A Time to Dance : What's in A Name 2014 and Mega Mix II.

A Time to Dance by Karen Kingsbury
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

 from the book: "They are the perfect couple-envied by their friends, cherished by their children, admired by their peers. But John and Abby Reynolds know they are pretending to be happy. In fact, they're waiting for the right time to tell the kids they're going to divorce. But at the family meeting where they plan toe tell their children, Nicole shares a surprise of her own; she's getting married. How can they spoil her joy with their announcement? They can pretend a little longer - until after the wedding. But questions begin to haunt them as the date draws nearer. What happened to the love and commitment that held them together for so long? Is it still there somewhere under all the pain and misunderstanding? And is it still possible, alone in the moonlight on an old wooden pier, to once more find..a time to dance? "

my thoughts:  This story is very close to home. I understand the pain and misunderstanding. I understand the hurt and the loss of trust. I understand the anger and the vindictiveness. This story touched my heart. I picked up this book at a bookstore on the sale rack. I had not heard of Karen Kingsbury, but the title spoke to me. "There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven...a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance." Ecclesiastes 3:1,4. I had no idea what the focus of the story was, but I needed to hear it.

Mega Mix II Challenge on Goodreads



Until next time,
Stay Busy and Stay Happy

Wondrous Words Wednesday 4-23-14

Wondrous Words Wednesday is hosted by BermudaOnion each week. It's an opportunity to share new words you've encountered in your reading, or highlight words that you particularly enjoy.

Here are three new-to-me words (plus an extra one) from Comfort Foods by Kate Jacobs. You can read my review  here on Goodreads/


On page 15 :


"All followed by a rich buttery financiere with homemade raspberry sorbet "

A financier is a small French cake. The financier is light and moist, similar to sponge cake, and usually contains almond flour, crushed or ground almonds, or almond flavoring. The distinctive feature of the recipe is beurre noisette. Wikipedia


So then I needed to look up beurre noisette.

Definition: Beurre Noisette - French term for "brown butter" or literally "hazelnut butter". Butter is cooked in a pan until it turns a golden brown. The resulting butter has a nutty flavor.

Pronunciation: burr-nwah-ZET


Neither of these words were in any dictionary that I looked in. So I just Googled the words and this is what I got.

Next  found on page 21. "Having the Internet as her main companion all day only encouraged her cyberchondria."

This one I thought I could have deduced by the use in the sentence, but decided to look it up anyway.

Cyberchondria is the unfounded escalation of concerns about common symptomology based on review of search results and literature online.[1][2] Articles in popular media position cyberchondria anywhere from temporary neurotic excess to adjunct hypochondria. Cyberchondria is a growing concern among many healthcare practitioners as patients can now research any and all symptoms of a rare disease, illness or condition, and manifest a state of medical anxiety.

Last but not least on page 130. " Oliver, looking stressed, took up a place at the Aga stove. He'd been working frantically setting up the kitchen, putting together a mise en place of salt, pepper, spices and olive oil.....

Mise en place (French pronunciation: ​[mi zɑ̃ ˈplas]) is a French phrase which means "putting in place", as in set up. It is used in professional kitchens to refer to organizing and arranging the ingredients (e.g., cuts of meat, relishes, sauces, par-cooked items, spices, freshly chopped vegetables, and other components) that a cook will require for the menu items that are expected to be prepared during a shift.[1]The practice is also effective in home kitchens.[2]

I suspect that Paulita from An Accidental Blog is laughing at me right about now!  Her blog and her books are about all things French. I am sure she knew all the words above.  I learned a few things and that is always good. I wonder if I could improve my cooking if I put together a mise en place everyday in my kitchen. Surely, it would help!



Until next time,
Stay Busy and Stay Happy

First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros A Time to Dance

Diane at Bibliophile By the Sea hosts this meme every Tuesday. It's a way share the first paragraph of the first chapter of you current read or maybe from a title you just finished. Hop on over to Diane's blog and link up to share yours or to read what others are reading.

Last week I shared that I was going to start Wildflower Hill by Kimberley Freeman.  However, when I finished Comfort Food by Kate Jacobs, I wasn't feeling Wildflower Hill. In fact, I ended up coming down with a nasty stomach flu and spent Thursday and Friday in bed. Saturday was a bit better, but then Mr. Busy got sick. Needless to say all our Easter plans got cancelled. We both are better today. It helps that the sun is shining, the weather is warm, I even have the front door open and screen partly open. I can hear birds singing and you can almost hear the grass start to grow! LOL.

