a life beyond running shoes.

i have a new book group. it is pretty much all i have read this year.  wow, this year is different from last.  i poured myself into my books last year.... this year i don't seem to have the time. i guess that is a good thing considering the previous year was a move and lost of transition.  it is a good thing.  here are my book club reads: the invisible bridge by julie orringer (which we all appreciated the historical context and insight into hungary during WWII) girl in translation by jean kwok (provided a much deeper discussion than read but a worthy insight into a immigrant experience) the unlikely lavender queen by jeannie ralston run with the horsemen by ferrol sams (i am determined to finish this) my discipleship group read: celebration of the disciplines by richard foster give them grace by elyse fitzpatrick & jessica thompson my summer reads: looking for alaska by john green the woman upstairs by claire messud and other books:...

i will finish the year with my last books read.... over the last month or so.  i have not even sat down to write my xmas letter and yet i post about my final reads....  happy 2013! global girlfriends: how one mom made it her business to help women poverty by stacey edgar what a fun and amazing story about a woman who started with a vision to do something about poverty among women around the world. check our her website: www.globalgirlfriends.com  making peace with the land by fred bahnson and norman wirzba a scholor and a practision discussing the biblical merits of working for the good and steward of the land. adoption without debt. by julie gumm. practical and inspiring of how it can be done. for reals. eat and run. by scott jurek carnivore turned vegan while pursing the dream of being/becoming an ultra runner. the hobbit . by jrr tolkien i re-read it so i could go see the movie.... i opted to spend my one movie date a year on les mis .  g...

in the midst of coming off of vacation and looking forward into the holiday season... i hunkered down with a few books to pass the time.   i will admit that i actually let my children watch just a bit too much tv while i was reading one of these. kitchen counter cooking school. by kathleen flynn. oh how i loved this one.  all these lovely women learning how to cook, use a knife, cut up a chicken.....learning about healthy options that don't cost too much.  and oh how i wish i had been in this class. to be on the journey of exploring food and cooking skills along others.... i was envious.  what a quick but fun read. it also includes recipes for simple things....like vinaigrettes.   i loved it...and have to thank my sister-in-law who recommended it to me over a year ago.  thanks, tiff! tiger in red weather . by liza klaussmann. well.....it was a bit 'gatsby' for me.  too indulgent, too long island, too much despair.  AND then there wa...

we got to really celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary.  sunrise. dinner at sunset. hiking.  shaved ice (aka snow cones) while watching surfing. more sunrises. snorkeling. despite the one day meeting that husband had (like the obligatory timeshare meeting that you have to sit through in order to get to stay there), we had an amazing time!! this was my first time snorkeling and i LOVED it!!! one of my highlights was running on the beach with hubbie.  funny how it takes vacation for us to see this activity as a luxury. it was amazing to finally get some nights away from kids and enjoy just having time together. thank you friends and family that helped make this happen!!! maybe it won't take over six years for us to do it again! and i read two books:   the weird sisters  by eleanor brown   and eddie would go by stuart holmes coleman:  one a novel threading shakespeare quotes through a story about sister all with fata...

inkheart . by cornelia funke. same author as the thief lord .  the essence of magic realism. so know going in there is a suspension of disbelief that i enjoy.... there is a clear bad guy. interesting good guy. daughter. interesting secondary characters. lot of books. italy. all for a fun and enjoyable read.  there is a mystery that unfolds as you read about these characters.  i am  not sure i  know what else to say other than that i enjoyed it. it was also a good balance to the other things i had been reading. perhaps i enjoy a bit of escapism now and then.  i finally finished the percy jackson series.... the last one being the last olympian . i have to admit i enjoyed them.  of course, i was not reading them as a mom who will one day have a teenage son (or two).... so the attitude or angst was not annoying to me as a reader.  i was along for the ride of king kronos engaging in a war with the half-blood children of the gods of olympus. ...

