13 May 2013

And Three Months Later She Returns

It has been three months since my last post. You may or may not have noticed I took a small hiatus from the blogging stratosphere. My departure was primarily the result of time constraints and partially because I needed a break. I'm convinced that finding balance in the various areas of one's life is not only a challenge, but also an aspect of life that requires continuous maintenance and examining of one's priorities.

The philosophical viewpoint of achieving balance in a woman's life can be hashed out another day. Today, I'd love to share with you the thoughts crossing my mind and then get caught up on my favorite blogs. I am so incredibly behind!

During my sabbatical, I did quite a bit of reading. Since I enjoyed the Fifty Shades Trilogy, a friend of mine recommended Beautiful Bastard by Christina Lauren. I thoroughly enjoyed this novel. It centers around an intern and her "beautiful" boss and the conflict between their intellectual dislike and undeniable physical attraction with one another. The physical encounters are pretty descriptive but it is vastly different from Fifty Shades. I am a sucker for happy endings too.

 
I also read Christina Lauren's Beautiful Stranger. And I must admit, I didn't love it like I did the first novel. I found it to be a little too far fetched in the relationship world.

I read a novel by Ellen Hopkins called Collateral where a college student meets and falls in love with a handsome Marine. The book is not solely a love story as it paints a very real picture of the trials and temptations service men and women and their loved ones at home face while they are enlisted and apart. The one thing to note about this novel is that it is written in poetic format. As I am not at all used to reading poetry, I had to reread the first few sections to make sure I was grasping the content. Once I trained my mind to read it like a book despite the appearance of the words, I was good to go.


Am currently continuing my adventure with Stephanie Plum! I am on Smokin' Seventeen and am ever so anxious to read about her Ranger and Morelli drama. Plus, Lula is plain hilarious. I will say that Sizzling Sixteen may have been one of my favorites. It was a nice change up from a few of the others in that I wasn't quite on the edge of my seat the whole time.

Okay - enough books. Let's talk music. I have recently become acquainted with She and Him. I stumbled on this duo through my toddler. Let's back up a minute, though. Have you ever watched the movie Elf? In the movie, Zooey Deschanel is singing a Christmas song in the shower while Will Ferrell is listening to her and then sings again at the end to spur on more Christmas Spirit. I remember thinking at the time she had a lovely voice. Then, while watching Winnie the Pooh for the umpteenth time, I realized that she was the one singing the theme song. So, in my iTunes search for the Pooh song for my son, I stumbled upon She and Him. I had no idea that she had three albums out. I love her music. I have a few favorites and below is one of them that I found on YouTube:

 
 
My TV time is minimal, but I do keep up with NCIS and Smash. This NCIS season has been awesome and I'm sad that tomorrow night is the season finale. I'm sure it will be a cliffhanger! I think it was end of last week when they announced Smash would be cancelled after this season. I'm really not all that surprised but am still disappointed.

Well, part of my new mantra is to not stay up too late blogging. If I'm going to find balance, I must blog in moderation. Or in other words, I cannot function without sleep the following day so I have instituted a bloggie curfew.

Thanks for reading.

Kate

May 13, 2013