Book #7

Book #7 was Kate Elliott's In the Ruins.  I am enjoying the series, but am uncertain how the author is going to manage to wrap up the story in one more book.  Also, Hugh is just a despicable bad guy.  The existence of his character actively decreases my enjoyment of the books.  I know the bad guy has a role to play in most books, but I really want Hugh to fall off a cliff.  I don't even find him to be an interesting bad character - just evil.

Baked Brie and the Last of the Curtains

I love baked brie.  But I have a secret - I hate the rind on brie.  I can't make myself eat it.  When I order baked brie at a restaurant, I am careful to eat around the rind.  A few months ago, I tried making baked brie at home.  I carefully cut off the rind, arranged the gooey cheesy insides on sheets of puff pastry, and added dried fruit and honey.  It was a disaster.  A tasty disaster, but a disaster nonetheless.  The gooey goodness that is melted brie melted right out of the puff pastry layers I had tried to trap it in.  I did some looking on Google, sure that someone else must hate the rind as much as I do, but the internet consensus seemed to be that I would have to get over my dislike of the rind.  No way.  I had to try again.  This time, rather than making mini squares, I kept the puff pastry sheet whole, intending on wrapping the edges up around the cheese, leaving no room for it to escape.  I scooped the cheese out of the icky rind,  and added some chopped dried cherries and honey.

I wrapped it all up, and put it in the oven, hoping for the best!

20 or so minutes later, and success!  All of the gooey melty goodness that is baked brie, and it all stayed in the puff pastry.  It is possible to make a baked brie without the rind.

I finished the fat little rabbit's curtains several weeks ago, but did not have any rings to hang them up.  I finally remembered I needed them while I was at Target.  Her other nickname is "bug-bug" so I thought the print was appropriate.  And yes, I know they need to be ironed.  

Six point something miles and book #6

My husband and I had Monday off of work, but school was still in session, so we enjoyed a nice adults only day!  My husband suggested we take our long run together, as we were visiting relatives over the weekend and had not had a chance to run.  He promised to stay in the same general area as me, but he runs a good 2-3 minutes per mile faster than me!  I lost him soon after we entered the park.  I was running faster than I usually do though!  I usually start at around a 10 minute mile, but by mile 2, am inching closer to the 11 minute mile pace.  Monday I was still at a sub 10 minute mile through three or so miles.  My husband had lapped me, and started running next to me for a few minutes.  Suddenly it felt like the earth tilted under me, and my vision was swimming.  I stopped to walk until it cleared.  I think I just hadn't had enough to drink all weekend (Houston tap water sucks).  We also had plans to go for Mexican or barbeque after our run, and I skipped breakfast to save room!  Bad idea, I guess.  Anyway, I walked for a hundred yards or so, then started running again, albeit much more slowly!  I think I terrified my husband though, as he stuck with me for the next three miles.  We were back in the main part of the park by then, and I stopped to use the restrooms.  I sent my husband on to finish his run, and started a run/walk rotation around one of the smaller ponds until he was done.  I got in around 2 miles.  So not the ten I had planned, but better than nothing!

We went to Houston to visit my grandmother-in-law.  She thought our boys might enjoy the Houston Children's Museum, and she was right!  When we lived in Boston, our boys had a membership to the children's museum, and we went fairly often. We haven't really found a good replacement in Dallas yet.  The Houston museum was awesome!  It had one of the multi-story climbing platforms, which I know our oldest son had missed from Boston.  The rules said you had to be at least five years old to climb though, so our youngest boy could not climb (although there were plenty of people blatantly ignoring the rule).  There was also a really awesome room called the Invention Convention.  There were stations for kids to make rockets, lego cars, and wind sails.  I loved watching the kids' imaginations at work.

I finished Catching Fire on our trip, and bought Mockingjay when we went grocery shopping Monday.  I finished it during my lunch break today.  I am very glad I read the series.  I felt the ending was a bit rushed, and though the resolution of the Gale vs. Peeta situation could have been fleshed out a bit more.  Overall, a very enjoyable series though.  I am looking forward to the movie next month.

