Sunshines and Creeps

Sunshine to the short week. I liked having a day off Wednesday to celebrate Independence Day! It is like having two mini weeks. I could get used to that! However, that meant spending the day alone in bed while Ross was busy working, so nothing really exciting until the fireworks later that night.

Creep to having a major case of the sleepies this week. No matter how much I sleep.

Sunshine to Goldfish Parmesan crackers, they are the best!

Creep to my audiobook taking FOREVER! It is a really long one. 11 - 1 hour 10 minute parts. And for a book that took a long time to get in to it has been a stretch.

Sunshine to Defending Jacob being next up on my list! Also 11 hours but I have a feeling it won't be a struggle to turn on every day.

Creep to this weather. I know I complain about the winter, but I am not made for summer. This heat is for the birds, I am melting out there.

Sunshine to the weekend!

Reading

I am a big reader! I love books, thanks to my wonderful mom the librarian who gave me my love for books REALLY early! I love just sticking my nose in a book and not thinking about a single thing surrounding me. That is my favorite thing about books, their ability to completely transport you to a whole other world and it is so perfectly pictured in you head that you feel like you're there.

I am still working my way through Stephanie Plum novels I talked about a while back but I my reading list is quickly expanding! Here are a few on my list:

1. Defending Jacob ( I have been hearing LOTS of good things about this book about a boy accused of killing a classmate)
2. 50 shades of grey...even though I hear it is simply housewife porn I can't help but read it. Plus it is based on Edward and Bella from the Twilight books and I sure did love that smut! I am assuming she did all the filling in of all the blanks of what Edward and Bella were REALLY up to when Stephanie Meyer was writing about a simple kiss or a lingering look. 
3. I am now two behind on the Sookie Stackhouse novels by Charlaine Harris. I love love love these books and I can't believe I am already two in the hole!
4. I also need to finish the last three Bridal Quartet books by Nora Roberts. I started them way back before the wedding and the first one was wonderful so I need to get back to the last three!
5. I am also on the audiobook waiting list of the book thief. I should be able to sneak that one in!

Those are just a few books on my summer reading list...what is on yours? I love summer because I always get more reading done in the summers, I never knew why until I really thought about it. In the summer I am always wanting to be outside and since I am such a TV addict I am hooked on all the great fall/winter TV that is on in the winter and summer is my time to take a timeout, except big brother and True Blood of course!

I am always looking for a great book recommendation! P.S. don't forget to check your local library first! I love reading great books for free! They even have ebooks and audiobooks you can download to your eReader, iPhone or iPod!

Stephanie Plum - Bounty Hunter

I have a very addictive personality. I think anyone who knows me more than 5 minutes probably can attest to that. I know Ross can definitely give you some examples. Any time I get an idea in my head I have to act on it immediately. Otherwise it just eats at me and eats at me. I can't think about anything else. Sad and a little weak willed, I know.

One of my ongoing obsessions is the Stephanie Plum series of books written by Janet Evanovich. If you haven't read them, you should. They are light and funny, easy summer reads for sure! I have read 13 of the 21 novels so far. I now have in my possession ALL of the remaining books of the series. I can't wait to finish up the series, seriously. Stephanie Plum lives in the Berg, a suburb of Trenton, NJ. She was laid off as a discount lingerie buyer and was forced to work as a bounty hunter for her sleazy cousin Vincent Plum. You can imagine what kind of trouble a former lingerie buyer gets herself into as she attemps to be a bounty hunter, and never really gets any better at it. You will just fall in love with all their characters, including her Grandma Mazer, who goes to funerals like they were spectator sports, not uncommon for this community. She is just as fiery as Stephanie, even when she gets an ice pick to the hand! Unfortunately, I see a lot of myself in Stephanie Plum, not just sharing the same name, we are equally as stubborn and bullheaded. Which probably makes this series one of the more enjoyable ones I have read lately. It is hard to relate to a telepath in love with a hot vampire (Sookie I'm talking about you).

I have read them totally out of order, which I don't really think is a big deal for those of you looking for a place to start. Here is a link to the list of all the books, in order.

