In other pressing matters, tomor
row is thanksgiving and with this long weekend holiday we start the holiday season that ends only after New Year, so I feel today is a great day to think about what we are all Thankful for, those of us who are lucky enough to have jobs should be grateful for that, those of us who have health should be equally thankful, the most simple stuff internet access, education, light power, knowledge, family , friends, values, we should be thankful we have all these blessings and are privileged over many people who strive to have clean water to drink. Instead of searching for the best turkey recipe or struggling and complaining about tomorrow’s dinner, be grateful you have someone to share it with. Instead of complaining how much you have to cook, worry and share with those who are homeless and have nothing to eat. Happy thanksgiving to you and your Family!
http://www.thanksgiving-day.org/thanksgiving-day-celebration.html
http://www.usathanksgiving.com/
http://www.pilgrimhall.org/f_thanks.htm
Many of Isabel Allende’s books if not all of t
hem are translated to English so you are sure to enjoy her books. I would start with my all times favorite The House of the Spirit which initiates you bin a new genre called magic realism which Allende really masters in this book. If you like Allende then you should follow up with this Catalan author whose main books have been around the world and have been read by many people these books are also translated to English language. I have read them both and found them really interesting; I’m talking about Carlos Riuz Zafron who is the author of The Shadow of the Wind and The Angel’s Game both of these books are related but you can read each one of them separately and individually and in the order you choose to. All of these books are great vacation trip company.
http://www.carlosruizzafon.co.uk/
Of course I always check Oprah’s book club recommendations on her magazine or in the web page, and some I follow and some I don’t depending on the book’s topic and or author. My other sources of book recommendations are my friends, all of them whether locally or friends I have met on vacations and live abroad in other regions and countries and they have made several times great suggestions that I have followed gladly. Once a friend recommends a great book he is a very good source for great reading material, such is my Mexican friend who has recommended several great book I know will recommend you. First I will start with a great Latin American Author, she lives in the US but was born in Chile and is related with former president Allende, of course she is Isabel Allende. She has many books, being a prolific author she has written over 20 books.
http://www.oprah.com/entity/oprahsbookclub
http://www.isabelallende.com/
For a more deep a
nd profound reading, I highly recommend catching up on your book reading during your vacation trips. Vacations that are supposed to be relaxing by the pool or the beach are great for reading long interesting books. So I like to call this reading escape my vacation inside the vacations, whenever a family trip is on course or friends are going around you doing things you don’t’ really feel up to doing yourself, then I pick up a book and isolate myself into the world of the story I am reading. I mostly like to read fiction novels unlike my mother who likes to read biographies especially from celebrities. I love to get capture by the plot and be so into the story I can hardly give up reading for any other activity. I like to have my attention capture right from the start.
So after you finish your light reading the kind you can just leave for a moment and then come back to it without you having to reread the entire article again, you can come back to your reading anytime. The magazines have another advantage for the pool or the beach, they can get wet and you can continue to read them and then you just throw them away, so for a great vacation light reading go buy a couple of your favorite magazines and take them with you, the spa treatments the before bedtime the beach and pool time will be filled with interesting facts and not so useful as fun information about different topics. All the reading time in a vacation trip can´t be taken up by magazine reading , vacations are also for reading more serious stuff, and it is also fun to bring it along with you.
When on a vacation trip one th
ing you can’t forget to pack is some reading material. I like to pack to kinds of reading material, magazines and books. The magazines whoever they are or you like and choose to take with you, will provide a good reading for the beach or pool side while you rest but won’t require you to be focus on your reading for a long time or rereading the same paragraph a hundred times. I like that whenever I travel with friends of family, we each take a couple of magazines of our liking, some of us take sports magazines, some like t e show business gossip ones, others like my mother like Good Housekeeping or Redbook, some like the science cultural ones, I myself like the ones about traveling and crafts, so whenever we travel together there is a whole bunch of material to choose from.
http://www.magazines.com/
http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/
http://www.redbookmag.com/
Of course making one pie and finding the perfect mix of pumpkin and spices was fun and entertaining, I mixed and checked several recipes in the internet and on cooking books traditional and new, and went on a savoring quest amongst my friends and my family to find out which filling tastes better, I had several labeled jars and I asked anyone who would volunteer to try them and speak their mind. So pretty soon I found the perfect mix, that exact measure you have to put into the pumpkin pulp to have it taste exactly the way I wanted, and I had a winner. The trouble is that I don’t want to give out my secret, so the trick was on me, because every thanksgiving and every Christmas I am in charge of the pumpkin pies, and it is either that or giving my secret away, which I’m not ready to do ….yet.
http://www.huliq.com/8326/88939/best-thanksgiving-pies-and-dessert-recipes-web
http://www.joyofbaking.com/pumpkinpie.html
I’m in charge of the pumpkin pie, not 
to brag but I make and amazing pumpkin pie, and I know it comes easy to me but baking one pie is delightful, but multiply that by four and you have to clean up a mess after you are finish cooking not to mention that the pie I make is from real pumpkins which makes the mess even tougher to clean. One Thanksgiving I tried to make a special original recipe pie and the other’s form a can and go figured I was left with three pumpkin pies for the office, so I really have to make the four of them or I will never hear the end of it. My mother put me up to this and without noticing I fell into the pumpkin pie trap. It all started when I tried to make a simple pie for the small dinner my mother was making, so I thought I pitched in and make a pie from scratch.
http://www.pickyourown.org/pumpkinpie.php
http://www.verybestbaking.com/recipes/specialty/libbys-detail-fpp.aspx
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/paula-deen/pumpkin-pie-recipe/index.html
So next Thursday is Thanksgiving and I
have a preholiday vacation trip, and Thanksgiving will come and go and my work would still not allow me to take a recess from it. Remember school days, when a vacation was needed and taken on December, not just a few holidays, but two whole weeks of freedom. As grownups we get more power to decide, but also more responsibility and we can’t just leave work piling up while we sit around relaxing and taking spa massages. When we were kids we though grownups had all the fun and now we can see that is the other way around, so we try to schedule a trip when our work is not going to stress us all up upon our return because then the relaxing vacation trip would make no sense at all. So not a good time to go away and my mother is already distributing Thanksgiving dinner chores… If only I could be a kid again.
We all have come to rely on Oprah’s advice for a lot of things from what book to read to how to help those in need from animals to saving the planet. The causes for her retirement are not yet explained they are supposed to be released by her on tomorrows show, but if the rumors are true we should all be preparing ourselves for a great finale a marvelous goodbye and knowing the way she likes and enjoys work she won’t be far away from the entertaining business she just may be moving to another great project. The rumors say it may be with the discovery channel and with the schools she runs in Africa for girls, she will probably be pursuing more educational endeavors. The Oprah Show may not be with us forever but we will surely keep some of the great moments in our Tivo. And as the business woman she is the season’s best moments will soon be out in blu ray.
row is thanksgiving and with this long weekend holiday we start the holiday season that ends only after New Year, so I feel today is a great day to think about what we are all Thankful for, those of us who are lucky enough to have jobs should be grateful for that, those of us who have health should be equally thankful, the most simple stuff internet access, education, light power, knowledge, family , friends, values, we should be thankful we have all these blessings and are privileged over many people who strive to have clean water to drink. Instead of searching for the best turkey recipe or struggling and complaining about tomorrow’s dinner, be grateful you have someone to share it with. Instead of complaining how much you have to cook, worry and share with those who are homeless and have nothing to eat. Happy thanksgiving to you and your Family!
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