Tomorrow Is Another Day...

Food, Fun and Flooring

Oh what a lovely weekend!  It's fitting that Monday dawned with a healthy dose of fog in the air to lend a grey cast to my feelings of mourning now that Colby is back to his long days at work and I... have a house to clean.

We kicked off the weekend with a Friday out on the town in downtown Charleston.  It has been over a year since the last time I went out to a bar--well, excluding my visits to NYC to visit my sister, because vacations don't count--just to "go out".  And before that, well, it had probably been another year.  We've just definitely left that part of our lives behind us, and we're both pretty okay with that.  But one of our college pals was in town for the week with his squadron, and by gosh and by golly, we were puttin' on our fancy shoes and venturing out into the night.  We started out with a delicious seafood dinner at Hank's Seafood, then headed over to the upstairs deck bar at Henry's on Market Street.

Initially, we felt young and spry with our energetic, going out selves, but as the night wore on, we felt as though we aged with each passing minute.  Evidently, the Charleston bar scene is a little... um... fancier (sluttier?) than the Baton Rouge college town bar scene I cut my teeth on.  The girls were all wearing barely there minis--cut up to here and down to there.  Their hair was teased.  They turned up their shrill giggles to 11, and they skulked among the fighter pilots with talons extended and breasts bared as much as public decency laws will allow.  By the time midnight rolled around, Colby and I were sending emergency eye signals to one another, silently plotting our escape.

Saturday greeted us with a beautiful blue sky and perfect spring temperatures (please, no one tell Charleston that it's still only February), and I managed to drag myself out of bed at a decent hour so that I could meet a friend at an adorable little restaurant/antique shop in historic Summerville, This Whole House.  It was a delicious lunch with great company, and I was glad to squeeze in as much time as possible with her since she'll be leaving me soon for greener Air Force pastures.

When I returned home, our taxes had magically been done, inserting a tidy sum of money back into our pocketbooks.  One of the very few benefits of Colby's job is that tax time is always a very happy one for our little family.  Sunday, we stayed pretty low key, just making a trip out to Lowe's because we cannot go a full month without giving them our money.  We also watched the Oscars and I was very happy about all of the Best Actor/Actress/Movie winners, and lusted very openly over Anne Hathaway's stage looks--more specifically the blue Armani Prive and the red Atelier Versace.  God.  Gorgeous.  

However, the best part of Sunday was when the man of the house entered into a verbal agreement that we need to replace the hideous, crud infested carpet downstairs.  I am pretty sure that was legally binding.  HUZZAH!!!!!  Small victories, people.  Small victories.

Pizza SAVES LIVES!!!

New deployment coping, and potentially SURVIVAL, strategy.  Order a pizza from the local Domino's every day.

Now, when I inevitably fall down the stairs and can't get up, maybe someone will notice my plight BEFORE the dogs eat my face.

The new Domino's:  Now with better sauce, a rockin' pizza tracker, and MedicAlert training.

Where Do I Begin?

Hiiiii!!!  I'm back!!!  What?  You didn't notice I was gone?  Well, hmph.

*****

We whisked ourselves away for a week in Louisiana, driving from one end of the state to the other, visiting both of our parents, various friends, and even squeezing in a wedding.  I'll do a more thorough recap soon, but I just had to write a crap post to get myself back in the habit of blogging.

*****

I've been training (somewhat half-heartedly) for a 10K, working diligently on my 30 Before 30 list, and trying to decide if I want to start doing work in exchange for money on a part time basis.  Running is so boring.

*****

I hate the day after returning home from a vacation.  Piles of laundry are overtaking my front room.  I have a million errands to run and can't do any of them because I have a flat tire.  I've got loads of blogs to catch up on.  My DVR is overwhelming me with options.  I can't even count as high as the scary number on my Google Reader.  So, I think I'm just going to go sit on the porch and stare blankly at birds.

*****

I don't even have any pictures downloaded off of our cameras to attempt making this just moderately engagaging.  Close your eyes, imagine me feeding a giraffe.  Isn't that CHARMING!!!

