Blog Tag

So the blogosphere has been playing this giant game of blog tag in the last couple of days. I actually got tagged by two different people, both Lauren at Oh Lordy and Jill at Strawberry Blonde Life. Soooo ... I decided not to be an overachiever, and just picked the questions from each of them that I wanted to answer. Luckily some of their questions were similar!

1. When did you start blogging?
I started my first blog in 2002. I don't remember why, but it was probably because some friend of mine had one and therefore I had to have one too. I mainly wrote about my day-to-day life. I imagine it was really boring to read. Since then I've changed topics and blogs a handful of times, since I get bored easily. I got serious about posting regularly after blogging for Weddingbee.

2. If you won the lottery, what would be one big splurge that you would make?
I would be the most boring person ever to win the lottery, I'm sure. I'd want to save it all so I could afford to retire, travel, do fun things and never have to worry about the monehz. But ... I would want to buy a few pairs of designer shoes. Just because. Maybe some Jimmys or Manolos or Loubs. Or the entire Zappos warehouse. You know, by accident.

I should not have Googled Jimmy Choo. Now I need to find $595 so I can own these.

3. What is your favorite meal to cook?
Corn chowder. Not because it's particularly fun to make, but because it makes Matt really happy. And it's freaking delicious.

4. What was one of your most memorable dates?
Obviously when we first got together, we had a lot of high school events to go to, like prom and band banquets and graduations. But some of my favorite pre-college dates were when we would drive down to the lake and have picnics and wade around in the water until it got dark, then we'd sit in the back of Matt's truck and watch the stars and eat gummi bears, because those were Matt's favorite. It's not that it's a particularly memorable moment, but I like it since it's right at the beginning. :)

5. Do you have a pet? If so, how did you come about naming her?
My kitty-boo, Elliott, is a girl. She got her name because I used to watch Scrubs all the time, and I really liked the name Elliott for a girl. Also, I knew Matt would never let me name any future girl children that, and I couldn't let the name go to waste.

Wut?

6. What was your favorite board game to play as a child?
My family used to play the board game Trouble, where the dice is in a little "poppable" bubble in the center of the board. My dad would always say he wasn't going to play unless he got to be green.

Source.

7. If you could live in any chapter of U.S. history, which would you pick and why?
The only history class I ever really liked was Tudor England, when we studied King Henry VIII and his wives and all the drama that went on there. I think I would enjoy that time period, so long as I wasn't one of the wives. It would have made for a lot of good town gossip, and that would have been fun.

8. What is your biggest pet peeve?
I really hate the phrase "pet peeve."

9. What is a popular travel destination you honestly have no interest in visiting?
I know a lot of people that have always loved the idea of going to Africa and going on a safari, but I have never had any desire to go to Africa. In fact, I've had a lot of desire to NOT go to Africa, for a totally ridiculous reason. I'm a major hypochondriac, and in the seventh grade, we learned about the Ebola virus. I'm pretty sure that day scarred me for life, because I spent the next four years convinced I was going to somehow contract it, even though it had only ever been found in one part of Africa. So the irrational part of my brain is convinced that I will pick up some fatal disease if I go.

Not even if I could see all the cute kitties this close.

10. If you could meet three celebrities (real or dead), who would you choose?
It's almost too hard to pick just three! So I'm going to say Tina Fey, Kristen Bell and Kristin Chenoweth. When I grow up, I want to be all three of them, plus with Kate Middleton's hair. They're all just such brilliant, funny ladies.

11. What has been your life's proudest moment?
I think I have several profound, proud moments, but my most recent one has been starting my own business and growing it, and hearing my husband say he's proud of me for doing so.


I'm not going to tag anyone, but my question for you is: What one thing makes you happier than anything else in the world?

Fifty-Two Books: Giveaway Winner!

Thank you to everyone who entered my book giveaway last week! I'm really excited to check out some new books!

The winner of a copy of "Sarah's Key" by Tatiana de Rosnay is:

Please e-mail me your mailing address and I'll send the book to you!

Making Our House Our Home

Don't forget, tomorrow is the last day to enter the book giveaway!

—————

Today I want to talk about "starter houses" — you know, the house you buy because you're going to be living in the same place for at least a couple of years, but that you know you won't be staying in forever. Our current townhouse is a "starter." We have owned it for two years, and we'll be here for about two more, until Matt graduates with his Ph.D.

Where I've been struggling lately is toeing the fine line between wanting to make changes to this house to make it more "us," and knowing that any major changes we make will probably affect how we eventually sell.

For example, our recent, minor backyard renovation. We got sick of looking at the ugly crabgrass, so it had to go. It wasn't expensive to fix, but chances are good it will not increase the value of our home. (We have one of the nicer townhomes on our street, which is right on the edge of the sketchy part of town. We don't imagine we'll be getting anything out of our home, other than what we put into it in the first place, no matter how many awesome changes we make.)

Which leads me to our ongoing dilemma. Our kitchen.

I'm not a fan of the "white" laminate countertops. We've gone back and forth about whether to replace them, because they stain and chip ridiculously easily. I also recently suggested painting our cabinets to something that isn't orange wood. While Matt didn't specifically have a problem with my wanting teal cabinets (inspired by this pin, though the color is not teal), he commented that we'd probably have to paint them back to a normal color before we tried to sell, and that maybe two years of enjoyment isn't enough for the the effort it would take to fix them in the first place.

