Come From Away

 I read this book, The Day THe World Came to Town, in 2003 when it was first published.

The play Come From Away is based on the book and was developed in 2012 and had huge success in San Diego, Seattle, Washington DC and Toronto before moving to NYC.  I missed it in San Diego but I was lucky and got a ticket for a performance at the Schoenfeld Theater on W. 45th.  Of course, no photos were allowed during the show, but I snapped these during the curtain-call.

The show had no intermission.  The 12 performers had multiple roles that included acting, singing, and dancing.  They were marvelous.  There were 7 musicians, below, that were on stage the entire time and they were outstanding.

Go and see Come From Away, when you have a chance.

Thanks for stopping by and sharing my life with me,

Happy Mother's Day

Today I'm flying to Chicago to attend Book Expo America.  The BEA last for 3 days and I'll have 3 days to do touristy things.  They are predicting rain almost every day, but weather changes fast, so I'll see how it goes.

My friend Sarah posted this video on FB the other day, so I thought I'd share it today.  I didn't have sons, but I can SO see this happening.

I'll come home with a lot of books.  Books always make me happy.

I hope you have a wonderful Mother's Day.

Thanks for stopping by and sharing my life with me,

NYC Tours and Travel

The view from my hotel room.

In May, I went to NYC.  The principle reason was to attend Book Expo America.  The BEA is a 3-day event where publishers get to tell booksellers and librarians about upcoming releases.  It's a winning situation for me, I come home each year with over 100 complimentary new books, most are ARCs, Advance Readers Copies.  I get to read books before they are published.  Several members of my Tai Chi class are avid readers, and they've gotten used to reading ARCs, too.  The disadvantage of ARCs is they are not the final printing and may have errors.

Each time I attend BEA, except when it's in LA, I make a week of my visit, giving myself time to be a tourist.  I've been to NYC quite often, so I try to always do new things.  This time I had time for 4 new to me activities.  On Memorial Day. I took the subway to Brooklyn and walked back home to Manhattan via the Brooklyn Bridge.

The rest of my adventures were professional tours.  The first was a walking tour, called Five Squares and a Circle.  It was a great tour.  It started in Greenwich Village, in Washington Square Park and ended in Central Park.  The tour involved a lot of walking and a couple of subway rides.  The tour guide was a historian and I learned a lot.

I've always wanted to see Manhattan from the water.  There are a lot of options, so I did my research and booked the AIANY Around Manhattan Architecture Tour.  We sailed around Manhattan on a small yacht.  Our leader was a member of the New York Chapter of the American Institute of Architects; the emphasis of the tour was the style and construction of the buildings and bridges of Manhattan.  It was so very interesting.  I highly recommend this tour.

Daryl, our leader on the Food Tour.

My final indulgence was Chelsea Market, The Highline & The Meatpacking District Food and Culture Walking Tour, offered by Foods of NY.  There were many tours to choose from.  I picked this one, leaving a 4 PM, after doing my research because it also included a visit to the nearby Gansevoort Market.  It was a great tour.  Foods of NY actually selects and pays for the food tastings.  During the tour I was on there were 3 "new" tastings and such a great variety.

View from the High Line.

I hope you enjoyed finding out about my NYC trip.  I did raise a few eyebrows since I took this trip four months after Bob had passed away.  My philosophy is "There're no guarantees".  We don't know how long we'll be around or what our health will be like, so just do what you want, when you want, as long as you can.

I already have more trips planned.  In September, my cousin Carol and I are going on The Ultimate Game Day Weekend.  We'll be traveling to Texas and we'll see two MLB games, a college football game, and an NFL game.  Carol and I are both baseball and football fans, but neither of us has seen an NFL game.  This trip is through Jay Buckley's Baseball Tours.  Bob and I and Sharon and Oden went on a tour with them three years ago.  They are a great company.

The family in Detroit.  Oden is now taller than me.

Carol and I are very excited, we booked our flights yesterday, and I booked the dogs at Rover.com and my airport transportation with a local service.  We also have purchased t-shirts of the home teams for all the games.  The family did that for the baseball tour and it's a great idea.

