Life: It Goes On - February 21

I was half tempted to break out a springish Life picture for today given the weather we've had the past week. Three days in a row in the upper sixties, sunny - easy to think that we won't see any more snow this year. But we live in Nebraska so we know this is just a reward for surviving this far and that winter will be back.

In the meantime, we are loving sitting out on patios and decks, leaving doors open, and only needing light jackets outside!

This Week I'm:

Listening To: I finished Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day on Friday. I sat in a carwash line in no small part just to have an excuse to be in the car long enough to finish it. Adored it! I think I'll be starting Adriana Trigiani's The Shoemaker's Wife on Monday but I may change my mind and go with something that's completely different from what I've been reading.

Watching: A friend and I went to see "Brooklyn" the other day. We both really liked it a lot and agreed that Saoirse Ronan deserved her Oscar nom. In many ways I enjoyed it more than the book, although there is a lot that might have been done to show how overwhelmed Eilis was when she got to Brooklyn and the part where she returned to Ireland might have been longer to better explain why she did what she did.

Reading: Finished My Name Is Lucy Barton (so spare and yet so emotional) and will finish Thirty-Eight Witnesses today (it's crazy short). Next up? I'm not sure exactly but I'm leaning toward The Year of Reading Dangerously or Mennonite In A Little Black Dress, both my own damn books and both nonfiction which I'm yearning to read more of this year.

Making: Tacos, tuna salad sandwiches, ravioli casserole, bean enchiladas and chicken nachos - nothing that required much effort. Yesterday I did make lemon bars to take to a friends and today I'm getting ready to throw a turkey in the oven. Because, apparently, it should be used during February according to BG.

Planning: Nothing on the calendar again this week which means that I'll have time to work more on the 40 Bags In 40 Days project which I'm woefully behind on. Between my freezers and fridge I threw three grocery bags of stuff away this weekend - I was happy to be getting rid of stuff we couldn't use but a little horrified to have let that much food go to waste.

Grateful for: Some time with Mini-me today, just BG and I. Love having all of the kids around together but we don't get to see Mini-me that often and it's fun to have his whole focus to ourselves! 

Enjoying: Nice wine, great friends and gorgeous weather! Did you all take advantage of National Drink Wine Day as an excuse to pop open a bottle?

Feeling: Energized to lighten the load - look out family, I'm coming to your room next with bags and a desire to purge and cull!

Looking forward to: Having Mini-him back tomorrow from Colorado and hearing about his adventures. He's been gone several days and one of the things he's done is to go to the Stanley Hotel (made famous by Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of Stephen King's The Shining).

Question of the Week: What is your favorite book-to-movie adaptation?