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not your average book club

February 9, 2012 at 2:51 pm

Update: As of yesterday, Read the Change book club has an even better website! Check it out here. Snazzy bio of yours truly coming soon under the Board tab.

Yesterday as I was editing my blog tabs, I set up one devoted to my love of reading and my 2012 Book Goal (to read a book a week). Inspired by this love of books, I also wanted to share with you another book-ish thing going on in my life.

And that is: the Read the Change book club.

Some of you remember how much we hung out with our friends Lewis and Bekah this fall in San Antonio. Bekah has gone on to do something wonderful with a group of her close friends. She’s started a book club for people who not only like to read, but want their reading do some good in the world, to make a change for the better.

The book club is open to anyone… and that means you! Members have to be willing to pledge $20 upfront. Every two months, one member selects a book for the whole group to read. That member also selects a charity organization that is in some way related to the book. At the end of the year, all the members will vote on their favorite book/charity, and the collected money will go towards that charity. This month we’re all reading Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver and the selected charity is the Nature Conservacy.

Are you interested in joining our ranks? We’d love to have you! Visit the Read the Change website and email my friend Bekah (bekah@readthechange.org) to get started!

0 :: in good reads, Texas

not your average book club

February 9, 2012 at 1:51 pm

Update: As of yesterday, Read the Change book club has an even better website! Check it out here. Snazzy bio of yours truly coming soon under the Board tab.

And that is: the Read the Change book club.

Are you interested in joining our ranks? We’d love to have you! Visit the Read the Change website and email my friend Bekah (bekah@readthechange.org) to get started!

0 :: in good reads, Texas

last day in San Antonio

November 23, 2011 at 4:39 pm

On our last full day in SA, Elliott had to be out the door early for a graduation ceremony at Ft Sam Houston. (I love saying Fort Sam Houston really fast. Sounds so American and Texan. Sad I can’t say that every day anymore.) We thought Lena and I weren’t invited (although we were… whoops) so I stayed home and made him celebratory cinnamon rolls for brunch.

They were delish! Paula Deen’s fab recipe here.

As we began packing and cleaning, Elliott harvested his last crop of oyster mushrooms. He ordered the Back to the Roots Mushroom Kit from Amazon and has been tending to them (and harvesting crops!) for the past month or so. With these mushrooms Elliott combined a lot of fridge leftovers and made us elaborate omelets for lunch. Yum!

I cleared out all our food from the kitchen to give away to Lewis and Bekah. Lena had fun discovering that pile! Hippie child hair.

Suitcases filled our once-tidy little apartment… sigh…

I was alerted by my friends Sarah and Johanna that Starbucks was having a 2-for-1 holiday drinks sale, so we headed down the River Walk one last time for this treat. Grande peppermint mochas… yessss. On the way back we took a final saunter through Hemisfair Park and a tourist offered to snap this photo of us at the bottom of the Tower of the Americas (where we went for a date recently).

That night Lewis and Bekah took us out on a group date. We got all gussied up, and I wore one of Elliott’s birthday presents to me: lovely earrings designed by my nursing school classmate and dear friend Tara Montgomery.

They chose Carmen’s de la Calle, an incredible tapas bar with live music. Flamenco dancers performed that night to live music, and they left our blood racing! Innovative dishes, fabulous decor, sangria that went down oh-so-easily, and some of the sweetest friends… it was quite the farewell to this lovely town.

Thanks, dear Lewis and Bekah, for welcoming us and loving us so well while in your hometown. We miss you. Keep dreaming and planning that visit to Sicily!

1 :: in eat this, friends, Texas

last day in San Antonio

November 23, 2011 at 3:39 pm

They were delish! Paula Deen’s fab recipe here.

I cleared out all our food from the kitchen to give away to Lewis and Bekah. Lena had fun discovering that pile! Hippie child hair.

Suitcases filled our once-tidy little apartment… sigh…

Thanks, dear Lewis and Bekah, for welcoming us and loving us so well while in your hometown. We miss you. Keep dreaming and planning that visit to Sicily!

1 :: in eat this, friends, Texas

a visit from her Grammie

November 16, 2011 at 6:51 pm

Last week we were treated to a three-day visit from my mom. We’d been talking up San Antonio for awhile and she was eager to see some of the places we’ve come to love here. However, she was much more eager to see her little granddaughter!

We took her to see a San Antonio landmark: the Alamo. She took a few family photos for us… always a treat!

The next evening my mom watched Lena while Elliott and I went out on a date! We chose an exciting location for this date: the top of the Tower of the Americas, 750 feet off the ground. We were totally excited about our first one-on-one date since Lena was born (can that be right?!) and loved our little window booth with a view of the whole city.

The restaurant rotates on top of the tower so you can get a 360-degree view. We tucked a tiny piece of paper onto the window to see if we would make it all the way around. It took about 2 hours for the piece of paper to get around, and we missed it the first time. Four hours later we were still savoring our wine and conversation when we discovered our tiny slip of paper again. By then it was dark (this restaurant likes ambiance!) and impossible to take a picture without a huge flash. We thought this was funny at the time.

Of course no trip to San Antonio would be complete without some evening exploring along our River Walk.

My mom took us out to a local gastropub (ie. foodie restaurant) on her last night in town. The dishes were amazing! We chose about 6 or 7 little tapas-sized plates with Brussels sprouts in a sweet chili sauce, Bourbon pork belly on sweet potatoes with torched marshmallows, fried chicken in Old Bay spices, cauliflower and paneer in a curry sauce… I’m getting hungry just remembering it.

Lena went to town on the aforementioned sweet potatoes, which were pureed as though intended for her.

I finished off the meal with a delicious mug of thick cinnamon hot chocolate. Sooo good. Highly recommend this if you come through San Antonio; it’s called The Monterey.

The next morning we all got up at 3:45am to go to the airport. Ouch! My mom flew back to Virginia while our little family flew to California for the weekend. More photos to share about that trip tomorrow.