Weekend Update March 4, 2012

Since my last update:

As you may have guessed from last week’s weekend update we were on vacation in Mexico. We went down to Ixtapa and Zihuatanejo again and had a wonderful time. You’ll be seeing a Mexico theme to my Wordless Wednesday photos for a while.

Much of the vacation was spent reading either on the terrace of our room or on the beach. One of the great things about the place we stay is that they have large beach with plenty of places to sit in the shade under a palapa and enjoy the beach but remain protected from the sun. This is important for me due to my history of skin cancer issues.

I finished several books while we were on vacation. I finished The Winter Palace: A Novel of Catherine the Great by Eva Stachniak which was wonderfully done historical fiction about one of my favorite topics – The Romanovs. I also read Hail to the Chef by Julie Hyzy. I have that series targeted for catching up with this year so fitting one in on vacation was good. My third book of the trip was Blue Monday by Nikki French. It’s the first in a new series by a husband and wife author team. It took me a bit to get fully involved in the story but I’m glad I stuck with it. My full review will be up tomorrow. On the way home I started A Good American by Alex George. I was a little nervous about it because so many people I know loved it. Well, they were right. I was completely enchanted by it. I finished it on Friday.

My current read is Elegy for Eddie by Jacqueline Winspear. I’ve loved the Maisie Dobbs series from the beginning and I’m hoping to spend some quality time with this one today.

As for Audiobooks, I didn’t listen at all on vacation – I listened to the ocean. I’m back to listening to Rules of Civility by Amor Towles and enjoying it quite a bit.


Other than books and reading:

Mexico was beautiful and relaxing as always. The seafood we ate down there was spectacular. The best treat of the trip however was participating in releasing baby sea turtles to make their way to the ocean. I’ll be doing a separate post about this but here’s a couple of pictures for a tease.

Baby Olive Ridley Turtle

Baby turtles headed for the water

You may remember that we had to say goodbye to our elder cat a few weeks ago. Howie does not do alone well so we knew we’d be looking for another cat. We had to have just the right cat though. We didn’t want a kitten because we were concerned that Howie might overwhelm and frighten a baby. We wanted young cat that was old enough that they could asses her personality to know she’d be confident and outgoing and a good match for Howie. Yesterday we went to the shelter fully expecting that we might not find the right cat but we’d go ahead and at least get the preliminary paperwork done. Well – we came home with this:

Howie’s cat - Abigail Rose (aka “Abby Tabby”)

We’re completely smitten. She’s a very busy girl. They think she’s about a year old and she’s confident, curious and completely adorable.

Howie’s a bit unsure but she’s not afraid of him at all so we’re letting the adjustment and getting to know each other continue.

Hope you’re having a great weekend.