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Friday Fun! (Happy Festivhanumas!)
Hello my lovely readers! Yes, I totally made up that amalgamation of the three holidays I’m celebrating this year, but I think it works, yes?
For Festivus, which is today, I mostly just air grievances. I suppose I could wrestle my cat like my friend Sara does with hers, but I do that quite a bit anyway, so not so special. I will be airing grievances on twitter today (I can just hear my twitter followers saying AS USUAL ahem), but I also will air a few book and book blogging related ones here. I hate that horrible stupid books like The Help and Twilight get all the acclaim and backing from publishing houses while non-white, non-western, and non-traditional ones get ignored. I really can’t stand that stupid Waiting on Wednesday meme, and I honestly do not get it. I hate it when bloggers don’t write their own book summaries and instead grab them from Amazon or GoodReads or what-not. I honestly do not like Book Blogger Appreciation Week. It reminds me a lot of the voting for homecoming king and queen in highschool. I hate it when authors and/or publishers either read your review requests rules and ignore them or skip reading them altogether before contacting you. *exhales* See why Festivus is awesome?
Thankfully Chanukkah involves 8 crazy nights, so I have lots of chances to celebrate it both contemplatively alone and with friends! I’ve already been lighting my candles (very late) when I get home from the gym with my kitty. She’s been pretty good about not tackling the menorah. So far. But this weekend I will be celebrating with three different friends–Nina, Josh, and Sara. Josh I haven’t seen in um….two years? So I’m super-excited for his visit! I am also looking forward to making latkes and having an excuse to eat sour cream. Also to reading The Latke Who Couldn’t Stop Screaming, which is now a tradition since my dad gave it to me last yearish. It may have been the year before.
Comparatively, my Christmas is low-key this year, since I spent Thanksgiving with my family. I finally pulled out my (short fake) tree last night, but still need to decorate it. The cat, however, is very pleased with the ability to hide behind and just generally sniff it. I’ve already watched The Grinch and Emmett Otter’s Jugband Christmas. All that’s left for the annual viewing is Claymation Christmas. I still have some gift swapping to do with friends and some to hand out to those folks you’re supposed to give gifts to (like landlords), but I’m very close to being done! And then it is
ON TO NEW YEAR’S MY FAVORITE HOLIDAY AND THIS YEAR @BITCHYLIBRARIAN IS VISITING ME FOR IT AHHHHHH
Friday Fun! (Thanksgiving, Cooking)
Hello my lovely readers! I hope those of you who celebrate had a wonderful Thanksgiving. I had a great time with my dad. We ordered in Thai food, which he’d never had before. (I believe it was a hit). I showed him one of my favorite indie bookstores. He took me grocery shopping! (Which has been wonderful for me, I can tell you). We spoiled my kitty rotten and went to a couple of my favorite pubs. It was a wonderful weekend, and I hope to get to see him again very soon!
This week I got to see my friend Nina for the first time in around a month. We went for a super long walk together in the random Indian summer weather we had at the beginning of the week and made this stir-fry out of baby bok choy, onions, pepper, garlic, parsnips, carrots, and fake steak tips (they were soy). Oh, and sesame seeds!
Those of you book bloggers who are looking for projects and/or challenges for 2012, please be sure to check out my Diet for a New America page and my Mental Illness Advocacy 2012 page. Even if you don’t choose to participate in them, any mentions on your blogs, facebook, and twitter are most welcome! These types of things are always more fun the more people participate!
Also, if you missed it, I have an international giveaway currently running thanks to the author. Be sure to check that out too!
This weekend I’ll be training in the gym, going to a tree trimming party, and editing zombies. Also hopefully cooking something up in the slow-cooker to freeze into single servings for lunches. Busy busy!
Happy weekends all!
Friday Fun! (I’ve Been Really Busy So Let’s Talk About Fondue)
Hello my lovely readers! Like whoa, have I been busy this week! I actually finished reading The Meowmorphosis and have literally not had a spare moment to write up the review. My bad! It’ll be up next week. I’d tell you what I’ve been busy doing, but I can’t (well, except that part of it has been very long skype convos and sharing wine virtually with Amy).
