Women's Book Club

I’d like to invite you to join a new book club that I’m putting together.  I’ve read three AMAZING books recently about being a mother, a wife and a women.  I loved them soooo much that I really want to talk about them  and share them with wonderful women just like you.  I’d guess that you are going through all of the same fun stuff in life, such as “Why is being a mom and a wife so hard???” (did I say hard?  I meant to say so wonderful J) 

What: A wonderful new women’s group to review great books

When: Every other Tuesday night at 7pm (starting) January 29, 2013

Where: My office- it will be quiet and kid and husband free

Why: Because being a women is hard, challenging, wonderful, rewarding, and trying all at the same time and I think we need to talk about it J

 

RSVP: hmosgood@gmail.com

The Plan: If you’d like to join the group, we’d love to have you.  Please let me know if you are interested.  I’m going to put together a book schedule/ reading plan (don’t worry, the books are short and easy, but great reads and we’ll divide them up into manageable pieces so we won’t be reading an entire book a month)

Here are the books we’ll be reading:

Be the Mom by Tracey Lanter Eyster 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For Women Only by Shaunti Feldhahn

 

 

The Life Ready Woman by Shaunti Feldhahn and Robert Lewis

 

Progressive Dinner Date

One of my big goals for 2012 is to spend more time with husband. When you have three children, two under the age of three it is hard to get time alone. It is so nice to be reminded why you love the person you are with and when you don't get any time alone it can be challenging. When you're married there are so many "business" issues to attend too. The "business" of running a family is a lot of work. I'd like to be able to go on one date (or two if we're lucky) once a month. We are suppose to be rotating the planning of our date nights, I plan one, he plans one. I planned the first date of the New Year. We love to go out to eat, but once that's done then what? So I thought it would be fun to plan a progressive dinner date night. For each location I had a little conversation piece. The first location was Japanese. I loved the ceiling.

We had a great two person Asian Miso Soup. It was full of mushrooms. Very tasty. We'd ordered scallop skewers and I was very much looking forward to them. While we waited for the skewers we had Sapporo Beer which is always good. We were so disappointed when the waiter came to our table about twenty minutes after we'd ordered the skewers and let us know that they were out of scallops. Why we needed that twenty minute waiting period to determine this I'm not sure, but we ended up ordering the chicken. They were okay. They were chicken. I'm not sure how good chicken can get. After that dish we were on to our next stop.

We're fortunate to live near a very cute downtown area. We love to go and explore the downtown. It has grown and changed so much in the past ten years. On one of the side streets there is the cutest little bistro restaurant. It is literally 20' x 30' and seats four or five two person tables. What is most attractive about the restaurant is the ambiance. The dim lighting, the multitude of candles, the jazzy music and the food is excellent. They have an extensive wine list as well. We were able to walk in and grab a seat at their tiny bar. The menus are printed pages that have been glued into the pages of a reading book. Very creative. A little strange at first, but fun. We chose a wine. A nice Tempranillo from Spain.

As we sat within arms reach of the chef we noticed that she was not quit well. As she hacked and hacked our appetites weakened and weakened. I asked husband in a hushed voice if he wanted to eat what she was cooking and we both agreed we'd pass. We were so disappointed, because the food is so good, but not worth getting sick. We drank our wine and enjoyed the atmosphere before ducking out and moving on to the next stop.

So we went from high end trendy bistro to well, a bar. Husband and I have a favorite pub downtown and it is hard to pass up. We decided our main dish for the evening would be loaded nachos. They are wonderful. I opted for a glass of my favorite Zinfandel. It's called Seven Deadly Zins and I love it. About half way through the nachos I really regretted not getting a beer. Really nachos and beer go so well. My head was back in the swanky bistro when I ordered the wine. We enjoyed the nachos and just as the bar started to fill up with college students from the local university we headed to the next stop in our night of restaurant hopping.

I really wanted cheesecake. I'd planned to go to a California Fusion restaurant for dessert, but by the time dessert rolled around it was about 10:30pm and the restaurants were all closed. So we opted for a new local quirky cafe. This is by far the best downtown coffee house, if you could call it that. It is the only establishment that serves coffee, beer, wine and food. The owners filled the cafe with images of authors, play writes and the like. They purchased all the furniture second hand and the ceiling is covered with lamps hung upside down. That night they had a band and the bulk of the crowd was perched in front of the music. We slipped in and grabbed a table and a couple cups of coffee. For some reason I ordered a cappuccino. I never order cappuccino I order lattes. I guess I'd had one too many glasses of wine. It was tasty and the leaf pattern was wonderful.

When the coffee and conversation were consumded we headed back to the car and back to the real life of too many kids and too may cries.