Top 5 Reads of 2010

Last year's list of top 10 books read in 2009 was pretty well received, so I figured I'd make it a regular annual feature.  I always love getting book recommendations, and enjoy sharing the incredible books I've come across.  Sadly, due to a pretty short book list last year (the full list of 34 can be found in the "Reading" tab at the top of this page), and the fact that many of them just weren't that great, I could only come up with a top five this go round.

But what a fantastic top five they are!

1) A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole
I was initially a bit intimidated by this book.  I had started reading it in college, and abandoned it a few chapters in.  The main character is incredibly unlikeable upon first sight.  It's certainly not a story many can relate to.  But oh my heavens, is it FUNNY!  I rarely laugh out loud when reading a book, but I found myself stifling giggles throughout this entire book.  I was shocked that by the end of the book, I had been utterly charmed by the hapless anti-hero of the novel, Ignatius J. Reilly.

2) The Help, Kathryn Stockett
An amazing look at the racial strains in the South in the early 1960s.  Everyone who has read this book loves it, and with good reason.  It addresses the issues without being preachy, without lowering itself to stereotypes, and with a great deal of heart and humor.

3) The Forgotten Garden, Kate Morton
This is Kate's second appearance on as many of my top book lists, so obviously I know she is hugely honored.  What can I say, the girl knows how to write a moody, haunting mystery that sticks with you.  This one includes multi-generational secrets, international travel, intensely strong women, a mysterious writer, and an atmosphere that the Bronte's would envy.

4) Three Cups of Tea, Greg Mortensen
I wish that this book were required reading for anyone who wants to spout their opinions on Pakistan, Afghanistan, Muslims, or any combination thereof.  It is the true story of Greg Mortensen, who made an attempt to climb K2 and stumbled sick and emaciated into a small Pakistani village, where he was welcomed in and carefully nursed back to health.  Overwhelmed by the generosity of these villagers, the dirt poor nurse/climber promised that he would be back and he would build them a school.  What follows is an amazingly inspirational journey as Mortensen delivers on his promise plus so much more, while getting to know the people of Pakistan.  The chapter on September 11th was beautifully written, and I had to put the book down more than once to collect myself because I couldn't see through my tears.  If you read NOTHING ELSE this year, please, please read this book.

5) The School of Essential Ingredients, Erica Bauermeister
This book is short and incredibly sweet, telling the story of a group of cooking class students in a small town.  Each chapter focuses on one of the characters, and as the book progresses, their stories begin to intertwine and change one another's lives.  It is a story of love and loss, happiness and sadness, and the descriptive passages are simply beautiful. 

Honorable Mentions:
Colony, Anne Rivers Siddons

Rich in Love, Josephine Humphreys

Sorry, But It's Over

It is no secret that I am a television watching fiend.  I'm not the biggest movie fan--I'll probably make it to the theater on average once a month, and enjoy a Netflix every now and then, but I just don't typically have the attention span to sit through a 2+ hour movie.  Two hours of television, though?  Sign me up!

As it currently stands, I have 34 different television series scheduled on my DVR--and I'm getting ready to add a few more, including Perfect Couples and Mr. Sunshine.  Not all of the shows on my series manager are actually in the midst of a season--some are summer or mid-season replacements, some are reality shows that I don't know if we'll ever see again--but I would say I have at least 3 or 4 episodes recording every night during the peak television time of year.

That said, I've made the decision to part ways with some of my old stand bys because I just don't have the interest in investing in the storylines any more.  It was surprisingly easy to press "delete" on each of the series I dumped, and I haven't missed them yet.

I actually ditched the drama-filled halls of Seattle Grace last season.  It seemed like the story lines had gone completely off the rails, and while it had always been a nighttime soap, I missed the original core group of characters and the stories just kept getting more and more ridiculous.

This one made me really sad, because I LOVED Chuck for the first three seasons, but the current season has been a complete borefest.  I'm sick of the will they or won't they of Chuck and Sarah--especially after they actually were together for a while.  Casey has become a parody of himself.  And all of the Buy More humor felt completely forced and over the top.  Not to mention, after being a spy for four years, I just don't buy that Chuck would still be a bumbling newbie.  I'll always love Zachary Levi, but I'll just have to love him elsewhere.

