Book Review - 1001 TV Shows You Must Watch Before You Die

1001 TV Shows You Must Watch Before You Die by Paul Condon, Universe Publishing, 2015

1001 TV Shows You Must Watch Before You Die was just released in hard cover and contains 960 pages with 800 wonderful color and black and white photographs.

The invention of television brought the world into our homes in a way few people envisioned.  Comedy and tragedy, news, world events, sports, drama, game shows - you name it, we have the world at our fingertips with the touch of a remote control.  Covering television from the 1950's to present day, 1001 TV Shows You Must Watch Before You Die  reflects the evolution of  television programming almost from day one.

The book is broken down by decades beginning with The Ed Sullivan Show which ran from 1948 - 1971.  The accompanying photo is of Ed holding a guitar and standing with one of the most iconic bands of all time - The Beatles.  I'm old enough to remember sitting at my aunts house and watching the show when The Beatles made their appearance in 1964.  And that right there is one of the reasons why I enjoyed this book so much - the reminiscing factor.   As I read through the pages I was surprised that many of the television shows made me remember exactly where I was and with whom when I originally watched those old shows.

The very first soap opera I ever watched was Dark Shadows in the mid 1960's.  I was glued to the TV set for half an hour every afternoon all summer long and during the school year I'd literally run home from school hoping to arrive in time to catch at least the last 10 minutes of each days episode.  I guess you could say I was hooked!  Who remembers The Carol Burnett Show and the hilarious Gone with the Wind sketch?   Now that was golden comedy and paved the way for groundbreaking shows like Saturday Night Live, which began in 1975 and still runs today.

Read about classic shows like

• Rowan and Martin's Laugh In
• The Brady Bunch
• The Newlywed Game
• Wheel of Fortune
• High Chaparral
• Mary Tyler Moore

• All in the Family
• Mash
• Bonanza
• Starsky & Hutch
• Dallas
• Oprah
• 60 Minutes
• Sex and the City

• Baywatch
• Seinfeld
• Friends
• Arrested Development
• Boston Legal
• House
• The Good Wife
• Downton Abby

The development of the television mini -series brought us epic tales such as Roots, The Pacific, The Hatfields and McCoys, and Band of Brothers.  Stories such as these, based on history, appealed to the masses and opened our eyes to real life and past events in a way we could not have imagined.

Television has influenced us all and you'll enjoy reading about the shows that brought us sayings such as

• Nanu, nanu.....
• Aaaaaaaaa........
• Who loves ya baby?
• I'm Chevy Chase, and you're not.....

1001 TV Shows You Must Watch Before You Die  also features television shows from around the globe, not only from the United States.  I'll admit that I haven't heard of a majority of them but that doesn't mean that they weren't significant in some way.

This is a book that has something for everyone.  Television buffs will enjoy it immensely.  Another thing that I really liked about it is that it brought to my attention many shows that I've never seen before and now I want to watch them - Arrested Development, Breaking Bad, and The Good Wife are at the top of that list for me.  

And that's the beauty of this book - it easily introduces a wealth of excellent television to generations of people who are younger and probably missed a majority of these ground breaking and entertaining shows.  And for those of us who are a little older, it's fun to read about the television shows of our past and reminisce.  Excuse me while I close my eyes and day dream a little.  Andy Griffith is whistling a tune in the shadows of my mind.

Christmas is right around the corner - pick up a copy of 1001 TV Shows You Must Watch Before You Die for someone special on your gift list.

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.   Get your copy here

(I was given an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.  All opinions are my own.  Images are the property of the publisher and cannot be reproduced without consent.) 

Estate Sale Finds - November 30

The pickings were really slim this week for estate sales. On Friday we drove about 15 miles away to an ADVERTISED estate sale and when we got there, nobody was there.  I double checked the dates and times and it was scheduled for Friday, Saturday and Sunday.  What's up with that?   I was more than a little miffed at that.  Talk about a waste of time and gas.  We drove back towards home and I found another estate sale that had amazing prices but not a lot to choose from.  Here's what we got....

A wooden tool carrier that Chablis has already claimed as her own.  8 pewter napkin holders that are headed for my shop.  The coat rack that I'll paint and also re-sell.  I have no idea what the other thing is, but Louie wanted me to buy it.  It's tin and the lid opens.  I'm thinking of painting it white and distressing it, but I have no idea what it's supposed to be.  That's it!

I hope everyone had a nice holiday.  We sure did.  Then on Saturday we drove to Iowa with my parents.  It was an 11 hour round trip day, what with the drive back and forth, breakfast and lunch, plus 17 geocaches.  More on all that in an upcoming post.

Also, if you missed my post on using Square Up, go back and check it out here.  It's a great feature for anyone who is self employed and wants to process credit card payments for their clients while on the go or at a craft show .

And don't forget to sign up for Ebates and get money back on your on-line purchases.  Catch my link here and sign up.  It's free!

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Square Up allows you to take credit card payments from your customers and run them thru your
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Press this link to take you to the Square Up page and check it out.  I'll be honest, I get an incentive if you sign up through their Refer a Friend Program....

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So go sign up.  And don't forget - press my link!

