Brr...it's cold in here*

And so it begins.

Chewy reminded me that I had said back in 2013 that this year I would read better quality books (not that everything I read last year was junk!) Dune and Jesus the Christ have been on my reading list for a while and if you’ve seen those books you know they are doozies.  I of course forgot all about that when I decided to read 50 books again this year.

With that being said – I am fully prepared to not reach this goal in 2014.  I hope I come close, but if I read the thicker books on my “to read” list I will be content to count it.  We’ll see. 

By the way – I am on track right now, but I also splurged in some teen books (and will continue to do so ok!? I could claim I’m learning my art but really, I have an addiction).

*shuffles papers and eyes crowd suspiciously* don’t judge, ok?

January – 4

Total = 4

Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie

I think it’s long been known that I have a thing for Peter Pan.   Not a thing in a romantic way, eww gross, or in Starbucks coffee way (please see http://sixthdonbro.blogspot.com/2008/05/man-with-obsession-is-man-who-has-very.html)  but there’s something about the story that I like.  However, I’ve never actually read the story.  I’ve seen a million versions of the story in movies.  It was time.  I liked it, it was like blending all the different versions together (Disney, 2003, Hook).

The Last Book in the Universe by Rodman Philbrick

I really liked it. It’s a dystopian novel about a kid they call Spazz because he suffers from epileptic seizures.  These seizures have made him different in another way though, because of them he can’t use probes, which the people use as a drug to escape their lives.  Because of probes, people don’t read books and they don’t remember things well.  This makes Spazz special.  The book is his adventure across “the world” or rather between the “latches” leading him to Eden.  I think the world building Philbrick does is pretty good and there was only one point, near the end where I was a little let down – but that would be a spoiler, so if you ever read it, send me a message and we can talk.

Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater

This book has shown up on recommended lists a lot for me and I would keep skimming past it, determined not to read another werewolf/vampire-ish book.  I finally caved to see what it was all about.  I think it is well written but I’m not sure I am enticed to read the next one (is there a next one? I assumed there might be – the end leaves it open to a sequel but wrapped up nicely if not).  I think I just have a problem with the Bella-like characters – not that Grace (one of the main characters) is like Bella – I didn’t want to strangle Grace and she didn’t seem helpless and useless.  The book is written from two perspectives, Grace and Sam, and I have to say, I like being able to see Sam’s perspective as well.

The Lucy Variations by Sara Zarr

This was one I randomly picked up from “the library” (the Overdrive app).  I’m not a huge fan of reading books on my tiny phone, but it comes in handy when I have a few minutes here and there to kill.  Lucy is a young concert pianist who has gone rogue.  She walked out of a concert in Prague 8 months before we pick up on the story.  I think the thing I like most about this story (for me at least) is the moment the main character realizes that she is being a selfish brat and blind to what is most important in her life.  Okay – the way I said it sounds harsh, but there are a few pages (maybe only a page in the real sized book) where everything becomes clear to her, that she has been blaming other people for things and that she’s been making her decisions for the wrong reasons. And the characters felt fleshed out, real in a way I want to challenge myself to write characters better.   I liked it.

Right on top of that, Rose!*

I tried to get into photography in high school, but as I think I have already explained about myself - I'm lazy.  I don't typically follow through on things or I get frustrated because they SEEM like good/fun ideas and then I get bored/tired/frustrated.

I think the way I paint is indicative of this.  I pick out a color and get ready to paint a room only to get bored before a whole wall is complete.  And that was just with my bathrooms.  That is how my hobbies end up - half done, almost complete, so close to finished that I should just finish them but...I can't find the motivation.

And that was high school photography class.  I wanted to be great and I wanted to be great right then and there without putting in the work.  As you can guess, I didn't do much photography beyond that class.

Last year I bought a fancy camera, more determined than ever to LEARN....and then I got frustrated because I wasn't great right away.  However, this year I am determined to get better.  Aside from being signed up for a class that starts next month, I am also doing a monthly photo challenge with my new work friend, Katy. 

For each challenge we pick our top 5 photos and give them to each other on a flash drive.  Then we each pick one of the other person’s photos and edit it in Light room – that way we are also learning the software. 

January’s challenge – the unnoticed.

I think I spent more time looking FOR unnoticed things than actually focusing on the picture taking skill.  The unnoticed is a difficult topic because I would notice things but wasn’t sure if it fit the bill.  Did other people notice these things?  Then I kept thinking that maybe the unnoticed is really the ignored or forgotten.  

So – here are my top five photos for January.

I don't know - like I said, it was hard to find the unnoticed, but it was pretty fun.  I took TONS of photos.  Here are some others that didn't make the cut.

 

Kind of hard NOT to notice this one

Not unnoticed/ignored, despite what he may say.  I just thought it was a good pic.  Isn't he handsome?

I'm going to rip your guts out one gut at a time!*

About a month ago, one of the women in my writing group informed us of an opportunity to blog for a book publishing company in exchange for assistance on a work in progress.  I thought about it for longer than I should have and debated whether or not I thought I could write anything of worth to them.  Finally I decided to just send an email and get more information, I wasn’t committing if I just asked for more info.

