Book Update

So I have some birthday money and I went out and bought a couple books this past weekend. I have already finished reading one of them. It's called "The Hunger Games" by Suzanne Collins. It is a young adult (YA) book and is really good! There are 3 so far in this sci-fi series and I plan on going out to get the second one!

The story revolves around a girl named Katniss who live in District 12. It is set in the future and what I find out is that she lives in the area we call Appalachia! The Hunger Games are set up to keep all 12 districts under control of the Capitol by selecting one boy and one girl, between the ages of 12 and 18, from each district in a fight to the death where only one will be the victor.

I recommend you go and check it out cause it has a good story to it and it is an easy read!

The next book I'm going to read is "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" by Stieg Larsson. I've given in to the reviews I've heard from fellow blog readers and broke down to buy this book. I know if I ever want to see the movie that will be coming out that it will ultimately ruin my experience, but we shall see!

And I've also gone back to my old standard Charlaine Harris books. I finally found the 1st in the Aurora Teagarden series called "Real Murders" at my closest Books-a-Million store. So now I'm sure I'll be taken in by them and have to by them all, of course.

Have you read any of these books?

Did you like them?

Do you think you are going to go out and get them too?

Week #1

This post marks week one of my 28th year and also the beginning of my pic-a-day that I challenged myself to do here.

Day 1: The day before my birthday and my last day of being 27. Ironically, I am blowing out my candles a day early.

Day 2: Mine and my mom's birthday mug of frosty rootbeer! We went to Frostop at the time she gave birth and celebrated! haha

Day 3: My house seems to have a plethora of toilet paper when there is usually so little!

Day 4: "Y" is for YMCA which is where I went to swim today.

Day 5: You can tell I have a little bit of time on my hands, which is exactly where it turned out to be! Inspired to paint my nails a little creatively like I used to in high school, but not as creative as The Daily Nail.

Day 6: This is what time I woke up at on Friday morning or afternoon or evening... whenever 1, half of a 7, and L7 is... time to get a new alarm clock I guess!

Day 7: Phil and I took his grandma to the store and she treated us to lunch! She's so sweet!

So I suprised myself that I actually took a new picture each day this first week and didn't cheat! Hope I can continue it and I hope you enjoyed!

The Day I Turned My Lucky Number

Back in the day I used to say that my favorite number was how old I was, but after I turned 9 it just stuck. This is what I did on my birthday 19 years ago in good ole 1991...

Well, I don't know what I'm doing in the picture above but I do know what that balloon "animal" that is in my hand looks like! Eek!

We hit on a piñata that looks like a flying fish and everyone is pretty excited about it! Let me point out a couple more things to be excited about:

And here we are sitting on my mom's old car!

Yay #9! What's your favorite number?

Summer Magic

Summer Magic is definately one of my favorite Disney movies! I'll watch anything with Hayley Mills! I remember watching my personal recorded-myself version on an old VHS along with the 1989 version of "The Teddy Bears' Picnic". I loved all the songs in "Summer Magic" especially this one, this one, and this one! I loved the clothes and the hairstyles as well. There was also a woman with the name "Mariah" in it which warmed it to my heart further! I think since they lived in a big yellow house, that is where I got the idea to want that too!

Have you seen this movie?

What's your favorite Disney movie?

I ♥ Shoes

So I took a Yoga class on Tuesday and a Tai Chi class tonight and I like them both quite a bit! The Yoga instructor is one extreme of talking really softly and the Tai Chi instructor likes to talk a little too much, but overall they are both very good classes that I plan on taking again. I am actually going to Yoga in the morning. I am debating whether to go to the "Lite" Workout after or not, but I more than likely will swim. My shoulders and neck have been sore since I started swimming and I hope that will go away when I get used to the movement a little more. For both Yoga and Tai Chi you are in your bare feet and it always feels so good when you put your shoes back on! I'm usually the one to go shoeless but I feel like I am using my feet to grip the floor for balance. Guess I'll just have to work on that.

PPQ: Smile!

Picture: Edenpics.com (retouched)

Buttery Birthday

This past weekend, my parents, Phil, and I celebrated my 28th birthday! They took me out to dinner Saturday night to the new restaurant in Pullman Square called Thai House. I had the Phad Thai and an Iced Thai Tea both of which were delicious! I should of taken a pic!