Thanks for stopping by and sharing my life with me,

Busy, busy, busy

Last year was really busy for me.  I finished nineteen quilts!

Plus, I currently have 5 quilts at the long arm quilter.  If you're not familiar with quilting, that means I've finished piecing 5 quilt tops and matching quilt backs; and taken them to the fabulous woman that I team up with.  Together we choose the pattern of the actual quilting and the color of the thread.  Then she sandwiches the top and bottom with the batting and uses a huge computerized long arm sewing machine, it's really huge - dining room table, huge, to stitch all the layers together.  I also have two more ready to take to her, later this week.  I hope 3 will be ready to pick up in January, 2 in February and the last two by the end of March.

The other thing that kept me busy was reading.  This year the total was down a bit, only 103 books on the "Read" list.  I always read over 100 books a year, but I've read as many as 150 in one year.  Recently I analyzed why the fluctuation in reading.  I came up with this - the years that I read the most, are the years that Bob spent the most time very ill; either a lot of time admitted to the hospital, or sitting in doctors' waiting rooms.  When he's ill, I read a lot.  There's really not much elso to do.

I also blogged a lot, too. 92 posts on this blog, 113 posts on Janice Elaine Sews, 4 new tutorials on Janice Elaine's Tutorials, 90 posts on Murrieta 365, 14 post on Loves Books and Tea and a measly 3 new recipes on Jan's Kitchen.  A total of 316 post for 2013; close to one a day, but not quite!

I also taught 90 Tai Chi classes and lead the Parkinson's Support Group in Tai Chi exercises 10 times and made 2 Tai Chi videos in 2013, these are my volunteer gigs.

I'll probably be a little less busy this year.  Bob and I are taking our longest vacation, ever, to mark our 50th anniversary in May.  I'll be gone for 6 weeks; a month on a cruise, a couple of days in Copenhagen, then 11 days in NYC.  That should decrease the number of quilts finished, and increase the number of books read!

Thanks for stopping by and sharing my life with me,

The key

Thanks for stopping by and sharing my life with me,

HONY

I look forward each Humans of New York post.  I'm thrilled that Brandon has been successful and he now has a book out.  You can check the book out here.

Be sure you check out the FB page, too.

Thanks for stopping by and sharing my life with me,

It's about time

I haven't had a moment to spare, lately.  That's probably not true, but that's how I've felt.  If you're a FB friend, you already know that we lost an entire weekend going back and forth to the ER, because Bob had the tiniest injury on his knee, about a 1/16 of an inch, and it wouldn't stop bleeding.  Dripping on the floor bleeding.

What else?  Just normal stuff; Water Aerobics has been kicking my behind 2 or 3 days a week.  I haven't lost any weight, but I've dropped a dress size!  Teaching Tai Chi/QiGong 2 days each week.  Leading Tai Chi Ball for the Parkinson's Support Group.  Going to doctors in San Diego, that takes the whole day.  Reading - the last three books were hard to put down.  I recommend you read them soon.

  

If You Were Here by Alafair Burke
Golden Boy by Abigail Tarttelin
Silent Wife by A.S.A. Harrison

I donate my finished books, usually to Murrieta Friends of the Library.  This week I donated the hardbacks from my "read" pile to them, and drove the trade paper copies to West Long Beach Neighborhood Book Swap, it's a cart in the neighborhood I grew up in.  The "old"  neighborhood has changed but, sad to say, I don't think it's improved.

Sewing, I'm making a quilt for one of my grandsons; the one who never ask for anything.  My sewing gets interrupted by life and games.  We live in a small house and I use the dining room as my cutting/design room.  My sewing machine and fabric are in the "office".  We don't really entertain, but we belong to two groups, one plays cards and one plays dominoes.  The groups rotate to each others homes for an evening of fun.  When it's our turn to host, I need to pack all the sewing paraphernalia and clean all the "fabric dust", (it's like faerie dust, but cotton), and get the house back to normal, whatever that is.

Since blogging isn't a business with me, it frequently takes a backseat to life.  I had a few comments in response to my giveaway of the small clutch I'd won.  The winner is Melissa, she doesn't blog anymore, but when she was a young adult, her blog was Mel Growing Up.  I've already emailed her.

