recent finds no. 050412

No. 1: I just finished this James study and so purchasing this print seemed like a no-brainer.

No. 2: Gah. This book! I don't agree with every single thing the book says, but it really is a great resource in the search for the whole "how in the heck do I do this whole raising a human being and help them to be sweet and happy and pleasant to be around and wonderful and all of those good things" problem that runs around in my head quite often. No child's guide book is perfect, I know, and it's all very personal and needs to be adjusted according to your own family, but I enjoyed this read and agreed with lots.

No. 3: These flats are magical.  

No. 4: You, little striped onesie of happiness, are adorable. 

No. 5: You guys...I saw these in person last week and almost fell off the couch out of complete obsession with the cuteness. I could hardly stand it! A local C'ville mama makes these goods and sells the patterns in her Etsy shop. I'm not a knitter (like photograpy, this is one special skill I just can't master), but I know that many of you are. Check out her shop and buy a pattern or two. Because, I mean, seriously, don't you need adorable piggies surrounding your ice cream? Because I do. I know I do. One hundred and ten percent.

recent finds: 041312

No. 1: Have you guys heard about this food philosophy about eating for your blood type? My friend Brett told me about it years ago. I'm not a believer in big, fad diet things (just a believer in making as many healthy choices throughout the day as you can), but I've been considering reading up on the info behind this idea because I had to start taking iron supplements for baby girl recently and, ever since, I have never felt better. I can't really workout anymore, but I think that has more to do with the watermelon on my midsection than it does about general health. Anyway, since taking the iron, I feel clearer and more energetic and just healthier during my daily doings. Makes a gal who's been pretty sleepy her whole life take notice.

No. 2: Have you ever...I mean, seriously, have you ever seen something so cute? Ever ever? (via Marcy)

No. 3: So cool. (via Unruly Things)

No. 4: I live in fear of the mixer that I'm watching over for a friend without enough kitchen space. It's just so big...and heavy...and loud...how can it possibly not jump off the shelf when I try to use it and just gobble me right up? I never have purchased a sweet little hand mixer because who needs that when you don't, um, bake? But lately, maybe it's baby or maybe it's just the new house, I've been wanting to, like, prepare things in the kitchen! It's shocking even to me. Since I'm still afraid of the big girl mixer, I think this cute little happy handheld mixer might be a good introduction.

No. 5: I'm needing a diaper bag that isn't too girly so that Cute Husband can carry it around, too. This one from Skip Hop is close...I think. Maybe.

-eye opening images - evolution of cheerleaders (via Cup of Jo)
-cool article on the pressure of living up to it all (via lucy)
-how to soften brown sugar (this article was helpful as I took a kitchen knife to the brick that was formally known as my brown sugar this week)

i love to read: falling together

Oh goodness gracious, does it get better than Marisa De Los Santos? I think no. I think most definitely, certainly, without a doubt no. Her newest book, Falling Together, does not disappoint. How this woman manages to write so beautifully and truthfully about normal lives is just amazing. I highly recommend this delicious read. This book got a hug and a kiss from me upon finishing. True story. Also, sorry, Cute Husband.

i love to read: heaven is for real

Y'all. So sweet. This book is so sweet and awesome. And literally took me, like, three hours to read. I'm betting it will take you the same amount of time, so you should just run on out, grab it up and read it. Plus, it's happy yellow cover with that adorable little smiling boy is just the best, don't you think?

i love to read: a midwife's confession

So, I read this book on Sunday. Yeah...just Sunday. Sat myself down after church and instead of working all day (which, really, goodness gracious, I should have been doing), I read. Like, all of it it. It was good - captivating story, interesting characters that I grew to actually like (not love, but like) and it did that jumping around from character-to-character each chapter thing that keeps me interested sometimes. So, overall, a good way to spend the first day of Sunday football if you ask me. Right? Anyone?

i love to read: middlesex

So, I read this book and...well, I liked it. But, the thing is, I waited for a long, long, very long time to read this book. It was one I always forgot about for one reason or another and, so, when I finally read it...the build up in my own head sort of ruined it for me. Does this make sense? My own silly forgetfulness over a good book that I wanted to read years and years ago and finally got around to remembering to order and read through made my absolute enjoyment of this really great book (written in a really interesting way, I'd like to add) almost impossible. So, yes, this was a good book. Did it rock my whole planet? Not quite. Did I waste my time reading it? Not even one bit. Did I stay up all hours and ignore things like my Cute Husband and work and dish washing and such for it? Well, no, not really. But it sure did keep me company during my trade show evenings and allowed me to unwind and escape a bit. So that's a win in book reading land.

