Sunday Salon, Pentecost Sunday

Fourth of July, our climbing rose, looks lovely on its first bloom of the year.

Weather: Light Spring rain

Pentecost Sunday: Today is a church holiday that signifies the arrival of the Holy Spirit. My church always celebrates this day with by asking parishioners to wear red and we usually have a special service, a joyful celebration. Today was especially joyful because we were also celebrating the completion of the remodeling work we have been working on for so long. In 2005 we started a church committee to begin the process of deciding what improvements we needed and as you see by today's date, it has taken a long time for us to finally have all the plans come together. We built a huge garage/out building to house our church van, lawn mower, and other outdoor tools. This space will also be used for the youth group for their raucous games. We relocated our kitchen and added to the square footage of it. And we added a new office wing and a library. The service today was progressive, we went from one space to the next asking God's blessing on it and the work that takes place in that area.  The church was festooned with red balloons and looked so bright. We invited the construction company man, the architect, the financial man, and others to join us for the day. Joy.

Don is as old as I am again: Don is a few months younger than me so every year on his birthday he catches up with me. Yesterday we celebrated by having a family dinner of grilled steak, grilled potato packets, broccoli, fresh pineapple and cake from Carina's bakery, The King's Favorite (banana cake, with peanut butter and chocolate frosting.) Yum. The girls gave their dad money to buy a new golf bag and I bought him a new table saw. Man stuff.

Books read this week:

• My Name if Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout---an easy, thoughtful read about a time in a woman's life when she has to stay in the hospital for an extended period of time and her mother, whom she hasn't seen for year, comes and stays with her for a few days. This is a book club selection and I think we will have quite a bit to discuss.
• The Raven King by Maggie Stiefvater---the fourth book in the Raven Cycle series; an audiobook. I love the series and the narrator, Will Patton.

Currently reading: 

• Salt to the Sea by Ruta Septys---YA, set East Prussia near the end of WWII when Germany is collapsing. The Russians, who have no trouble with the mind set of Rape and Pillage, are advancing on the area and those people who were loyal to The Reich are now attempting to get back to Germany to avoid them. Progress: 26%
• The Bitter Side of Sweet by Tara Sullivan---Set in Ivory Coast on a cocoa plantation where working conditions are awful. If I have learned anything from this book, it is a MUST to buy only fair trade chocolate products, which is not easy to do. Progress: 80%
• LIT UP by David Denby---I started reading this book again after a few week hiatus. It is a look at teaching and literature in schools today. If I owned my own copy it would be full of underlinings. Progress: 50%
• Samurai Rising by Pamela Turner---a nonfiction book about the famous and ruthless samurai, Minomuto Yashitsune who lived in Japan in the 1100s. Interesting but not really my cup of tea. 24%.

Disney Princesses Evolution: Love any of the Disney princesses (or all of them?) Have a listen.