finally giving in

Well, the World Cup started yesterday. Which means that my soccer widowhood has started. Luckily, your many helpful suggestions made my plight much easier to deal with and Operation World Cup Survival is off to a...well, magical...start.

World Cup: Night 1

It seems I've run out of excuses. After seventeen years of not getting around to reading Harry Potter...I'm getting around to it.

It should keep me plenty busy for the next month. And I know I'm missing two books here. Don't worry, I'll find them and read it all in order.

My friends Catherine and Mollyanne have been relentlessly pestering encouraging me to read the books for years now. They even plot schemes about how to get me to read them. So when I finally picked up the books and committed to giving them a try, I had to send them this picture. I'm guessing they're busy patting themselves on the back and high fiving for another convert or something.

So far I am 125 pages in and so far, so good! I stayed up later than I'd planned because I got sucked in, so I guess that's a good sign.

In other reading news, I finally finished Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. I'd listened to about 70% of it on the audiobook on road trips, but finally had to return the CDs and I just borrowed the book from the library to finish the story. Then I ended up starting back at the beginning of the book because I think I fell asleep a few times during the audiobook, so I wanted to be sure I got the whole story.

Here's the thing. If I hadn't started with the audiobook (and had just picked up the book as a BOOK or ebook)...I'm pretty sure I never would have finished. The author took some serious liberties with the writing/style/format of the book. L.I.B.E.R.T.I.E.S. It started out by feeling a little different, a little intriguing...and quickly devolved to being obnoxious and overkill. Weird for the sake of being weird. I liked the story enough (well, Oskar's story. The grandma/grandpa parallel story didn't do anything for me) to stick with it, hoping there would be a good payoff at the end. But really...there wasn't. I don't know. It just ended. One of those where you flip back and forth a few times, sure you missed a concluding chapter or epilogue or something...but no, it's just...done. Well, okay then.

So I'd give it maybe 3 stars. Or 2.5. But I also think that like 80% of people would be too annoyed by the weirdness of the written version to get more than a few chapters in.

Although I'm looking forward to blazing through the HP over the next month(s?) or so, I'm going to have to pause whenever my book for book club this month comes in. We're reading The Program and I'm looking forward to it...but as per usual, the library is taking its sweet time getting it to me. 

And that's about all. I finally beat Challenge 25 on 2048. I was stuck on it for like three days, so it was a triumphant moment. At my current trajectory, with each challenge taking longer and longer to beat...this could take me the rest of the year. But I'll press on because I am not a quitter, and I'm also not dumber than a phone game. So between my reading schedule and my 2048 schedule...whew, this is one busy summer! ;)

Have a great weekend!! 

world cup game plan

Don't let the title fool you. I don't have a game plan just yet. But there are still 24 hours until the games start, so it's not too late yet.

In case you don't know, the World Cup starts tomorrow. If you are in the "this is news to me" camp, I can only assume you aren't married to Matt. (There are other clues that also lead me to believe you're not married to Matt, but this is a big one.) If you were married to Matt like I am, you would know. WORLD CUP!!! OH MY GOSH!!! EEEEKKKK!! WOOOOOO!!! 

Handsome husband, gorgeous hydrangeas. Hydrangeas courtesy of UGA...can't take credit for anything except admiring and appreciating them on a daily basis.

Matt has an excitement and passion about the World Cup that rivals my enthusiasm for Mexican food, nail polish, and reality TV...which is to say a lot. Unfortunately, soccer isn't one of our shared passions. This presents a problem for a month every fourth year, because what we do share is a single TV in our shared living room.

You can see the obvious issues here.

So now the time is upon us again and I'm finding that I neglected to remedy our soccer issues during the last four years (you know, by either becoming passionate about soccer myself, or convincing Matt to hate it). Clearly I'm going to need a survival game plan for the next month. I'm just not sure what it's going to be.

Here are some options:

1. Try to learn about soccer and get interested in it, which could possibly lead to actually enjoying the (endless) games on TV. This is extremely unlikely because it is a verified fact (9 out of 10 scientists agree!) that soccer is the most boring sport on earth. It is boring to play (all you do is run around) and it is boring to watch (all they do is run around). Since none of that has changed since the last time I tried to care about soccer, it's safe to say that I'm still going to find it boring this year. So...next!

2. Try to convince Matt he doesn't want to watch. Unfortunately, he is already brainwashed beyond help into thinking that soccer is both fun to watch and play (I know, right?? So sad). But perhaps I can find something about the World Cup itself that will be appalling enough to keep him from supporting? Like...some egregious scandal...or something?? This is a stretch, but I'm keeping my ears open for anything that could horrify him into a boycott.

3. Buy another TV. This seems drastic and expensive. Plus, we don't have another room to put a TV in (the laundry room? Kitchen? Garage?) since we're anti-TV-in-the-bedrooms. Also, it's not so much that I have so many important things that I'd rather be watching...I can always watch Netflix on a laptop if I really want to. It's more like...I just get annoyed by hearing soccer on the TV and not having a husband to hang out with because HE is busy watching soccer. So another TV isn't really going to help with any of that.

