Saturday Of Awesome

The most important element of an awesome Saturday is definitely the weather, and yesterday's weather couldn't have been better. Just gorgeous.

David and I both woke up around seven, but I refused to get up until eight so David brought in his laptop and played Majesty after checking up on the daily deals at Woot. It was nice. Our bed is so comfortable! But the need for food drove me out of it and David and I enjoyed bowls of cereal from our awesome bags of the stuff.

We bummed around watching TV for a while until a couple that had asked for our help picking up and transporting a new crib for their adorable baby. It was painful to fill Clifford up with gas (we haven't put gas in him since we got to Michigan; he was still running on fumes from our trip up here in January) but we decided that it was just like we spent twenty dollars on gas each month since we have been here and not eighty all at once.

After that we went searching for a little ice cream and donut shop called Washtenaw Dairy. Oh, Washtenaw Dairy. It was amazing. The people were super nice. The owner was the one serving us, a stout older man. He gave us samples and chatted with us and teased me because I couldn't make up my mind. He gave us the donuts for "two for one, two for one" which means we only spent fifty cents on four donuts. For two heaping ice cream cones and four donuts, he only charged us six dollars. So I put six dollars in the tip jar.

David and I took in the nice weather with a walk around the block, eating our ice cream and checking out the houses. I love how every place has their own feel when it comes to how the houses are built. Their own special look. It was fun. I really liked this one crazy orange house, but David said it was red. We had to stop, take off our sunglasses and examine it. I still thought it was orange and he still thought it was red. I guess sometimes in marriage you just agree to disagree.

After our ice cream was all gone, we went down to Lowe's to check out the two for one (I know! We had a real day of deals) started tomatoes and peppers. We wandered around the lawn and garden section for a good hour and ended up buying a strawberry plant (our planter is coming in the mail tomorrow!) and two tomatoes. We came home and started our garden. Which only consisted of a planter with two tomatoes and another planter with a few squash seeds. I just don't believe that seeds work even though I know they do, so I put in too many just in case.

We had a dinner of bachelor food (mac and cheese fortified with bacon in a peppery chili sauce) and watched TV for a while, then went out again to check out some garden stuff. By this time it was inching towards six, but it was still plenty bright out and very nice. In the truck again ( just because it felt so good to be driving him again) we started to pull out of our little parking lot in front of our building when David spotted something of interest by the dumpster.

"You see that?"
"Yup. Go and get it."'

David hopped out and tossed and awesome padded bench into the back. It is red with a floral pattern and the most comfortable thing I have ever used as a foot rest. I love it.

We then stopped by JoAnn's to check out their fabrics because the plan is to recover both couch and bench this summer. We wandered around feeling fabrics and then yarns. I really have to go back and pick up my crocheting. It was fun.

Then we wandered back to Lowe's and ended up with a purple foxglove, a yellow daffodil, a few violet hyacinths, and a bleeding heart. Of course that meant we got more soil and a couple more planters as well. It was a little painful to see the price on the screen, but we knew that we had carefully picked out our favorites and made sure that if we took care of them, they should come back, year after year. An investment.

David ran off to Kroger while I brought up the flowers and soil, very excited. I got straight to work. Now it looks amazing. I love it. David is really excited for the vegetables, but the flowers are my pet project. I love them so much.

We finished up our happy little Saturday with some Better Off Ted and internet.

All in all, favorite Saturday of spring.

Book Review Time

Alright. In March I finally finished Towers of Midnight of The Wheel of Time. As I have said previously, I was really excited to finish the series because I was really excited about reading something else. Anything else. This is what I have done so far.

Hunger Games Trilogy
I didn't realize the first time through the first two books, but Katniss was pretty whiny. Then again, her life really sucked and I would be much whinier. As I remember the books, though, I just remember the story being really exciting and fun to read. All in all, B+.

House of Leaves
Wow. I will do an entire post about this one, that way this post doesn't drag too long.

The Road
The Road was very sad and intense which is to be expected when you read a post-apocalyptic story. The father and son relationship was very touching. It was a fast read, although, still, it was well written. I normally don't enjoy a sad book - actually, I'm not sure if that is true; I will think about it and get back on that - but I did enjoy this one. McCormack used the text to help the story, too. Not in that he just wrote the text, but visually, he used the text to help convey the broken world. No chapters, short segments in the story, some rules of grammar did not apply. I liked that a lot. A-.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
It was called a thriller, but I found that to not be true. It wasn't fast paced like a thriller, but it wasn't slow and didn't drag. It felt evenly paced, like a nice walk, for more than half of it and then it picked up a bit and about a hundred and fifty or so pages from the end, it flew. For about fifty pages. Then there was around a hundred pages of wrapping up. Which was pretty slow. I guess that's nice since the fast paced part was intense and ugly.
It dealt with a lot of ugly, actually. Sexual violence and the like. Not everyone will enjoy reading this book. But I liked it okay. I liked the Scandy feel to it, throughout, though. Which is why I read the next one, too.

The Girl Who Played with Fire
I enjoyed this one much more. I always like when the sequel improves on the first one. It dealt with more ugly   things, the sex trade, but not in the detail that the first one dealt with the ugly which I definitely appreciated. Never did the reader have a first hand experience with the drugging, prostitution, or rape; the story just formed around people involved with the trade and the journalists writing about it. It was also very smart. I am often pretty good at making calls in thrillers - admittedly, better at movies than books, but what are you gonna do - but I did not see how these pieces all fit together. I was very surprised which I loved. Shock. Quite satisfying.
I wish I could recommend to just read the second one, skipping the first, but I just ethically cannot do it. But almost.

Yesterday I started Gone, Baby, Gone by Dennis Lehane, author of Shutter Island (which I also loved, although my timing on reading it could not have been worse). I'm only twenty-something pages in it, so I can't say much about it, but here's hoping.

Hope you are all enjoying what you are reading. I am quickly marking things off my list, so leave me suggestions.

Not I am going to go eat something. I'm hungry.