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It is my very good fortune that Tara, my BFF, loves to cook and entertain. Often on Monday nights after dinner she hosts "Dessert Night" at her house. We, the lucky friends, know that whatever Tara has decided to make will be spectacular. Not only will it be spectacular, it will look spectacular on our plates.
I finally got the grand idea to document one of her desserts so I took my camera along to snap some pics. Tara seemed truly flattered. The rest of the crowd (OK, just my husband) was slightly embarrassed when I insisted on taking pictures of the individual plates around the table. I didn't care. I was on a mission. So here, I present Tara's Blueberry Peach Pie. Feast your eyes. Imagine the goodness. Yes, it was...spectacular.

Hi. My name is Leslie. I'm a reader. These are the books I've read so far in 2008:
- Peace Like a River by Leif Enger
- Gentlemen of the Road: A Tale of Adventure by Michael Chabon
- Between the Bridge and the River by Craig Ferguson
- Hey Nostradamus! by Douglas Coupland
- A Star Called Henry by Roddy Doyle
- A Fortunate Life by A.B. Facey
- The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje
- The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
- The Innocent by Ian McEwan
- One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
- A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah
- If I Told You Once by Judy Budnitz
- Shampoo Planet by Douglas Coupland
- A Boy of Good Breeding by Miriam Toews
- Womenfolks: Growing Up Down South by Shirley Abbott
- Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture by Douglas Coupland
- Gilead: A Novel by Marilynne Robinson
- A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare: 1599 by James Shapiro
- A Summons to Memphis by Peter Taylor
- The Deal by Dwayne Smither
- The Way the Crow Flies: A Novel by Ann-Marie MacDonald
- Cancer Ward by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
This post is for my friend, AJ. She was appalled that I didn't get any vacation pics of myself so I photoshopped one just for her. That means I didn't really stand by this Indian and take a picture.
The sad thing is, someday I will look at this and fondly remember standing by this Indian and taking a picture.
Several days ago I tried to post these vacation photos along with witty captions and after 45 minutes of work, I ended up with a bunch of error codes and no post. I'm uploading them again but I'm just not feeling the wit at this moment.
Let me just say that we have a dear friend, Howard, who has a cabin outside of Taos, NM and he lets us use it whenever we want. And well, we've "wanted" to pretty much every year since 1992 so it feels like a home away from home.
Some notes:1) The landscape photo with the bridge is a view from the back deck. Carson National Forest is on the other side of that fence.
2) Howard has toys at the cabin: mini-bike, four-wheeler, hot tub, satellite TV.
3) He also has mom toys (dishwasher, microwave, washer and dryer) but I didn't take photos of those. It's a log cabin but we don't exactly rough it.
4) There was a brown bear hanging out in the neighborhood all week but we didn't get a photo of him.
5) An analogy: Cambryn : creek as other kids : Disneyworld.









This would be the room formerly known as the piano room. My dear husband decided to help me decorate. What do you think...does he have talent?
Another update on Collin...he spent the past week at the Edmond Santa Fe High School basketball camp. His team went undefeated the whole week and at the awards ceremony yesterday Collin won two awards: 2nd place for Best Dribbling and All-Star Team (one of five players chosen). We're very proud. Yea Collin!
This morning Collin and my husband left for a father/son trip to Arlington with Collin's baseball team. Today they're all eating lunch at Joe T. Garcia's in Ft. Worth, swimming at the hotel pool, then attending the Rangers game. Tomorrow they've rented out the Rangers Youth Ballpark and will be playing there several hours against a local rival team.
Meanwhile, Cambryn says she and I are having a Girl Power weekend. "Girls Rule, Boys Drool!"
Collin has reached a new milestone in his tween development: he now will not allow me to put sunscreen on him in public. Apparently it's the kiss of death for a ten-year old to be seen with his mom rubbing him down with lotion. Instead, my job is to watch him put it on himself and carefully monitor the level of absorption. This is our new routine:
Step 1. He applies, rubs, then asks, "Is it all rubbed in? Can you still see it?"
Step 2. We repeat Step 1 a thousand million times until his skin is covered and there aren't any white splotches.
It would be so much faster and easier for me to rub it in. I'd hate to stunt his development, though.
Since my one devoted reader is begging for an update, specifically about the book I'm reading, I will oblige. Although tempted to simply give the name of the book and its author, I will include my own brief book review. I'm quite sure my reader will hasten to the nearest bookstore and buy the book so that we might engage in lengthy discussions of its contents. Or maybe he'll just be bored out of his skull by this blog post and quit asking for more.
The book is A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare: 1599 by James Shapiro.
This is a detailed study of the significant political and cultural events of 1599 that would have influenced Shakespeare's writing. It was during that year that he wrote Henry V, Julius Caesar, As You Like It, and Hamlet, and erected the Globe theater. I recommend it to all readers interested in Shakespeare, Queen Elizabeth I, and British military history. Although it sometimes reads like a textbook, it is well-written and interesting.
.....................................
If you're not interested in the book maybe you'll at least be interested in some of the places I've been reading it.
- on my bed
- on Collin's bed
- on Cambryn's bed
- in the bathtub
- on the couch in the family room
- on the couch in the study
- in the car during softball practice
- in the car before baseball games
- in the car between basketball games
- in the carpool line at school
- at my parents' house
- at the pool
- on my patio
- on our trampoline
I have absolutely no idea how to make this post any more interesting, so there you have it.