A must read!

As most of you know, I’m a voracious reader. I love to read every spare chance I get. I usually go through a couple of novels a week (at least 5 when on vacation.) I have a whole list of favorite authors. An author I just discovered, Peggy Chrusciaki, has just jumped to the very top of my list! And what’s more, she’s the mother of a friend and I have had many personal email exchanges with her.
When I sat down to eat my lunch a few minutes ago, an incredible feeling of sadness and let-down washed over me because last night I finished her book, which is probably the best book I have ever read. (It was actually two books because there was a “part one” and a “part two.”) I was sad and let down not because I didn’t enjoy the books, but because they were over and today I didn’t have more of the story to look forward to!
It was one of those “catch 22 situations,” where I couldn’t put the book down because I just had to see what happened, but I also didn’t want to finish it because I knew how disappointing it would be when it was over and I didn’t have any left of it to read.
If you enjoy family sagas and stories about real people, you MUST read these two books. You will love some of the characters, you will hate others. You will relate their lives to yours. You will feel protective over some of them, you will feel like crying for them, and you will feel like laughing over some of the things they say and do. You will want to be part of their family and you will be glad that you’re not. Just when you think that there is no way one of the characters could possibly hurt or betray his family any more than he already has, he goes and does it again. But as angry and frustrated as you may get during the stories (and these books are long so you have lots to read – nothing worse than a short book in my opinion!), I guarantee that you’ll feel good at the end and that’s all I’ll tell you. If you want something wonderful to read this spring and summer, get these books – you deserve to relax and I can’t think of a better way!
Here’s how you can contact the author about buying them directly from her, even though the books are available in bookstores. www.simonsays1and2.com, www.peggypoet.blogspot.com

p.s. maybe we can all encourage her to get her fingers moving on that keyboard and write a Simon Says Book 3 – there’s still more of the story to be told!!!!!!!!!!

Odds and Ends

The bullet point format worked well last time, so I think I'll keep that for now.

-Please check our Bar Mitzvah blog at www.harrisonsbarmitzvah.blogspot.com. There is an important letter from Harrison on there regarding his Mitzvah project and he would love and appreciate your support to reach his goals and help an underprivileged child.
-Hilarious comment of the week: at dinner last night I was telling everyone about how I dropped Harrison off at the family resource center where he tutors kids with their reading (part of his Mitzvah project), raced to the Dollar Tree to buy a few more items I need for the centerpieces, and then raced back to get him. Jacob looked at me with a straight face and said "see, mom, money DOES grow on trees!" I'm constantly telling the kids "money doesn't grow on trees, guys" when i feel like they're over-spending. We cracked up! Almost as funny as the time when Michela was about 3 or 4 and was wearing this beautiful dress to Marlon's sister's wedding and someone asked her where her mom bought it and she said "the 99 cent store - it's her favorite store!"
-I'm slowly but surely getting things done. My work project is going well, although it's very time consuming. Little by little, I'm able to cross things accomplished off the Bar Mitzvah task list and boy do i draw lines through those tasks with flourish. It's coming together and we're actually having a lot of fun doing everything, it's just that everything takes longer than I expect. For example, Harrison and I spent about 4 hours listening to songs on itunes to pick the ones for his photo montage. We were cracking up at some of the crazy songs we found, but we found great ones that have perfect lyrics and nice tunes. And something simple like ordering yalmulkes-- i thought that would take 15 minutes. Well, after I looked on-line, found three places that looked good, called them all, compared their products and prices, figured out what we wanted on the imprints, finalized the colors, called back with more questions, then agonized over how many to order, i finally placed the order 1 1/2 hours later!
-Weight loss continues to go well. I've now lost 115 pounds and am just about ready to continue my transition on to maintenance, where i will hopefully slowly continue to lose the last 40 or so.
-That's about all that's going on. Our life is pretty much about Bar Mitzvah stuff, this work project, exercising and just regular activities.
-Don't forget to check the bar mitzvah blog!

Long Overdue Update

I'm so sorry that it's been so long since I've updated this blog. I know what you're thinking -- what happened to the twice a week plan?

Just totally and completely overwhelmed by everything that has to get done, so haven't had much time to update.

I'll do this update in bullet point format since there's a lot to cover:

-Weight loss continues to go well. I'm still averaging about 2-3 pounds a week, even though I'm on healthy solutions now instead of the very low calorie diet. I'm no longer under the dr's supervision. I have 3 shakes or cereals, 2 entrees and at least 5 fruits and vegetables each day. So basically i'm eating normally. Still exercising as much as i can, but we've been busier than usual, so that takes a toll on that.
-Harrison's big southern california soccer tournament FINALLY took place last weekend. It was hectic because Jacob and Michela had a lot of stuff too, so they stayed with my mom for the weekend, which worked out well and she and they enjoyed it, but lining up different people to pick them up and drop them off for all of their stuff was incredibly difficult. And we couldn't stay overnight anyway because it was the bar mitzvah party of a good friend, but it worked well.
-It's good that it was an honor to get to go, because it was demoralizing there! They went into it being undefeated. In the tournament they lost 5-0, 5-1 and then 12-1. pretty brutal.
-Jacob and Michela both made the talent show and are having fun at the practices.
-Harrison made the middle school musical but didn't get the part that he wanted the most (Gaston.) He got a good part (Maurice, the dad, plus some "extra roles,") but was disappointed at first. He's over it now
-Softball and baseball both started and are going well
-Marlon was in DC and had a good trip
-I have a huge work project, which is good, but it's due April 10th, which is bad. can you believe it? what were the odds? the day before the Bar Mitzvah! But i'm working on both night and day and telling marlon that he needs to help pick up the slack with regular household stuff. like today he spent the whole day with michela at her opening day for softball while harrison and i did bar mitzvah stuff before his baseball game.
-bar mitzvah planning is going well, there's just so much left to do and i can't believe it's in 5 short weeks. for an update on that, if you're interested, check out the bar mitzvah blog at www.harrisonsbarmitzvah.blogspot.com. I'm actually way more creative and artistic than I thought and am having fun designing table centerpieces, name cards, etc.

Ok, times up. It's almost 11 p.m. but it's daylight savings time tonight, so it's really almost midnight. I have about 10 more small bar mitzvah tasks to do and then i need to go to sleep!