Catching Up

Life has fallen into a kind of rhythm these days. Between reading, working two jobs, couponing (and shopping), TV watching, computer game playing, and hanging out with friends, I feel like I need twice the amount of time in the day. (Notice I didn't say anything about keeping the house clean in there...it's kind of a wreck around here.) I've gone out after work on Friday for the last two weeks...something I haven't done in a long time. But I'm finding that by sticking to my grocery budget, using coupons wherever I can, and moving around some funds, I have the money to do the things I didn't think I could afford before. I got together with two of my good friends and one old friend whom I haven't seen in almost two years to have drinks and dinner at a local Chili's restaurant. (I LOVE Chili's...two for one margaritas, how can you beat that?)

Tonight, we went to the in-laws for dinner to celebrate Father's Day. My brother-in-law grilled us burgers and Ricky and I brought dessert. It was a nice chance to get together with the family. And we came away with some home-grown basil and mangoes from the tree in their backyard.

As far as work goes, it's been slow for a while, but I have a trial set for the week of July 4th. I'm kind of excited about this one, so we shall see how it goes.

Oh! I went back on Weight Watchers at the end of April, and so far I've lost 15 pounds. I have high blood pressure and high cholesterol/triglycerides, which is largely related to my terrible diet, pre-WW. I'm on two different meds right now, and it is absolutely ridiculous that someone my age should have to be on so much medicine, so I'm trying to lose the weight to get off the meds. I want to get healthy AND look good, and I'm doing well so far. The challenge will be staying on the program. I lost somewhere between 50 and 75 pounds a few years ago by doing Weight Watchers, but then I quit following the program and gained it all back (plus some!). Hopefully, this time it will be a true lifestyle change and I will keep it alllll off. I joined the 100 Mile Fitness Challenge to try to help me get in my exercise. We'll see how well I do...

I'm currently reading The Beekeeper's Apprentice. And I LOVE it. I've heard nothing but good things about this series by Laurie R. King, and those comments are proving true. I have the rest of the series on my shelf, too, so now the question is whether to pace myself or to rush through the rest of the series ASAP. I think I'll try to pace myself. Now, with the Outlander series that I'm re-reading, I'm in the midst of two series that I really love. Sigh. Book heaven!

What are you reading these days? What series do you absolutely love?

Whirling Dervish

I've been so busy lately! I started teaching part-time at the local university, so I've been spending a lot of time working on class-related things, in addition to the trial I had last week for my full-time job (which I WON!). Friday night was a going-away party for a colleague, yesterday was a Memorial Day BBQ at a friend's house, and today was cleaning, since I'm hosting Girls' Night at our house on Friday night. Needless to say, reading has been taking a bit of a backseat. And, honestly, I'm not much into it right now. Guess it's a slump.

BTW, someday I want to actually go to Istanbul to see the Whirling Dervishes in person. They are SO beautiful! If you've never seen them, go to YouTube and type in "whirling dervish." You'll find some great video of them!

Non-Reading-Related Things

Haven't been doing much reading this week. My social life seems to have picked up. I had a VERY long week at work, which led to more socializing than usual. Tuesday night, I joined some colleagues for "one drink," which inevitably turned into a couple. Wednesday night, Ricky and I went to his parents' house for dinner, since we haven't seen them in forever. Thursday night, we went to our friends' house to watch the Dolphins game. And last night, I was too tired to MOVE, let alone read anything. Since most of my reading time is in the evenings while Ricky watches TV, that means that I'm in the same place I was on Sunday night. Sigh.

I booked my ticket home to my parents' for Christmas. Ricky is not joining me. Which everyone else seems to think is very weird, but I think is normal. He doesn't have the vacation time, since he took it all for our honeymoon earlier this year. And he's never come with me to my parents' before, when we were dating/engaged, so it would be weirder to me if he DID come with. I don't know. Maybe, since I'm a married lady, I should be staying here with my husband and having Christmas. But I've never missed a Christmas with my family. And the only time I usually get to see them is at Christmas. So we've worked out this compromise. I don't think he's HAPPY about it, but it's good for him to have to take care of himself for a while, and it's good for me to get away from my responsibilities for a while. Next year...well, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Getting More (Pop) Cultural

I've decided that Ricky and I don't DO enough. Our boring lives consist of working, eating, watching TV, and sleeping. We read, it's true, but we don't see movies, we don't go to any local events (partially because we live in the most boring place on earth that doesn't HAVE any local events), we don't participate in hobbies. We need to get off the couch and DO SOME STUFF.

