Book Reading and Beach Bumming

The beach is great!  I am super tan, I have been eating well (junk food and seafood) and I have been sleeping approximately 10 hours per night.  It's awesome.  I have also been doing a lot of reading. 

Water for Elephants, by Susan Gruen is one of the top 3 books I have ever read.  The main reason why, you ask?  Because I could tell from page one that it would be one of the best books I have ever read.  I have never been so "hooked" in my life.  Wow, what an amazing talent an author has to do that to the reader!  It's also written in the first person from the perspective of the main character, a man.  And how she did that I will never know.  I believe they also made it into a movie, right?  I will have to look that up.

The Memory Keeper's Daughter, by Kim Edwards is what I finished today.  It also happens to be in the top 3!  How luck am I that I got to read two out of the three best books of my life in the same week?  WHOA.  There are about 1 million reasons why The Memory Keeper's Daughter is in the top 3.  The main ones are:

• This book is about truth and dishonesty in human life.  No matter whose side you take or who you relate to the most, you can sympathize with everyone because it is so real and raw.
• Kim Edwards describes scenery like no one else I have ever read.  I absolutely felt like I belonged in the book, at the scene.  Like the book's world was in a little capsule and I poked a hole and slid in.  I could see everything.  For example, I was sitting on the beach and I was reading about a particular scene when the female main characters was knocking off a wasp's nest outside and the wasps were swarming around her.  I seriously felt like there were wasps swarming around me.  I even shooed one away!  But when I looked up, the wasp was real!  It really was there and just happened to stop by my beach chair as I was reading that part of the book. What a coincidence!  I would have felt the same either way, though.  That's how well she described the scenery.
• It made me cry.  Any book that can make me cry immediately gets in the top 3.  (Just so you know, it also happens to be the only book that has ever made me cry).

Have any of you ever read either of these books?  What did you think?

I will end with a beach picture, of course.  This is me, my father-in-law, and a friend, Nicole.  We are sitting on the crow's nest of the house with drinks watching the sunset.  Oh... and acting like goofballs.

What is Heck is Wrong With Me?!

I am on summer vacation and I am not blogging like crazy!  Oh yeah... I just moved.

That's right!!! We bought our house, settled, and moved in!  It's the cutest little house I have ever seen in my frikin' life.  I am absolutely in love.  My friend, Annie, jokingly congratulated us, "Congrats on the new house!  Now everything is going to break!".  Well, thanks, Annie.  Our toilet broke on day 7.

It's just a small fix, though.  We have a huge back yard, a bangin' master bathroom, and the cutest kitchen you have ever seen.  All of the following pictures were taken immediately after we signed the papers and before we moved anything in.

Our cute blue house from the front

The old homeowners left us this :-)

Part of the very-yellow living room

Our also-very-yellow dining room with a very pretty chandelier

My favorite room :-)

Some sweeeet appliances!

Pretty master bedroom... with nothing in it

Our awesome master bathroom!

My enormous walk-in closet.  Josh has one, too, but not quite as large :-)

Guest bathroom upstairs.

We also have a laundry room attached to the kitchen, a half bath downstairs and two guest bedrooms upstairs.  I will try to post more photos as we get settled in.  We have very little furniture and it is probably going to stay that way for quite some time, as we have very little money now that we own our home!  I really want to do some little cheap projects around the house.  I will try to update!

To Apply or Not to Apply...

...that is the question.

I picked up an application for a local (and delicious) coffee shop down the road from our house this morning.  I thought it would be really nice to have some extra dough over the summer.

Then I remembered last summer...

I was finishing up my job.  I had to pack a TON of stuff because my school was moving.  I was saying goodbye to all of my friends that I made during my 4 years of college and during my year of teaching in that city.  I was also saying goodbye to 600 students that I fell in love with.  Then my grandfather got really sick.  I was constantly worried about him and then he passed.  Then I had to miss the last few days of school to be with my family/attend viewings/funerals, etc.  Then I had two weeks before my wedding.  I had to hurry and get ready.  I had a wedding and immediately went on a honeymoon.  Then I came back.  Two days after that, I drove to Salisbury (6hrs away) and signed a lease for a townhouse.  Five days after that, we moved.  Then we went on a family vacation with my family.  Then I got back, set up my new classroom, did some teacher training, and the school year started over again.

I promised myself that I would never allow a summer like that to happen again.

We are also considering buying a house this summer, so that would be a big project in and of itself.

So, yeah, the coffee shop is out.

But Josh's school does offer a summer program that I could be a teacher for.  I could create my own schedule and teach whatever I wanted and get paid WAY more than a coffee shop could pay me.  So, I am considering one or two days a week teaching in Pocomoke.  But no more.  I promise :-)

I VOW to relax, run, and spend time with my husband at the beach!