Things Have Gotten Busy!

We had a great Thanksgiving.  I forgot to take photos of people! 

First pumpkin pie I've made in ages.  Usually we just buy them.  This had a gluten free crust which was ok.  But I didn't care for the filling!  So I am going to try again, maybe next Sunday.

Will/Eli was home and made things so much fun.  He is so kind and generous to everyone.  And he fills the house with music and laughter.  Well, Sean and Becky do that too, but they do their own separate thing music wise, and they still have a tendency to bicker.  With Will everybody plays together and he has an anti-bickering magic about him.

I've gotten busy again with the American Solidarity Party.  I've also have started getting busy with working with two different organizations for the homeless.  Tomorrow morning I've got to really get rolling with making phone calls and drafting stuff for them, etc.

On top of this I finally wrote my quarterly reports for my students.  I hate that sort of thing.  Dread it, really.  I am so glad I've decided this is my last year teaching at co-op.  Next year will be my last year homeschooling and I'm going to cut out a lot of extra stuff and just concentrate on that.  Speaking of which I also need to take over literature with B.  She was taking an on line class but had fallen so behind on everything because of her rough start due to her health that we decided to cut our losses and just do it ourselves.  So we gotta get that up and going tomorrow.  I do think B is on the mend though.  I see a light at the end of the tunnel.

Will, whipping up a gluten free, vegetarian dinner with flare.  He just bought that dinner jacket at a thrift store this weekend.

So life has been rich and interesting and slightly stressful and just so busy.  Time is moving at breakneck speed!  But I am savoring some things.  This evening Eli and I made dinner while listening to Chopin.  It was fun (and delicious!).

Rick built the first fire of the season tonight.

Sharpe's Triumph - Book 31

Sharpe's Triumph is by Bernard Cornwell.  I know I've read at least one other Sharpe novel, Sharpe's Rifles but this is actually a very long series of historical novels about Richard Sharpe and all his military escapades in the British army mostly during the Napoleonic wars.  Sean Bean starred in a popular British TV series based on the novels.  He's pretty perfect for the role!

Anyway, I've also read a history on Waterloo by Cornell.  He is a very good writer.  He really seems to know his history and he is great at creating plots and keeping you on the edge of your seat to see what happens to likable but rather disturbingly violent Richard Sharpe.

I picked this book up at the library as I wanted a light, absorbing read and I was in the mood for something historical.  This particular book is set pre-Napoleon when Sharpe is younger and just cutting his warrior teeth in India.  I know next to nothing of the British wars in India, so I thought it looked interesting.

The book started out great.  It is an interesting and engaging tale.  Basically Sharpe is working with a Col. McCandless who is out to find a British Lieutenant who defected to the other side and is fighting with the Mahratta army.  But in the meanwhile, there's an evil crazy sergeant who hates Sharpe and is working to frame him for murder.  So while McCandless and Sharpe go hunting for one bad guy, another bad guy is hunting for them.  All of this is going on while the British army, partly lead by Arthur Wellesley (who later becomes the Duke of Wellington) is about to go to battle against the native army.  It gets quite complicated with lots of interesting characters.

Of course this is about armies at war, but honestly the last part of the book where the battle actually takes place is just page after page of description of gruesome death.  After a while I just started flipping through to get back to the narrative.  I can only take so much death and destruction.

The annoying thing about this book is that it makes no sense in terms of continuity.  Sharpe's Rifles has Sharpe saving General Wellesley's life later on during the Napoleonic war.  Wellesley doesn't know who Sharpe is but he promotes him to Lieutenant as a reward.  Since Sharpe came up from poverty and isn't wealthy enough to buy a commission as officer the whole plot of that novel was how he struggled to get respect from fellow officers.  But in Sharpe's Triumph Sharpe saves Wellesley life in a most spectacular way where he literally slays like 15 enemy soldiers trying to get to the General.  How is Wellesley not going to know who Sharpe is after that?  It doesn't make sense.  And the fact that Sharpe is like a superhero killing so many men with one blow or stab and only getting a tiny bit hurt is, well, I mean it almost had me laughing out loud.  Except the whole battle scene is so vicious and gory that I couldn't really laugh.  More like I was rolling my eyes.

