fatherbirthaversary weekend

We did a lot of celebrating this weekend.  June is always a busy month for us.  Last year we had our daughter's birthday party at one of those play gym places, where they provide entertainment and noise and songs that get stuck in your head for days, and all parents have to do is bring a cake and take some pictures.  It was fun but pricey, as the luxury of having someone do all the work for you usually is.  This year we had toyed with the idea of not even having a party.  Partly because we bought and remodeled a whole house since then and are keeping an understandably tighter budget these days but also partly because she had a lot of other social events already scheduled and we figured there wouldn't be time.

Well, luckily for her, our calendar cleared a little.  So we spent Saturday baking cakes (side note: I've been baking SO much lately, too much, I suspect that hours of oven time producing all those delicious baked goods are responsible for my electric bill being $20 higher than last month) and tossing water balloons and trying to keep a bunch of seven year old future gymnasts from showing off their handstands on our driveway.  It was a messy, wet, fun, chocolatey time.

It has been almost four years since my dad died and I find myself missing him at the most unexpected times.  I miss him most when my girls have birthdays and big events.  My oldest daughter was three when he passed away and for those few parties he was always the first to arrive and the last to leave.  He always went out and bought her the silliest dresses and Barbies and, I suspect, bragged about the girl he was shopping for to anyone in the store that was willing to listen.  So, ironically, it was on Saturday and not Sunday (Father's Day) that I thought about him most.

We didn't always have the most typical relationship - my parents split up when I was five and he was in the ARMY so, even before the divorce, our time together was sort of unpredictable - but he meant a lot to me, especially as I got older.

I am so happy that my girls are so close to their daddy.  My husband is the best, really.  He is the perfect father for them.  My one wish is that I could have had more time with my own dad, in all ways, and I try to never take that time and special bond for granted.

And to top all of this mushy, gushy love stuff off - today marks eight wonderful years that I have been married to this fella.

He wrote me a really sweet note on Facebook and accidentally called it our 7th anniversary.  But I forgive him because he's cute and silly and spoils me rotten.

user blocked

I am currently blocked from checking out any more books at my dear ol' library because of a 20¢ late fee on this gem.

I mean, honestly.  I ought to be ashamed.  I am ashamed.  Nothing against Spongebob - clearly I'm okay with letting my kids indulge in the happenings of Bikini Bottom - but if I sign in to my library account and see the warning USER BLOCKED! I at least want it to be worth it.  I want to be blocked because I was on my greedy second reading of something major and unputdownable and ridiculously long.

I don't want to be denied the ability to place on a hold on Brave New World because I didn't get an 8x8 picture book turned in on time.  What a letdown.

As luck would have it, though, I do happen to have a book on my desk waiting to be read.  I can't honestly say I was planning to read it before I was USER BLOCKED!  It's kind of a self-helpy title and I'm guilty of checking those out and then returning them without flipping a single page.  Since my library branch is closed on Fridays and I don't feel like picking up something I already own and have read a million times, I'm going to give it a shot.  A halfhearted one, though.  You've been warned.

The truth is that I truly have no skill for writing proper book reviews.  And I am fully aware of it.  I'm not discerning enough.  All I can really share is my own personal book-reading experience.  I feel like I need to disclaim that right now, before I go too far down this path of posting about what I've read and how I felt about it.  My intention is not not not not to tear down or even build up any particular work or author.  My intention is just to share and talk about what happened when I propped up a pillow behind my back and laid a book open across my knees.  My intention is to make light of something people take really seriously sometimes.  Books are, at their very core, fun.  Reading them is fun and writing them is (sometimes) fun and talking about them is as fun as the first two combined.  Even books with heavy, dark subjects and themes are kind of fun in their own way.  When I write a goofy post about something I've read, I hope it isn't taken as serious, credible criticism.  I'm only trying to tap into the fun.

I'm putting that out there so that, you know, when I'm published and looking for feedback on my own future bestseller I don't come up against a wall of rotten karma built by my own silliness.

