My 2010 Reading List

I kept track of what I read last year, so I decided to do it again. I might be missing a couple of books though. I haven't really had time to read these past months, but here's my list:

1. Evernight / Claudia Gray.

2. The ten best days of my life / Adena Halpern.

3. Blood is the new black : a novel / Valerie Stivers.

4. Nine Months in August / Adriana Bourgoin

5. The Picture of Dorian Gray / Oscar Wilde

6. Dune road / Jane Green.

7. Private / Kate Brian

8. The Time Traveler's Wife / Audrey Niffenegger

9. Sleepless Nights / Sarah Bilston

10. Mommy Tracked / Whitney Gaskell

11. Stargazer / Claudia Gray

12. Real Food for Mother and Baby / Nina Planck

13. Veracity / Laura Bynum

14. A Big Little Life: A Memoir of a Joyful Dog / Dean Koontz

15. Double Identity / Margaret Peterson Haddix

16. Dirty Little Secrets / C. J. Omololu

17. 24-Karat Kids / Dr. Judy Goldstein and Sebastian Stuart

18. Unwind / Neal Shusterman

19. The Maze Runner / James Dashner

20. Uglies / Scott Westerfeld

21. Pretties / Scott Westerfeld

22. Birth Marked / Caragh M. O'Brien

23. The Adoration of Jenna Fox / Mary Pearson

24. The Line / Teri Hall

25. If I Stay / Gayle Forman

26. Everything Beautiful in the World / Lisa Levchuk

27. Sara's Face / Melvin Burgess

28. Baby Laughs / Jenny McCarthy

29. Hourglass / Claudia Gray

30. The Seven Year Bitch / Jennifer Belle

31. What Do You do All Day? / Amy Scheibe

32. Heart of the Matter / Emily Giffin

33. Promises to Keep / Jane Green

34. Nobel Genes / Rune Michaels

Yesterday

I had another one of my prenatal appointments yesterday morning. I got to listen to the heartbeat again. It's still an amazing feeling hearing that little sound :) I gained 1/2 lb this time. I also scheduled our first ultrasound for June 9th, where if the little baby cooperates, we'll be able to tell the sex. I can't wait!

Later that evening, I headed over to a Barnes and Nobles, where The Pioneer Woman was having a book signing. It started at 6pm, but I got there until 6:30. I knew there would be lots of people, but I still didn't expect to stand in line for almost 4 hours! It was still worth it :) I got my cook booked signed and of course this picture of us (Yes, I desperately need a haircut).

Oh, I also saw Katie, Chris and the Bean at the book signing. They blog over at Marriage Confessions, I wanted to go say hi and maybe even take a picture with them, but since I was by myself, I felt too shy... as it is, I had no idea what to even say to the pioneer woman, oh well!

My 2009 Reading List

I might be forgetting some, but for the most part, here they are... don't judge me ;)

1. Split : a memoir of divorce / by Suzanne Finnamore
2. The gatecrasher / Madeleine Wickham
3. The yummy mummy : a novel / Polly Williams
4. Anyone but you / Jennifer Crusie
5. Four blondes / Candace Bushnell
6. Instant love : fiction / Jami Attenberg
7. The men I didn't marry : a novel / Janice Kaplan & Lynn Schnurnberger
8. Dumbfounded : a memoir / Matt Rothschild
9. Your best birth : know all your options, discover the natural choices, and take back the birth experience / Ricki Lake and Abby Epstein
10. Valley of the dolls : a novel / Jacqueline Susann
11. Chemical pink / Katie Arnoldi
12. Queen takes king : a novel / Gigi Levangie Grazer
13. Manhunting / Jennifer Crusie
14. Mommy by mistake / Rowan Coleman
15. Summer blowout / Claire Cook
16. Jacqueline Susann's Shadow of the dolls / by Rae Lawrence.
17. The baby trail : a novel / Sinead Moriarty
18. I'm down : a memoir / Mishna Wolff
19. Twenties girl : a novel / Sophie Kinsella
20. The husband habit / Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez
21. Little face / Sophie Hannah
22. Notes from the underbelly / Risa Green
23. Belong to me / Marisa de los Santos
24. Along for the ride : a novel / by Sarah Dessen
25. The penny pinchers club / Sarah Strohmeyer
26. Life as we knew it / Susan Beth Pfeffer
27. Best friends forever : a novel / Jennifer Weiner
28. Twilight / Stephenie Meyer
29. New Moon / Stephenie Meyer
30. Eclipse / Stephenie Meyer
31. Breaking Dawn / Stephenie Meyer
32. The Host / Stephenie Meyer

We're back!

I'm so glad that Mike decided to spend Thanksgiving with his dad and his family, it was worth the 13 hour drive... not that I did any driving, but still, I had to try very hard not to fall asleep. Lily did really well on her first long road trip too. We left Monday morning and were back home last night around midnight.

