The Marriage of Opposites by Alice Hoffman

I'm a little late on the ball on reviewing this book, but my excuse is because I find really good books so much harder to talk about than bad ones. Do you feel that way too? It's so easy to pick something apart, or talk down about it, but trying to find the words for a really good read? I find it incredibly challenging.

Enter The Marriage of Opposites by Alice Hoffman. Some of you might be familiar with Hoffman's other pieces of work, most notably The Dovekeepers and The Museum of Extraordinary Things, two well-known and well-received novels. Of course, I have read neither of these, but that's besides the point and they are both now on my ever-growing to-be-read list. I was intrigued from the synopsis of this book and I knew it was one I was interested in reading.

From the publisher: 

As a young girl in a small Jewish refugee community, Rachel dreamed of a life in Paris, far away from her difficult mother. That dream is extinguished when she is forced to marry a local widower and become stepmother to three young children. When her husband dies suddenly, Rachel finds herself in the throes of unimaginable passion after meeting Frederick, her late husband’s nephew who has come to help her settle the estate. 

A forbidden love story. A tropical island. Scandal. Paris. The Marriage of Opposites, in a nutshell, is the retelling of the story of Rachel Monsanto Pomié Petit Pizzarro, the mother of Camille Pissarro, the father of Impressionist painting. The novel sets out from when Rachel is just a little girl, and follows her life as she navigates a difficult relationship with her own mother, a marriage not based on love, raising step-children, bearing children of her own, deaths, illnesses, a forbidden love, betrayal and loss. It's an epic saga, one that pulled me in from the beginning and had me savouring the last few pages as I was not ready to say goodbye.

It's not often I read a book of such grand proportions anymore. I was reminded of other great sagas I immensely enjoyed (The Thorn Birds, Outlander…), and it's a shame they don't fall into my lap more often. There's something special about a story that spans several decades and is full of such detail. The character development is excellent; you grow attached to not just the storyline, but to the characters who become people to you. Nothing is held back and while I didn't want the book to end, I also didn't feel like there was more story to be told or parts of it left out.

The setting is important to note too. Taking place mostly on the tropical island of St. Thomas (now the US Virgin Islands), the imagery, detail and descriptions were palpable. I could feel the heat and humidity, I could envision the colourful plants and wildlife, and I could easily picture the homes and what life on the island in the early 1800s must have been like. Hoffman is a brilliant and beautiful storyteller.

So if you're looking for your next great read, I don't hesitate to recommend The Marriage of Opposites to you. Plus, it's always a little fun to learn a bit about history while immersed in a great story.

Thank you to Simon and Schuster Canada for providing me with an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions, as always, are my own. 

*affiliate links have been used

Weekending: Book Club, Wine Festival & Kayben Farms

Can we talk for a moment about how Calgary is just killing it with the weather this fall?! We had temperatures in the high teens again this weekend and it just further confirms my love for October. There's not much I enjoy more than fall days where you don't even need a coat. I'm not sure how many more weekend like this we will get, but we definitely made sure to make the most of it!

Friday, Sully and I didn't get up to much during the day, but that evening I had my very first book club meeting with a book club that I joined on meetup. This book club meets once a month and each member gets a turn picking the book and the restaurant to go to. As someone who is pretty new to the city, it's a nice way to get to experience some new-to-me restaurants. This month's book was Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee and was a great book to be able to discuss. I was a bit nervous when I showed up, but everyone was really nice and welcoming and it was easy to get lost in the conversation. It also helped that I wasn't the only newbie. No pictures, because I'm not that brave in a new group of people!

Saturday, I hopped on the train and met up with my Aunt Max at the Rocky Mountain Wine & Food Festival for their afternoon tasting. I had never been to a wine tasting event before, so when I won tickets from Laura I was pretty excited! My original game plan was to stick to champagne and white wine, but eventually I just had to taste some of the beer too. Probably not my wisest decision as the rest of my afternoon and evening was a bit of a write off if you catch my drift.

It's hard to remember everything you taste, but I did take pictures of the ones I really enjoyed. I'm a huge bubbly/prosecco/champagne lover and these were my favourites. The beers I tasted, while not bad, were not noteworthy enough to include. I did make sure to sample the Uber Caesar as I love me a good Caesar! This was so delicious and something I would definitely buy. Under a blind test, I would never have guessed this was a Caesar from a bottle. It puts the Mott's Clamato Caesar's to shame. And fun fact: did you know the Caesar was invented in Calgary back in 1969?

{clockwise from top left: rosalia giusti//anna de codorniu//lamarca prosecco//bolla prosecco}

Of course, some food was sampled too! The Bernard Callebut Dark Chocolate Cream Cheese Brownie was just the perfect amount of sweetness. The Pulled Pork & Red Cabbage Cornbread Slider (with a Signature Double Chocolate Pecan Cookie on the side) from SAIT Culinary Campus was so, so tasty.  The highlight was definitely the gelato from Fiasco's. The servings were generous and the flavours we chose (Bourban Vanilla Bean and Dark Chocolate Caramel Sea Salt) were to die for.

On Sunday, after a lazy morning, we decided to head out to Kayben Farms in Okotoks. I had heard good things about it and I wanted to go before they close for the year at the end of the month. We couldn't have asked for a nicer day to go, or a quieter one. It often felt like we were the only ones there, so it was pretty cool to do the corn maze all on our own! Sully had a great time riding the tractor train, jumping on the pillows, seeing the farm animals, going on the slides, and leading the way through the corn maze. They had a deal where if you bought a 2016 season pass (only $35), you can use it for admission all of October. So that's exactly what I did because I know we will be back next year (and possibly one or two more times before the end of the month!).

