A Beautiful Day

Yesterday I felt inspired so I grabbed my camera and headed over to Brookside Gardens. This is my first time going there all year! I usually like to go in the spring when all the flowers are in full bloom, but now towards the end of July most of the flowers are starting to wilt. Yesterday was perfect weather though. It was hot, but not too humid and I spent a good solid two hours walking around and taking some great shots.

Here are some of my favorites from yesterday:

I love the rich blue of the flower and the softness it evokes and the hard line of the tree trunk behind it.

I've always been a fan of pics with roads or paths in them. It reminds me that there is always an open road to take.

I love the reflection of the clouds in the water.

I'm a linear person and I love clean lines.

This is by far one of my favorite shots. Everything just looks so peaceful and tranquil.

I love the vibrant red of this flower.

I love the splash of sunshine in this flower.



There was something so moving about seeing this hallowed out tree trunk just laying there in its glory.

The Marriage Spell

Although I have been having a really fun summer (more on that later), I have been in a really pissy mood (again, more on that later), that I knew I needed to read a fun trashy romance novel. I headed over to my local library to see if I could find anything that would catch my fancy. I knew I wanted to try a different author since I feel Johanna Lindsey has become stale, but it’s so hard to find a gem in this genre.

And then I came across Mary Jo Putney’s, The Marriage Spell. The premise sounded kinda cheesy, but out of all the authors I picked up, I kept returning to her. The story involves magic, wizards and spells, the dork in me just couldn’t resist!

The tale takes place in England, as all good romance novels should. It’s the early 1800’s and we meet Abigail Barton a gifted wizard and healer. Having magical abilities is a great gift, but is not accepted by general society and the upper crust. Luckily for Abby, she lives in an area where her and her father are respected healers.

As a young boy Jack Langdon, Lord Frayne, was sent to Stonebridge Academy where they beat the propensity of young gentlemen that either have magical talents or are far too interested in magic. After leaving the Academy, Jack has a strong distaste for anything magical.

Until he suffers a life-threatening riding accident where Abby uses her special healing powers to restore his health in exchange for his hand in marriage. Jack must accept the fact that he is married to a powerful wizard and that he may himself have strong magical powers.

With Abby’s help, Jack learns to accept his true nature and overcome his fears toward magic. He respects her and has tremendous pride in his new wife. Slowly you see them fall in love with each other and its really sweet. Instead of each other being the obstacle towards true love, they confront his evil stepfather together, and in doing so brings them closer.

I really enjoyed reading this book and I’m glad I picked it up. It was nice and refreshing that there wasn’t a cat and mouse game with Abby chasing after Jack or vice versa. Instead they got married early into the book and you got to see their relationship develop from mere strangers, to friends and then to lovers.

Although I have this labeled as a trashy romance novel, there wasn’t enough graphic sex to my liking, but what are ya gonna do? This books wasn’t trashy at all, but a very nice well developed love story. I liked how Putney made love magical and that there is real power between two people who are in love. As Jack states, “Together we can face anything Scranton can throw at us.’ This was the magical spell created by marriage he realized. Together they were greater than the sum of their individual parts.”

The Marriage Spell was a nice and easy read and to me wasn’t a cookie cutter romance novel. I liked that the characters did not fight their feelings for each other and instead learned to embrace themselves and grow with one another. I may have found a new go to in the romance genre.

Bookish Meme

I have seen numerous meme's like this before and finally decided to do one. I originally saw this on Once Upon a Bookshelf. Here are the rules:



The instructions:

Look at the list and

Bold those you have read.
Italicize those you intend to read.
Underline the books you LOVE.

1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien (does it count that I have read one book out of the series)
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6. The Bible
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8. 1984 - George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19. The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot
11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12. Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34. Emma - Jane Austen
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
41. Animal Farm - George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52. Dune - Frank Herbert
53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens (I really don’t like Dickens, but had to read him in school)
58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones’ Diary - Helen Fielding
69. Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker
73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett (I’m pretty sure I read this or I may have seen the movie way too many times so I think I have read it)
74. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses - James Joyce
76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal - Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession - AS Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91. . Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad (Hated this book)

92.The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94. Watership Down - Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

See Ya Soon Mr. Nice Guy

This weekend was a bittersweet weekend for me. I said farewell to someone who has become a dear sweet friend to me. You first met him as Mr. Nice Guy. After a few dates, we both realized that there was nothing really there and promised to remain friends, which we actually did.

