917 pages in 6 days

Yup, I finished "The Other Boleyn Girl" in 6 days!!!  It was suuuuuuuuuch a good book and now I am totally hooked on that time period.  I have been doing some research on Henry VIII's other wives and have started watching "The Tutors" on my Amazon Kindle Fire (thanks to my Prime membership, I get it for FREE).  Wow, fabulous!  Today I started "Kisses from Katie" and so far it is good, this book is relatively short and seems to be an easy read AND I have a low-key weekend, so who knows what will happen with that!


Hope everyone has a fantastic weekend and a great Independence Day!


I thought I might leave you with a picture of my super cute little reading buddy (he sits right on my lap when I read in bed AND, he wakes me up at the ungodly hour of 5:30am, so I have been able to read a LOT lately)!

#1 Blog Follower Day

Today's Blog is dedicated to my #1 Blog Follower (aka my only blog follower):

CAROLYN JAMES!!!

Happy #1 Blog Follower Day, CJ :)

Drum roll please.....

Today marks my half way point through "The Other Boleyn Girl" book!  Since this book is 917 pages (!!!!!), I figured it was worth documenting :)

Another Trip to the beach and Another Book list update!

Well I just got back from another trip to the beach...this makes what like 8 this year so far?  I am loosing count, but boy am I one lucky girl!!!  I decided to take Friday off of work and get a head start to the weekend!  My mom and I went to my Aunt and Uncle's house at Bavon Beach on the Chesapeake Bay and we could not have picked a better weekend to be at the beach.

Welcome to Bavon!

We arrived Thursday night around 8pm, which was nice so we could get some beach time in Friday.  Friday morning we laid by the water until about 1pm then had lunch and did some shopping in town.  Where I came across this sign:

Then Friday night we had a wonderful steak dinner on the grill and pulled them off about 6 minutes before it started pouring rain!  The rain was a nice break from the heat and cooled things off considerably for our Saturday day by the Bay.  

Saturday morning we got up early and went to some yard sales, but were home by 10am to greet my two cousins and their significant others for a day on the beach.  It was BEAUTIFUL weather and I was one of the lucky few who did not get seriously burned.  

Sunday, we were a little bit more lazy getting up. But my Aunt and I decided to walk to the Light house to try to find conch shells (I have been on an epic search for the past 3 years....every year walking there in search of one for my collection), but we had no luck finding one.  Don't worry, all was not lost cause look what we did see instead:

Can't complain about that view!  It also seems that someone has decided to camp on the little beach there and so we stumbled upon this:

Guess the owner and builder was out searching for lunch (aka Fish) cause (s)he was not there.  All in all, a wonderfully relaxing weekend AND I got some more movement in my book list (see below).

List of books I have read in 2012

1. Five Love Languages

2. Sisterhood Everlasting

3. The Holocaust Diaries

4. Private #1 Suspect

5. The Fixer Upper

6. The Hunger Games

7. Catching Fire (book 2)

8. Mockingjay (book 3)

9. The Carrie Diaries

10. What Alice Forgot

11. The Purpose Driven Life

12. The Reservoir

13. Private Games

14. Mountain beyond Mountains\

15. Hijacked: Responding to the Partisan Church Divide

16. Sarah's Key

17. I've Got Your Number

18. Private

19. There are No Children Here

  

 List of books I plan to read in 2012

20. Generous Justice (started 4/20/12, reading as part of my small group and will be done next Monday--YAY!).

21. The Other Boleyn Girl (Yup, remember that super thick one? I started it on Saturday 6/23/12 and I am currently at page 309 of 917, so making progress!!!)

22. Kisses from Katie

23. A good and perfect Gift

24. Hope in a Jar

25. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

26. The Girl who Played with Fire

27. The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest

28. Unbroken

29. Lexapros and Cons

30. The 100 thing challenge

Beach Bound....

in 6-7 hours :)  a nice long relaxing weekend by the sand and sea!  I cannot wait :)

A new adventure

So I have been reading up on the benefits of vegan cooking and while I am not ready to take the plunge yet, I have been trying to integrate a few vegan recipes into my meal planning lately.  I tried this recipe last week and it was such a big hit, I made it again on Sunday for my dad for Father's day and today I am enjoying the leftovers for lunch!!!


Sun-dried tomato Faralla Pasta salad with fresh basil, peas, red onion and balsamic vinegar sauce.  YUMMY!

Weekend Recap

So this weekend went by quickly but I also got a lot of stuff crammed into it, so I guess that is good.  Friday night, I did not really have plans per say, but I ended up going over to my friend, Anna's house to hang out for a bit. We had some girl talk, pizza, ice cream, and down time.  It was fabulous!  Anna and I have both been focusing a little less on planning and a little more on being able to do things spontaneously and it was so great to be able to spot by spontaneously to see her!  Afterward, I went home, loaded up the truck and headed to CJ's to unload the last bits for the yard sale.  Kathryn, CJ and I then went around and set up signs and crashed about 11pm...I WAS TIRED!  Then we were up at 6am to start pulling everything out for the yard sale (what can I say, I have AWESOME friends!)  The sale was not supposed to start until 8am, but we had PLENTY of people show up before the start time...including one guy there at 6:45 to look at my records.


