Happy Homecoming!

Here's a little song to get the weekend started off, Keegan is really into it these days.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYlVzGUpT0k

Book Club was fun this week! We met at a place I had never been to called Feast! which is a dining section of Main Street Market (http://www.feastvirginia.com and http://marketstreetmarket.net)

I branched out on the suggestion of Nora who has been raving about her fig preserves and got a chicken, cheddar, and fig chutney panini with a side of tomato pesto soup. It was really good! We discussed the book we had read for October, Of Bees and Mist by Erick Setiawan. The group was split over all. I think that this book hovers around the edge of the YA genre which turned some people off the novel. There were some great parts that we all agreed upon, like how the author uses metaphors literally - one character, when she is nagging or angry, has bees fly out of her mouth and attack the person she is yelling at. Someone read online that the author based this mean character off his grandmother and that he dreads the day his mother reads the book and says, "You were too kind to her!"

For November we are still doing The Goldfinch and for December we decided on Big Stone Gap by Adriana Trigiani. Apparently it takes place in Virginia and has been turned into a short film that will be playing at the Charlottesville Film Festival. I would go see it but I will be in California visiting my baby cousin!! (and everyone else out there).

I just finished this morning City of Heavenly Fire by Cassandra Clare which I do not recommend to anyone except possibly 15 year olds. Obviously I loved the book as it was 730 pages that I read in the past two days. This is the sixth, and final installment I think, of the Mortal Instruments Series. There's a lot of demon fighting and teenage sexual tension. There was a movie made of the first book, City of Bones, that was pretty good all in all!

I also read Lexicon by Max Barry this week. I thought this book was so cool and this one I do recommend! In the novel people are selected for special training based on their ability to persuade and resist persuasion. Called "poets" these agents learn not only how to persuade by being friendly, scary, etc. but by using the tiny sounds that words are made up of against others. There's a part where one main character is breaking down the word sounds that people with liberal political views respond to verus people with conservative views. SO FASCINATING. Although there are some unbelievable parts to the story, there are some really interesting ideas being tossed around that I think are applicable and important in today's society. At one point someone says something along the lines of, "people will resist a census, but give them an empty social media page and they will give you more information than you know what tot do with." 

I have not been up to much this week besides working a lot and figuring out my student loan repayment plans (NOOOOO)

Yesterday before work I did make this shirt though!

design was definitely copied from HowlingBird but I worked there for a year so I feel like it's acceptable. I'm super excited to wear it!

I have the next two days off work - going to do some grocery shopping today. It's Keegan's cousins 6th birthday tomorrow, so I think we are going to stop by her pool party for some cake :))

The coolest thing happened to me yesterday! I was walking to the library with my books in my MHC tote bag and a woman stopped me on the street, gave me a hug, and said she had graduated from Mount Holyoke in 2010! We exchanged phone numbers and are going to try to hang out soon, she's a grad student at UVA. I feel so lucky to be part of such a welcoming community of alums. As happy as I am to be away from Mount Holyoke, and for all the issues I had with the school, I really am glad I chose to go to college there. I think I like it better from a couple hundred miles away though!!

It's homecoming this weekend which means I will avoid driving through town at all costs. I hope everyone has a safe and fun weekend!

xoxogoat

Madre!

Hey y'all!
I am still pushing my way through the Goldfinch, it's good but so so long. Also, I started a new TV show called Reign which is a totally non-accurate historical teen drama about Mary Queen of Scotts. It's done by the CW and is very dramatic and fun! Check it out on Netflix.

My mom visited this weekend!!! whoo whoo!

She got in Friday night where we ate at the Virginian (http://thevirginiancville.com), sitting outside to get fresh air after her long train ride. She got a crab cake sandwich, Keegan got a Rueben, and I got some delish mac and cheese made with cheddar and pepper jack. Keegan and I on Thursday tried out Boylan Heights (http://boylan-heights.com), described as a "gourmet burger bar". Jeeeeez was it good. I tried a turkey burger with lots of yummy toppings and fries :)

Saturday Mom and I went to the Farmer's Market where she found something fun to bring home:

a new yellow orchid!!

I showed her around the Downtown Mall, stopping for a while to listen to this awesome banjo player: Mike Collins Jr. (http://www.charlestoncitypaper.com/charleston/mike-collins-jr-takes-his-one-man-banjo-act-to-city-sidewalks-worldwide/Content?oid=4932282)

Obviously I took her to Para for some iced tea, it was really hot this weekend!