Thanks for stopping by and sharing my life with me,

Home Sweet Home

I've been home from NYC for a week.  I jumped right back into my "normal" life.  I started working on a scrappy quilt, then my books came that I picked up at the BEA; only two boxes this year.

I have a cottage/small home, so I had to pick up the quilt blocks to have the space to unpack the books.  As I unpacked, I sorted.

If you're a book person, I'm sure you spotted two that are not "new".  I always find it odd when publishers are touting an author's new book, but decide to give out an old one.

Hydrangeas are one of my favorite flowers.  The plants on my patio are just starting to bloom, so I thought I'd show them off.

I've been posting tons of photos of my New York Trip, over on Murrieta365, if you want to check them out.

Thanks for stopping by and sharing my life with me,

My bags are packed I'm ready to go...

I am leaving on a jet plane, but not until tomorrow morning.

Bob says he'll miss me, but I hope my week in NYC 

will be a vacation for both of us.

I always love going to NYC!  I have 3 days to sightsee 

and 3 days for the BEA, aka "the book show".

These are photos from past years.  The Skylight Diner is where I eat breakfast every morning.  A gal has to has her routines.  I have a long list of places to visit, but I never seem to see them all.  On Monday, I'm thinking of doing the Memorial Day Walk, in Central Park.  It seems a fitting way to start the week.

Thanks for stopping by and sharing my life with me,

World Book Night

Tonight's the night.  I'm very excited.  This will be my second year being a "giver"  Woo Hoo!  My book is Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh.  It's a great book, you should read it, if you haven't.

Thanks for stopping by and sharing my life with me,

Weekend Report

I had a great Mother's Day weekend.  Carrie sent a beautiful necklace, and we had a good telephone conversation, across the miles.  Erin has moved out, to the "Coast", the other coast, and Brett is growing like a weed and eating like a horse!

 

This is my new necklace, (that's not my chest!)  

It's from an etsy.com shop called Morgan Prather Accessories.

Sharon and Oden came on Saturday for a visit.  A day early and we beat the Mother's Day craziness.  It's been 3 months since we've seen them, and Oden got his quarterly haircut.  Yes, I'm Oden's official hair-cutter.

We went out to an early dinner at Sebastian's Italian Grill.  Back home we settled in to watch the Dodgers, we're all big fans.  Before they left, I gave Sharon a stack of books I thought she'd like.  It's so nice to have daughters who read.  She told me she couldn't wait for the next  book by our favorite Canadian author Michael Van Rooy.  I broke the news that he'd died unexpectedly this January, he was only 42.  So, there'll be no more books about Montgomery "Monty" Havikko.  I just found out myself, when I was updating my books on Good Reads.  

Thanks for stopping by and sharing my life with me,

Motto

I just read a book, (I know, it's hard to believe).  The Silver Linings Playbook by Matthew Quick, has been out for awhile, but I learned it's going to be made into a movie.  The movie is going to star Mark Wahlberg, I think he's great; and it's about family, friendships, connections and football.  How can this be bad.  It can't.  So, I read it, and loved it.

Pat Peoples, a married high school teacher, has spent four years in a neural health facility. He's finally rescued by his mother, and brought home against the wishes of his father. Pat thinks he's only been gone a couple of months.  He still has issues, including an explosive temper, but works hard to overcome them.  "As Pat doggedly practices being kind rather than right, grace enters his life in unexpected ways.  In refusing to be defeated by pessimism, Pat learns about true silver linings, not pretty happy endings."*

This novel really touched me and I've been talking to Bob and Sharon about how important it is to be kind, rather than right.  Sharon loved the idea of incorporating this into Oden's life, too.

It's better to be Kind than Right.

Thanks for stopping by, we enjoyed having you,

Are you a reader?

One of the "trade" emails I receive daily, Shelf Awareness, has decided to do a consumer edition, twice a week.  If you're interested in finding out about books before they're published and other book-ish things, go here to see if you want this newsletter to come to your inbox twice a week.

Thanks for stopping by, we enjoyed having you,

The middle part of my trip

Looking up 34th, from 12th Ave.

