Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Back to Reality

If you have the opportunity to spend 3 to 4 days somewhere warm and beautiful all by yourself, I highly recommend it. OK, I wasn't exactly by myself. I was with my mom and dad, which was GREAT! I was by myself in the sense that I did not have cute kids and a husband hogging all my parent's attention. It was all me!

My little trip to St. George turned out to be such a great idea, my brother Jason has planned his own "one on two" visit with mom and dad for late October. (Copy cat!)

The general passenger grumbling on the airplane leaving Las Vegas and heading for Portland was centered on the climate change we would all have to endure upon our arrival. 80 degrees in Las Vegas and low 50's when we landed in Portland with hail on the way home.

I, however, wasn't one of the grumblers. I was a reader! (I know...shocking isn't it.) I started "Airman" by Eoin Colfer in the airport at 3:30 and didn't stop reading until the "fasten seat belt" light went OFF in Portland at 8:00. I did a lot of reading over my long and fabulous weekend, but "Airman" stood out as a real gem. I can't stop thinking about it. I almost wish I didn't read it so quickly so I could still be sucked into that world.

While in St. George, I photographed almost all of my mom's quilts as part of a "Jean Atwood" research project I'm working on. Unfortunately all the photos are on my Dad's camera and I didn't get them off before I left. I'm hoping he will send me all of them on CD. (Just kidding mom, there is no research project.)

Back to the books, if you are looking for some fun teenage spy books, Ally Carter's Gallagher Girls series is a good choice. Just two books available right now: "I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You" and "Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy." They kind of reminded me of the boarding school Sydney Bristow might have attended as a kid if she'd been recruited by SD-6 earlier.

The other book I read was "The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks" by E. Lockhart. I thoroughly enjoyed this story that tells of Frankie Landau-Banks, sophomore at an exclusive boarding school, who infiltrates an "old boys" club on campus and secretly plans pranks for them to execute. She also creates new and exciting vocabulary rules, if vocabulary can be considered exciting, which I think it can and should.

One of the drawbacks of my long, relaxing weekend, is I'm having trouble motivating myself to do regular things. Like make dinner. Sigh.

So, I guess I'd better do something about dinner then.

4 comments:

Betty Grace said...

Ya. I'm still waiting for my dad to send me the photos I took on his camera when I was in Malaysia. Hopefully, Steve will do better. Glad you're home safe. How was the house when you arrived?

Afton said...

The house wasn't too bad. It was much better than I was expecting it really. Normally, by Sunday night the house is a disaster even when I'm home, but I could tell that Robert made a big effort to get it cleaned up. Most importantly, he admitted that it was hard to keep everything together.

Anonymous said...

welcome back to iceland..I mean Portland! sounds like you had a great time-and you know what-you deserve it :-) Jillyn

claire said...

I think a Jean Atwood project is a good idea. I would love to see all those quilts.