spring came early!

This week has been such lovely weather (sorry MA family and friends!) I have managed to get in a lot of reading and Keegan and I have gone on a few adventures!

more photos later

I have been using the kindle a lot lately, loving having access to library books right from my bed!
I read two historical fiction books this week by Susanna Kearsley: Mariana and The Shadowy Horses.

Mariana is about a woman who has felt an intense compulsion to move to a specific house in the English countryside since she was a child. Finally in her early thirties circumstances come together and she leaves London and moves into her dream house. Soon after she begins having intense hallucinations to what may be flashbacks of a previous life - dreams of a young woman names Mariana who lived during the plague in the same house. This book was fine, I think the character development was sub par and Kearsley has written better novels.

Much better novels like this one! The Shadowy Horses takes place in England as well but revolves around an archeological dig that is hunting for the long lost Ninth Roman Legion. They have decided to dig in this particular spot because there is a little boy who lives nearby who claims that he can see the ghost of a Roman legionnaire haunting the area….whooooooooooo! I enjoyed this novel a lot (although I think i may have read it before?), it really made me want to go dig for artifacts!

continue for more reviews and spring weather (incl some cute birds)!

where is winter?

It's 40 degrees in Charlottesville right now and we have an estimated high of 54! Where is winter?? The other day (tuesday i think) we had a thin dusting of snow and people freaked out, no one could drive, all the sorority girls broke out their uggs, it was ridiculous.

image from tumblr

I have been making non-fat chais ("do you have non fat soy?") alllll week for the girls rushing sororities. ("how many calories does this gluten free cupcake have?" "Can I get six forks so we can share this one cupcake?")

Today is my day off (yay!), it was a long week back, i've worked 6 days this week and work 6 next week, although it is still not full time which baffles me. I've been doing some redecorating and organizing this morning, Keegan just got up and is watching the Arsenal game, we have to go grocery shopping at some point. Keegan's friend Dan made fun of us last night over text message for being boring. However, his night of hosting a huge party at his frat because it's rush week and having people totally trash the place does not sound fun to me in the slightest.

this is the extent my "partying" ever gets to, eating chinese food and watching someone else drink beer

It's the most wonderful tiiiime of the year!

Hey y'all I'm home! Keegan and I got in late Friday night, 11 and a half hours of driving, didn't hit a lot of traffic, ate a lot of snacks, not bad all around. 

I read two books last week:

Dreamer's Pool by Juliet Marillier is a YA book about a young woman who is thrown in prison (time period unknown, but they ride horses so... Medieval?) and gets offered a deal that she can escape if she spends the next 7 years helping anyone who asks for help instead of seeking revenge on the guy who got her thrown in jail. There's some royalty, some magic, some forests involved. The book was a nice diversion from worrying about Christmas presents or lack there of! 

I then read Trapeze by Simon Mawer which I loved and I reccomend to all. It's a fictionalized story of the real women in WWII who were sent undercover into Nazi occupied France to help with the Resistance.  I love reading and learning about the world wars, so this novel was right up my alley. 

Not a book but still awesome, Serial, a spin-off of The American Life by NPR, just ended. It's a podcast, so only online, but you can download them to your device or comp through iTunes or listen online at serialpodcast.org/

A reporter reexamines a 15 year old murder case of a teenager girl in Baltimore. Her ex-boyfriend is currently serving life. The story is compelling and exciting and really made me think about the criminal justice system in America. 

In other news, I crafted so much this week!

I painted a moon phases design onto the back of a over shirt I bought at Salvation Army last month:

First I cut out some templates and chose my colors of fabric paint. I used an old cereal box for the cardboard, draw a circle using a bowl, and then decided how many moon phases I wanted to do. Tulip is my favorite brand of fabric paint.

one week to go!

Hello all!
It's been a hectic two weeks, I worked almost 50 hours last week (thank you pregnant co-worker for the extra hours) and then got hit with a massive cold.

I have read a couple of great books while in bed the past few days:
The Circle by Dave Eggers (Keegan's literary crush) was really interesting, but I hated all the characters. The novel is about our society when social media takes over and how it affects our rights to privacy, opinion, etc. Very pop-psychology, a sort of end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it novel without the zombies. Not Egger's best work, but entertaining non the less.

American Gods by Neil Gaiman, another amazing book produced by my favorite author. I highly recommend this to everyone. The main character, Shadow, a man just released from prison, gets hired by Mr. Wednesday to be a glorified errand boy - driving him around, picking up and delivering packages, etc. Shadow comes to understand that everyone he is meeting and working for are gods (stay with me here) that were brought over by immigrants or explorers hundreds of years ago. It sounds kind of lame, but it so so interesting. They don't have magical powers, they're just ordinary men and women who used to have thousands of worshippers, trying to stay alive in a world of car-gods, and internet-gods. So fascinating. I read the 10th anniversary edition which is the extended manuscript but I am sure the regular edition is great too! Really read anything by Gaiman, he's a miracle.

The Stone Gods by Jeanette Winters was recommended to me by my lovely mother. Each chapter is a different story but the story-line repeats itself in different settings - pirates, space explorers, a woman living in NYC. The stories examine our relationships with nature, with technology, and what defines us as humans. Similar to Cloud Atlas, which I have seen the movie version of but not read yet. I also recommend this book highly!

Isn't this picture amazing?! My friend shared it online, so I am not sure where it came from, but I love it so much.