So I thought about ways we could increase our activity level and I've come up with a few things I'd like to try. Number one, which doesn't really involve getting up off the couch, is a subscription to Netflix. Part of the reason we don't see movies is that it's really freakin' expensive. I blew $40 on his birthday this year to take us to a movie and get some snacks! We don't have that kind of cash. BUT, with a Netflix subscription, we can get almost any movie we want to see, delivered to us, for a lot less than it would cost for even one of us to see it in the theater. I can wait for stuff to come out on DVD, no problem. I've even thought of doing some sort of movie project, like watching all the Oscar winners or something. I like stuff like that.

Secondly, I've decided I want to go to the Renaissance Festival next February/March. We live in a small town, which doesn't have much going on in the way of cultural events, but there are some larger metropolitan areas south of us, one of which features the Florida Renaissance Festival every year! I went to the Ohio Ren Faire a few times when I was in junior high and high school, and I really enjoyed it. I'm not the kind of gal who would dress up and participate (welllll....get enough mead in me and I might), but I'm the kind of nerd who would really enjoy herself spending a weekend in the Middle Ages. It's twenty bucks a person just to get in (i.e., not counting food, drink, shows, and souvenirs), but if we save with a goal in mind, we can afford it easily. Although there isn't one super close to us, it's only about an hour and a half drive away, which is not bad (we live in a looooong state...it could be eight hours away!).

Third, and this is something I've thought about for a while, I'd like to try geocaching or letterboxing. This is where you use a GPS system to find hidden locations where people who have been there before leave messages and stuff. It sounds kind of lame when you spell it out like that, but I think it would be fun. Kind of like a treasure hunt! I have a friend from college who has just tried it and she raves about it. If my husband won't join me (he's allergic to the outdoors), maybe I'll get some of my local friends to try it with me!

Fourth, I'd like to get into some kind of hobby. Maybe try knitting or get back into cross-stitching. I cook a little, but I don't want to have a bunch of food that we won't eat sitting around just for a few hours of occupation. I've seen a lot of bloggers who knit and quilt. These are hobbies I've never been that much into, but I'm starting to become interested. Hopefully, they don't go the way of the beading mania I indulged in a few years ago...I spent a BUNCH of money on supplies, but gave up after a short while. I'm not very craft-y. I'm impatient and easily discouraged, but I'm better about that than I used to be, so I'd like to try some sort of craft again soon.

Anyone have any other ideas to get us out and about and keep us amused?

Another Super-Busy Week

Not much reading done this week. Again. I went shopping with friends Monday night and ended up buying a BlackBerry. Sigh. Dinner with Ricky's parents and brother on Tuesday. Trivia night on Wednesday night. Girls' Night last night. Hopefully, this upcoming week will be a little calmer.

It's also been a rough week for me, emotionally. A judge that I used to practice in front of passed away suddenly. The memorial service is tomorrow. While I wasn't close to the judge, he was a presence in my life at the courthouse, and it's really made me think a lot about those I love.

I hope to finish up Doctor Zhivago this weekend and then catch up on some of my magazine reading that has fallen by the wayside...

Brief Update

I haven't been blogging or blog-visiting much this week. I was in trial on Monday and Wednesday (I lost, if anyone is keeping score) and Ricky and I have been trying to finish up the DAMN INVITATIONS. The good news is, they went into the mail today, so I won't be blogging about them anymore! Now, to schedule the cake-tastings. Mmm.

I also spent both Wednesday night and Thursday night out on the town, with the fiance's brother and some friends from work. That meant I got nothing done: no bills paid, no laundry done, no wedding stuff worked on. So this morning, before work, I had a little breakdown, which freaked the poor fiance' out. It was just a culmination of stress and not getting enough sleep (I never sleep before a trial, and our mattress was getting lumpy, so we had to turn it). I was also juggling competing requests for my presence at events this weekend. I had planned quite awhile ago to go away tomorrow with some girlfriends. It wasn't really the event that drew me; it was the chance to hang out with the girls. Then people started backing out. Then I got invited to do something ELSE with people I am closer to, and I felt a lot of pressure to do THAT instead, but I had already committed to the first thing...so I started to get stressed about it and lose my mind. And I cancelled everything. Just decided that if it was making me that crazy, it wasn't worth it, and I would just stay home and relax this weekend, especially after running around last weekend and the trial this week. So tomorrow, I don't intend to go anywhere or do anything. I might not even get out of my pajamas. Catching up on blogs, reading, playing some Wii...those are my plans. Oh wait. Except that I will schedule the cake-tasting. I will do that.

Christmas Update

Well, I left for parts north on Saturday, Dec. 20th. The flight up was fairly uneventful. Well, once I was on a flight that was actually going to make it. Apparently, there was some delay with the flight to Atlanta, so they booked me through Baltimore instead. Otherwise, I would have been stuck in the ATL overnight. Which wouldn't have been a problem, there are people I could have dropped in on whom I haven't seen in a while, but then again, unexpected guests are not always the most welcome. Luckily, I had a pretty enterprising ticket agent working for me, so she found another flight which would get me into Ohio on time. Or at least the same day.