We had a really fun evening. If you are looking for a good date night try it. I got the idea from a book. It recommended that you take your spouse on a fast food progressive dinner. That sounded fun, but I thought we'd prefer restaurant dining to fast food.

It was a great date.

I Love Paper Towels

I had a friend recently tell me that she was going to go paperless at her house (with the exception of toilet paper I'm guess. Oh, heavens I hope so!). And I thought I should do that too. According to the web average American households use about 226 pounds of paper a month! Yikes, so we should go paperless, right... well I tried for an afternoon. I really did, and then I realized that a friend of mine had borrowed all of my cloth napkins for her paper free wedding and I hadn't gotten any of them back. So for that afternoon we used rags.

Husband likes to make fun of my rag box. I wash, dry and fold my rags. Doesn't everyone? Apparently not Husband. He thinks that your rags should reside in a fowl box in the garage and they should never be washed. I should also mention that he thinks you should put the entire, in tacked holey t-shirt in the rag box. Wrong. How in the world can you use an entire t-shirt to clean with, or use as a napkin for that matter?

Our paper towel free afternoon consisted of the use of my entire rag box and then I thought I'm over this. Where are the paper towels? My sister doesn't buy paper towels. She hasn't ever, with any regularity. Think about how many trees she's saved. Hundreds, thousands...but we are tree killers. I just can't break up with my paper towels. They are wonderful. They hang on the wall between my cabinets so accessible and absorbent. When we have a spill, which happens daily, well really many times a day the paper towels are right there. Ready and willing to clean up any mess no mater how big. For some reason I don't think my 3 year should still drink from a sippy cup. She's three. She can hold a normal cup and she can drink from a normal cup. She just has a hard time doing them at the same time. Sooner or later one wins out and most of the time it is the hold that gives out. Thus spill after, spill after spill. Hey, she's learn. How else do you learn?

You know that the paper towel is clean so you don't have to worry about the cross contamination of those killer raw chicken juices. The best part? You can throw them away when you're done. When you have something that is absolutely awful that you have to clean up you can throw the whole mess away. When making a sandwich you can use the paper towel has a prep station and then use it as a sandwich holder and saves dirtying any dishes. I love paper towels. I can do without napkins (because you can just use a paper towel). I can do without paper plates (because you can just use a paper towel- most of the time). I can do without paper cups because who wants to use them anyways, but I can't do without paper towels.

About six months ago a Target opened about twenty minutes from my house. The other day I went and bought the biggest package of paper towels that I've ever purchased. It was only $5.99 for six rolls. And the paper towels are strong and absorbent! Yeah! Do you have any idea how long six rolls of paper towels will last? About six weeks. I'm so happy. I am sad that we are using so much paper, and that we are causing so many trees to be cut down. I want to be strong, I want to be paperless. Why am I so weak? Why can't I do without my paper towels? Why oh why? Perhaps I should make a deal with God. As soon as my kids are out of the house I'll stop using paper towels. Will that make it any better?...I know, maybe we should plant a tree of two a year to compensate. I think I have a healthy addiction to paper towels it just feels right.

2012 Goals

My goals for the year are similar to what they have been for the last couple of years:
Pay off debt, spend more time with husband, kids and Christ. However, this year is going to be the year (I can feel it) that I'm going to loose weight. I'm so ready to be thin. I'm not over weight much now. I'm at the top of my normal weight range for my height. However, I want to be thin. I've never really been thin and I want to be while I can still wear short skirts and look youngish. I started my 1200 calorie a day diet on Monday and I was at 159lbs. When I weighed myself yesterday, Wednesday I was at 153lbs. WOW. Who knew that eating very little everyday would make you loose weight? I also drank about 60oz of water a day and have been doing spin daily. The question is how long can I keep this up. When I'm at work not eating really isn't that hard, I'm working, but when I'm at home trying to relax with the kids it is a bit harder. Couldn't everyone use a nice cup of creamy coffee and a donut or two everyday? Add a few chocolately treats, a couple of glasses of wine and a few sliced of smoked Gouda and you have a perfect day and a fat ass and a stomach that sticks out further than your boobs.

I have a four month old baby so I'm allowed a little extra fat around the middle. Before I got pregnant though I had a couple of bad experiences. What exactly do you say when someone says, I didn't know you were pregnant again and you aren't!!! The best response is to run straight home, burn the clothing you are wearing because certainly it is your outfit and NOT your body showing off your ever so roundness round the middle. Hide in your room with a bottle of wine and the next day you'll feel good as new.

So really my goal for this year is to not have people think I'm pregnant when I'm not. I can do that, right? How hard could eating very little really be?

Here's to eating light and drinking water! What a party :)