New York, New York

Where have I been lately? "Working" in New York. Jaime A. went with me. If you watched the Today show on Tuesday, you saw me and my group, even if you didn't realize it. Here are a few pictures of the trip.

The group ready for television.

In front of the Today studio.

Me and Meredith. BFF.

Me and Jaime in the Target room at the Top of the Rock. Electronic lights follow you around and occasionally the whole room lights it. So fun!

Frozen hot chocolate is yummy. We had an hour wait, so we took a cab to the Apple store and called people from the iPhones. Forgot to take a picture of the cool Apple store.

Tiramisu at Alfredo's of Rome our last night in the city.

My friend D just moved to New York. I met her and her mom for a walk Monday morning.


Matching shirts for the Today show. If you can't tell, the shirts aren't printed with ink, they are covered with beads.

"Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" encore of Mary Poppins. Didn't feel bad taking pictures during the bows and encore. This number was the show stopper. Show was great!

Prometheus at Rockefeller Center. I ate dinner at a table next toe the fountain.

I ran around the Jackie Kennedy Onassis Reservoir in Central Park Sunday morning. This is my re-enactment from the Top of the Rock.

This is a view across the reservoir. Unlike the above picture, the run was casual run with frequent picture stops.

Empire State Building.

Good thing we were there to keep this huge piece of art balanced.

Our group ate lunch at Tavern on the Green our first day.

Inside the Tavern.

We took a two-hour semi-circle cruise at sunset. Nice time for pictures.

I loved that I get paid to travel, but I'm anxious the whole time. It's a relief to get home where I'm not responsible for the safety and enjoyment of 30 people.

AmeriCone Dream

Stephen Colbert of Comedy Central's the Colbert Report has his own brand of Ben & Jerry's ice cream: AmeriCone Dream. I originally bought it because it was Stephen Colbert's, but I'll probably by it again because it's delicious. It's vanilla ice cream with fudge-covered waffle cone pieces and caramel swirl. Yummo!

Wimbledon starts Sunday! I've actually been to Wimbledon, so it's my favorite. Maybe it's always been my favorite because Pete Sampras was always my favorite tennis player and Wimbledon is the tournament where he excelled.

Nothing much going on. One camp down, one to go. Then it's off to Dallas for a few days, then off to New York!

Sorry I haven't been commenting on your blogs lately. I've been reading them, but I haven't had time to comment.

Rafa's Reign

After a week break, I return to you with tennis on my mind. Rafael Nadal, my favorite tennis player, won his third straight French Open title today beating Federer, the top-ranked player in the final. Yay!

Camp is over as well. Only two kids were sent to the hospital and neither with serious problems. According to my pedometer, I walked a total of 55.41 miles during the week. Had to make up for all the food I was eating.

In other news, I've been "promoted" from a Loaned Executive to an Account Executive (that supervises a team of LEs) for the United Way campaign this year. The AE that I'm replacing is moving to Dallas for a job. I'm interested in the job she is leaving. She works at a company that promotes from within, but who knows. I'll keep you posted.

We've been getting crazy amounts of rain and the grass in my yard is at an embarrassing height, so I need to mow. I'm going to wait a few hours for the temperature to drop.

Long Time No Blog

Sorry it's been so long since I've written. I started a few blogs but never got around the finishing them. This is the busiest time of the year for me. Most people that work in a university find the summer to be the slow time of the year, time for planning and strategy and vacations. I work with summer camps, so I go non-stop from tomorrow until July 1. I even temporarily move offices to be closer to the camp action. I take a short vacation, and then it's off to New York to guide 30 alumni around the city. Tough job, I know.

Enjoy your June!

Weekend Recap

Normally when I go home for the weekend I have some down time. Not this trip. Here are the highlights.

1. Taste Addison: Saw Blues Travelers and the Los Lonely Boys in concert. It seems wrong that my entry fee does not cover food for an event named Taste Addison. It was fun.
   