When I didn’t hear back from them I figured that they found enough bloggers and I went about life like normal.  Earlier this week the Editor in Chief emailed me back.  She gave me more information and a couple ideas of what I could blog about.  I expressed interest in two different things and ended up with interviewing book bloggers.  It seems the least risky, I don’t have to put my own writing out there, I just provide information about other people.  I figure I can do that and then as I get comfortable, maybe I can branch out – who knows.  If nothing else, the Editor in Chief at Leap Books will know who I am.  I will be blogging one day a month for them starting in February. 

Wish me luck!

Oh yeah - and I need to right up a brief bio about myself...eek.  I may post here for opinions.

Go, go away. Read some books.*

My sugar consumption has been out of hand lately. I mentioned this to Chewy and he agreed (I.e. Volunteered) to do Sugar Sundays with me. Last fall-ish I gave up sugar 6 out of 7 days a week and on the 7th day I rested from my sugar free lifestyle and ate as much sugar as I wanted. My family began to call it Sugar Sunday. Then around the holidays I fell off the wagon....hard. 

So Chewy and I will start on Monday. That means this weekend was a time to go overboard. Anything we thought of - we ate. Except we didn't think of much. 

Saturday we were headed back from D.C. and I saw a sign for Cinnabon. What better way to go out than a sugar coma induced by Cinnabon?!  

Chewy said he'd never had one. 

What. The. Mess?

That decided it, we HAD to get one! We took the exit and followed the signs, then looked for it.  And looked for it. Then we thought maybe it was inside another building so we looked for smaller signs maybe in windows but to no avail. 

We turned around and looked again (there wasn't much so we cruised on the main drag like a shark patrolling the waters for it's next meal). 

I was ready to give up but Chewy rebuked me for my lack of faith and fortitude. We both pulled out our phones and started searching. Certainly if there was one in the area our trusted Siri(s) would know where to go. But she couldn't find any. I went to their website and found two locations with everything the same except street number and city so I put that in the map and then the confusion commenced, we "arrived" several times but there was no cinnamon to be found! My phone died in the process, she was true until the end. Chewy said it best, "she gave her all and then it killed her." 

We finally decided that Cinnabon must have closed but the sign hadn't been removed...you just don't do that.  If it had been a McDonalds or something like that, no problem, they're a dime a dozen and we could drive another exit for one... but Cinnabon?! Seriously folks. 

We went to Wal-Mart when we got back to Richmond and we went by the ice cream to see if there was any Ben and Jerry's Cinnanmon Bun ice cream as a secondary desire

But in this we were also disappointed. We finally found some Archway Iced Oatmeal cookies. 

So at least it wasn't a complete disappointment. 

Now that I've made you crave sugar...wish us luck! 

Eyebrows, there should be two.*

You know what amazes me? Teeth.

Think about it, every other part of the body is held together, wrapped up in skin or growing out of said skin.  Bones, muscles, sinews all connected together.  Teeth? Hanging in there by roots, albeit pretty strong roots.  I should throw in here that it is not only that they are barely hanging in there, your hair does that too, but it’s that we use them to eat food, chomp on gobstoppers and other hard candy, to chew ice, open packages (don’t do that), untie knots, etc.  I don’t know what various and sundry things you people use your teeth for.

Of course now that I think about it, eyes might make the list too but ocular cavities give me the creeps so I’m not going to dwell on them.

It snowed yesterday.  I love snow. I don’t think I’ll ever lose the youthful excitement of seeing snow fall.  I remember once in college we were driving during a “snow storm” on this rural Idaho road.  It was nighttime so we had black sky above, black pavement below and white kamikaze snow pelting against the car.  My roommate, a native Idaho-ian, was driving my car while I sat shot gun.  We both watched the snow blowing into the car horizontally and almost at the same time we said, “Warp Speed”. 

Warp Speed

Snow at night

I think of this every time I drive into crazy snow (and I also realize what a nerd I am sometimes but it’s good to know I have fellow nerds on this journey with me).

Since life in Virginia shuts down when it snows, I went home from work and stayed there.  The only thing I had planned was canceled before the snow even started.  So I cleaned my room and ended up watching “Mirror, Mirror”.  It’s light hearted and I needed that because I got sucked into a crime show that I needed to stop watching because it was too graphic.  I just can’t get over those eyebrows. That’s the last face I saw before I went to bed last night – sad.

This morning I woke up to this:

Not too shabby but not enough to really impact my day.  Still had to work and didn’t even make a snowball.

And - random pictures of the snow all the way up on the window - which I thought was cool.

Happy birfday!*

Have I mentioned that I love my new job?

I have mentioned that I HAVE a new job?  I am still with the same company, but have switched departments. Goodbye HR, Hello Regulatory Compliance.  I was really nervous about making the change.  I have been in HR for the past 6 years.  I may have been stressed, but I knew what I was doing. Then I was getting ready to just switch to a different department where for the life of me I couldn’t tell you what I would be doing!  I’m amazed they gave me the job, but then again, they didn’t ask a lot of questions in the interview.  The first person told me right away that I was a perfect for the job and I had his support.  Then he asked a few questions.  The second person came in and asked if she really needed to ask any questions.  So I asked her some, what would my interactions be with her department, etc.  Then my new boss came in and just told me her plans for the department once I started. 

