Thursday, July 31, 2008

Don't Worry Be Happy

This is looking like it's going to be a great weekend!

First Jojobee http://hopeforbaby.blogspot.com/ has some great news. Which is so awesome, I'm so very happy for her and her dh.

Second our 2nd anniversary is next week and we're going to dinner to celebrate tomorrow. I have to say our first 2 years of marriage have been amazingly happy. I honestly can't imagine my life w/o Banks b/c he's my perfect counter balance. He's a much lighter funnier person then I am and he keeps me from getting to bogged down in planning and worrying. I on the other hand keep him grounded and focused. He really is my perfect mate.

3rd Breaking Dawn is being released on Saturday! Not that this ranks anywhere near the other 2, it's just something I'm incredibly excited about. I'm so beyond obsessed w/ the books in the Twilight saga. All three really draw you in, even New Moon which is incredibly sad and makes you ache for Bella. I think one of the reasons that I love these books so much is Bella and Edward fall in love at first sight, which is what happened to Banks and I.

I actually had a girls' night w/ friends last weekend and a group of us couldn't resist discussing our theories and thoughts about the series, as we had all read them. The books are completely addictive and I recommend them to anyone w/ time to kill, you won't want to put them down once you start Twilight.

Also I weighed, unofficially, this morning and I'm down .5 lb. Which I'm totally happy w/ so all in all I think this is shaping up to be a terrific weekend!

don't worry, it will soon pass whatever it is,don't worry, be happy,i'm not worried
Bob Marley

Friday, July 25, 2008

Books

"The Big Read reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they've printed. "

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Color the books you LOVE.
4) Reprint this list in your blog so we can try and track down these people who've read 6 and force books upon them

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling {love this series}
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible -- parts of it
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott {I read this about once a year for a decade, I LOVE it}
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini (so depressing, yet so engrossing)
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery {I read all of them years ago, really enjoyed them}
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan -- {read it, but it was kind of depressing}
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel (loved it)
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad {for AP English, didn't like it}
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute {for some reason I think I started this but didn't finish it}
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

A room without books is like a body without a soul.
Cicero (106 BC - 43 BC)

My reality

I have 6 months to get myself in shape and ready to move on w/ the DE process. I really want to loose 10 lbs, at least, by September, so I'm going to track it here so I have some accountability for staying on track.



I guess I shouldn't call it a diet, really I'm just going to improve my eating habits, less unhealthy snacking more fruits and veggies. Try not to overeat, that sort of thing.



Hopefully it'll help me feel like I'm doing something towards starting the de cycle by giving me something to work on in the mean time.



10 lbs is less than a 1 lb a week which is really easy, I just have to stay on my plan. I just do better when I have to weigh in ala Weight Watchers.

Your goals, minus your doubts, equal your reality.

Ralph Marston

Saturday, July 12, 2008

Chasing Butterflies

It's been insanely busy lately here in chance land which is good and bad. Good b/c the weeks are flying by and that's great; bad b/c there is too much to do and not enough time to do it.

I really can't wait for January to get here so we can have our first appointment and get moving on a de cycle. It hasn't been easy adjusting to pushing it back by 5/6 months. I feel strongly that we need to do it on a schedule that Banks is comfortable w/ it's just not always easy waiting. I'm thinking we already have one month down, I just have to focus on the little bits of time that are passing and not the total amount ahead.

Our friends stayed w/ us last weekend and brought their 14 month old. He's such a doll, he's a really good baby and so sweet. It made it a little harder on the waiting front but oddly enough not the IF front. Watching them w/ him just made me want that for us even more and that didn't help my impatience at all. Seeing him toddle around, chasing the dog, trying to play w/the controller. Not to mention he's a total mamma's boy and the way they are together just made me envious. I want what they have, me and Banks, and our child who's happy and healthy and loved. I'm ready for the changes that'll bring and want them. Banks just isn't there yet and that means staying patient for a while.

You can chase a butterfly all over the field and never catch it. But if you sit quietly in the grass it will come and sit on your shoulder.

Thursday, July 3, 2008

Thankful for my cup

I decided I needed a thankful Thursday so here it goes.

-I'm thankful for my wonderful husband, I'm so lucky I found him. I don't know what I'd do w/o his love and support.

-I'm thankful that we had a wonderful visit w/ Mom and Pops. It was a lot of fun.

- I'm thankful that I have such awesome In-Laws

-I'm thankful that we get to spend Friday on the lake w/ friends! It's going to be a great day.

- I'm thankful for the armed service personnel who make sacrifices so that we're all safe here at home.

- I'm thankful that it's going to be a beautiful day!

"When asked if my cup is half-full or half-empty my only response is that I am thankful I have a cup." Sam Lefkowitz