Hope you all had a great weekend!

Have you ever been to a wine tasting festival? 

Tell me something fun you did this past weekend!

Spartan Super Race Recap

I never had any plans of running any obstacle course races this year, let alone the Spartan ones. But then I entered a giveaway on Becky's blog back in the summer, and I won an entry into any Spartan race! Since I didn't want to run a race alone, I signed up for the one she was already doing - the Spartan Super in Red Deer which is a 13k+ course with over 20 obstacles (you can read Becky's recap here). I'm still not sure what made me feel like I should be signing up for such a race, but I guess I was feeling overly confident in my abilities! 

Then of course I caught wind of the Spartan Sprint in Calgary and convinced my sister to do that one with me as a sort of "training" race for the Super. Both were awesome experiences although I don't feel like I can really compare the two. Different distances, different venues and different race day conditions.

On the morning of September 12, I had planned to be on the road to Red Deer around 7:30 a.m., giving myself ample time to pick up Becky and then head over to the race. As luck would have it, my alarm never went off and when I did wake up, it was already 7:30 a.m.! Cue all the swear words and I ran around the house like a mini tornado before finally hitting the road around 8. Good thing I had given myself extra time in the morning because I only ended up being about 15 minutes late picking up Becky.

We arrived to the race grounds and met up with Lindsey and her husband Chad who were also running the same heat as us. (You can check out Lindsey's recap here.) It still hadn't really hit me that I was minutes away from running my furthest distance ever. 

I didn't really have a plan per se, just to finish and have fun. I was pretty sure that Becky and I would stick together for the race, but I remember asking her just to make sure. Lindsey stuck with us for the most part, speeding up during the running parts and helping us out with the obstacles, before she took off near the end and kicked our non-pregnant butts! 

We couldn't have asked for a nicer day to race. It was quite warm, but not unbearably hot, and the course was dry unlike my experience during the Spartan Sprint. There was a lot of long stretches of just running which, as dumb as it may sound, I was not really expecting. A lot of the running was through the trails which I really enjoyed though. The time and distance passes quicker and you don't have to run as fast as you would normally feel pressured to do so because you are too busy concentrating on foot placement. 

We had 27 obstacles to complete, and I'm proud to say that we accomplished almost all of them. What a difference a dry course makes! One obstacle, where we were required to fill a large bucket with sand and then carry it several hundred metres was probably my toughest. As soon as I picked up my bucket, my back did not agree. I didn't feel like I was hurting myself or straining, just the muscles in my mid back were not happy. I kept stopping to rest the bucket on my knee when a guy came up from behind me and told me to put my bucket on top of his. I was so taken aback by his willingness to help me, but I told him I couldn't let him do that. As soon as he was done with his bucket, he ran back to me and carried my bucket the rest of the way. I almost wanted to cry! It reminded me that there are still really kind, genuinely nice people out there, and even during an intense obstacle course race, there are people willing to help you out.

The hardest part about this race wasn't the distance and it wasn't the obstacles. It was the fact that I wasn't properly fuelled. While I had eaten a bowl of oatmeal with peanut butter before I left my house, and had a banana before our heat started, that wasn't nearly enough food to keep my going, and too much time had passed between leaving my house and starting the race. I went in with the mindset that since I don't fuel during a 10k run, I don't need to fuel for an extra 4k. I didn't take into account that amount of energy used completing a single obstacle. Somewhere between kilometre 9 and 10, Becky and I both really started to lose steam. We were hungry and exhausted. I honestly worried that we wouldn't be able to finish. Their were water stations along the course, but that's all they offered. I think even a glass or two of gatorade would have helped us immensely. 

The second half was therefore the toughest. By that point we were walking more than we were running and I just wanted to be finished. Honestly, if it hadn't been for the support from Becky and Lindsey during the race, I don't think I could have finished. They made it so much more fun and it helps to have a friend push you along. While Lindsey finished ahead of us, Becky and I held hands as we jumped over the last obstacle (fire jump!) and crossed the finish line at 2:49:09! I could not have been more proud of us! I went into the race thinking it would take about 4 hours based on how long the Sprint took me, so I was super happy with our time. Of course, I can't help but wonder how we would have done if we had been better prepared, both fuel wise and running wise, but there's always next year to improve on our time!

So what's my take-away from running two Spartan races this year? Fuel, fuel, fuel! I wouldn't carry anything on your person during a sprint race, but I would recommend eating a good breakfast before hand. Fuel well before a Spartan Super and carry some sort of fuel with you, be it honey stingers, candy, a camelback with gatorade or a protein bar. You will definitely need it and not regret being prepared. Wear shorts or crops that are tight and not 100% cotton. You will get wet and muddy and you don't want the water weighing your clothes down. Trail shoes are recommend, but I did both without and managed fine. Have fun!

Thanks again to Becky and Lindsey for being there for me during my toughest, most challenging race both physically and mentally! I never in a million years thought I would do something like this and I feel incredibly proud of myself (and us!) for knocking this one off the ol' bucket list. Now, who's joining us next year?!

Have you ever run a Spartan Race, or other obstacle race? 

What's your favourite obstacle?