The Sunday Salon: Jan 26

The Sunday Salon was originally started in 2008, but over the years has grown too large to accept new members. They are now a facebook group and open to all. Imagine some university library's vast reading room. It's filled with people--students and faculty and strangers who've wandered in. They're seated at great oaken desks, books piled all around them, and they're all feverishly reading and jotting notes in their leather-bound journals as they go. Later they'll mill around the open dictionaries and compare their thoughts on the afternoon's literary intake....

Past Week - Personal Stuff

New Discovery: Last Saturday I discovered a darling little cafe up the road from my house, called the Giveahoot cafe. It's small, and the outdoor window sign just says cafe, but I love it. They have murals on the freaking walls. Even the bathroom entrance is a tiki hut painted. They have excellent, unique sandwiches with new sauces for each - for a nice change, they don't slather on the sauce to cover a bland taste of food. They're sweet, they play OLDIES constantly in the background, it's excellent. Went again today and sat outside on the mini table, eating ridiculously large cheese quesadillas with sour cream and fresh chives sprinkled on, and a Ham & Swiss Panini bliss. Heavenly!

Friend Outings: Went to my friends Susan's last night. It's been way too long. We went to eat at Beef O'Bradys and I had the mushroom swiss burger with a delicious alcohol Strawberry Lemonade. We followed this by two movies - the horrible, horrible Bell Witch Haunting, followed by another I found dreaful 'The Ledge.'

Personal Achievements: Since converting to a mid-line E-Cig vaporizer, I am now cigarette free for one month. After almost 18 years of smoking, this is epic. Still clearing out the body from the nasty things, but feel so much better. I also am starting the work walk-the-states walkathon January 27th. Received my free pedometer on Thursday. It counts your steps for the day, 27 days, to add up to 10,000 steps a day. Each state covers 5,000 steps - the goal is to complete all states in this time. Let's hope I can lose weight this month, have certainly gained!