I'm feeling rather bookish lately

I've really wanted to join a book club of some sort. I need to do something to get my English brain fired up again. I was thinking about it and had the crazy thought of reading my way through the BBC's top 100 books.

It might not be as bad as it sounds. I've already read 25 of them. Another 25 I've started, hated, and put down. The other 25 I'm pretty sure I already own, and the last 25 I've never heard of. So it looks like I should get to reading, eh?

Maybe I could do the 200 list?

Special Find

I was stalking my friend Caitlin's blog and happened upon a little gem of a blog that I'm completely nuts about: Married to the Military. Her layout is flawless, her writing style is charming, and her three kids are so freakin' adorable!
It's great to see how much care she puts into motherhood and refreshing to read her posts about trying to balance it all. We're both balancing different things, but I still want my house to look nice at the end of the day and to be with the ones I love just as much as she does.

In fact I would love to have kids and just take beautiful pictures of them all day. Oh mercy, that's a dream in and of itself. Very cute and I'll definitely be following...and possibly re-doing things around here.

Feels good to be blogging again, ya'll. Feels dang good. 

Attack the Fat Challenge

For the past 6 weeks Steven and I have participated in the Attack the Fat Challenge at our local gym. It's just like the Biggest Loser and boy are we losers! (Definite pun intended) We meet with our trainer, Tammy, 3 nights a week for an hour and she goes about the process of kicking our butts!

I've always liked to work out once I get used to it and I feel great! I've got muscles I didn't know it was possible to even get and I can go for days. One week before a weigh-in, I did an hour of spin before our hour workout and after that I went to town to run errands, and I was still too buzzed to sleep. I love all the energy.

I'm back into my 12's which are now almost loose. Go figure. I'm back to where I was when I graduated from college and more so. After our move I got super depressed and ate and ate and ate and ate. It didn't help that Steven and I ate out all the time. We've completely stopped eating out and it's reflected in our waistlines and pocketbooks...eating out is incredibly expensive. Go figure. It also feels like we're more of a family since we take time to at least have lunch together. I still entertain the idea that we will have dinner together every night once I finally leave retail. I guess that means I'll need some recipes soon. Oh, domestic felicity!

The hardest part is trying to keep my food journal. It does help keep me in line, but it's a complete pain to remember to fill it out. For the most part I've given up all sodas. I have about 1 diet soda a week. That has been the hardest part since I love, and I mean love, love it so much I'd marry it, diet soda. The trainers explanation was that the fake sugars can actually convince your body it's real sugar and therefore it will make you hungrier...and I know, soda is the devil. It's a painful process...an exorcism really.

I've lost a lot of inches everywhere except on my arms...those have gained a ton of muscle. Even in my forearms...I wasn't aware that women could have muscle there, but apparently we can. I told my trainer I'd bulk up a lot if we did a lot of muscle training, and I have, but the muscle will burn the fat. However, I'm starting to think that I'm getting too much arm muscle because I can't find shirts that fit in the arms. I've been getting into smalls and tight mediums, but only if the armholes are big enough. It's frustrating...but I do really like the guns...I show them off...a lot. In fact, I like to show off a lot of things now. Just the other day I started a conversation with a friend off by stating: "By the way, my ass looks amazing, just thought you should know." Really, I did. Maybe that makes me vain or whatever, but I've been a fattie for a long time and I really enjoy not being so big. It's a mood booster and I just want to get everyone working out with me.

By next week I hope to have gone down into the next weight bracket, aka to have lost 10 pounds total. The program ends in 2 weeks, but they will be doing another thing in between the next 8 week challenge. I'm determined to keep losing weight. Determined I tell you!

And don't worry, I'll soon be selling tickets to the gun show. :D

My 23rd Birthday

It's really hard to believe that my birthday is in 15 days, at which time, I will be 23. 23 is such an odd birthday. I mean, you don't get the hype of 21 or the satisfaction of 25, so you're just kind of stuck.

I'm constantly having to remind myself that I'm 22. I don't look or act like a 22 y.o., but Steven and I aren't like our peers and I really love that about us. We've finished college, gotten a house, and made it through a year of living together (gee whiz, I can't believe it). After a year with my Steven, I have to say that now that I know all this little habits I love him more than I did. Not only have we accomplished all that, we have great jobs where we just keep moving up. We're definitely a power couple.

