there are unintended consequences of this wheat-free diet.

it's been about a year since i last (conciously) ate anything with wheat in it. that means it's been a year of reading labels. it's also been a year of reading lots of blogs with yummy recipes :) and occasionally making said recipes. or just eating rice and frozen veggies for dinner, again.

a side effect of all of this label reading is that i've started to become a little obsessed with what's in what i'm eating. i have moved away from eating things that are highly processed, partly because there's wheat in many of them as a preservative/filler, and partly because once i started label-reading i started saying "eww!!! what IS that? i don't think i want to eat that."
(also, things with lots of random chemical-sounding ingredients make label reading a pain in the ass, so i just give up).

the unintended side effect of that i discovered today was that I think my taste buds are changing.

i took scotty that i babysit to the movies today (we saw despicable me, which means that yes, i saw it twice.) he ordered an icee and candy and i got some gummy bears, usually one of my favorites, but i think it's been about a year since i've eaten them. i read the box and they seemed ok so i went for it. and... i didn't like them. i ate about half (they were $4!! ridiculous) but they kind of tasted fake, like diet soda. gross.

i guess that's a good thing? but it's weird.

***major side note: i still drink a TON of soda. specifically Coke. i can't see giving that up anytime soon.***

Katie and Parker!!! :)

This past weekend Rae and I got to drive up to NH to have breakfast with Katie and Parker :) Parker received some Dr. Seuss books about the beach which he looked at some and threw some, he played with Katie's cell phones, ate/threw some french toast and bacon, and we narrowly avoided being caught in a torrential downpour when we attempted to go on a walk. Good times!

and so now I am going to use this blog to shamelessly show you the following pictures/brag about one of my favorite kids ever (please note the mohawk):

he likes the trunk of the car (I don't blame him, it is huge, to him it must seem like a great place to explore)

  so cool in sunglasses, look at the grin :)

I spent at least 50% of the time trying to convince Katie to move back by bribing her with free babysitting and lots of time with her friends. In fact, so did Rae and Kristen. sooo Katie.... is it working yet?!?!?!?!?

something new - a book review! (Sarah's Key)

Because I spend a lot of time reading blogs, and I love to read, I decided to join a virtual book club that one of the blogs I read is doing - you can read about it here: http://myprettypennies.com/2010/06/16/mpp-summer-book-club/

Basically I figured that it would get me to read new books that I might not have heard of before, which it did, and this is my own little review of the first one I read - Sarah's Key.

Sarah's Key
by Tatiana de Rosnay

my rating: B, I liked it, but I don't feel the need to read it again.

Basically, the story flips back and forth between France during World War II and present-day. The story that takes place in the past is amazingly fantastic. The story that took place in the future, though... eh. It was OK. I did learn some new WWII history though, and since I'm kind of a history nerd I liked that part. In fact, I think it would have been better if the whole thing took place in the past!

Final verdict: it's worth reading if you like history, if not you might get bored.

Next up: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. (I got an email from the library telling me that my hold is finally in!)

recent updates

so I realized that I am not very good at this blogging thing and I want to be better, even if only for Cheryl's amusement (since she may well be the only one who still reads this thing). anyway, my life is not super exciting, so here are some highlights:

1) Jess's bachelorette party was about 10 days ago, and it was fantastic. Excellent choice with the 80s cover band- that was the way to go :) I have lots of pictures, I got to see lots of fantastic ladies that I don't get to see very often, we got to buy Jess some cute things so she'll be prepared for her life as a married lady... not that I'd know what that would be, but I gather cute underwear/nightgowns are involved.





A couple of pictures:

this would be early on in the night, before many drinks were had by anyone. Jess and her deltas :) super cute. and we know how to pose. no alcohol is even showing!! we were all trained well.



















and this one is the best one of the night of the bride-to-be. i love it :)





2) this past weekend on the 3rd we went up to Chris's parents' lake house again (because who wouldn't?) lots of people came, one minor injury was suffered, Amanda got in the lake and DIDN'T EVEN HOLD ON TO THE DOCK, it was epic. and I forgot my camera for all of it. As Scotty that I babysit would say, "Major Fail."

But I do have this other pretty picture of the lake from the last time we went before that:


3) The fantastic D that I do research with was here for a couple of days last week, which was awesome. We went and saw where the alleged Boston Strangler victims were murdered because we are weird like that, and we watched some World Cup and wandered around Boston in the gorgeous weather on Friday. We also watched a lot of True Blood :)

other than that, my life has basically consisted of babysitting, reading, Netflix (Battlestar Galactica, I don't know if I like it... though the entire series of The X-Files is streaming and I'm rewatching the whole thing, no question), organizing our apartment finally even though we moved in last August, you know, same old. Chris's friends Matt and Josh are coming up this weekend, next weekend my mom AND Val are coming and we are going to visit AJ and Taygan, and after that it's finally to Florida and back for Jess and Rob's wedding!! It's going to get busy quick. I have some goals for the summer...maybe I should write those in here and get on it before summer is over and I start my VERY LAST YEAR AS A GRADUATE STUDENT. finally.

Yay!! :)

(the photo is Rae relaxing in the backyard at Chris's parents' house earlier this summer)

The exciting news just keeps coming :)

I got an excellent phone call from Rae last night telling me that James proposed (actually, all she did was giggle and say "I can't even say it", to which I responded "You have got to be kidding me!!" LOL). I, in fact, called it a while ago when I said to Rae "Maybe James will propose while you are on your trip over July 4th!!" Evidently, I was right.

My only request was that they not get married in April 2011 - I don't think I can squeeze in another wedding between Anna's and Lindsay's - to which the reply was "I'm not in any rush." those who know Rae know why that is quite possibly the funniest thing she's ever said :)

So basically, all I wanted to say is... CONGRATULATIONS RAE AND JAMES!! :) :) :)