For the Love of Books

One of my favorite parts of summer is summer reading. When I was younger, summer reading provided ample opportunity to read whatever I wanted, and in doing so stray from the “academic” reading enforced on me. Don’t get me wrong, English was my favorite subject all throughout school, even in college. I enjoyed assigned reading with a few exceptions of course, i.e. Jonathan Livingston Seagull (Why is this assigned? I mean really why? If you know please explain..)

In all honesty, the reason I enjoyed assigned reading so much was not because I enjoyed all the books assigned, but because all my friends had to read the books too and we were able to discuss them afterwards. I love me a good book discussion! However, summer reading is different. It’s fun! Sometimes, it’d be a made up competition between me and whoever I knew who read a lot, to see who could read more books. Since I tend to read very quickly and become super absorbed into plots and my competition didn’t realize it was a competition, I tended to win… the imaginary prize… me snickering to myself when at the beginning of the school year we compared book totals. Some of my favorite books I read when I was younger include, Nancy Drew, The Box Car Children, Encyclopedia Brown (I wanted to be him), Pride and Prejudice, The Outsiders, Little House on the Prairie Series, and The Giver.

Way back in January, I set a reading goal for myself: 24 Books by 2012. I didn’t think this was hefty goal. Two books a month is more than doable, I should always expect this of myself. I also decided they had to all be new books. Rereading Harry Potter or Breaking Dawn or Pride and Prejudice for the 9th time would not be accepted as one of the 24. Sorry Self, get some new material. So far this year, I’ve read 7.5 books; Shanghai Girls, Cutting for Stone, A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, A Storm of Swords, A Feast for Crows, The Jewel of Saint Petersburg, and I’m halfway through Tomatoland.

Last week, I compiled a summer reading list for myself, and subsequently ordered all 11 books from Amazon.  You can only imagine how excited I was today, when I stumbled on a new-to-me blogger, who has a summer reading challenge of sorts. Caiti of Life is a Canvas, wrote this post, inviting her readers to pledge to read a certain number of books this summer.  Well I’ve decided to pledge to read 10. I already have 1.5 down this summer (June-Sept), and now with the whole accountability thing, I’m definitely going to accomplish that goal.

Here’s my list of books purchased last week from Amazon:

Animal, Vegetable Mircacle -Barbara Kingsolver

Charming Billy -Alice McDermott

The Cookbook Collector -Allegra Goodman

Eating Animals -Jonathan Safran Foer

The Hunger Games Series (3 books) -Suzanne Collins

The Passage -Justin Cronin

The Book Thief -Marcus Zusak

Cheap -Ellen Ruppel Shell

And I already started, Tomatoland by Barry Estabrook.

I also plan on reading, A Dance with Dragons, the newest book from A Song of Ice and Fire Series, (Game of Thrones), which is released next Monday! A friend also suggested I read the Suki Stackhouse series, on which True Blood is based. And since I really enjoy True Blood, I’ve been considering reading those as well. (As long as I can find someone to borrow them from. I don’t feel like spending a fortune on 11 of those books.)

Since I only have 8 weeks left before the end of the summer (so sad I know), I have got to go get reading, if I wanna reach my 10 book goal! Stay tuned to find out which ones I end up reading, learn what I thought of them, see if I meet my goal.

Do you have a favorite summer reading book? An old favorite?

How about a reading goal for this summer or this year?

Have you read any of the ones on my list? What are some of your recommendations? I’d love to hear!

I’ll be in Tomatoland if you need me,

<3 Frank

4th Fashion Roundup/ Outfit 5

I decided that I did not particularly enjoy any of my “4th Fashion posts.” Mostly because not one of my photographers (mom,aunt, boyfriend) grasped the concept of outfit photos and my android camera phone does not take particularly good ‘people’ pictures. It’s better with object/landscape photos. However I did enjoy my outfits. I love red/white/blue color combination. It’s one of my favorites, along with grey and mustard, black and white, and recently cream and white. Instead of doing a full outfit post for the last outfit I wore, I thought I’d just do a roundup and include the last outfit.

Without further adieu, here are the 5 Fourth of July Outfits I wore this weekend: (5 seems like a lot but if I had wanted to, I definitely could’ve done 10!)