Oh and earlier in the book lady lover Sharpe manages to bed the abandoned wife of a French officer fighting with the Mahratta.  But right before the seduction, which is inferred rather than described, (which I prefer when dealing with such plot developments, so thank you very much Mr. Cornwell. I wish you could be a little more circumspect about the beheadings and horrible death scenes as well!)  But right before this, the author goes on about how neither party had bathed in quite a while.  So when the seduction scene was implied, my first response was  Guhrossss!

And the ending leaves Sharpe the victor but even so, he's so brutal, I couldn't quite cheer.

So it was an enjoyable read but a bit over the top for my tastes.   There is something addictive about this series though.  Sharpe is an intriguing and somehow sympathetic character.  I told my brother in law about these books after I'd read Sharpe's Rifles and he went on to read the whole series!

For more book reviews go to Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks.

This week has flown!

Wow!  I can not believe a whole week has gone by.  Just think, at this time last Friday I was fighting a migraine and trying to finish packing for a weekend get away.  We did have a lovely, lovely time.  It was not long enough.  I could have stayed a couple more days quite happily.

This young man keeps us busy too!

This week has been super busy.  The good news is my knee only went out on me twice and my back only twinges a bit when I pick up something heavy.  My neck continues to be a bother though.  Still, with the subsiding of major pain, I got my groove back, sorta.  I even cleaned my bathroom, dusted and vacuumed my room this week!

Today is H's 27th birthday.  Her husband's birthday was yesterday.  Hopefully, we'll see them on Sunday evening for dinner to celebrate. 

Poor B is exhausted and overwhelmed from everything and tonight is opening night for Man of La Mancha.  She came home from their full dress rehearsal late last night actually feeling pretty good about it.  So that's hopeful.  I think I will go see it tonight.  Maybe R and others can see it Saturday night.  Not sure about the Sunday matinee.

S has started his job at Chipotle yesterday.   He got to work at 4 and didn't get home until 12:30 a.m.  He took an Uber home.  He is exhausted and overwhelmed too.  R and I keep telling him he has to advocate for himself.  He said he wanted to work 3 or 4 days a week.  He's going to school full time and he can't work full time too.  But they scheduled him for 37 hours this week.  He had to work the cash register all night.  Everyone else there speaks Spanish but him so he felt kind of awkward.  And then he said it took him 2 hours to clean up.  He had to sweep and then mop the 'lobby,' wipe down all the tables and chairs, clean the soda machine area and take out the trash.  He said the other workers were all in the kitchen and it took them 2 hours to clean the whole thing as well.  I think they'll probably get faster and more efficient as they get accustomed to it.  It's a brand new restaurant and I think everybody but the manager is brand new.  And six people they hired quit during the training session.  I think they are understaffed right now.  So hopefully, S will get things ironed out about how much work they schedule him for.  Also he needs to register for next semester at the CC. 

Alright, my thoughts are just rambling.  Time to move away from the keyboard and do something!

Anniversary Weekend!

You can't really tell but the candle was still burning inside the jack o lantern All Saints morning!

Well, Halloween has come and gone.  All Saints Day too.  Today is All Souls Day and I usually go visit my family's graves on this day, but I had to work and then didn't have quite enough time before I had to get B to rehearsal to really go there and back.  It's only about 25-30 minutes away, but in rush hour traffic. . . . I am always sad on this day though because this was my Mom's birthday.  I still miss her every single day.  My head was full of memories of her as I drove to work this morning.  And then as I got out of the car I heard a train whistle and a train rumbling by.  Those are sounds of my very young childhood.  When I was six or so the trains stopped running and they eventually became a bike path.  But when I was very young the train went by my house (a half block away) and we'd run down and ask the engineer to blow the whistle for us.  And he would!  It was loud!  My little 4 year old knees would tremble but I loved it too!

Tomorrow Rick and I go away for the weekend!  This Sunday we'll have been married 29 years.  I think we need a weekend away.  I feel like we are on autopilot lately when it comes to our marriage.  I always like traveling with him though.  He's the perfect travel companion.  We just get into sync and relax so easily when we travel for some reason.    Not that we are traveling much but just going to a town a couple hours away to stay at a bed and breakfast.  We are going to see the Blackfriars players do Much Ado About Nothing.  I want to visit Polyface Farm, the Frontier Culture Museum and Rick, who has coincidentally been reading a book about Woodrow Wilson would like to see his home and library.

Update:  We've delayed leaving because I have a stupid migraine.  But it's mostly gone now, so here we go!