June 2012 :: What I'm Into

I decided to join in with my friend Mary at Giving Up on Perfect as she monthly does a "What I'm Into" post. So here's what has been going on around here in that sense....during the month of June.

{I refuse to believe it's already July. Nope. Not possible.}

What I'm Hearing:

I love, love, love the latest single from Owl City, along with Carly Rae Jepsen called Good Time. I could repeat this constantly right now. Yes, eventually I'd tire of it, but for now I love listening to it whenever I get a chance. It's just sweet, peppy happiness. Also loving the latest from The Wanted, Chasing the Sun. Fun stuff.

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But ohhhh mannnn... I totally found my latest musical love with Mat Kearney's album City of Black & White (Universal, 2009). I am a bit behind on music sometimes, didn't even know this dude existed, and when this came up recently on my Josh Garrels station on Pandora, I immediately fell in love and bought the album promptly on iTunes. Seriously, so, so, so good.


What Movies I'm Seeing:

Whoosh, we've watched a lot of movies lately. Hopefully you saw my latest review, but if you stopped reading because I wasn't posting for a while - you should know I've been catching up a lot the past few days! Check out my latest review here on "People Like Us".

We've rented, we've been to the theatre, I'm still behind on my full Hunger Games review, and so on. Hubster bought me a couple of DVDs for my birthday including Thor and Secondhand Lions. Love them both! Just rented Sherlock Holmes 2 again. Humor, romance, action, and some of my favorite effects ever - what could get any better?!?! And one of my more recent favorites is Midnight in Paris. I'm not altogether too sure of what possessed me to want to watch it since it's not normally the type of thing that looks that interesting to me {that tends to be the case with Oscar-nominated films, as I often like the ones that don't get the best reviews or are the no-name films...}. But I just love this one!

What I'm Watching on the Tele:

We are total America's Got Talent (NBC) geeks. We skipped it at first this season because we aren't fans of Howard Stern, but I have to admit it's not too bad. I actually almost prefer him to Piers Morgan {gasp!}. He's not crude or as frustrating as I would have thought, whew. That's a relief because it's the only talent show we watch, and we just have to show them our love!!

Wipeout just started again for their summer season and we usually get a big kick out of that. This year, our new loves include American Ninja Warrior (NBC) and Franklin & Bash (TNT). The latter of which we were surprised by - we'd tried it last year but it was too riske' and we didn't care for it despite loving the main actors. After some encouragement from my TV-loving blog friend Mary, we immediately fell in love with it this season! The actors are a hoot and just play off each other so well, and we have always loved Breckin Meyer so we're really glad it's much better this season! And come on, Team Morris forever!! (Still love watching Saved by the Bell episodes when they air reruns!) My summer addiction/guilty pleasure TV show is Melissa & Joey (ABC Family) - I don't care, I love this show! Recently premiering after it is Baby Daddy which so far has also been enjoyable, but we'll see - the jury is still out on that one.

We used to be big fans of The Next Food Network Star, but it's kind of fallen off our radar lately, and it's changed and we just aren't as into it anymore. Same with Iron Chef America. I think we've been neglecting The Food Network. Hmm, sorry dudes! We are, of course, throwing some Olympic trials in there, and will for sure be watching the Olympics at the end of July!

What Foods I'm Cooking:

We just finished a week of vacation in which I did no major cooking, and it was amazing. :) I think it's really helped refresh me with a desire to get back into it!! {Shhh... don't tell my hubby. ;)} I'm determined that despite how much I detest the clean-up part, I'm going to try more things soon!!

This week I have a bunch of summery foods I'm planning, but a lot of the meat or veggies require Tim to cook them on the grill. :) This is a bit of an 'off' week with the holiday, but I'm still going to do what I can to make sure we're eating out less and enjoying fresher foods. 

