Monday, September 3, 2007

I'm Back!



Saskatchewan is great and my holidays were wonderful (as you can see Robbie enjoyed some relaxation too) but it is fun to be back to see my new back porch. The long list of work emails and phone messages were less exciting. I don't have pictures of my porch yet and cabinets of some sort still need to go in but here is the picture of the tile lay out that my friend who did the work sent me for approval. Love that cross design! Now that the tile is grouted it is straighter than it is in the pictures. And now that all the old carpeting is pulled out the dumpster is full! And I have a lot more purging to do yet.

The other treat I came home to was a brand new copy of Peter Erb's new book Murder, Manners, Mystery: Reflections on Faith in Contemporary Detective Fiction. Thank you Amazon! Peter and I share a love of detective fiction and this is his reflection on the theological themes that appear in some contemporary mystery writers. Peter was my MA supervisor and he has a delightful ability to make insightful comments on 19th cent. Catholic theology one moment and rhapsodize on the joys of cheezie movies the next. I've started the book already - haven't even finished unloading my van - and it is delightful.

On that note one of really enjoyable time of my holidays was spent reading Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love. After a miserable divorce Gilbert takes a year to travel to Italy, to eat pasta, to an ashram in India, to pray, and to Bali to find balance (and incidently fall in love). She writes really frankly about her personal struggles (sometimes so frankly I blushed) and she sees the humour in a lot of it. I laughed outloud a lot while reading it.

Now I have to finish emptying the van.