Sunday night I opened my presents a day early (since Phil was there) and then ate some red velvet cake with buttercream icing that mom and I made both from scratch! The recipe for the red velvet cake is here (I made it in 2-9inch cake pans instead of the cupcakes) and the recipe for the buttercream icing is here. Let me tell warn you that there is A LOT of butter in that icing! And you can tell it too! We made this icing because I am not a fan of the traditional cream cheese icing, but overall I would make some other icing with this cake instead. The cake is also much better kept in the refrigerator and I would want to add more cocoa powder if I made it again.

Phil got me the second season of True Blood and a much needed new computer fan for my laptop (since it gets so hot) and my parents got me the Y membership along with some clothes.

Monday (my birthday), I slept in way too much and then mom and I went to lunch at the Frostop. I was dying for a mug of their rootbeer! The rest of the day was pretty much relaxing and looking at wedding stuff - I am excitedly planning! I also got a ton of birthday wishes from my friends on facebook, my bloggy friends on here (!), on twitter, on the phone and through text! I felt special and I thank you all for your friendship :-)

Happy Birthday To Me!!!

It's my birthday! I am a whopping 28 years old today and loving it!

It's Fun To Stay At The...

Creative credit: marcroballistic

As an early birthday present from my parents, I joined the Y on Wednesday! I had originally wanted to go and swim with my dad and start getting in shape, and now that I got a list of all the fitness classes that are available for me to take, I am super pumped up about it! Now I think this is going to get me out of the house and doing something while I'm waiting for all those job interviews to start pouring in (sarcasm implied)!

The classes I am interested in are:

• Pilates - a group of exercises designed to strengthen and lengthen the muscle groups. Similar to yoga except that you flow from one movement to another using your core.
  
• Basic Step - basic moves, basic patterns a great way for you to have fun & learn. Whether you are a beginner or not you will burn those calories!
  
• Yoga - a relaxing mind & body experience that includes whole body stretching and total relaxation.
  
• Tai Chi - health, meditation, martial arts, the three aspects of the study of Tai Chi. This involves slow, gentle, repetitive work that teaches how leverage is generated.
  
• Express Fitness - a 30 minute workout that's perfect for anyone. The class format will take you from the floor to the Step or the Bosu.
  
• "Lite" Workout - this class is a "lighter" version of our weighted workout class. A class to increase muscular strength and endurance as well as flexibility through the use of weights, tubing, balance balls, medicine balls, body bars, etc. Total body conditioning! This is designed for the beginner or the experienced exerciser.

I had taken the Basic Step class when I was a member before and liked it. And I've taken Tai Chi somewhere before and like it too. I think I may try going to them all at least once to see which ones I'm interested in! Now I hope I don't lose interest and waste away my membership!

Have you taken any of these classes before?

What did you think about them?

Have any tips for me?

The Day Phil Surprised Me For My Birthday

Three years ago, Phil gave me a surprise birthday party! It wasn't that big and there wasn't very many people, but I will always remember him being so thoughtful. It was a little bit before my birthday so it would surprise me, but also because this was to be the year that I would have my birthday alone for the first time in Morgantown. The only people I knew there were my married roommates from back home, but it turns out that my birthday is also their dating anniversary, so I spent my day alone in my apartment in my room all by myself... Anyways, this was meant to be a pity party, because they made up for it by having me a party when Phil was in town! Here is the beautiful cake they made me and my roommate Josh:

Phil said he was going to be taking me out to dinner for my birthday, but wouldn't tell me where. He ended up taking me to Red Lobster because he knew I liked it and he hates it. After dinner we told me we were then going to see a movie! We got there and my friends Heather and Kyle were there to surprise me too! We saw "The Simpsons Movie" which I had been wanting to see. After the movie, we said our goodbyes but when we got back to my place they were there waiting with balloons and cupcakes for me! It was a great time that I will never forget!

Pic-A-Day

Nicole over at The Fickle Nickle introduced me to a great idea called Project Life. This project is where you would take one picture a day for 365 days and put them all together. It would help you gain a better perspective of your own life story. (This can be explained further here at Becky Higgins' Project Life page where you can actually buy everything you would need for a kit or an online version.)