It was bitterly cold when I first arrived, and I am simply not built for cold and snow anymore. There's a REASON I moved to Florida, y'all, and it was pretty much so I wouldn't have to battle single-digit temps anymore. I HATE the cold, I'm not REALLY a fan of snow (even on Christmas), and I can DEFINITELY do without scraping ice off my car for several months of the year. But the week warmed up, and my parents' house is always 800 degrees, so I was pretty comfortable.

During the flight up there, I was finishing up the November/December issue of Bookmarks magazine and perusing a holiday-themed issue of Rachael Ray's magazine. Then I started in on The Eight. And I'm still reading it. It's long, like 600 pages. To be fair, this vacation was not the string of uninterrupted reading time I anticipated. I always forget how busy a trip home is. There's Christmas with my cousins, Christmas with the immediate family, dinners with my best friend, evenings watching movies with the fam, a football game, shopping with my sisters, dinners out with my parents and sisters, computer games, etc. Mostly, I read in the mornings over breakfast, before the day got going. And occasionally when I had some down time during the day. On the flight back, I was sick with a terrible cold, so I read a bit in the airport, but slept on the plane. Hopefully, I'll have a chance to finish the book soon, but I do have those 300 Google Reader entries to catch up on...

Sigh. There's always something else going on.

P.S. Hurrah for the Georgia Bulldogs, winners of the Capital One Bowl!!!!!!!!!!!

Holiday Random-ness

Christmas shopping is, for the most part, done. I would like to get Ricky a thing or two more for his stocking, but the particular last item I want is SOLD OUT at the particular place I went looking for it. (He reads this blog, or at least I think he does, so I have to be kind of vague.)

I have the makings of my holiday peanut butter fudge sitting on the stove, to be made later today or maybe tomorrow, if I have time.

The office Christmas party was last night. I pooped out on the bail bondsman's party that is THE big holiday fete. I was just too tired after working all day and then partaking of the Christmas cheer with my co-workers. I'm invited to yet another party tonight. Not sure if I'm going. Mostly, I just want to curl up in my apartment and read or surf the internet. I don't really feel like schmoozing. Or drinking. Which means something is wrong with me, because I ALWAYS feel like drinking.

The fiance' and I had an unaccustomed amount of togetherness this past week. He was on a short break from job number three (!!!) while they switched him to another store, so we got to spend our evenings together, which we haven't done for quite a while. And I didn't even kill him. We actually went on a dinner date on Wednesday. And it was nice.

Tomorrow, I plan to accompany two of our good friends up north, to "Central Florida," to see another couple that we used to work with and their new baby girl.

In between all the merry-making, fudge-making and baby-meeting, I'm not having much reading time. Since my opportunities to read have been pretty broken-up lately, I've been indulging in magazines. Currently, I'm browsing the November/December Bookmarks. I asked for a subscription for Christmas...I HOPE SANTA BRINGS ME ONE! (Uh, hint hint.) And today, for some unknown reason, I decided I had to have the Rachael Ray magazine that I saw in the checkout, despite the millions and millions of BOOKS staring at me from the spare room, waiting to be read. But come on, how am I to resist 329 meals that rock, or the holiday cookie blowout? I mean, really. I've never read Rachael's magazine, but I love her cookbooks and cooking shows. Although she should annoy me to high heaven, I ADORE the lovely Ms. Ray. I just hope this isn't a must-have subscription. I think one to two magazines a month are my limit.

End of a Rough Week

This week has been a tough one, work-wise. "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold." You know? It marks only the second time in my life when I've been steamrolled by someone absolutely losing their shit when I undeniably thought they had it all together. It freaks me out. I am about the farthest thing from having everything together. Some days I feel like I'm hanging on by my fingernails, above a bottomless ravine. My house is a wreck, I don't spend enough time with my fiance', I can't get anything accomplished at work, my leisure reading is behind schedule...the list goes on and on. So when someone who is supposedly unshakeable gets shaken, well, what is to become of me?

Went to see The Changeling last night with some friends from work, in order to kind of decompress. Unfortunately, that movie is DEPRESSING and was probably not the best choice for someone who wanted to blow off a little steam. We probably should have gone to see Role Models. The movie was just okay. I don't know what it was about it that I didn't like. The storyline was fine, the acting was fine (for the most part...Jeffrey Donovan's Irish accent made my skin crawl, but the Malkovich more than made up for it). It wasn't as suspenseful as I hoped, I guess, maybe because I'd seen too many commercials which gave away at least PART of the storyline which might better have been kept under wraps. And the ending wasn't very satisfying. I needed a happy ending last night, and it just...wasn't. So we had to go have a couple of beers afterwards, in order to get our happy ending.

