Blessed

Today I have a lot to be thankful for.  Last night a pretty huge storm blew through the area.  There were wind gusts up to 80 mph and trees are down all over the place.  There are power outages from at least Wytheville to Richmond.  But not at Casa de Yopp!  All day long I've been getting more and more reminders of how blessed I am and how thankful I am for my world and my life. 

Friends
Last night I was sitting in Cookout, eating a burger and drinking a milkshake after having just seen "Magic Mike" with two of my best friends.  I'm thankful that I have wonderful friends who I can meet for movie and an unhealthy dinner on a Friday night.  I'm thankful that I had one of those friends in the car with me while I battled the elements and made my way from Lynchburg back to Roanoke.  Beth kept an eye on the radar map while I introduced her to the wonderful world of One Direction.

This morning Paul's best friend called to tell us that their power is out.  There are electric poles and trees down around his neighborhood and there's no estimate of when it's coming back, so their giving away everything in their freezer.  He invited us to come by and stock up on whatever we want.  They're giving everything away so it doesn't go bad, and it does my heart good to know that.

Electricity
Somehow we still have electricity.  It feels like business as usual around here.  I'm doing laundry and putting up blinds in the air conditioning, and it's hard to be annoyed by these chores when some people are sitting in sweltering heat.

Traffic Lights
A few minutes ago I drove to Paul's work to take him a cold jug of tea.  On the way there I noticed half the businesses I passed were out of power and the others were swarmed with people.  In general, the drive was pretty normal.  But when I left I realized I couldn't turn left where I needed to  because the traffic lights were out.  I ended up driving a pretty random route home because, getting around without traffic lights?  It's not easy.  It's actually pretty difficult.  So I took all right turns until I got to the interstate and could make my way home.

The Kindness of Strangers
When I was walking back to my car after taking Paul his tea, there was a woman walking across the parking lot holding a plate.  She asking me if I was going to Home Depot and I said no, that I was just visiting my husband.  She then gestured with her plate and told me that Home Depot was giving away pizza.  Home Depot was lucky enough to still have power and was giving pizza away to all the people who couldn't make their own lunch. I'm sure they'll make up for that cost with all the generators and chain saws that will be rolling out the doors this weekend.

Strong Trees
While a lot of people are spending their day cutting up fallen trees and dealing with insurance companies, we just have a some large twigs scattered around the yard and driveway.  About 4 houses a way a tree split down the middle.  I passed a house for sale that now has a tree laying on the roof.  There's also a huge tree by the library that fell on the power line and is being kept off Williamson Road by nothing but that power line. And all I have is a few twigs that I need to pick up. 

Summer Reading

I recently discovered the magic of reading at the gym.  A couple months ago I downloaded Chasing Mona Lisa by Tricia Goyer and Mike Yorkey to the Kindle app on my phone.  I've had the app since I got my phone over a year ago, but I'd only used it one time, to read a short story that was only released a an  ebook.  But when a facebook friend posted that Chasing Mona Lisa was free that day, I figured I'd give it a shot.  That day at the gym I pulled the book up on my phone and realized that I could increase the font so that I could read it without squinting.  After I finished that book I downloaded Sprig of Thyme by Jenna Dawlish (again, for free) and I finished it in just a week's worth of gym trips.  

I grew tired of the free options on Amazon and decided to check out my library's ebooks and now I'm obsessed. One day, through blogs and the library, I truly found magic.  

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It's safe to say that The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern is now one of my favorite books.  I truly felt like I was being transported to another world while I was reading.  I would love to give a synopsis of the book, but I don't think I could do it justice.  I will say that it's about a very special circus (obviously) and a competition.  And it has a wonderful cast of characters that I fell in love with.  I didn't  want the book to end and delayed finishing the book because I didn't didn't want to say goodbye to the characters.  I would recommend this books to anyone, especially anyone who has read and enjoyed Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs. Like Riggs' novel, The Night Circus is full of magical realism and it's easy to transition from one novel to the other since reality has already been somewhat suspended.  

The Night Circus is available in hardback, audiobook, and ebook form,  and will be released in paperback in July.  Do yourself a favor and pick it up.  

Having A Bad Day?

Don't worry about it.  Just watch this.

You're welcome.