i am not sure i even know where to begin. i think i am changed. i don't think i can go backwards. i think i am on a journey..... one that god is working and unfolding. i am pretty sure he has been working on these things for more than just this summer, in fact for years, but i think the books i encountered this summer are part of moving us forward and moving us deeper.  hubbie and i have always had this heart but i realized we have been okay just saying that we could not do it "right now."  i repent. i have been lazy. i have had a hard heart.  my heart does not look like jesus. it is not okay.  i have to move toward jesus and toward others.  he is calling me to himself.....  freedom of simplicity . by richard fotster. he takes the other two books from previous post and grounds them. he completely argues that simplicity is a spiritual issue.  it is a spiritual maturity issue.  it something to be cultivated, practiced, exercised.  i k...

almost amish by nancy sleeth (one woman's quest for a slower, simpler, more sustainable life) does that sound right up my alley or what?! it was.  she takes a look at a community that has be able to stay connected to each other while remaining somewhat "out of touch" with modern culture. sleeth a makes the case that current american culture [and even modern church culture] are the ones that are out of touch not the amish.  sleeth takes ten tenants of amish culture and in a way deconstructs it, finds the merit, and challenges her reader to see what they have that we don't.  her ten things: home, technology, finances, nature, simplicity, service, security, community, families, and faith.  the ones that i really loved:  homes - aren't cluttered. technology - serves as a tool and does not rule. [i have stopped checking my cell phone or email on sundays....so mom, call my home phone] finances - save more and spend less.  simplicity - small and local lea...

lost in a good book by jasper fforde sequel. meta-fiction....not sure i know what that means. having just read a jane eyre book, i went back to this author whose first book was the eyre affair .  he transposed reality and fiction.... well, it is all fiction but includes time travel, adventure, extinct animals, fictional characters interacting with the characters of the novel.....and a character called jack schitt.  funny.  it is entertaining. i realized i had to let go of trying to figure out the time looping stuff and just ride the book for what it was worth. since i own the third book in the series, i might give it a go but wouldn't if it wasn't already on my shelf.  yes, chef   by marcus samuelsson can i fall in love with food any more.... yes, yes, i can.  ethiopian orphan, adopted in sweden, world travelled via the kitchen of restaurants, hotels, and cruise ships and immigrated to new york city where he was one of the first black chefs in...

caveat: this is summer reading folks. i did try and throw one meaningful read in there but just to make myself feel better. the thief lord by cornelia funke. one more YA read for my summer vacation.  venice, magic realism, orphans, and that element of a story that captures you and intrigues you to the end. it was not the most amazing book i have ever read, but i did enjoy the characters, youthful intrigue and suspension of disbelief. i have heard her inkheart series is worth checking out.... i liked this enough to try her as author again.  and i did love it being set in venice. she captures that element of mystery, an old theater home and just a few adults to help move the story along.  the age of miracles. by karen thompson walker. okay, what?  time is slowing down.  and what happens at the end....oh, wait....you aren't going to tell me. but okay, this is really just a story about coming of age in a tense, challenging time. right? okay........

    then again. by diane keaton i do love her.... her hat wearing, idiosyncratic personhood.  i also loved that i must have said out loud, "i didn't know that" about a million times about her and her life. AND.... oh the men she dated. woody. warren. al.  and the way she writes tribute to her mom.... giving her mom a voice from the journals she wrote that diane discovered after her mother died.   she is personal and candid. it feels very much like diane keaton..... lovable and enjoyable. perhaps not the best memoir i have read.....but it did make me want to go back and see some of her movies from the last thirty years.....including annie hall which i can hardly remember seeing the first time. loud and clear. by anna quindlen i told you i would get around to more of her.  this is a collection of her essays originally published in newsweek and the new york times .  it covers parenting, social issues, politics, 9/11. i love her voic...

a moveable feast .  ernest hemingway part of what the Paris wife was based on in terms of information gathered about Hadley (hemingway's first wife). what was interesting were the "introduction" and "preface" regarding the stories that hemingway kept changing.....or the fact that he could not really decide on a title. i am so glad i read it in light of my fascination with hemingway in the twenties but probably not noteworthy on its own. although, some of his comments on fitzgerald are rather snarky and therefore delightful to read. the sun also rises.   ernest hemingway. still working through some hemingway. okay, but what I loved about this was that I had some biographical context for this story.....if any of the paris wife novel was true...for example, the character that he based brett on and how she caused a scene in pamplona when a group of parisian expatriates went for the running of the bulls. again, in the context of my readings I loved it. h...

