My mom gave Water For Elephants to me for Christmas, so it was one of the first things I wanted to read this year. I loved it – Gruen’s writing is smooth and fluid, and her detailed research on circus life during the Depression immerses you in the scene, and Jacob’s fascinating life carries you along.
It’s on the New York Times bestseller list, and it’s not surprising why; it’s a great read.
Water for Elephants
by Sara Gruen
Video of a gay man beaten in Boston at an Anti-Marriage Equality protest held by bigots. Mostly of the guy after he was beaten, but pretty disturbing.
And of course, typical of hate-filled people like those who oppose equal marriage rights.
It’s my girlfriend Stephanie’s first “blogiversary” – please go visit her page and say congratulations. Also, if you clicked on a google ad while you’re there, that would be great, too. We need the money. We have three houses, ya know. She updated her templates and added a blogroll – let her know if you want to be on it.
Our Library, mostly squared away now, and organized. I’m so glad; we can sit and read in front of the fire. Ideally, we want to replace the two chairs with a more comfortable loveseat.
Stephanie and sorted our Cookbooks out last night – we both have some great ones and we reorganized them so we can pick out recipes quickly. We both want to do more cooking at home and less pre-packaged food. I bought the Weight Watcher’s Cookbook a while back, and that’s the first one I want to pull recipes from. We also have a good Slow Cooker book, which is going to be a staple, I think, for when we’re busy.
The recipe thing is one we want to get sorted out, too. I have all mine here on my site, and a printed binder of them that Stephanie made for me. Stephanie has most of hers on a magnet clip on the refrigerator. I’d prefer to build a searchable database of recipes, but I’ll have to scout out what software would be good for that. Actually, I’d prefer to build a searchable database of recipes here on my site, but that’s a research project on it’s own, similar to the library database I want to build for my books.
If anyone has suggestions, brainstorming or ideas for these, let me know.
I stayed after my water aerobics class tonight to take an extra half-hour resistance weight-training course in the pool. Man, I thought I had endorphin highs before. I feel great. There were tons of people at the Y tonight — the construction on their new wellness center is finished and they have a lot of new equipment, so that was at least part of the crowd, along with all the New Year’s resolution folks. But as long as there’s room in the pool, I’m okay with that. I’m just glad that I have some physical activity that isn’t tedious and boring to do.