Well I have to say I absolutely LOVED The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Recipes from an Accidental Country Girl by Ree Drummond aka The Pioneer Woman. It’s part cookbook, part her life as the wife of a cowboy and part wonderful photos.

The recipes are delicious looking (well, not so much the meat ones since I’m a vegetarian) and she has step by step illustrations of how to make them all. There are quite a few I can’t wait to try but be warned, they are definitely not low fat!

What I was most surprised about was how much I enjoyed her stories about her life married to a farmer. And I loved the story of how her and her husband met and fell in love.

Then there are the photos – truly inspiring. Wonderful photos of farm life, children, cows, horses, dogs, cowboys! I’m more determined than ever to get our farm… one day.

I’m so grateful to the library for purchasing this book. It’s definitely going to become a part of my permanent library one day.

Today I scored these little beauties…

The top 3 books I had ordered and the bottom two I saw when I had a little browse around. I’m especially excited about the Pioneer Woman Cooks by blogger Ree Drummond. I’ve flicked through it and think it might be added to my TO BUY list. This was one of my requests. I think in the last year I’ve requested at least 12 books and all have been purchased (except one they said was too old). Out of those 12 book I’ve gone on to by 1 (and this will no doubt be the 2nd). Lots of money saved there!!!

So if you haven’t visited your local library for a while do yourself, and your wallet, a favour and do so soon.

These books that is. For some unknown reason I have had no desire to go the gym and, in fact, haven’t been in nearly 2 weeks. I had planned to go today but didn’t want to, then kind of ran out of time, so missed again. Not quite sure what’s going on with me. I was really loving my new program.

I think I need to rework my housework routine and clean two days and do gym two days. I find if I clean first, like today, I don’t feel like going to the gym, and if I workout first I’m pretty exhausted for the next hour and don’t want to clean. I tend to only clean in the morning so if it’s not done by lunchtime it doesn’t get done.

Plan to start reading these books tomorrow and hope they give me back some desire to get to the gym. I know I’ll love it once I’m there – I always do – just can’t seem to get myself there. Today I was feeling guilty about not doing any exercise until I realized I walked the kids to and from school – which means I got an hours walk in . We’ve been walking home EVERY day so I’m getting a minimum of a half hour walk plus cleaning and stuff around the house. But I need to keep up the upper body workouts before I start to lose STRENGTH.

Well, it’s always exciting when I get the monthly mail from our USA post box with all my magazine subscriptions but it was extra special this month as it contained this..

I haven’t bought any books for a while but I have gathered this little collection over the last few weeks. There was a time when I couldn’t walk past a bookshop or newsagents without going in. These days I mostly buy romance books from my friend Lucy’s store Ever After, but every so-often I will buy books like the above – but I’m much more selective these days. The first book Changing Habits Changing Lives is all about eating wholesome nutritious foods and fits right in with my food philosophy. The next few are early planning for our UK trip next year and I couldn’t pass up Sustainable Living for Dummies as it has all Australian references.

As for magazines – I subscribe to nearly all my favourites so I might just go have a browse every few months – which I did today when I picked up Scrapbooks Etc (which I have been unable to subscribe to over the net) and the Healthy Food Guide. My mags are all packed ready for our Easter trip.