They definitely get better as you go along. Maybe because when they start with One for the Money (it was published in 1994) Stephanie Plum was sporting an awesome pager and some bitchin' Doc Martins. Probably super awesome in 1994 but pretty dated when I found it in 2012. Still a great story line though, which is why they made it into a pretty ok movie with Kathryn Heigl.

I must say it wasn't hard looking at Joe Morelli or Carlos (Ranger) Manoso.

So that is my current obsession (among many). I won't be able to stop reading them until I am done. I did this with Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse books as well.

It could be worse, right Ross?! A sephora could open in the mall...that would get me and our pocketbook, for sure!

Booksneeze Review #1 Friendship for Grown-ups.

Awhile back I signed up for Booksneeze. It is a great program that allows bloggers to get books to read and review. They tell us to be honest with our critiques and I intended to do just that. I chose Friendship for Grown-Ups: What I Missed and Learned Along the Way by Lisa Whelchel because I loved 70s and 80s sitcoms and she happened to be in one of the great ones, The Facts of Life. The title and description was also appealing. It spoke of the fact that she didn’t have an average childhood and that she had to learn some friendship basics that most of us learn at an early age. It was difficult reading about her childhood and made me feel sad for all the child stars these days who have it much worse in a day and age where everything they do and say is up for judgment instantly on the internet. It is not hard to understand why some child stars turn out to have a rocky adulthood.

It was fun seeing her transition from child star to an adult in this novel as she shares secrets of friendship like that it is ok to need others at times, because we all need it and deserve to have someone there for us.

I definitely recommend this book to anyone looking for a little self-help or just a refresher course in what it means to be a good friend. I think we all take our friendships for granted too often and it was great to remember what it means to be a friend. After all, to have good friends first you must be one!

Disclaimer - Although Booksneeze.com provided me this book for my reading pleasure I am receiving no other compensation and the opinions above are my own.

Top 2 Tuesday

OMG, has it really been a month and a half since I posted...WOWZA. Where has the time gone? I will have to update with all the happenings soon!

For now.... it is Top Two Tuesday over at The Undomestic Momma.

This week is Top Two Books.

I cannot begin to tackle this one. I couldn't possibly pick two favorites (and frankly I wouldn't even want to try) so I am going to do the last two books I've read instead.

I am currently in the middle of two books and am love love loving them both.
The First is one of the Sookie Stackhouse books, All Together Dead. They all have "dead" in the title so don't let the title intimidate you. These aren't your regular vampire novels. They are kind of dirty and lot of fun! They all center around the oh so human Sookie Stackhouse and her involvement with the supernatural beings (supes) in the world. Throughout the books she discovers that no supe was a fairy tale (including fairies) and she has all sorts of entertaining adventures with them. In the first novel vampires had recently "come out of the coffin" and are no longer in hiding. The Japanese created a synthetic blood substitute and they no longer need to feed off humans to live, but many do just for fun, and many humans (fangbangers) are more than willing to oblige them. In this novel Sookie is accompanying the Queen vampire from Louisiana to a vampire summit as her own personal telepath (ok maybe Sookie isn't your average human) and we get to see all the craziness that ensues. This novel is a direct carry over from the previous novel. They all have some carry over but this one in particular has a lot to do with the last novel.
This series of books is currently being made into the True Blood show on HBO. While they are both based on the same stories they are wildly different. I would HIGHLY recommend reading the books before watching the series. I think you would be disappointed if you went the other way around. The show is flashy and fast paced where as the book is slower and gives great detail. Sometimes they are quite different though, and I think I would have a harder time going show to book rather than book to show. I love both the show and the books equally (maybe the show more just because Ross will cuddle on the couch with me when we watch the show and reading I usually am just staying up late by myself).


The other book I am currently reading is the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. It is fantastic so far. I don't want to spoil ANYTHING though. Please just take my word for it though, it is worth your time. You won't want to put it down. The author died in 2004 after completing this trilogy which is of course how it always works doesn't it? The great authors never get enough time to put out all the work they really could. The last book in this trilogy (the girl who kicked hornets' nest) comes out some time this month. The second book in the trilogy is the girl who played with fire. I'm sure I will get them all done this summer and will try to post about them all later.

