Susannah's Garden...

Feeling fairly uninspired at work right now. Just printed out some pasta recipes in preparation for the Farmers Market tomorrow. A specialty pasta place has a table that sells dynamite, home-made pasta. I've been trying to cook more lately (instead of relying on chicken salad and Campbell's soup to be the main course, three nights a week) and to generally eat healthier. The Catholic Librarian needs to lose a few pounds...I got on the scale Saturday morning, and nearly felt my heart stop. I swear it, I saw stars. It was the most I've weighed since I gave birth to Hank nearly three years ago. In fact, I recall (oh so clearly and painfully) that at *5 months* pregnant, I weighed two pounds less than I weighed Saturday morning. Life with a toddler can be difficult (while also working full-time, taking care of a house...you get the picture) and it seems I lost track of my eating and exercising, and generally taking good care of myself. So, this week I'm trying to get back into a healthy rhythm.

Anyway, that has nothing to do with Susannah's Garden, the book by Debbie Macomber that I just finished reading. The book was a very simple, sweet romance, but it made me reflect on things in my own life a bit in a way that means the book was quite good. One thing I liked about the book is that the female lead was a fifty year old woman, rather than a young, "just discovering herself" twenty year old that is often the heroine. Something different, something that appeals to the "definitely older than twenty" Catholic Librarian :) Susannah returns to her childhood home to nurse her elderly and ailing mother after the death of her father. She experiences a powerful resurfacing of painful memories regarding her father from her early life, and as the story progresses, begins to see them in a new light as her rocky relationship with her own daughter takes some unexpected turns. Susannah left home thinking that her marriage was stale, and that her father keeping her from her first love, Jake, was the biggest injustice of her life. She embarks on a risky and deceitful search for her old flame and uncovers some things she didn't realize thirty years prior. She comes to realize that a teenagers' view of things cannot be held onto through adulthood unexamined. Her memory of her father, her relationship with her mother and daughter, and her marriage all come out more positive and refreshed after her realization.

Overall, an uplifting read that turned out to have a thoughtprovoking and deep message.