How long do you think you should plan to live in a house before you feel comfortable making changes to make it "your own"?

Fifty-Two Books: A Giveaway

I'm not giving away 52 books. Just one.

As I mentioned in my last book post, I somehow wound up with two copies of the novel "Sarah's Key" by Tatiana de Rosnay. Chances are very good that my grandma read it for her book club and gave it to me, then her other book club decided to read it, so she bought it again and gave it to me again. This is how I come by about half of the books I own. Her book clubs have very good taste.

But anyway, I had two copies and since I loved this book so much, I want to share it with someone else. So I'm giving one of them away!

If you want to enter, leave me a comment telling me what your favorite book is and why it's your favorite. I'll use a randomizer to pick a winner on Monday!

No one is compensating me or anything for this giveaway. This is all me.

Fifty-Two Books: Part 3

What have I been reading lately? Just a little of this and a little of that. Oh, and these.

11 & 12) "Catching Fire" and "Mockingjay" by Suzanne Collins

Obviously, since I read the first one I had to finish the whole series. That's what happens when the ending of every book is a giant cliffhanger. But I'm really glad I re-read the whole series, because I was shocked by how much I didn't remember after the first time I read it. Like, obviously a lot of people die because this is a demented series, but I had forgotten who. And why. And that whole thing with the hijacking. And most of the stuff about the war. So if you haven't read it in a while — or like me, rushed through it too fast the first time — I recommend going back and taking another go at it. It's still just as riveting if you go slow, and I think I'll hopefully remember more this time. (Bonus: Allison hosted a great discussion of the third book over on The Book Lovers' Nest a few weeks ago, if you're like me and still can't get enough of these books!)

13) "Love Wins" by Rob Bell

My Bible study group decided to read this together. We had previously watched some of Pastor Bell's Nooma videos and really enjoyed the unique perspectives he has on faith and the Bible, so we figured it would make an interesting discussion. Hoo boy. This was a short book, but a very intense read. Bell discusses the Christian vision of "heaven" and "hell," and argues that we've got it all wrong when it comes to judging God's character and the way He operates when it comes to life and death. He argues that God doesn't have a massive personality switch the second we die in which he stops loving us and determines if we should be punished for eternity, the way we have made Him out to appear. In a book chock full of hypothetical questions, he has some excellent points, but our group was not in 100% agreement with every point Bell makes (I'm not sure I even completely understand all of his arguments). However, it was an interesting read on how Christians perceive this life vs. "eternity," as well as why we need to be bringing heaven closer to earth.

14) "No Bullshit Social Media" by Jason Falls and Erik Deckers

This book focused on social media marketing and using social platforms to get a leg-up on your competitors, and outlined general methods for using them and regulating them. A very interesting topic to me, but I thought this book dragged. While it absolutely made some good points, I felt like it was written for: a) a generation that doesn't understand or see the point of social media the way the current generation does; and b) large corporations that do not already have a social media presence and wouldn't know what to do with one if they did. There was a lot of emphasis on damage control and maintaining your brand's image, which was something I hadn't thought of before, but a lot of the information presented seemed like common sense to me, as someone who has been using social media for years. That said, it did have some excellent information and examples of companies utilizing social media successfully as a customer service tool.

15) "D is for Deadbeat" by Sue Grafton


I have read several books in this series, all out of order, but luckily you can read them out of sequence and still get a good, contained story. I like Grafton's novels because they're serious in tone, quick reads, and don't give away every detail of the cases that main character Kinsey Millhone solves, so you can't figure out what the outcome is going to be halfway through the book. In "D," private investigator Millhone is approached by John Daggett, who has just gotten out on parole after being convicted of vehicular manslaughter. Daggett is looking for the teen whose family was killed in the car crash that put him in prison, to make amends with a large sum of money. However, before Millhone can find the teenager, Daggett washes up dead on the shore of the marina. Although the autopsy determines the cause of death to be accidental, Millhone can't let go of her client's task that easily and seeks to complete the job set before her — even if it means getting caught up in a case of murder.

16) "Sarah's Key" by Tatiana de Rosnay


Somehow I wound up with two copies of this book. That should have been a clue that I needed to read it, but it sat on my shelf for about a year and a half before I picked it up. (I blame the cover art.) This historical fiction novel had dual storylines, chronicling the lives of both an 10-year-old girl in the 1940s and a present-day, middle-aged American, both living in Paris. Ten-year-old Sarah's family is Jewish, and the French police have come to arrest her entire family and 13,000 other Jews in the area to take them to the Vélodrome d'Hiver, a stadium used as a holding place before the Jews were transferred to concentration camps in both France and Poland. Sarah does not understand the implications of the police's arrival at her door, and hides her 4-year-old brother by locking him in a cupboard, promising to return for him. In 2002, journalist Julia Jarmond is living in Paris, working on a piece commemorating the 60th anniversary of what has become known as the Vél' d' Hiv' roundup. She is shocked at how little she knew about the city she had been residing in for 25 years, and even more shocked that the French people want to completely forget any responsibility they had in the roundup. In her research, Julia discovers Sarah's family, and — haunted by their story — determines to find out what happened to the little girl that disappeared from the historical records.

What genre is your favorite?