We didn’t hang out every weekend, but we did make an effort to hang out at least once a month. He was one of my favorite people to go to sporting events with although we never did catch a Skins or Wizard’s game. We always had great conversations and I always felt very relaxed around him and I knew I could always be myself around him with no judgment.

And when he hit a rough patch with his father passing away unexpectedly, I did my best to be there for him. I knew how hard and upset he was over his father, especially because he was so close to his family and being the eldest son always took care of his family. I gently reminded him that he needed to take care of himself and allow himself to mourn. I wanted to badly to erase the pain that he was going through.

Mr. Nice Guy is moving down South. He’s an Army Doc and got his new orders. He left this morning. We had our goodbye brunch yesterday, talking about our goals for the future and me promising to come down and visit him.

At one point in the conversation he looked at me and said, “I wish things had turned out differently for us.” It caught me off guard, but I replied back, “I know exactly what you mean. I wish the same.” And I can honestly say I meant it. As we hugged each other goodbye, I held on tightly to him, not wanting to let him go. I knew I would miss our friendship dearly and also our lost opportunity.

Mr. Nice Guy is such an amazing person. I wish I had given him more of a chance when we first went out on those couple of dates. I wish I wasn’t scared of the possibility of being with a nice guy and really allowed myself to see what could happen. I don’t think I gave him a fair chance and cut it off before it even started. But I also know that he deserves someone who will appreciate him for his kindness, loyalty, honesty, friendship and love and I know inherently that I would take him and all of his great qualities for granted. And he deserves so much more than that. I firmly believe that timing is everything and I wasn’t ready for what he had to offer me.

I really hope he enjoys himself in this next stage of his life. I hope he meets a nice Southern Belle that will adore him completely. I hope he figures out what he wants to conquer next after his stint in the Army is up. I hope nothing but the best for him.

As we pulled away from our embrace he said, “I’m not even going to tell you to come down because you always have an open invitation to come visit me.” And I responded, “I promise.”

Love the One You're With

I was sucked into Emily Giffin’s new book, Love the One You’re With as soon as I read the synopsis. I am such a sucker for unrequited love stories or stories that involve past loves coming back and spinning your world into chaos. I love the drama. Explains a lot, huh?

Ellen and Andy have the perfect marriage. They love, trust and support one another, but one day walking down the street in New York City, Ellen bumps into her old love, Leo. And from that moment, Ellen’s marriage heads into a tailspin. It’s not that she doesn’t love her husband; she loves him dearly and cherishes the life they share. But she also never stopped loving Leo. He was the mad passionate love affair; Leo was the one that got away.

What begins as a simple run in turns into so much more. Ellen goes down the dangerous path of reminiscing over her relationship with Leo and wondering how things fell apart. She also partakes in the treacherous comparison game between Andy and Leo, which never goes well. All her old feelings for Leo quickly resurface after their encounter and Ellen is left feeling unsettled.

She starts to question her marriage to Andy and cannot deny the strong attraction she feels for Leo. Slowly she feels herself being sucked back in by Leo even taking a photography gig that he helped get for her. All the while Andy suspects nothing.

To escape her feelings for Leo, Ellen agrees to move to Atlanta so that Andy can work for his father’s law firm. Her resentment towards Andy only builds in Atlanta, where she feels like she has morphed into a stepford wife, which only causes her to question her marriage to Andy more and what her feelings for Leo means.

Eventually the truth comes out right before Ellen is about to fly back to New York to do another photo shoot with Leo. Andy is upset and gives Ellen an ultimatum, if she goes to New York than she better not come home to him. And even with this dire threat, Ellen has to go to New York to see Leo.

There she must decide what she wants out of her life. Does she throw away her marriage for a man whom she has loved desperately, but who also hurt her deeply? Or does she return to a man who has loved her, but to a life that leaves her unsatisfied?

