Now Reading...

Today, I finished Pride and Prejudice and have now started "The Prince of Tides" by Pat Conroy. I loved Pride and Prejudice, which I've never read before, as crazy as that seems. Favorite character? Mr. Bennet. He was always hilarious.

ETA: Why did I lie? I didn't really like Pride and Prejudice that much. At least I don't remember it that way, a year and a half later. I feel like I should re-read it now, but I remember it as being hard to slog through, so I won't. Wish I'd written a fuller review of it.

Catching Up

Monday, Memorial Day, was one of the most perfect days yet this year. Ricky and I woke early and headed to the beach to catch some sun. It was a gorgeous morning, bright, sunny, a light breeze, not too hot. Unfortunately, that light breeze meant that the waves were RIDICULOUS and, being the fool that I am, I attempted something I never should have...going in the water. I was beaten severely by the Atlantic and when I got home, I found about a pound and a half of sand in my suit, not to mention scrapes and scratches all over my knees and feet. I also pulled a muscle in my back that has yet to fully heal, but it was worth it. We didn't really stay very long, as couples with children soon parked themselves unnecessarily near us. When we returned home, I spent some time reading books and blogs. We met Ricky's parents for dinner at a local sports bar, and then went to BJ's with them. His mom had bought us a little grill for the patio, so that was nice. (We tried it out last night and the burgers were YUMMY!)

I finally got a library card this week. My first since childhood. I don't know why I haven't had one in so long, but it's nice to know that the library is once again a possibility. I need to stop buying everything I want to read, because that is leading to a lack of space and a lack of funds.

Ricky got a new second job, helping a pair of documentary filmmakers tend their experimental garden. Sounds intriguing to me, and it will allow him to exercise his green thumb. The cactus and palm tree on our patio are taking over, along with his new (and extensive) herb garden, so this should be right up his alley. I really hope he likes it as much as he thinks he will.

No culinary explorations recently, although Paula Deen's Pecan-Stuffed Dates went over like gangbusters at the Summer Smash party at work. (We like to party in my office. We had another party today, pizza-type, as a going-away festivity for one of the co-workers, although not the one who got FIRED today!) I intend to try She Crab Soup next week, and I'm making Ricky eat it, even if he's scared.

I'm getting two interns at work. Well, I have to share them, but still. Somehow I was singled out for the honor (she said, not ENTIRELY sarcastically). I don't know what I will do with them. Hopefully one of them will be a Certified Legal Intern and able to handle her own docket. The other is an undergrad, so I'll be doing plenty of talking and explaining, I predict. Speaking of work, I have to go in tomorrow to prepare for the possibility of trials on Monday. Sigh.

My Golden Compass Daemon

Personality

I took the Myers-Briggs Personality Test for the first time since before I went to law school. I think all that legal training changed me. I used to be an INFJ. Now look at me!

Got the test from an old entry of JenClair's. I've actually spent a lot of time this weekend in perusing her blog. Found LOTS of new fodder for my already ridiculously long reading list.

Now Reading...

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. I finished The Notebook last night, and bawled my eyes out while doing so, I'm a little ashamed to say. It started out slow for me, but yesterday was rainy and grey and the perfect evening to read a little romantic novel. So I finished it up in no time. Not sure I'd read it again, but it wasn't bad for what it was. I wouldn't call Nicholas Sparks a great literary master of our time, but he wrote a nice little story there.

A Slight Chance of Fire

It's kind of disturbing to watch the weather report and, where one would normally see a graphic of clouds or sun, see a graphic of FIRE! The wildfires down here are still burning. Luckily, none of them are close to us...yet. While there has been a faint smoky smell present in the atmosphere for the last few days, as if someone were burning incense in the next room, today the smoke is thick and the smell is penetrating even our closed doors and windows. The damp air is only compounding the problem, creating a thick haze over everything. I believe this just means that the wind has changed and that the smoke from the fires by Lake Okeechobee is now blowing our direction...I'm hoping that it doesn't mean that the fires are creeping closer.

I only managed to read about ten pages of The Notebook last night. For some reason, I wasn't in a reading mood. Instead, I flipped on the TV and pulled out an old crossword puzzle book and gave my brain a challenge.

Oh yes. That is a wild Saturday night for me now. Sigh.

Now Reading...

Finished One Hundred Years of Solitude today and have begun The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks. This is not really a book that I would consider to be in my interest group, but sometimes it's good to get outside your own comfort zone, right? Hopefully, it is not too sappy. It's been recommended to me by several people, so it's worth trying, I guess.

One Hundred Years of Solitude was pretty weird. I told Ricky that and he asked me what I meant by it, but the only answer I could come up with was that it was just weird. If you've read it, you know what I mean.