   
2. Tennis. The only time I play tennis these days (sigh) is when I'm in DFW, so this is always a plus. However, playing tennis at noon on a hot, humid day is not ideal. Summer is here.
   
   
3. Georgia Rule. Jamie's decree: SKIP IT. One, it's not a good movie. Two, if you haven't read anything about it, you will go see a different movie than the one advertised in the previews. It's one of those. Just like all the children that had no way of knowing the sadness awaiting them at the end of the "fun, fantasy film" Bridge to Terabithia.
   
   
4. Trinity Hall. It was fun to drink Strongbow, eat bread pudding and listen to an Irish band on a Saturday night.
   
   
5. Mother's Day. The card I got my mom was "retro." It was a child's Strawberry Shortcake card. It was a hit. My mom laughed and informed me that she still had my Strawberry Shortcake sheets in a closet if I wanted them. I wonder if this closet stores my Rainbow Bright sleeping bag.
   

Friday Five

1. Those of you that know me well know I have been trying unsuccessfully since freshman year in college to get my hair cut a certain way. The style has changed through the years, but the inability to get the right cut hasn't. I got my hair cut last week for Cuts for the Cure, and I'm more than 50 percent satisfied. Usually the back of my hair isn't cut right, and the front is fine. This time, the back is right and the front is wrong. Go figure. But after almost five years in this town, it looks like I finally found a hair dresser.
   
   
2. LOST was awesome Wednesday! (SPOILERS AHEAD) Every commercial break I found myself muttering "Awesome." I wasn't on board with the whole invisible-Jacob twist until he went all telekinetic. After reading that Jacob briefly appeared after he pushed Ben against the wall, I went back and watched it; it's totally creepy. And who knew Ben was pure evil? He killed his own people! LOST has had back-to-back disturbing episodes. I still can't get Sawyer strangling Locke's dad out of my head. And the mass killing and mass grave this week. I like the darkness though.
   
   
3. Speaking of TV shows, Friday Night Lights has been renewed for next season! Whoo-hoo! If you haven't watched this show, I encourage you to check it out. All episodes are available online, and NBC will air repeats beginning May 27. And the DVD is schedule to come out before the second season, so you have no excuse!
   
   
4. What do I have to say that is not TV related? I've been experimenting with keeping my happy list in my purse. The result? I never write in my happy list. Out of sight, out of mind. I miss happy list writing. Several things have happened in the last month I wanted to write down, but forgot about them. Operation: Resume Happy List Writing is in full swing!
   
   
5. I'm teaching the toning class at work again on Monday. I haven't changed the routine I originally created, and this will be my fourth of fifth time to teach. It's too time consuming. I have much more respect for instructors at gyms that vary what they do every class. Granted, they've had training, but it's still time consuming.
   

Battle of the Surfaces

Another victory over Roger Federer for Rafael Nadal. Yes, that is a half-grass, half-clay court in the picture. Federer is the King of Grass, winning Wimbledon the previous four years (Nadal made it to the final last year) and Nadal is the King of Clay, winning the French Open the past two years, the only two years he's played the French. (Nadal knocked Fed out in the semifinal two years ago and defeated him in the final last year.) Nadal has also set the record for consecutive match wins on clay at 72 and is 7-3 against Mighty Fed, the world's number one player. Despite his appearance in the Wimbledon final last year, Nadal has never made it past the quarter finals of the US Open, and his record on every surface but clay is mediocre. His level of play on clay is off the charts, so I think exhaustion plays a part is his descent the second half of the year. Especially last year when he made it to the Wimbledon final just two weeks after he defended the French Open title.

So you got two posts in one day and both about sports.

Live to Die Another Day

I'm elated the Mavs won last night, but did they have to stress me out so much? And they will do it again Thursday night I'm sure. Good thing this team knows how create winning streaks because they need two more back-to-back wins to advance to the next round.