So what do I want for my birthday? I really want to quit my second job. Working so much has definitely taken away from my Steven time and has totally contributed to a messy house! My house projects take 4 times the amount of time to get done and I really miss the accomplishment of getting things done. I tried to hire a cleaning service, but I didn't even have time to schedule an appointment with them and I tried 2 different times! You know you're too busy when you can't even find time to hire someone to help you stay that busy with out a lot of stress. Of course working would be the way I paid for the cleaning service, but if I didn't work so much I'd be able to clean it myself.

It's a catch 22...or make that a catch 23.

I Do Fondue

For Steven's mother's birthday we went to this great restaurant in Reston called The Melting Pot. They specialize in extremely expensive and delectable fondue.

I highly recommend giving it a try! The meal is 4 courses:

The first is a cheese fondue appetizer that you get bread and veggies to dip in. We picked 2 different cheeses and went to town. I mean it's gooey cheese, there is nothing bad to say about that!

Second, was a very refreshing salad! I got the Caesar salad that had sweet pine nuts sprinkled on top. Tres yummy.

Third, comes the broth fondue. Since this was my first time trying fondue I had never heard of this or seen it done, but you use the broths to actually cook the food. I got the vegetarian platter with tofu, asparagus, a few pastas and other assorted veggies. The rest of the family actually got to cook meats in the brew. It was so interesting! Lots of giggles around the table since we couldn't get things to stay on the long forks and had to go fishing for lost bits of food.

Last, and they really do save the best for last, was the chocolate fondue! Oh, heaven! We got the ying-yang (dark and white chocolate mixed together) and the peanut butter milk chocolate...it has actual peanut butter melted in. With that, you get to dip cheesecake, pound cake, strawberries, brownies, and all sorts of amazing-ness in the rich chocolate cauldrons.

All in all, I wish that I could go there for desert every day. A few folks around the office do homemade fondue and actually make homemade marshmallows for the event. I think this might be in my entertaining future...

Oh, not-so-posh reading...

In the last 2 months or so, I've polished off 8 of 9, soon to be 10, of the Sookie Stackhouse novels. Now I know that these are not epic literature, but I figure after 4 years of complete devotion to the cannon of English Literature I'm allowed to read trashy, American backwater vampire novels, right?

Well I certainly think so. I do love me a vampire or two, and I'm talking real bloodsucking vampires that can't go out in the day and don't sparkle. I also love a stronger female lead who, while loving a vampire, can still tell him to piss-off.

I'm trying to finish the books before I watch the TV series based on the books: TrueBlood. From what I've heard, they are very loosely related. Most book to video renditions are and I'm trying to get used to that.

If you haven't read them, they're almost charming; especially if you grew up in a similar country town that only has a Walmart (nothing says home like Walmart). They're full of a lot of interesting fantasy elements: vampire hierarchy, werewolves, weretigers, lots of were-animals, fairy godmothers, and all sorts of supes.

So all and all they're great to pass the time because they're entertaining, but they aren't going to expand your mind. I've been trying to find/start a book club so that I can read some good stuff! I miss class discussion in college. That was the best!

Christopher Hitchens' memoir comes out in July and we've already got tickets to hear him speak about it in DC sponsored by the Center for Inquiry. SCORE! The man is an atheist rock-star. I highly recommend his book God is Not Great or his works on George Orwell (I'm still trying to get through that one).

I just started reading Mary Poppins! I found it while wondering through Barnes and Noble the other week and I swiped it up because I didn't even know it was a book. Of course, most Disney stories are. How silly of me not to have thought of that! So far it's almost dead-on with the movie. Although, the Julie Andrews Mary is much nicer than the book version portrays her.

I've just realized that I've been reading a good bit of children and young adult works lately. I read the entire Percy Jackson series: brilliant, brilliant, brilliant books! I actually had to look up a lot of the Greek stories and I took Greek and Roman Myth in college. I think they're a great way for kids to learn about the old stories because they'll have to look stuff up, or at least read the Odyssey to really get everything. The characters are amazingly thought out! Rick Riordan definitely figured out a way to modernize the Greek gods and still keep there personalities. The movie was a complete waste of time, of course. We saw it as our Valentine's treat this year. It was great to get out to the movies since we never go, but I spent the entire time going "What? That never happened" "Why did they leave out this very major character?" "What do you mean the gods can't interact with their kids?" "Why'd they cast that person as this character?" etc. Oh it was so bad!

As you can tell I've been a busy reader! I love that I can fit time in to read. I just wish I could start fitting in time to do other things like paint, clean, or get myself new work pants! One day.