Illness

Egads! I've been quite ill for the past few days. Monday night, as I was preparing to go to bed, what I thought was food poisoning from the Mexican we'd had for lunch (sorry, El Toro) hit me like a ton of bricks. I spent all Monday night praying to the porcelain goddess, as they say, and was in no shape to go in to work on Tuesday. Although I had nothing in my stomach, the mere thought of food nauseated me, and it was next to impossible for me to stay upright for more than 10 minutes at a time. At this point, I figured that this was NOT food poisoning, but rather some insidious stomach bug, that had me down and out.

By the time Wednesday rolled around, food still wasn't sounding appetizing, but I knew I had to eat something, if only to make the pounding in my head go away. The only thing I could imagine eating was, get this, Arby's!!! Normally, I think Arby's is pretty gross, but that is the only thing my body wanted, so that's what we ate.

Thursday, I thought I was better, and tried to go into work. Turns out, eating next to nothing for two days straight doesn't really lend itself to working, so much. So I returned home for one last day of rest. I was back at it today, and feeling pretty good, which is a relief after a week of feeling the like heel of someone's shoe...

So, needless to say, nothing got accomplished at work or at home this week. I hope to have a productive weekend, however, with maybe a little time in there for me to enjoy.

Back Again

Friday I made a new recipe, one I got off of the Weight Watchers website. I had needed something new to do with chicken breast, and what I found was what turned out to be a pretty good recipe for Chinese Pineapple Chicken with Black Bean Sauce. The one slight problem was that I bought the ingredients last week, thinking I would make it then; I froze the chicken and pretty much everything else kept well...except the ginger. I had forgotten to take it out of the plastic produce bag and it was moldy. So we had to go without it, but the dish was good anyway. The sauce wasn't as thick as I expected. Maybe I'll try either a little more black bean sauce to up the ratio with the pineapple juice, or I'll add in a little flour or cornstarch to thicken it up next time. The ginger, which I do plan to add on the next go round, should punch up the Asian flavor a little too...this version was more Hawaiian than Asian.

"One Hundred Years of Solitude" is slower going than I thought. The book is good, if a little too ADD for my taste. There just doesn't seem to be much direction, but I will assume that the NOBEL PRIZE WINNER knew what he was doing and that it is a conscious style choice, rather than a lack of ability. This is really my first foray into magical realism. I've done fantasy, I've done whatever you would call Diana Gabaldon's books (I don't know, maybe they are also magical realism), but this is new to me altogether. Upon researching the term, I found that Don DeLillo is listed as an English-language example of magical realism. Interesting...

The Fiance' and I are off to check out a potential wedding location today. More on that later, if it pans out.

Now Reading...

Also, I finished "The Return of the King" this morning. Great trilogy. Although I'm no huge fan of fantasy, I must say I really enjoyed those books. I've now started "One Hundred Years of Solitude" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I'm only a few pages in, so I'm not sure what I think of it yet, but we shall see.

A Question of Venue

Well, we are now also considering Heathcote Botanical Gardens as a possible venue for the wedding. Maybe I should take a poll... The Botanical Gardens is slightly cheaper, and just as nice, if not nicer, than the Fish Camp. But there is nothing there that we need, like tables, chairs, linens, etc. I just don't know.

Food for Thought

I realize that I haven't been updating my latest attempts at culinary creation. Last week I made a Fish Fry featured in one of Rachael Ray's earliest cookbooks (Comfort Foods). I couldn't find haddock, so I subbed in tilapia (ON SALE!) and it came out great. I managed not to burn anything, and I pulled together a homemade tartar sauce of my own recipe to round it out. I did not make the accompanying recipe for slaw (one thing at a time), but I think it was good nonetheless. Not sure Ricky enjoyed it that much, not being the biggest fish fan on earth, but he SAID it was good. That means he either liked it or he's learned something from our last 18+ months together.

Next up, I'm switching to Paula Deen's cookbook. Oh, and I'm trying a recipe for some kind of Asian-Pineapple Chicken dish off of weighwatchers.com. More on that to come.

Woe Is Me

Maybe we should just elope.

We've been looking for alternative wedding sites, now that the Jupiter Lighthouse is out of the question. We like both Indian Riverside Park and the River Palms Cottages and Fish Camp (whatever you've heard, fish camps ARE romantic), but this whole thing is turning into something I never wanted in the first place.

I wanted easy. I wanted simple. I wanted SMALL. I wanted CHEAP. None of the above appear to be happening.

Well, this week, we will be taking a couple of trips to see the potential sites, and maybe then we can decide...if we don't just decide to throw our hands up and go to Vegas first.