Jodi Picoult

I love to read. I love, love, love, love, LOVE to read! I was one of those kids who always had her nose in a book. I read on the bus (and missed my stop once, that was pretty scary to look up and realize my siblings had gotten off and there was nobody else left on the bus!), at night when I was supposed to be sleeping, and really anywhere else a book can go. I love to get lost in a book. On days off, I can easily go through a book in a day. This is one reason why I love having a Kindle. I've had to buy books while on vacation before since I've run out. I've also been overweight on airline luggage because of books. Now that I'm so busy with work, I don't get to read as much as I used to, but I still love to read.

I love a variety of books. Chick Lit is my favorite for when I want to laugh and not think too much while reading. It's kind of like eating a bowl of ice cream when you've had a bad day. Sometimes I want something more substantial than Chick Lit.

Jodi Picoult is one of my favorite authors for when I want a book to really make me think about the world. The first book I ever read of hers was My Sister's Keeper. I highly recommend this book to anyone who can handle reading about cancer and wants to try Jodi Picoult. This is probably my all time favorite book of hers, even though I don't think I could handle reading it now. My Sister's Keeper is about a 13-year-old girl who is suing her parents for emancipation. She was born to save her sister, who was dying of leukemia, when no other family members were a bone marrow match and no longer wants to be subjected to painful surgeries and procedures. The ending is typical Jodi Picoult. She gives an ending that is true to how life often works, even if it's not what you'd expect. She isn't afraid to shy away from "Hollywood endings" and I admire her for that.

Some other books of Jodi's that are my favorite are: Nineteen Minutes, The Pact, Handle With Care, and Plain Truth.

There are, however, two things I don't like about Jodi Picoult's books. One thing is that she often uses supernatural events in her stories and I sometimes find it to be distracting from the main point of the story (an example being Second Chance). The other thing is that she's with a publisher that wants to delay the release of the Kindle version until about 4 months after the hardcover (although I did see a Tweet from her that maybe it'll come in April?). She's usually an author I buy in hardcover, but I have made the decision to wait until the books is available in Kindle. She has stated repeatedly that it's not her choice and she is 100% opposed to her publisher's decision. She said she feels it punishes some of her most dedicated fans, but the decision was applied retroactively and the book was already under contract. Boo, Simon and Schuster!

St. Patrick's Day!

I'm a proud Irish American and I love St. Patrick's Day. I like to take the time to remember my heritage and usually make it a point to learn more about Ireland as well. I know I should do this all year round, but I like the reminder of this day.

I don't like corned beef and cabbage, and that's more of an Irish American tradition anyway, so I usually make an Irish stew and buy some Irish soda bread to eat for dinner. Yum!

I also don't like to wear green clothes. I don't think it's the best color on me, so I don't tend to wear it, so I never really wear anything green on St. Patrick's Day. If anyone tries to pinch me, I tell them I'm almost 100% Irish and the green is in my blood. I also have a claddagh tattoo, wear a claddagh ring ever day, and make a point to wear some of my emerald jewelry, so I do have a bit of green on.

This year I decided to do my nails and eye shadow for St. Patrick's Day. The nails are Emerald Sparkle by China Glaze. I love this color! This is from the Wizard of Ooohaaahs Returns collection, which was out around Christmas time. I actually wore this with Ruby Pumps for my Christmas manicure. This is the perfect emerald green color and the glitter is perfection.



Excuse the dulled eye shadow and creasing. I took this picture at about 6pm when I did my makeup at about 7am. This should still give you an idea of the look I did. I wore MAC's Lucky Green on my lid, MAC's Sumptuous Olive in my crease, then a nude color from my Smashbox palette along the brow bone. I lined my eyes with a gold eye liner from my Smashbox palette as well. I had fun with it and it was wearable for work!

Legal Seafoods Clam Chowder

In my world, there is no such thing as red clam chowder. Nope, no way, no how. I'm a New Englander and my chowdah has to be white.

The best clam chowder has to be from Legal Seafoods. There are places that have delicious clam chowder (the Mattapoisett Chowder House in Mattapoisett, MA has great clam chowder), but nothing compares to the perfection that is the clam chowder from Legal Seafoods. Usually, I get shrimp cocktail as an appetizer when I eat seafood. Not at Legal Seafoods.

What makes this chowder so special? Well, I have the Legal Seafoods cookbook, but haven't had a chance to try the chowder recipe, although I'm sure they left something out as those places do, so it doesn't taste quite the same. This is a rich, thick chowder that is the perfect thickness. They have just the right amount of potatoes and clams in it so each bite has clammy goodness. If you love seafood and haven't tried Legal Seafoods clam chowder, I highly recommend you do! This has been served at every Presidential inauguration since1981 . You can even order it online at their website. http://shop.legalseafoods.com/New-England-Clam-Chowder

The Olympics!!

Of course one Thing I Love is the Olympics!! Who doesn't enjoy the world coming together to watch men on skates spin while wearing ruffles and sequins, then two minutes later watch Shaun White fly to the moon?!