It was nice being around a lot of people, I really miss that here. Everyone was very happy to see Mike. I also think they liked me, it was their first time meeting me... they sent me home with lots of goodies... among them the Pioneer Woman cookbook and a cast iron skillet to try some of her recipes, how cool is that?!

We had a delicious Thanksgiving dinner. I even made a pumpkin pie, but for some reason I didn't like the way it came out, I'll have to make another one here at home. The weather was perfect, nice and cold. They said it wasn't very pretty because all the leaves already fell off the trees, but it was still a nice change of scenery for me.

November

And it's still hot around here... Sorry for the lack of posts, but I started to work for the US Census again, this time as a Recruiter Assistant. I have to find people in my area to apply for Census jobs, find locations where I can administer the test required to be hired and administer the test myself.

I was really freaking out last week, we only had 3 days of training, the rest of the days I kind of helped and listened to other recruiters administer the test. I was at the main office last week, so it wasn't that bad, this week I really need to go recruit and find locations. I also get to administer my first test tomorrow all by myself *gulp*

Other than that, I sold 3 paintings from Sugar Village the other day, that was cool! They were some of my personal favorites too. I don't know when I'll have time to work on new ones now, which sucks! I did however, purchase a set of pens that I use on my paintings, my very first Ebay purchase.

Another thing that I'm a bit embarrassed in sharing is that, I am slightly obsessed with the Twilight books. Yes, I used to make fun of them, until I saw the first book at the library and decided to give it a try. Omg, now I can not stop reading them! I'm on the second book now. How did this happen?! Ok, you can stop laughing at me now...

Well, I guess I better go get my clothes and lunch ready for work and also organize some paper work for the tomorrows test... who am I kidding, I'm just going to go read New Moon, muahahaha!

Hello there August!

My friend Paola that lives in Cancun is coming to visit in two weeks. She'll be staying with us for a week. Then my mom arrives a week after her. I'm excited about seeing them, I haven't seen my mom since we went to California for thanksgiving.

This past Thursday I helped my friend Isabelle with a photo shoot. It was really fun! I hope I have the opportunity to assist her in other shoots she might have. I even got to ride in her cute smart car... yes, I get excited about these things he he.

We've made a few more changes to our diet. We are now buying grass fed beef, butter and when we can, heavy cream. We also started drinking raw milk... I was scared of trying the raw milk at first, but it is really good! Other than that, we're still on our low carb diet. I'm reading Real Food: What to Eat and Why, it's pretty much just a refresher of everything I've already learned.

Lately, we've been using Julia Child's Mastering The Art of French Cooking cookbook. Many of the recipes call for a dutch oven. So, since we can't really afford to buy a Le Creuset right now, we bought a Lodge enameled cast iron dutch oven. We used it today to make coq au vin... even Lily approved. How was your weekend?

Happy

I am done with the census job for now. I turned in all my materials, badge and hand held computer this past Friday. I'm glad I didn't have to quit and that we were just done with our work. They said we would still be in the system, so if they need help with other things, they might call us back.

I made a few sales at my Etsy store this weekend. I have a weekend deal over at Paper Cakes Finds Blog. That really cheered me up since I've had very low sales lately. Now I feel motivated to keep creating new things. So this week, I'll start working on new designs.

I also noticed that I was on Etsy's front page today, which is a big deal for Etsy sellers! I knew because I had a bunch of new hearts. Thankfully, there's this Flickr page were users upload screenshots of the front page. So I was able to see where I was featured.

This week I'm reading a book called Birth Day by Mark Sloan. I've only read about a chapter so far, but it has very interesting facts about child birth, I think it'll be an informative read. That's all I have for you. Have a great week!

Hello there!

Yes I know, I've been neglecting my blog lately. Nothing too exciting has happened. Mike was in Ohio for a couple of days for work last week. Driving is getting a bit better, I noticed my knuckles are not white and my hands sweaty anymore from gripping the steering wheel so hard. I haven't been painting or photographing anything. This job has sucked all creative inspiration from me.

On the other hand, I did get many interesting books from the library this weekend. The list is long, but I started with Dumbfounded: Big Money. Big Hair. Big Problems. Or Why Having It All Isn't for Sissies by Matt Rothschild. Honestly, I do pick my books based on their cover, 8 out of 10 times I'm right and pick out (in my opinion) good books that way. The author in 27 years old and lives in Orlando. It's about a Jewish boy growing up in the Upper East Side, it's pretty hilarious.

We also got around to watching Slumdog Millionaire this weekend, and of course I loved it. I'm so glad I was not disappointed. Another great movie we watched this weekend was called Phoebe in Wonderland, I highly recommend it. Elle Fanning is such a great actress! I didn't even realize she was Dakota's sister when I saw her in Babel (another favorite of mine).

Ok, that is all, have a good week!