Thoughtfully it didn't hit the house or the gate and it split so high we could still get our cars underneath, but I'm still mad at it. Then on Friday, after I spent the day at the FBI in Dallas I drove into the driveway to hear a SNAP and a crash and bam, the limb was down. Luckily my car wasn't underneath it, but less luckily it was on the wrong end of the driveway to ever get out again. James got home and used his muscles and a laughably inadequate handsaw to cut the limb into pieces to drag out of the way.
Two hours and many blisters later, my car was free and we decided we needed a chainsaw. Despite regular trimming, tree limbs fall down a lot at our house. A couple hundred dollars and four days later, the sawed up limbs are off our lawn. Sometimes I have to remind myself how much I love the giant trees in our yard, but love them I do.
Other priceyish things that I love are the kids' new lunchboxes. After MUCH adding to my cart and then chickening out over the price and closing out the window, and then reading 100 more blog posts about people's lunch boxes and re-committing to the idea of buying a Rover for Landon and Claire, I finally actually purchased the Planetbox Rover lunchbox sets. I love them and I have been promised they will last forever. They're already helping James pack healthier lunches because those little compartments basically force you to add a fruit AND a vegetable and mock your idea to just throw some leftover pizza in a bag and call it a day.
It's like they've taken my love of organizational bins and made them tiny and adorable and then added food. I want to bring one to work. If I ever actually packed a lunch for work.
(But I do not. Ever. Nachos do not travel well.)
(Also Cora's lunchbox is from Lunchbots and works perfectly for her eating preferences which involve smaller quantities and way less variety; in her perfect world, she would eat only cheese and I have a hard time arguing against that.)
I dropped my camera on our last night in Jamaica, a sad and terrible thing that I basically pretended didn't happen for the first several days we were back. Luckily I only broke part of the lens and not the body. Less luckily it was the part that connected the lens to the camera and fixing it cost as much as re-buying a used version of the same 18-105 lens. So I searched online and upgraded to a used version of the Nikon 18-200 lens and I LOVE it. More zoom! Metal connectors that won't break if I drop it again! (Which I won't because I love that camera more than any other possession in my home and I've had it for 6 years and never dropped it once before and I missed it SO MUCH in the two weeks it was being cleaned and checked out.)
To celebrate my new zooming capabilities I focused in on Cora's hair because she has some now and we're all very proud.
Pigtails are like 9 months away, I can feel it.
I finished all 8 Kate Daniels books by Ilona Andrews in 10 days. They are so goddamned good I'm having a hard time not yelling at everyone I see that they must read them, and also not cursing myself for reading them so quickly because I nearly killed myself for lack of sleep and now there aren't any new Kate Daniels books left for me to read. I've stalked the authors' website and discovered there are two more under contract and I found all the novellas on other characters but I need way more Kate Daniels in my life. I haven't enjoyed a series that much in a long time. Great world building, fantastic heroine- one of the best I've maybe ever read, and super action-y, it's Urban Fantasy and not Romance, though a romance evolves (as it is wont to do) as the story gets going. It's also not YA, so it's way less angsty than some of the books I'd been reading lately. I really can't recommend it highly enough.
(I was literally hiding in the bathroom trying to finish a chapter when Cora found me, closed the door, and stared at me expectantly until I went and read her books instead)
And finally, because there is really no coherent theme to this blog post other than to post some things that I couldn't fit in before, I'm equally obsessed with Ella Henderson's "Chapter One" album. The song "Ghost" is what brought me to her iTunes page and in a rare bit of extravagance I bought the whole album as opposed to the one song and I am SO GLAD. Cora and I danced to all the songs for nearly two hours tonight while I chopped all the things to make a Greek Quinoa Salad for dinner. James and the kids were at his pool, so I could blast the music way beyond his tolerance levels. He said he could hear it when he pulled in the driveway, before he opened his door. Cora and I know how to party.
I LOVE that song; I already worked it into my barre choreography for the class I taught on Monday. Empire, Pieces, and Hard Work are also excellent. The whole album just plays on random while I work all day. I don't know if I've ever revealed this before, but I can be a tiny bit obsessive about things.
Time to go re-read the Kate Daniels. I already re-read books 5, 7, and 8, but I feel like I need to start over and do it properly. If you have any suggestions in this new Urban Fantasy world I'm living in, I'm all ears!
Usually I just lurk on your blog (uh, not menacingly, I hope), but aawwwww yeah Kate Daniels. Fellow government attorney here who is way too into urban fantasy on my Kindle. Have you read any of Patricia Briggs' stuff? It is all well worth it. I also loved the entire Kim Harrison "The Hollows" series, which is finished now (sob), but she has a new book out this week beginning a different series that I haven't checked out yet. Some of Illona Andrews other stuff is also pretty good, I've read the first few novels of The Edge series. The Jane Yellowrock novels by Faith Hunter will scratch the Urban Fantasy itch too, but I only buy them when they are on sale and stopped working my way through the series at some point so clearly they aren't that compelling. Jennifer Estep's Elemental Assassin series is decent, and I loved the Fever series by Karen Marie Moning. I will be watching the comments on this post because I need some new urban fantasy in my life. Also, congrats to Cora on the hair! My 19 month old is a baldie who is just now growing the first fuzzy blonde strands. People seem to be very invested in seeing when she will sprout a whole head's worth.
