Hello 2012!

Happy New Year to you all! I hope 2012 brings you lots of good fortune and happiness! I have no resolutions, as always, but I am excited for the coming year. Hopefully 2012 will be good to us!

Can you tell we spent the day at work? We look a little less than fabulous I'm afraid.

We spent our New Years Eve at home on the couch watching tv (have you seen that Virgin Diaries show on TLC? Dear lord that one couple kissing/eating each others faces... so awkward). It was lovely. We meandered (I dragged Brendon) outside for a bit to watch some fireworks you could see from downtown and then we barricaded ourselves under blankets on the couch. We had some champagne at midnight and then stayed up until 2am!!! I am as shocked as you are. I've been working evenings these past few days so my sleep schedule is all kinds of jacked. Usually as soon as the sun goes down my body starts getting ready for bed, but lately I've been a little bit of a night owl. Making the switch back will be rough I'm sure, but sleeping in sure is nice.

In literary news, I just finished up the Hunger Games series. Pretty good. Definitely had a hard time putting them down. Very entertaining! I'd highly recommend them. Now I need something new to read! Any recommendations?

SoCo, book reports, and puke

I have been a negligent blogger! I was hoping to be posting everyday, or at least every other, but I have not been diligent in my blogging. That's okay though because there's only like 6 people who read this and I married one of them.

This weekend my daddio and my step momma came up to visit. We had a night on the town in Austin! We went over to South Congress (they call it SoCo, how cute is that?) where's there are a ton of shops, restaurants, and one of those food trailer parks, Lynne was excited about those. It was really neat! We went to Uncommon Objects which is a very well organized antique store. It is also very over priced. Denton's Antique Mall on the square probably had the same stuff for half the price, but it was a hot unorganized mess. I love antique stores!

I apologize for the terrible grainy quality, I iphoned it up. There was a time in my life when I used to keep an actual camera on me at all times. I should get back into that.

 At the food trailer park! You can see down town in the background, it was such a pretty night. And not too unbearably hot either. Check out those people hula hoopin' on the left, they were selling hula hoops for $4. I feel like that's a little steep for hula hoops covered in duct tape.

Lynne is the cupcake queen so of course we had to check out the cupcake truck. They were pretty good, but super rich and I was stuffed from dinner so I could barely get through half of mine.

I love seeing my family! Even though we're so much closer it doesn't happen as often as I'd like. Gas is killer!

I've been a reading machine recently. I've read Brave New World, 1984, Wuthering Heights, and the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I'm just starting the Girl who Played with Fire. Book review time! 

Brave New World and 1984 were very similar, you guys know the premise. They were both depressing and a little creepy to see how accurate they ended up especially since they were written so long ago. 1984 was actually a bit of a tough read after all my usual easy reading (Harry Potter...). It felt good to exercise the old brain a bit. Wuthering Heights was legit, that's such a good story! And it has a happy ending which was very welcomed after the previous two. I took a break from classic literature and read the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo next. Brendon's mom let us borrow the series, the movie is coming out this December (yay Daniel Craig!) so I figured I better read it before I saw the movie. It was good, nice and long, but a lot more background info than plot. But it was an enjoyable read and it sucked me in. How nerdy am I?! I love me some books.

Okay, so today. My boss called me at 6:20 this morning asking me if I could come in to work and I was pretty much like "hell yeah!" because mo' hours = mo' money. I get there, have a breakfast taco, make some drinks, and then I feel like death. Super nauseous. I end up puking at work twice (sorry if that's gross), and getting sick at work is the PITS man. So I spent the last half of my shift feeling like I was going to die but tried to save some face and keep my cool in front of customers. And coworkers. My sweet boss let me go home early, but that drive home was intense. I didn't know if I was going to make it! But I did, obviously, and crashed on the couch and ate some rice crispies dry out of the box. Dry cereal seems like my go-to for feeling pukey. I'm feeling better now, just a little weak. I guess maybe it was the taco? And I just needed to get it out of my system? Regardless it sucked and getting sick at work is super embarrassing. The end.

