My Favourite Things Monday: Books/Series

My Favourite Things Monday, on a Tuesday - do you see the trend here?

One might wonder how I find time to read, let alone re-read books, with two kids and a full-time job and a part-time job. But I do. I have to. It's a compulsion. I'm the kind of person who has at least two if not three books going at the same time. If I have three books on the go, one of them will be a cookbook. One is usually a fiction and the other is usually nonfiction. I go through the fiction faster than the nonfiction choice, but I like to have variety. And I usually like to leave my various books lying open all the around the house. I like it that way, but M doesn't. I don't really get it.

This week's theme is books that we like to reread. Ever since I had to read Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban for a university course, I fell in love the whole series. Almost fanatically. As in pre-ordering the books months before they came out. Staying up until the wee small hours in the morning, or sometimes not at all, because I couldn't put the book down. The seventh book came out a few years ago, and the final movie is due this summer. I really don't know what I'm going to do with myself, now that all things HP are finished.

Sigh.



I think I can manage to find something to divert myself from my pain and nostalgia.

As in re-reading the series again. For the nth time.

However, there are other diversions. I've discovered these great books called The Pink Carnation series. Regency era romantic spy suspense combines with a little Bridget Jones or Becky Bloomwood. The modern-day heroine is a history graduate student doing research in England. It's not a huge stretch to see why I like this.

I also return to Pride and Prejudice or Sense and Sensibility or the lesser known Persuasion once in awhile. Pretty much anything in the historical or historical fiction category will catch my attention. Other authors I like are Philippa Gregory or Micheal Phillips (although he can be very pedantic at times).

My Favourite Things Monday: Spring

After a hiatus from MFTM, here it is again, with an appropriate theme: Spring.

My friend here wrote about Spring blossoms. And while I love the explosion of colour that is taking place, with some tulips blooming as big as baseballs, my favourite part of Spring this year has been the ability to do this:



It has been a long, cold, wet, rainy Spring here on the West Coast. Apparently, we can blame this on La Nina. M and I were talking just the other day about how warmer it felt last year in February, when we went to Vancouver to check out the Olympics, than it was last Saturday, attending a very drizzly May wedding.

But there have been days, few and far between, where the sun has teased us for an afternoon, as if to assure that he's still there, although being coy. And so, making hay while the sun shines (always think of Pa Ingalls when this phrase comes to mind), I gather my laundry and out I go.

As usual, I have company in the form of my two little girls who have been cooped up way too much this rainy season. They follow me like eager puppies being let out of the kennel, almost tripping over my feet or their own. I let them run around the deck while I hang the clothes up. They are sad to go back in when I'm done. I tell them we'll play outside later when it has warmed up a little.

If it hasn't starting raining by the afternoon.

My Favourite Things Monday

I've been trying to think of ways to keep me blogging in ways other than regular updates of Medical Word of the Day. Although it helps me remember odd medical words and could provide some interest to other logophiles out there, I wanted something a little more personal to write about. My friend Thelma started this weekly entry about some of her favourite things. This could be fun.

This week's entry was a favourite spice. Mine is Bay Leaves. I love the name in French - feuille de laurier. Makes me think of the name Laura and former prime minister Wilfrid Laurier (yes I am an unapologetic history geek). I love the scent and I love the taste. But most of all I love this new recipe I discovered in an old file of mine where it calls for bay leaves that have been crushed and sprinkled over chicken as it braising. The full beauty and richness of bay leaves is fully released when you do this, in a way that dropping a few leaves in a pot of soup or spaghetti sauce does not. Delicious.



And yes, I know I posted this on a Tuesday, but really, time goes by fast enough already, are you going to quibble about a day?