ReplyDeleteYay for new books! Urban Fantasy is a mostly new world for me. I have not read Patricia Briggs. I have read "The Hollows" and just could not love it. I tried, and I read up until the near end, but Ivy annoyed the crap out of me (she was supposed to be so strong and amazing but she was mostly all withdrawn and mad at herself, which I get, but it did not make me care remotely about her character) and they way Rachel was written constantly annoyed me- she was a great character in theory and occasionally in practice, but if I had to read "I'm such an idiot" one more time I was going to punch her. Mostly I wanted Kim Harrison to get a better editor because I enjoyed the idea behind the books quite a lot. But yes, more suggestions like the Hollows! I just feel like I missed something while reading that series because I spent about 50% of the time I was reading it annoyed at someone and usually I can immerse myself in a good series and forgive the author anything. I feel this way about the Darynda Jones "First Grave on the Right" series too. It started out so promising and I loved the main character, but by the last few books Charly was so annoying I literally couldn't stand reading from her perspective and didn't even download the last book.
DeleteI haven't read Jane Yellowrock and I also LOVE the Fever series. Mac is another character who frequently annoys me (SO MUCH exposition in her own head; a head that should be way more interesting to be inside that it ever actually is; for this I blame the author), but the world building and other characters are so incredibly rich I will download each new book the second it's out at midnight and read until 6 a.m. and just hope Mac occasionally takes a break from telling us stories about "the deep south...." and making random assertions and grand statements and then doing exactly nothing about whatever she just said. Burned nearly killed me on that front. But I've already pre-ordered the next one :).
(And I'm glad to hear the other Ilona Andrews books are good. I"m almost afraid to try them because I love their Kate Daniels world so much that I have such high expectations of them!)
DeleteI was going to recommend the Patricia Briggs Mercy Thompson series too. It's really good and I liked them almost as much as the Kate Daniels series. I've been eyeing those PlanetBox Rover sets for awhile now. Still talking myself into them.
DeleteIf you are digging urban fantasy right now, I would recommend Seanan McGuire's October Daye series.
ReplyDeleteYay, thanks!
DeleteI agree. I have loved Kate Daniels from the start. One of them was released within a week of the July bar exam; I had to stop studying to read. But I am equally excited with a October Daye book comes out.
DeleteUmmm...that bar exam was in 2010. I did pass, too, by the way.
DeleteAnother long time lurker from way back AND a huge fan of Ilona Andrews! I see you've got the Fever series covered (another favorite of mine!), so how about Kelley Armstrong? I have read her Otherworld series (some I've liked better than others), but I'm *loving* her Cainsville series! This is YA and it's a tad more fantasy than urban, but check out the Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyers. The first three were fantastic! Last but not least, check out the Chicagoland Vampire series by Chloe Neill- quick, easy, fun reads with just enough edge to stand out.
ReplyDeleteHappy reading!
Yay, I have not read any of those. I have SO MUCH reading to do!
DeleteBack to your lunch boxes... how does it fare with keeping the perishables unperished?
ReplyDelete-Simi
Very well! This review is very helpful: http://wendolonia.com/blog/2013/06/27/review-planetbox-rover/. The Rover does a good job keeping all the food very separate and the fruit appears unbruised after half a day of banging around in there. They're just what I'd hoped they'd be!
DeleteI absolutely second the October Daye books. I just finished the most recent one and was bummed when I got to the end because I wanted more!
ReplyDeleteI too was sad when I finished it. I wanted more.
DeleteCherie Priest also has 2 books called Bllodshot and Hellbent that are just plain fun. The high level description is "The Cheshire Red Reports concern a vampire thief called Raylene Pendle. Although she prefers to work alone, she acquires a group of misfits who join her in her adventures. These are two young children, a blind vampire and an ex-Navy Seal/Drag Queen."
ReplyDeleteI loved every second of reading these.
I am back to the lunch boxes (err.. bags ...) too. I have had M's lunch box from Pottery Barn for only a few months and it's starting to smell and get moldy. I wipe it down every day, but since you can't wash it, I think the yuckiness just builds up. Can you wash the Rover bag? I am a big fan of being able to throw things in washing machines if possible ...
ReplyDeleteI think you can wash it. It's very wipeable and because the stainless steel tray is pretty tight and leakproof, and you don't have any loose items floating around, we haven't had it get a crumb on it yet. You also keep drinks in the pouch on the outside which helps a lot on keeping the interior clean. We really love it!
DeleteI immediately added Kate Daniels to my to-read to-doist file. Thanks for sharing! Also, is James JP? I will have to read back a few posts to get my answer. But the whole time I'm like, "Who is that guy?!" I remember when you said people in TX thought his name was JP when you guys moved a long time ago. So it cracks me up that I had a similar reaction.
ReplyDeleteYay, Kate Daniels should be read by anyone who reads fiction. It's so good.
DeleteAnd yes, James is the husband formerly referred to as "JP". Once I linked to his company, which is in his name, I decided it was silly to keep trying to call him JP in the blog, especially since I had such a hard time remembering to type it and, like you mentioned, people who read the blog started calling him JP in person. He's just James, my James, no initials :).