Books I've Read Part Deux

So my goal of books read for this year is 75. Unfortunately, I didn't make it...grad school reading is so much heavier than I anticipated. I'm starting my list off where it left off. But watch out 2011, this year, I'll make it.

19. If I Stay I'm excited they're making this into a movie.

20. Burned

21. Stardust Sadly, the movie was better than the book in this case.

22. Voyager

23. The Host This book always makes me smile. Ian is another one of my fictional boyfriends.

24. Cahokia Mounds My boss wrote this, it's pretty awesome.

25. The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner Don't knock the novella, I quite liked it.

-- I read Eclipse again to get ready for the movie...but since I'd read it once this year I don't
count it .

26. Learning from Museums This and number 29 make for some horrid beach reading.

27. Drums of Autumn

28. Shiver

29. Displays of Power

30. The Lovely Bones

31. Charlie St. Cloud Never saw the movie. I saw the twist coming in the book from a million miles away, but I still liked it.

32. Linger

33. You'll Never Blueball In This Town Again

34. The Hunger Games I had to re-read it to prep for some Mockingjay!

35. Catching Fire

36. Mockingjay Can I have a boy with the bread?

37. Slavery in Indian Country I had to read this and present on it the first week of class. Therefore, I don't like this book.


38. Clockwork Angel Gives some good background information on Jace Wayland and his pals.


39. The Unredeemed Captive: A Family Story From Early America

40. I Am Number Four I can't wait for the movie!

41. The Captor's Narrative

42. Fallen It's set in Savannah, GA, so I had to read it.

43. The Blue Tattoo One of my favorite books that I had to read this semester.

44. Torment

45. The Captured

46. Empire of the Summer Moon

47. Captive Arizona, 1851-1900

48. Museum Administration- An Introduction

Pass it on...

The holiday season is one of my favorite times of the year. I love all the kind acts that you hear about on the radio (yes, I sometimes listen to Delilah for the Christmas music), but it's a whole different world when you someone close to you is the instigator of a random act of kindness. See, my cousin won $500 from one of those scratch off tickets. I was thinking that he'd probably go on a shopping spree and buy something absolutely fabulous, but he did something even better. He bought his friend and her family Christmas.

My cousin's friend's family had been hit hard by the recession. They basically have not had a traditional Christmas in five years. My cousin ended up buying his friend a new wardrobe for Christmas and bought her parents a gift card to a grocery store, so they could buy the food for the dinner. Now I know Christmas is not all about gifts, but part of what makes Christmas magical is the spirit of giving. It is this time of year that makes me so incredibly thankful that people get into the spirit of giving. This is twice within a short month that my life has been touched by an act of kindness and I'm sincerely hoping that this is a lasting trend.

One year ago...

One year ago, I decided to start a blog. So much has happened since I first started this thing...

I graduated college, went on an epic trip with my J, gained some new friends who I couldn't live without, moved away from grad school...and so much more. So to celebrate my blog's first birthday here are the links to my favorite posts over the past year.

My epic trip with J: Part I, Part II, Part III and Part IV

The beginning of a Nerd Herd

Muse!

Harry Potter World!

Never Grow Up

I love how this year has turned out. It's had some ups and downs, but hey that's what makes life awesome. I can't wait to see what adventures this year brings me.

Must Have Mondays!

I love it when Alexandria does Must Have Mondays, and I haven't played in such a long time.
This week my must haves are....

My Friends!









My Family!













I am so excited to see each and every one of these people when I go home for Christmas!

Facelift

SO I've given my blog an overdue facelift. It's the first time I've tried doing anything fancy myself. Let me know what you think? I'm open to suggestions.

PS: Five more days until I get to go home!!! I was looking for a home-themed song and I found a Michael Buble "Home" Harry Potter video someone made. How could I resist?

It's that time of the week again...

Picture from ...

1. I wish I had a puppy. I miss my doggy, but it wouldn't be fair to the dog if I got one at the moment. I'm not in my apartment enough to give it all the love it needs and deserves.

2. Yesterday was my Friday. I treated to myself to a filet mignon, spent oodles of money at Barnes and Noble, and went and saw a movie with my friends from work. It was pretty great.


3. Today I am having a lazy day. Now that my semester is over, I'm not quite sure what to do with myself.

4. Tomorrow I will go get sushi for lunch with friends, return something at the mall, go grocery shopping, make gingerbread, and go to a Christmas party.


5. Maybe if we have time I'll get finish up my Christmas cards, if you want one email me your address.

6. Someday I will love myself for who I am.

7. I love knowing that I'll be going back home to Georgia in a week. I'm so ready to spend the holidays with all the people I love.

Make sure you link up with Lauren's Blog if you want to play along...come on, you know you want to.

Favorite Christmas Movies

So we've done the whole favorite Christmas songs thing...so what about Christmas movies? These are some of my favorites.


Love Actually

Miracle on 31st Street

It's a Wonderful Life

A Diva's Christmas Carol...don't judge.

How the Grinch Stole Christmas

Mickey's Christmas Carol

The Holiday

Santa Claus is Coming to Town, Frosty the Snowman, and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer


Elf

What are your favorites?

All pictures are from amazon.com

Favorite Songs

I love Christmas! All the lovely feelings of warm fuzziness. This time of year is just magical. So to kick off the holiday season, I thought I'd share some of my favorite Christmas songs with ya'll. I no particularly order, here we go...

"I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas"

"Happy Christmas (War is Over)" The real video is the link...it's not allowed to be embedded. The real video is also pretty graphic at points. But if you just want to hear the song, here it is.

