Goal!

Well, I have to say though I am sore (thanks in part to the 8AM pilates class Saturday, but all the cleaning I did contributed as well) I feel like I really accomplished as much as I could this weekend and still managed to have some time to relax.

About the only things undone were going through drawers and cabinets, and the clothing laundry. Those two things are easy to do in short segments on a weeknight, so I'm not too disappointed in not getting everything checked off my list.

I also accomplished my other goal: eating junk food without a thought to having to actually make a "healthy" meal. Achieved by ingesting lots of tortilla chips and queso dip for lunch both days and dinner on Friday and Saturday. I actually ran out of chips - from a family size bag. In all, it was a most satisfying weekend.

Perhaps if I had read the correct book for tonights book club meeting, and hadn't had to make time to do so, I could have gotten more done. When I looked at the list, I must have looked at March instead of February, so read the March book, and only realized my mistake when I went to send out the reminder email to the group members. Oops.

American Bloomsbury by Cheever is the book for tonight. I thought it was a pretty quick and easy read - as long as I didn't stop to remember who was who and attempt to keep a straight time line in my head. But fairly interesting, about Concord, Mass. in the 1840's-1860's: Thoreau, Emerson, the Alcott Family, Hawthorne, Melville - many of the early influential authors we all have read (in High School English if at no other time) lived there on and off and were influenced by each other in their writing and thinking. Some people after reading this book might be influenced to go back and read books by these authors, but I am not one of them. I had enough of their imagery and attempts to infuse everything with meaning in High School, thankyouverymuch.

The book for March, which I also enjoyed, is Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer by Swanson. It covers the actions of John Wilkes Booth from the desperate plans to destroy Lincoln (and two other members of the upper administration) to his attempted escape into the deep-South. I find that history books usually just assemble facts in a time line in lieu of telling a story, but this one was an exception. The author was not afraid to add the little speculative details that really make a story come to life, and in doing so really drew me into the day-to-day details of Booth's actions, and the actions of those who hid him and those who were searching for him. It made for a most enjoyable lesson in something I really knew little about.

Of the two, I would certainly recommend Manhunt if you are looking for something that sounds intellectual, but is also an easy read.