believe it: the hunger games

You guys...believe the hype. The Hunger Games is good, addictive reading. Not Twilight-seriously-I-can't-even-eat-until-I-finish-this-book-and-find-out-what's-going-on-good (you know you all are with me there, just admit it), but it was close to that good. Just go on and read it and love it so we can discuss before I read the next two and then maybe ruin the rest in our chats. Plus it's going to be a movie. And you should all read it before going to see the movie...because those are just the rules, right?

i love to read: unbroken

Oh my word, my word, my word was this book (Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand) amazing. I mean, amazing. Hard and sad and haunting and just absolutely heart-breaking and then also uplifting. All of those things, things that, generally speaking, I try to avoid and protect myself from (minus the uplifting part, but, I guess, if you aren't really allowing yourself to feel and experience those other things how on earth can you really feel "uplifted", but that's probably a post for another day or for my journal or something), but anyway this was so worth all of those emotions. Such a life-changer and thought-provoking book. Highly, very highly, recommend this one, friends. Highly.

weekend no. 102310

Success of a weekend, friends! Success! Costume painted and fun had at Halloween party? Check. Apartment deep-cleaned and smelling fresh for the family visit on Sunday? Check. Fun and relaxing visit with the family on Sunday afternoon? Check check check! Enough time to sit and relax and regroup after a really crazy work week? Double check. I finished one of my new favorite books, Expecting Adam by Martha Beck. You guys. You guys! It was so good. So absolutely very, very good. It's just basically a must read. Like, right this second a must read. So go on ahead and order it and get on that task I've just assigned. We also finally got to eat at Sal's Caffe Italia on Sunday night - the pizza was delicious! I mean, not Hoboken delicious (oh how I miss that pizza), but a very close second! So, overall, a truly wonderful weekend spent in c'ville that I'm sad to see go, to tell you the truth.

etcetera by sibella court

I got this book on a recent shopping trip and, really and truly, it is pretty much everything I'd like to be in life. Is that bad?! Seriously, go check it out the next time you're in an Anthropologie and you tell me if you had to peel yourself up from the floor, too.

reading tales

I finished these two books on my Atlanta>North Carolina>Chicago trip a week or so ago and have been meaning to post about them ever since. Seriously delicious reads, friends. I'm not usually lucky enough in my reading to get two awesome books in a row - probably because I get too attached to each story and character that it's hard to let another one in so quickly with whatever book happens to be number two in the sequence - but this time was different and I found myself completely wrapped up in both of these books. Fortune's Rocks got a big hug when I finished it poolside (so great was this book and Anita Shreve's storytelling that I'm now reading The Pilot's Wife, despite the fact that it's about a woman losing her husband in an airplane accident - a reading subject I try to avoid at all costs). I thank the amazing Brett for letting me borrow her copy. The second book, also so so so very good, was The Concubine's Daughter. A nice, thick, awesome story that I could dive into and not be finished with in one day. When it comes to my normal reading speed, that's considered a win.

my favorite ingredients

I purchased this book, My Favorite Ingredients, on sale at O'Suzannah last week in an attempt to get to know the food I eat a little better. I know, so hipster and trendy of me, right? But, really, it's something I'd kind of like to do this year. I'd love to know things like arugula is the spicy and yummy lettuce (and is perfect paired with the fresh salsa from Whole Foods and a sliced avocado) and not just things like the fact that brie tastes really good when it's melted. Or just that brie tastes good. So that's my goal and this book is my first step toward that goal. Also, the photographs are really pretty and, because of that fact, I had no choice but to walk out of the store with this book in hand.