I enjoyed this book more so than Giffin’s previous novel, Baby Proof. I could predict the ending, but I was happy with the way it ended. Spoiler alert: I’m glad Ellen realized she was about to ruin her marriage for a man that didn’t have the balls to fight for their relationship when they were first together. I’m glad she didn’t cheat on Andy and realized that he is exactly where she is supposed to be. As she states, “I hold that day deep within myself, as a reminder that love is the sum of our choices, the strength of our commitments, the ties that bind us together.”

I think it’s fascinating how we can hold onto our past loves and they almost become idolized in our heads. I know I’m privy to that. There is one ex in particular where all I remember is the good times and I gloss over the rough ones. And I sometimes wonder what would happen if he came back into my life asking for another chance. Would I let him have it or would I remember all the reasons why we’re not compatible? And when I finally meet someone new, will I still wonder about him or will he just be a past love that brings a smile to my face?

Do you ever fall out of love with someone or does that love just merely change and morph into a new type of love? As I said, I love books that pose these types of questions. And while there was a happy ending to this book, I appreciate the fact that Giffin didn’t wrap it up too nicely. Even a year later, Ellen and Andy still struggle to find the right balance for their marriage and have found a compromise that works for the both of them currently. I’m relieved that she broke free of Leo’s hold on her.

Then We Came to the End

I have been very slow to finish a book lately. Blame it on having a social life and just being tired at night to sit down and pick up my book. I had heard many great reviews about Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris, so I was looking forward to reading it. After I was done I was left with an “Eh” feeling about the book. It wasn’t a bad book; it just didn’t live up to all the hype.


Besides the great reviews this novel got, I also picked up this book because the main story was focused around office life. In our work driven society, we spend the majority of our lives at our jobs, grinding all day. I knew I would be able to relate.

The story is set around an advertising firm in Chicago that is going through layoffs. The employees are always at alert and nervous over whose going to be next to “Walk Spanish Down the Hall.” Obviously no one wants to be next and the employees spend mass amounts of time deliberating and gossiping about one another. Its no wonder the company is going through layoff, no one does any really work.

Ferris decides to tell the story in first person plural, the narrative “we.” As he puts it,

“Companies tend to refer to themselves in the first-person plural – in annual reports, corporate brochures, within meetings and internal memos, and, in particular in advertising. What used to be the “royal we” might now be thought of as the “corporate we.” It’s not just a company’s way of showing unity and strength; it’s also a matter of making everyone feel as if they’re a member of the club.”

Every company that I have ever worked for the Big Boss Person always refers to the underlings and themselves as “we”; “We had a stellar quarter” or “Although we accrued some financial losses, we will recover” and so on and so forth. I think it was a brilliant idea to write it this way and truly pulls the reader in and makes them feels like their an employee within the organization.

The story can be confusing because its jumps from one person’s story to the next and you can never tell whether an event happened in the present or the past. One minute someone has been layed off, and the next paragraph the narrator is telling a story about that person from last week. It can be hard to follow.

I believe Ferris does a great job of capturing an office’s dynamic between all the petty bullshit, mundane tasks, and the real camaraderie that co-workers feel towards each other. I can honestly say that some of my best friendships have started through my job. I have met and worked with a lot of amazing people and have developed wonderful friendships with them. Working with people creates a unique bond and I have kept in touch with a lot of my past co-workers.

This book also reminds me that work isn’t everything or it shouldn’t be. Its good to have a nice balance between work and play; on your deathbed you don’t want to assess your life and realize that all you’ve done is work and you never got a chance to truly live.

Cocktails for Three

Cocktails for Three by Madeleine Wickham, who also writes under Sophie Kinsella, is a fun chick lit novel, light and breezy as I like to say.

The novel centers around three friends who all work together at The Londoner (a magazine). Maggie is the career driven editor who is about to have her first baby and is nervous as hell about it. Roxanne is the freelancer who has been having a secret affair with the big boss man for the last six years. And Candice is a writer who has a heart of gold and feels guilty for her conman father who has screwed many people over the years.