The middle part of my trip, was the real reason I journeyed to NYC, Book Expo America.  It's wonderful being surrounded by books, people who love books, people who plan their vacation and lives around books, people like me.

Here are some of the authors I heard speak at the various Book and Author Breakfast, Brian Selznick, Sarah Dessen, Kevin Henkes, Julianne Moore, Diane Keaton, Jefferey Eugenides, Charlaine Harris, Mindy Kaling, Roger Ebert, Anne Enright, Erik Larson, Jim Lehrer, Ellen Degeneres was scheduled, but sent a video instead, something about it was her husband's birthday, so not funny.  I did a post here, with some photos.

Another great event was Speed Dating with Children's Authors at BEA, sponsored by the ABC Children's Group at ABA and the Children's Book Council. This is an event I try to never miss. The years that Bob attended BEA with me, he always thought it was one of the best events of the many offered; and I agree. Here's a collage of the authors from Speed Dating:

I['ve also learned not to miss any the of the Editor's Buzz Reports events.  There were three, for Adult books, for Young Adult and for Middle School.  It's wonderful to hear about new books from people who are passionate about them, the editors who brought the books to fruition..  They often tell how their book was discovered, the process and a bit about the author.  I did a post here.

I did something new, to me, for lunch each day at the Javitz Center, I ate out on the sidewalk at one of the hot carts.  It was inexpensive and wonderful.  Try it next time you're in NYC.

Thanks for stopping by, we enjoyed having you,

First part of my trip

Flying across country is always very interesting.  On this particular flight adults were in the minority, very unusual.  There was an organized school trip on board; there were 60 fifth graders, 5 teachers or administrators and 34 of their parents.  The ride was very rough for part of the trip and the two delightful girls sitting next to me, asked if the plane acting like a roller coaster was normal, and if we were safe.  I assured them we were all safe and this was as rough as they'd probably ever experience.  I got into JFK late and to my hotel later, so I crashed.

The next morning I hit my favorite diner, the Skylight Diner, at W. 34th and 8th Ave, for breakfast.  I loved my hotel, the Wyndham Garden Hotel on W. 36th, really loved it, but their breakfast was $17.00, good if you need to eat without leaving the hotel, but too rich for my pocketbook.  I ate at the Skylight Diner for 7 breakfast, $5.39 plus $2.00 tip, each day.  Great food, fantastic surroundings and great price.  By Thursday the server was asking if I wanted my "usual".

After breakfast I went to Penn Station to get my MetroCard for the week.  I loaded it with $20. and used it all, riding the buses all over town.  I went to City Quilter, a not to be missed stop for any quilter, and the Harley shop.  I wanted a new NYC Harley T, but didn't like what they were offering, so I came home without a new one.

In the afternoon, I went to the first "event", the BEA Editors Buzz, for adult books.  They were still getting everything ready.  While waiting for BEA Editors Buzz I spotted Margaret Atwood.  I'm a book nerd, it was thrilling.

These are the books the editors presented.  They were so very passionate about their books.  I've already read "We The Animals", it was great.  I'm waiting for my shipment to arrive to read some of the others.  I'm really excited about The Night Circus and The Art of Fielding.

THE ART OF FIELDING by Chad Harbach, Little, Brown and Company – Michael Pietsch, VP & Publisher
THE NIGHT CIRCUS by Erin Morgenstern, Doubleday – Alison Callahan, Executive Editor
THE UNDERSIDE OF JOY by Sere Prince Halverson, Dutton – Denise Roy, Sr. Editor
RUNNING THE RIFT by Naomi Benaron, Algonquin – Kathy Pories, Sr. Editor
BIRDS OF PARADISE by Diana Abu-Jaber, W.W. Norton - Alane Salierno Mason, VP & Sr. Editor
WE THE ANIMALS by Justin Torres, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt – Jenna Johnson, Sr. Editor

I went to dinner at Mario's Trattoria, on 8th Ave.  It's become a fave of Bob's and I, very small, about 30 seats, always packed, very willing to seat a party of one.  Both the food and the service are great.

That pretty much sums up days 1 and 2 of my trip.

Thanks for stopping by, we enjoyed having you,