It really seems like December just flew by and I'm sure that's not uncommon, since it always seems like we wait all year for Christmas then before we know it, we blink and it's gone. But December was busy for us because we had quite a few parties to go to and we had our trip to Pennsylvania to prepare for. I also have family here and family in North Carolina so when you're trying to split the holidays up among everyone, it gets really busy and overwhelming.
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Now that I feel all caught up with July’s post, it’s time to turn over a new leaf. I’m tossing around the idea of trying to post everyday for a month again, just to give myself another kick start. I’ve gotta do something. Got so, so, so many ideas rolling around in my head of stuff I want to write about and suss out and I just need to give myself a good kick in the butt.
But let’s end August and start of September the right way – with a monthly love post. There were SO MANY THINGS to love in August and I am thoroughly addicted to each and every one of them.
We kicked off August with STAYCATION! We were supposed to go to Pennsylvania but circumstances and finances didn’t work out so we decided to take a week off together and spend it in the Charleston area just relaxing and enjoying time sight seeing in our area and enjoying time together that we don’t normally get because we’re wrapped up in normal lives and when we do travel, we’re usually visiting friends and family. So we slept in and cooked dinner and baked food. We went fishing at the new Mt. Pleasant Pier (well, Steve fished, I read books all day on what turned out to be an absolutely BEAUTIFUL day!), watched a bunch of movies, drove around exploring the Lake Moultrie area, which we had never really been too, and even went to Savannah for the day. Overall, we had a great time and a much needed rest. It allowed me to recenter myself and reconnect with Steve and just overall have a wonderful time. It was such a great way to start off the month!
I can’t have a monthly love post without talking about food and I tell you what, I’ve had only ONE addiction this month: Whole Grain Goldfish crackers. I CANNOT get enough of these. Seriously, they are all I snack on these days and I’d like to say it’s because they’re like $2 a bag, but that doesn’t count when I can finish a bag in a day/night of snacking. I eat them at work, I eat them at home. That picture below is of my cabinet – those are FIVE bags that I just bought this weekend because they were cheap at Wal-Mart. What you do not see is the two packs of 9-bag snack packs at work or the countless number of bags that I have finished this month. I don’t know if it’s their cheesy, salty baked goodness or the whole grain, but something about these particular ones make them better than the original and it doesn’t hurt that they’re probably slightly better for me than the usual things I reach for, which is ice cream. Or Oreos!
Another discovery: Bacardi Puerto Rican RUM. I know, I know – it’s just rum and yes, I knew what it was long before this month. But I didn’t know I LIKED it until I didn’t have any wine one night and wanted a drink so I mixed it with Diet Dr. Pepper and damn, is it delicious! It has a nice, sweet, smoothness and it doesn’t give me a headache like hard liquor has previously done in the past. So hello, Bacardi, you are my new friend! Hope you like partying with goldfish because you’ll be seeing them in my stomach with you.
In the entertainment category, there’s nothing but Dexter! Holy shit, DEXTER! What an awesome, amazing show! We started watching it because others had recommended it and it was available on our Netflix Instant Queue and wow, why didn’t we hear about this show before? I have never wanted to root for a serial killer but I love Dexter. I love the stories, the mysteries and the unique and unpredictable twists and turns. I love the characters: Batista, LaGeurta, Masuka, even Quinn. I thought Jimmy Smits was phenomenal on the third season! (I hate, hate, hate Deb but I see her as a necessity to play against Dexter) And I’m so very excited for the fourth season. Seriously, if you are not watching Dexter, you should start. Right now! Like yesterday!
In the beauty category, I decided to try something new. I’ve been a Bare Minerals foundation user for about two years. I liked it because it was light and didn’t feel so heavy and cakey on my face. But this past month, I started noticing that the powder actually began to cake and settled into my pores and sometimes, it made my skin feel irritated. Plus, it was $25! So I decided to switch it up and picked up some Maybelline Dream Matte Mousse. I picked it up because they said it was good to help disguise large pores and it still provided the coverage of a liquid with the feel of a powder and man, am I glad I did. It definitely helped disguise the pores, the coverage is nice and even, it goes on softly and smooth and it makes my complexion look flawless. It is my new love and is even cheaper than the Bare Minerals but about $15. So that’s make it all worth it!
There was also a rediscovery this month. A rekindling of a flame, per se, with my Canon 50mm f1.4 lens. I bought this lens when I originally bought my camera, forgoing the kit lens for this one at the advice of many others. I used it as my primary lens in the beginning but a 50mm focal length was hard for me to get used, having jumped for a point and shoot that had a wide zoom lens and focal length. So I bought a cheap 18-55mm kits lens to allow myself the ability to get more in the picture and began to rely heavily on that one because I hadn’t gotten used to 50mm yet. But I went back, because overall the 50mm is faster, has a crispier focus and does bokeh and depth of field wonderfully. And I’m so happy I did because I do love this lens so much! It’s going to take some getting used to again but I think I can handle. Practice makes perfect right?