2012 Book Challenge #5

Unsurprisingly, book 5 is Catching Fire, the second book in the Hunger Games trilogy.  I picked it up at Target last night, then stayed up entirely too late reading last night.  I finished it this morning during a road trip to visit family.  I should have picked up the last book in the series while I was at the store -- now I have an extra errand to add to my list for tomorrow.

2012 Book Challenge #4

Book 4 was a very quick read, and much more enjoyable than I anticipated.  I received The Hunger Games from my sister in law this Christmas.  I put it on the shelf, thinking maybe I would read it after I finished a bunch of other things on my list.  I grabbed it to take on a work trip a couple of weeks ago, because it was the only book in the immediate vicinity that would fit in my carry-on.  I never started it on that trip, as I was still finishing The Gathering Storm.  I had become intrigued, however, by the movie trailer, and bumped The Hunger Games up on my to-read list.

I started it this past weekend, and was soon hooked.  I brought the book to work with me today, and finished it during my lunch break.  I'm going to Target tonight to get the next two in the series.  I wish some of the characters had been a bit more fleshed out (e.g. Cinna, other stylists).  I'm also not convinced of the ability to have a new arena for every game, especially if each game is held in the vicinity of the capital.  The sheer size alone makes that a bit absurd.  So Katniss spends most of the first day running.  Assuming the tributes were released near the center of the arena, and she ran more or less in the same direction, she has to have gone at least 10 miles.  I am a slow runner, and can do 9 miles in under 2 hours.  Someone having all day to run, even with rougher terrain, should certainly be able to cover 10 miles.  So let's further assume that she made it to near the edge of the arena, although I recall nothing in the book that would indicate that was the case.  If the arena is a rough circle, and the radius is 10 miles, that puts the area of the arena at just over 300 square miles.  If all of the arenas are the same size, and all were maintained as tourist destinations, after 74 games, the arenas themselves would take a land mass about 1/4 the size of Colorado.

I don't mind suspending disbelief for magic in fantasy novels, or advanced technology for books like this, but the logistics should still make sense, darn it!

Raising Money and Hurting Feelings

My older son's school sent home a flyer a few weeks ago about a Valentine's Day fundraiser.  For $1, a friendship bracelet could be sent to any student at the school.  My heart sunk.  I had sort of hoped that these fundraisers had gone the way of the dodo bird.  I mean, what better way to raise money than to show elementary school kids, in a very direct visual way, who the popular kids are?  What could possibly go wrong with that?

Another mom I know once bought each and every child in her child's class one of the tokens (a rubber duck in that case), so that no child had to be the one who didn't get a single one.  We contemplated doing the same for our son's class, but in the end, decided that making the fundraiser a success probably wasn't the best way to combat it.

But then we wimped out.  We made sure one would be sent to our kid, but we also let him pick a few friends to send a bracelet to.  He chose five friends - 3 in his class, and 2 in another kindergarten class.  So we did contribute to this awful fundraiser.  And today, when my son received only the one bracelet that we sent to him, his feelings were hurt.  And I feel like a bad mom.  I wasn't brave enough to speak out to the school about what a bad idea I thought this was, and I wasn't even willing to not participate in it.  Do I complain now?  Would it matter?  Or do I just refuse to participate in the future?  When this comes up again next year, do I pay the silly $1 so my son receives at least one? Or stand firm that this is a terrible way to raise money?

9 miles

It was 40 degrees when I went for my run today.  I know in most of the country, that it a just fine temperature for the middle of February, but I moved to Texas to get away from the cold!  I couldn't find any long running pants either.  I did find a long sleeve t-shirt.  My top was cold through mile 2, hands through mile 3, and my legs were cold the whole time.

I didn't realize before I left how many streets in our city that are not in residential areas don't have sidewalks.  A good 2/3 of my run today was done on the road, jogging over to the side when cars were coming.  Not so fun.  I ran down to one of the housing developments with a totally pretentious name, and price tags to go along, and was not very impressed.  The houses were way too close together, and there was too much variation in the styles - it was really jarring.  There were English country estate homes next to red tile Spanish haciendas.  Not for me.

I had to make a pit stop around mile 7 - was very glad there was a CVS nearby, with an open restroom!