Happy Thanksgiving 2015

Most of the time holidays are wonderful occasions, to be shared with family and friends.  A friend of mine posted this on her FB wall and I really liked the sentiment, so I am sharing it with you here....

Some thoughts as we enter the holiday season...It is important to remember that not everyone is surrounded by large wonderful families. Some of us have problems during the holidays and some of us are overcome with great sadness when we remember the loved ones who are not with us. And many people have no one to spend these times with and are besieged by loneliness. We all need caring, loving thoughts right now. Please offer support for those who have family problems, health struggles, job issues, worries of any kind and just need to know someone cares. Do it for all of us, for nobody is immune. 

I wish you all love and a blessed day.

Geocaching at Volo Bog

Two weeks ago we went out to Volo Bog to do a little hiking and grab some geocaches that are placed along the trails.  Volo Bog is a State Natural Area in Illinois.  From Wikipedia:  Volo Bog State Natural Area is a nature reserve in Illinois, United States, preserving Volo Bog. The bog was designated a National Natural Landmark in 1973 as the only remaining open-water quaking bog in Illinois.^[1] 

The trails are very easy and run through a variety of terrains, which makes them interesting because of the variety.  We walked through woods, prairie, and across boardwalks over water....

A few lone berries that the birds haven't found yet....

A cache is actually hidden near this deck....

We got there early in the morning when the Bog first opened up and we had the place practically to ourselves.  By the time we were finished about 2 hours later, it was starting to get crowded..

I think I liked the floating walkways the best!

We found 2 baby snapping turtles crawling along the trail...

This was a duck blind and a cache is hidden here as well...

Now for some of the geocaches.  I can't show you all of them, but I will show a few.  If anyone is interested in doing the series, here's the link to the first one, Volo Bog #01, and you can find the rest of them from there.

Does anyone want to guess where this cache is?

This was a very clever cache and nicely hidden....

This was my favorite one of the series - Wicked Witch anyone??

I've seen this type of hide before so I had an idea of what we were looking for....

This one was really cute....

The cache container for this one was actually missing and we found the log sheet hanging in the tree like this.  I believe the container has since been replaced...

This one was very well hidden....

Can you believe the spider was the cache?  LOL!

All in all it was a nice morning.  We did an easy hike, Volo Bog is someplace we had never been before and we found 16 geocaches along the trail.  

Starved Rock State Park

One of my absolute favorite places to hike in the state of Illinois is Starved Rock State Park.  Starved Rock is the #1 attraction in the state and is located about an hour SW of Chicago.  They have 13 miles of trails to explore but their claim to fame is the sandstone canyons - they are gorgeous any time of the year.

Starved Rock has a really interesting history, which I am sharing here courtesy of Wikipedia....

Before European contact, the area was home to Native Americans, particularly the Kaskaskia who lived in the Grand Village of the Illinois across the river. Louis Jolliet and Jacques Marquette were the first Europeans recorded as exploring the region, and by 1683, the French had established Fort St. Louis on a large sandstone butte overlooking the river, they called Le Rocher (the Rock). Later after the French had moved on, according to a local legend, a group of Native Americans of the Illinois Confederation (also called Illiniwek or Illini) pursued by the Ottawa and Potawatomi fled to the butte in the late 18th century. The Ottawa and Potawatomi besieged the butte until all of the Illiniwek had starved, and the butte became known as "Starved Rock". The area around The Rock was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1960.

We saw a lot of wild turkey as we were driving through the park....

This is the view from the bridge between the parking lot and the Lodge....

The Lodge is huge and houses a restaurant, meeting rooms, lodging rooms and a gift shop....

There also happens to be a geocache hidden there, which we quickly found before we hit the trails.  First things first, right??

One of the nice things about the canyons is that you can walk into them and climb all over them, which is half the fun.  This time of year the canyons are fairly dry, but in the spring when the snow starts melting, the waterfalls are beautiful and the canyon bottoms fill with water.

This time we went on a Friday in November and it was a good choice, because we had the trails practically to ourselves.  During the summer and on the weekends it gets very crowded.

The trails are a wonderful combination of dirt, paved road, rock or boardwalks.....

Here we are at the top of Starved Rock, over looking the river.  We missed the peak fall colors by about a week, but the trees still put on a pretty good show....

The far point across the bay was Lovers Leap and Eagle's Cliff and that was our next destination...

Louie wasn't leaping off of any cliffs for me.....

The boards walks here are extensive and very nicely built.  It was a great place to sit and enjoy the view.  Plus, it was a beautiful day and the temperatures were just right for hiking...

Wildcat Canyon was my favorite.  When you walk into the canyons the temperature really takes a dip.

To get a feel for the size of the canyons, look closely and you can see Chablis in the center of the photo....

Once we left Wildcat Canyon we had a massive series of stairs to climb.  This is the view from half way up them....

By this time Louie was really happy to see the Return sign.  I think that last set of stairs did him in!

 By then we were pretty darn hungry so we high tailed it to town and grabbed some burgers for lunch...

If you're looking for a great place to hike in Illinois, you need to visit Starved Rock.  It's a gem of a place.  Plus, any time of year is beautiful.  I've been there many times and during all the seasons, and each is special for its own reason.  

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