4 of 52

Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz.  This is the first Koontz book that I've read & I can not wait to get through the others in the series. I'm loving the characters so far, and can't wait to see where the stories lead them.

Books 2 & 3 Down, 49 To Go

Helllloooooo!  I've been involved as of late with a bunch of books, but the 2 that I just finished last night were.

Please note that in this 52 in 52 project, I am not planning on reviewing books or give away any real details, just notes on how I felt about them.

2 of 52: Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen.  A lovely book that took (IMHO) a little while to ramp up into something to really keep my interest, but in the end I liked it very much. My only wish is that we could have explored a little more of the story leading up to the present day experience.

3 of 52: Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell.  My first time reading this book was many years ago, way back in the 5th grade. Though I had always up until that point been a reader, this is THE book that made me truly fall in love with the written word and where it could take you. It was interesting to revisit this work again after so many years.  I will probably go back to the Island of the Blue Dolphins a lot more in the future!

52 in 52 the 2011 Version

I have a metric ton of other things to blog about, and will.. all in due time my precious! However for the moment I'll talk about my plan for 52 in 52 for 2011.  In the last year I've lost a lot of my reading time to either knitting, watching TEE VEE, playing on teh intertubez or just plain being a lazy ass.  So this year I've decided that I'll tackle 52 books in as many weeks.  Now in the interest of full disclosure, all of these books may not actually be read, but listened to, as I can listen to books while knitting. And I'm planning on doing a lot more knitting this year as well.  Soooooo...

Book 1: Port Mortuary by Patricia Cornwell

I have been a rabid Cornwell fan in the past, however, the last several books in the Scarpetta series have been a huge disappointment. At least this is one that I listened to, for free no less from my library and didn't have to spend my hard earned money on it. Dear Ms. Cornwell, whilst I have the utmost respect for you and your accomplishments, I have to say, I think that this horse is dead, please stop beating it.

Just Like The Jeffersons

We're movin' on up! Maybe not to a deeeelux apartment in the sky, but to a deeelux 2 bedroom town house right down the street from work! I've spent the last 11 years schlepping aprox. 15 miles to work, this in NJ is major pain in the ass.  There are perfect days, where it takes me just 25 or so minutes to complete this task.  Then, there are days where, well, not so much.  Should anything even drizzle fall from the sky, my commute is now up to at least 50 minutes, sometimes well over an hour.  I'm looking forward to switching that up to a 1.4 mile one way commute! Rich will make out even better in this deal, as he currently has a 50 mile one way commute.  Oh and YES we are going to be moving in together... this for me is HUGE people, HUGE! After the former jerk face boyfriend, I vowed that unless I could see myself with a person forever, I would be perfectly content to live by myself.  We spent this past weekend shopping for new furnishings for our future abode, and after a long trip to Ikea, we found some things that Rich liked enough to want to call his own :) So the count down has begun, this is the very last week ever that I'll be making the commute from this place to work, and I can NOT wait!

Holy Guacamole!

The days are slipping by so quickly this summer, I have no idea where the last few months have even gone!  Mind you it's been so miserably hot and humid this summer, I won't at all mind the cool, crisp fall weather once it finally arrives, but wow, times does indeed fly. So much has been happening, work (as usual, a 4 letter word), working on my business, spending time with Rich, and family and friends, planning our vacation (my first in 9 years), planning our move, whew! I feel like I haven't had any time to just sit and be.

With all the said, this past weekend was wonderful.  Rich's 40th Birthday was on Thursday 8/26. We had a lovely dinner out and just enjoyed spending time together. I made him a Fornicating Deer hat (that I have to re-work because the stranded knitting is a bit snug) and he was happy as a clam!  Over the weekend, we celebrated with his family, spend the whole day together, playing with the kids, eating homemade baked ziti and sampling delicious cakes for dessert.  One of these was a white cake with lemon mousse, then there was another that was red velvet cake and both a caramel and black sesame mousse.  We took the younger boys fishing at a small pond near Rich's house.  They did a great job and were so proud of all of the sun fish that they each caught.  Rich is so wonderful with these kids, you can clearly see how much they both adore him as well, it's all terribly sweet to witness.

The next few weeks are going to be equally as hectic, if not more.  The count down to vacation has begun.  Four more days of work for me after today then I'm off from work for 9 glorious days!  This will be a busy week however, as I have dyeing and tagging of yarn and fiber to get done to bring up to Jesh for NJS&W she's been kind enough to offer to be the pimp for Plays Well With Colors that weekend.  We have a Labor Day weekend BBQ planned with Rich's family, then I'll be packing for our trip to Portland, OR (YAY!!!!!) Once we're back from Portland, the following weekend, we've got to find an apartment, and from there on out I'll be packing and planning and repainting my apartment. The good news is that Rich has decided that he's okay with living very close to work, so our commute times will be next to nothing, that will save us both a fair amount of money in gas each month. I have a few places close by in mind to check out.  I'm SOOOO excited to get this move over with, and start the next chapter of our life together. 

Pulling Up Roots

There have been a lot of things on my mind as of late, of course one would think that I'd take a few moments here and there to write about them.  Of course then, one would be wrong. As with many things in my life, these thoughts come and go, the ones that tend to stick around often get jotted down in my journal, or on a random scrap of paper here and there until something comes of it. The idea of pulling up my roots has been one of these ideas that has been in for forefront of my mind the last few weeks. I have lived most of my life in NJ, actually the majority of my life has been lived within 10 miles of where I grew up, though I've moved plenty of times.  I've said for a very long time that I want out of NJ, for good, and while this hasn't changed, I'm almost feeling a little sad about the possibility of it.  Rich and I are making the big move in the fall to moving in together! Yes this is huge news for me, after the 6 years with Craig debacle, and living alone for almost 8 years now, moving in with someone and sharing my space is pretty flippin' big. With that being said, we're moving out of the area that I've lived in for most of my life.  We'll still be in NJ for the time being, but will be about an hour or so north of where I'm used to. For the first time, I'm beginning to feel like I won't have a "home" to go back to once I branch out into the rest of this big world.  Since I've been back in NJ most of my best friends have moved out of the state, my family is either moved away or passed away, except for my mother, but I haven't had contact with her for close to 15 years, but that in itself is a story for another day. So I would aside from friends have no "people" to come back here to. Living in a new place, I will have to start fresh, in some ways this is a good thing, but in others, I'm going to have to find new places and things. I'll have to find where the nearest big box stores are, yarn shops, movie theaters, where I can get the best pizza in town.  I'm sure you'll agree, all very important points to contemplate! 

Feeling the Disconnect

I'm feeling very disconnected from a lot these days, people, places, things. I'm hoping very much that this passes soon and that things can get back to normal, before they end up irreparably broken.