Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons

Ok, so let me start off by doing some PR for the book, since it seems that is its biggest problem. If you judge books by their covers (who doesn't?), you might never read this one. In my opinion, the title is lame... and while it does play into the book, it misrepresents the nature of the book and probably turns a lot of people off of it who might really enjoy it! After reading the summary, my first thought was, oh, it's like Ya-Ya Sisterhood. It's so not the same... and I'm gonna go w/ it's better than that! Oh, and all the quotes on my book from magazines and other authors made it sound like chick lit. I'm not sure the official definition of chick lit, but I personally wouldn't consider this it. It had a dynamic plot, character development, big words.... it's just *about* women.

It's about a group of 5 women who live on the same street and start up a book club. It kind of chronicles all of the stuff they go through in raising their kids, life with their husbands and various other issues... it's a huge book. I read it super quickly because the writing was awesome, and the characters were great. I really wished they were real, and I'm sad to be done with the book! I think I'll read it again someday... there are a lot of sections that might read really differently after you've had and raised kids. So, note to self: In 30 years, read this book.

I highly recommend this book - it's a quick and engaging read and well worth it.

Photos :)

So, I uploaded some photos on flickr (I upgraded so I have unlimited storage, because face it, I take lots of pictures these days!). My photostream can be found here:
http://flickr.com/photos/24936116@N07/

I'm going to be uploading gradually all the pics I've taken (mostly Thanksgiving & babies), and once I get caught up, I hope to do it more as they're being taken! Stay tuned!


For now, here's the "Sophie" album...

Poisonwood Bible (Finally!)

I finished it on Friday! Yay!

Can I just say I loved this book? It definitely had some rough spots where it was a little hard to read...and in retrospect it probably wasn't the best "easy" book for me to read intermittently through the semester, but I made it work. It's about a family of 4 daughters whose father is a crazy Baptist minister (not implying all Baptists are crazy, this guy was Crazy, capital C!!). They go on a mission to Africa and in doing so, he tries to convert the village to Christianity... (non-spoiler)...it doesn't go well. It's a really interesting glimpse into African life, how different it is from American life, and what the experience does to the family. I really liked how the story was told - through the voices of the daughters. It was surprisingly real and relate-able, even though it was a pretty "out there" story. It took me forever to get to it, and even longer to finish it, but I really enjoyed it and highly recommend it.

Now, I'm reading Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons (my Dec Book Club book)... I love it so far, from what I can tell it's just a book that needs a better title. It's fabulous, but sounds a little weird/scary if you judge books by their covers & titles.

So many pictures!

If ever there was a captionable picture, this is it!! Scott and I are in love w/ our gorgeous and sweet niece, Sophie. We had a fabulous Thanksgiving trip to PA, and for real, I have more pictures than I can handle. I'm trying to figure out a way to share them online that will allow me to post them all... picasa and flickr make you "upgrade" to have more storage.

Those of you waiting on pictures, do you have any preferences on how I upload them? I've been using photobucket, but sometimes that gets annoying, and I'm not sure you can see them if you don't have a login set up there. Any thoughts?

Oh, and I'm *almost* done w/ my last paper, then I get to START READING again! Here's my reading list for December:

Poisonwood Bible (yes, still reading it from like October... skool...)
Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
Black & White (by Lewis Shiner) - about Durham, and was written by a coworker from IBM, it sounds cool.
Eats, Shoots and Leaves
The World is Flat - Thomas Friedman

Ok...that feels like a lot... we'll see :)

Bear with me!

I'm really coming down to "crunch time" on my first full time semester... it flew by all in all, and I can only hope that the next 2.5 weeks also fly by bc dude, then I have an entire month to do the college thing. Now that part - the one where you have a month off? Yeah, that's the good part!

So, we're headed up to PA for Thanksgiving next weekend (and we get to meet our niece! Finally!)

I'm hoping to do fun things with my time off... and surely I'll blog about it! :)

Record: Most pictures taken in a day...