I was thinking I could do this without having to buy a kit and just take a picture each day of the week and at the end of each week, post them on here all together so you all can see. Sort of like what Nicole is doing. I think I may start the day before my birthday (Sunday, August 22nd) and have it as a reflection on my 28th year! I hope I can remember to snap a shot each day!

I know it seems like I'm doing a lot of new things on here all at once, but I'm just super excited about having lots of things to post! I also figured it would be good to have somewhat of a schedule to when I should blog each week.

What do you think? Am I going blog crazy??? Do you have any suggestions?

PPQ: An Admiring Blog

I'm starting this new series each week called PPQ Wednesday! This will be a time for me to showcase Poetry, Pictures, & Quotes that I enjoy or have written/taken. I had come up with this wonderful idea of making a new blog just to house all this, and I wanted to call it "An Admiring Blog" (you'll catch my funny later) but sadly that name was already taken. I decided that it would be best not to neglect this blog as much as possible and just add to it! So I hope you stay tuned in and let me know how ya like it!

I’M nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there’s a pair of us - don’t tell!
They’d banish us, you know.

How dreary to be a somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell you name the live long day
To an admiring bog!

-Emily Dickinson

The Allergy I Love The Most

Sunday before last I went on an impromptu vacation to visit Ad in Shepherdstown, WV for a few days! Sars came to town to pick me up and we started our journey to the eastern panhandle!

When we got to Shepherdstown we saw this crocheted bear: So the next day we ran off to DC and visited the Natural History Museum:

...and learned a few things like:

While in DC, we went to Chinatown and ate sushi & drank mojitos... kinda ironic, huh?

We also walked around and shopped:

I also got a delicious cupcake from the Red Velvet Cupcakery! It was a black velvet cupcake with chocolate buttercream and crystalized violet petals sprinkled on top!

We then made our way back to Shepherdstown. This is Ad's door:

Here are some sugary grapes I got to add to Ad's rumtopf (last pic)! Here is what Wikipedia has to say about rumtopf.

The time I spent in Shepherdstown/DC, my allergies progressively got worse and worse. I sneezed constantly, my head hurt, my nosed drained, and my sinuses ached! I had never had such a severe reaction to a place. So we said that I was allergic to Ad's house, which was sad cause I love Ad! Sars and I left that Tuesday, and I started having a fever on the car ride home... not fun. That didn't stop us from eating at the Black Bear in Morganhole on our way back! I can blame it on that town that started me having the fever! I got all jittery just being back there!

My time with my 2 BFFs was totally fun and I would visit Ad anytime, even though I am allergic!

The Day The Music Died

...they started singin'! Well, I've been writing this series for a couple weeks now and each time I start a new one this song goes through my mind. I love this song by the great Don McLean called American Pie. It is very long, there are many words to it and there has speculation of what the song is about and I find that very interesting. Go here to see such theories.

Go here to read the lyrics and here to see a video!

What do you think it's all about?
Do you even like this song?

Dreaming of the Beach

It seriously makes me jealous that someone can do something as fabulous as this! It is completely amazing to me and I wish I could do it too! Plus, I would love to be at the beach right about now!

Taken from Yahoo! News, yet again...

Better than the Sand Castle: Beach Art Gallery

Incredible(y Geeky)

When Phil and I started dating he was into a game called HeroClix, mostly based on comic book characters. He would go down to the local comic book/gaming store to play with his friends and occasionally I would join him. He would try to teach me how to play but it was something I didn't really enjoy. I did like looking at all the comic book character figures they all collected. My favorite had to be The Hulk, and that is where it all began...After Phil noticed how much I liked The Hulk, he - bringing me with him - began to get a little obsessed. He claims he liked the Hulk before I came along, but I think it is still my doing! He started buying the comic books and movies, and even named 3 of our fish Hulk.

All of this was fine with me, but then he started asking me if it would be okay to purchase an inflatable Hulk like this:And this 8 foot tall Incredible Hulk statue:
This is where I drew the line, but I hope he was just asking about these to get a reaction from me! I never realized that picking a comic character to like based on the fact that he is green could lead to all of this!

Do the men in your life have crazy/geeky obsessions?

Do you like the Incredible Hulk too?

Is your favorite color green?