The air show is this weekend, which means planes buzzing the house for the foreseeable future. The Dawgs play Kentucky at 12:30. Hopefully, they can shake off the pathetic game against Florida last week, and kick some serious Wildcat ass this week.

Mailbox Monday Once Again!

It's Mailbox Monday again, and I actually have some acquisitions to report! From the folks at LibraryThing and Andrews McMeel Publishing, I received a new cookbook, Pamela Sheldon Johns' 50 Great Appetizers. I LOVE COOKBOOKS! And I love to try new recipes. I wish I cooked more often, but our office is having a Halloween party at the end of the month, so I'll be trying out one of these appetizers on my unsuspecting guinea pigs. Heh.

I also received Leaving Cold Sassy, the sequel to Olive Ann Burns' Cold Sassy Tree. I Mooched this from the same lovely lady at BookMooch who sent me the first book. I'm looking forward to reading these classics that I've yet to get to.

Finally, I received November's Glamour magazine. I still love Glamour, despite the fact that I cannot afford any of the clothes and no longer really need the makeup tips (since I hardly ever go out anymore) and find it all just a little...repetitive. I've subscribed for YEARS, at least since college, and it's a habit I don't think I can break at this point. I do enjoy their articles on world events and the political coverage, and there are definitely still other "fluff" articles that I enjoy. It's kind of like brain candy for me. And I'm ready to dive in once again this month.

So, a fruitful harvest, overall this week. It could be a while before I receive many more books, as I'm topped out on BookMooch and the Fiance' and I are "saving money." But we shall see, we shall see. I have a feeling, like any good bibliophile, that I will find a way to bring more books into the house, regardless.

Vacation

I've been spending a lot of time at the beach with my sisters, and I have the lobster-shoulders to prove it. We're taking a break from swimming today in favor of indoor activities, which, hopefully, will not burn us. I've taken them to eat at one of my favorite places, and we've eaten at home a bit, too, since we're all poor. We've been watching the Olympics obsessively, when they're on, although I've been falling asleep much too early. In between all that, we've been having all the fun a flock of us generally have when we're in the same place. Ricky seems to fit right in...it's been a great week so far.

Unfortunately, I have to go back to work tomorrow. I think we're going to have brunch at our favorite diner today, and probably do dinner with a couple of my co-workers. Ricky's brother is supposed to come into town today, also, so maybe we'll have dinner with him tomorrow night. All this eating out is kind of hard on the wallet (and the waistline -- Weight Watchers is out the window this week), but it sure is fun.

More book news when I get a chance to get back to reading. It's been mostly magazines and the beach this week.

Things I Can't Wait For

This.

My sisters coming to visit in a month.

Going to Ohio for Nat's wedding in September.

New News

I accidentally went out and got very drunk with co-workers last Friday after work. Accidentally, in that I only meant to have a drink or two after work at Happy Hour, but it ended up being more like an eight or nine hour bender at a local sports bar. My co-workers are a bad influence on me.

My beautiful new computer is now up and running. And my beautiful new glasses are now sitting on my face. I've spent a lot of money this week...

Still working on Jane Eyre. I'd forgotten how much I enjoy that book!

Playing Catch-Up

Whew. The last couple of weeks have been busy. Between all of the book blogs I've been scouring, and my recent mini-vacation to Fort Myers to see my best friend, I've hardly had time to post.

Welcome to little Jonah Benjamin, the second beautiful son of my college roommate and her hubby!

I spent this past weekend in Fort Myers, drinking and relaxing and spending time with my best friend of 15 years (God, does that make me feel old!) It was nice to get away from the fiance' for a while, and have some time to myself to hang out with old friends. We spent a lot of time by the pool, ate at our favorite Greek restaurant on the beach, and did a pub crawl Saturday night. Quite a wonderful weekend!!!

I just wish I'd had more time for reading...

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.

Having a Social Life

My social life goes in cycles. Most of the time, I have nothing to do, other than hang out at home with the Fiance' and the cats. But occasionally I have one of these socially busy weeks, where I'm doing something allllll the time. This weekend is going to be like that.

Tonight I deigned to show up at happy hour after the monthly office meeting. It was fun to see everyone and have a couple drinks. I haven't been drinking much lately, so two were all I needed to feel good.

Tomorrow night, I am going to a local bar with some buddies to see a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend's band. Haven't been out on a Saturday night since the Draft House Debacle of this past summer. So that should be interesting. I am feeling some guilt, however, at leaving the Fiance' to fend for himself tomorrow night. Oh well. He'll be fine.

Sunday...THE SUPER BOWL!!! At Susanna's house. Gotta save all my Weight Watchers' points for that. There will be tons of food and tons of people and TONS OF FUN! So this is the most I've been away from the house in quite some time. Hope it doesn't burn down.

There are changes coming at work. I sense a deep forboding.