Book Reviews: May 2017

I know, I am WAY far behind on book reviews! Hopefully I'll catch up soon, but until then, here are my book reviews for May.

This book was not at all what I thought it was going to be, but I still enjoyed it.  While I think it could have been better, I do like that they go into some of the parts of life that are important to living a minimalist lifestyle.  This book is a good starting point for anyone interested in or curious about minimalism.    I feel like it could have been better if they didn't constantly repeat the "we left the corporate world for the simple life" thing.  I got it after the first 3 times.  I also feel like they could have gone into much more detail regarding each of the five core values.  Overall, I feel like this book is worth reading, just don't expect all kinds of tips and tricks to getting rid of things - it's not that kind of book.

I gave this book a 3/5 on my Goodreads.

This is every book lovers dream! I mean, how cool would it be to be able to jump into books?!?  I really liked the main characters and the Scottish setting of this book.  I really love how, even though the jumpers couldn't interrupt the story, they were still able to interact with characters in the margins of the books.  This book was translated from German and I do think some things were lost in translation which left some plot holes, but overall an enjoyable book.  The ending was a big rushed and a lot was left unresolved which makes me wonder if there is going to be a sequel.   I'd definitely recommend reading this book :)

I gave this book a 4/5 on my GoodReads.

Life Update

I have literally not been in the mood to blog for weeks!   Other than my debt free updates and a few book reviews, I honestly don't know how much I'll be blogging in the next few months.  Who knows, maybe inspiration will strike soon.  For now, here is what's been going on in the last few months.

At the end of August I had some visitors.  My Mom, brother, and mom's boyfriend came for a few days.  They were here for 3 nights and we packed quite a bit of activity into those few days.  The night they got here we met at Maggies on the River for some dinner since the drive took longer tahn they thought.  The first full day we were expecting rain (which we did get) so we went early to the Thompson Park Zoo, which I'd never been too.  It's small but also inexpensive and my brother really enjoyed it.  Since we knew it was going to rain, we decided to do something super quick afterwards and went to the Burrville Cider Mill for some apple cinnamon donuts and waterfall pictures.  We spent the rest of the day at the house catching up.   The second day we did the boat tour of the Thousand Islands along with Boldt Castle.   After that we did wine tastings at Thousand Islands Winery and Coyote Moon.  Bolt LOVED having visitors and soaked up every second of extra lovin's.

At the end of September I went home to Maryland for 5 days.  The main event was my friend Laurie's wedding, but I packed so much into those five days.  Thursday I arrived around 230, got my eyebrows waxed and headed straight to Rosedale for the Rehearsal.  They had the rehearsal dinner at their house which was nice because it was super laid back.  The next day was supposed to be a relaxing day but that didn't end up happening.  I made an appointment to get new tires at 830 which was fine because the place was less than 2 minutes from my Mom's house.  I ended up walking across the street to Kohl's which wasn't open so I read outside until it did open.  Once I was done there I got some breakfast at Panera, deposited a paycheck at the bank, and walked back to NTB right as they were pulling my car out of the garage.  Talk about perfect timing!   I got home and read for a bit before going shopping for wedding and baby shower gifts with my sister.  We had spaghetti dinner with Mom before I had to head back to Rosedale to get my nails done with Laurie and the girls.  Saturday was wedding day!  It was a great day and everything went great - I'm so happy for Laurie and Rupert!  And for Bella who gained a Step-Dad.  After the wedding my sister and I went to see my Dad and then went to dinner at Applebee's with my Mom.  Sunday was another super packed day.  I started the day at Breakfast with Melissa and Nicole (my old co-workers), then my cousins baby shower (she is due in November), and ended the day at Vicky's house hanging out with her and Heather.  I also got to meet Mason, Vicky's newest little one.  It was a super packed day but I'm so glad I was able to see everyone!  Monday morning I went to see my Dad before heading back home.

Friday morning I woke up with Mom before she went to work and she told me that my Dad was in the hospital.  Once I was able to get hold of him I found out it was a heart attack.  This is his second one so if prayers are your thing, he could definitely use them.

The following weekend Rupert and Laurie came to stay for the weekend.  They didn't do a full honeymoon because they couldn't spend the whole week away from Bella.  I had offered my house to Laurie a few months back and she decided to take me up on the offer.   We did pretty much the same things I did when mom came up.  We did wine tastings, went to the castle, they did the boat tour, went to the cider mill, and ate at Maggie's and Texas Roadhouse.  We also took a short detour to Sackets Harbor so they could see Lake Ontario.   It was a great weekend and they had a good time exploring.  I also tried to give them some time to do things themselves (such as the boat tour).

Other than those three weekends my life has pretty much been nonstop work, and finally getting back to the gym.  But on the bright side, this deployment is almost over!! :)