I just finished reading....

Lots of books! Some good, some bad, one or two AMAZING. I was like a fat kid with cake.

I started reading The Taking by Dean Koontz on the way down to Alabama.

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Ryan is a big Dean Koontz fan, and I picked this copy up at a used bookstore for $1. The book was written in 2004, and Ryan says his stuff goes downhill post 2000. The beginning was good, and the ending was great, but the middle went ON and ON and ON. The plot is pretty out there, but I really liked the way he wrapped it up. I'm not mad I wasted the time reading it, but I won't pick it up again either.

Next I read Falling Angels, by Tracy Chevalier, who also wrote The Girl with the Pearl Earring.

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The book seemed more about the setting than anything else-an elaborate Victorian cemetery. It was almost as if the author had a picture of this place in her head and that's what made it down on paper the best. The plot was not nearly as well developed as the background.


The Help, by Kathryn Stockett was SO GOOD.

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I'm sure this is old news for most of you; the book is a best seller and it's been out for quite a while. But I loved it from start to finish. It was by far the best book I have read in a bit. The book chronicles a young journalist fresh out of Ole Miss who decides to interview the domestic help of Jackson, Mississippi in the early 60's, fueled by her friend Hilly's campaign to require separate bathrooms for black maids. There's a movie coming out with Emma Stone playing Skeeter- I can't wait!

Then I read another Chevalier book, The Lady and the Unicorn.

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Once again, it seemed like Ms. Chevalier took one "thing" and built the story around that. In this book, it was a series of famous tapestries. Not my favorite book by any means, but she did tell you what happened to all the characters at the end, which I always appreciate.


After that I picked up What I Learned in Bhutan, the Happiest Kingdom on Earth: Radio Shangri-La, by Lisa Napoli.

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This was a documentary-esque book about a woman who works for NPR who travels to the remote country of Bhutan, where the GDP doesn't exist....instead, there's a Gross Domestic Happiness measurement. I loved it, and it made me want to find out more about that little country. This is a great travel book that really takes you to Bhutan.


I also read Portrait of an Unknown Woman, by Vanora Bennett.

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This was all about Sir Thomas More's adopted daughter, Meg Griggs. Sir Thomas More was a big muckety-muck in King Henry the VIII's court who stubbornly clung to Catholicism and refused to recognize the king as higher than the pope-which ended in his execution. Sir Thomas More was famous for his revolutionary schooling of his family, particularly the women. This book did drag a bit but it was a really good piece of historical fiction basted on real life events.


Rounding out my beach vacation was The Beach, by Alex Garland.

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I liked this much more than I thought I would! A group of travelers stumble upon the location of a legendary and secret beach in Thailand, and the people they find there have created their own world in paradise. This reminded me of Lord of the Flies but with grown ups. And fields of marijuana.


I also picked up Swampandia! by Karen Russell, Bad Men by John Connolly, Love Among the Ruins by Robert Clark, Being Dead by Jim Crace, and A Secret Gift by Ted Gup, none of which I could finish. I got 2/3's of the way in to Swamplandia! but just couldn't power through. I get maybe 5 pages into to about half of the books I read and just put them down-there are too many good books out there to force myself to slog through a book I don't enjoy.


I love gorging myself on books on the beach! I also signed up for the adult summer reading program at my local library, like a nerd. I LOVE it.


Are you doing any summer reading?

The Beach

We just got back from a week on the beach in Fort Morgan, Alabama. It was the most amount of time I've had off work since.....2008. I only took 2 days off work for my wedding, so having a whole week to relax has been heaven. AND Monday is a holiday so I'm off work for that too!

This is where we lazed out big time.

My sister's dog would have nothing to do with any ocean.

Mary and Ryan constructed several epic sandcastles.

We also outlet shopped, boogie boarded and got TAN. How did I fill the rest of my time?

And lots of it.

It was to die for!

I am so fortunate.

(Aren't I the runt of the litter?)

We were ready to get home and see these guys though:

Next travel goal: Honeymoon!

So big!

