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