Friday, November 23, 2018

Updates from just around the riverbend

Waaaaasssssssup, my betches!*

I guess you could say it's been a hot minute or two or three since I last checked in, but we're alive and well over here and things couldn't be peachier!

Yesterday was Thanksgiving (holla), which is definitely moving up my list of Holidays Thou Art Loves.  I mean, who can complain about a holiday centered around eating and getting together with family and friends.  I'm going to begin writing my petition tomorrow to President Trump (*shiver*) that Christmas Eve going forth (after the 2018 holiday season - - -don't want to give the retail industry a heart attack this year) shall be deemed the fourth Thursday in December.  That way, we can all just have a nice, four-day weekend every year to celebrate and buy each other tons of crap we don't end up needing after about a month.

It irks me to no end since I've ventured into the bizz-world (and left behind the school-year-calendar days of yore) that we have to tango with families year after year to see who's doing Christmas when and how flippin' weird when it falls on a Wednesday so you end up working Monday and Tuesday (lookin' at you gub-ment) and then get Wednesday off, but have to go back Thursday and Friday, and no one is really there who has a say in the matter and the ones who HAVE to be there because they don't have a say in the matter aren't getting work done anyway! *whew*

In summary, please sign my petition.
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Nate the Great and I both had Thursday aka Needless Turkey Murder Day off this year, and we both took off Black Friday.  Here's looking at you 4-day weekend!  However, because of a little thing we like to call UNOh-no-when-will-Nathan-be-done-with-school, Nate's been hard at work starting/middling/completing projects and assignments before the end of the semester in about 2.53495 weeks.  So we said "See you in a few weeks Shreveport familia" and kicked it back real cool in The Big Easy with Sir Mix-a-Lot Sagan.

There we are, hard at work.
It's been quite nice.  We're on day 2 of 4 today, and while he's been hard at work doing schoolness, I've been making it a point to work out each morning and take care of things on my to-do list that I'm too lazy can't get to during the week.

We also had our first Completely Vegan Thanksgiving, and it was grand.  We both still over ate (and over drank....we haven't had booze in 11 days before last night...trying to get in ultimate shape in early 2019!), but it was quite tasty to put it lightly.  We had Corn Souffle (which I vegan-zed, and we couldn't tell a difference), these Heavenly Green Beans (which were top notch --we'll fo sho be having them again before next year) and homemade Drop Biscuits that I found in this gem.  Photo overload commencing in 3....2....1...

Corn Souffle bay-bay...made with vegan butter and vegan plain almond milk yogurt instead of sour cream.  SO GOOD!

Aptly named Heavenly Green Beans

A hottie testing a hot biscuit...yum-mie! ;)

Naturally, I had to test it, too!  And Jim subtly included his thumbs-up approval.

My first plate...but not my last.

(sorry for the crap-quality lighting, futureCourtney.  You prepared and ate this for dinner, so natural light was a no-go.)
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I've been trying to read some of my new book that I took a chance on, and so far it's not half bad.  I just blazed through Liane Moriarty's new release, Nine Perfect Strangers, because 1) I'm a fan-girl and 2) the good ole NOLA Public Library only loaned to me for 2 weeks (compared to the usual 3 weeks, not counting the 2 renewals allowed) because it's a new release and in high demand.
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I really wanted to love it since I loved a few of her previous ones, particularly this one and this one, buuuuuut it just didn't hit the spot exactly.  I will say that it was still an enjoyable read and the lady knows how to write, but this didn't top the list for me.  I did tell Nathan that I bet this one will be made into either a movie or a show...and this is coming from a non-bettin' woman. ;)

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I want to do a better job of blogging more (burnt record, volume 7), as well as somehow documenting recent reads because I figure that will be fun to read back through one day when I'm consistently up at ungodly hours trying to get a little one to eat, and then I can sob even louder as I remember the days when I actually had time to pick up a book...but we'll see what I can do.  P.S.  I'm not pregnant.

So...in no particular order:

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Troublemaker:  Surviving Hollywood and Scientology by Leah Remini
This was a really enlightening read about the world of Scientology.  Holy graham cracker is it a messed up world!  I learned a lot, and I'm curious to pick up another Scientology read in a few weeks by the lady who was married to the head honcho.

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The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
Oh, John Green.  Boy, you know how to write!  I was a little skeptical about picking this one up since it because so popular and was made into a movie, buuuut there's a reason for that.  It's YA fiction (which is right up my alley..ain't no shame in the game), and it was an enjoyable read.  I watched the movie afterwards even though the book is ALWAYS better, and my theory held true.  There's just so much they leave out and details and nuance and look at me pretending I know how to critique movies with big, fancy, French words. ;)


Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell
I LOVED this!  I've previous read her book Attachments, and I really liked it, but this one soared high and above.  I can only hope that my teenage daughter comes to me one day asking for a book suggestion because she's hit a lull, and I will literally go buy this and throw it in her FACE and reread it with her.! P.S.  Again, not pregnant.

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Dumplin' by Julie Murphy
This was cute, and I really liked that I fully grasped all the southern references (like things in Texas and homecoming corsages), but after reading the last sentence and realizing it was the end, I audibly said (and I kid you not) "That's it!?!" Nathan was on the couch and replied "Did you not like it?"  I just didn't expect it to end how it did and because of the way the chapters were set up in my copy NOLA Public Library's copy, I had no idea another chapter wasn't ahead.  It was cute and fun, but I only just liked it.


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Girl, Wash Your Face: Stop Believing the Lies About Who You Are so You Can Become Who You Were Meant to Be by Rachel Hollis
I jumped on board this gravy train because it was a new release and already turning into a bestseller, and I'm glad I did. The format was a chapter for each of the 20 lies we (as women) tell ourselves, and I liked a lot of the points she made. Two quotes I really, really liked were:

"This is true of race, religion, political affiliation, sexual orientation, socioeconomic background, and any other category we can dream up. Doing life with people who don't look or think or vote like us is the whole point--it's our call to arms! Love thy neighbor wasn't a suggestion; it was a command, you guys. How in the world are you going to love your neighbor if you don't know your neighbor? I don't mean waving hello at the grocery store; I mean actually pushing ourselves outside of our comfort zone and doing life with different kinds of people . . . even if we wonder if they're getting it all wrong. Heck, especially if we think they're getting it all wrong. We need to be in a wider community not because we're attempting to sharper their clarity on a subject but because we're hoping to soften the edges of our own hearts."

"Every year you close a new chapter in your story. Please, please, please don't write the same one seventy-five times and call it a life."


...til next time!


*the one person on the interwebs who mistakenly stumbled across my blog at 3am and was like "WTF is this crap - - I need help studying for my law degree."

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