The Sunday Salon and Weekly Recap

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.

What's Going On This Week...

I love summer and spending all this extra time with my son, Gage. I took half days off of work for mini vacations for three of the days, much needed, and plan to take a few half days off next week. Lucky to get Friday off for the fourth too, so next week is lining up to be a good one - except that dreadful Monday where I have to work a full day (bleh). Let's just hope it goes fast.

Wednesday night Gage and I went to see Jurassic World at the Cobb Theatre. It turned out to be a fun night and we felt delight with the story. It turned out to be my favorite Jurassic Park movie. I need to see the originals again and refresh my memory. The effects were great, the story interesting enough for this kind of story, and it was a good throwback to the original with the ending.

On Friday my mother, Gage and I went to Tarpon Springs, Florida to look at the sponge docks, some stores, and eat at a Greek Restaurant on the dock. The store was great, bought a few small sponges, a honey soap, and a beautiful vase I still need to take a proper picture of. It will go perfect when I get my new bookshelves finished.

The restaurant food was excellent. I had the gyro, my mother had a surprise meal from the server (we're not sure on the name - it was eggplant, beef, a custard type topping, grape leaves, mushrooms, delicious) with greek potatoes, and my son had the Greek style grouper sandwich with Feta cheese. All was delicious. It was followed by this wine that is out of this world. I'm not a red wine fan, or wine fan much in general, but this wine was so good we're seeking out a bottle to buy for each of us. The server showed us a bar that sold it but they were closed, so we'll have to hunt it down. I'm surprised how cheap it is when googling it, the taste is sweet but not sappy, no vinegary touch (I detest that usually) and not dry at all. - Mavrodaphne of Patras Sweet Red Wine Kourtaki. Try it if you get the chance.

Gage's head peeking through outside The Sponge Factory

We then followed this up to a Greek Deli that had the most beautiful desserts. I told myself pre-trip I'd buy Baklava, so picked up a few pieces. Gage chose a slice of Chocolate Cheesecake with a strawberry on top. Beautiful place and better looking than any desserts around here!

We then drove to Clearwater beach to spend a couple of night hours on the beach. Too dark to do much other than mess around and run along the shoreline for a few hours. It's definitely a nightlife town, it was full and took over twenty minutes to find somewhere to park. We ended up having to change at a Walgreens that was unreal - two stories, with an elevator and escalator. The McDonalds (we didn't go there...) was converted into a neat beach shack. The water was warm and gorgeous. We played in the sand and water for hours, ran up the small sand dunes, bought some blue throwing lights for Gage to toss in the air (kept losing the band though....) and got ice cream nearby the beach.

I received my replaced MP3 player in the mail. My Sansa zip clip broke a few weeks ago, and I can't go long without it. I got a great deal on some wicker patio furniture. Wicker is yuck, I know, but it's in perfect shape and my large porch needed new furniture in the worst way.

It's been an excellent week with a lot of fun times and trips. Not the ordinary for me.

What I'm Watching

Besides watching Jurassic World at the theatre Wednesday night, we watched the horror movie Badadook this morning on Netflix. Psychologically strange. Also have been watching the older TV show Coach on in the background as I do things this week. I'm not a football fan but always found Craig T. Nelson hilarious.

What I'm Making

Last week talked about being ridiculously busy moving two rooms around and having to renovate. This week has been calmer. My living room is clear of bedroom furniture. The dining room has a lot of books in it while we wait for the Urban Fantasy/Paranormal R/Fantasy bookshelf to make it into the living room and finish adding on to it.

Temporarily some books on the table...They're not this yellow, it was a crappy cell phone camera. Otherwise, aren't they a delight?

The central bookshelf that will be on the wall to wall is done except for trimming. The boards were bought, screwed together, and the new TV has been put in the center and mounted on the wall to avoid my deranged cat. Now we have to build the bottom cabinets and apply the dark wood stain. It's coming together but still a lot to do.

We still have to make the shelves on the side of it, which will be larger. They will need stained as well. I have figured to have two shelves on each side wall to have two larger spaced for hardcovers and trade paperbacks, while the six remaining shelves on each side will be measured to fit the standard mass market paperback. Will be so happy when it's all finally done!

What I've Read This Week

As with every summer, my reading has slowed down. That's not to say that I'm not buried in books right now - have several received from publishers that I need to read/review, friend loaned me some, my friend sent me tons of comics to read (I mean, tons...), and I'm participating in at least one group read right now. Too many books and too little time.

Jaws 2 was an average book I finished earlier this week. It's the first cross-off for the summer reading challenge I joined last week. Finished the short 'The Sun Also Rises', which was a disappointment. Slawter is a quick read, book three of the Demonata series.

Currently Reading

I have progress farther into Middlesex and now am enjoying it more (thankfully.) Still several hundred pages to go. Still at the beginning of Bending Steel. About to start Trouble is a Friend of Mine as part of the Penguin first to read ARC program.

I'm annoyed because I was approved for a Netgalley title, Great Cake Decorating: Sweet Designs for Cakes & Cupcakes (Goodreads link), but they use Adobe Digital Editions, which is NOT working for this book. It will not work on my computer or kindle. I even tried uninstalling and reinstalling the program. I have downloaded the book several times. It keeps doing an activation error, even though it opens other digital edition books. It should have been an easy read and review, but now I had to e-mail Netgalley support and state something is wrong with the DRM of their book.

Next Up

Yes, I'm finally going to be starting A Game of Thrones. I've meant to all year and now am in the mood. Keep seeing the boxed set sitting there as I'm organizing and moving books around.

The Camelot Shadow was written by a Goodreads friend and the book looks excellent - also great reviews, so hoping I'll enjoy it.

I have never gotten around to finish the Jill Kismet series - only one small book to go.

Pet Semetary is for my Stephen King reading challenge, but also I always wanted to re-read it so I can give it a proper review.

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