Now, on to the weekend.  We're having a spectacularly wet and messy birthday party here on Saturday.  Complete with a banjo-heavy play list (at the request of the birthday girl, who frowned a bit when I suggested that her friends might like music more along the Katy Perry, Taylor Swift lines), cupcakes made from boxed mix and a tower of cheap pizza.  Try not to be too jealous.  Winkyface.

shadow and bone

I find that lately a lot of the books on my to-read list have the word "bone" in the title.  Is this a trend?  Do I credit the publishing industry for simply sticking on the word like some kind of good luck charm? Or is there something weird about me and my book choices?

Best not to dwell on that subject too long, I think.

Anyway, I just finished up Shadow and Bone (oh no! I totally just typed "Shadow and Boned."  Does that mean it is me, after all?) by Leigh Bardugo.

I'll start by saying I pretty much liked it.  I kind of wondered, when I flew through the first 150 pages during my little one's nap time, why I hadn't heard more about this book.  I reserved it at the library and didn't even have to wait!  It was there the very next day!  That never happens with books like this because usually they are bestsellers by the time I hear about them and I'm way, way, way down the list.  Why isn't Shadow and Bone a bigger deal, I wonder?  The only thing I can come up with is that it is firmly rooted in the magic-y, fantastic, slightly-nerdy side of things.  I can see how that might not sit as well with people as, say, a scientifically-plausible teenage deathmatch or a normal-but-hilariously-awkward boy wizard.  From page one of this book, you have to buy in or else it's gonna be a weird ride.

So here's what I liked: it was a quick read.  But maybe too quick.  The pace was blistering and, while I would never usually say something like this, I almost could have used a bit more marinating time.  I could have sat around and thought about things more or been a bit more confused.  I honestly don't mind being a little bit confused during a book.  It makes me feel nice and stupid when a twist comes about which ties up all the confusing loose ends and I realize I was totally wrong about everyone and everything.  That's not a bad feeling (when reading, of course, in life it is a very very very bad feeling). But nothing like that happens in this book.  You read it, it's clear, and then you're done.  Left hanging for the sequel or the movie (both of which are coming).

The world of the story was...interesting.  It was set in what I would call Almost-Russia (the author does not call it this).  There was the standard amount of inski and olska business that I just read right past but then there is something the main character wears called a kefta.  Sort of a jacket thing, like caftan, I assumed. Only when I googled kefta to see if it was an actual Russian word I found a lot of pictures of meat.  Sausage-y, spicy-looking meat. On buns, on sticks, wadded up in peoples' hands.  I guess this was one of the author's original, made up, non-Russian words.  I can deal with that.  Only I do kind of wish it wasn't the real-world equivalent of something totally opposite.  Now I can only picture these characters covered in Gaga-esque meat coats and it freaks me out.

Also, you should be warned, the main character is a mousy-looking, too-skinny, clumsy teenage girl.  So, if you're tired of mousy-looking, too-skinny, clumsy teenage girls you should skip this one.  The author devotes a lot of time to establishing mousy-skinny-clumsiness and it is quite irritating.  I've been a teenage girl before.  I had dark hair (too dark to be mousy) and I was of standard weight (not heavy but certainly never so skinny that people made fun of my frailty) but I wasn't clumsy.  Why can't we see a character with good hair and an athletic build who is sure on her own feet?  Is that undesirable?  Would we care less if the obstacles she had to overcome were more complicated than knobby knees and a charming lack of gross motor skills?  I'm asking because I actually want to know.  I actually want to know if this crazy sexist attitude toward women is still a big part of our society.  Call me kooky but I give at least the literary crowd, if no one else, credit for being smarter than that.

Bring on the healthy, confident and yet still-flawed heroines, writers!  I think we can handle them.

And also, read this book.  Even if you don't like it you'll be done with it in a day or two.  I had gripes but I liked it overall.  I'll read the sequel, even.  And maybe watch the movie.  If only to reassure myself that none of the characters are actually walking around covered in beef.

things I never talk about

Follow my blog with Bloglovin!

First of all, like so many blog readers I am super duper sad to see the end of Google Reader.  Furiously sad, you might say.  I've been having a (relatively) good time adjusting to Feedly but I thought, in the interest of fairness, I would give Bloglovin a try as well.  So if you, like me, are looking for a new way to follow all of your favorite blogs (and if mine is one of them, BECAUSE OF COURSE!) then click above and let's be pals forever and ever.