And that’s about it! There are some other guilty pleasures, like the Real Housewives of Atlanta, the joys of cooking and baking goodies in my own home and coupon clipping from the Sunday paper (because, holy crap, they have coupons and great savings, in the PAPER! I would always look online and it never even occurred to me to look where women have been looking for years! DUH!) but I don’t find them guilty at all because I thoroughly enjoyed them and didn’t feel bad about it all.
Overall, August was a great month with wonderful finds! Here’s hoping to a productive and fun September. I can’t believe it’s three quarters of the way through the year. And I seriously, cannot wait for FALL!
I want a chill in the air, hoodies, sweaters and jeans!
There’s no excuse for me not posting in a month except I was lazy and unmotivated. And that’s all I’m going to say about that. Instead, I’ll move forward and make up for July’s monthly love post as well as throw some August in there.
And without further adieu, here’s everything that I loved in July.
Most importantly was weekends spent with friends. July 4th we had a few drinks and blew stuff up in a friends driveway. The following weekend was a pool party to celebrate another friends birthday. And it culminated the weekend of the 18th with a trip to Myrtle Beach to celebrate another friends birthday. We spent the weekend playing games, drinking some beers, hanging out on the beach, shopping and eating. A LOT! One of our friends has a lovely little house in a smaller, less touristy area north of Myrtle Beach and the great thing was that it wasn’t that crowded and the town was small and tiny enough to not even have a McDonald’s, just a bunch of sleepy little tourist shops and food joints and a gas station or so. All in all, it was lovely weekend spent with friends and fun in the sun and I had such a great time!
We culminated that weekend at Rioz, a Brazilian churrascarria (steakhouse). We had been looking forward to this for weeks and had pretty much specifically planned this trip around this place. It is basically all you can eat meat. I’ll say it again – ALL YOU CAN EAT MEAT! You sit down and they give you a coaster – one side is red and the other is green. You flip it to green to have them continue bringing you meat and when you need a break, flip it to red. The servers bring the meat on skewers to your table and cut off pieces and you just keep taking them until you can’t eat anymore. I’m talking filet mignon, filet mignon wrapped in bacon, chicken, lamb, flank steak, ribs, pork sausage, chicken wrapped bacon – just uber-deliciousness. And they have a phenomenal salad bar (but who wants salad?) with fresh shrimp, cheese, sushi, pasta. They also give you plantains and mashed potatoes with cheese and polenta. But again – who has room for any of that when it’s all you can eat MEAT! And it’s good cuts of meat and they are cooked succulently and flavored perfectly. Not to mention the grilled pineapple sprinkled with cinnamon that they cut off warm at the table and the drink and dessert carts they roll to your table. I had a caipiranha, which is basically just lime juice, sugar and a shitload of rum. And for dessert, a ginormous piece of cheesecake that was absolutely freaking delicious! And we both got all of that and got out of there for about $100 ($35 per person + extra for dessert and drinks). Seriously, if you are EVER in Myrtle Beach, you must go there. Just not this coming up weekend because we’ll be going back for Steve’s birthday!
On the food front again, there’s this Fruit Salsa that I posted earlier in the month. This was an experimentation that I picked up off the Internet because I needed a quick and easy dip type thing for one of the parties and I wanted to do something “different” than most people did. Thankfully, it was a success and it’s versatile enough for me to interchange fruits as they go in and out of season. I definitely think next time, I will cut the recipe in half because we had so much more left than we needed. I ended up leaving it at our host’s house and he pretty much said he was eating it ALL WEEK!
As far as entertainment goes, I can’t talk about July without mentioning Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Like I said to everyone else, I don’t care that the critics didn’t like it. I don’t care that the story was pretty much disjointed and nonsensical. I don’t even care that Megan Fox needs to keep her douchebaggy piehole shut and serve the exact purpose that she got famous for: eye candy. I just care that shits blows up and there are giant robots and awesome cars and giant robots and oh, did I mention? GIANT ROBOTS. GIANT ROBOTS THAT CURB STOMP EACH OTHER. Seriously, that’s all I have to say about that.
Finally, there’s an album I fell in LOVE with and am still playing it over and over through this month. Raising Sand by Robert Plant and Alison Krauss has got to be one of the most hauntingly beautiful albums I’ve ever heard. Even now, when I hear one of it’s song on my iPod shuffle, I kick it off random just to listen to the whole album again. It’s a weird combination, with Plant of Zepplin fame and Krauss’ root primarily in country and bluegrass but it works phenomenally. I’d throw the name of some of my favorite songs out there but I’d end up giving you the entire list so it’s prudent for you to check it out yourself and then thank me as you find yourself humming the tunes over and over again even when you’re away from the music.
And that’s pretty much it! July had some great times and August had some even better ones. And even though this is late, it’s still nice looking back on the little things I enjoyed!
June was a very chaotic month for me. Yet somehow, in the midst of the chaos, I still managed to find quite a few things to love and some of these things helped me get through the month without having even the smallest form of nervous breakdowns, despite wanting to.
Without further ado, here’s the things I loved the most for the month of June.
