I was tagged. Katrina asked about my favorite places to eat. Oh, and she limited me to just FIVE. This is harder than it would seem.

The rules are as follows:

1. Name and link to the person who tagged you.
2. Name the state and country where you reside.
3. Name your five favorite local restaurants.
4. Tag others.

And, as usual, I am going to take exception to at least one of the rules. (That’s just how I roll.)

First, I was tagged by the wonderful, ever creative, Katrina. Again (stepping on my soap box) if you don’t read this woman’s blog every day, you are missing a smile, a laugh, a dropped jaw in amazement, a co-conspirator nod every single day. Secondly, I live in Pennsylvania, USA, but that will have little to do with my favorite restaurants (my exception).

My five favorite restaurants are:
1. Arthur’s Garden Deli in Rock Island, IL. Maybe it’s because my friend Stacy is emailing me job opportunities ‘back home’ in Illinois, but the thought of a baked potato, or hot ham and cheese, or maybe their salad bar, or any of the concoction sandwiches my ex used to create there, but I could really go for some Arthurs. Of course I’d need some bagel chips, fruit salad and soda to go along with it!!
2. Cheddar’s. Again, a restaurant from my former life. Cheddars is the place we went to in college, the place we went to when we were first married, the place we took Jacob when he was just days old (so he could meet our favorite waitress – hi Michelle!), the place I even met dear friends on a return visit home from PA. Cheddars is the only restaurant I know with a pork tenderloin sandwich. The place I consumed as much Thousand Island dressing as possible when I was pregnant. The place where we always ate at half price (did I mention Michelle?)
3. Paganini’s in Doylestown, PA. The first nice restaurant we ate at when we moved out to PA. I’ve only eaten there perhaps three or four times in the 9 years we’ve lived here, but it’s just divine. It’s the whole experience. The restaurant is in a rennovated house, with little nooks and hide-a-way spots for tables. The food is melt-in-your mouth good. The servers walk around with warm fresh bread delivered to your bread plate while you dine. Great atmosphere, great food, great memories.
4. McGinnis Landing in Kalamazoo, MI. There isn’t anything really remarkable about this restaurant. The food is typical American. It’s just that eating there means I’m with my family and that’s always a good time. I can remember a time in particular when I was forced to don a HUGE green ten gallon cowboy hat while the staff sang a little birthday jingle to me. Even that memory cannot dampen the joy I feel when I think of being there surrounded by the kids.
5. Calhoon’s in Tennessee. I don’t know exactly what town Calhoon’s finds itself mainly because we usually go by boat. Again, the restaurant itself isn’t remarkable, it’s the journey there. Out boating with the family, travelling to the restaurant together. The last time our dinner took far longer than expected and we had to navigate home in the pitch dark. Even so, I’d love to be on my way to Calhoon’s tonight. (I know the rest of my family will probably head there sometime this week as they are all together in TN. Enjoy some ribs for me!)

If nothing else, this meme tells you a) I’m hungry and b) I’m homesick. I’m just having a little trouble lately putting my finger on exactly where ‘home’ is.

By saying “flexible am/pm/weekend schedule” my new boss meant I’ll be working every single Sunday from 8am-6pm or I am out of a job. We’ve had a difficult start to the new job trying to reach a compromise when only one of us (me) is compromising. As it currently stands, I’ve agreed to work her mandated Sunday schedule in order to keep my job. She reluctantly allowed me to do even that as she was ready to shake hands and go our separate ways more than once since this discrepancy arose. I’ve offered to work every Sunday from 2-6, I’ve offered to work every Saturday whatever hours she wants, I’ve offered to work any evening hours, alternating Sundays, but none of that was acceptable to her.

So, it’s safe to say that resumes are back out, I’ve re-inquired about jobs I had interviewed for before accepting this one and I’m trying to remain optimistic that something better is going to come up that will allow me to still attend church on a regular basis.

It is most interesting, isn’t it, that all of this conflict has arisen during employment by a company with the word “Christian” in its name.

