time chilling on the couch watching hubs nap in his recliner, and instead I'm going here and he's going there and we synch calendars and he texts and asks 'where are you now, do you want to meet for lunch?' 

We are definitely not the people who stay in our pajamas all day, and I have absolutely no idea why I thought my hubs of all people would suddenly sit still and retire in his recliner. 

I imagined less 'paperwork' and instead there is an awful lot of paperwork. The business of life carries on in retirement much like it did in the workaday world. There are finances to manage, bills to pay, insurance to understand.  

There are still meals to plan, clothes to wash (why still so much laundry???), rubbish bins that need to be rolled to the curb on the appointed day, cars needing repairs, floors needing mopping, haircuts, mail, dust, and yadda yadda yadda. You know the drill because we're all in this particular boat together. Retirement does not erase the house-yard-life maintenance that keep the wheels of home spinning.  

There's time to travel, explore the beauty and history and fun quirky things that exist right where you live. There's time to volunteer, grow your hobbies, have long conversations with your spouse, dig deep into your faith and prayer life, and invest time and energy in your grandchildren if you're fortunate enough to have them. When I count my retirement blessings these things are all near the top. 

So what does an ordinary day look like in retirement? 

Well, today (Monday) it was coffee with the sunrise. Read my Bible. Shower and dress for an appointment with the dermatologist in the city. No makeup because he likes you to come in fresh faced. I had a bowl of Special K with Red Berries, then put coolers in the car for the Costco run I'll make after the dermatologist. 

My daughter, who is temporarily living with us (along with her hubs and three children), had plans to go to story hour at the library so I gave her my books that are due today. Winning! 

I left the house at 9 am and drove almost an hour to my appointment, which was fine. Country roads for the most part and I always have a book going on Audible so I listened to that while I drove. I spent about fifteen minutes in the dermatology office getting my annual skin check, then made the five minute drive from there to Costco. It was mobbed and I bought way too much. It's the law. 

Checked out and pushed my very full cart all the way to my car in the pouring rain, unloaded said cart in the pouring rain, returned the cart to the cart return even though it wasn't close and it was still pouring. 

Broke in to the Pirate Booty for the car ride home. It was necessary.  

I got home about 1 o'clock and unloaded the Costco haul. Made three trips up and down the stairs to put various items in the lower level frig and deep freeze because all this food has to go somewhere. I'd made a small salad the night before because I was thinking ahead and topped it with left over tuna for my lunch. I also made hubs a sandwich because he'd been to the real estate office and hadn't had lunch either. 

By now it was 2 PM and I made a cup of hot tea and turned on the fire. It was still wet, gray and cool and I sat by the fire and sipped my tea. I worked on this post while my daughter sat beside me and scoured Pinterest for home decorating inspiration. 

She and I plan our weekly meals ahead because with seven people in the house, three of them children who need to eat on the regular, we don't want to leave meals to chance. If it were just me and the hubs we would definitely wing it on occasion, which is one of the nice things about retirement. Anyway, today she put chicken, salsa, black beans and corn in the crock pot while I was out which was super helpful. 

While hubs and I had lunch she was working on school with the boys, and when they finished up I read a couple of books to them and chatted about their trip to the library. Little Miss was 'napping' and the boys went to their room to play with legos for a while. I then spent thirty minutes with hubs listening to today's Bible reading and The Bible Recap podcast we do every day. Hubs and I committed to it on January 1 and so far we have stayed on track. Even through Leviticus. And Numbers. 

Afterwards I got all the fixings out for our 'taco bowls'. Not sure if that's what they're called but I made some Mexican rice, we topped them with the shredded crock pot chicken-bean-corn mix, grated cheese, black olives, sour cream, guacamole, tortilla chips, and a squeeze of lime. They were delish and so easy! 

My daughter did most of the dishes and the kids played before going to get ready for bed. They are full on during the day, but go to bed early and sleep like teenagers which is a blessing. Little Miss is up earlier in general but she's super adorable so we're always happy to see her first thing. 

I filled the tub and threw in one of my rejuvenation bath bombs that I love and finally got rid of the chill I'd had since getting soaked in the Costco parking lot. I put on my pjs and wrapped up this super interesting blog post. 

That was today. Tomorrow will be completely different. I have to finish taxes, do a grocery run for all the things I don't buy at Costco, there's book club in the afternoon, and then I play Mah Jong with neighbors tomorrow night. It will be another crock pot meal because my son-in-law is working, hubs has a dinner to attend, and one grandson has baseball practice late afternoon. 