I got a KILLER new camera - it's so much fun!!! It's been a fabulous day - we just ate our weight in fondue and bread at The Melting Pot. Good times. :) It's been a happy day...

Halfing Fun

Yes, that's a cute title, and yes, I thought of it while running 13.1 miles. You get bored out there... Here's "the girls"! These fabulous girls are the ones I've been running with every weekend and some weeknights for the past 3 months. Sometimes I seriously wonder how people train for a half all by themselves - it was so nice to have their company through all the mileage! And of course, you recognize the "tall one" - Nikkkki! We had a great time, even though her first trip to the Outer Banks wasn't quite leisurely :)

Some more pics...


Jockey's Ridge - not that these pictures do it justice :) It was way cool.

A shadow running pic, we're so awesome.

And a "love" pic...lol. At least we have each other...

Here's the Pasta Dinner - it was so delicious! A bunch of the girls got a BIIIG house and then they made us a BIIIIG dinner, so pretty much an awesome set up! :)

does it look like we're sucking it in big time? Bc that pasta is hard to hide... :)


They got us cake! Bill's (Kathleen's husband) birthday was Sunday, and mine is ...coming up tomorrow. So technically, that's a week long celebration, if you count this cake as the beginning... not too shabby!

And here is another post race pic with our medals. Yay! I was so proud - I finished in 2:05:41, which is a 9:36 pace and I remained pretty constant at that. Seeing as my goal originally was "not walking", I kind of amended that once I realized I could do it to under a 10:00/mile... so I'm really pleased with how I did!

Off to the OBX!

I'm so excited! Nikki arrives in a few hours and we're leaving tomorrow morning to the Outer Banks! We're doing the half marathon on Sunday... and I can't believe I'm going to type this, I can't wait to run 13.1 miles.

I should add that I am MOST excited for the pasta dinner tomorrow night with my running buddies and the massages Nik and I are getting Monday morning. All around, a pretty exciting weekend!

A letter to my president

Dear President Obama,

I’m writing to thank you today. To thank you for the tremendous campaign you ran which reached out to new voters, disenfranchised voters – anyone who would listen and open their minds to a new idea of what government should be. McCain’s campaign was as divisive as any campaign I’ve witnessed, and the brainpower Palin brought to the table seriously made me doubt whether I could handle living in America if it went the other way. Seriously.

But, I digress… it didn’t go their way. Praise the Lord – we won. Mr. President, thank you for running as the candidate for change, hope and embodying all that is good and pure in America and Americans. You brought out what is GOOD in us, instead of pandering to the lowest common denominator and playing to our fears and politics of division. I want you to know, I believe in you. I know you can do what you say you can do. And if the campaign is any indication of what you can pull off, we're in for a great four years.

Here’s what I’m excited about: Having a smart president. You obviously are a bright guy, and you are even keeled and good natured. I attended three of your rallies in Raleigh and that much about your personality was obvious. I know this is going to rock! I’m proud to say I voted for you, and proud to say I shook your hand a year ago.

Good luck!

Jamie

- - -

Have you guys watched the Will.I.Am video again since he won? If not, grab a tissue or two and watch this... it's amazing. Oh, and NC is blue - the cookies worked! Yay!

Blue North Carolina?

If only just for tonight, Blue NC (cookies)! :) Do you think election Santa will come if we leave them out tonight??

We don't know what'll happen tomorrow...but since I'm *such* a good sport about March Madness and all that, I got Scott to do some Electoral Map predictions w/ me... here's what we think!

Jamie:
Electoral: Obama 351 (including a Blue NC... a girl can dream!, PA, OH, Montana! and a Red Florida. I just think the senior citizens will go for a peer.)
Popular Vote: Obama 55%, McNasty 41%

Scott:
Electoral: Obama 329 McCain 209 (I think he copied my map and just changed one so the teacher wouldn't notice.)
Popular Vote: 51% Obama, 48% McCain

If any readers want to make predictions - please comment! Here's the site where we found the interactive maps!