It was a sultry evening last night. The air felt thick and heavy. I turned on the ceiling fan and lay down on the couch to watch a chick flick. When it ended, I savored the sweet romance lingering in the air. I poured a glass of wine and started to make a late dinner. The house was still and silent. In my head I could hear a whisper of a time forgotten, “Do you remember?” it asked. I paused at the stove. Whose voice did I hear? What memory long forgotten had found it’s way to the front of my mind? “Do you remember?” I could hear the question, it’s rhythmic cadence, the soft melody of it’s intonation, but I couldn’t place the time or the place. “Do you remember?”

Was it a game we had played so many years ago? Was it something he had said in an intimate whisper? When did I last hear these words? “Do you remember?” And what it is that followed? Right on the edge of my mind I could hear the next words… but what were they? What came next that has lingered for all this time?

I savored my glass of wine over dinner still trying to place the words in the history of my life. The voice was male, this much I knew, but who said them and in what context I just couldn’t place.

It wasn’t until nearly bedtime, when my mind had finally stopped struggling with the words, stopped rolling the phrase over my soul trying to squeeze another morsel out of the memory that I might see it in its entirety that the whole of it finally came to me.

“Hey R2. Do you remember….Luke Skywalker?”

Ahhhh, yes. Back to the reality of my life. No romantic whispered phrase, no intimate moment shared with a boy from years past, no, just a game that LM plays with his R2D2 robot.

Reality Bites.

My sister called me at work just now.

“Hey EJ- are you bored?”

“You just called me at work, right? It’s redundant to then ask if I’m bored.”

“Go to this website: www.stuckatprom.com and vote for couple #3881″

“What?”

“It’s a competition to design prom outfits out of duct tape. There’s a couple from Michigan in the finals and I want them to win.”

“You want me to look at prom outfits made from duct tape and then vote on a Michigan pair to win?”

“Yes! They are 200 votes behind!!”

“And this voting is critical to their lives – how?”

“It will change their life!!”

“Jules, it will change the life of whomever wins this, um, presitigious award. Do you know this couple from Michigan?”

“No.”

“So we’re voting simply on proximity alone.”

“Yes.”

“Well, if the reigning Duct Tape Prom Dress award makes Michigan a better place to live, they can have my vote.”

“That’s all I’m asking.”

If you’d like to make my sister happy (which vicariously makes me happy, too) please go visit this site and vote for couple #3881. On the home page, click on “Top Ten” then scroll down. They are in silver and blue.

Oh, the things I do to entertain my sister.

I miss my boy.

Oh to have the capacity to write like Doig in The Whistling Season! If I were ever to wish for a skill (beyond having the vocal prowess of Martina McBride) I would wish for this. To hold in my hands such a novel as this and know those words, this story, these characters poured forth from my soul.

Elegant, captivating, lyrical, magical, witty, intelligent…this novel was delightful to read and will be savored in future readings again and again. With the arrival of Rose and Morrie into the home of Paul, his two younger brothers and widowed father, comes more than just new acquaintences, but a new education altogether. Sweetly, senuously entwining the past, present and years to come, Doig takes his characters through their simple Montana farm life and into our hearts. We can all relate to the way a teacher moved us, or the way a secret changed our lives. The moment we realized we were no longer a child, the way a parent sometimes needs protection provided by a child, or how lessons learned in our youth can help us understand how to best deal with the world as adults.

The story, the characters, the setting, the language is fresh, intelligent, and original. I loved the book from the first page and as I turned each one, I wondered who I would send my copy to first. By the end I wondered if I’d ever let it go from my favorites collection. Go buy your copy of The Whistling Season right now. Best $11 you’ll spend on a book for a long while.

I have owned my car for more than three years now (you’d not know that by the amount still due to the bank, but still…) In those three years I have struggled with a number of issues with the design of my Taurus.

1) My car came equipped with a single CD player and a radio. The console between the front seats, however, opens up to reveal storage slots applicably designed for tapes.

2) My turn signal will not stay on rounding curves in the opposite direction. Thus, making the right turn onto the street to my development while banking left on the road, requires you to hold the signal if you don’t wish to upset those waiting to turn at the corner. Likewise, not 100 yards later, in an attempt to turn on my street as the main road veers left, you will, again, need both hands on to turn the wheel while holding the signal in place. An every day double annoyance.