So how would I characterize retirement on Day 3,665?

Not boring. 

I feel like there's more I want to say about it all, but I've run out of steam. Does a trip to Costco wear you out too or am I the only one?  Have a nice week everyone!  

The Weekend Roundup

It's a two-fer today...linking with both Hello Monday (Holly and Sarah) and also with several bloggers who host a once a month hop called Share Our Lives. I'll add their buttons at the end of this post. 

First, the weekend. Let's discuss. It was gorgeous. Saturday and Sunday both were all day sunshine and low humidity which is my favorite. 

We had two neighbor couples over Saturday night for drinks and s'mores around the firepit. It's so hot and humid here in the summertime that we rarely have a fire then, but this springtime weather was made for one. I had the traditional Hershey bar option, but also bought some of the thin Reeses (have you seen these? oh my!) and nutella for anyone who wanted to spread that on their graham cracker before adding the marshnallow. Hubs made mine because he toasts them to perfection and I tend to get impatient and end up charred.  

Friends we hadn't seen in a while invited us to their club for a Mother's Day brunch and we had a nice time catching up. We came home to find our magnolia blooming -

We have a pygmy magnolia which won't get as tall as other varieties, but the blooms are still large and spectacular. After brunch we took our inaugural boat ride of the season.

We love to see what all has been going on around the lake during the winter months. This picture makes it look like I know what I'm doing-

Which I do as long as all the planets are correctly aligned. They were. Normally you'll find me here-

Hubs made smashburgers for dinner and they were so good. We followed this recipe and it's a keeper. 

We don't have one of those fancy smash tools, but hubs chef spatula, which he's owned for forty years, worked just fine. 

And no, he's not a chef. He just plays one on the internet. 

All this talk of food feels like an appropriate segue into today's Share Our Lives link up. This month's prompt is-your five favorite and five least favorite foods. 

I saw the prompt on Friday and have wracked my brain all weekend to come up with a food I don't actually like. It's a problem y'all. And then limiting my likes to just five? Also a problem. 

I saw a website saying the top three least favorite foods in America are anchovies, black licorice, and oysters. I love oysters and while I prefer red licorice I don't mind the black. And I like anchovies in some dishes so also not on my list. 

Other items that did make the list were fennel, mushrooms, capers, olives (what???), brussel sprouts, and coconut. I feel like mushrooms and coconut are two foods you either love or hate, there's no middle ground there. I'm on the side of love. 

After way too much overthinking my list of least favorite would be...

Liver and onions -blech

Kale- I've tried but it's just eh. I mean if I came to your house for dinner and you served kale I'd eat it, but it's not a favorite. I much prefer it in a salad as opposed to cooked. 

Tofu-no explanation needed, right?

Lima beans-I like them in certain dishes and I always add them to my homemade vegetable soup, but I don't want a side of limas with my meal. When my girls were little they absolutely loved them and whenever I had a babysitter coming they would get so excited because that meant they could have lima beans for dinner. Yay!! Rachel is coming! We get lima beans for dinner! I think they both still love limas. 

Sardines-  I will eat almost any kind of fish, but I've never acquired a taste for sardines. 

Whew! That was hard. Okay, now for my favorites. And these are just five of my favorites, but not necessarily my top five. Too much pressure. 

Watermelon-I love all fruits and could easily have filled the list of favorites with just fruit, but for the sake of variety I've chosen one and watermelon it is.

Popcorn-it's what's for dinner. I kid, but only sort of. When hubs traveled a lot for work I sometimes made popcorn my dinner. 

Steamed Blue Crabs- eaten on a picnic table beside the Bay whenever possible. I love a crab cake too, but sitting with friends around a butcher paper covered table where a bucket of steamed crabs are dumped and then picked is one of my favorite things ever. We lived in the Annapolis area for nine years and this is one of the things we miss most. Also what made us crab cake snobs. Just sayin'. 

A burger-cooked just right on grill with lettuce and tomato and a side of summer sunshine 

Egg Salad -this one kind of popped into my head out of the blue. There's something about an egg salad sandwich that takes me back to my childhood and it's still a favorite for me. 

So tell me what foods would make your love/hate list? 

I hope you had a nice weekend...ours ended with a four foot rat snake slithering across the yard. 

Fortunately for me I married someone who mans the grill, docks the boat, and loves to relocate a snake when relocation is necessary.