The girls meet up once a month to gossip and catch up over cocktails. And that’s where Heather infiltrates their lives. Candice immediately recognizes her as a childhood friend whose family lost everything because of her father. Candice feels immense guilt over her father’s misdeeds and decides to make it up to Heather by getting her an interview at the magazine. Maggie and Roxanne are skeptical of Heather and warn Candice to be cautious.

Candice of course does not listen to the friendly advice and also invites Heather to move in with her (who does that by the way?). Little does she know that Heather is scheming to ruin her life. Maggie has her own problems. After the birth of her daughter, she cannot cope with motherhood and feels inadequate caring for her child (postpartum depression anyone). Roxanne is offered a great job opportunity in Cyprus and is deeply upset when her lover tells her to take it not. She does not know that he is dying from cancer.

They meet up for their monthly cocktail night when Candice drags along Heather. Maggie and Roxanne are not happy and this causes a rift between the three friends. The night ends badly with all three ladies upset at one another.

Eventually Heather’s shows her true colors and Candice is suspended from work for expense fraud. Candice has no one to turn to since her big fight with the other girls and must figure out how to clear her name. Will her friends come back to her in time?

I only picked up this book because I saw that Madeleine Wickham also writes as Sophie Kinsella, and I love Kinsella’s work. While I enjoyed Cocktails for Three, I think I prefer the writing style of Kinsella better. I always find it interesting when authors have multiple pen names. I know that some do it so that they can branch out of their typical genre and want to explore a different writing format or express themselves in another manner that may not be suitable to their typical reader. But in this instance it just seems weird that Kinsella would have another pen name in the same genre. The only real difference that I pick up on is that Wickham seems to be more mature chick lit, while Kinsella seems more whimsy hipper chick lit.

I may have to read them back to back to see if I can pick up any more differences between the two. I’m sure there has to be since she uses a pen name. I wonder which one is really her; maybe neither is her real name. Kinsella is definitely more successful and well known and has written more books.

"Singing in Korean, He's Singing in Korean"

OH MY GOODNESS!!!! I cannot believe I missed this! For the last two years, Stephen Colbert has lost out to Korean pop superstar Rain in the Time's 100 Most Influential People Award. In 2007, Stephen came in 2nd behind Rain, this year he finished 3rd behind Rain.

Stephen mocked Rain by doing his own Korean pop video which can be seen here.



Stephen from there challenged Rain to a dance off, which apparently happened last week!!!! I cannot believe I missed this. You have to watch this. It's so freaking awesome. I heart him.

Please Don't Stop the Music

I got my ipod nano back in 2006; it was an early birthday present to myself and I wanted to have it for my trip back to Thailand. My nano can hold around 1000 songs and sadly I only have 463 songs on it. I think the last cd I uploaded on it was The Evolution of Robin Thicke.

I mainly use my ipod now to download the podcasts of The Junkies so that I can listen to them when I’m at work or when I work out. I have never downloaded music from itunes. I used to download music the illegal way, but am too paranoid that the recording industry will come after me and demand shitloads of money from me.

So instead when I want to listen to a song, I go to youtube and play the video of the song I’m feening (I don’t think that’s how you spell that) to hear. Not only do I get to hear the song, but I also get to see the video, and for free! It’s silly! It’s also probably ghetto, but whatevs.

I seriously never listen to music on my ipod anymore. Occasionally when I’m in a bad mood or falling asleep at work I’ll listen to music to bump up my mood or wake my ass up. The few times I do this I realize I skip through a lot of songs. Its time to clean up the ipod and get rid of ditties that just shouldn’t be on there.

But I’m getting sidetracked. I came across Ne-Yo’s video called Closer and it’s my new favorite song. Its so sexual and hot and so Ne-Yo. He looks good in the video and I love the mix of slow beats and then ramped up club beats throughout the song.

From there I started to listen to Ne-Yo’s other songs like Because of You and Sexy Love and realized that each song reminded me of a different guy and I couldn’t help but smile and dance around crazily to each one of them.