Here's a photo of my co-worker Kevin doing some awesome art that I helped with. We were putting up a new "special" drink for the autumn season: the Pumpkin Head Latte. It's a latte with pumpkin and hazelnut syrups with some cinnamon!

After, Mom and I headed over to the Gordon St. Library for a free craft class:

metal stamping! We made some gifts and some art for ourselves, it was super cool but also my hands got so tired.

On Sunday we stopped at the Carter Mountain Orchard for the Apple Harvest Festival.

Keegan and I got a little pumpkin!! Whoo Whoo Halloween is coming!

All in all it was a very fun weekend with lots of relaxing. I got to do a lot of art:

some greeting cards

and some paper roses!!! they are super easy, I made them out of some pink paper bags. http://www.buzzfeed.com/adamellis/make-these-lovely-paper-roses-instead-of-buying-flowers-for#20c2xbj

I love them, they're going to be a part of my Halloween costume.

AAAAAAnd mom gave me a little hair cut! Looking cute, as always.

I've got book club tomorrow and am so excited!

xoxo

October 15, 2014

Hey family! (Does anyone besides mom, dad, and Nora read this? doubtful, feel special guys - you three are also the only ones in my recent call/ text lists)

I have not posted this week because life has been pretty uneventful lately. I've been slacking on the reading front, I got a pile of books out of the library but had trouble getting into most of them; also I keep getting out books that are in the middle of series and not understanding what's happening.

However, I have read a few:

The Infinite Sea by Richard Yancey is the second book in a series about the post-apocalypse United States (very hunger games meets alien invasion). It was fine, entertaining. I read the first book (The Fifth Wave) this summer but by now had entirely forgotten what had happened so I was very confused for the first two chapters. I recommend these books if you're into the YA sci-fi genre but only if you want something mindless to read.

Flowers in the Attic by V. C. Anders. The book is about a family who's father dies and the mother takes her four children to live with her psychotic religious parents. The kids get locked in the attic so the grandfather doesn't fid out about them and they live there for three years. The book was hard to put down but really creepy and kind of disturbing. The writing was not great but compelling for some reason, maybe just because I wanted to see if they ever got out.

Made for You by Melissa Marr. Wow, looking at this I have really only been reading YA books. I think that the library had just gotten a now shipment in and I had already picked through the new adult fiction section. I really liked this book, it took me a day to read, another very mindless diversion. The book follows a young girl, Eva, who lives in a small North Carolina town. She gets injured in a hit and run which turns into a murder spree by a young man who is obsessed with Eva and believes God intends for them to be together. Not very scary or realistic but entertaining.

I am reading The Goldfinch  by Donna Tart which is a grown up book! I really like it so far.


This weekend my friends Anna and Leah came for a surprise visit! They are biking around the country right now, you can check out their blog here: http://quercuscountry.wordpress.com.

It was so awesome to have them here, we went to the farmers market and the harvest festival on Carter's Mountain. They also went to see a movie called Boxtrolls while I was at work and high recommend it to everyone: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9-Df4ITW7o

Keegan with our flowers at the farmer's market

Leah and Anna having donuts!

I also want to thank Mrs. Bond for sending Keegan and I a Halloween care package!! It was so fun to play with the fake bugs (we now have a scorpion crown that glows in the dark around our lamp) and we ate the candy super fast :)

I saw some deer on my walk to work the other day!!!

I have been getting into the fall mood lately with food - here is some butternut squash soup I made the other night.

I took 4 cups of chicken stock and brought it to a boil with two sticks of celery and one carrot chopped up. Then I peeled and diced a medium sized butternut squash and boiled that for an hour. I mashed it all up with a potato masher and voila! Soup! Add salt, pepper, and nutmeg to taste.

xoxo

Weekend in the City

I went to NYC this past weekend to visit some friends from Mount Holyoke! It was really fun to see them, but almost as exciting to take the train. I love trains: no car sickness, you can nap without crashing, generally comfy seats…

When I got into the city I had a few hours to kill, so I got lunch at  SweetGreen (http://sweetgreen.com), an amazing salad shop - I highly recommend the Earth Bowl. I also tried blueberry basil lemonade, which was interesting but not my favorite.