So instead, let’s talk about how freaking excited I am for my friend Sara‘s birthday dinner tonight! She, bless her, wanted to get fondue. Fondue. Aka melted cheese and melted chocolate and dipping things and sharing your germs. If it is not abundantly clear why we’re friends, then I just don’t know what to say to you people anymore. This is pretty much what I have been thinking about off and on all day.
In other news, I haven’t quite finished the first book for The Real Help project but I am totally going to and get the post up tomorrow morning at some point. I might not be able to write it right when I get home tonight due to pure food coma.
Happy weekends!
Friday Fun! (Kindle Cover, TRX, Karaoke)
Hello my lovely readers! There’s not too terribly much to report this week. Last weekend Boston suffered a torrential downpour that destroyed my ipod. Sad day. I’m a bit poor right now, so I ended up bidding for a used one on ebay and winning. Here’s hoping it actually works when it gets here. *knocks on wood*
My kindle cover also broke this week. The doohickey that holds the kindle in place got bent out of shape (no, I have no idea how). I called Amazon, and they overnight shipped me a new one for free! Awesome. Sauce. I will say, I think my kindle cover got a lot more use in its six months of life than the designers perhaps anticipated, lol.
Last weekend I tried out a new recipe–walnut-encrusted baked tofu with spinach l’orange. It was….a bit more time-consuming than I was anticipating, but also delicious and filling. I got three meals out of it (one dinner and two lunches). Not too shabby for the relative cheapness of the ingredients.
My trainer had me try out TRX this week. There are these straps hanging from the ceiling that you use to help you work out your muscles using your own weight and gravity as resistance. It was super-duper fun to do push-ups and such in the air, I have to say. I really loved it. I’m half-tempted to join one of the gym’s TRX teams now.
I also went out to karaoke with my friend Jill this week. It was tons of fun, as karaoke generally is. Although this single lady did not see a single guy she was interested in, the crowd was a good karaoke crowd. Everyone was good-natured, supportive, and well, tipsy. Plus there were plenty of people buying drinks for us, which is always a plus. 😉
Happy weekends all!
Friday Fun! (Birthday BBQ)
Hello my lovely readers! One thing this summer has shown me is that your summer is as fun as you make it, and that largely has to do with who you surround yourself with. Now that I’ve been living in Boston for a longer period of time, I’ve come to have a wonderful circle of friends who just make everything more fun.
Last weekend was my party for my birthday. I held it at the end of the month partly so I could have a Cowboys and Aliens theme, but also partly because no one ever seems to be around on my actual birthday since it falls right next to a big national holiday. A friend treated me to the matinee of Cowboys and Aliens, and you guys it was AWESOME. I don’t think anything could make this wild west and scifi loving lady happier than wild west meets aliens. Well, the addition of Daniel Craig’s very fine ass didn’t hurt matters at all either. This is a movie I would go to see in theaters again, and I never do that.
After the movie, the same friend helped me prep for my bbq. I made homemade veggie burgers, which were completely a smash hit. We also made pasta salad from a cookbook my dad gave me that featured an olive oil/lemon vinaigrette instead of mayonnaise. That was also a huge success. There was also grilled corn on the cob, strawberries, PBR, and goldschlagger. All in all an excellent bbq. After some friends departed, others arrived, and we went out to a local pub for drinks. My friends enthusiastically got me some of my favorite drinks (white russians and cosmos). It was such a chill party full of lots of girl talk and ending with some fun flirting. It’s things like that that make being in your 20s really fun.
I already announced my plan to throw a party in the fall with a Japanese theme, largely influenced by my recent acquisition of a vegetarian sushi cookbook. Given the percentage of otaku geeks among my friends, the excitement at the idea was pretty high. 😉 What can I say. I love hostessing and party planning. It makes me happy.
This week also saw me finally able to return to the gym after being laid low by first a summer cold and then a sprained ankle. I managed to only gain 1 pound in my week and a half out. *phew* The first workout back was hard, but fun, and I’m glad to be getting back into the swing of it.