In other news, Veronica Mars is back to the TV schedule. Yay!

I'm getting my hair cut on Sunday. You might be thinking: Sunday? The Susan G. Komen For the Cure is sponsoring a Cuts for the Cure day on Sunday when 100 percent of proceeds from select salons go to the Komen foundation. I need a haircut, so I might as well help fight breast cancer with my vanity. :-)

I ran a 5K race on Saturday for CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates). It was my first race since October and my first time to run 3 miles since November. My foot's been OK lately. I didn't set a PR, but I didn't embarrass myself. And I got a medal! And they called my name as I crossed the finish line. It was the least organized race I've ever been to, but CASA fights for children, not organize road races, so I can cut them some slack.

Graduation is Saturday. I'm feeling a little sentimental about this graduating class because it's the first class I've watched from move-in day to graduation. (I've been here too long.) It's interesting to watch the transformation of the students. I interviewed a student for a job in my office four years ago, and I didn't hire him because he couldn't communicate effectively. He went on to be a leader on campus. I hired a guy that became Student Senate President, Homecoming King and Mr. University.

Friday Five: Independent Film

I love movies. I love all genre of movies. I'm more and more attracted to movies most people have never heard of. Technically I don't know if foreign films are considered independent, but for the purposes of this post I will place them in that category. They probably qualify anyway as they are not created in Hollywood, have much smaller budgets than Hollywood films and generally have a limited release. So for today, here are five reasons I love and support independent film.

1. The Spitfire Grill. My senior year in high school, my aunt dragged me and my sister to see this movie. All she told us about it was that it was an Official Selection of the Sundance Film Festival (an Audience Award winner to be more exact). I loved the film and credit it for my passion for indies. Ironically, my aunt ignores most of my opinions about movies because my "superior taste" (her words not mine) and resists all attempts on my part to introduce her to new movies. She couldn't believe I made her sit through Stranger than Fiction.
   
2. Film Festivals. After watching the Spitfire Grill, I started seeking out movies that were Official Selections of the Sundance Film Festival. Rachel V. is a movie buff as well, and in college we would stroll through Hastings looking for independent films to rent. Back then I didn't research films or read reviews online, so we made our decisions on the spot. We watched some bad movies, (Photographing Fairies), and odd movies (Being John Malkovich) but mostly we were rewarded with movies like Memento, Billy Elliott and Run Lola Run.
3. Originality. Writers and directors hired to make blockbusters usually cater to the lowest common denominator or are encouraged to stick to what works, so these movies usually lack creativity and originality. Obviously, this is not always the case. And independent films suffer from the same problems too. Charlie Kaufman is completely original, and his films are good because of his originality. See Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Adaptation and Being John Malkovich if you want to see a unique vision. And you don't have to love these movies to appreciate what they bring to the film world.
4. Documentaries. I've already dedicated an entire post to documentaries, but they are an aspect of independent film that shouldn't go unnoticed. These filmmakers work with limited budgets and are often self financed. These movies don't make much money at the box office, so to get their movies seen and create revenue, documentary filmmakers sell their movies to TV stations. What's the problem with this? For a documentary to be eligible for an Oscar nomination, it has to screen in theatres and the additional screening rules in place prevent filmmakers from working with TV. Grizzly Man was one of the highest rated movies last year, but wasn't eligible for the Oscar because it aired on cable. I have almost never been disappointed in a documentary, whereas feature films let me down consistently. So if a documentary comes to a theatre near you, pay to see it.
5. Foreign Films. If you can't get past the subtitles you are missing out on great films. Amelie just makes me feel happy. The Best of Youth is one of the best movies I've seen in years. It's six hours long, but I want to watch it again. The martial arts films like Hero, House of Flying Daggers, and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon are beautiful works of art. And City of God is one of my all-time favorite movies. It's not very often that a foreign film has it's director nominated for Best Director at the Oscar, but that happened with this film. I like foreign films for their originality but also for the different outlook and voice they bring to cinema.
   