"All My Bells Are Ringing" Won't somebody take my heart wherever they go?

"Christmas is all Around" This is from my all time favorite movie, Love Actually. PS: The video can be a little raunchy. So be warned.

"Santa Claus is Coming to Town"

"Chanukah Song" For all my Jewish friends out there...I love Adam Sandler. Oh and be forewarned, proceed with caution...it is Adam Sandler we're talking about. ;)

PS: Here are the links to the 2nd version (scroll to the 36 sec.mark) and 3rd version.

"I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas"

"All I Want for Christmas" Random note...my Aunt Patti thinks Mariah is my doppleganger. I can kinda see it in the video, but not usually. Haha, it's probably because it's so pixelated.

"O Holy Night"

"No Place Like Home for the Holidays"

"Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" Yet again, I can't embed. But here's the link. It must be the Judy Garland version.


"Little Drummer Boy/Peace on Earth" I love Bing and Bowie.

I hated this song when I was little because it's so slow...that's why I feel like it deserves a place on my favorite list. And please ignore the quality of the video. I had to pick this one because it was the version I hated when I was little.

This is just the tip of the iceberg...I could go on for days and days. What songs would make it on your favorite list?

The Incredible, Shrinking...

Elyse!! Well that's the plan at least. I usually don't like to talk about weight and stuff because it's such a touchy subject. But here I am talking about it anyways...

I just joined Weight Watchers in hopes of becoming a healthier version of me. I'm healthy, as in I exercise and don't eat poorly, but my body revolts against me. This is probably going to sound like a convoluted rant...which it partly is...but I was a thin girl growing up. Around eighth grade, when I stopped growing for a bit, I gained some weight. But when I started growing again, it went away pretty fast. I never thought I was a thin person until looking back at the pictures. Now, I wish I would've felt comfortable in my own skin, as I'm not now.

Thanks for the picture...

I've gained a good bit of weight since high school, but I'm confident in saying that it's not completely my fault. In my sophomore year of college I went to an endocrinologist to see why I was gaining all of this weight. My family and I thought it had something to do with my thyroid, since thyroid problems run in my family. It turns out that I have this thing called Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS). Basically I get cysts on my ovaries, which plays with my hormones. Two of the major symptoms are acne and weight gain...both of which I had. If PCOS isn't a joy in and of itself, one of the "side effects" of it is insulin resistance. In other words my body produces too much insulin and doesn't know what to do with it. It's not diabetes, but it could be. So I want to get healthier to make sure it stays that way. Also, another down side of insulin resistance is that my extra insulin turns into fat. YUCK!



Anyways, I'm going to stop blabbering on about this. I just wanted to tell ya'll so that I can feel like I'm being held accountable for losing weight. I won't talk about it any more on this blog, but you can go here to help cheer me on. Hey, I could even change the name of it and add you as a moderator if you want to track your stuff too. The more the merrier!

Fill in the Blank Friday!!!

1. Holiday spirit puts a little glowing light in my heart. I love the warm fuzzies I get this time of year. It's not only the receiving of presents that makes me happy (because I'd be lying if I said that they didn't), but I love seeing the looks on people's faces when I give them something. I also love all the family and friend time. And I absolutely love when things like this happen.

2. The holidays are incomplete without moving the mouse on the advent calendar, having my dad move the letters on Noel around to make it spell Leon instead, watching Love Actually with Mama, having my annual Christmas party with Paw-Paw, doing something crafty with Smoochie, and singing Christmas Carols off key and very loudly.


3. My favorite things to do around the holidays is making presents and wrapping them. I love to wrap gifts. I also love all the time I get to spend with Mama and Daddy O.


4. A holiday tradition my family and I have is ...well there are a lot of traditions. I love that my grandparents come over to open presents with us on Christmas morning and to have our once-a-year special breakfast. I also love the Christmas party where it just my Paw-Paw and me.


5. Holiday music is awesome, as long as I don't get an overload of it.

6. This year, I'll be celebrating Christmas on Christmas Eve, since Daddy O has to work. He's working so some of the younger parents can be with their young children on Christmas day.


7. Holiday wish list Tons of stuff...mostly from Etsy. And a leather jacket from Fossil...I doubt that one is going to happen.

If you play along make sure you link up with Lauren's blog. Oh and PS...I made a button! I'm kind of proud of myself since I'm basically illiterate when it comes to stuff like that.

Kindness of a Stranger

Today was one of those days that kind of got off to a rough start. My favorite pair of jeans totally split down the leg. There must be some sort of invisible seam there or something. Anyways, I went to do some errands before class at Target. The lovely smell of Starbucks was tempting me, so I decided to go in. I remarked to my friend, Emma, who was with me, how much I liked this cup Starbucks had on display. I decided against buying it and went on ordering my drink. The man behind me picked up the cup and remarked how nice it was. He then proceeded to ask the barista how much it was. Being told it was $10 he said okay and purchased it. He then turned around and handed the cup to me with a simple "Merry Christmas" and walked away. I was absolutely gobsmacked. I did not know what to say. I just said thank you and Merry Christmas. I then proceeded to buy the next person's drink because this simple act of kindness touched my heart so much. I know it's the holidays and everyone has the spirit, but wouldn't life be a little better if we passed on little acts of kindness through out the year? It genuinely touched my heart and I will always remember how this act turned my day completely around. And to that anonymous gentleman out there, thank you from the bottom of my heart.

PS: If you want to be on my Christmas card list, make sure you email me at elysiepiecie {at} gmail {dot} com.