Book Review: American Sniper

I am a pretty avid reader and I love to read just about anything. In all honesty, I don't tend to read biographies but I saw American Sniper and loved it so I thought I would rea the book. When I have read biographies in the past I usually struggle to read them and spend lots of time working to get into the story. This is not that kind of book. I had a hard time putting the book down, on Thursday night I had to restrain myself from reading more. 

The story of Chris Kyle is both moving and compelling. It is as if I was in the war theater watching him and hearing how he made choices. He writes of his life at home and on deployment. I found it particularly agonizing to read about his hopes for the future knowing that many of his dreams were stolen from him. Some of his story is accented by parts written by his wife, I loved reading about her memories and thoughts. I will admit that I have a new respect for military spouses, the strength they need to live while their hearts are away is amazing. 

I am not sure that I will read a million biography books but I highly recommend this one. The movie is similar to the book but the book had way more details. You should check out both the movie and the book. 

The month my scale died...

So I have been trying to lose weight for like forever, truthfully it is going relatively well. In the last year I have lost almost ten pound, maybe more maybe less. One of the things I try to do is not get on the scale all of the time so that I don't freak out over eating two cookies one day. So this month my scale batteries finally died, I am sure that I have some batteries around here but I though it might be interesting to leave the scale off.

So far I have been more dedicated to getting after the running and strength training that I want to do. I  haven't gotten discouraged this month. I am just excited to see what kind of results I manage this month, or if nothing else I am excited to have already hit my goals and the month isn't over yet. Yay.

I don't know that this will be a permanent change to the scale because if I don't get on the scale I tend to ignore all of the signs and believe things like: the dryer shrunk my pants, it is an optical illusion, it isn't fat it is just fluff. So at the end of the day I have to hit the scale at least once or twice a month. But all in all not getting on the scale has been good for me so far.

I just hope that at the end of this month the scale will be showing a smaller number. But at least I got out there and run and made a point to do many more sit-ups and pushups than usually happen in a month. It is about the small things.



PS. I am hoping to get back into blogging more and more these days.

OMG an update

As I am sure you have noticed or perhaps you haven't since surely my readers (the few of you there are) have abandoned me due to lack of publication. Sorry, I have been a little busy with life here in Dallas and super stressed about trying to find a job. I wish I could promise that I would be more diligent about this but we both know that isn't really going to happen.

Summer here in Dallas is getting super hot and I am trying to keep busy and cool. I thought that since it has been so long since we chatted I would let you know how my 2014 resolutions are going (you can read about them here).

1- try 50 new recipes

I think I have tried about 21 new recipes this year or new versions of recipes. I have a few new editions that I am super excited to share with you. I think I will actually make this goal.

2- Run 200 miles

To date I have run about 86 miles! I know I had high hopes of being over 100 already but since I jacked up my foot pretty bad in february I think I am making good progress. I think this is going to happen or at least get close. It is hard to get long runs in these days since it is still 100 when I get home from work.

3- Quit Stressing about the blog

Yeah, this is going as well as I had hoped. I was hoping for more of a post a few a week and be consistent with this but it turned out that I was so stressed that I just quit writing. Hopefully I will be able to get somewhere more balanced.

4- Apply for faculty jobs

This is actually going pretty well. The academic job market for 2015 is just now opening and I have found a few positions that I am going to apply for. So this is going to happen. This also probably means that I am so stressed that I will most likely post more often since that makes me not have to do work. :) I am looking forward to seeing what happens with this. I hope to be able to share some of this journey but it will probably be really vague since I can't really post anything about it... oh well we will see how it goes.


Since I hadn't really thought about these goals recently, this was a great refresher about where I have already been this year. I am hopeful that I will be able to actually keep up with my blogging and not be so stressed about all of this. I am not sure that will happen but since I find it somewhat cathartic to share my life I hope to get better about this. Well I am off to tackle the cleaning of this house since I have no desire to actually work on my work stuff.

Dallas STARS

So many months ago, before playoffs obviously, I went with a few of my good friends to see the Dallas STARS play hockey. Seeing them play has been on my list of things to do in Dallas since I got here but for a million and five reasons it never seems to work out when I can get tickets through work. So eventually, I got a chance to see the game. It was on short notice which for some reason almost always works out better for my schedule. My friends snagged free tickets from some raffle or something so that was awesome. We sat near the top but it was nice to be able to see the entire rink.

