Showing posts with label books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label books. Show all posts

Monday, November 5, 2012

And now back to your scheduled programming.

We are back from our jaunt in Europe!  It was wonderful and dreamy and I still can't believe it happened, and pictures are coming soon.  I've been reuniting with some besties from my adolescent days this past weekend as well so between a 24 hour stomach flu and jet lag and constant activity and traveling, let's just say my sleeping patterns for the last three weeks have been similar to when I was a college freshman.  Meaning I haven't been sleeping much at all.  But I can't think of a time I've been happier to be exhausted!

Also, it's November, which means it's time to get our NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) on!  Here's our progress so far.

I have some catch up to do on the novel that hasn't really taken a lot of shape yet, but I think I can pull it off again this year with some good finger stretching and the right amount of focus. So far it's going pretty well and, just like the last two years, it's a strangely addicting and terrifying thing to do.

To novel writing! And diet coke. Because the two must go hand in hand sometimes.

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

NaNoWriMo Victory!

NaNoWriMo= Done! 

30 days
50,239 words
10 tired fingers
1 drained brain

Time to celebrate with a fistful of chocolate chips!




Sunday, February 13, 2011

$$$$$$$$$$$ (read: ca-ching)

Last night someone had put a few recent issues of Real Simple Magazine out for anyone to grab on the first floor of our building, which I did, on the way out the door to our dinner date. I knew if I didn't snatch them then they would be gone in another 2 minutes.

Today I got a chance to sit back and read one (from last month). I read through a page of information of what you can do to manage your finances. Finance-wise I feel I'm a pretty conservative person. I'm not an impulse-buyer. 99% of the things you can find in my closet were bought on sale, snatched at a clothing swap, gifted by an older sister, or bought off the rack at a discount or thrift store. Basically, we like to save money. But reading through this article (the all-too-confusing words "S&P Index 500" were used), I realized there's a lot about money I don't know.

So I said, out loud, "You know, I think I would really like to learn about investments and IRAs and the stock market. I bet there's a lot we could be doing with our money."

Harry, who had been astutely mixing yeast and warm water for homemade pizza tonight (droooooooooooooooooool) paused, and marched over to our book shelf and pulled this little beauty off of it and handed it to me. I kind of love it and hate it when he makes me put my money where my mouth is (finance pun not intended).



He read this book in a finance class last year (which he loved. How this is possible for anyone, I will never know). He said that anything and everything I ever wanted to know about money is in this book. His teacher praised it as one of the best written on the subject.

I thumbed through the first two pages and saw the dedication. And I had to laugh.




I decided it's sort of a sign. That Harry's wife (...me, for you slow ones) needs to read this.

Will I get all the way through it? I don't know. Probably not... but I really am curious enough to look through it.

Since the (f)unemployment is still abounding over here, I've realized I'm not that great at managing free time. I'm fairly productive, but I've watched more reruns of NBC shows in the last week than I'd care to admit. Harry, brilliant as always, suggested I make a schedule for myself. You know, something like

8:00 am-9:05 am: Eat breakfast and surf internet
9:05 am- 9:45 am: Exercise
9:45 am-10:45 am: Look for a job
10:45 am- 12:00 pm: Think up awesome recipes to make Harry for dinner
12:00 pm- 12:55 pm: Clean out bathroom drawers
12:55- 1:45 pm: Organize pantry

(Whoops. I honestly forgot to put "shower" in there. Do you see what having no schedule is doing to me?!)

Anyway. Hopefully penciling in time to read this book will contribute to my overall productivity... and just maybe I'll do something useful with our $$$.

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Whelmed, in degrees of variation.

I was overwhelmed by




About just whelmed by




And sadly underwhelmed by




Overall, great idea and I did stay hooked until the end. And big thank you to G for letting me borrow your copies! But I’m really ready to move on to, say




Other recommendations are always appreciated by my fellow bookworm peeps.














(PS I will say this for "Hunger Games:" The entire time I was watching "True Grit," I KNEW that the lead actress has to play Katniss someday. HAS. TO. She goes in the "overwhelmed" category, somewhere near the top.)