Puppies grow SO FAST! Here they are at the shelter the first night we met them back in March:

Here's them about a month ago, at my sister's graduation party (Ryan's wearing the same shirt, weird!):

It's ridiculous how much we love these dogs. In our defense, they are as sweet as can be, blissfully happy, playful and lovable. We couldn't have asked for a better pair. Plus they spent the first couple months of their life in a shelter, we have lots of loving to make up for!

That dress makes me look like I'm huge, but I swear I'm not! Next month is our 1st anniversary (what the H*LL happened to this year?!) and I'll be trying o

n my wedding dress (that I still haven't gotten cleaned....it costs like $100, boo) to ensure that it fits. Which it will. But if it doesn't, it won't be pretty.

Anyway, with Ryan being gone as much as he is for work during the school year, these little boogers have turned out to be the best company with fur.

Guess who's lazy? Oscar is.

Ninja getting loved on:

I'll stop being obnoxious about my dogs (at least I stopped with the bouquets, right?). Both of my sisters-in-law are engaged, so I'm sure I'll have lots of wedding stuff to fill you guys in on. I finished my first quilt (I made a second for a friend who's pregnant too) and I have a quilt top finished that needs to be basted and quilted. I need to make a t-shirt quilt for my husband's cousin Mike, so you'll see some of that. Also our one year anniversary is next month, and there are some wedding pictures that....well let's just say they didn't make they cut. You'll see why.

Is it sad that my dog-raising strategy is identical to my child-rearing strategy? Namely, let them run until they have no more nonsense left.

Did you rock the newlywed cliche of getting a dog?

Pinterest

I'm on Pinterest and it's like shopping but for free. If you want to follow me e-mail me!

Busted

You guys, this blog has been broken for like a month or more! I couldn't figure out how to fix it (it looked like Google had removed it for some reason?), and then I checked today and it's BACK!

Not that you've missed much. I'm boring.

But! Our puppies are getting so big, we had a huge group of friends down for a weekend, we're going to the beach on Saturday, and I have quilts to show you. Also I figured out how to make delicious frozen yogurt with Greek yogurt and fruit so in my mind-100% guilt free. Oh and I went to a wedding last week that had Chiavari chairs! And they were everything I thought they'd be. And I've been lifting weights so I'm working on a set of guns.

I've missed you guys!

New Addition(s)

We have been BUSY lately!

A couple weeks ago, Ryan and I doubled our family size--we adopted 2 puppies from a no kill shelter!

The blonde is a girl, and Ryan named her Ninja. She does these flying Ninja lea

ps that suit her name perfectly. That handsome thing you see on the right is Oscar, our little man.

They are beagle/schnauzer mixes, and they are 4 months old. We love them to pieces!

As you can see, they have it very rough.

They have plenty of toys, but of course the most attractive toy is the one the other dog has. Watching them trot around neck in neck with the same toy in their mouths is unbelievably cute.

They put on the most pitiful act with baths. They shiver and carry on, and we feel sorry for them of course.

We are so lucky to have them! They're so sweet and friendly.

As far as potty training goes, I think we're on track. They go out every 4 hours or so (even in the middle of the night, ugh), and we still have a couple accidents that happen when we deviate from that schedule. They know how to sit, and they mostly listen. They have these crazy spurts of energy for a couple hours then they absolutely collapse. They are happy little puppies, and we adore them.

We have officially joined the ranks of the Newlyweds with dogs! It's good practice for parenthood, right?

I just finished reading....

Things I Wish I'd Known Before We Got Married, by Gary Chapman.

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Same guy who wrote the Five Love Languages. Most "self-help" books make me feel like crap about my marriage-all I do is pick out the stuff I'm doing wrong. Not helpful. But this book was quite the confidence booster; I picked out lots of stuff that Ryan and I OWN at! Like the chapter on "solving disagreements without arguing." Granted, we're human and we argue, but we aren't hateful to each other about it. We're both totally fine with "apologizing being a sign of strength" and that we "married into each other's families". Domination!

The book honestly wasn't that helpful, but I did get from it a sense that we started our marriage off well, that our foundation is good. So...nothing I didn't know all ready.

Though Ryan still thinks the "love languages" are comical.

Also, the author comes across as kind of an *ss to his wife.

Are you a Gary Chapman fan? Do self-help books send you into a downward spiral of "my marriage is DOOMED!"?