I hope everyone had a fabulous weekend, we were pretty relaxed this weekend and just chilled. Sophia decided she no longer wants to take riding lessons, which makes me kind of sad, but she said she just finds it boring lately and wants a break. Luckily they are pretty open at the riding school, we just pay by the month and you can take breaks and come back at a later date, so we will see how it goes. It's Winter break here this week for the schools so I have Sophia home all week. Luca is loving having his "buddy" home to play with. Whether I survive is yet to be seen! LOL
I also have a recipe recommendation for you today! Last night I made
Provencal Chicken Burgers with Pizzaladiere Topping (click the name for the link to the recipe!!) It is a Rachael Ray recipe and turned out very yummy! I also whipped up a small batch of a sort of aioli. I mixed some Hellman's mayo, chopped garlic and a little Dijon mustard and we put that on the burgers also! Very good indeed.
In other news we have been watching a very cool show on Discovery lately called
TREASURE QUEST It follows Odyssey Marine Exploration as they look for sunken ships with treasure. It's a really cool show and I simply have to say that what job could be cooler then looking for treasure? I mean just read this and tell me if that isn't the coolest thing EVA!!.....
"
Odyssey’s Most Remarkable Deep-Ocean Discoveries
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
(UNESCO) has estimated that there are over 3 million shipwrecks in the
world. Odyssey's proprietary shipwreck database contains over 3,000
deep ocean shipwrecks that may contain valuable cargo.
Since 2002, Odyssey has mapped more than 10,000 square miles of seabed
and spent more than 9,000 hours exploring shipwreck sites with a
Remotely-Operated Vehicle (ROV). Nearly 300 shipwrecks have been
discovered ranging from 3rd century BC Punic vessels to modern fishing
boats.
In 2003, Odyssey discovered the Civil War era shipwreck of the SS Republic®,
100 miles off the coast of Georgia and subsequently recovered over
51,000 coins and 14,000 artifacts from nearly 1,700 feet deep.
In May 2007, the company announced the largest historic deep-ocean
treasure recovery of over 500,000 silver and several hundred gold
coins, weighing 17 tons, from a Colonial era site code-named "Black Swan." Spain has claimed rights to the treasure, and the case is currently being litigated in US Federal Court.
During 2008, Odyssey located and tentatively identified at least one
of its targeted high-value shipwrecks in the “Atlas” search area and
Discovery Channel’s cameras were there to capture every discovery."
Maybe I should add "looking for sunken treasure" to my very long and kind of crazy bucket list? LOL
Lastly, how excited am I, I placed an order last week for four new books. I have to take advantage on the lower exchange rate with the British pound whilst I can, right?, right? LOL Anyways here are the four I ordered. I can't wait to read them. I've heard good things about all four!
Bonk: The Curious Coupling Of Sex And Science
"The study of sexual physiology—what happens, and why, and how to make
it happen better—has been a paying career or a diverting sideline for
scientists as far-ranging as Leonardo da Vinci, James Watson and
Napoleon Bonaparte’s great grand-niece Marie. The research has taken
place behind the closed doors of laboratories, brothels, MRI centres,
pig farms, sex toy R&D labs and Alfred Kinsey’s attic. Mary
Roach devoted the past two years to stepping behind those doors. The
result is Bonk: everything you wanted to know but couldn’t imagine that
someone in a white lab coat had studied. Can a person think herself to
orgasm? Can a dead man get an erection? Can Kegeling cure erectile
dysfunction? Can Broadway musicals cause it? Is vaginal orgasm a myth?
If you can transplant a face, then why not a penis? What happens if you
surgically relocate your clitoris? Why doesn’t Viagra help women—or,
for that matter, pandas? Does orgasm boost fertility? Cure hiccups? Do
the earlobes swell during sex? Few things are as fundamental to human
happiness than satisfying sex. Yet the funding for research, always
elusive, has dwindled sharply. Bonk is both an ode to a fascinating and
vital pursuit and a reminder that there is still much to learn. Sexual
arousal and orgasm are two of the most complex, delightful, utterly
amazing scientific phenomena on earth. Sexology, as Roach approaches
it, is right up there too."
The Gargoyle"A young man is fighting for his life. Into his room walks a bewitching
woman who believes she can save him. Their journey will have you
believing in the impossible. The nameless and beautiful narrator of The
Gargoyle is driving along a dark road when he is distracted by what
seems to be a flight of arrows. He crashes into a ravine and wakes up
in a burns ward, undergoing the tortures of the damned. His life is
over – he is now a monster. But in fact it is only just beginning. One
day, Marianne Engel, a wild and compelling sculptress of gargoyles,
enters his life and tells him that they were once lovers in medieval
Germany. In her telling, he was a badly burned mercenary and she was a
nun and a scribe who nursed him back to health in the famed monastery
of Engelthal. As she spins her tale, Scheherazade fashion, and relates
equally mesmerizing stories of deathless love in Japan, Greenland,
Italy and England, he finds himself drawn back to life – and, finally,
to love."
The Heretic's Daughter"Martha Carrier was hanged on August 19th 1692 in Salem, Massachusetts,
unyielding in her refusal to admit to being a witch, going to her death
rather than joining the ranks of men and women who confessed and were
thereby spared execution. Like her mother, young Sarah Carrier is
bright and willful, openly challenging the small, brutal world in which
they live.In this startling novel, she narrates the story of her early
life in Andover, near Salem. Her father is a farmer, English in origin,
quietly stoical but with a secret history. Her mother is a herbalist,
tough but loving, and above all a good mother. Often at odds with each
other, Sarah and her mother have a close but also cold relationship,
yet it is clear that Martha understands her daughter like no other.
When Martha is accused of witchcraft, and the whisperings in the
community escalate, she makes her daughter promise not to stand up for
her if the case is taken to court. As Sarah and her brothers are hauled
into the prison themselves, the vicious cruelty of the trials is
apparent, as the Carrier family, along with other innocents, are
starved and deprived of any decency, battling their way through the
hysteria with the sheer willpower their mother has taught them."
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell"Two magicians shall appear in England. The first shall fear me; the
second shall long to behold me The year is 1806. England is beleaguered
by the long war with Napoleon, and centuries have passed since
practical magicians faded into the nation's past. But scholars of this
glorious history discover that one remains: the reclusive Mr Norrell
whose displays of magic send a thrill through the country. Proceeding
to London, he raises a beautiful woman from the dead and summons an
army of ghostly ships to terrify the French. Yet the cautious, fussy
Norrell is challenged by the emergence of another magician: the
brilliant novice Jonathan Strange. Young, handsome and daring, Strange
is the very opposite of Norrell. So begins a dangerous battle between
these two great men which overwhelms the one between England and
France. And their own obsessions and secret dabblings with the dark
arts are going to cause more trouble than they can imagine."
Whew, it appears that I have wrote my own novel today! So I will wrap things up for today. I hope you have a fabulous Monday and until next time..TATA!!
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