in the loosest sense of the word, i am a researcher. i like to read multiple things about one thing. the paris wife: a novel . by paula mclain. oh, i loved it. but it took a few things that i happen to have already loved:  the idea of paris in the 20s; ernest hemingway, fitzgerald, picasso; cafes, writers, wine; a different era. it was a world away.  it was hemingway's world in paris, spain, italy, etc.  this is the story of hemingway and his first wife, hadley.  i think it is mostly based on their letters and hemingway's memoir a moveable feast .  i loved living in their tiny apartment, meeting with gertrude stein, and having drinks with f. scott.  having just seen midnight in paris (woody allen film) a few months ago, i was ready to be swept away.  too bad hemingway's marriage is short lived but his stories live on...... i also tried hemingway's boat: everything he loved in life, and lost, 1934 - 1961 by paul hendrickson.  it w...

seems like most have read her.  this is one of my new york finds...... sitting on a stoop, pick up, read. i have a pile of those.  i am trying to get through some of that pile. sometimes you win..... sometimes you don't. this was a win - for me. rise and shine . by anna quindlen two sister, two new yorks. one the media darling of american, one a social worker in the bronx.  they are formed by tragedy of their youth, manage to remain consistent in their relationship but live in different worlds. perhaps i loved the small details of new york that a tourist might miss.... the reference to a grocery store, the way to navigate sidewalks, or the reality that there are multiple cities within new york.  maybe i like the story of sisters. i have one that i love. we are different. these sisters are different.  perhaps, i like that i was caught in a story that concluded.... not resolved or tied up nicely but finished with just a bit of redemption. i enjoy...

the prodigal god: recovering the heart of the christian faith by: tim keller the parable of the prodigal son.... but really there are two lost brothers. and there is one redeeming father who gives a feast for those who return. to be reminded so eloquently of the father's love for me through a closer look at this parable was not only refreshing for my soul but also amazingly convicting. keller redefinition of lostness shows me the mirror to my soul taking me that much deeper in my understanding how how great my need for a the true elder brother (Jesus) who loves, obey, sacrifices, and pursues perfectly.  some quotes: the hearts of the two brothers were the same...both were alienated from the father's heart; both were lost sons.  they both were using the father for their own self-centered ends rather than loving, enjoying, and serving him for his own sake. this means you can rebel against god and be alienated from him either by breaking his rules or by keeping them dilig...

reading one heavy novel necessitated two fluffy. little bee . by chris cleeve. nigirian refugee at a british immigration center meets british liberal editor of a woman's trash magazine with an insipid husband and a lackluster infidelity. while i can say it is a compelling and intriguing story. what i can also say is that the infidelity bothers me.... it might not bother all but it is a storyline that i find problematic and unsettling. perhaps, it is my moral high ground but i read the synopsis of some of his other books and the topic is repeated. anyway, an event on a nigirian beach bring sarah and little bee together.  the book deals with the atrocities of nigiria as the "black gold" country and the complicated issues of asylum and immigration. the times reviewer said that it is not just a political novel but a story of human triumph.  i found very little triumph in the story actually.  so there  you have it.  not a huge fan of the author but was glad to...

if you know me, you  know i will find a topic and then read a few things about it: barefoot running eating locally and now...... olive oil. got this book for christmas which of course, lead me to other books. extra virginity: the sublime and scandalous world of olive oil by tom mueller frankly, i just love the subtitle. it was a fascinating read. the history of olive oil, the parallels to the wine industry, the scandals that have changed the italian wine industry and how little has changed in the olive oil industry. i loved learning about something that has such beneficial properties, but have almost none when diluted or marketed as something it is not..... like extra virgin.  it has lead me to explore some local olive producers and even gone taste testing here in northern california.  second book: the passionate olive: 101 things to do with olive oil by carol firenze oh....she gets creative.  but first she almost summarizes what i read in the ...