Casual Fridays

Y'all. Casual Fridays have just died over here. Forget about it. So much time has passed. Where do we even start? I'll tell you where:

07/04/18

Because freedom and true love and the freaking 'stache. We spent our 4th of July eating way too much food and admiring Cody's magnificent facial hair. RIP The Mustache of 2018. Also, we played Euchre. Because I finally gave in and learned to play and now I'm addicted and can't stop. If you know this game, come play with me. 

Now for a proper bookish start to this post:

Here are some of the gems I've picked up at The Book Shelter lately. I think I've had pretty good self-control (considering the first time we went, I ended up with 14 books), but Cody's still a little fearful whenever I announce I'm heading for The Book Shelter. I've been back twice since that fateful anniversary trip, and along with all these fantastic books (including that Beth Moore Esther workbook which had nary a mark in it) I also scored the entire series of Parks & Rec on DVD. Because not only do they sell books, they sell board games and movies and video games—oh my! Have you read any of these? If I had to choose between Their Eyes Were Watching God, Rebecca, The Language of Flowers, or The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society for my 2019 book list, which one should make the cut? ("All of them" is an entirely acceptable answer.)

I'd probably be going to The Book Shelter a lot more frequently if I wasn't running off to the beach every spare day I get. Most of my trips have been solo, but I did manage to drag my BFF with me one day, and we ended up witnessing a totally casual wedding. (#memories) When we noticed they didn't have anyone to take a picture of the whole group, I sashayed my little bikini-clad body over to offer up my services as an impromptu photographer, much to the chagrin delight of my best friend. The family was very appreciative even though Christina wanted to melt into the sand. As you can see, my toenails haven't been entirely neglected this summer. That purple home pedi was flawless, but the beachy coral pedi was smudge city which has brought me to a new conclusion about smudgy pedicures: the nail polish brand matters. Anyone else find this to be true? 

I alluded to this in my God Is Able recap, but I didn't mention that my husband totally surprised me with these fun summery porch furniture cushions and they are making me so happy. Our porch chairs have been cushion-less since Irma, and I've been loving being able to (comfortably) spend more time outside this summer. 

06/04/18

I set a new world record Yahtzee score. (Ignore all of our confused faces, I was trying to figure out how to do a screenshot. #technicaldifficulties) But really though. 620??? That has to be a world record, right? Right?!

07/15/18

And speaking of my fellow Yahtzee Nazis (I just came up with that. Can I trademark it? Or is it offensive?), I squeezed in the quickest weekend roadtrip to see some of my favorite people recently. They're just extremely lucky I didn't smuggle my nephew home with me. Serious tears when I had to drive away from that baby. They're moving to Germany and even though they're really psyched about it, I'm still hitting my knees every morning asking God to make the Army change its mind. #sorrynotsorry Check Little Miss Thing eyeing her daddy like, "Gosh, you're so embarrassing, Dad!"

07/26/18

I got a few sweet hours with my other favorites yesterday. Thing 1 and Thing 2 are getting real good at faces-on-command. I treasure every second with these precious girls, and I hope they always love coming to Auntie Hannah's house. 

The puppies are doing good. Although between the two of them, I've cleaned up more puke this week than I would have preferred. Colonel likes to eat baby wipes so all trash cans have long been placed out of reach of either mangy mutt, but this week he managed to snitch two wipes that were literally sitting right next to me while I was changing a diaper and naturally they came back up a couple days later because baby wipes are not digestible, y'all. Don't eat them. Major regurgitated his breakfast Wednesday for no apparent reason. Perhaps he felt left out? The world may never know, and I am so over it.

Last summer around this time, I started a segment on the blog entitled "Adventures in Coloring" because my husband got me this insane grown-up coloring book. In the entire year since then, I have managed to complete two more pages. Two. And recently started a third. I'm obviously slaying. My hubby thinks the fish lips page doesn't even look finished because of how much I left white, but look at those teeny tiny scales, y'all! Haven't I done enough?!

I let some random stranger at a Fantastic Sam's hack up my hair a couple weeks ago because I was so bored with it, but, as is usually the case, I was immediately remorseful. It's hair. It grows. Whatever.

And if you've actually made it to the end of this post, I have a serious question for you. I have Mere Christianity and Othello lined up for my August reading, but I can't decide on which novel I'd like to tackle next. Should August include The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy, A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, Hinds' Feet on High Places by Hannah Hurnard, or Song of Deborah by Bette M. Ross? Help!

Did you make it this far? How's your summer been? To sum up: nail polish brand recommendations, 2019 book list choices, Yahtzee props, coloring encouragement, August novel vote. Annnnnd GO.

Casual Fridays

Hello, internet-people! *insert Julie Andrews giving you a queenly wave here* (If you understand that reference, come over here and sit by me. We need to be friends.) In case you completely forgot who I am:

That's me. Hair that's always a mess and apparently too long to fit in the picture anymore. And also perpetually damp. Because ain't nobody got time for a hair dryer. 

