Tuesday, July 22, 2008

I'm Back :)

Back from NC. It was fantastic to see my extended family. Everyone made it except one of my sisters (car trouble) and my uncle (kids not good at traveling far distances). It was a little crazy trying to corral that many people. There was some drama, but what family gathering doesn't have drama?

We FINALLY finished Pillars of the Earth. We loved it. It is just really long (32 cds). I tried to renew it, but someone had already requested it. So we are taking it back today. Towards the end, I gave an exasperated sigh about how many times the characters were going to be coming up against each other, cause it seemed to happen so much. But I love the way Follet tied up all the loose ends (in my mind).

We also listened to Eleven on Top (hilarious) and started Twelve Sharp (so far very good). I love the Stephanie Plum books by Janet Evanovich, and so does Chris. I'm firmly in the Morelli camp, but I still love the Ranger character (hot hot hot). I do wonder how much longer she will be able to keep readers hanging. Would the series lose something if Stephanie gets married? Janet Evanovich is good enough of a writer to make it work.

I haven't had a lot of time to get into The Host by Stephenie Meyer. I really like it so far, but I just didn't have a lot of time to read. I'm going to be getting the house ready for the in-laws (arriving in T-Minus 7 Days) and I have a feeling that will take up a lot of my time. On top of that, Chris starts school in 1 month and we have a bunch of decisions to make, particularly as work is DRAGGING their feet about the work at home options. So frustrating. I'm of two minds about what to do with the truck. Our friends that work at UK have offered to let me commute with them. Which would be the most economical path (if they still are up for it). Or one of us could drive the truck until I can work at home. Or we could trade the truck in and get a small car, but we would have to take a loan out to do that, and that would put off paying off our debt longer. I think in the long run we both realize that we need two vehicles that we can drive regularly, and the truck just isn't a viable option any longer. Which sucks. Cause we love that truck. Grrr. I feel very fortunate that we were able to save as much as we could by commuting together all these years.

Lots of other stuff happening right now too. :) Babies are definitely on my mind right now, and I'll be talking about all that with more and more frequency. Nothing to annouce yet. Sativa (my niece) has both Chris and I wrapped around her little finger. She is a precious, sweet little girl. She has a particularly strong bond with Chris. Without fail, he can get her to laugh. She is VERY expressive.

One thing that has been running across my mind lately is how much I love my husband. I feel so very blessed to have him in my life. Our marriage has been one of the good ones. We have had our moments when things weren't fantastic, but overall, we have been very blessed. It is easy to take that for granted, but lately, I have felt so incredibly connected and in-tune with him. No one gets me like he gets me. No one else can put up with me like he can. No one else finds all my oddities cute or charming. I'm so incredibly proud of him. He has been growing and changing, but still the same man I fell in love with. I can't believe that no one snapped him up before me. Your loss ladies. :) My life isn't exactly how I pictured it to be ten years ago. But I wouldn't trade it. Good and bad, it has all led us to this point.

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Busy Summer

Things have been quite busy lately. :)

Posting will be sporadic for the next week or so, so please forgive. :)

I've still been reading, but nothing terribly challenging. Sometimes you have to read for the pure enjoyment and/or escapism. I'm getting ready to start The Host by Stephenie Meyer and The Dark Towers series by Stephen King. It will be my FIRST EVER Stephen King novel. How bizarre is that?

The house is a complete wreck. We were gone almost every day this weekend (Friday - softball practice, Saturday - youth event, Sunday - Ren Fest (also had a raging Migraine). I ended up staying home Monday because I could still feel the edges of the Migraine, and I was still nauseous. Hopefully after this weekend I will have the energy to put things back in order. Shortly after that the in-laws arrive, so I have a set Deadline!

BTW, did you all know that I knit? I haven't been very good about knitting lately. It has been ages since I did anything. I'm still a beginner. I got the book Mason-Dixon Knitting from the library yesterday, and even though I'm only a few pages in, I LOVE IT! This will definitely give me the knitting bug again. Maybe I'll start posting some FO (finished objetcts) in the future. :)

Wednesday, July 09, 2008

maintenance

so i'm messing around with my blog again. i'm trying to learn how to use google reader, and it turns out that two people subscribe to my blog. how weird is that. so in learning more about that, i've decided to join feedburner. so my rss stuff has changed. hope that doesn't mess anyone up.

Tuesday, July 08, 2008

Twilight Series

Longer review coming later.

Simply put,

I LOVED ALL THREE BOOKS

They will probably rank up there in the list of series that I read over and over. So good. Wish I had taken my friends advice and read them earlier.

Thursday, July 03, 2008

Whew

Finally finished American Gods. I didn't hate it, but I didn't enjoy it very much either. It definitely captured my attention in the second half of the book. I'm glad that I didn't give up. I didn't agree with the vast majority of what the author was trying to point out. I also didn't identify with any of the characters. I was pretty much disgusted by all of them. And it took me forever to figure out what the point was.

Next up, Gone with the Wind, Water for Elephants and the Host.

Wednesday, July 02, 2008

Reading Challenges (non) update

So I'm starting to freak out because I'm falling really far behind on my reading challenges. I'm stuck on the book American Gods by Neil Gaiman. At first I hated it, now I'm warming up to it a LITTLE bit, but I'm having a hard time getting through it. Everytime I go to read it and make some real progress, I fall asleep. I don't think it is because it is that boring, I just think I'm really tired, and it is having a hard time keeping my interest to overcome the tiredness (does that make sense?). So I'm trying to really push hard to get through it. I can see why my friend reccommended the book to me, but I'm not so much into books that are THIS difficult to understand. I read for pleasure first and edification second (if at all). :)

I'm having NO luck getting the Twilight books from the library. I'm like 75th on the list. Sometimes I HATE the public library system in my town. Grr. That's okay, I'm pretty sure that I will like the books enough to want to own them, so I'll just pick up a copy at the store.

Hopefully tomorrow, I'll upload a progress report on the closet project. We have all of the necessary stuff purchased. The past few days I have been slowly getting a system worked out so that we can effectively go through all the stuff in the closet (as well as add the rest of the stuff from my room). I don't want to overdue it all at once, so I'm trying to break it down into pieces.

I didn't try and work on the computer last night. Part of me is magically hoping that it will fix it self. It won't happen, but I'm pretending it will.

Being a responsible adult sucks sometimes. We were going to purchase living furniture with our accident settlement. But then cold hard reality sunk in, and we realized we needed to do some very necessary repairs on both the car (breaks, shocks, exhaust) and the truck (timing pulley, air conditioner). So we are going to do that first, and probably just save the rest (if there is any). We will be leaving for North Carolina (Allie, we will be in the Fayetteville area, still trying to work out if we can head your way at some point) in a few weeks, so I'm really hoping that will be a good time. A few weeks after that we will be spending some time at the property in GA, and before we know it Chris will be starting school. Crazy how fast the summer fills up.