Book worms

Yesterday we ventured to Half Price Books to get a couple movies (Kill Bill Vol. 1 & 2) and some books. I'd been hankering for some Wuthering Heights, and on that note we decided to walk down memory lane and purchase some required reading from high school. Since I hated life in high school and did absolutely as little work as I could get away with, which wasn't hard, I didn't really "read" these books (except for Wuthering Heights, even my angsty teen self enjoyed it), I just skimmed them for what I needed for quizzes etc. So Brendon and I decided to re-read these classics, I feel like we owe it to them now that we're older and less stupid.  And we got them all for just a few dollars, Huckleberry Finn was 25 cents! Obviously Sophie is planning on reading them as well.

I thought I'd leave you with some photos of little Gregory. I tried to snap some of Sophie (aside from just her feet) but she is so hard to photograph. Not only does she turn her head JUST as you take the photo, her fur is ridiculously soft and weird and catches light in the strangest way. It's more like feathers than fur. Photos never do her justice.

Is Greg not the most photogenic cat ever? He is adorable and he knows it, look at him work it for the camera. He's lucky he's cute too because sometimes (a lot of times) he's a little asshole, like when he screams in the bathroom at 6am. But he's the sweetest cat I've ever met and certainly one of the prettiest. LOOK AT THOSE BLUE EYES! GAHHH.

Harry Potter

Warning: what follows is probably the nerdiest thing I've ever written. Prepare yourself or skip it.

Obviously there's a lot of Harry Potter discussion happening everywhere, and of course I have to weigh in on it because I am a devoted Harry Potter follower to the core.

I got the first book waaaay back in the day before there was all the craziness. It was the only book out then, I got to be a little fan girl for every book release! In 5th grade I won a free book from a book-fair at school (probably by being a uber-nerd and reading 5,000 books on some list) and while I was browsing, the librarian suggested Harry Potter. She said it was supposed to be big in England. I decided what the heck, it's a free book and the cover was colorful so I got it. And finished it in like two days. From then on, I was completely addicted. I was severely disappointed when I never got my letter from Hogwarts. And imagine how badly my little teen self lost it when I found out they were making the movies! I crushed on Daniel Radcliffe so hard (too bad he grew up so short!) and was jealous of every one of them for being able take part in such greatness. I've read the books more times than I can remember and will continue rereading them. It never gets old.

Of course I married a fellow HP nerd, it would be out of the question not to. Who else would I have in depth conversations about side characters with? Brendon has actually read the books more times than I have. We even had Harry Potter star in our engagement pictures. And we had a quote from Dumbledore in our wedding ceremony thanks to our fantastic officiant. HP for life y'all, that's our motto.

So needless to say, we were a little excited to see the Deathly Hallows Part 2. The Deathly Hallows was my favorite book, I loved reading every line. And the movie did not disappoint. Of course, they strayed from the book a bit as every movie does, but I think they did a fantastic job regardless. It was beautifully done. Insane to see how all the actors have grown, we grew up with these kids! When they were little, we were little! Everyone played their parts beautifully. I cannot imagine the experience it was to BE these characters, to grow up as them. They were all on fire in the film. I was especially impressed with Neville (he had the most dramatic change growing up, he's so tall!) and of course, my man Severus. Snape is probably my favorite character (aside from Harry), and seeing the back story on him and Lily was one of the things I was looking forward to most in the film. And it was great. And I cried.

It was a very emotional movie for me, I was literally in tears throughout the whole thing, seeing all the moments I loved so much about the last book brought to life. Watching everything finally unfold and come to a close was beautiful, especially since it was so well done. I cried about happy moments, sad moments, about it being over, lost in my Harry Potter love. It was truly the end of a great story. No more books, no more movies. Luckily there are seven books and eight movies for us to reread and rewatch until we are old farts sharing them with our grandkids. And that sounds like a fantastic plan to me.