Then I hung out in Bryant Park for a few hours, people watching and sketching.

I walked by my favorite store obviously:

And finally my friend Maria got out of work! She is a publisher-in-training at Simon & Schuster, this spring she will have her first crop of books coming out (it will say HER name on the inside!). This is great for me because she gave me a pile of new things to read.

I met up with my friends!

Saturday was rainy but we went to the farmers market anyways and got snacks.

(donuts part 1)

But it cleared up later and we went for a walk across the Brooklyn Bridge!

We checked out this cute coffee shop/ boutique based on the name alone: Fair Folks and a Goat

http://www.fairfolksandagoat.com

It was a really cool place! I would hang out there if I lived in NYC.

Saturday night we went to the First Night exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum, I felt very cultured. Outside we got to use these massive high powered telescopes to look at the moon! It was amazing, I felt like a child again.

Sunday morning we got Dough Donuts!

http://www.doughbrooklyn.com

They were amazing but so filling. We split each into 4 pieces so we could try all the flavors:

top l-r: orange hibiscus, toasted coconut, dulce de leche

bottom: lemon poppy, chocolate earl grey, dark chocolate sea salt

Not pictured in the supper I had on Saturday night at Cent'Anni (http://www.centannibrooklyn.com/#new-page)

They make home made pasta and sauces there, I am now really inspired to learn how to make meatballs!! Maria and I both got pasta with ragu, italian sausage, and veal meatballs. Crazy good.

Because of all the excitement I have not been reading as much, but I did just finish The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield. It was so suspenseful and awesome. I love novels that manage to do parallel stories well! Margaret Lea gets the opportunity of a lifetime to write the biography of the acclaimed author Vida Winter. The only catch is that Margaret is not the first to try to write Miss Winter's story, as the author always invents new tales to tell about her past. However, because of a tragedy the two women share, the truth comes out in bits and pieces, stringing everyone along. The book examines what it means to be a family, particularly what it means to be a twin. I highly recommend it.

Now who wants to go see Gone Girl with me this week?!? I can't wait!

Happy October!

Wowo I feel like I was just saying Happy Sepetember! Rabbit rabbit!

I've read two books in the past couple days:
Dreams and Shadows by C. Robert Cargill - the first book in the series that I started last week with Queen of Dark Things. Super good if you like YA fantasy which not tons of people I hang out with do.  Dad, this is not your thing.

The Book of Fate by Brad Meltzer might be more up your alley pops! This is a political thriller and mystery. It starts off with the Vice President getting shot and the President's top aide getting seriously injured. It then starts up again 8 years later following that same aide trying to figure out what really happened that day and who orchestrated the whole debacle. Very exciting, not really my thing, I have a chapter left which I don't think I am going to read because the plot twist has been revealed.

I want to make two suggestions to everyone for great reads: Gone Girl and Night Film are both thrillers that I read last spring and loved. Gone Girl is going to be made into a movie soon so it is all in the news. They're both scary in a psychological way, although there are some classic scary bits in there too.

I am now read a CLASSIC, Outlander, by Dianna Gabaldon which is a historical romance that is SO well written and exciting, lots of fight scenes and awesome history about Scotland during the Risings in the late 1700s. As I just googled how to spell the authors last name I discovered that it is a TV MINI SERIES! Do we think I can skip work tomorrow to watch TV all day?!?!?

I am obviously now watching season one episode one while I write this.

Keegan and I have not been up to much this past week, I have been working a lot per usual and Keegan is always stressing about homework or something.

Last Saturday we went to the farmers's market and then stopped at Para for coffee. Low and behold there was a football game and so the store next door was giving out free mimosas!

beautiful and sunny

The nice weather kept up and on Sunday we went hiking! Mint Springs park out in Crozet has lots of trails through the forest. In the summer you can swim in these ponds!

still pretty green out there!

fall colors are showing up!!

then we went to Mudhouse in Crozet and had some italian sodas while I beat him at chess :)

Not much exciting in food news but I did have southern poutine for the first time, so killer - literally

And finally, I've been crafting! I took the construction paper out of the two care packages my mom has sent me and made paper flowers.

Whoo whoo! Well, my show is calling. Luckily I am going to NYC this weekend so I have a really long train ride to watch this!
xoxoxooooo