On a side note, I think I am going to try to get into the Nora Roberts and JD Robb books. I haven't ever read any of them if you can believe it. And they sound great. Nora Roberts and JD Robb are the same author but she writes two very different types of novels under each pen name. Nora Roberts is romatic and JD is mystery. There is even one she wrote under each author and incorporated each type into one novel, just a book 1 and a book 2 deal. I can't wait to get started on those. There is never enough time to read. Especially in the summer when I love to read most! You would think up here in the tundra you would get a lot of reading done in the cold winter months, but instead you just want to hibernate and watch a lot of tv.

Wishful Wednesday

Today is Wishful Wednesday at The Seattle Smith's

and today's wish is:

'I wish' .... I could play a character's role in a book and it would be Hermione Granger!

Not only is she the smartest gal in the whole Harry Potter Series but she also gets to go along on all of the awesome adventures that Harry and Ron go on. However, I do not want to end up married to Ron but to Harry instead. Maybe JK Rowling could make that one little change for me when I turn into Hermione. I have one more request, can I please be the older, more put together Hermione, not the young, know it all, kind of a mess, Hermione, thank you.This Hermione

Not this one

This was actually a tough one, I love books, and reading so I had a hard time choosing one. I would love to be many characters, including Harry Potter himself, Jay Gatsby (of The Great Gatsby, my favorite book), Atticus Finch (who would be my other choice if I were to take the time to do this blog again - he is who I aspire to be as a person and as a lawyer, plus he had a daughter named Scout, which I wish I had the guts to do), Sherlock Holmes, Robert Langdon (Dan Brown Novels - he's smart and adventurous, awesome), I could go on and on.

Happy Wednesday!

Blue like Jazz: Nonreligious thoughts on Christian Spirituality

Blue like Jazz is my favorite book. I usually come back to it when I am overwhelmed by my life and that is exactly where I've been at these last couple days. I come back to it again and again because I take something new away from it each and every time I read it. It always gives me what I need. I don't think I have ever said this about a book before, but the Author's Note is my favorite part of the book. It certainly isn't long but it is the part of the book that I get the most from almost every time I read the book. I read it over and over and just let myself be enveloped by it like a warm bubble bath absorbs you when you get into the bathtub.



Here is the Note:


I never liked jazz music because jazz music doesn’t resolve. But I was outside the Baghdad Theatre one night when I saw a man playing the saxophone. I stood there for fifteen minutes and he never opened his eyes.

After that I liked jazz music.

Sometimes you have to watch somebody love something before you can love it yourself. It is as if they are showing you the way.

I used to not like God because God didn’t resolve. But that was before any of this happened.

Lately, I have been wondering where my life is going, what do I want my life to be remembered for and what kind of person am I really? I can at times be selfless but more often than not I find myself being selfish. I find myself taking things personally when I know they are not meant to be personal attacks. And I really don't like that about myself. So. How do I change that? What do I have to work on about myself to get to where I want to be? This is why I came back to BLJ.

Yesterday should have been a great day but I found myself making it all about me and as a result missing out on some things that probably would've ended up a little differently had I given them a chance. On my way home I started crying in the car, something I very rarely do. So I called my friend Jenn. She let me cry and get out some of the frustrations I had been feeling over the last couple days. It was after her call that brought me back to reality just by letting me talk about it, that I was able to just let it all go and enjoy the rest of the night, which was a great night! We decorated our tree, took next year's Christmas card photo and had a fun night of dancing to the sugar plum fairy.

This is why I came back to Blue Like Jazz. This book makes me realize that things aren't always all about me, and aren't always what they seem. It teaches me to look a little deeper, try a bit harder, give up to God the things that hurt and sometimes to be upset when I need to be upset.

BLJ has a whimsical way to make you think about the serious things in your life. With Chapters called, Penguin Sex, the Sexy Carrots, and Meeting Girls is Easy, how could you not have fun reading it? However, the message in each of these chapters is far more self-reflective than he would lead you to believe. Donald Miller's writing style is effortless, it is like you are having a conversation with an old and familiar friend who is telling you his take on life, which is always more interesting than mine.

I look forward to reading it over the next couple nights and bringing my life back in focus which is always the result of reading this book. Please check it out, you won't be disappointed.