Need A Good Book?

I've been on a real reading kick these last 8 months or so and it's been wonderful. The funny part is that all through school I HATED reading. I have always been a slow reader, I think part of this has do with the fact that I like to read dialogue in the way it would be actually spoken. I can read faster, but it doesn't sound as good and my characters lose all their accents and inflection.

In 7th grade I got a C in reading because I'd just put my head down and fall asleep. They gave me this completely bogus and unattainable goal, so after about a week I didn't even try (I'll try not to teach my children this trait). In high school I was supposed to read Crime and Punishment at least 3 times, I think I read 30 pages... oops. Then in college, by my third year, knowing I wouldn't read the books, I didn't even buy most of them. I saved my parents a ton of money (you're welcome). Tangent... senior year of high school, AP English teacher gives the assignment to ask our parents one piece of advice for college. You can assume the usual, "stay on top of reading, visit the professor, don't get behind, do the reading, blah blah blah." My mom's advice, "Go To Class. If you go to class, you don't have to do most of the reading." Best (and truest) college advice I ever received.

However, something in me switched once I was no longer made to read, and to read books that I had absolutely no interest in. Now, I'm an animal and cannot stop. A small praise to Jesus for this 180, since My Hunka Hunka Burning Love is reading law books most nights until bed time, it's nice to sit on the couch together and read rather than ostracize him to the office to work.

Below are 5 books that I've read recently and highly recommend. I tried to pick ones that hopefully you haven't seen on all the best seller lists and the like.

The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd

If you're like me and didn't quite understand all the fuss about her other book, The Secret Life of Bees, it's ok, this book is still phenomenal!!

Early 1800s Charleston, the story of a slave girl and the plantation owner's daughter and how they walk the road together towards freedom from both of their worlds of bondage.

The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman

This is a very easy read, due to this, when I finished it at first I kind of brushed it off. Slowly the story just kept coming back to me over and over again and I realized that while it's not a piece of literary genius, the story is so sweet, heart warming and heart wrenching. It's slowly creeping up as an all time favorite.

 Doll-baby by Laura Lane McNeal

This is not The Help 2.0 like some of the reviews like to compare it to. It does take place during Civil Rights era in New Orleans, but the plot serves a completely different purpose. It's a touching story about a young girl who ends up living with her grandmother after her father's death, and how they essentially raise and protect one another.

In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez

I read this one a while back, so I don't remember the exact details, but it's during Rafael Leonidas Trujillo’s dictatorship and how four sisters, only one who's still alive, lived through and resisted political oppression.

 Villa Triste by Lucrieta Grindle

I've read several WWII novels, but this is the first one I've read that depicts what was happening in Italy and the resistance forces that emerged after the armistice to help resist the German invasion. The story unravels a great mystery of betrayal by some of the leaders of the resistance.






I may or may not love historical fiction. In school/never was/am I very good at remembering the details of big historical events, but wrap history in the story of particular people, some falling in love, families learning hidden secrets, tangible examples of how people were living day to day, I'm hooked. Maybe social history would have suited me a little better.

Let me know if you have any recommendations.

Saving on the Little Things

So I'm basically stealing from my friend Becca's blog (she's great if you don't already know/read her). She wrote a blog inspired by this book about how to save money ($100/day - woaw, that's a lot). If you don't know... My Hunka Hunka Burning Love and I are currently accumulating just a little bit of debt as he goes to law school. We're constantly trying to stop spending money, but I'm we're really not very good at that. When I read Becca's blog I thought, oh wonderful, I'll just use all the ideas she's already come up with... uno problemo, we don't spend money on the same things repeatedly. It feels as though we're constantly spontaneous/splurge spenders. Now, I haven't read the book, so I don't know all the ideas she came up with to accomplish her goal, but I've taken the ones Becca highlighted to demonstrate the dilemma I face.

"Here are a few things Janice did, as recorded in her book:" (I omitted a few I felt were null, as to not inundate you).

1. Canceled my television service. My HHBL would never this happen... he loves his ESPN way too much (I may or may not get HGTV out of it too).

3. Used up my samples from Sephora. I don't have any. I don't have samples from anywhere.

4. Used up the creams that were just so-so before I repurchased my favorite. We have a few bottle of lotion, but my HHBL hates the girly smelly ones, so I can only go through the ones I have but soo fast.

6. Invited friends out for hikes, coffees, or frozen yogurt rather than wait until they invited me to pricey dinners. We are attempting this, luckily our friends are pretty cheap as well.

8. Drank all the tea in my house before buying more. Oh lordy, I had a lot of tea. We only have 2 cabinets in our little kitchen for food, so we don't have a lot of anything just hanging around waiting to be eaten in our house.

9. Ordered a small coffee instead of a latte. It would have been cheaper to make coffee at home, but less social. We rarely order coffee, My HHBL makes a scrumptious French Press coffee every morning for us. Travel mugs are the way to go and skip the ordered coffee all together.

10. Said no to dinners at restaurants. Ok, we can actually really work on this one. We are trying to eat out less, whether it's a fun date night out or ordering take out. We will have only done that once this week - Go Us!!!

12. Oatmeal. We eat this regularly in the winter. I have a stash in my desk at work for breakfast every morning. I just can't do it in the summer.

13. Did my own nails with all the polish I already bought. I only get a mani/pedi maybe twice a year, so this really isn't going to help the bank account all that much.

14. Accepted gifts from people. Strange, but the more I released, the more I received gifts, largely in the form of free meals and stationery. Bring it on friends, I'll accept your gifts, no problem!

16. Searched my medicine cabinet before I went to the pharmacy. What I needed was usually there. We don't have much besides Nyquil and Advil. We're tough! The cave men didn't have medicine, so neither do we.

17. Stopped falling for coupons. You know what’s cheaper? Not buying at all. Ok, ok, I'll listen to this one. At the grocery we also buy most everything generic brand because that's usually still cheaper even if you have a coupon for the name brand one. Maybe one day I'll figure out how to be one of those crazy couponers who gets away with everything name brand and somehow get's paid $25 to leave with $1,546 worth of stuff.

22. Convinced my family to not get each other big Christmas gifts. Instead we got each other a small stocking stuffer. It was delightful, and no one missed the lack of presents. Our poor families are already used to getting $1 Scratchers... If they're really lucky we buy the $5 ones. Did I tell you my husband is in law school?

25. Welcomed overnight guests into my home. Strange, but they basically fed me half the time out of gratitude for the free place to stay, and I was delighted to see them. Our door is always open (literally, if you can see into the house through just the glass front door, we're home. If it's dark outside we half shut the wooden door (no peeping Toms), so just check for T Tog and lights). We just recently had some fun guests stay with us for a wedding and it was absolutely delightful!

While I was hoping that she would do all the hard work of brainstorming the money saving tips, alas many of them don't fit within our current lifestyle, so I've had to do some thinking of my own. Here are a few I've come up with:

1. I hosted a baby shower recently and instead of keeping the leftover cups, napkins, etc. that weren't used for "next time" I took them back for a refund.

2. When I returned them, I didn't allow myself to browse the aisles... just in and out, thank you for my money back.

3. Eat the food we buy rather than wait for it to go bad and throw it out.

4. Use the public library always (even if it means being the 138th person on the waiting list), day-gone books are expensive these days!

5. Stop visiting T.J. Maxx or Marshalls. If you go, bring your husband who will only let you purchase what you went in looking for and nothing else.

Since I don't have the easy solutions like, stop drinking beer and you'll lose 5 lbs, please let me know if you have any other great money saving tips. This blog was not for your benefit but rather a hope in it benefiting me.