Tuesday Topics

I've been asked to update my blog so people can have something to read at work. At least I know someone reads this boring blog. Anyway, here are some random thoughts.

I'm running the CASA 5K on Saturday. Normally this is not news, but I had to stop running on Thanksgiving due to inflammation in my left foot. I've recently resumed running, but I'm not up to 3 miles yet. And I run at 6 a.m., in the cool morning darkness. Running at 9 a.m. with full sunlight is always more draining. But CASA is a United Way agency, and I support them.

The Lives of Others is playing here! I got so excited when I found out, and I'm seeing it this week. Because I know you are all curious, I will let you know if the movie is deserving of the Best Foreign Film Oscar it received in February. On a related note, I've read the horrible news that the brothers Weinstein have bought the rights to remake this film. A film that just won an Oscar, that topped just about every Best of 2006 list. Apparently they want this film to reach more people, so instead a huge marketing push and a wider release, they think the solution is to remake it in English. have yet to see a remake that is better than it's foreign original. This particular story is about the Nazi Stasi and spying in East Germany! That doesn't really translate to our culture. And don't even get me started on subtitles. Americans will watch movies with subtitles, like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Hero, Amalie, etc. The main problem with foreign language films is the way the subtitles appear. Subtitles should never, ever be white. Too often the words get washed out in the background. And on widescreen DVDS, the subtitles should be placed below the picture. I could continue my rant, but I'll stop there.

I'm busy at work finally. I'm writing multiple articles for an upcoming alumni magazine, planning a staff conference and preparing for camps and my trip to New York. It's to the point where I almost have so many things to do this week, I don't know where to start. I need to finish this post and read a chapter in a book on fundraising so I am prepared for a book study tomorrow morning.

LOST is getting good. Juliet's character is fascinating. I'm curious how the season is going to end. I heard the producers wanted to bring back Michael for the season finale, but he said no. I would think he would still be under contract because his character's story line is not finished. I'm loving the string of new episodes. If ABC chooses to delay the start of LOST until January, ala 24, I totally back that decision.

Veronica Mars returns next week! I doubt any of you watch it, but it's great!

I'm usually consistent with my cardio, but fickle with my toning. I'm finally doing both again, and every time I do, I always think that it's an interesting way to live. I'm constantly living with sore of fatigued muscles. It's not always the I-can't-take-another-step soreness, but something is usually tight, sensitive, sore or tired. Maybe if I didn't go through phases where I dropped the toning for periods of time, my body would settle down. Or maybe I should consider this normal and not being sore or aware of my muscles as the odd state.

So those are my random thoughts for Tuesday.

Friday Five: West Texas

West Texas is an interesting place. Here are five signs you live in West Texas.

1. When you leave for work in the morning, the sky is blue. When you come home, the sky is brown, dirt brown.
   
   
2. You can run past tumbleweeds in the middle of a residential street before sunrise, and probably any other time of the day. Quite often you have to dodge them while driving around town.
   
   
3. Your interior window and door frames are always, always, covered in dirt.
   
   
4. There are as many 24-hour local weather channels as there are local network channels.
   
   
5. You couldn't direct someone to a hill if your life depended on it. The flat land and never-ending horizon makes for beautiful sunrises and sunsets though.
   

Saturday Shocker

SNOW!!

It's Easter Saturday at noon, and it's 28 degrees with two inches of snow on the ground. (I'm making that figure up. I have yet to find a news website that tells me how many inches or rain or snow we get after a storm. You'd think the citizens would want that information, especially since we have channels dedicated to nothing but local weather.) Crazy! More snow is in the forecast for this evening, so I'm sure the roads will be fun Sunday morning. Here are a few pictures.

The front yard.


The back yard.

This has nothing to do with snow, but a few weeks ago after a heavy rain storm, a large double rainbow filled the sky. Rainbows can disappear so quickly, I took this picture from my back door so I wouldn't miss it. You can't see the reflection, but it was gorgeous!

