Sunday Selections: Stephanie Plum Series

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Don't get me wrong, I enjoy reading "the classics," and other older books. You have to really be able to concentrate when you read them though; the vocabulary is higher than a lot of today's books (especially when they use French... it makes me feel stupid for not knowing French!), and they have a very formal attitude. People back then were very formal compared to modern life, and I'm okay with that. But sometimes I need to read something that requires a little less concentration. Something fun and quick. Normally these are classified as beach reads, or vacation reads. And right now I'm in love with a mystery series by Janet Evanovich.

I got one of her books in my Easter basket this year, and I burned through it in no time. The main character is Stephanie Plum, born and raised in Trenton, New Jersey. She makes a living as a bounty hunter, despite her clumsiness and thanks to her good luck. The series is full of likable characters, and when I finished the book I knew that I have to go back to the beginning of the series and read them all. So far, I've finished the first two books in the series of 18, and am looking forward to stopping at the library to grab the next few books!

The first book, One for the Money, was made into a movie a few years ago with Katherine Heigel as Stephanie Plum. I remember wanting to see it, and now that I've read the book I definitely need to track it down! Have you guys been reading anything good lately?

This weekend started out slow, and ended quickly! Saturday was cold and rainy. I used the weather as an excuse to not run this week (I only ran once), so I'm going to redo week 2 of couch to 5k this week. Today was sunny and warm, and the perfect day for rugby! We played a tough team, and put up a good fight. Afterwards, my boyfriend visited and gave me the best birthday present ever. A panini press! I see many amazing sandwiches in my future... We also played 36 holes of mini golf, and I thoroughly kicked his butt. And I got a hole-in-one!

 Upper Left: Chopping peppers for fajitas. Upper Right: Baby birds in a nest out front. Lower Left: Getting ready for a team picture for rugby. Lower Right: The Boy attempting to beat me at mini-golf.

Claws and Paws: Scallops with dots

I'm still crazy about my dotting tool. This week, I did a manicure inspired by this Pinterest find:

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I did two layers of the OPI grey on my nails, then did the scallops with my dotting tool and OPI Kiss Me on My Tulips. I used the pink to color in the rest of the scalloped edge, and went back with the grey and my dotting tool to do the accent dots.

I like the accent nail, but I guess not everyone is into it. Several people have complimented me on my nails, and then said, "but why is that one a different color?"

In other news, I'm in week 2 of Couch to 5k! And I didn't die yet! I'm hoping that coaching rugby has kept me in decent enough shape that I can do the whole Couch to 5k program without too much pain. I only have a week and a half left in rugby season, so soon I'll be able to fit my running into my schedule more easily. I can't believe the year is drawing to a close already! There are only 28 days of school left before summer. Ahh! I'm trying not to panic about not landing a job yet, and focus on happy things (like knitting and cats).

Weekend Recap: 4/20-4/22

I love weekends. I get to sleep in, and most weekends I get to see my boyfriend! The best part of all: Soooo much knitting time. There are some weekends where I barely leave the couch because I'm so into my knitting projects. Lately, I've had to split my attention between knitting and watching the hockey playoffs (Go Caps!).

During my spare time on Friday, I was playing with these great wallpapers from Smashing Magazine. I wanted a cute bunting wallpaper for my iphone, but I didn't like the dark brown background it had. So I used some handy dandy photo editing, and this is what I came up with:

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The cutting wasn't perfect, so I may go back and clean it up. But I love the bunting and the cheerful colors!

Couch to 5k: Week 1, Day 1

Last year I inspired convinced forced my roommate to start running with me. I figured it would be good to get away from our student teaching and endless internet games, and run in circles around the tiny (1/10 mi.) elevated track at our school's gym. Despite our best attempts to fail (food poisoning, student teaching, extreme laziness), we worked our way up to running 5k! For those non-science-y people, that's ~3.1 miles. I never got in the habit of working out on a regular basis until last year's C25k, and I enjoyed it a lot. Okay, that's a lie. I hated every step of running. But I loved how I felt afterwards. When I moved back home for the summer, I didn't have my roommate around to run with, and I stopped. For a few months now I've been telling myself to start again, and I'm finally pulling the trigger. Apparently standing around as a coach while your players practice for 2 hours doesn't count as fitness?

