The List

Nikki

Zandra

Christina

Emily

DeEllen

Kelly

Becky

Caroline

Lindsey

Stephanie

Kristi

We could move Kelly around depending on when she has a trip out here.

Book Order

Tonight we revised the book list order, like it or not:

Kelly
Becky
Caroline
Lindsey
Christina
Sarah
Stephanie
Nikki
Emily

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

Hi Ladies!
This month's book is the currently very popular "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" by Stieg Larsson. I am only on page 61, but my experience along with what everyone else tells me is that the book starts to get way more interesting after page 36. Hang in there those first few pages!

Also, I am not sure how sexual the content is. So far so good, but again, only on page 61. Don't hold it against me if it gets risque! It has been recommended to me by multiple people, so I'm hoping that's a good sign!


Signing off, Steph

book club memories

Lindsey and I are sitting on my couch reminiscing about past book clubs. We have read a LOT of books! Nikki, do you remember when you thought we'd only last 3 months? Do you realize that we're going on FOUR years now?! We're amazing!

One of our favorite book club moments was when Emily spilled the beans about her NOW moments...even the more risque ones. Even better was when Emily came back a few months later and told us how she was in the process of achieving one of her moments. Way to go, Emily!

Lindsey says her top 3 books are Poisonwood Bible, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, and A Thousand Splendid Suns. Her worst book: These is My Words.

Although it's nearly impossible for me to choose, my top 3 are The Good Earth, Poisonwood Bible, and The Dairy of Anne Frank (which I had read way back in junior high, but didn't really care for until this time around...can you say that about Anne Frank's book?). My worst book: These is My Words. I hated hated HATED it.

What are yours?

I'm so sorry I forgot to post this right after our last book club. But here it is - our book for April - The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. Book club, I believe, is on Th., April 15th at Caroline's. It's approaching quickly, but if you are anything like me or Sarah, you will read this one VERY quickly :) So, get your taxes done early and read, read, read, and see you on the 15th.

Book for March

The Islamist by Ed Husain. Hurry and read! Book club is rapidly approaching!

February's Book

So, the book for February is, "Peace Like A River" by Leif Enger. I am really enjoying it, and I hope you will too!

A few orders of business

If you look to the right, you will notice that I added a "books read 2009." I can only remember 10 books, however. So if you can remember what I'm missing, feel free to add it on!

Second. I just bought a used copy of The Color Code on amazon for $1.57. With shipping, it was $5.57. If you decide to buy it, be careful which one you choose. When I searched for it, there were 3 books with similar titles by the same author...a clever ploy to get you to read the same type of book 3 times...but it's still a different book (at least I think it is).

Finally. Happy new year to all!

January's Book

OK, Nikki, here is your pick for next book club: The Color Code by Taylor Hartman, PhD. My mother-in-law and I refer to this book/philosophy at least once every other week in conversation, although I have never read it in full. I'm looking forward to it :)
I think we decided on Thursday, Jan. 21st at Emily's house (someone please correct this if it is wrong) and we should each wear "our color" that night as well.
And Jen, I think you should still read this and post about it. What have you got going in the next month - just Christmas, packing your entire house, moving across the country, moving in to a new place, being a mom and wife, and being pregnant. But think of us - we need to hear your thoughts! J/K - good luck - we'll miss you!

New Member

Kelly kindly suggested that as a new member of the book club it would be fitting to say a little something about myself. So without further adieu-dieu (a high-brow French word meaning, literally, "goodbye doodies") ... let's begin!

I have a dog. Coda is half German shepherd, half pit-bull, all scaredy cat, and yes, her breed dictates that she will disfigure your young ones should they cross her path. Actually, the reputation of her breed falsely precedes her. She is a sweet, medium-size, wonderful companion and we trust that she will be as gentle with children as we trust she will wake us up at 4:00 a.m. and again at 6:00 a.m. every morning to adieu-dieu.

Dan is the sweet, tall, dark, and handsome man in my life. He is a wonderful provider and husband. Yes, he talks a lot in his sleep, including whispering “66666666666” repeatedly in a snakelike hiss, but he really is quite pleasant other than that. He works incredibly hard as a sales manager, and when he is not working or being a great husband, you can find him tickling keys as he writes songs, or burying his face in a book about finances, business, or personal development.