The point of this post originally wasn't about blog readers.  But part of "claiming" my blog on Bloglovin requires me to share that link and, I have to confess, I am so shy about doing it.  Sounds silly, maybe, since I put this blog out here for all to read, that I have a problem with promoting it.  But I do.  I despise self-promotion.  I hate feeling pushy, I hate the idea that someone might read my blog and be all, "What's the matter with you?  Why are you writing this nonsense?"  It's something I need to get over in a major way.

And thinking about that got me thinking about all the other things I never talk about, for those same silly reasons.

For example, I never talk about money.  I grew up with none - literally, none - and so I've always felt a bit embarrassed when it comes up in conversation, even now that I'm no longer that "poor kid."  I still hold on to the feeling that it's somehow tacky to talk about something that we all need.  We all need soap, too.  And clothing.  And food.  And there are blogs upon blogs upon blogs about all of those things (well, maybe not so many about soap).  No one blushes or cringes or raises an eyebrow if soap or fashion or food comes up in conversation.  So why are we weird about money?  Lately I've been really inspired by people who are putting good, non-awkward money information out there.  (Like the marvelous Emily.)  I want to shake off the weirdness about money and be sort of okay with saying that I would rather save my cash than go out to eat, or that I want to have a certain amount in the bank so that we can retire early, or that I really don't want to credit-card my way into comfort.

I never talk about religion, either.  Not supposed to, though, right?  We're supposed to keep super quiet on that one.  Today isn't the day for me go publicly digging into my spiritual business.  But someday maybe I will.  Someday.  Maybe.

I never talk about weight or dieting.  Not because I'm always happy with my weight or because I'm never dieting.  Maybe because I have a weird notion that if I just don't point out that I'm 10 pounds over my happy weight no one will notice?  It works until I have to text my sister in law late at night, frantically begging her to take down unflattering photos of me at the beach.  Then I have to kind of fess up that I'm working on something and that hopefully I'll be much nicer about tagged photos in a month or two.

Lastly, I never talk about writing.  This one really bugs me.  More than any of the others, even.  Because, obviously, I write.  I write this blog, I write stories, I jokingly call myself a "future bestselling author."  But whenever anyone actually asks about writing I blush and wave them off.  I can't, I can't, I say.  I can't get into it.  I don't know what I'm talking about or I don't want to jinx myself or whatever the current excuse is.  Here's the truth: I have been writing since first grade.  My first published work (a poem about math) was printed when I was in third grade.  I was accepted to a very selective creative writing workshop program when I was a freshman in high school - I spent half my day at my regular school, learning algebra and the usual things, and half my day reading books that were way over my head and writing things that seem very amateurish to me now.  I was published in that workshop's annual literary magazine when I was a sophomore (NEVER happens, trust me).  I went into college an Art History major and after my very first Comp 1 assignment, my first semester of school, a professor pulled me aside and practically demanded that I change my major to English.

I am a writer.  There, I said it.  It's the one thing, among all my many adventurous plans and ideas, that keeps coming back.  It's the one thing that has been with me since I was teeny tiny.  It's who I am and it's very important to me.  I'm a photographer and a yoga devotee and a baker of delicious baked goods.  I'm a house-decorator and an idea-haver.  But the thing that feels the most desperate, the thing that keeps me awake at night, is being a writer.

So.  I'm not about to turn this into a writing blog or anything.  But if, one day, I start talking about queries and agents and editorial submission and things like that, at least you'll know why.

Phew.  What a relief.  Now follow me on Bloglovin so we can not talk about writing together.  And all the photos in this post are from my Instagram feed so we may as well follow each other there, while we're at it.

busiest weekend

Once in a while it's fun to have a weekend so jam packed that you can't even stop and breathe.  Once in a very very long while.  We tend to take things kind of slow and easy around here.  You know, we totally stop and smell roses.  But this past weekend was a rare departure from our happy, relaxed norm and it was pretty cool.

On Friday night we finally had friends over for dinner.  It was sort of the big unveiling of our new house, which unfortunately still isn't quite as finished as I would have liked it to be.  But the dinner was a good time, with kids running around everywhere and a giant mess to clean up and everyone (hopefully) going home with full bellies.

I wanted to take more photos but the opportunity never really presented itself - I was too busy running around after little ones and helping with food.  Maybe once I become more adept at party-throwing I'll also learn to manage camera duty along with hosting.