Now that we've reacquainted ourselves, here's a little fact you need to know: someone from Turkmenistan viewed my blog this week. Listen, I didn't even know where Turkmenistan is located (and possibly I didn't even know it existed) until yesterday when I saw that someone from there looked at my blog this week. For any other ignorant people like myself out there reading, it's predictably smack-dab in the middle of all the other -stans.

It's smaller than Spain but bigger than the U.S. state of California, it's mostly desert, and it possesses the world's 4th-largest reserves of natural gas and substantial oil resources. So, there you go. Welcome to my blog, Turkmenistan. 

Now let's catch up with each other. This is going to involve a lot photos which will be in no particular and certainly not in chronological order. 

First of all, what I'm reading lately since that's technically what this little cranny of cyberspace is allegedly about. I'm currently in the latter half of the Psalms, still struggling through The Three Musketeers, and this week I started Surprised by Joy by C.S. Lewis because I had to face the reality that if I kept waiting until I finished The Three Musketeers to start another book from my list, I would not be making it through my list this year. Listen y'all, I am just now getting to the halfway mark of this book, and I still have like a million chapters to go. It's endless. I thought I had finally hit my stride with it a while back, but no. I got through that captivating little intrigue and now it's back to making myself read a few pages each day. Like, every time I sit down with this book, I fall asleep. I'm reserving my final judgment until I've actually persevered to the end, but I am sorely afraid that if The Three Musketeers is an accurate sample of the rest of Dumas' writing, I'm actually going to hate The Count of Monte Cristo which I secretly think is one of my favorite books even though I haven't in fact read it. Someone please tell me it gets better. Oh and FYI, I did not even pose Major for this pic. #notkidding

This is old news, but my cute niece just can't keep any teeth in her head! Number 4 came out weeks ago. Also, she's starting real school in a couple weeks. I can't even deal with that. And while we're on my nieces, here's a string of photos that will satisfy your adorable quotient for the week.... 

First of all, meet Colonel and Major's new best friend. My sweet Osborne niece is finally stateside and got to stay at Auntie Hannah's house for the first time. Not that she really cared about me that much: she was too busy with her canine buddies. If you can't tell, she's in Colonel's crate with Colonel. I can't. 

I got to steal my Golden Bolden Girls for a girls day and sleepover a few Saturdays ago and we made Uncle Cody snap a quick pic of us in our Sunday best on our way out the door to church. That second photo of them is from the Fourth of July. Too much love! 

And speaking of Independence Day....

Happy Freedom! Cody had to work a 12 hour shift (hence the grainy, late-night photo), but I got to spend my afternoon with my sisters and some sweet friends of ours. So thankful to live in America! Those shag rugs we're clutching got haircuts shortly after that photo was taken.

They DO have eyes! The best thing about the boys getting haircuts is that they don't track all the sand in Florida through my house. Bless the groomers.

I promise I'll wrap this up soon.

The Intrepid finally bit the dust. I drove it hard for a full 7 years, and it couldn't take it anymore. So we got this super-cute little 2008 Honda Fit. Apparently, Hondas go forever. *fingers crossed* The Intrepid didn't even make it to 140,000 miles. For some reason, I have it in my head that a car that can't make it to 200,000 miles ain't worth having. Is this even realistic? Anyway, it's fun having a new (to us) car, and it's fun driving this little hatchback around. 

We finished another puzzle! This one was 1,000 pieces and the most difficult one we've completed to date. What sadist creates a puzzle where the border doesn't actually connect all the way around?! We technically started this puzzle before I got my wisdom teeth out, but after "completing" the outline of it, we just tiptoed around it or stared at it in dismay for a couple weeks following because holy complex. You will never understand just how many different textures and shades of gray are contained in those two elephants. But I have to say, it was worth it. It turned out beautifully. We just finished it up Wednesday night, and I can't wait to hang it up.

We may need to start a new segment entitled "Adventures in Coloring". I've been a coloring fiend this week. I won't even tell you how many hours I've spent on this. Partly because I don't exactly know, but mostly because it's a ridiculous amount of time. Cody got me this beautiful and infuriatingly intricate grown-up coloring book for Christmas (apparently "adult coloring books" are a thing now, but I just can't bring myself to say "adult coloring book"--dodgy!), and I just cracked it open last week. I'm not sure if this is supposed to be relaxing or stressful but I'll say this: it's addicting. What do you think of my mad coloring skillz? 

And to wrap this up: y'all. I watched these people when they were babies. And now they're all practically adults. Three of them graduated recently so their parents threw them a big open house a few weeks ago, and I wrangled each one into taking a photo with me. These humans are family to me. I practically lived at their house, camped with them, did family vacations with them, went to countless swim meets with them, carted them all around town in their monster 15-passenger van, and kept them alive on more than one occasion while their parents went out of the country. This family is so dear to my heart, and I'm excited to continue watching where God takes each one of them. 

Are you tired of me yet? What have you been up to lately? Do any of you drive a Honda? Love it or hate it? How are you doing with any 2017 resolutions (particularly reading lists) you may have made? Any ideas on how to stop all my babies from becoming adults?? How did you celebrate the Fourth of July? If any Turkmenistanis are reading, what national holidays are unique to your country?