G.R.O.O.V.E.

I SURVIVED!  I thought for sure I would be in a lot of pain today from stoopiing and crouching for 3 hours last night.  Thanks to the members of The Columbus Curling Club they made our experiance GREAT!  We learned all about the sport.  From how to through the rock (granite ball with handle), to Sweeping.  the scoring is much like bacci. I was impressed how we quickly learned and became comfortable playing. At first we could not throw the rock half way down the feild. by the second game it was NO problem.

the best part of the evening was meeting Jan Smith.  Jan and her husband was working/teaching my group of Curlers.  by the end of the evening we SIGNED HER UP as a new member of GROOVE.  she wont be able to join us next week for Wine Appreciation because her and Stephen are on their way to Vancouver to see Curling LIVE. Have fun and be safe.  thanks again to everyone one at the Columbus Curling Club.  It was a great experiance! I highly recommmend to everyone!

Lisa See is the author of international best sellers. for book club this quarter we read her most recent work Shanghai Girls.  the evening started out with a dinner (shich I was unable to attend so I hope someone else may blog!!) at the Thurber House.  I understand it was quite tasty and Lisa spoke with great enthusiam with everyone.  The auditorium was packed for the after dinner speaking. My fellow GROOVe members were in the second to last row. But that didnt dampen the evening.  Lisa See is a great speaker. She talked of her life, her family and how the book came together. Because there were people in the audiance who had not read it yet we couldnt talk in depth about the story itself. Like why did Sam have to commit suicide?

I was most humored by her families past.  her great grand father had a business selling crotchless underwear!

I learned so much by reading the book about PAPER sons and PAPER wives. Its amazing the hardships these people went through just to be in our wonderful Country.  God Bless America.

Well mother nature certainly was kind to us.  The weather was almost perfect. No wind, rain or snow!  I actually over dressed.  We started the day on the slopes of Snow Trails....ok well on the end of a hill at Snow Trails.  The hardest part of learning to ski was walking around in those heavy boots.  First we learned the parts of the ski's, our stance and about balance.  Then we had to walk sideways a bit up the slope and come down using are knees to guide us.  I did ok the first time, then on the second trial we went a little higher.  I think I missed the "How to Stop" lesson because I promptly used the orange plastic fence to do so.  There I was ski's, poles and legs all tangled in the fence. YES, Chris got a picture. Luckily she doesnt know how to get it off her camera and on the internet!!!  My goal was to go down the bunny hill twice. Well I doubled my goal and did it 4 times. WEEEEEE is all I can say. It was fun but I have no plans on ever doing it again!

Around 2:30 I went to the Manor for set up.  Melinda and Nanette helped unpack all the food and get it started cooking.  I  was glad to see we had a few extra beds.  The GROOVEttes slowly trickled in and we had dinner right on time. I made lasagna, meat and vegetarian.  I have never cooked on that large of a scale before.  It was a first for me to try a vegetarian recipe.  I heard it was good. SWoosh, another badge - CHECK!  (dine-in)

The banquet meeting ran a little long as each member told us of their accomplishments of the past year, Sheri interjecting  each time.  For me the most memorable was not a badge accomplishment but Tammy Manley speaking of a fund raiser for the coming year. I am looking forward to May and riding a Bus down to Cinti to particpate in a walk for Rhetts. (sp???)

After the meeting some took off back to the Lodge where Bad Dog was playing, and other hung at the house. Patti - what was that game called we played. LOVED IT!!

I dont know about the rest of the crew but I was in bed just after midnight. DOG TIRED!

I hope everyone had a great time like me!  Can't wait til next year!!!

dont misread the tile....it definately was not the BEST BOOK but the best book CLUB MEETING!  I felt a need to give something back to the poor souls who read the very cheesy book titled: The Perfect Christmas by Debbie Maccomber.  I chose that book while quickly flipping through Amazon while at the last meeting.  Knowing the book club was in December I wanted something "appropriate".  hence Christmas in the title.

