FINALLY!

I have FINALLY broken my Twilight saga curse and FINALLY read another book from start to finish :) YAY!

One of my favorite authors, Dan Brown, finally wrote another Robert Langdon adventure, this time taking him to Washington D.C. I'm grateful to him for keeping it in the US so that I can actually go see these places that are referenced in the book. Angels & Demons took place in Italy and The DaVinci Code took place in France, so it's not so easy to go see those places.

I'm not going to get into the book, because it's very controversial and it's one of those books that causes debates. I already know that some of you don't agree with my feelings on religion and stuff so I'm not going to talk too much about it. Let's just say, it made me very curious about some things, opened my mind to some others, and made me realize how fake some other things are.

Now I'm going to try to read another one of the books I started but then quit reading because I couldn't get stupid Twilight saga out of my head!

Internet

Dear Internet,
I just wanted to take a moment to tell you how much I appreciate you. I am so glad that you are in my life. Sometimes I forget how much I need you and I take you for granted.

I love how you help me. I love how all I have to do is type in your search engine "movie with girl who's hands are cut off" when I forget the title of a movie I want to add to my Blockbuster queue (which I am also grateful for!), and you instantly show me 83 other people who were looking for the exact same movie, and then you just give me the answer! Because of you, my days of wandering around for days trying to remember things that are right on the tip of my tongue (you'll probably correct that misspelled word for me too!) are long gone. I love that I can type in "computer love" in your image search, and you pull up thousands of pictures that are just exactly what I was looking for to put on this post. If it weren't for you, I wouldn't have this very nice job that allows me to work from the comfort of my own home. You save me hundreds of dollars in gas every month! My friends and I can keep in touch instantly from across the world without a stamp or a cent of long distance cost!
You just make my world an easier and better place!

I know I don't say it often enough, but Internet, my love... I adore you.

NEW BLOG

I've been working on a new blog (simply to organize) for the top 100 movies :)

http://discoveringtheclassics.blogspot.com/

Check it out :) I'll be adding ALMOST daily. This is really just for my own journal-ing, I'm not really trying to influence or "tell" anything to anyone. But if you're interested, you can check it out.

Moving On...

I was trying to read The Adventures Of Augie March by Saul Bellows but every time I tried, I'd fall asleep. The first time I tried reading it was right after I finished the Twilight books for the first time. After 3 sentences I put it down and ran back to the first of the Twilight saga again and re-read them. I couldn't get them out of my head, that's all I wanted to read. So after reading them the second time, I tried for Augie again. That time I got through about 3 paragraphs before I fell asleep. When I tried again the next day, I had to re-read everything I had read the day before, because it didn't stick at all. It turned into a cycle. I'd read the first few pages, fall asleep, and then have to re-read them all over again.

After a week of this charade, I decided that I'm just not into Augie March or any adventures he may have. There is no point in trying to force myself to read a book that I'm just not into. So for now, Augie will have to wait.

So now, my new book that I am reading is Earnest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises. When I bought the book I didn't even know it was on the Top 100, but it is :) Score! Mostly I wanted to read this book because I figured I'd gain back some of my reading snobbery that I lost from being so addicted to the Twilight books if I could add a Hemingway to my list. It's working, I already feel like more of a book snob.

When I read the reviews of the book, a few critics mentioned Hemingway's "spare" writing style. I didn't understand this at first, but it's becoming clear. The way he writes isn't filled with details and back stories. So much is left to the reader to just assume and fill in the blanks as they wish. Two characters can be introduced as strangers and then go to a party and be introduced as long lost friends. Your mind has to go back and kind of make up the rest of the story that Hemingway didn't tell you. It's different, that's for sure. So far I'm enjoying it.

After I finish The Sun Also Rises, I'm moving on to Catch 22 :)

Plaid Madness!

Last weekend we went out shopping and I bought these red plaid shoes from Payless. I absolutely loved them and knew they must be mine. When I bought them, I told the cashier that I was going to have a hard time finding a purse to match them that wasn't just plain red or plain black.