I, too, have taken up nocturnal activities. When I am not sleeping or drooling I can be found hallucinating in my sleep. It’s become rather common for a person to climb across my ceiling in the middle of the night, for a hand-sized cockroach to crawl into our dresser drawers, or for Dan to be both in bed with me and standing next to the bed beside me. Not to worry, I am now at the point that I am usually aware I am hallucinating as I do it, and after screaming at Dan to “kill the cockroach!” I often follow up with, “it’s not really there, I know I’m just dreaming.” This can get complicated when I am not sure which Dan to talk to.

By day I write for leisure as well as tend to all things domestic; I am my dog’s mom, my husband’s girlfriend, and by night I am apparently the next best thing to Linda Blair. I am passionate about learning, my favorite topics being human development, religion, psychology, writing, leadership, philosophy, spirituality, and organizational behavior. I grew up doing dance and vocal performances, as well as horseback riding. I have no idea what I will be doing in 5 years, and I am torn between thinking that statement is very stupid of me, and thinking it may just be one of the smartest things I have going.

Dan & I have lots of goals to improve our lives and the world around us! We place a great deal of value on health (all kinds), knowledge, responsibility and accountability, balance, security, truth, respect, and preparedness. We want to have a lot of resources so we can give a lot to others. We enjoy developing our talents. We love learning and growing. Our mission statement thus far is the lovely quote by Bertrand Russel: The good life is inspired by love and guided by knowledge.

That’s us! Adieu-dieu!

Phrenology

Last Friday night, Caroline and I (with our respective husbands) delved into a bit of head-bump reading. For those of you who still haven't stated/finished The Guernsey Lit book, one of the characters becomes quite an avid phrenologist. Her skills even save the day at one point. Anyway, I just thought you might like to know what my head bumps say about me:

As near as I can tell (it's rather difficult to read your own head bumps) I have:

• concentrativeness
• tune
• time
• combativeness
• and possibly language, though I can't tell if I really have a head bump there or I just wish I do

I'm asking for a book to learn head bump reading for my birthday next week.

Sale on Etsy!

Hey guys! A few months ago, I mentioned a craft fair that my sister and I did. Now we are trying to get things going on the internet. We are having a big one day sale on Monday, November 23rd. Everything will be on sale and a free pair of earrings is included in every sale over $10. We have a bunch of cool bags for sale. Take a look and tell your friends! Hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving!
www.stroodel.etsy.com

News

I'm on a roll! Here's a reminder about:

1. Our cooking blog is having a cookie contest. Become our fan on facebook, send us an email with a Christmas cookie recipe, and then, if you win, pick your preferred kitchen utensil. Tell everyone you know (no, seriously. We'd love for you to tell your friends and family about it)! We want more readers and more cookies to try! You have until November 30 to enter.
   
2. My Christmas Chorus Concert: Dec 5 at 1:30 or Dec 6 at 7 in the chapel next to the mental hospital in Provo (just off of center street). We'll be singing an array of Christmas Carols and Benjamin Britton's Ceremony of Carols, which is quite amazing if you've never heard it. And we even have an excellent harpist.
   

I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm breathlessly waiting to hear what Nikki thought about the book. My proposal is that if you miss a book club, you post your thoughts some time within the few days (which I do believe was our original intention, but somehow we haven't been so good at it). Let's hear it!

Leadership and Self-Deception

Finally I am posting the book for this month. The name of the book is Leadership and Self-Deception and it is by the Arbinger Institute.

Hope you are all doing great and enjoying the lovely, cold, fall weather. I am sure enjoying wearing jackets and eating soup. See you all soon!

more coupons

Rule #1: I will not spend more than 2 hours a month couponing. 

Rule #2: I will not buy things that I don't normally buy because it's a good deal.  Unless it's free.

Rule #3: I will not go to more than one store. (Walmart cause they price match. Okay occasionally I still hit Costco cause I love it!)

Rule #4: I will not shower more than once a day. Wait, that doesn't apply here...but I won't. 