Sunday Selections: King Solomon's Mines

Ever since I received my Kindle, I've been reading a lot.  Seriously, a lot. I've read over 20 books since 2012 began, so I've decided to started a new feature: Sunday Selections. Each Sunday, I will post what I'm currently reading. They will be short, sweet, and to the point (I know who in my family is the book reviewer... and it's not me!).

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Sunday Selections

Date: April 15, 2012

Book: King Solomon's Mines

Author: Sir H. Rider Haggard

In an attempt to read more classics, I have decided to go through and read all the books that have characters featured in the movie League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. The books include The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Invisible Man, Dracula, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and Dr. Jeckyll & Mr. Hyde. I wasn't sure where Sean Connery's character came from until I researched the movie (and the comic books it was based on). His character is Allan Quatermain, a British big game hunter. King Solomon's Mines was the first of many books featuring Quatermain, and is based in what is now known as South Africa. Quatermain joins a quest to find the lost diamond mines of King Solomon, and also to find the missing brother of one of his companions.

The book was written in the 1885, so I was a little worried about it being boring. It's actually been a fun read so far. It's always interesting to see how indigenous people are portrayed in old books like this (not very well), and just the daily customs of the British in the 1800s are so different from our own that I'm sucked in. My only complaint so far is that the book uses a fair amount of South African and Zulu slang. Or what I can assume is South African and Zulu slang, because my Kindle has no idea what most of the slang words are. There was one that was defined as slang, and so I'm assuming the rest are as well.

I'm over halfway through the book, and the adventurer's are getting close to where they think the diamonds are, so I'm excited to see what happens next!

Claws & Paws: Polka Dots

This week, I tried out this tutorial for making my own dotting tool. Of course, I immediately had to test it out! I went with a simple design: Just a base color, with a dark polka dot on top.

Please excuse the poor photography... My polish colors and my dotting tool.

Polka dots!

This week has gone by really quickly. I got back from camping Monday morning, and was out of town all day Tuesday for a job interview (keep your fingers crossed for me!). So my first day back at work was yesterday, and it's almost Friday already! Even better: Tomorrow is dress down day at work. I can be comfy in jeans and Chuck Taylors all day.

I've been zooming through the Firefly bag I'm working on too. I've just finished the body, and I need to learn how to do an I-cord bind off before I go any further. When I finish, I can go pick cute fabrics for the lining (and ask my mom for a lot of sewing help...). Happy (almost) Friday!

Lace Detail. I'm using a yarn that's a blend of hemp, cotton and rayon. Perfect for a study summer bag!

Body of the purse.

Spring Break 2012

I miss spring break. My college always gave us a two week spring break, and it was wonderful. I would just go home, relax, and catch up with all of my hometown friends. Now I'm working at a public middle school, and I get a spring break of 5 days (2 of which are the weekend). Not only that, but two of those days are built in snow days. If we had missed any days due to winter weather, our spring break would have been only three days long! That's no break at all.

Luckily, I got all five days off! I spent them camping with my boyfriend in Cape Henlopen State Park, Delaware. Despite the cold night (40º = brr!), it was really fun. We got to hike a lot, spent a lot of time lounging and reading, and caught up with a college friend in Rehoboth Beach. We even managed to find a mini golf course! As always, I didn't take enough pictures, but here is what I took:

Our lovely campsite.

An extremely attractive picture of yours truly. Also, what happens when you live in about 3 layers and a hat for several days on end.

Beach hike. Rocking the college hoodies and sunburn.

In which my inner child comes out.

Ocean <3

...I'm a fan of soda art, okay?

I found a yarn store! And promptly purchased some squishy sock yarn :)

The yarn store.

It was my first vacation with The Boy, and we had a really good time. We're trying to figure out when our work schedules will allow us to take another one! Hope you all enjoyed your breaks too :)

Off The Needles: Parchment Paper Socks

Can we talk about how much I love Madeline Tosh yarn? It's soft and nice and her color choices are amazing. I literally had to stop myself from buying 2 more skeins last weekend (I might regret that now...). I just finished my second pair of socks with this yarn, and I looove them!