Ty and I also found mature trees of several we are thinking about for our yard.
We went hiking amidst waterfalls
and discovered a great little Korean restaurant.
Powell's Books, our favorite bookstore which literally takes up a city block, is also a must when we make it to Portland.
Not only did I get back to my favorite bookstore, but I think I broke a record for the number of books finished last month. (Note that I said finished. That does not mean I began and finished all these in one month.) I love to read but am finding it increasingly difficult to read as much as I'd like. A couple of months ago I made a commitment to myself to read more. It hasn't been easy. I carry a book with me at all times and I've given up my 10pm news watching in favor of reading.
The Secrets of Mary Bowser
I discovered this book while subbing an English class one day and gifted a copy to Kiersten. She devoured it in 2 days. I took a little longer. It's based on a real black, slave woman during the time of the Civil War. She is educated and lands a job working in the Gray House or the house that the confederate president, President Jefferson David occupied in Richmond, Virginia. Mary Bowser serves as a spy for the Union as she cleans the keeps house. Reading this book made me realize how much she might have done to help the Union win. But I also got a taste of what life for a free, black woman in the north might have been like and how those same prejudices were very much a part of their culture despite their freedoms.
Letters to a Young Mormon
This short little composition of essays or letters to his children was beautifully written. It is one I will digest again and again.
"Like everyone, you have a story you want your life to tell. You have your own way of doing things and your own way of thinking about things. . . . As the heavens are higher than the earth, God's work in your life is bigger than the story you'd like that life to tell. His life is bigger than your plans, goals, or fears. To save your life, you'll have to lay down your stories, and minute by minute, day by day, give your life back to him. Preferring your stories to his life is sin. . . . Faith isn't about getting God to play a more and more central part in your story. Faith is about sacrificing your story on his altar."
Zucchini Pie
I just couldn't like this book at all. I tried but it painfully dragged on and on. The characters were cheesy. The scenarios were too far-fetched. The author tried to wrap up all these family problems in a short week between when grandma died and the funeral. It just wasn't real to me. I didn't care for the way the book was set up and the writing was subpar. I don't think I would have picked this book up except it was for a book club -- and not everyone has to like the book selection, right? :)
Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet
I listened to the first half of this book, and while I liked the change in characters' voices, I felt like it dragged. The second half I finished reading the book and the pace seemed a little better. The writing was okay, although I don't think he portrayed 1986 very accurately, like he forgot what decade he was writing about.
This story about love across cultures and a Japanese interment camp is heartbreaking, and I shake my head every time I read about these and wonder how we, as a country, could do the same thing to our people that was happening in Germany at the same time. I came away from this book wanting to communicate better with my children and to be accepting of who they might bring through our front door.
Etched in Sand: A True Story of Five Siblings Who Survived an Unspeakable Childhood on Long Island
Wow. What a book of resiliency and strength in children who are left to basically raise themselves and actually come out of the system as contributing adults to society. This book reminded me a lot of The Glass Castle. It was eye opening into the world of foster care where some are in it strictly for the money and others actually do it to help lives. And the mother. Are there seriously people like her. I kept wanting to believe she was a fictional character and might have some redemptive characteristics. Nope. She had no business having children. This book has a couple dozen F words. I cringe when I read it but understand that it was who these people were and how they spoke. The author was remaining true to dialogue.
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