Well we atleast we had a great time. We spent more time on Wine than on talking about the book!

 Bernie came out from Wine Shop at Home.  Wine Shop is a PARTY like tupperware. Bernie came in a showed off his product - and we did a taste testing. He talked about the 4 C's of wine tasting....hmmm what were those? I must have another party!!!  Seriously. Wine Shop at Home are wines from all over California but not marketed at Grocery Stores or anything.  And once they are gone - they are gone.  We tasted 3 whites and 3 reds.  I pick my favorites from the cute label - WINNER: Sun Fish.  They all tasted really yummy, so why not have a cute bottle too?!  For those who do not have their Wine Badge this was a great jump start towards getting your charm.  Now just host your own tasting and start a journal and you have completed the badge requirements! 

I did take pictures and will post those later in the week - so keep checking back.  Thanks to everyone who came out to my house!  I was glad to show off my decorating badge project: The Coppertop Tavern.  It's a little small for a dozen people or more doing a wine tasting - but fun none the less.

happy holidays - and since I wont see most of you until SNOW BADGE - Happy New Year too.

As part of the Wine Appreciation Badge Cami hosted her first ever Wine Tasting.  I think she might have earned a badge for hosting a Party too because a GREAT party it was. 

About 15 women showed up with 2 bottles of wine. One bottle was set out on the kitchen island and we filled in the note card (made by Cami) with basic info: name of wine, type and cost per bottle.  Then Cami had created Wine Note Cards.  We traveled around the island tasting each wine and making notes. My system was a basic grading A through F.  (no one got below a C).  As most wine tasters have suggested to me I started with the lightest wine and moved up to the heavy (white - red). 

I noticed I am not the only person who buys wine by the creative label.  I brought Wrongo Dongo, another person brought B!tch and a third brought Little Black Dress, just to name a few. All the wines were wonderful in my opinion.

Cami, thinking of everything, had delightful appetziers to taste with the wine.  It is amazing how some wines completely change in taste by simply sampling a cheese, dessert or other edible item!

After the tasting we gathered around in the living room where all the 'extra" wines had been creativly wrapped up.  Our names were selected out of bowl and we eaach had a chance to unwrap a bottle or steal from some one else who had already opened.  There was ALOT of stealing going on.  It was a great idea to add the white elephant because everyone went home with a bottle of wine!

Thanks again to Cami for hosting and inviting all GROOVE members to her tasting.  I also met a few other friends of hers.  One I think may even join GROOVE -

One last note, I wish I could remember who told me this but it's a GREAT idea: When at a resteraunt, or a friends house and you have just tasted a wine you really enjoyed.....you find yourself without your wine journal (another peice of the badge) take out your phone and TAKE A PICTURE! Brilliant. So the next time at the store you can just flip open your PIX and voila!  there it is!

We all gathered at Laura's house on Friday Night.  The hostess with the mostest laid out a beautiful spread with fine wine and appetizers.  The bruchetta dip was to die for!  Laura had Wayne from Ethan Allen come in and talk first.  He brought lots of new brochures of upcoming trends and items available at EA.  I noticed alot of stream lines in the furniture. Even the "glamour" looks were tight.  The most interesting items were the new  wall papers available.  TEXTURE, texture, texture.  remember the sea grass wall paper of the 70's? its BAAAAAAAACk!  And more interesting than ever.  Check out the photos.  The textured leaf and glitter stone are in the pics.  One popular one missing from photos is the Cork. Very environmentally friendly.  that seems to be the key these days.  It cant just look good - it has to be good to the environment too!  After a informative lesson in design elements and a brief lesson on fabrics we broke into 3 groups. The challenge was to take one persons room and make a story board. The girls had about an hour to come up with a solution for the room including the design elements.  All 3 of the groups came up with excellent rooms but our big winner was Cindy Duco's group.  The Boyz2Men Den was well thought outI  It had a great balance, fun and inviting color pallette, and wonderful use of space.  Congrats girls. 

