Thursday, July 31, 2008

Quick Post from Away

We arrived late Saturday night - too late to get to the liquor store for beer for Sunday's Poker Run. In the morning, my friends Murray & Angela came by to pick me up for the Poker Run with a fish tank full of beer & burgers - no money expected.

This afternoon, my friend Brad picked me up at the beach in his jet boat with a cooler of beer & took me out for a spin around the harbor.

My old friend (and ex-boyfriend) Jared stopped by the cottage tonight with a big bag of lobster meat & a bunch of bar clams - as a present, unrequested & no payment expected.

Our friends up here are so generous & kind.
Any wonder why I love it here?

Saturday, July 26, 2008

We're off!

I'm off for my 2-week vacation on the Island! Catch you all on the flip side. ;)

Sunday, July 20, 2008

Vacation Countdown

In past years, I've started this countdown far sooner. I think when I worked full-time & disliked my "daily grind," it was more important to keep a close eye on when my vacation started. ;) Now, I like my daily life, so I'm only mentioning my vacation when I'm six days out.

In other words, I leave for my annual vacation to Prince Edward Island on Saturday morning. Those of you who have read the blog for awhile now know all about how much I value my time there. For the newer folks, here's a summary post & a link to all of my posts about PEI.

Yay - I'm so excited!

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Thursday Night Detritus

I miss being in love. There, I said it. It's one of those things that young, independent, single women like myself aren't supposed to say, or even think. But there it is.

I stood at the bar tonight & listened to a very dear friend recount the "talk" that she & her now boyfriend (as a result of that talk) had yesterday. I was so happy for her, but the story lit a spark that fanned a flame that is now consuming me (all for the want of a horseshoe nail, right?).

What I have is this:
  • a nice guy who thinks I'm "awesome," but can't commit to more than casual dating 
  • a great guy who I've treated casually for a few months now. Now, however, I think I really like him & can't figure out how to communicate that. 
That's all. What I have isn't bad, but it's not much.

And I want more. I know it's silly to pine for love & "it will happen when you least expect it." That's all well & good, but what do you do when you're staring out at the lights along the river & wishing fervently that you had someone special with whom to share it?

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Books, Books, Books

Trying something different today, from a friend.

"The Big Read reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they've printed."
1) Bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you LOVE (I'm putting parentheses, since Blogger is weird about underlining).
4) Reprint this list in your own blog.

1 (Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen)
2 (The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien)
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 (Harry Potter series - JK Rowling)
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 (The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien)
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 (The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald)
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 (Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne)
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 (Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery)
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 (Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson)
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Ronald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Now you try! Here, I'll even tag some of the big readers I know to get you started. ;) Susie, Kristin, Melissa, Sarah, Kate D., and Teensy - have at!

Monday, July 14, 2008

(Last) Weekend Update

Jeez, I've been a seriously sucky blogger lately. The only excuse I can offer is that I've been working, traveling, and spending most nights out enjoying the season with friends. At any rate, here are my belated photos from last weekend: July 4th & my friend Shawn's visit from LA.

Thing 2 with my friend The Artist & my dad

Shawn, The Artist, and her boyfriend, enjoying the lake

Portsmouth Harbor cruise

Shawn & I on the harbor cruise

Samplers on Portsmouth Brewery's patio :)

Wednesday, July 09, 2008

Sox on Fire

Is anyone else seeing this? ;)

The Sox went into the 7th inning of today's game against the Twins with just a 2-run lead (7-5). Then, all hell broke loose. Here's the box score:

July 9, 2008

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R H E
Minnesota
3 0 0 0 0 2 0 0

5 13 1
Boston
0 0 4 0 2 1 7 3

18 23 2

I love being home from work early to be able to enjoy this. :)

Tuesday, July 01, 2008

More Nephew Cuteness

Just had to share this picture of me & Thing 2 from Memorial Day weekend. Makes me smile just to look at it. :)