I haven’t fully decided what’s on the plate for this weekend, but I know it’ll be fun, because it’s the weekend after all. Happy weekends all!
Friday Fun! (Provincetown)
Hello my lovely readers! Last weekend, two of my friends and I decided to take a one night vacation to Cape Cod–Provincetown to be exact. For those of you who don’t know, Ptown, as it’s more commonly known, is not only the first landing place of the Pilgrims before they moved on to Plymouth, but also is the gay mecca of the Eastern seaboard. Coastal town plus fabulousness everywhere? What more could we ask for?
My lovely weekend included wading in the Atlantic, a run along the beach, flipping off a lighthouse, hilarious window shopping, hot tubbing, some whiskey, and possibly the best knock-off of a chain restaurant ever–the Burger Queen, which included Larry the most fabulous gay man I’ve ever met. We became their first customers to get our picture taken for their book. Every time I go to the ocean, I know I’m going to end up living on it eventually in my life. It was exactly the vacation the doctor ordered. Thanks, ladies, for the epic weekend!
This one won’t be quite so epic, but it will involve a charity walk, meeting GameCouch, and a party for a Team Unicorn member. What are you all up to with your weekends?
Friday Fun! (Quirky Wolfy)
I’ve always had this problem that I just don’t quite fit in anywhere. I’m what they call an odd duck. If I was a house, you’d say I was decorated in an eclectic fashion. I’m kind of a big bunch of contradictions. I’m a huge reader, so people think I’m a nerd, but then they find out that I scoff at D+D and WoW. Suddenly, the nerds don’t know what to do with me.
I love going out to sporting events and cheering on the home team, but I don’t wear makeup. Suddenly, the jocks are wondering how on earth I got into a sorority. Um, I didn’t.
I recycle and garden passionately, but I shave my legs. The hippies become very confused.
I am highly educated, but I’m more comfortable drinking at a bonfire and roasting veggie dogs over the open flames than I would ever EVER be in a fancy restaurant.
All of this has led me to make a pretty eclectic bunch of friends, and I love it, and I love them for it. It really has enhanced my social circle to the umpteenth degree. I have my hippie friends and my artistic friends and my nerd friends and my girly girl friends, etc…. I love them all for their own reasons, and I can pretty much always find someone to do any of my various pursuits with. The problem, of course, comes when I’m trying to date.
I am weird. Guys never know quite what to expect, and just when they think they have me figured out, I do something that to them is out of left field, but to me is totally perfectly normal. I can go from discussing Kant to swearing like a sailor in five seconds flat. I seriously get why it’s confusing. The problem is that that’s just who I am, and I ain’t gonna change it to suit nobody. I can’t pretend to be a classy lady when I’m not most of the time. I can’t pretend I’m comfortable just sitting around drinking beer and watching the game every weekend, when sometimes I want to go to the museum. I love who I am and how I am and the fact that it makes my life so varied and unpredictable. The problem is that’s a lot of quirks to match someone up to. Or at least to find someone who thinks they’re all cute. I’m sure that quirky guy is out there somewhere. I mean, after all, my father and uncles are all similarly quirky, and we can’t be the only family like that on the planet. (please oh please oh please universe)
But, you know, waiting for him kind of sucks. Even if I do get to pump iron at the gym, go out for beers to watch the Bruins, read on a riverbank on my kindle, and then hit up the MFA all in one weekend in the meantime.
Friday Fun! (MIA Reading Challenge Update)
Hello my lovely readers! Since we have just one week left of April, I thought I’d provide an MIA Reading Challenge update! I’m so pleased with the enthusiasm for the challenge shown by the participants, particularly since this is its first year existing.
By far our most prolific participant so far is Karen. Her reads have covered everything from OCD to Antisocial Personality Disorder. So far she has read and reviewed (links to her reviews): Saving CeeCee Honeycutt, Devil in the Details: Scenes from an Obsessive Girlhood, An Unquiet Mind, Cut, The Bell Jar, Darkly Dreaming Dexter, Dearly Devoted Dexter, Dexter in the Dark, Missing, House Rules, and I Don’t Want to Be Crazy. She’s only one book away from completing the highest level of the challenge. Go Karen!
