Tag: Elizabeth Berg

What’s Making Me Happy 4/16/13

Ah, a day off with little sleep.  Hopefully tonight I will sleep soundly, waking refreshed for a long work day!

But here’s what’s making me happy:

  • Getting through overnights at work is always good… another month until it happens again!  
  • I finished “Gone with the Wind” last night!  Woot!  It was a great book, unfortunately I didn’t have a lot of endurance with it, so I read it in shorter spurts than I would have liked.  But I can’t wait to discuss it with others who have read it and to revisit the movie.  So much to talk about!  Scarlett’s coping skill of “thinking of it tomorrow” is something I have employed… sometimes things are just so hard to face that you have to divert attention elsewhere and move forward with plans tomorrow.  It is spoken so often in the book… and it is the final sentence of the book:  “After all, tomorrow is another day.”  I’m so glad I read it.

    Gone with the Wind cover
    Gone with the Wind cover (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
  • Book club with the Preston gals was a lot of fun.  We read a great book (“We are all Welcome Here” by Elizabeth Berg) and had great food – rum and Cokes, pizza burgers, cheesy potatoes, and Mississippi Mud Cake.  Yummy!  Always good to see those women!
  • Met girls from work for dinner on a Friday night!  It was good to get together outside of work and to get to know them better.  Hopefully it’s something we can do again and again!  We celebrated having a Friday off before a weekend off!  Doesn’t always happen!  Maybe this Friday we will have a happy hour after we have supervision from 6-8pm!  🙂
  • I had a terrible cold during my weekend off, but enjoyed movies and reading… not a bad way to spend a weekend off!
  • Singing is always good… love the songs we’re singing in choir!  Some river songs, medley style (“Old Black Water,” “Swanee River,” “The Old Folks at Home,” “Mood River” and more!) and some Irish songs (yay!) and “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off.”  Love it.
  • Had some good days off last week before my weekend overnight work.  Good meals out, good cooking at home, good movie in the theatre (“Admissions”) and hanging out with Marissa.  Good stuff.
  • A great post-tax-day out with Beth today – delicious breakfast at Burdey’s in Peterson (cinnamon roll pancakes – so good!) followed by shopping and fro-yo!  Good stuff.

And coming up:

  • 3 days of work ahead and a weekend off.  No big plans (yet!), but just glad to have a Saturday, Sunday, Monday off!  
  • Hanging out with the kids a little as Dana and  Koni jet off to Vegas!  
  • Starting in on my pile of TBR books – #1 is The Silver Linings Playbook!  Yay!  DVD comes out 4/30, so that’s something I”m looking forward to! Also have 2 book club books going – “The Accidental Tourist” by Anne Tyler and “Sick Girl” by Amy Silverstein (for work).  Good stuff!  I’m listening to the audio of “The Accidental Tourist” and I think it’s read by the slowest narrator in the history of narrators.  Goodness.  But it’s a good book!
    The Accidental Tourist
    The Accidental Tourist (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

     

  • Planning a small graduation party for Marissa is fun… it sure is something to celebrate!
  • Have so many good shows to catch up on – so glad I still have my DVR!  I’ll catch up with them sometime – so no Mad Men or Smash spoilers!

What is making you happy this week?

Sunday Snapshot 3/24/13

A weird work schedule (really? it’s always weird!) has me feeling very Saturday-ish today, so I have to get in the Sunday mode!  Especially since I have to work early Monday morning!  Then a few days off before I work my very first holiday – Easter weekend.  I hope to make it to the interfaith service at the beautiful Chapel at St. Mary’s, at least for part of it.  Sunday morning can’t be that busy in the Emergency Department, right?

Anyway, not much to fill you in on except that I watched the movie The Sessions last night – and it was just so good!

The Sessions
The Sessions (Photo credit: Librari Kameleon)

It’s based on a true story about a man who is a journalist and a poet and lives most of his day in an iron lung.  He interviews people with disabilities about their sex lives and then wishes to lose his virginity.  It’s a nice story about this humorous and intelligent man, his relationship with his priest, his caregivers and the sex surrogate he hires after seeing a sex therapist.    It’s about love and life and poetry.  Good stuff!

Here’s a link to the article written by Mark O’Brien after his sex surrogate experience.  I haven’t read it all, but will!

Next in my DVD player is The Intouchables – a story about a person who becomes a quadriplegic after a paragliding accident.   He’s very wealthy and hires a man from the projects to be his caregiver, and boy do they have fun!  Living life to the fullest.  Good stuff!

Triple these movies with the book I just finished for book club – We Are All Welcome Here by Elizabeth Berg – and there’s a theme!  I love Elizabeth Berg books and this was no exception.  This book is about a woman who contracts polio late in her pregnancy and delivers a healthy baby while in an iron lung.  She remains paralyzed with full feeling in her body (like Mark O’Brien in The Sessions) and raises her daughter to be a strong independent woman.  It’s a fictional account of an actual person’s life (ala The Sessions, as well!).  Good stuff!

Good stuff that is coming up:

Hard boiled traditional Russian Easter eggs
Hard boiled traditional Russian Easter eggs (Photo credit: Steve White2008)
  • Planning an Anna Karenina viewing party with a few people (most of my fellow-walkietalkie peeps!) who love classical literature and may have started the book or intend to read the book sometime!  I’m the only one to have finished it.  🙂  We’re having beef stroganoff, pickled beets, white Russian cupcakes, and vodka (of course!)!  Love a good theme and in this early spring, Russian literature is a good one!
  • Some fun Aunt-related activities coming up this week, including a Seder dinner and a RockTown tour! And it’s a niece’s birthday today so my gift is a shopping trip, hopefully this week!
  • It will be weird to work on Easter weekend, but I try to remember that no one wants to be hospitalized on Easter, either, so I will do my best to be a blessing to those I see!
  • Book club on April 2 for We Are All Welcome Here – with a 60s feel!  Pizza burgers, potato chips, a classic dessert, Coke in bottles… good stuff!
  • Marissa got accepted into graduate school, so we will be exploring housing options in the Cities soon!  That is something fun to look forward to!
  • And I’ve gotta work on my list for 44 Things: Q3 as it is right around the corner!

But first, today I’m getting together with friend Beth to celebrate her birthday, which was on the first day of Spring!  Yay for friend time!

How about you?  What does your Sunday look like?  What are you looking forward to?

Happy Sunday, all!