Okay, so I switched to savvyshopper.com on Emily's suggestion.  It is much better.  At least for the way I shop. I was using grocery smarts.com but I do all my shopping at Walmart and just price match. So it was kind of a pain to go through and see all the specials from the individual grocery stores. Now I just look for the best (Wow) deals on savvy shopper and I'm done with my list. I do get a Sunday newspaper and my mom saves me her coupons from her paper but I find I only save about $5 a week on coupons. I pay $8 a month for the paper so it's worth it...maybe. I just don't buy a lot of coupon-ed items. However, I buy tons and tons and tons of produce so I really like seeing what the other stores have for good buys in that department and then price match at Walmart. Really, the AF Walmart has pretty good produce, I think. I probably save about $10 a week in price matching so I'm saving $60 a month (-$8 for the paper) on doing the coupon thing. I spend about $400 a month on groceries (this includes diapers and formula etc. so I am not saving 50% but I shop at Walmart for all my non-couponed items too so their prices are already way lower than Smiths or Albertsons. I'm not as good as Emily at it but this works for me.  Emily, you are an inspiration!

Nik

I was just looking through our list of books on the right and I KNOW we're missing some (like the one we (or at least you all) read in August). If you see one is missing, please post it for us all! :)

Oh, and Jenn, would you mind posting the name and author of our book for this month?

Coupons, coupons...

Ok girls, here are the sites I use to set up my store deals with coupons.

savvyshopper.com Here I signed up to get a weekly email and these are local stores. You can also just go to the shopping wizard and search by store. This site will often give web addresses to other coupon sites such as coupons.com, cellfire.com and shortcuts.com. The last two are sites for Smiths where you enter your fresh value card # and select your coupons and they go right on your card, so when you check out, the discount is applied. There are also product sites (like scrubbing bubbles or whatever) which give coupons for just their product. On these sites where you have to enter your email address, I use an alternate one because I think they probably send lots of junk mail.

I also use savingwithshellie.com. On this blog stores are listed on the right side of the page. This is where I get my Walgreens deals and I normally search Target and Walmart as well. This girl is in Texas, so sometimes the prices are a little different than what she has posted.

Once you start getting the Sunday paper, it takes a few weeks of clipping coupons before you can get all the deals from these sites. I organize my coupons in categories like Drinks, Meat, Condiments, Dairy, Cleaning & Laundry, Baby Items, Personal Items (shampoo, make up, deodarant, etc.) Then I put the ones that are going to expire first in front. Once I plan my shopping list, I pull out all the coupons I am planning on using so I don't forget any and the checkout is smoother. If I'm at the store and I see a product marked down, I go through my coupons and try to match them up (I can especially do this at Smiths with the Managers Markdown, I've gotten many free yogurts!)

I hope this is helpful to you guys. It does take some time, and some practice, but I have definitely seen it's payoffs, and I love feeling like I got a great deal. Nikki, If you could post (or comment) the coupons sites you go to, that would be great!


Emily

So, my worst fear of having the responsibility of choosing the book club book has come true - that I pick a book of fiction based on the little bit I know of it, and it turns out to be totally inappropriate. Arg. I didn't realize how many of the stories are about sex and death. Anyway, I hope you have all procrastinated reading it until this week. I'm still not done, but here is my updated list of stories to avoid:
Happy Endings
The Boy
Iguana Hunting
Disappearing
A Lover's Ear
The Verb To Kill
Bigfoot Stole My Wife
I am only up to "Family Album" now, but I'll post any others that I come to.
Next time I think I'll stick with non-fiction :)

OK, I apologize, but I feel the need to warn you on a couple of stories in this book, since I was the one who chose it. I only read a few of them in school, and now I've found a couple that you probably will want to skip. So, I hope actually that none of you has started reading yet!
One to absolutely avoid is "The Boy" by Joyce Carol Oates, and another red flag would be a pretty bad word on the second page of Margaret Atwood's "Happy Endings." I'll keep you posted on any others I come across that need censoring. But the nice thing about short stories is that you can skip a bad one all together and not miss out on any part critical to the rest of the book.