Anyway, we were up late on Friday night and then up bright and early on Saturday and off to Sea World.

It was a fun, hot, short day.  We didn't even try to get to the park right as it opened, which we usually do.  We didn't ride a single ride, which we almost always do.  We didn't even bother waiting for the new penguin exhibit.  The line was - no exaggeration - FIVE HOURS long at one point.  Five hours!  Can you imagine waiting five hours for a 60-second ride and a walk-through look at the same penguins that were always there before?  Nope, not us.

The bright side was that the other exhibits and shows were a piece of cake.  We practically had the place to ourselves.

In a couple of months we are taking our girls to the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta.  They are going to love it.  My husband and I went for our anniversary a few years ago and it was awesome!  I think they are going to freak when they see the size of the whale sharks.

Then, as if all of that wasn't enough, we packed up and went to the beach on Sunday!  Traffic was awful getting there and back.  I think we all got sunburned just from sitting in the car.  My lovely sister in law turned 30 this weekend and we spent a lot of time celebrating her so that she wouldn't be traumatized by her old age.  :)

We even had an old-fashioned birthday party for her on Monday (what? you thought we were done?  I told you this weekend was ridiculously busy!) with a pinata and relay races and water balloons and a game where everyone somehow ended up covered in whipped cream.

It was a good time.  And now I wish I could crawl into bed and sleep for a week but NOT A CHANCE!  We are on our last two days of school here so soon I will be entertaining both girls at home.  I have some good stuff up my sleeve.  Hopefully it's enough.  Hopefully, after this crazy weekend, they aren't bored by what I come up with.  It's gonna be a tough act to follow, for sure.

bookish

My very favorite place to buy books, indeed one of the only places I buy books to keep with any regularity, is my local public library.  In the lobby of each branch there is a little cart with a rotating selection of titles that have been damaged or outdated or donated so many times that they already have a million copies on the shelf.  One can always count on finding a variety of cookbooks, diet guides, and political biographies there along with a surprising number of recent bestsellers.  These are the things, I can only assume, people want to read and then write off on their taxes.

Hardcovers: $1.  Paperback: 50¢.  Can't beat it.

Last week I picked up two new, cheapo books; The Mermaid Chair by Sue Monk Kidd and Room by Emma Donoghue.  I had issues with both of them but, as I've said before, I'm no book reviewer so the best I can do is to say that at least I finished them.  Every last page.  For whatever that's worth.  Neither of them are the kind of thing I normally gravitate toward so I'm probably not hurting any feelings or ruining any carefully compiled audience data by not loving them unconditionally.  I was willing to give each one a chance and, while neither one was particularly life changing, I don't regret the time I spent with them.  That's the beauty of the library Books For Sale cart. It's like one of those food festivals where you can go around and pick up little bits of things you normally wouldn't try because it doesn't cost much and it's okay if you don't get worked up over every sample.  In fact, you're expected not to.  Little-a this, little-a that.  Hey, at least you tried it!

Anyway, the best thing that came from my little $1.50 shopping spree was that I suddenly had to find a home for these newcomers on my bookshelves.  And, thanks to having people over on Sunday afternoon, I couldn't just toss them anywhere. I've been meaning to arrange my books a bit more thoughtfully for a long time now and this weekend I had the perfect excuse.  Thanks Sue and Emma!

For a bit of background, when we bought our house back in November it came with a wall that looked like this.

Ewww.  I'm actually a fan of pocket doors but not these ones.  They were cheap to begin with and had, like everything else in this house, been treated really badly.  Plus, they took up one entire wall of my daughter's room.  You can see there is a wide closet and a huge window taking up space in there as well so that didn't leave much flexibility when it came to arranging furniture.  And (as you can kind of see off to the right in that picture above) there was already a door leading from the hallway into her room so the sliders were just unnecessary and ugly.  Ripping them out was one of the first things on our list.  This is a crappy iphone shot of the same wall mid-remodel (taken from the dining/great room side).

And here is what it looks like today.  Still not quite finished but a million percent better, I think.

