More Books To Read?

A fellow blogger has shared this list.

The Big Read estimates that the average person has only read 6 of the 100 greatest books ever printed.

Copy and paste to your blog and play along! Bold books you've read, and italics books you love.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 The Harry Potter Series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible – work in progress
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials – Phillip Pullman
10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M. Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 Joseph Heller
14 The Complete works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit – J.R.R. Tolkien
17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler's Wife
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune- Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick – Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 notes from a small island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince – Antoine de St. Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town like Alice- Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo read the abridged version

"New to us" Priest

At church yesterday, the "new to us" priest talked about how he came to be a priest and how he came to Richmond. He said that growing up his parents instilled a strong sense of the importance of prayer and obedience to God. Each morning before breakfast and each evening before bed, his whole family was on their knees reciting the 16 traditional prayers. They were excited to go to church each Sunday even though they had a 4 mile trek which they sometimes made on bike and sometimes on foot. He said that he knew at an early age that he wanted to become a priest - primer 5. He has been at the seminary for 21 years. Recently he was told that Richmond needed a priest and so he has come to us! Aren't we blessed!

After last week

I got in the spirit after attending vacation bible school last week and helping to teach the children the beatitudes. Be Kind. Be Obedient. Be Bold. Be Forgiving. Believe.
What a wonderful way to spend a week!

So on Saturday we attended the Really Really Free Market and had a great time. I think it will be on our schedule for each month from now on.
It is rather like a yard sale where folks look through all of the items and pick what they want. I enjoyed taking items and seeing someone else excited about finding them. I also found a couple of books for us.

Really Really Free Market

My Niece and friends are hosting a "Really Really Free Market" on Saturday. I am going to participate because I think it is a great way to share items that I no longer have a use for.

Check out the Flier!

Are you in control of your anger?

A couple of weeks ago, I was feeling like I was back on the emotional roller coaster. It comes and goes. Concidentally, last week I got this book from the library that is called "In control: no more snapping at your family, sulking at work, steaming in the grocery line, seething at meetings, stuffing your frustration" by Redford Williams. There is a quiz in the front to gauge your level of self-control. Kind of interesting!

Picnic Caviar

Last night I had some of my family over for dinner. We made the blueberry sauce along with a delicious picnic caviar that we used as a side salad. Here is the recipe - give it a try!

1/4 cup Rice vinegar
1/4 cup Vegetable oil
1 Tbsp. Sugar
2 cloves Garlic, minced (2 tsp)
1/2 tsp Dried oregano
1/2 tsp Dried basil
1 15-oz can black beans, rinsed and drained
1 15-oz can pinto beans or black eyed peas, rinsed and drained
1 1/2 cups Fresh corn kernels
1 Red, yellow, or orange bell pepper, finely chopped (1 cup)
½ Small red onion, finely chopped (1/2 cup)
1 2-oz Can diced green chiles with liquid
1/4 cup Chopped cilantro


Preparation

1. Whisk together vinegar, oil, sugar, garlic, oregano, and basil in large bowl.

2. Stir in black and pinto beans, corn, bell pepper, onion, chiles, and cilantro. Season with salt and pepper.

3. Refrigerate 1 hour before serving.

Nutrient Information
Calories 189
Total Fat 7.5 g
Saturated Fat 0.5 g
Carbohydrates 25 g
Protein 6 g
Sodium 433 mg
Fiber 7 g

-Source: Vegetarian Times

Blueberry Sauce

1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
2 TBSP cornstarch
1 TBSP lemon juice
1 pint (16 oz) fresh or frozen blueberries (If frozen, thawed and drained juice reserved)
3 tsp Bourbon, reserved

In saucepan combine sugar, cinnamon, and cornstarch.
Stir in lemon juice and half the reserved juice, blending well.
Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 5 minutes, stirring frequently.
Remove from heat and stir in blueberries and bourbon.

Note: If fresh berries are used, start with sugar, cinnamon, and cornstarch & add 1/2pint berries& 1/2 cup water & proceed with cooking. Add fresh berries at the end. I added more lemon juice too.

Serve warm or cold over ice cream or poundcake.

Lazy Hazy Crazy Days of Summer

We have been having so much fun this summer. Especially over the 4th of July. That is our favorite holiday!

There are several memories and traditions that we have had over the years. Some of my favorites included the sailing trips that my family used to take over the 4th. We usually went somewhere up or down the Chesapeake Bay and stayed on the boat. I miss sleeping on a sailboat and going to sleep hearing the clank clank of the halyard on the mast. I miss the music playing in the cockpit - usually patriotic songs or Nat King Cole with his "Lazy Hazy Crazy Days of Summer."

I am a grown-up, but I still yearn for summer like when I was a kid and had it off from school. We are having difficulty with being out of our schoolyear routine. Next, we need to find some activities that incorporate exercise and adventure. I got a book on children's activities around town and plan to start tomorrow!

To Market, To Market

I checked out some local markets and farms this past Saturday. That was lots of fun. I was disappointed that the market didn't have fruits - because I had to make a fruit salad for a party. But, I was pleased to see all of the different items offered and try some too.

They had activities for kids and some educational stops - DS learned about the different levels of soil and about one of our local rivers.

The farm that we went to had meat and eggs to offer. I purchased beef patties and 2 old-fashioned sodas.

It was a fun way to spend the morning!

One Berry, Two Berry, Pick Me a blueberry!*

Time to pick the blueberries! I feel like I am saying "time to cook the donuts" - like that old commercial.

Anyway, I am excited because it is time to pick the blueberries. This is one of our favorite fruits and oh so yummy! A friend of mine had them growing in his parent's yard and so I asked his mother for some of their favorite recipes. She shared and I am so honored. They are great and treasured as some of their family recipes.

I am such a TYPE A when it comes to certain things. I keep lists and lists of certain things like books I have read or want to read. And recipes. I have several binders of recipes. Recipes I have tried. Family favorite recipes. And seasonal recipes. So for "Pick-Your-Own" fruit, I have a separate list of recipes for the different fruits. We usually pick strawberries, blueberries, blackberries and apples every year. I can't wait to look at my blueberry recipes and plan what to make.


*from the book "Jamberry" - one of my favorites.

Summer Summer Summer!

I love summer because it makes me feel like a kid again. I get excited when school is over for the little one. I have all of these great ideas and plans for fun family activities around town. And then it only takes a bout a week to realize that summer is hard. . .harder than the school year to keep the DS entertained. Ugh!

We want relaxation time, but not too much sitting around doing nothing (i.e. watching tv). We want outdoor time, but not too much sun. More juggling and less structure. More temper tantrums (2 out of 3 in my household), less to bed on-time.

We love the summer holidays - Memorial Day, July 4th, Labor Day. We look forward to Memorial Day as the weekend that the pools open around here. July 4th is our favorite holiday. But as DH says, once it gets here you know that summer is almost halfway over. groan.

Well, off to enjoy another summer day!