Tag: family

This Week – Braces Off

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For the first time in 2 1/2 years, Gage’s mouth is metal free! He was very excited until went back 3 days later to pick up his retainer and they told him he had to wear it 22 hours a day for the first week, lol. He’s almost to freedom!

Jason and I went to an Octoberfest last night and had fun even if neither of us drinks beer. We’re doing alphabet dating and I had F. So we went to a Festival in Cuyahoga Falls on Front Street and the first thing we did was hit up the ice cream parlor for a Flight of ice cream. The weather was perfect, the band was good, the Italian restaurant was great, and we even came home with some art.

This week the Friends of the Solon Library had our annual meeting and we brought in an animal shelter and their resident cartoonist. It was a fun night learning about how she’s made a living with her art, she pens the syndicated Flo & Co, and also lends her talent to Rescue Village. Of course I bought the book that benefits the shelter.

What I Finished This Week

Before I Do by Sophie Cousens was another lovely British romance by Cousens. What would happen if there were some bad omens around your wedding weekend, with the final one being the man who you thought of as your soul mate showing up? The story was told by jumping around different times of Audrey’s life where we get to know her and men in her life better. This had all of the things I like about her books, even if it wasn’t a favorite.

I’ve read 93 books this year.

What I’m currently reading

Waking Lions by Ayelet Gundar-Goshen is my fiction pick for Israel and I really like it, but it’s not something I’m racing through. An Isreali doctor hits man with his car and watches him die. The wife of the man tracks him down a has a proposal for her to keep quiet about it. I am really hoping to finish this today.

What We Watched

We made Gage watch two 80s movies this week and he complained. Until he watched them. First watched War Games with Matthew Broderick and Ally Sheedy. Thumbs up from all. Then we watched Coming to America with Eddie Murphy and I hadn’t realized it was rated R until we saw 2 naked ladies in the first five minutes. I was not happy (this was Jason’s pick), but the rest was just swearing, which Gage assures me is no different than what he hears at school. Insert any unhappy emoji here. We all laughed a lot so I guess that’s good.

Plans for the weekend

It’s book sale week! So, today I’ll be checking my lists and getting everything organized. I should really go to the library, BUT I will be there pretty much all day every day for the next week starting tomorrow and a few hours every morning the week after that, so I’m trying to rest up.

What’s going on in your neck of the woods?

I’m linking up with the Sunday Salon.

Sundays with Gage – Christmas in the House That Grandpa Built

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 We headed home this weekend to celebrate Christmas with my Grandma and the family.  My Grandpa was the oldest of 12 and my Grandma the second oldest of 9 and they had 6 kids (and in-laws), 8 (then 10) grandchildren (and 8 in-laws), and with Gage 12 great-grandchildren.  My Grandpa died in 1992, but the rest of the family he and my Grandma made still get together every year in the house that he built.  It’s a favorite time for me because I grew up surrounded by a lot of family and it is a treat for me to travel home and be surrounded by the love of relatives.  As an only child my extended family is important to me and I am thankful for them. 

This year was special because Gage is the first baby in 7 years so he got lots of attention and as you can see by his picture he was worn out by the time we headed back today.  And today marks two months that Gage has graced us with his presence and we are excited to celebrate his first Christmas next week even if the only part of his presents he showed any interest in yesterday was a ribbon (and I’m using interest in very lightly).

Hope this holiday season hasn’t worn you out as much as it has Gage 🙂

700 Sundays, by Billy Crystal

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Cover ImageFinished 8-18-09, rating 4/5, memoir, pub. 2005

Now you can’t pick the family that you’re born into.  That’s just the roll of the dice.  It’s just luck.  But if I could pick these people, I would pick them over and over again because they were lunatics.  Fun lunatics.  What a crazy group of people, and great characters too.  It was like the Star Wars bar, but everybody had accents.

Chapter 2

Actor and comedian Billy Crystals writes a touching memoir of the 700 Sundays that he had with his father before before his death when Billy was 15.  Although this is a tribute to his parents, it is also a celebration of his family.  He has an impressive and accomplished extended family and his love for them is evident on every page. 

His family owned Commodore Music Shop in midtown Manhattan and because of the connections made there Billy grew up surrounded by artists.  He included snapshots of these meetings and relationships.  My favorite may have been when the great Billie Holiday took him to see his first movie and he watched Shane sitting on her lap.  These stories added to the book, but were not the focus. 

One page I was laughing out loud as he discovered his newfound manhood and on the next I was in tears as I read about the last time Billy saw his father.  There was humor (most of it successful), but it really reached out and touched my heart as I raced to the end. 

I will admit that there were several chapters at the beginning that I found boring, but the second half of the book made up for it.  A man who loves and appreciates his family, like Billy, is one to admire.

It is relatively short and includes photos of the people he’s writing about.  He also performed this book on Broadway in a one man show and I wish I’d had the chance to see it.  I highly recommend this memoir of his memories with his father and mother.