3) The window controls on the driver’s door are not in the right ergonomic location for the length of my arms. Despite the years of experience with this particular vehicular impairment, I still tend to put down the back windows when I mean to put down the front. A lesson learned the most severely when I got into my car this morning to find it soaking wet from the thunderstorm last night that blew in through perfectly open back windows. In my brainless driving, I had not even realized I had put the back windows down and therefore never thought to put them back up after putting the vehicle in park outside my door.

Soggy doesn’t even begin to describe the backseat.

My laptop is currently dead. It needs a $250 part to breathe life again. After having just shelled out more money that I care to admit for this machine, I’m not eager to do it again. That said, I’m not in the financial market to purchase a new one, either. Rock and hard place know me all too well.

I realized today that perhaps God is trying to show me in different ways that He is taking perfectly good care of me and my needs if only I would let him. First, there was Friday’s event. That, in and of itself is a demonstration of God’s hand in my life and His care for me and my needs.

Another issue was resolved today, one that has been of great concern to me. Upon leaving my current job (where they pay 90% of my family coverage) , I will have a 30 day waiting period before I’m eligible for health insurance at my new position (I tried to negotiate out of this, but to no avail.) I have heard the horror stories of COBRA (mainly the cost) and was fretting that necessity. I spoke with my office manager last week and she said they would keep me on the company policy for that extra month (my premium is paid through then anyway) . I was so relieved! While not a complete break, it would at least keep my costs down to the group rate and not COBRA rates.

Today, my office manager and I were talking and I asked if she could get me a ballpark figure for how much my health insurance costs the company each month (LM, too) so I could plan for that expenditure. She said I didn’t understand. They company will PAY the health insurance cost. The 90% that they currently pay now. I don’t have to pay anything other than what I usually pay. DESPITE NOT BEING ON THEIR PAYROLL.

This is a $700-800 savings for me, and a HUGE answer to prayer. I thanked her and thanked her (it’s not something they are just doing for me, they’ve done this before, too).

I am just so grateful for God’s working in my life right now. I need to sit tight and know that He will answer our computer needs, too (or remind me again how a computer at home is a luxury!).

God is so good!!

I don’t have the book with me (and my home computer is dead) so you’ll have to wait for me to remember the author (I can’t even find the book on amazon. Not a good sign.)

The Rock is a Christian novel, but not strikingly so. The characters had questionable morals (something I actually enjoy in Christian fiction) and make some realistically bad choices. The novel is about a family, primarily two brothers, growing up during Prohibition. While the book isn’t centered on alcohol, it certainly plays a part. In a bit too-typical of a fashion, one son is dedicated to his family, rising to the occasion after his father (and elder sister) die. The other brother is lazy, mean spirited and spiteful. The opening scene tells as much as you ever need to know to understand the relationship between the two when one spends days building a very rough church in the woods and the other sets fire to it.

The novel primarily traces the path of the good son. Following the convictions of his heart, the way he hears God in his life and his desire to be on his own and yet faithful to his family and his calling. Ultimately, he decides that his life’s passion is to build a real church on top of the mountain.

I never felt as though this character was truly hearing God, as he declared, more than that he was just jumping from idea to idea without thinking it through. He seemed impulsive to me, quick to leave home or return with little effort given to see his dreams through. Even the eventual building of the church, while seeming to require immense effort, thought and calculation, proved to be lacking in a variety of ways, a fact he only realized when he received help.

Perhaps it is indicative of our own selfish desires, of our own blindness towards God’s greater plan. Perhaps it was simply an example of a weak character (a category I can easily relate to). Whatever the purpose or intention of the author, I wasn’t captivated by this novel. Even the conclusion seems to fall short of being a resounding declaration as the characters once again abandon the original plan and simply go on with their lives as if nothing ever changed.

Not a bad read, but I wouldn’t pay much for the book. Luckily, I picked this one up on a clearance rack. Even so, I think I still paid too much for the experience.