The Chosen

More schedule changes! This month, we're reading The Chosen, by Chaim Potok, and meeting at Emily Simmons' house on Thursday, March 25th (not the 11th). In April and May, we will revert to the 3rd Thursday of the month as originally scheduled (the 15th and the 20th, respectively). Please take a look at the revised schedule (click on link--I can't seem to paste it in below) to double-check what you've signed up for and let me know if you have conflicts on the new (old) dates! Thank you!

I Capture the Castle (location change)

Happy 2010! Mommy Salon is back in swing this Thursday, January 14th at 7. However, please note that we'll be meeting at Kristy Robinson's house again, rather than at Alicia's. I read I Capture the Castle, by Dodie Smith, over Christmas break and was intrigued! Among the questions I'm excited to discuss on Thursday are:

• What do you think about Jacob Wrestling and Mortmain's current project?


• Are Cassandra's feelings just "calf-love" as Rose accused, or for real?


• Would you want to live in an old abandoned castle?!

Anyway, I thought it was great. I laughed aloud several times (dang, should've marked those pages!) and enjoyed it thoroughly. See you Thursday!

Mommy Salon Poetry Night!

Our Christmas party is coming right up! We're meeting at Katie Riggs' home next Thursday, December 10th at 7 pm. We had such a great time last year with our white elephant gift exchange and treat potluck that we decided to make it a tradition. Please bring a white elephant gift (spend no more than $3, if you must spend anything at all), a treat or appetizer and copies of the recipe, and a favorite poem to share! RSVP to Katie.

Also, some Mommy Saloners will be participating in two Christmas celebrations:

The Nativity (see http://interfaithnativity.org/)

"Christmas is For Children", a Colorado Mormon Chorale Christmas concert (see http://www.cmcco.org/)

Both of these events are filled with the spirit of the season. Please attend if you can!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

The Audacity of Hope

Hi mommies!

Thanks to Steph for sending out a reminder/RSVP request email already about this coming Thursday's Mommy Salon meeting. We don't have a designated discussion leader this month, so please come with a question or topic to discuss, and we'll draw from a hat. Katie is our learning topic teacher this month, and will be telling us somethings about politics. This book is longer and dryer than the two we've read so far this year: don't feel bad if you don't make it through the whole thing before Mommy Salon! (and as always, feel free to come even if you haven't cracked it at all :] )

See you soon!

Changes to Schedule

As we discussed last week at Kristie's house, I've gone ahead and changed our future Mommy Salon meetings from Tuesdays to Thursdays to accommodate a few mommies that can't make it on Tuesdays. Please look over the schedule and let me know if you have conflicts on any dates that you are hosting, leading a discussion, or teaching. Thanks!!!

Knitting Lesson

Tuesday's Mommy Salon is right around the corner! I am excited to have the opportunity to share my love of knitting with everyone! If you happen to own a pair of knitting needles, I encourage you to bring them with you, additionally if you have any yarn at home please feel free to bring that with you as well since we will be using both of those items while learning how to knit. I will be bringing knitting needles for anyone who needs to borrow them for our lesson and I have plenty of yarn to go around! If you think that knitting is really something that you would like to learn and continue to develop I welcome you to purchase your own knitting needles which you can use to continue practicing everything that we learn on Tuesday! I recommend getting knitting supplies at Michaels or Hobby Lobby, additionally any knitting needles sized between 7 (4.5mm) and 10 (6mm) would be good for a beginner to practice with!

I will be sending out an e-mail this week with knitting instructions that I have taken from my favorite knitting book! Please bring the first 12 pages with you to Mommy Salon. I included additional pages for you to leverage as you continue to develop your knitting skills!

Schedule Update

Our 2009-2010 schedule has been updated! View it here on the blog. We still have a few months without discussion leaders, so please sign up via a comment or email if you're interested in leading a discussion on those books. As your turn to lead a book discussion approaches, you can write a post on the blog if you'd like the rest of us to prepare for the discussion in any way (e.g. writing something, thinking about some questions, posing questions of our own, participating in a blog-conversation about the book, etc.).

We have a wealth of talents and interests among our little group! Thank you all for volunteering your expertise and time for our "learning topics". Learning topic teachers may also post information on the blog-for example, anything you need us to bring, demo videos, handouts, how-tos, follow-up material, or links to interesting sites relating to your topic.

Thank you, too, for your book recommendations. If you're looking for books to read outside of Mommy Salon, I've listed everyone's suggestions in the sidebar of the blog.

Our second Mommy Salon meeting is coming right up! Please RSVP to each month's hostess (Kristie, this month) so she will know how many to expect. See you next week!

P.S. Remember, you can always email or comment if you have any, well, comments or questions!