Bees and Things

About the Secret Life of Bees . . . our book club liked it, the ratings (we use a star system with five as the highest) ranged from three and a half to four. I gave it a solid four because I loved the writing and the characters. The only reason I didn't give it five stars was because I couldn't accept the mishmash of new age goddess worship that permeated the book. Someone else might have bought into that; I can't.

But the writing was beautiful, and as a reader, I couldn't help but love Lily and the Calendar sisters. There's something about female ensemble casts . . . like the movie Calendar Girls, and the book Secrets of the Divine YaYa Sisterhood and the Yada Yada Prayer Group. Our club talked about why women seem to need this kind of group bonding more than men do, and we decided that we're just more given to that sort of group sharing. You can take a group of women who hardly know each other, and they'll be spilling their guts in a matter of minutes. Men don't do that as easily as women do.

Today I am finishing up the revisions on The Elevator. My editor promised only "minor" revisions, and happily, our definitions of "minor" meshed! I had to write a couple of scenes though (I tend to write thin), so I'll finish up the last of those this morning, Lord willing.

And now--drum roll--I'm going to do something I never thought I'd do on this blog. For reasons of health and wardrobe, I need to go back on a healthy eating plan (notice I'm not using the d-word) and take off a certain number of pounds. I lost sixty of those pounds a couple of years ago, but some of them have crept back on as I fell back into old habits. Fortunately, healthy eating can become a habit, too, it's merely a matter of switching gears.

So--one reason I kept up with the 90 Day Bible Reading was because I keenly felt the need to remain accountable on this blog. So I'm going public here, too. I'll report in each week, probably on Monday, to tell you the results of the previous week. If you want to join me, let's be accountable to each other. No need to share eating plans or recipes (any restrictive plan works if you stick with it!), just little comments like "down two" or "up one" will do. Okay? Anybody want to join me? If so, just chime in on the comments, and we can encourage each other. :-)

That's it from my end! And yes, I love the new header, too. Hooray for Team Samson!

~~Angie