Life Unexpected got off to a great start with an interesting premise, and I really wanted it to fill the gaping void left by the end of Gilmore Girls (I still haven't gotten over the loss of Rory and Lorelai).  The first season was pretty cute, but with season 2 the characters became absolutely insufferable, and I wanted to punch my television screen any time Shiri Appleby started whining in her grating harpy voice.

Okay, well, I haven't completely broken it off with this one yet, but it is definitely on notice.  I'll probably give it until the end of the season to see how Michael's replacement pans out, but the past couple of seasons have been lackluster at best.  Jim and Pam are smug marrieds.  I don't even know what is going on with Dwight right now.  The only plot I find moderately amusing is the Erin/Gabe/Andy triangle.

What about you?  Are you a big television watcher?  Have you cleared out any space on your DVR lately?

Helloooo... Housekeeping!

Okay, so a few things, y'all!

1) One of my most devoted readers... my mother... mentioned a little while ago that she was having trouble commenting here on the old bloggeroo.  We determined that the problem was that she wasn't entering a URL into the corresponding field, so she just started entering one of my dad's websites.  Now, the thing is, you really shouldn't have to enter a URL to comment.  So, is anyone else out there having this problem?  If so, please let me know and I'll work on getting to the bottom to it.  If you can't comment, you can email me at AngelaNoelle1982 (at) gmail (dot) com.

2) This one goes out to all of my Facebook peeps.  Thank you all so much for reading about my silly little life--I think it's awesome that so many in real life pals read and comment and email me about what they see here.  However, I'm trying to work through a few kinks on my Facebook blog page, and once I get things fixed, I'll no longer be feeding my blog posts through my personal page, but ONLY through the blog page.  If you still want to know when I've updated, you can either "like" the Facebook page or add this site to a feed reader, such as Google Reader that will update automatically.  I have so many great friends who have "liked" the blog, and as things stand, they get an influx of stories in their newsfeed about new posts, so I'd like to limit it to just one per post!  I'm hoping to have this switch made by next week, but I'll let you all know will actually be the last post to update on my personal page.

3) And finally, today I am guest posting over at Uncorked and Unwined.  Please go check it out and maybe leave a comment so I don't feel like the awkward new kid at school!

You know how some people have a dream job when they're small?  Something that drives them their entire life toward greater accomplishments?  Well, I've never really had that kind of ambition.  When I was little, I wanted to be a ballerina.  Things didn't really work out in that direction once I dropped out of ballet class at age 9.  Then when I got older, I wanted to be a psychologist.  Until I found out you had to take a Stats class in college.  Nixed!  My lifelong ambition has been to live overseas.  And once I joined the military, then married a fellow military man, that dream became more focused on moving to Germany.
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A Little Bit of This, A Little Bit of That

Well, how was your Super Bowl XLV?  Mine was pretty great, mostly because it involved friends, excessive amounts of yummy food, soothing a precious baby to sleep, and playing with my favorite two-year-old.  Just don't ask me anything about the game.  I hear it sucked.  I did watch the half-time show, so I know that sucked.  I was rooting for the Tigers, personally, but evidently they didn't play.  Whole different conference or something.  Who knows.

I avoided writing a post last week, because oh, whiny I was!  If you are unlucky enough to follow me on Twitter, you were exposed to untold amounts of pessimism and negativity.  There were some frustrations that I was dealing with, but over all, upon review, it was a pretty great week.

Colby got home from his first work trip since the deployment ended in early November.  It was a tough adjustment after having him home for a record 2 1/2 months (we're fairly confident that's the longest stretch of time we've spent together since I moved to Washington in March of 2007) and then his return home was delayed by 4 days, but he made it back in one piece, and that's the important part.

I also got in touch with my inner Betty Homemaker, and learned the basics of how to operate my shiny new sewing machine.  I shocked myself by successfully sewing a rather lovely kitchen apron after my second lesson.  I wouldn't recommend inspecting the hemming too closely, but from a distance, it looks pretty darn good if I do say so myself!  (And I don't, because Colby was impressed too.)  I have more classes this week, and I must admit, I'm hooked,  It's not even close to the excrutiating experience of the yarn cross-stitch cat that I worked on from about 4 to 13 and never finished.