Friday Five: Gael Garcia Bernal

I watched the Science of Sleep last night, Gael Garcia Bernal's first English-language film. I like him. I thought he would be the subject of my Friday Five, but first I had to make sure I'd actually seen five movies Bernal acted in. I have seen eight. You may have seen him in Babel. He played the son/nephew of the nanny that caused the problem at immigration. Without further ado, my five favorite movies with Gael Garcia Bernal.

1. The Crime of Father Amaro. This is where I discovered Bernal. He was so cute in this movie, but the crime was not the crime in all the headlines. He was a young, attractive priest in love with a girl. Should he break his vow of celibacy?
   
2. The Motorcycle Diaries. He played Che on the motorcycle ride that led him to become a revolutionary.
3. The Science of Sleep. Bernal's first English language film. The movie was wacky, written and directed by the guy that helped write the story for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind with Charlie Kaufman. His scenes with the neighbor that shared his interests were great.
4. Bad Education. A film by Pedro Almodovar, so you know it's strange. Bernal plays three "characters" in this film. And this being a Pedro film, he is a transvestite.
5. Y tu mama tambien, aka And Your Mama Too. This is an Alfonso Cuaron (HP and the Prisoner Azkaban, Children of Men) film, so it gets bonus points for a director I like. This is probably the hardest of the five movies to watch because it's a coming of age road trip, foreign language film style. Foreign films almost always have more language, nudity, sex, alcohol and drugs than American movies.
   

The Joys of Technology

When I moved into my new old house, my TV became the living room TV. Jaime kept her TV in her room, and her father brought a TV down from Fort Worth that I took by default. The TV was manufactured in 1989. I tried to hook a DVD player up to it, and the port the cable went into was the only port. I don't know if port is the right word, but I can't think of anything else, so I'm going with it.

This wasn't a big deal until recently. I'm a Netflix subscriber. I've realized in the last few weeks that I'm not moving through my movies at a fast enough pace to make the monthly rate worth it. When you have a roommate, you can't just come home and ask her to turn off what she's watching so you can watch an obscure French film. At least I don't think you can. When I lived there before, with different roommates, the person watching TV first was in control of the roommate. I still live with that mentality.

I did a little research yesterday and purchased a RF modulator. Everything plugs into this little box - cable, DVD, S-Video, and then you run one cable to the back of your TV, and presto! Cable or DVD, take your pick.

That's all the exciting news in my world. Oh, and because I'm incompetent and can't stick cables in the right portals, I thought my first RF modulator was broken. I bought a different brand from Wal-Mart, cheaper as well, and then realized the error of my ways. So this weekend I get to return the more expensive product. Yay! Isn't my life exciting?

Saturday Seven

1. I know all my faithful readers were disappointed that I didn't write a Friday Five post last week or yesterday. I wrote this yesterday, I just forgot to publish it. Last week, I was busy all morning at work and then I headed to Austin and did not access the Internet until I returned on Sunday. What was I doing in Austin? Planting a garden! I'll post pictures soon to prove I actually gardened. I returned with three green pepper plants and one jalapeno plant. We'll see if I can grow produce. I also hung out with two of my high school friends, the true purpose of the visit.
   
   
2. Rain, rain and more rain! It looks like the sky might open any moment and flood us. Wednesday night it hailed. Sunday we had tornadoes and heavy rain. Parts of the city are still flooded. Hopefully it lets up enough for me to mow this weekend. The height of our grass is embarrassing, especially the weeds.
   
   
3. I haven't read since I wrote all those posts about reading. I guess I've moved past the all-I-want-do-do-is-read wave. Non-fiction will do that to you. And this weekend I've got three Netflix movies to watch and ship back, so I won't be doing a lot of reading.
   
