. It's set in the same fictional Ontario town as her previous novel, The Girls
, and just as compelling reading. I highly recommend both of these books for their gorgeous prose and excellent story-telling. Lansens is a Canadian now living in Los Angeles.
I recently signed up to become a book reviewer for Thomas Nelson. You choose from a small selection of books, they send you the one you choose, and you review it on your blog and on one of the popular e-commerce sites (amazon.ca
, barnes and noble, whatever). Once you've posted the review, you can choose another book. My first book is Derailed: Five Lessons Learned from Catastrophic Failures of Leadership
and you need it! In stock now!This weeks task were partially completed, but I did two large unscheduled tasks to make up for it!
The easy ones were buying Hallowe'en candy (I had to do this twice, LOL) and getting a snapshot of my computer in the event of disaster. The two I didn't do were getting rid of old computers (I located it, but it needs to go to the special waste depot), and getting my credit report (this is easy...it's on my list).
The main task was working on my home office and I got this partially done. The two areas I worked on were the kitchen ledge and the filing cabinet.
Kitchen ledge before: mail, papers, craft supplies, some moon cakes, and all manner of junk gets deposited here.
The fridge was LONG overdue to be cleaned and we got rid of half a garbage bag of take-out boxes, old rotting sauces and condiments, and moldy leftovers (which we don't normally have, with a teen boy eating them at 10 pm most nights). The fridge itself was also rather filthy, so it's now gorgeously white, decluttered, and sparkly.
I was able to get Z to focus on the master closet this weekend, as he has been setting up his new office in our recently departed-for-university son's bedroom (sorry, Alex!). We got rid of 2 bags of clothing that will be donated at the monthly St. Vincent-de-Paul Bundle Sunday coming up next weekend at our parish. Everything is dusted, spacious, and tidy, with nothing on the floor except for some shoes and the laundry basket. It's quite a small closet for two people, so tidying it up really makes a difference.
So while I didn't get all my proscribed tasks done, I believe that the decluttering mindset is rippling through the household, and we're getting some other long overdue projects out of the way.
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The Pioneer Woman (aka Ree Drummond) Cookbook is available! Her recipes are my go-to ones for parties, family dinners, potlucks, and are full of fat, sugar, and all the good things in life. Her backstory is hilarious and her recipes are dee-lish. I've preordered one and it should be winging it's way to me shortly. It's called The Pioneer Woman Cooks
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Z has started taking Wilson, our hyperactive terrier, on 3km walks once or twice a day. It's fabulous, as he's calming right down and seems much better behaved with less barking. He's also had a chance to meet some new dogs and is leaning to be less anxious (read, aggressive) in the process. We were already walking him three times a day, so this has added a fourth walk and probably doubled his total exercise distance. I hope Z can keep it up through the winter.
The year was 2005. The month was August. The city was Austin, Texas. I am the main character. It was the beginning of my junior year of college and it was my second year in an apartment. One afternoon I went to HEB to get groceries and other necessities. All seemed to be going well until a dark cloud came and ruined an otherwise cheery grocery trip. I found myself in the toilet paper aisle surrounded by countless types of toilet paper. I realized that I was lost. One ply, two ply, three ply, ultra, super, extra, soft, plush, single roll, double roll, triple roll, with aloe, quilted, printed. It went on and on. I needed a map.
I read the packages and quickly became overwhelmed. I was stressed by the immense pressure to pick the perfect roll. It was just too much, I couldn’t handle it. I was two Charmin bears away from a complete breakdown. I was about to walk away paperless when I realized that the problem will not go away. I would face this dilemma often, until forever. Right there, standing in front of those Charmin bears, I came up with a brilliant idea. I would try them all! Yes! Yes, I would try them all! And then I would decide which one is the best and I’d never be confused again! ....Read the rest!
I don't know this young woman, other than to read her blog, and I just started at that. She hosts the Ten for Tuesday questionnaire that I participated in this week, and one of the questions was "Do you have a toilet paper preference?" She noted that she was VERY opinionated on this topic, which I found intriguing and perhaps....odd.
Today's post just cracked me up. It explains all. As a former market researcher, I found this brilliant and hilarious at the same time. An excerpt and just the beginning of the story:
The year was 2005. The month was August. The city was Austin, Texas. I am the main character. It was the beginning of my junior year of college and it was my second year in an apartment. One afternoon I went to HEB to get groceries and other necessities. All seemed to be going well until a dark cloud came and ruined an otherwise cheery grocery trip. I found myself in the toilet paper aisle surrounded by countless types of toilet paper. I realized that I was lost. One ply, two ply, three ply, ultra, super, extra, soft, plush, single roll, double roll, triple roll, with aloe, quilted, printed. It went on and on. I needed a map.
I read the packages and quickly became overwhelmed. I was stressed by the immense pressure to pick the perfect roll. It was just too much, I couldn’t handle it. I was two Charmin bears away from a complete breakdown. I was about to walk away paperless when I realized that the problem will not go away. I would face this dilemma often, until forever. Right there, standing in front of those Charmin bears, I came up with a brilliant idea. I would try them all! Yes! Yes, I would try them all! And then I would decide which one is the best and I’d never be confused again! ....Read the rest!
This was a surprisingly difficult assignment, to find the essence of autumn without using just swaths of pics of coloured leaves. Which I probably did. But anyway, here goes.
I'm in for the first time this November.
Lord, hear our prayer.
So I'm gonna write my big list for today here and cross things off as they get done. Sort of a public accountability thing. I'm not committed to getting the entire list done, but at least a respectable amount.
