Elsja Down Under

What to Read… What to Read? April 10, 2011

I need some more book recommendations. Since getting an iPad in October, I’ve been a reading bandit. Well, maybe not compared to some people- but I never used to be a massive reader. It would sometimes take me 2-3 months to get through a book. But since getting the iPad a little over 5 months ago, I’ve read 7 books. So now… what do I read next? I’m up for recommendations. I like mainstream fiction books that are highly rated. I wanted to read Love in the Time of Cholera but it’s not available on the Kindle or ibooks. Here’s what I HAVE read:

• The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo Trilogy – loved it!
• Heaven is for Real- sweet and powerful but only took 2 days to read
• Never Let me Go- kept me intrigued but overall it wasn’t fabulous
• The Help- loved it!
• Devil in the White City- half of it was great, the other half was boring
• Water for Elephants- really enjoyed it… especially knowing the movie with Robert Pattinson will be out soon.

Here are some pre-iPad books I read… The Kite Runner, A Thousand Splendid Suns, Outliers, the Twilight books, several by Jodi Piccoult, several by Nicholas Sparks, Time Traveler’s Wife, Lovely Bones, Sarah’s Key…

So now I’m asking you… what should be next?

1 Year Left January 11, 2010

I have until the end of this year to finish my 101 goals.  I know for a fact I won’t accomplish them all but I’m not too worried. The fact that I will complete A LOT of my goals by 12/31/10 is still an achievement to me!  Here’s a little update of a few more things I have finished in the last few months.

#87. Buy a fondue set and use it. Although I did this, it wasn’t a pleasant experience. First of all, the brie in this country doesn’t melt. I don’t know why but the recipes that I made quite easily back in the US just don’t seem to turn out the same here. Secondly, we had to use liquid fuel stuff to light the burner and unfortunately some spilled on my hand and then my hand proceeded to catch on fire. I’m not joking, it was actually up in flames! It also caught the table on fire and now there is a big burn mark on Yorky and Brendan’s table. Luckily my hand is ok. Hurt like hell but no scars! Not surprisingly, I haven’t pulled the fondue pot out since.

#94. Go through my clothes and donate anything I don’t wear. I did this ages ago and I really need to do it again, but since I DID do this at least once, I’m marking it complete.

#9. Go to a yoga class once a month. While I did not go once a month from the beginning of the project, I ended up going to WAY more than the 33 classes I would need to fulfill this goal, so I’m marking it as complete.

#27. Buy cloth grocery bags and decline plastic bags. While I’ve only used them once (I’ve only been shopping once), at least I took the initiative and bought 5 of them. They are much easier to carry as well!

#6. Read 10 books. Not only have I finished this, I’ve almost finished # 103 (Read 10 more books). I won’t go into a full book review on each since  I’ve already blogged about a few but I’ll at least say if  I liked it or not. Here’s a list of the first 10 that I got through.

• Eat, Pray, Love – great- but i think I liked it so much because I hadn’t read ANY other books in years. Looking back I’ve read way better books since this one. I’d still recommend it.
• The Last Lecture- Everyone should read this, it’s really short and easy to read and puts your life into perspective
• Not Without my Sister -Depressing and not too spectacular. Don’t bother.
• Twilight  – xoxoxo
• New Moon- Not as good as twilight but still wonderful
• Eclipse – Even more wonderful
• Breaking Dawn – Fabulous
• Body Surfing – Lame, not worth your time.
• Why we Suck – Super funny and true, I love this kind of humor.
• The Host – Pretty good, but not as good as the twilight books

I’m looking forward to finishing many more items this year. I know quite a few will be checked off due to some of our wedding festivities so that makes things a bit easier. I have to admit though, having only 1 more year to complete this stuff doesn’t seem like nearly enough time!

Random Thoughts July 7, 2009

After seeing the preview for “My Sister’s Keeper,” I decided to read the book, so I bought it and could barely put it down. I finished it in a few days and then waited patiently for the movie to come out. I went and saw the movie with my mom and sister and it sucked. Well, I shouldn’t say it sucked- it wasn’t a bad movie, it was just terribly depressing and totally different from the book. People bitched about Twilight being different from the book- but that was a heck of a lot closer than this movie was!! I’m glad I read the book but sad the movie did not live up to it AT ALL.  So… after seeing the preview for “Time Traveler’s Wife” I’m hoping it will be a bit better in it’s movie form. Upon seeing the preview, I ran out and bought this book as well and I’m looking forward to reading it after finishing the one I’m currently reading.