weekend no. 052910

I feel like this weekend was seven days long - in the I did a lot and got to hang out with a lot of the people I love sort of way. Minus Cute Husband, who was away at a bachelor party worthy of the big screen from the sound of the small bits of stories I got upon his return home last night. There was a farmer's market (with another 5am rising - I think it might be getting easier to accomplish this...might), there was some much-needed girl time love where we bonded on my couch before enjoying the goodness that Continental Divide has to offer, there was a wine tasting at Market Street Wine Shop (how did I not know that this tasting happens every single Friday night from 5-7:30?!), there was some shopping, a pizza and wine night, some walking around this beautiful town in the extreme temperatures, some SATC2 movie enjoying (2.5 hours long and the things I remember most are Carrie's green dress at the end - holy beautiful amazing-ness - and the preview for Going The Distance where I freaked out when I remembered that this movie preview that the entire theater had been laughing at and enjoying for the past five minutes, is the preview for the movie that my friend from college wrote! All by himself! This makes me so cool by association, right? Someone? Anyone?), and there was some book reading. Lots and lots of book reading. I finished The Art of Racing in the Rain in a day - it was so absolutely the sweetest book. And everyone here should note that I am not really what you'd call a dog-lover. I want to be, promise, it just doesn't come naturally to me. But this book make me smile and tear up and, well, as I said before it was absolutely the sweetest. You should read it. I also started Into Thin Air and it should also be noted that I'm not at all an adventure person. Don't even want to be one of those, but I am enjoying the book (it's gotten me through a few sessions with the elliptical machine already) and would like to finish it quickly so that Cute Husband can read it. It's one I think he'd like. So, wow, big deep breath later and I think that's the final account of my weekend. I know you were dying to find out.

same kind of different as me

So, this was a tough book. What my old bloggy blog readers know is that I tend to like happy, sunshine-y, all-is-right-in-the-world things...and I especially like happy and sunshine-y when it comes to books. I get so into each character and story, it's sort of...well...damaging to read a book about super hard and super real things. Thank goodness I didn't blog about books when I was reading The Kite Runner, is all I can say. I was kind of a mess after flipping the final page of that one. I just, well, I just really feel it all I guess. I take it all in. Sponge-y. This is sort of true across the board with me, not just with books. In my defense at my tendency to absolutely bury my head in the thickest mud I can find anywhere (which is why I don't really expose myself to too much tough and hard), I would be no help at all to society or the world if I were a piling heap of a mess in a corner. So a little burying is okay, I think. A little. And, really, this burying is especially okay with books. Same Kind of Different as Me was a beautiful story and so interesting. Opened my eyes to a lot of awful that's still going on in the U.S. Unreal. There was friendship (an amazing friendship), there was faith, there were lessons, there was redemption, there was a wonderful and true story. But, it was also filled with all of my deepest and darkest and truest fears - that someone important to me that I love and who is filled with more good than almost any person out there will be taken away. And this news will come when I'm least expecting it. That bad things happen to really, really, really good people all the time. And I guess that's the point of books - to let you into a world that you don't live and have you really feel it. That's the mark of a good book, I suppose. But, these are things I just can't chew over yet without getting filled up with fear. It's funny because when these things happen in my real life (luckily I have a very small list of these occurrences), I handle it pretty much okay. There's no pile up in the corner and there's no losing it completely. I'm still me and I get through and can help others through, too. I think it's the idea of these things happening that hurts the team. My imagination takes over and is 0 to 60 in under 2 seconds. It's fast and it's something I'd rather avoid. So, avoid I do...until I need to stand next to someone going through it or head the battle myself. Then I rally as best as I can. I hope. And, in truth, reading books like Same Kind of Different as Me and the story it told will help me be a better me when there are trials and things do happen...because they have a tendency to do so, whether or not you avoid, face things head on, worry about them, or read a book about it.

the wednesday sisters

So I posted this on my laurel denise blog yesterday, but because I love books so much (and definitely not because I'm a lazy pants and want to blog cheat and write the same thing on two...definitely not because of that...), well, I'm going to post that on here, too. Hopefully you heart books as well. And, if you don't, it's okay, we can still probably be friends.

Oh, this book, you guys. This book...well, it was kind of amazing. Just the exact book I needed right now. Well, ever. It had all the good stuff inside - women friendships, struggles, joys, tragedies, love, relationships, writing, books - everything all stuffed inside to make one of my new favorite feel-good and thoughtful books. The entire time I was reading it, I was thinking of how I wanted to buy copies for every single important and lovely and strong woman in my life. I know what you're thinking - "Lolly, you like every single book you read and, Lolly, you want to share them with everyone every time." - I know. And it's probably true. I love, love, love books and if I don't love it, I probably won't post about it because I know how much time people put into writing that art and - even though a published author would have to really work to find this little blog of mine, this world is awfully small sometimes and you just never ever know. So I try not to post the bad, but I will always-definitely-one-hundred-percent share with you books like The Wednesday Sisters. I heart books like this so much and I hope you will, too.