It was a pretty close game and in the end it ended up being a shootout. I have to admit that after spending much of my childhood watching Mighty Ducks, I love a shootout. The agony of loss in the final seconds and the amazing winning at the same time, what more could a girl want.

In the end the STARS pulled out a win! It was so fun to see them play hockey, I will definitely be grabbing tickets next year when they are offered. It was so fun to cheer them on, and it is always the best when they actually win! This was a great way to check another item off of my Dallas Bucket List.

DIY: Jewelry hanger

I don't know if you know this but I am super obsessed with jewelry, I love everything about it and I am a firm believer that you can't have too much jewelry on (this is of course not totally true but I love to wear lots of jewels). I have been in need of a new way to hang my jewelry so that I know what I have and it won't get tangeled up in a drawer or worse forgotten about. So after scouring Pinterest to find a great idea I decided that I didn't like any of them and developed my own method. 

Supplies:

Frame

Cup Hooks

Paint (for frame)

Spray paint for hooks

I had gotten a free sample of this gray paint a few months ago with no real plan for it but I decided that it would be a perfect complement to the Pink I was going to use for the hooks. So I painted the frame a dusky gray. I snagged this frame from a garage sale for $10, which is way over priced since it was broken (but it was a Young Life fundraiser so I donated a little extra cash). It was also cracked but I repaired it using wood glue.

A great idea!

So pink and perfect

To paint the hooks, I stuck them in the top of a shoe box since this would allow me to spray all sides of the hooks and not my arm. This was actually super genius, if I say so myself. I painted them a few different times to make sure that I got all of the sides painted.

I decided that I wanted something similar to a chevron print as the pattern for these hooks. I didn't really want them to be in a line and this gave some exciting visualization but not too much. I drew the pattern out on newsprint so that I could make sure it looked good. I found that about one inch apart and three hooks per side worked best for me.

The frame

These are actually much more even than the picture suggests.

I hung the frame using two nails that it rests against since I took off all of the hardware so that it would be flat. I then laid the pattern against the wall and pushed a pushpin where I wanted each hook to go before removing the pattern. I then screwed the hooks into the wall (this was actually kinda hard work).

I have loved having this in my bedroom, it allows me to choose my jewelry everyday and remember what cool stuff I have. I am not sure what I will do as my collection of jewels grows but that is a problem for another day. I do have a few empty hooks so it won't be that bad. Let me know if you give this a try. 

New Patio Garden

Several weeks ago I planted a small garden on the back patio... actually it is starting to turn into a much larger project than I had intended but that is kinda just what happens when you are single. I don't get much sunlight and I still want to be able to use my patio so I just have a line of pots that are near the railing.

This year I have:
3 tomato plants: big boy, cherry, creole
3 bell pepper plants: both green
6 basil (they come in packs of three)
Parsley
Dill
several flowers

Apparently I didn't really take any photos of the starting process but I have some much more recent pictures.

Gotta have some pretties

I think I might have over bought

This garden is growing really well, I am so excited about my cherry tomato plant, I bought the larger one (there is the $2 plant about 3 inches tall or one for $6 that is much bigger). I think I might switch to buying the bigger plants if the other plants never give me any tomatoes.

So many plants

Cherry tomato plant with lots of tomatoes

This tomato plant is going to have to go... it is sick

Herb garden!

I have lost a few flowers and a basil plant but other than that with lots of watering things are going great! I just found out that the tomato plant has to go... silly virus.

Wall Monogram...Fail

As any good southern girl does, I love monograms. I don't have many on my clothes but I do have some towels and the like that are monogrammed. I think I will be monogramming more stuff in the future, I think it makes for great decor. Anyway, I found a super cheap frame at a garage sale and I decided that I should make a wall monogram.

I bought paint, the letters H and M, and a fleur-de-lis. I am also obsessed with fleur-de-lis, I have them all over my house. Anyway.

I painted all of my things and then realized I didn't really have a plan for hanging the letters inside the frame. I opted to add a foam board back and I covered it in light tan fabric.

This fabric was a bit much.

I used hot glue to get everything attached (that took forever). So I decided to hang it in my office.

Cute but I think it is going to have to go

It isn't that often that I get to the end of a project and realize that I have no idea what to do with the finished item. I may have forgotten to plan for a way to attach this to the wall. I tried just resting it on nails and it kept falling off. So for now I have no idea what I am going to do with this. So silly. I also don't know if I love how it looks so it might get recycled soon.