Anyway, I decided to chose a different book to read. This one has been on my bookshelf for a few months.

a Time to Dance 

Karen Kingsbury

Timeless Love Series #1

Thomas Nelson Inc.   2001

Without question, it was the moment Abby Reynolds had waited for all her life.

Beneath the Friday-night lights, in the biggest college stadium in the state of Illinois , Abby's husband was on the brink of winning his second high-school football championship.  Moreover he was about to do so largely on the talents of their older son, the team's senior quarterback. 

Now, I did not pick this book because of the first paragraph or the first two. I picked it because of the title,  A Time to Dance. It is part of  a favorite bible verse of mine. Ecclesiastes 3:1,4 .  Also it fits into 2 challenges that I am doing this year. Mega Mix II from Love of Reading group on Goodreads and What's in a Name 2014 hosted by Charlie at The Worm Hole.  I am about 1/3 of the way finished, the story is touching my heart.

Do the first two paragraphs of the first chapter grab you?



Until next time,
Stay Busy and Stay Happy

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? A Time to Dance by Karen Kingsbury

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? is a weekly meme hosted by Sheila at Book Journey. As she says, it’s “a great way to plan out your reading week and see what others are currently reading as well… you never know where that next “must read” book will come from!”



This week I am reading:

 

From Goodreads: A Time to Dance (Timeless Love #1)by Karen Kingsbury4.28 of 5 stars
John and Abby were the perfect couple. But after surviving twenty-one years of love, loss, and laughter, they are about to lose it all. They've become strangers, and finally they make the sad decision to divorce. They gather their three children to tell them the news, but before they can speak, their daughter makes an announcement of her own: she's getting married that summer. Determined not to ruin their daughter's season of happiness, Abby and John secretly agree to put their divorce plans on hold. But as the wedding nears, they are haunted by questions. And is it possible to find joy, after all these years, and perhaps the time...to dance?

I had no idea what to expect from this book, Karen Kingsbury is a new author to me, though I have been getting her facebook page on my news feed for some time. It is a very Christian based story with lots of scriptual reference. And the subject matter is familiar to me. It is touching my heart.


Mr Busy and I are still listening to The Collectors by David Baldacci. We have been away from it for awhile. On Thursday I came down with an awful stomach virus that laid me low for almost 3 days and on Saturday, it got a hold of Mr B. He is still just "puny". We listened some yesterday, Easter was a bust for us, but we both fell asleep. Guess we need the sleep more. Hopefully this week , it is supposed to be warmer and sunny, we will both start to feel better and we can finish it. It is due back at the library on Wednesday, but I can always renew it and take it back later. Hope you all have a super week. I will be working on a quilting project in addition to getting some reading done.




Until next time


Stay Busy and Stay Happy

Wondrous Words from The Goldfinch and another's blog

Wondrous Words Wednesday is hosted by BermudaOnion each week. It's an opportunity to share new words you've encountered in your reading, or highlight words that you particularly enjoy.

from The Goldfinch   chapter 104  audible 17:02 hours

" ..real age, as I came to see from the genuine pieces that passed through my hands , was variable , crooked , capricious, singing here and sullen there...."

ca·pri·cious

     adjective\kə-ˈpri-shəs, -ˈprē-\

: changing often and quickly; especially : often changing suddenly in mood or behavior

: not logical or reasonable : based on an idea, desire, etc., that is not possible to predict

This word is not unfamiliar to  me, I read it a lot in books and understand it in context. But I don't use it in my everyday vocabulary. So I wanted to look it up and to make sure that I knew precisely what it meant and when and how to use it. 

an·thro·po·mor·phic

    adjective\ˌan(t)-thrə-pə-ˈmȯr-fik\

: described or thought of as being like human beings in appearance, behavior, etc.

: considering animals, objects, etc., as having human qualities

This word was new to me. I found it while reading BookNAround's blog about things that make her put a book back on the shelf. 

Did you come across any new words this week Or maybe 

just some words that you felt needed further clarification?

Until next time
Stay Busy and Stay Happy

First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros Wildflower Hill

Every Tuesday, Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea posts the first paragraph or maybe two of her current read. Anyone can join in. Go to Diane's website for the image and share the first paragraph (or2) of the current book you are reading.