Some people say that figure skating and snowboarding are examples of non-sports that are in the Olympics. Granted, snowboarding is one of the rare sports where the athletes get to listen to their iPods while competing, but other sports use music to help them out, so who am I to begrudge them that right? I happen to think that these are sports. They happen to have some artistry involved and are subjective, but they require athleticism in order to be successful. How does this make figure skating different from ballet? Well, ballet isn't really judged, now is it? They have auditions, but their performances aren't judged. Start judging ballet and I'll be happy to call it a sport as well.

I love the Olympics for moments like Lindsey Vonn winning the gold medal last night. She had me in tears with her excitement and the sheer joy that winning the gold medal brought her. To put on a run like that with her bruised shin and the amount of pain she must have been in was incredible to say the least. It may not be the smartest move, but most people push through things they shouldn't in order to work towards something that has been their life goal.

And Shaun White. There are no words. I have never watched snowboarding before in my life and I just cannot believe how incredible he is! He must store some jet packs in his bindings somewhere to go that high! His conservative run was miles ahead of all the others. It's just amazing!! I'm also jealous of his gorgeous hair.

Pancake Day!

I had an English boyfriend for about three years. In those three years, we had a few of our traditions that we had blended together, and kind of made out own. One tradition that I still want to carry on with myself that came completely from his culture is Shrove Tuesday/Pancake Day. When the Americans are partying it up for Mardi Gras, and other countries are also partying it up with Carnival, the Brits are partying it up with pancakes! Yes, very tame in comparison but delicious nonetheless.

My first Pancake Day was when my ex and I were in a long distance relationship. I had gone to visit him during one of my school vacations and his family was talking about being excited for Pancake Day. I knew not of this holiday, but I'm all for holidays especially when they involve yummy food, so I was excited for pancakes. Well, the day came and Lee and I were going to travel into London to do some sight seeing and everyone was about to head out the door to work and school. I asked Lee when we were going to have the pancakes. He laughed and felt badly because apparently in England they don't eat pancakes for breakfast. Shortly after I overheard his little brother (8 at the time) ask his mom for pancakes and Lee's mom responded "You know we don't have pancakes for breakfast!" I felt his pain. I really did. Lee then explained to me that English pancakes are different from the American type. In England theirs are more like crepes and they roll them up and sprinkle them with lemon and sugar. I'll admit, I didn't like them at first and found them to be bland. I now love them.

Lee and I started a tradition of having American style pancakes for breakfast (he's half-American and was born in the States) and English style for dinner. It just works out that in America we usually eat ours for breakfast and in England they usually eat theirs for dinner. We got the best of both worlds.

I carried on that tradition myself today since we are no longer together. I had American style chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast (although now I feel like I should have made my apple streusel ones!) and English ones for dinner.

Party hearty my friends.

Kindle

You know something I don't understand? In so many countries (like in Europe) they have those long license plates that don't state which country the plate is from. Here in the US the plates say which state it's from so the police could look up the driver by state then plate number so Joe Schmo from Wisconsin doesn't get stuck with a speeding ticket that Jane Doe from California got. What do they do in Europe if something like that happens? Are the plates not tied to the driver? How do you not accidentally get stuck with something that's not your fault, especially when you consider that driving to another country over there is akin to driving to another state here? I was just watching a Samantha Brown episode that takes place in Europe and it reminded me of this problem I ofren thought about when I was with Lee.

Aaaaaanyway, that is not what this post is meant to be about. This post is meant to be about my Kindle! I got one for Christmas after drooling over one for over a year and I love it! I didn't originally think I'd want one since I love real books so much, but after my mom got one for her birthday last year and I saw it in person I fell in love with it. It won't replace real books for me, especially since there are some books that won't be available in the Kindle format, but it's great for travel. I also have the iPhone app, so I can sync it through the wireless connection and pick up the book right where I left off on my phone when I don't have my Kindle with me, and vice versa. There are also loads of free books, and books are very inexpensive.

The only downfalls for the Kindle? With my mom's I had trouble reading it at the beach because of the bright sunlight, although Amazon says you're supposed to be able to read it in bright sunlight. The other downfalls are you can't share books (or at least you have to use loopholes to share), several books have strange formatting and/or typos, and it doesn't come with a case.

Zoya Harlow

Zoya is quickly becoming my favorite nail polish brand. They have gorgeous color that has staying power. I even tried a color I didn't think I'd like from looking at it in the bottle and ended up loving it (more on that another day since it's on my toes and I'll wait until I wear it on my fingers to do a post about it).

I had heard about matte nail polish and wasn't too thrilled with the idea since I love the sparkle and shine from wearing nail polish. However, since I was placing an order from Zoya for the Remove+, I decided to order some nail polish and try some from the Matte Velvet collection. One of the polishes I ordered from that collection was the Harlow polish. This polish has some matte shimmer in it and is a gorgeous color that Zoya describes as a Gunmetal Rose.

Even though you can't wear top coat with it, the matte formula is fast-drying and I didn't feel like it really dried much slower than when I use the Poshé.