4. Take up a new hobby for a month. Maybe if I had something fun and distracting to focus on during the evenings (I'm guessing he'll be DVRing the games since they come on at like 1 and 4 pm or something and he won't be able to watch them live), hearing soccer on the TV and having an absentee husband wouldn't be so annoying. But I can't really think of any hobbies I'm dying to take up. I guess I could start a book series or something? Hmmm...

5. Distraction. Maybe I can make myself so annoying amusing and distracting that Matt will just get fed up and cut off the TV? Like...tap dancing while using power tools in the garage. Or something. It would be really loud and I doubt Matt could really concentrate on the TV if he were preoccupied with how I'm probably breaking his power tools and/or chopping off my own limbs. Also, who wouldn't prefer watching me tap dance over seeing random guys run around after a ball on TV? Exactly.

Ugh. These are all the plans I've thought of so far and none of them are really speaking to me. I'm leaning towards some combination of #4 and #5. A distracting new hobby. I have one day to figure out what, so wish me luck!

men's fashion: no.

I don't touch on men's fashion here much, mainly because a) this is not a fashion blog, b) I am not a man, and c) don't nobody curr. Well, except for when I'm showcasing some of Matt's finest moments, of course. Everyone cares about that. But otherwise, not so much.

But this morning on NPR I heard about something that caused me to rush to a Google image search as soon as I got to work. And then I had to laugh and laugh. It looked pretty bad in my head, and alas...it looks just as bad on the J.Crew models.

The shorts suit. How about we all just agree NO on that one.

Image (and an amusing article) via Businessweek

Here's a thought. If a bunch of gorgeous, fashionable, trendy male models on J.Crew's website look like goofballs wearing something, it's safe to say that the average guy in your office or congregation is not going to look dapper wearing it. 

So in conclusion, let's all band together and make sure our menfolk continue sweating to death in regular old pants suits this summer. Just say no to shorts suits!

places with a view

 We had a rather fabulous weekend. We spent most of Saturday at a wedding where this was the view the whole time:

Sooo...I mean...I can't really complain about that.

I can complain about the heat, though. You can't see it in the picture, but holy crap it was hot. But whenever I got too uncomfortable, I'd just stare out over the vineyards, past the peach orchard, and into the mountains on the horizon...and everything was alright.

Also, the wedding programs turned into FANS! So that was awesome.

The wedding was for our friends Brian and Cristina. You may recall that Matt and I went on a harrowing rock climbing expedition with them. And yet we're still friends...it's a miracle. Good thing, too, because I would have hated to miss this wedding. In addition to the view, there were tons of gorgeous artistic touches by Cristina's sister (or maybe it was Brian's sister...one of their sisters is an artist).

This cake topper is probably the most amazing thing I've ever seen. It looks EXACTLY like them!! As you can possibly tell, rock climbing is their thing.

We had to take a pretty good hike through some orchards to get to the field where the ceremony was. I was extremely glad I'd thought to bring flats- the wedges got traded in basically as soon as we arrived, ha. After the ceremony (and subsequent hike back, during which I carried my friend's baby because she (the friend, not the baby) did not have flats and therefore was precariously teetering down the mountain path) there was an Italian ice truck waiting for us! It was the perfect refreshment on a blazing hot day and gave me the sugar I needed to fuel me through the pre-dinner dance party. The dancing was the BEST because they had a lady there to teach the dances. We did one traditional Jewish dance and then several contra dances- it was incredibly fun, and I was again very thankful for my flat sandals, ha. All in all it was an awesome day and perfect wedding. And now Brian and Cristina are traveling with their two hundred pounds of luggage (yes, they weighed it) to Lake Tahoe where they will (wait for it!!!) go rock climbing and kayaking (and some of that weight is their inflatable kayak, of course!). I swear. I feel like such a lazy bum around them.

Last night Matt decided he hadn't had quite enough stellar views for the weekend, so he went to the highest point he could find at home and just soaked it all in.

 Yeah, not really. Really he was trying to figure out why there are water spots appearing on the ceiling in the nursery. But my favorite thing about this was how concerned Aidan (the cat) was! Look at him!! Daaad? DAAAD? WHAT ARE YOU DOING UP THERE?! Bring me a bird!

Also, as I consider myself to be the Chief Evangelist of 2048, I need everyone to know that there if you've tired of the game (either because you beat it or because you haven't...) that there are now CHALLENGES that you can take on!

I learned about them a week or two ago. I had to update my app, and then they appeared. If you hit 'menu' and then swipe to the right, they're all there. There are FORTY-EIGHT of them, so...yep, there's my Summer Plan! So far I've completed through 17. So anyway...just when I thought I was getting my life back from 2048...there it goes again.

Happy Monday!