The shelves are Ikea Billy bookshelves, which I've seen hacked and trimmed out and painted a million different ways.  The possibilities are endless but I have to be careful not to get carried away.  I like a bit of streamlined simplicity so there's a good chance I'll just leave the shelves as-is and let the books speak for themselves.

One of my succulents died and I haven't had the heart to replace her just yet so just imagine a pretty blue pot up there with the yellow and green.

Obviously we need to hang some things on the wall still.  That Flight of the Conchords print (by DKNG Studios) is probably one of my favorite things ever and it looks mighty lonely up there.  I have the perfect stuff in my head - both for the wall and to fill in the top of the shelf - but I have yet to actually find the perfect pieces at the perfect prices.  I also need to plump up my book collection, of course.  And maybe take those old issues of National Geographic my mother in law has been trying to give me for the last five years.

All in all, not a bad start.  It's nice to have at least one corner of the house on its way to finished.

from the inside out

Not much has changed inside our house lately, aside from the highly anticipated arrival of a rug under our table.

It's pretty.  And on trend, in Pantone's 2013 color of the year Emerald. It's a sari rug, which means there are lots of bright strips of silk woven through the green to give it a multicolored, mottled look up close.  That will be perfect for camouflaging dropped bits of cereal and peanut butter and jelly smudges.  But, in truth, this lovely rug was a consolation prize.  A distant second choice, made from necessity rather than pure love.  I ordered a rug that I really, totally, desperately wanted back in December and, after many calls and discounts and rescheduled deliveries, finally accepted (just last month) that it was never going to come.  So now the emerald beauty and I are learning to love each other.

With not much left to do inside (rather, not much that we feel like doing at the moment) we have turned our attention and budget from the living area to the back yard.  Outside space was arguably the most crucial item on our list when we were house shopping.  It was a non-negotiable, must-have.  Unfortunately what we ended up with was an overgrown wedge-shaped jungle barely contained by a raggedy, rotting fence.  It is a decent sized yard but so strangely arranged that, after Google Earth-ing it during our house hunt, we almost didn't go look in person.  Can you blame us?  Who wants a triangular yard?  What strange Feng Shui would that call upon us?  We obviously changed our minds, and I'm glad we did, but tackling the yard and making it what we want has remained one of the more daunting tasks on my to-do list.

While there isn't anything we can do about the shape of the space, at least we were able to shell out thousands of dollars to replace the fence yesterday!  And by "able" I mean "required."  By an upbeat but threatening letter from our Homeowner's Association.  Here's what it looks like right now.

Looks like a big old fence.  And some shrubs.  And a weird...fire pit?...thing in the middle.  But soooooo much better than when we moved in, thanks to all of the junk that had to be slashed out of the way in order to install the fence.  This, of course, is just one small section but it is raining out right now and there isn't much more to see.  It's a mess all the way around.  You'll just have to trust me, for now.

And this is a crudely sketched idea of where I eventually want our landscaping to go.

Some of the scribbles were added by my two year old.  Probably not the ones you are thinking, which is sad for me.

I want to plant a small tree where the fire pit is and run a gravel path from the patio (that rectangle in the bottom-center-leftish area) to the edge of the fence, around the fire pit tree, and eventually over to a little playhouse for the girls in the back corner.  It's a moderately ambitious plan, one that I have no reasonable idea how to execute.  And whatever we do will, of course, have to wrap around to the front of the house as well (the front is perhaps even more sad than the back, I'm sorry to say).  I suppose the first step is deciding what to plant and on that subject I am of two minds.

Part of me wants this.

Landscape design by SHKS Architects

Funky, modern, stylized and unfussy.  A natural extension of the straight lines and pared-down design of the inside of our home.  My only concern is that it it might bee too natural an extension.  Like, perhaps we should go for something a bit surprising beyond our front (and back) door.  Something more traditional and cottage-y to make the guests who raise their eyebrows at our bare fireplace and black floors more comfortable.  Something like this.

Marney Bean's garden as seen on marthastewart.com

This is what I grew up dreaming of.  Dense and green and a little bit mysterious.  Just on the brink of being overgrown.  This looks like a New England cottage garden and there's a part of me, the not entirely grounded by reality part, that likes to wish some New England spirit on my Florida space.

Is it possible to blend styles?  Absolutely.  Whether or not it is possible for me remains to be seen.