   
4. I have to fill out a self evaluation for work today. I recently offended my boss, so I'm not excited about the timing of this eval. He's accepted my apology, told me it's not a problem, but I still feel guilty. I doubt it will affect my eval, but I still don't want something negative looming over our recent interactions.
   
   
5. I have conflicted feelings about Wednesday's episode of LOST. I thought it was a good overall episode, if you factor out all the issues relating to Nikki and Paulo. I trust the writers and producers of this show, but I don't know why they introduced these characters earlier this season, tried to pretend they'd been on the island the whole time, and then "killed" them. Fans were upset at their presence and Wednesday's episode didn't do anything to change that. I'd heard that this episode would be a "game changer" and these characters would become legends in the LOST-verse. Not sure this episode achieved either of those goals. Yes, two people were buried alive, but there weren't characters we cared about or were emotionally invested in. I hear rumors that next season LOST will follow 24's path, and start the season in January and run all-new episodes through May. I'm behind that idea 100 percent. It's worked for 24. And did you notice how the premier of 24 was such an event? You couldn't read any TV-related blogs or news sources without reading about 24 and Keifer Sutherland.
   
   
6. I mowed my front yard this morning. I don't think I have mowed since high school. And due to all the rain and lack of a personal lawn mower, the grass and weeds were high. The mower stalled out too many times to count and didn't restart easily at all. I'm not sure I'll be able to move my right arm tomorrow. I didn't even get to the back yard. However, I'm borrowing a more powerful mower tomorrow, so hopefully I won't pull my shoulder out of socket.
   
   
7. It's Final Four weekend! I'm babysitting tonight, but I'll have the games on in the background. I should get going. I don't want to be late.
   

My Library

You might notice a new feature on the sidebar of my blog. I discovered the website LibraryThing today. It hasn't been a busy day at work, my boss is out of town, it's rainy and I'm just not motivated to work. I was reading the Arts & Entertainment section of The Guardian when I came upon an article about this website.

LibraryThing is essentially an online book catalog, complete with recommendations and a social networking capabilities. It's free and there is no registration, so I thought I would try it out. I started adding books I've read this year. I have to keep a list anyway or I'll forget what I've read, so why not do it online and share it with others. You can connect with people that have similar interests and even leave comments. I don't expect to leave comments with strangers, but my friend and I are about to read a book together, and if she sets up a LibraryThing account, we can comment back and forth. The ability to express a response to a book as it comes to me instead of hoping I remember it for when we talk about the book might come in handy for forgetful ol' me. You can also export your data to Excel or even your cell phone for access anywhere. You can review books as well. I haven't done that yet. You can even see how many LibraryThing users have your books in their libraries. I'm sure there are more features I haven't discovered yet.

That might not sound interesting to you, but if it does, check out my library from the link on the sidebar and set up your own account. Then send me the link!

Books

Like most of you readers out there, I'm always reading something or about to start a new book. I've always loved to read, ever since I was a kid, as mentioned in a previous post. My reading habits come in waves. I'll go a few months where I read instead of eating or sneak in a read during lunch or anytime I have a spare five minutes and stay up late reading. I finish a book and immediately start another one. Immediately. At other times, I read once or twice a week, and then when I finish a book, it takes me a few weeks to start a new one.

Right now all I want to do is read. I read three books in four days over spring break, and when I came back home I finished a library book I accidentally left behind. I chose to finish reading that book instead of watching Grey's Anatomy with my roommate. (By now you should know I'm a TV junkie as well.) As soon as I finished that book I jumped into another one and read it in two days. Yesterday I went to Barnes & Noble and bought two books with my birthday gift card. I came home, started to read, and finished the book three-ish hours later. And then I picked up the second book I bought. All I want to do right now is read. I always ride this wave as long as it lasts because the day will inevitably come when I won't want to pick up a book for a week or more.

So are the rest of you readers manic like me or do you read more consistently throughout the year?

Friday Five: Spring Break

It does not feel like a Friday. Here are five things I did on my spring break.