Hands down, the best event for me, was a visit to my hometown of Siler City, North Carolina to visit my grandparents, my dad, my sisters and other family members. The weekend we went was their 50th anniversary and while the trip was not without drama (truthfully a visit with my family can’t really occur without a bit of the dramatics), we had a very nice time overall. We took my grandparents out to breakfast at their favorite restaurant on Saturday morning with my eight year old cousin, T, in tow. It was just them, T and Steve and I, at this restaurant owned by a distant member of the family once or twice removed or something like that. Regardless, the food was delicious, down home Southern cooking just the way I like it and the tea was cold and sweet the way we like it as well. Afterwards, we visited with my great-aunt and uncle (my grandmother’s sister and husband) who own a welding & crane company, have a small short track racing team and a fleet of old school (and one new school) Corvettes in their garage, which is actually bigger than Steve’s shop at work. The rest of the day we spent with my dad, my grandpa and my cousin, and my brother and sisters, fishing and riding four wheelers out at an aunt’s pond, eating Sir Pizza for dinner (which is hands down one of my favorite pizzas ever!) and hanging out around a fire at my dad’s place out in the country. On Sunday, we took my brother to buy some “professional” clothes for grown-up interviews and then went out to lunch together at the local seafood restaurant that I remember so clearly from when I was young. Overall, it was a low-key weekend with its ups and downs but sometimes, it’s nice to come back to a simpler place and enjoy the easy things in life where we don’t spend a lot of money and just enjoy being around each other. Siler City has changed so much over the years and unfortunately, is going more down hill than I like to see but there are still remnants of the small town USA that I remembered so much about it and part of me loves the nostalgia of just going home and being with family. And seeing beautiful sights like these always helps too!
My entertainment world has been rather busy this month.
On June 1st, Conan O’Brien took over The Tonight Show and this was a long anticipated event for me. I had nothing against Jay Leno, he was just a bit dry for my taste. I love Conan and sometimes found myself staying up way too late to catch him on the Late Show. Now, I can catch him at 11;30 and the show has yet to disappoint me. The monologues, the skits (I particularly loved when he visit local stores in his new neighborhood and took over the tram ride at the studios), even the guests. It’s definitely now my cup of tea and I’m glad they picked him to step into Jay’s shoes (I always thought he deserved it anyway – he’s up there with Jon Stewart for me).
Also on TV this month, True Blood returned and some of you might remember, I featured this show in my very first monthly love post and it gets a second mention here because my obsession has not waned, it has only grown stronger. I have read the first two books in the series and we are now on the second season and it only gets better. I find Sookie to be a much more enjoyable human female role model and heroine than the other vampire books (I’m looking at you, Twilight!) and even the side characters in the series are so wonderfully and richly developed that they make almost all the storylines enjoyable (I find Lafayette to be one of the best characters on TV right now and am so glad they brought him back this season instead of having him meet the same fate as his literary equivalent). This is one of those shows that I gladly look forward to Sunday nights for so I can sit down with some dinner and my blanket and a full uninterrupted hour of vampires and shapeshifters and sex and blood and humor and hot, hot, hot men (Bill, Eric, Jason … need I say more?)
The hands down best movie of the month was The Hangover. You could just see the thought process behind it – let’s take four randomly different guys, bring them all together in Vegas for a bachelor party and give them the greatest night of their lives but the worst hangover ever. So simple but so very complicated as they spend the entire weekend looking for the groom, whom they have somehow lost (and that was actually one of the more enjoyable moments of the film because I thought that where and how he was lost was going to turn out to be so outlandishly unbelievable that it ruined the movie but in reality, it was so very simple and believable that I thought it tied everything together nicely). But seriously, there’s tigers and hookers and gambling and drinking and chickens and a baby and Mike Tyson. And Bradley Cooper. And Andy, from The Office. And Zack Galfinakis (I don’t know if that’s how he spells his name and don’t care – he’s hysterical in this film). And did I mention Bradley Cooper? A very HOT Bradley Cooper! Overall, this was one of those funny, hysterical, quotable movies that will be added to the repertoire and the DVD shelf from now until forever.
And finally, there’s Bejeweled 2, which I’ve played numerous time before but somehow got really, really addicted to this month. I play it on Facebook as Bejewled Blitz and I swear, that one’s going to give me a heart attack because you have one minute to get the highest score possible and the stress of it all makes me insane sometimes. I also downloaded the app onto my iPod Touch and have spent numerous nights in bed playing it while I wasn’t tired enough to fall asleep. I took it with me to the doctor’s office and played it in the waiting room and to North Carolina. I’ve had to force myself to stop playing. But it’s so awesome so can you really blame me?
So those were my pleasures for the month of June which were perfectly wonderful because they helped me get through a fairly rough month. Here’s hoping July is a bit quieter!
We’re finally home! We rolled in this morning around 9:30 am and have spent the rest of the day vegging and napping, preparing for our return back to work.
What was supposed to be a ten hour trip ended up taking eighteen hours. Not counting the three hours we stopped and slept at a rest stop, that’s a total of fifteen hours drive time.
Longest trip ever!
Now it’s time for December and Christmas! Oh Lord, help me please.