All in all, it was a beautiful day and a productive day.  I got rid of a bunch of stuff and made $330 in the process.  Not too shabby!  Saturday afternoon was spent packing up, taking a trip to Goodwill, then home to crash on the couch for a bit before a cookout for dinner!  I then headed home and was in bed by 9:30.  Sunday I was up bright and early--we are talking 6am!  So I had plenty of time to do stuff around the house before I even left for church at 9am.  After church, CJ and I headed up to Lake Anna to meet up with my mom and dad, who were already there, to celebrate Father's Day!  We relaxed and enjoyed the sun (mom and I got a nice tan, CJ got a bit of a burn).  Sunday night I made dinner at the Lake--BBQ Pork Sandwiches, cole slaw, pasta salad and Strawberry Angel food cake for dessert (thanks CJ)!


On our way back to Richmond, we were on Route 33, so CJ and I agreed it would be fun to surprise our friend, Elaine.  So we showed up at her house about 8:20pm and rang the doorbell about 10 times before she answered with wet hair, apparently she was in the shower...WHOOPS!  But we all chatted for a bit and then headed home.  Great weather for a great weekend.  Needless to say there was not much time for reading so I have been on the slow side of reading lately, but I think I should be able to pick up this week some cause I have a few things after work so I generally take time to read between work and my plans.  Then this coming weekend I am headed to the Chesapeake Bay for a nice relaxing weekend!  I CANNOT WAIT!


Happy Monday All!

No news is good news...

Not much new to report, but that is not a bad thing!  I have been enjoying the accomplishments and celebrations of my friends!  So that means less time at home, which means less sleep, which means less reading as well.  In my most recent free time, I have been putting a lot of energy into my Yard Sale on Saturday (can't believe it is almost finally here).  My friend CJ (who also recently got a new fancy job--YAY CJ!) has graciously let me borrow her yard for a yard sale this Saturday to get rid of LOTS -O - JUNK so I have less stuff to move in the *hopefully* not to distant future.  I can honestly say I will be happy when Saturday is over and I have less junk and more money!  Plus if the weather Sunday holds out, it promises to be a great Father's Day celebration at beautiful Lake Anna!  And not to be outdone (or get too far away from the travel portion of this blog), I plan to take a trip to the Chesapeake Bay next weekend!

Living the high life...

Breakfast at the Jefferson?  Don't  mind if I do!  My friend Anna and I were invited to attend a Needle's Eye breakfast at The Jefferson Hotel to see Ken Blanchard speak.  The whole thing was amazing and we could not help but capture a picture of us in the lobby.  Don't worry no one was around to see this...

What was I thinking?

I just went to the library to pick up two books on my list and I was quite surprised when I picked up this one:

Looks good enough from the front, but check out the size of this book:

I certainly I have my work cut out for me, it better be good :)


Happy Monday and Happy Reading :)

Another one bites the dust...

If I knew I did not have an overactive social life, I would probably worry about myself.  As it is, I feel like I am plenty surround by family and friends, I just like to read and when I get into a book, it is hard for me to put it down if it is any good.  So the television does not get turned on, I wake up early wanting to read, I stay up late reading, I read at stop lights (only when they are red people, obviously!!!).  So as it is, I finished yet another book today...making my grand total 18 for the year...and apparently very much under-estimating my abilities (when I started this idea, I felt I might have a hard time getting 26 books done in a year...)!  Well I finished up the first book in the series, Private, by James Patterson.  It was good, but I still think the third one was probably my favorite and of the three, this was probably my least favorite, but it was still a GREAT read.  Not sure what book is up next on the list, it will depend what comes into the library first :)


Happy almost weekend! :)

17 done, 9 more to go...and a list update!

So I finished Sophia Kinsella's newest book, I've Got Your Number...ohhh so cute!  Needless to say, some might say if you have read one of her books, you have read them all and I believe this to be to true to some extent.  Flighty girl meets wrong guy...random/crazy circumstance happens where it is almost unbelievable but totally grips you cause you want to hear how it gets resolved...girls meets nice guy...girl and nice guy end up together and all is happily ever after.  So obviously this is not some great non-fiction about suffering, war, and heartbreak...which is why I read all types of books.  Kinsella's books are a good easy read for me when I just want a little light humor, so I was not disappointed at all!  If you are into chick novels, you would love it!

June 6th Update

As you can see I only technically have 9 books to go this year and more than half the year to do it in!!!  So I have expanded my list to 30, and made a few changes....

List of books I have read in 2012

1. Five Love Languages

2. Sisterhood Everlasting

3. The Holocaust Diaries

4. Private #1 Suspect

5. The Fixer Upper

6. The Hunger Games

7. Catching Fire (book 2)

8. Mockingjay (book 3)

9. The Carrie Diaries
10. What Alice Forgot
11. The Purpose Driven Life

12. The Reservoir

13. Private Games
14. Mountain beyond Mountains\

15. Hijacked: Responding to the Partisan Church Divide

16. Sarah's Key

17. I've Got Your Number

  

 List of books I plan to read in 2012

18. Generous Justice (started 4/20/12, reading as part of my small group).

19. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

20. The Girl who Played with Fire

21. The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest

22. Private (started 6/6/12-the first in the Private series, needless to say I am reading these way out of order)

23. Hope in a Jar

24. Unbroken

25. Kisses from Katie

26. The Other Boleyn Girl 

27. A good and perfect Gift

28. Lexapros and Cons

29. There are No Children Here

30. The 100 thing challenge

When life seems raining and blue...

Just look for the rainbow....or two! (sorry I could not resist the rhyme!)  

I just had to share this super cool picture....Double Rainbow...what does it mean???