Because of You reminds me of The Boy during our sexual high. All it took was hearing his voice and I was turned on, with his lazy drawn out way of saying my name, I was in my car headed over to his place. My favorite line, “I love the way you feel, just got me stuck between my fantasy and what is real. I need it when I want. I want it when I don’t.” He could just look at me and I wanted him. Our sexual attraction was strong, sometimes even too strong for me. And I was completely and thoroughly strung out on him and I could care less. He was my drug and I needed the fix constantly.

Sexy Love always makes me think of The Ex. My favorite line, “She makes the hair on the back of my hand stand up, just one touch.” When it was good between us, it was amazing, nothing compared to it. I was soaring when I was with him. I finally got what it meant to be in love. When we were together, we could never stop touching each other. A part of us always had to be touching, like we were afraid to let go. I just remember staring into his eyes and seeing myself in them and I knew I could get lost in there for hours and I knew there was no other place I’d rather be.

I think its great how songs can transport you back in another lifetime. I also think its interesting that two Ne-Yo songs remind me of two very different people. Check out Closer below.

The Other Boleyn Girl

After seeing previews for The Other Boleyn Girl, I knew I wanted to read the book by Philippa Gregory first. I have always been intrigued by this time period mainly because when I first stared reading trashy romance novels, they were always set during either King Henry VIII’s reign or Queen Elizabeth’s reign. The Other Boleyn Girl was no trashy romance book, but a historical fiction told through the eyes of Mary Boleyn, who was once mistress to King Henry VIII and watched the rise and fall of her sister Anne Boleyn.

A brief history lesson, Henry Tudor broke free from the Roman Catholic Church, so that he could set aside his marriage to Katherine of Aragon, and instead marry Anne Boleyn. This was huge during that time period because the Church no longer held authority and Henry seized all the power. His whims ruled everything and to question Henry could result with your head on the chopping block.

Mary is the narrator of this story and from the beginning she touches upon the rivalry between her and Anne. As Mary states, “There could hardly be a world for me without Anne, there was hardly world enough for us both.” They are night and day from one another. While Mary is fair and angelic, Anne is seductive and bold. But both are Boleyn girls and must heed to their family’s never ending ambition.

First Mary becomes Henry’s mistress and Anne must serve and help Mary advance the family name. Mary keeps the king’s attention for a few years and even has two children by him. Eventually his attention wanes and he begins to sniff around the other Boleyn girl. Soon Mary is commanded to step back while it is Anne’s turn to make a play at the King.

Anne will not settle for being Henry’s whore like her sister and instead has sights for the throne. Anne’s ambition knows no end and she will stop at nothing to achieve her goal. As history notes, she does become Queen, but the price is deadly. After giving birth to Princess Elizabeth, Anne knows that her next child must be a male heir. Unfortunately she cannot carry a child to term after that and is accused of witchcraft, adultery and incest where she is found guilty and beheaded.

Mary is a bystander in all of this and must watch in horror the choices her sister makes to accomplish her desires. Upon watching her sister’s beheading, Mary states, “And then the sword came down like a flash of lightning, and then her head was off her body and the long rivalry between me and the other Boleyn girl was over … He [the King] had taken my other self: Anne.”

Philippa Gregory did such an amazing job painting a vivid picture of this time period. While I felt the book ran a little long, I did love all the detail and attention she put into the story. She stayed true to the historical timeline and depicted the events as she imagined how they occurred.

I loved the relationship between Anne and Mary. They were sisters and cared deeply for one another, but also their worst enemy at the same time. They always tried to best each other and in the end, Anne paid the biggest price for it. Anne was such an interesting character to read. You could feel her determination and strength but also her desperation to maintain her hold on the King and how it drove her to do inexplicable acts. I also liked how Gregory chose to use Mary as the narrator. Her docility and sweet manner was a nice disparity to Anne and it played out well in the story. Until this book, I never even knew there was another Boleyn girl. History only writes about one.

There are so many other themes involved with this novel that I could go on and on about each one. Gregory touches upon homosexuality, women’s rights, the sanctity of marriage, socio-economic classes and so forth. The book is well balanced and I really enjoyed reading it. It gave me a keener insight into Henry’s reign and I want to pick up her novel, The Virgin’s Lover, which is about Henry’s daughter, Queen Elizabeth.