1. Visited friends in Mt. Pleasant. Highlights: delicious southwest chicken quiche and cheesecake at local places, fruit pizza and playing games.
   
   
2. Read three books in four days. It was so nice to relax and not worry about time for a week. The books: These Three Remain, the third book in the Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman series; Bridge to Terabithia, one of my favorite books as a child, as indicated in a previous post; and Under the Tuscan Sun, an impromptu read because it was the only book on my mom's bookshelf I was interested in. She is an avid reader as well, but we have completely different tastes.
   
   
3. Stuffed myself at Simply Fondue. I ate with a few of my DFW friends for my birthday last night. We spent three hours at the restaurant and it was delicious! My favorite part of the evening was when the waitress asked everyone to put a marshmallows on their skier, and then light the chocolate fondue on fire so we could roast marshmallows. One of our chocolate flavors was S'mores, so it was perfect.
   
   
4. Played tennis! Janie and I always play tennis when I'm in the area. We played for an hour and played pretty well. The cute guys playing next to us were checking us out for sure.
   
   
5. Went shopping. I didn't actually get the essentials I set out for, but I did pick up a pair of flip-flops with green straps and a $45 pair of pants for $15. I found a lamp that met all my criteria at Kirkland's but I decided to shop around before I bought it. When I got around to going back, the lamp was gone. But I found the lamp at the Kirkland's at the Parks mall, so I bought that. And I picked up another spice "rack" at the Container Store. I also brought home a bubble bath ball and shampoo bar at Lush. Love that store!
   

Tonight I'm going to see Cirque Dreams. I don't know that much about it, but I am excited.

Music and Lyrics

Does it drive anyone else crazy when you hear a popular song on the radio with bad grammar? The new Nelly Furtado song came on - "Say it Right" - and when it got to the chorus, I just rolled my eyes. This is why:

Oh you don't mean nothing at all to me
No you don't mean nothing at all to me
Do you got what it takes to set me free

It's much harder to notice bad grammar in music because we don't give the lyrics our full attention.
But it's out there and people sing along and then repeat the grammar mistake in their own
conversations. I don't want to hear any more double negatives in conversation than I have to.

On a different subject, I read the book Bridge to Terabithia last night. This was one of my favorite
books in elementary school. I think I read it in fifth grade, but I'm not really sure. We read it
out loud as a class. I generally borrow books from the library, but occasionally I'll decide a book is
worth a purchase. Books you loved as a child belong in that category. Outside of school, I think my
favorite book was The Girl with the Silver Eyes. Anyone else read that as a child. I need to own
that book. I read it again in high school when my senior English teacher suggested I discover why
I loved it so much. The main character was different from her peers and never fully belonged. She
had silver eyes and paranormal abilities. In the end she finds out there are people like her and she
finally feels like she belongs. I was always a shy kid and could relate to not fitting in with the masses.

What books did you love as a kid and why? 

Friday Five: Saturday Edition

I was actually busy at work on Friday and then I headed out of town, so no time to blog. But here is the list of five things I am looking forward to this week.

1. Spring Break! It's great to get this paid vacation as a working adult. After 28 years, I can only remember one instance of having to go to school or work on my birthday due to the timing of SB, and that was in seventh grade, when I took the TAAS test instead. My birthday must have fallen on a Monday or Friday.
   
   
2. Road trip to Mt. Pleasant to visit friends I made in my current city of residence.
   
   
3. Using my own computer to access the Internet at my parents' house. They finally have a home network. Their old computer ran Windows 98, so you can just guess how slow it was.
   
   
4. Shopping! I have a list of essential spring clothing items that I haven't been able to find, and I figure if I can't find them in DFW, I must be the only one that considers them essential. Well, essential at an affordable price.
   
   
5. Fondue. I've never eating at a fondue place before, but I'm going there for my birthday. Yay!

That's all. Time to hit the road. Enjoy your spring breaks or work weeks!