I rounded out the week with my first observation at my new volunteer job downtown.  I love, love, love me some history--so much so that I accidentally minored in it in college after taking so many history classes as electives--and I've always thought that being a tour guide would be pretty much the best job in the world.  So, when a friend handed me a clipping from the newspaper advertising a volunteer orientation at one of the beautiful antebellum museum homes on the Battery, I knew it was a match made in heaven.  I still have a few more observations to do, and a qualifying tour, then I'll be Charleston's newest tour guide!

This week, I am determined to be more positive and appreciative of the great things I've got going on in my life and stop focusing so much on the teensy little pits in the road.  And now I'm headed to youtube to look for the best commercials from last night so I can pretend I'm completely up to speed on current pop culture moments.

And... The End

At long, long, long last, we reach the end of the trip recap.  We made an uneventful (and anticlimactic) journey from Malta back to the port of Barcelona, Spain.  We disembarked the ship before the sun had even thought about gracing us with its presence, and boarded our bus for a trip to the jagged peaks of Montserrat.
I promptly fell back asleep as we wound our way up the worrying narrow mountain roads, and when we eventually got to the site of the monastery, the sun had risen but the temperatures dropped.  We made our way to the cathedral, heads down into the sharp, blustery winds and spent the morning wandering through the chapels and the attached museum.  If you've read The Secret Life of Bees, you may recognize the "Black Madonna" pictured above.  There's plenty of lore attached to her arrival at the top of the mountain, but whatever the origin, she is a stunningly beautiful piece of art.  The surrounding opulence of gold, jewels, and filigree only serves to highlight her simple beauty.

We may not have made it to the pyramids, but the Monsastery museum had a lovely section of Egyptian artifacts including the requisite mummy.
We arrived back in Barcelona, near La Rambla, in the early afternoon and still had time for a lunch stop (Finally got in my international McDonald's visit!  I can check another country off of that list!) then went on to do a little walking tour of Barcelona, stopping off at the old Roman wall and Santa Maria del Mar.  We finished the day at the Picasso Museum, which had a lovely retrospective of his work from his first entry into an art competition which showed his talent as a painter of realism, through his blue and cubist phases, and finally into his ceramics.  We were lucky enough to be there at the same time as a Degas exhibit which compared the work of the two artists and prominently displayed my favorite, and probably the most well-known, Degas, Little Dancer, Age 14.
And, because bad things evidently really DO come in threes, we couldn't end our trip without one last teensy tinsy hiccup.  The complete and utter meltdown of a major international airport.  That long line of people shows just a fraction of the travelers who were affected by the terrible weather in London.  Thanks be to God, after our four hour wait (with nearly ended in fisticuffs), the lady who booked our new flight apologetically changed our itinerary from a London to an Atlanta connection.  And I swear, if it weren't for that woman, we would STILL be in Barcelona, trying to get home.

We stayed an extra day in the city, unfortunately wasting most of it in the horrible rebooking line, and dragged our poor, weary bones home 24 hours later than expected.  But at least we made it home.

Were I to be completely honest with you, I would say that I just can't recommend a European cruise.  We got to see a number of spectacular sights in a condensed amount of time, but if you are a traveler who revels in the feeling of immersing yourself in a new culture, you would be sorely disappointed.  Cruise food is not all its cracked up to be, and I would so much have rather had the nights in Greece or Malta or Sicily to wander the streets and enjoy the cuisine.  Instead, I felt more like we were on little field trips into each country, and I never really got the feel for each city as I would have liked.

Following our little "incident" in the port of Alexandria, many people have asked me if I would ever go on a cruise again.  And you know, I would.  I think the cruise atmosphere is perfect for the Caribbean.  But if you want to go to Europe, just pick a couple of countries, book some hotels and go there.  Get lost in the back alleys.  Take the wrong bus and end up somewhere you didn't know existed.  Order dinner in the local language.  Take advantage of the incredible train service available to you to whisk you from place to place.  

If you really want to experience a country, the sterilized version offered up by a cruise line isn't the way to do it.  It's a way to mark a country off your list, but in my opinion it's no way to see a country.