Jules is keeping up a nice, steady pace so far, having read two books (links to her reviews): The Bell Jar (Depression) and Alias Grace (Dissociative Identity Disorder). Keep it up, Jules!
Jessica also has finished two books (links to her reviews): The Silver Linings Play Book (recovery from mental break-down) and The Madonnas of Leningrad (Alzheimer’s). Excellent pace for the level you signed up for, Jessica!
I’ve also completed two books that fit into the challenge description (links to my reviews): American Psycho (Antisocial Personality Disorder) and Hunger (Anorexia Nervosa).
Thank you everyone for your participation so far this year and for raising awareness on mental illnesses. We may be a small group so far, but hopefully each year will grow!
If you’ve read books for the challenge and I did not list you, please comment and let us all know! Unfortunately with the way my blog is, you commenting and telling me is the easiest way for me to keep up with what everyone has read.
It’s not too late to sign up for the challenge if you’re interested! Check out the MIA Reading Challenge page to find out more.
Happy weekends all!
Friday Fun! (What’s Important to Me)
Hello my lovely readers! I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking the last few months about what really matters to me. I guess you’d say what values I hold dear. I didn’t just stick with the ones I was raised with. I’ve done a lot of research and soul-searching to figure out what’s important to me. That’s what makes me stick so strongly to my guns on things I truly believe in. The more time that has passed since I’ve gotten back on my feet from the awfulness that was winter, the more I realize that what it all boils down to, for me, is that I haven’t lost hope in the world. I have hope that we can change the world. I have hope we can make it a better place. I have hope we can fix the trajectories of previous generations’ bad decisions. I have hope that the cycles of violence, grief, and pain can stop. We only have to want it. I firmly believe that Gandhi was right when he said “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” That is at the core of my belief system. I don’t have faith in a god or spirits to fix things. I don’t have faith in government to fix things. But I do have faith in myself. I have faith that I can change for the better. The cycles of violence and pain stop with me. That basic philosophy extends out into everything else I do, from my firm belief in vegetarianism (that is gradually moving toward veganism) to my commitment to someday adopt at least one child. And I just can’t be around negative people anymore. I can’t be close to people who are willing to just give up. Humanity didn’t struggle and evolve so much to just quit evolving. It’s just that maybe the next step of evolution has more to do with our minds and our behaviors than how our bodies work.
Namaste, yo.
Friday Fun! (Spring!)
Hello my lovely readers! Spring has finally started to show up in New England! Spring is always a conflicted time for me. I love the warm weather and appearance of new life, don’t get me wrong. I also, however, am seriously allergic to spring. Even with meds, I still have to limit my time outside. So even while I want to go out and run along the Charles River path and be completely ridiculous, I can’t really. Well, unless I want to spend the entire next day in bed wheezing for air. So my days in the spring pretty much consist of, “Yay! It’s 60 out! I could go for a nice long walk……wait. No. No I can’t.” So spring is a bit of a Catch-22 for me.
On the plus side, now I get to plan my container garden! Last year was my first year, and I learned a lot. “Learned a lot” means that I only successfully grew one plant. However! Here’s hoping that this year I will be able to apply what I learned and get at least two successful plants. Maybe even four. Mhm. I’m thinking of trying a pepper, a tomato, a zucchini, and some sort of bean. I want to see climbing things in my kitchen! So pretty! Hopefully the cat will leave the plants alone. She’s periodically good and periodically bad. Just like a person. 😉
Other than that, life continues on as usual. I have some of the most awesome friends in the world who I see as much as possible. I’m getting in my gym time and ever improving the quality of what I eat. I feel healthier every day and every week is a new adventure. Of course, I’m also consistently reading. My first passion in life. Happy weekends all!
This work by Amanda Nevius is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Opinions of a Wolf 