I was watching “60 Minutes” the other night with Andrew. There was a special on about kids with Autism and animal therapy. We watched for about 20 minutes and it had this reoccurring background song that played throughout the whole story. Do you know what that song was? It was Bella’s Lullaby from the Twilight soundtrack. Random right? Andrew thought it was pretty strange that I even recognized it, but it’s a really nice song so how would I NOT recognize it?? I didn’t even really want to watch the special that was on, but I couldn’t change the station because the beautiful song hypnotized me

I haven’t gone to bed later than 8:30pm since I got home. With that said, I also haven’t woken up earlier than 8am. That means I’ve averaged about 11-11.5 hours of sleep the last two nights. How am I still tired? I’m guessing it has something to do with the fact that I’ve woken up each night at 1:30, 3:30, 4:30 and 5:30 to pee and stare at the ceiling for 10 minutes. Luckily I have a great ability to fall back asleep when I wake at odd hours of the night!!

My favorite song of the moment is “Sometime Around Midnight” by The Airborne Toxic Event. I had heard the song a bunch of times but finally decided to actually listen to the words one day and it’s really sad!!  I went and downloaded some other songs by the band and they’re pretty good- but I do have to say that I like their slower/deeper stuff more than the fun happy sounding stuff. Maybe that’s just the type of mood I’m in lately.

I don’t like it when it is 48 degrees outside. It is much too cold. Currently it’s 53 degrees and raining and my nose is frozen. Not fun.

I DO like my new Ugg boots. I totally see why people wear them everywhere even though they look retarded. They are super comfy and warm and when I have to leave the house and put on actual real shoes I get kinda sad that my feet have to be cold for a few moments and I have to go through the effort of putting on socks and tying laces. So today I decided to walk all the way to the bank in my Uggs. I’m sure I looked dreadful but my feet were happy.

Ok… those are my random thoughts for the night- now time to take off my Uggs so I can go sit in a hot bath in hopes of defrosting my nose while reading another book that might be a lot better than the movie (The Kite Runner). I’ll get out just in time to hit the sack at 8:30 on the dot.

Book Reports February 18, 2009

So I haven’t actually felt the need to report on any books EVER. I know they made us do it in school- but it was never fun! But in less than 2 months, I have read over 2700 pages of books and I must tell the world about it. 2,700 is a lot of freaking pages. I am usually lucky if I can get through a 200 page book in a month. I’m not a huge reader as a general rule (clearly). Even when I read “Eat, Pray, Love” I hardly wanted to tell the world- but I did… on my blog… HERE.

So anyways, back to my point… I’m sure you all know by now (well, if you actually read my 101 things that make me happy list) that I LOVE the Twilight series. I got the first book for Christmas and figured I would be able to take it with me on the plane when I went home in January. I was so wrong. That book was finished in 3 1/2 days. That in itself was a miracle. One book in less than a week? Seriously amazing for me. SO then of course I was on a mission to find number 2. I NEEDED number 2 (New Moon) for the plane ride. But after a week of searching (I even had my friends on missions to find it)- I was out of luck. 5 book stores later I was still empty handed. So of course I did what any normal person would do. I googled the number for the bookstores in the Sydney airport and I called them to see if they had any copies in stock. She assured me they did… so my number 1 mission after checking in for my flight was to hobble (with my healing broken foot) to the nearest bookstore to find my treasured book. It was like a beacon of light perched on the shelf. I was happy.

I read the entire 563 pages on my flight. I didn’t sleep at all. My eyes and brain hurt.

So then I got to California and I was once again bookless. Time to buy # 3 (and 4 while I was at it) so I headed to the nearest Barnes and Noble to make my purchase. Again, I was happy.

I finished Eclipse (# 3) in the first week and then moved on to # 4, but I had to go slow. I didn’t want it to end. So I saved it (and savored it like my last little reeses pieces in the bag when I know I can’t just run to any store to buy more because they don’t sell them in this country). I made a pact to ONLY read the book while I was at the gym. Such great motivation to get to the gym and work out. My plan worked- I was motivated to work out AND the book took WAY longer to finish than the first 3.

