a book a month

I'm taking on another thing from my list of 101 things. And just in time too! It's the middle of January and I haven't started my "book a month" project yet. This will be book 1 of 33. That's how many months are in 1001 days if I did my math correctly. This is a special book though, as it comes with a little shameless family promotion ;).


This book was written by my grandmom's brother, or my great-uncle, Bill Richardson. It is a memoir of his time as a POW in the Korean War. My grandmom, being as proud as she is, bought nearly everyone in the family a copy for Christmas. On Christmas day I couldn't help but take a sneak peak. I picked a random chapter just to read a few words and I couldn't put it down. It's so interesting and even more so because someone I know went through this. It's an amazing way to be able to learn about your family history. I can't wait to really get into it!



There are some family photos included in the book too. This is a clipping from a newspaper that featured a photo of my uncle's family when they found out he was being released. My grandfather is the first on the left. My grandmom is right next to him and her mother is next to her. As my grandmom says, her mom was quite ahead of her times. Note the strapless top!


This is another newspaper clipping of a photo of him being welcomed back home. Overall he was in the POW camp for just under three years and despite all of that he did two tours in Vietnam! I can't imagine being brave enough to go back into that situation.

So that is a little piece of my family history I thought I'd share with you. If you are interested in this sort of thing or have a family member who's a history buff and might like this, you can buy it here.

Happy Monday everyone!

kicking off 2011

I return. That was a good, much needed break spent with family and friends. I was glad to not be attached to my computer like I usually am. I got so many great new things to cook and craft with too! I'm really excited to try everything out and share it right here.

But for now, I want to kick off my first blog post of 2011 with something I can't wait to get started. I mentioned a while back that I wanted to participate in 101 things in 1001 days. I've seen it on many blogs that I read and it seems like such a great way to set some important short and long term goals. It's a long enough amount of time that you can reach a little high and list things you may not be able to do for a while, but at the same time it's a short enough amount of time that it keeps your goals realistic.

I've created a page for this up at the top where I'll be keeping track of my goals and hopefully crossing off many things. So check it out if you're interested or need some inspiration for your own goals!

Hope everyone's holidays were great and best of luck to you all in the new year! :)