Tonight's good food:

Fresh angus beef burgers, seasoned with Famous Dave's Steak & Burger Seasonings, topped with Honey BBQ sauce, cheddar cheese slices, and dill pickles served on whole wheat buns. Along with that was fresh corn on the cob grilled in the husks, then rolled in a little butter. Added later was some fresh watermelon, eventually rounded up with ice cream sandwiches. Yummo - I love the foods of summer and the flavors of the grill!!

What Books I'm Reading... or Trying to Read:

I just got even more loaded with books for my birthday, and I'm SO excited!! Plus I'm trying to do at least part of our church's summer reading program. I'm also finishing up one of my favorite fiction trilogies of all time. It's amazing. But I've heard people who don't like it, so certainly give it a whirl and see if it's for you or not!

There's definitely a LOT of books strewn around here, even more than usual for someone who gets a free book every time it's released as an employee of a publisher!

Here are the books I'm currently reading and enjoying each one in their own way:

I have started reading parts of each of these books. I'm enjoying each of them, but I really have trouble with finishing one book at a time even when I'm loving it. I just get antsy. Man... I need more bookmarks!

A Woman's Wisdom by Lydia Brownback
Loving the Way Jesus Loves by Phil Ryken
Fireflies in December by Jennifer Erin Valent {2007 winner, Christian Writers Guild's Operation First Novel contest; 2010, Christy Award winner}
The Kingdom by Bryan M. Litfin {Book 3 in the Chiveis Trilogy - one of the best fiction trilogies ever!!}
Get Out of That Pit by Beth Moore
The Explicit Gospel by Matt Chandler, with Jared Wilson 

Here are the summer reading program books at church, of which I've only started the top one:

Here are the books I've received recently as gifts - and I'm SO excited about them! I got the top 2 for Christmas so I've started them, and 3 of the 4 at the bottom I got from my mom for my birthday. I'm really itching to get going on them - but I have just got to finish at least one of the above books that I've already started!

There are also a couple of books I've checked out from the library that are due back in a couple of days that I'm quickly trying to finish skimming through {I've already renewed it once}, but those I'll mention on another upcoming post.

WOW. I have a lot of reading to go do....

What I'm Seeing: 

We've had some freaky storms lately. We had a crazy long drought, beautiful sunsets {as shown above}, and then poof! we've had a couple of storms over the past few days. One produced hail and this afternoon's storm produced very strong (75-95 mph) winds that left a lot of trees down over power lines in neighborhoods closer to my work.

 

 
What I'm Feeling:

I've been on and off very frustrated with having Fibro. Spent a lot of time on vacation resting, thinking, praying, crying out to God, resolving how to move forward, being thankful, and studying Bible verses that made me focus more on other things and less on my dealing with a chronic illness. There are such bigger, more difficult things out there in the world. I'm trying hard to focus on the positives, but I admit it was really hard when we were in Chicago for our anniversary for 2 days. Lots of walking and moving around, and a lot of flaring up in my body. I'm thankful that it wasn't worse, because I know it could have been, but I'm also just really sad to have to deal with it at all and not be able to do things like a normal person.

But still, ultimately, learning to be thankful in the midst of it, and use it to teach me things about myself, about God, and how to be more compassionate, gracious, and kind to those around me.

Having celebrated 12 years of marriage and turning 34 this past week - I had a good amount of time to also think and pray about not having kids and what that means for us. Had one amazing and blessed conversation with a friend on Tuesday over lunch that really encouraged me and gave me more resolve than I've had in a long time. Resolved to just totally trust the Lord with this, and stop dwelling on it so much and just live my life as God is calling me to. I won't do that perfectly, but I'm sure going to try harder!

What's Happening:

It's back to work for me tomorrow, for the first time since Thursday, June 21st. So far our work doesn't have power yet after the storm from this afternoon, so we'll see how things go! We've enjoyed our week off and aren't quite ready to go back to work, but alas, it's time. Back to reality.


Anything special you want to share that you've been up to lately?