So I realize that I haven’t actually reported on the books themselves, but more so my obsession with this series. I guess I never planned on telling you about them in the first place- that would spoil the fun!! I realize this makes me look completely insane, but for a few weeks of my life, maybe I was. If you’ve read the books (and you aren’t Jen or my mom) you will completely understand what I mean.

So what did I do when I was finished? I started a new book- “Why We Suck” by Denis Leary. Yes, the comedian/actor Denis Leary. Usually that guy drives me nuts, but I was compelled to read this book when I read the cover and realized that he was writing EXACTLY what I think about the world. I mean come on- I even have a whole blog category entitled “I hate people… sometimes.” So a whole book about why people suck is RIGHT up my alley. I must say, the book was really funny. Well, it was funny to ME- because I completely agree with most of the stuff he was saying. However, if you are a feminist, a super strict Catholic, a politician, a celebrity, an overweight person, etc… you might hate it. You might REALLY hate it. He really does go overboard sometimes- like he’s trying too hard to be funny. There were definitely parts that reminded me of why I tend to think he’s annoying as a comedian, but overall I really agree with him. People ARE loud, fat, lazy and stupid- so this book really struck a chord in my heart and made me realize I’m not alone in my disgust with 85% of mankind. If you aren’t easily offended… I suggest you read it too!

Now I’m onto a new book… but I’m not even that far in- so maybe if it’s good I’ll tell you about it when I’m finished.

Boots and Books June 18, 2008

Ok so I found boots! FINALLY.

I went to dinner with some friends the other night in the city, and since I was 30 minutes early I decided to wander around and look for shoes. I had nearly given up with 10 minutes to spare when I found a pair of decent looking black boots. Now, they were a tad too big- but let’s face it, they won’t slip off my feet when they go halfway up my calf. They are kinda casual and I would prefer to have these in brown, but… they only had my size in black. They were the last ones left. They weren’t phenomenal but they weren’t hideous either. And they weren’t too expensive. So with 5 minutes until I had to meet my friends for dinner, I made the spur of the moment purchase.

Too big, too casual and too black?? I’M SOLD! But really, I do like them. I think.

 
In other Elsja news, I finished reading a book. This might not seem like a big deal, but it is- because I hardly ever read. I can’t recommend this book highly enough… I really liked it. Eat Pray Love is one woman’s tale of self-discovery (in a nutshell). I had seen it in Target and thought about buying it but it seemed too “search for existential meaning” for my liking…like some typical “I found myself through God” book. So, I just wasn’t interested.

Until… I saw the author on Oprah. Then I was sold and I knew I had to read it. Good ol’ Oprah is a marketing genius! (If I could just get her help with my invention idea…)

The author throws in some humor and sarcasm, which I like. She is very real and talks about her highs and lows (lots of lows) and doesn’t make this all seem like some bogus spiritual journey.

Be warned…this book talks a lot about meditation, religion and yoga… which aren’t for everyone- but I can honestly say, she wrote it in such a way that it doesn’t seem like it was written by some fruitloop. I tend to be the type that sits in a yoga class and giggles to myself when everyone around me is trying to meditate and “clear their chakras” blah blah hocus pocus… I always thought that aspect of yoga was a bunch of crap. I really was just there for the exercise. This book enlightened me to think that maybe meditation wouldn’t be such a ridiculous idea after all.

Oh… and she also throws in a fair share of food and sex… so there’s something for everyone!

#87- Complete… Cooking Basics April 6, 2008

#87. Buy a “how-to” cooking book and read it cover to cover.

Check.

I bought this book while I was in California and I just finished up all of the “how-to” sections. I really really like this book and highly recommend it. It has a recipe section, but the first half of the book has tons of information on really basic cooking techniques and tips and tricks. From boiling pasta, frying chicken, herbs & spices (usage, storage, etc.), how long to roast meats, how to chop, boil and steam veggies, etc.

Sounds pretty basic, but it is a really good reference just to have on hand- even for people who cook a lot already. The lady that helped write this is the lady from www.startcooking.com and Start cooking blog- a site that I wrote about on a past blog.

I love the site and now I have a handy dandy reference at my fingertips as well.  I’m actually interested to look up other “how-to” books by these authors. For now though, I will stick to my “Spanish for Dummies” that Andrew’s friend  graciously let me borrow!