So I got a job without knowing what it would involve.  I had to wait until they hired someone to replace me, then I spent three grueling weeks training my replacements and last week I finally started in my new job (I still get HR questions from HR people – not just the ones I trained…that is weird).  The training here has been far different from the training I gave in HR.  A lot of it here is, “this is what you need to do, here is where you can look to get it”.  I’m not left completely on my own, I can ask questions and a few of the things they showed me how to do it.  There’s a lot of research involved, which I didn’t think I would like because frankly I didn’t like any of my HR research.  But I haven’t been bored with this stuff, I don’t know if it is because it actually accomplishes something or what.  I felt in HR that I researched something and it never came to fruition. 

The days are busy and go by quickly, but I’m not exhausted when I leave for the day (AND I leave on time each day). 

Anyway – today, I was doing some research for Georgia and I came across this:

 

I don’t know why, but I love that “weird” made it onto a government website.

In other news – I am eating spinach today:

 

It’s like eating a plant and I think it’s giving me heartburn….is that even possible?

Just as an update – I had a great birthday.  Nothing too crazy happened, but I just went to bed last night thinking what a great birthday it was.  Aside from getting stuck in traffic on the way to work, it was a great day.  My day wasn’t too stressed and I felt really loved with birthday cards and flowers and notes and cake.  Is this what a real birthday feels like?  I even got a re-gifted photography book from Katy (my literal replacement in HR – we are so similar – you will likely hear about her again because we have a monthly photography challenge). 

Last night, Chewy and I went to Home Team Grill – I really wanted a burger and I have this strange thing about half-off burger night (every Tuesday) – so even though I wasn’t paying I really wanted to go.   The food was ok but the service was terrible, I think the girl forgot us.  It was the first time I ever considered just leaving without paying.  Mind you, I would not have done it, but I wanted to. Then we went to Coldstone.  Chewy has never had Coldstone so it was really good I was craving some (heaven’s knows I didn’t need it though which is probably why I am choking down spinach right now).  I think he liked it…but the jury is still out.  I’ll tell you what he didn’t like, every time he said something I started to sing a song with the same words.  He was not too keen on when I pulled out Bonnie Raitt or House of Pain.  That boy has no class. (Ps- before he gets mad at me for not mentioning it- Chewy already got me my gifts :) 

Well, I should get back to my spinach. Here are random pictures from yesterday.

Thanks Viv for the early morning surprise!

Thanks Amber for the notes and flowers! 

They're lady bugs!!!!

That would have been good to know YESTERDAY!*

I had the opportunity to finish off the year with Martha and Sadie (and Nora - but she's so quiet I forgot about her most of the time).  Our first day together, Nora had a doctor's appointment.  The reception area was lined with chairs and then there was a line down the middle, kind of dividing the room into two.  By the chairs in the middle, there was a fish tank.
 Sadie loved the fish tank and then she'd grab a book, command me to read and leave to go look at the fishes.

I went and sat down against the wall close to the side of the fish tank that Sadie  seemed to like the most.  Then this lady and her daughter come in and the girl comes directly up to Sadie and stares.  Sadie looks at the fish and I'm not sure she saw the little girl, at one point she may have and waved or something, but I remember the woman saying to her daughter as soon as she approached Sadie, "Don't touch her GiGi."

I didn't so much find this offensive as I did incredibly odd.  What kind of over protective mother was this?

We were called back and we left GiGi and mother in the waiting room, all alone like the mom seemed to prefer.  The doctor was uninteresting and long so I'll skip that part....except for the story about the squirrel family that sacrificed the beaver....

Not really, but I made up the words of the story as I went and Martha looked up and what I said matched the pictures so she asked, "Is that what it really says?"   Yes, awareness of squirrel bullying is on the rise and that awareness always starts with children's picture books.

Anyway - we come out of the back and Sadie goes straight to the fish tank, the left side of the room was full so I went to the right (where I was sitting originally when GiGi and Mom came in).  I sat down and waited for Martha.  When she came out she said, "You're sitting on the sick side"  ... Thanks Mart.  She said she didn't know before, but what we had missed when we originally came in were the signs that divided the room into "Well" and "Sick".  Because a line of chairs and a fish tank make all the difference with airborne illnesses.

At least GiGi's mom didn't seem so weird/rude to me now.

The rest of my time with Sadie went well. She pet a cat, we walked to 7-Eleven, played on the Baptist playground.

Looks like Magnum for goodness sake*

My niece is here! One down, one more to go.

Say hello to Nora!

She came the day after Christmas and I took photos of her Saturday.

Apparently little old ladies make these and donate them to the hospital for the newborns.  So cute.

Jeff and Sadie came to visit while I was there.  Isn't she pretty?

...crazy, but pretty.

I'd like to say that Sadie is taking Nora's existence well - but....

Just kidding! That was because we had to close the blinds and she wanted to keep looking outside. Overall she completely ignores Nora, which I suppose is better than trying to extinguish her life.

We're very excited to have Nora as part of the clan.