LUCKILY...Torrid just happened to send me an email for their new products just a couple of days after I bought the shoes, and what did I see?

THEY HAD A PURSE THAT MATCHED PERFECTLY!

Little did I know HOW perfectly they matched :)

So I looked at it for a couple days online and then yesterday I called the closest Torrid and asked if they had this purse in stock. They did! But they only had 1 left, it's been flying off the shelves. I'm sure the gal I was talking to could hear the desperation in my voice and so she offered to hold it for me :) yay! As soon as I got off work I dashed over to Torrid and ran straight for the counter. And the purse was mine :)

When I got home I compared the shoes to the purse and they are the most perfect match! It's really hard to believe that two completely separate companies in two completely separate stores could match patterns that closely. It's not the same exact fabric because the pattern on the shoes is slightly smaller than the pattern on the purse, but they're so close! I absolutely adore my new shoes and purse :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :)

For our family pictures this year, we're doing black and red, so naturally my shoes and purse (or at least the shoes) will be making their debut around Christmas. That's if I can hold off until then. I may not be able to since they're just so stinking cute!

New Hair!

I've been SUPER board of fake bleached blond hair lately. My hair has been in limbo between light brown and dark blond for far too long.

I decided that I am ready for something new. But what? I've done all kinds of browns, I've done reds, I've done burgundy, and I've done more than enough blond. So what's left?

BLACK!

So I got this "natural black" box dye and on top of my blond it was supposed to be just really dark brown, darker than I've gone before. Well it worked much better than it said, because it came out BLACK BLACK. Surprisingly, it didn't wash out my skin at all....that's just how white I always am :) But I decided that it was too flat. There was no texture or dimension to it. So I went to the salon and had them put in some dimension.

It's hard to see in this pic, but we added copper highlights on top of the black! It looks SOOOOOOO good up close, especially in the sun-light. It's not brassy at all, it's just coppery :)

I got a hair cut too! The layers that were added just add to the texture and make my hair look more full (in person, not so much in the pics) than it actually is.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE my new hair style and color and think I'll be keeping up the black and copper for a while :) I'm a new me...it's time for new hair :)

Childhood Delights

Last weekend Kristopher and I went to this wonderful used book store. First let me side track myself to say that I LOVE used book stores! So many books get forgotten and end up in dumps when the same books are being bought brand new from cheap websites. If more people bought USED books, then maybe we wouldn't be going through our trees so quickly!

Anyway, back on track.

I found a section for screenplays (something I'd never even known existed before) and found all these wonderful screen plays of some of my favorite movies! These are the actual scripts that the actors used!

I only bought this one from Sense and Sensibility, but there are so many others I'd love to own. It's so much fun reading through this and reading the side notes that the actors were following. This specific book/screen play also includes diaries kept by the actors while shooting. When I get a chance to read this all the way through I'll have to post a separate blog about it.

Some others that I'll have to look for (they're pretty old so I'm not sure they even exist) are the screen plays to: Gone With The Wind, An Affair To Remember, and maybe one of the Harry Potter movies too :)

I wasn't able to find this one at the used book store, but it's one of my childhood favorites and I just had to have it! My Father's Dragon, Elmer and the Dragon, and The Dragons of Blueland are all included in this one book called Three Tales of My Father's Dragon. I LOVE LOVE LOVE these books from when I was a kid. They're super easy reads...probably a 3rd grade level of reading. But they're just wonderful and magical and make you want pink lollipops :) If/when I ever rub elbows with people in Hollywood, it is one of my top goals to see that these books are made into a movie or movies :) They'd be so good.

Lastly, we bought a Where's Waldo? book! Kristopher and I both used to love these when we were kids. We thought it would be fun to sit around on the couch and "find" Waldo together. We were so excited. Well...it was fun, only it was a LOT harder when we were younger, lol :) He's not so hard to find now. Thankfully the books now come with more people and things to find than just Waldo, so we'll be able to enjoy the book for a little while more before we re-gift it or donate it. It's still just loads of fun though.

No one ever said that just because you grow up that you can no longer enjoy children's books. In fact, I feel that children's books will always be my favorite type of literature :)