Touchstone /Simon & Schuster

July 2011

ONE

Beattie:  Glasgow 1929

Beattie Blaxland had dreams. Big dreams.
Not the confused patchwork dreams that invade sleep. No, these were the dreams with which she comforted herself before sleep, in her trundle bed rolled out on the floor of her parents' finger-chilling tenement flat.  Vivid, yearning dreams. A life of fashion and fabrics; and fortune, of course. A life where the dismal truth about her dismal family would fade and shrink and disappear. One thing she had never dreamed was that she would find herself pregnant to her married lover just before her nineteenth birthday. 

Would you read on?  The copy I have on my nightstand has a different cover than the one I show here, but it has been on my TBR list for a couple of years.  I will read it as part of the Mega Mix II Challenge on Goodreads Love of Reading group. I hope to start it this week.



Until next time,
Stay Busy and Stay Happy

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? Comfort Food

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? is a weekly meme hosted by Sheila at Book Journey. It's a good way to check out what others are reading and maybe find a gem you have missed in the past. Some are reading new titles, some of us are reading older titles that we missed the first time around. Come join  the fun, but be warned.....your TBR stack may grow to toppling over!

This week I finished The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbrosky. You can read my review here. 

Mr Busy and I finished listening to the Camel Club by David Baldacci, but not before returning it to the library to have the discs polished or cleaned or whatever they do to them. They suggested it was our reader by I  don't think so. We did get it finished and now have started on the next in the series.

In Washington, D.C, where power is everything and too few have too much of it, four highly eccentric men with mysterious pasts call themselves the Camel Club. Their mission: find out what's really going on behind the closed doors of America's leaders.

The assassination of the U.S. Speaker of the House has shaken the nation. And the outrageous iconoclasts of the Camel Club have found a chilling connection with another death: the demise of the director of the Library of Congress's rare books room, whose body has been found in a locked vault where seemingly nothing could have harmed him. 

A man who calls himself Oliver Stone is the groups unofficial leader. Staying one step ahead of his violent past and headquartered in a caretaker's cottage in Mt. Zion Cemetery, Stone, drawing on his vast experience and acute deductive powers, discovers that someone is selling America to its enemies one classified secret at a time. When Annabelle Conroy, the greatest con artist of her generation, struts onto the scene in high-heeled boots, the Camel Club gets a sexy new edge. And they'll need it, because the two murders are hurtling them into a world of high-stakes espionage that threatens to bring America to its knees.

From an ingenious con in Atlantic City tho the possible forgery of one of the rarest and most valuable books in America history, to a showdown of epic proportions in the very heart of the capitol, David Baldacci weaves a brilliant, white-knuckle tale of suspense in which every collector is searching for one missing prize: the one to die for...

The one is a bit different, but promises to be a true Baldacci thriller. 

I also read and finished the April read for my book club. I did post a short review. But I am anxious to see what the rest of my book club thinks.

I started reading a book that I have had on my shelf for almost a year. It is one that a fellow book club member brought to a meeting to share. It also will fulfill part of the Mega Mix II challenge that I am doing on Goodreads.

Shortly before turning the big 5-0, boisterous party planner and Cooking with Gusto personality Augusta "Gus" Simpson finds herself planning a birthday party she'd rather not-her own. She's getting tired of being the hostess, the mother hen, the woman who has to plan her own birthday party. What she needs is time on her own with enough distance to give her loved ones the ingredients to put together successful lives without her.

Assisted by a handsome up-and-coming chef, Oliver, Gus invites a select group to take an on-air cooking class. But instead of just preaching to the foodie masses, she will teach regular people how to make rich, sensuous meals-real people making real food. Gus decides to bring a vibrant cast of friends and family on the program: Sabrina, her fickle daughter; Troy, Sabrina's ex-husband; Anna, Gus's timid neighbor; and Carmen, Gus's pompous and beautiful competitor at the Cooking Channel. And when she begins to have more than collegial feelings for her sous-chef, Gus realizes that she might be able to rejuvenate not just her professional life, but her personal life as well. . . .

I am about 1/3 of the way through it and I am enjoying it. I can see Gus and her daughters quite clearly. I have a daughter just her age, almost 5-0. 

I should be busy with these two selections and of course, I am still working through The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt. I know it seems like maybe this is a chore to read, but the real reason it is taking me so long is the format, not that this book is not a great read. 

Until next time

Stay Busy and Stay Happy