All in all we had a GREAT time.  I think everyone went home with some fresh ideas.  Now getting motivated to DO THE WORK is the next challenge!

I cant find my blog I wrote Friday night. I must have been so tired I forgot to save it! 

We certainly had a great time on Friday.  We learned about Playing Pool and got 3 new members!!! yea.

We learned the difference between a Qtip and a Cue tip...now that was funny.  Bunch of silly women we are!!!

I learned the proper way to rack. I have been doing it wrong all these years. Our instructors were AWESOME. 

Thanks again to Fat's.  The establishment was very nice.  And very gracious when we went over ur alotted time!  Hope everyone else had fun. be sure to add your comments about what you learned!

It was another great evening with the GROOVE girls.  We started with a fashion show of sorts at Macy's. Cindy Duco and Tammy Manley were our models.  We were shown how easy it is to accessorize a basic black and basic brown outfit.  Jewelry and scarfs, small jackets looked great paired up together with and without a belt.  We saw alot of new arrivals for fall from several clothing companies.  Afterwards we made a quick trek through Macy's for shopping. My sister Mo and I both found that we could not live without a pair of Jersey Knit pants.  I teamed mine up with a black white crewel knitted tunic and her with a bunch of stuff..."no Bob, she didnt spend that much"  lol

Afterwards we went to Sheri's. Everyone brought a little something for the clothes swap.  I ended up with a GREAT scarlet and grey sweater, a brown sweat suit (I already owned the same one in grey), a pink night shirt and a few other tank tops.  What aver was not swapped was going to charity. I hope to get pics on soon - but as usual I am at work and the pics are at home! check back soon!

We had a wonderful crowd at Molly's last night for Book Club.  It seemed everyone agreed the book  Water for Elephants was GREAT!  Funny, it seemed that it was great for different reasons.  I was deeply impressed with Terri Lechton's amazing knowledge on so many different subjects. I enjoyed reading about the circus life, the trains, animals and the heirarchy of the circus world.  Of course the love story was pretty good too! I hope they do make a movie out of it- someone suggested Kevin Costner as the circus owner - VERY Interesting choice.  I like the guy from LIFE (tv show) for the lead.  Its funny how many different leading ladies we came up with. What does that say about our group????

Next on the list to read: The Ultimate Gift by Jim Stovall.  I think I might get the Ultimate Life too. Its the sequel and they both are pretty short. here are the comments I found on the ulitmate gift web sight:

Red Stevens was a self-made man who gave his family everything – and ruined them in the process. Now, as his estate of mega companies is divided among greedy and self-serving relatives, one member is singled out for a chance to do something special: Red’s great-nephew, Jason.

The Ultimate Gift takes the reader through Jason’s incredible work to gain his Uncle Red’s inheritance through a series of challenges. Every step of the way, there is a lesson for Jason and the reader. It’s a quest for what it means to live life well that has captivated millions of readers throughout the world, and has also become the basis of numerous educational and philanthropic initiatives that build upon the inspiring insights that unfold in this stirring story.

I think it will be great fun to watch the movie at the next book club meeting!  then we can compare the two - thats sounds cool.

Here's til the next meeting!

I thought everyone might like to have the recipes from our mixoloy class:

COSMOPOLITAN: 2 oz Absolut Citron, 1/2 oz Triple Sec, 1/2 of a fresh lime, 1 oz cranberry juice, garnish with lime

PINAPPLE UPSIDE DOWN CAKE: 2 oz smirnoff Vanilla, 2 oz of Pineapple Juice, grenadine for color, cherry garnish

CHOCOLATE MARTINI: 1 1/2 oz of Stoli Vanilla, 3/4 oz Godiva chocolate Liquor, 3/4 oz Bailey's

remember Mixology is an ART not science. closeness counts.  if it tastes good - its right!

thanks again Mo!  you were GREAT!