I think my favorite is the one in the bottom left picture. It was overly obvious that it was 4th inspired, but I really enjoy that shirt. It was also more comfortable than all the others, except perhaps the shorts. Which was your favorite?

<3 Frank

4th Fashion Outfit 4

This is barely an outfit post, but I wanted to show you what Jon claimed as his favorite. When we got home from the Grounds for Sculpture, I was ridiculously hot so I changed into shorts and a tank top. Then I went into the garden and picked the first zucchini of the summer. I was overly excited so I made Jon take some pictures.

The weird thing about this shirt (from Macy’s 2004) is the belt band thing, that you tie in the back. Every time I tie it in the back the front gets weird, so I tie it in the front now. I wanted to cut the belt thing off, but my mom said she liked it so I left it. The shorts (also from Macy’s 2005) are eyelet and really cute- they didn’t fit me when I bought them 7 years ago, but now they finally do! One good consequence of gaining 20 lbs.

My face in these two pictures are hysterical. But how about my zucchini? Pretty spectacular right?

<3 Frank

4th Fashion Outfit 3

Today, Jon and I went to the Grounds for Sculpture in Trenton, NJ. It was a beautiful day and kinda hot. I’ll share more pictures of what we saw and did, but for now, here’s a few outfit shots.

Outfit Details

Striped Leotard Shirt: Macy’s (2010)

Jean Skirt: Anthropologie (2009)

Purse: Fossil (2008)

Red Sunglasses: The Bead in Towson, MD

Earrings: Sipalda from my Mom

Turquoise Necklace: Macy’s (circa 2004)

Striped Straw Hat: H&M (2011)

Espadrilles: Macy’s (circa 2008)

I loved this outfit before I looked at the pictures. After wearing it all day in 85 degree weather, and looking through several not so flattering pictures, it’s not really my favorite.

What do you think?

<3 Frank

4th Fashion Outfit 2

After getting home from work last night, Jon and I went to Dean’s to hang out. I wore outfit number 2 of 4th Fashion. Here is my red, white and blue ensemble.

Tex liked my white sweater.

Shell Clip: Handmade by yours truly

Red, White and Blue Shirt: H&M (circa 2007)

Jean Skirt: Anthropologie (circa 2010 sale rack)

Patent Fake Leather Red Belt: H&M

Do you like outfit 1 or 2 better?

How about my naturally crazy curly hair?

<3 Frank

Fourth Fashion: Outfit One

The fourth of July is my all time favorite holiday. It always has been. I have so many awesome memories associated with the fourth of July; swimming at our neighborhood pool club until the sun went down, watching fireworks in my town with my best friend and then running home through the pouring rain, swinging on playground swings with Jon when we were just barely dating (butterflies in my stomach the whole time), and fireworks along the Charles in Boston with my college friends – having a blast despite terrible weather. Needless to say, I could hardly wait to leave work today. When I got into the car, I was already ecstatic to start my 3-day holiday weekend, and then magic happened- a great song came on the radio (Money by Pink Floyd). What could be better than starting my favorite holiday weekend with one of my favorite songs serendipitously playing on the radio? Well a lot of things, but this ranked pretty high. I am still excited.

To celebrate the fourth of July, I thought I’d share all my red,white, and blue ensembles (yeah, I’m that girl, the one who wears nothing but red,white, and/or blue for as many days as possible leading up to this holiday. I’m not too ashamed.) Earlier this week I even wore an outfit unconsciously that was red, white and blue; fourth of July fashion is that embedded into me.

Today’s outfit isn’t very festive. I decided to ease into the holiday garb. Here’s what I wore.

Blue Shirt: H&M

Grey Jeans: Banana Republic

Striped Sneakers: Urban Outfitter’s

Red Sunglasses: The Bead (Towson, MD)

Red Garnet Earrings: Gift from my Mamma

What do you think about outfit one?

Do you dress in red, white, and blue for the Fourth?

Is your fourth fashion more subtle?

Let me know!

<3 Frank

P.S.: This fourth of July is going to be super awesome, even though I have no plans as of today. Why then will it be so awesome? Well it has what I call a MAGIC date. A magic date is when the month number plus the day number equals the year i.e. 07 +04=11! I love these dates because of their numerical awesomeness and so I deem this fourth of July extra special.