Heaven on Earth

I really think I have found heaven on earth, or at least I sincerely hope that when Christ returns and we are made new as part of the new heavens and the new earth it looks a little something like this...

My Hunka Hunka Burning Love and I have gone from 0 - 60 in 3.7 seconds. The summer was absolutely wonderful. He was working at the U.S. Attorney's office here in town, 9 a.m. - 5 p.m. and after 5, he was all mine. No reading and law school work from 6 p.m. - 1 a.m. We fell asleep most nights together, we spent good time with great friends, we went to the beach... twice. It was simply splendid. However, then came interviewing with law firms for next summer, 2015 (already, geesh! He only finished this summer's internship 2 weeks ago). We have had 2 weeks of interviews here at the law school followed by 3 weeks traveling to the firms for callback interviews.

For all those asking, "Where?!?!?!" - Washington, D.C., Richmond, Birmingham, Atlanta and Charlotte. You'll have to stay posted to see what we decide.

All this to say, we are fully back in the swing of things and running 90 miles a minute. This past weekend we wanted to go to a B&B for a little QT before he was out of town, again, this week and next. Just some time to sit and be with each other before we said an official goodbye to summer and hello to the craziness. All in all, we decided the B&B was too expensive and too much of a hassle, so we called on our dear friends J&E.

J&E are some of our favorite older wiser friends. They graciously and so generously opened their home to us and allowed us the opportunity to get out of Cville and settle our hearts and minds the way we were hoping. When I asked my HHBL if there was anything he'd like to add about J&E he responded, "coolest cats this side of the Mississippi!" I Yi Yi - he's nuts! 

I think I sat in this position from about 10 a.m. - 4 p.m. I took a little nap, read my book, snuggled my HHBL and (emphasis specifically inserted for J&E's pleasure. They seem to think I say "and" funny when I'm telling stories) still found time to take a break for a little lunch of grilled cheese with fresh tomatoes from their garden with a side of raspberries and mangoes - YUMM!!

Who doesn't love a little Calvin and Hobbes on Sunday morning?

If I had to describe my favorite place to feel at home one of the hands down contenders for first place would be their house, sitting on the porch, overlooking the vineyard. One of the only other places that really comes close would be the sofa in the sunroom at my parents' house, gazing out the window into our backyard. 

Our backyard wasn't one of those lush, green yards with lots or room to throw the baseball, but it's home. Now a days, typically at Thanksgiving or Christmas, you can occasionally look out the window and see my oldest brother (35 yrs old, 6' 7", 260ish lbs) sitting in his childhood tree fort, bow and arrow in hand, trying to shoot a deer.

Sorry, the only picture I had of my backyard was from fall 2008, I was living in NOLA and missed home, so my mom took several pictures of the changing leaves in our neighborhood to bring me a little consolation.

I don't know what it is, but I just eat up the juxtaposition of the manicured grape vines, the groomed pasture with grazing cows, to the complete ruggedness of those Blue Ridge Mountains. Maybe I just have a thing for staring out into the wilderness and getting lost in the infinity of the Lord's creation and even attempting to grasp how much creativity, joy and pleasure he takes in his creations. Food for the soul!

Shark Week!

It's one of my favorite weeks of the year... SHARK WEEK!!

If you haven't been watching, get with the program (literally, hahaha, Discovery Channel).

Thus far I have seen researchers crazy lunatics on the search to find Colossus, last seen here on Shark Week 2012 from the footage taken for Air Jaws Apocalypse.

Apparently, we can tell it's Colossus based on the notch that is missing from his dorsal fin.

Then I got to see a double feature of researchers people mentally bonkers on the search first for the legendary 38 foot great white "Submarine" - the infamous scar across his face, the dead give away that it's obviously him continuing to terrorize people. Then the 60 year old, 20 foot, hammer head in Florida "Old Hitler"/ Bahamas "Harbormaster" - could they be one and the same...?

Last night I wasn't paying much attention. I've become a little burnt out on the research for the elusive legendary blahdy blahdy shark, but of course we had it on. My Hunka Hunka Burning Love was paying only slightly more attention than I and says with total enthusiasm, "Babe, guess what's on next!" Me - "Air Jaws IIV?" My HHBL - "No... look in the top corner of the tv screen." Me - "Uhh (cue eye roll as I look up) ZOMBIE SHARKS! Are you kidding me?!?! That is soo stupid, what is the deal with zombies?" My HHBL (completely genuine) - "Babe, don't worry, they aren't real zombies." BAHAHAHAHAA, really baby?!?! They aren't real zombie sharks, whooo I'm safe!

We both just lost it laughing on the couch. Thank goodness those sharks aren't back from the dead attacking anything and everything in their wake under the sea.

Oh My Hunka Hunka Burning Love, you keep me laughing!

This is a card My HHBL gave me last year just because it was Shark Week!

Intellectuals

You know your friends are nerds intellectuals when... you have 15 great book recommendations but not a single decent movie recommendation.

Every Thursday my Hunka Hunka Burning Love and I have date night. Last night was no exception; however, we're leaving for the beach on Sunday, so we have no groceries and  my Hunka Hunka Burning Love is in law school, so we have no money. Date nights do not have to be super, uber romantic or expensive, but last night was pretty low key to the extreme. We were going to do "frozen pizza and a movie," but... we had the pizza only couldn't find a single movie we were interested in watching.

I don't know these two, stolen from google, all rights reserved.

Netflix has how many thousands of live streaming movie options and we couldn't find one? I guess since I, myself, didn't have any good movie ideas this must make me an intellectual too.

We ended up watching 2 episodes of Mad Men, which is definitely good television, but not exactly what we were going for with "pizza and a movie" date night. (A small Mad Men clip for your viewing pleasure).

Speaking of Mad Men here's a small advertisement: If you're anything like me, I have a mental list of books I want to read (that I can never fully recall) and then people ask me if I have any recommendations and I know I do, but I can't think of which books I've read, and the ones I can name I can't recall if I like it or not. For this my friends, there is a solution, goodreads.com (there's even an app)!

I joined goodreads in 2008, was active for about 2 months, not sure what happened, but I gave up on it or maybe I stopped reading. Anyways, I've just recently re-discovered it and it's wonderful. I can add all the books that are recommended to me or that I uncover on my own, when I finish a book I can rate it 1 - 5 stars, I can see other people's reviews, it links to all those ebook, kindle, downloadable book things. The best part is that I no longer have to keep a desultory, haphazard google doc, which I can't even access on my phone - dumb!

If this is an annoying predicament of yours, then you should join goodreads.com (and invite me to be your friend).