I'm sorry Harvard baseball team, fun., and President Obama, but this is the best cover of "Call Me Maybe" in the whole wide world.

Safety First

You may or may not remember that Paul got me a shiny new bicycle for Christmas.  It' a cruiser bike and looks something like this, well, actually, it looks exactly like this.

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He picked this one because it's the same color as my stand mixer.  He correctly, figured that would be important to me.

Unfortunately, my pretty bicycle sat in the dining room until this past weekend.  I new Paul didn't think I liked it so I decided that it was time to get out an ride it.  About a block away from the house I remembered why it was that I hadn't ridden my bike yet.  I don't have a helmet.  I was feeling a little wobbly, since I hadn't ridden a bike since I was about 12, and decided that rather than wiping out and having a car come along and squish my head like a grape (my biggest, most irrational fear...we'll talk later), I'd head home. 

I began my search for a helmet thinking that it wouldn't be hard to find something both fun and functional, but I was wrong.  Everything I found looked very aerodynamic and like it belonged on Lance Armstrong, not on a girl out for a casual pedal around the neighborhood.  But then I found Yakkay.  The company is based in England and make helmets and helmet covers that are SO. SUPER. CUTE!!  they don't look like helmets.  They look like hats with chin straps.  Here are a couple of my favorites:

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Those would be excellent for a casual pedal around the block, AMIRIGHT?!  Unfortunately, they come at quite a price.  I found a company in Chicago that sells them stateside, but they're $124.  And as cute as they are, I just can't justify spending that much on something I'm only going to use every now and then.  And I can only imagine the look on Paul's face if I were to tell him that I have to spend $125 for something that I could pick up, albeit in a much less cute form, at Target. 

Do you know where I can get a cute bicycle helmet without breaking the bank?  How confident are you in my ability to figure out a way to make my own super-cute helmet cover? 

My Newest Obsession

I'm pretty sure I've already titled a post "My Newest Obsession," but I'm pretty okay with that. 

My newest obsession is with kitchen canisters.  My current canisters are terrible.  One of the lids is cracked and all of them have small mouths so I have to spoon or pour the contents out.  I don't like that.  I got them for $15 and only got them so Paul wouldn't have to feel like he was living in a dollhouse with the pink canisters my mom gave me after college graduation.  They're ugly and I hate them and I've been using them nearly three years.  It's time for a change. 

Lucky for me, Martha Stewart has come to the rescue. These beautie are from her line at Macy's and I'm enamored. I've actually wanted something like this for a long time but I figured I'd have to DIY if I wanted them to happen.  I spent the better part of the past weekend obsessing over these canisters until I finely bit the bullet and placed my order. 

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They're tin adn look like 1960 and I can't wait for them to arrive on my stoop.  I ordered Flour, Sugar, and Cookies and I can't wait to not have to fight with bags of flour and sugar whenever I need them.  These are going to make my freakishly bright kitchen even more delightful than it already is and I'm pumped. 

Why I'm Not Team Peeta

Let me just get one thing straight:  Peeta Mellark and Katniss Everdeen are perhaps my favorite literary characters of all time.  Not as a couple and not as a team, but as individuals.

My love for Katniss is obvious.  She's a survivor.  She's a badass.  She is woman, hear her roar!  But what makes her truly brilliant is that she is devoid of an emotional connection to nearly everyone and everything around her.  She's so in her head all the time that she hardly ever has time to be in her feelings.  I, on the other hand, am constantly in my feelings.  Reading about Katniss is refreshing in a weird way because she's so different from every other female protagonist out there and so very different from me. 

And then there's Peeta.  He is unapologetic about being just who he is all the time.  He cries on the trip to the train station because he needs to cry because he's about to go into the em-effin Hunger Games.  He likes decorating cakes.  He loves Katniss with his entire being and he's not afraid to say it to her or all of Panem.  He likes to bake and paint pictures and doesn't feel emasculated by Katniss's superior hunting skills and he loves the color of orange at sunset.  And perhaps most endearing, he helps Katniss stay alive (without actively keeping her alive) when everyone else was thinking only of themselves.  Even when he's been hijacked by the Capitol, somewhere deep inside he knows who he is enough to know he loves Katniss.

Gale is an okay character, but I don't like who he becomes in Mockingjay and I was never that excited by him in the other books, either.  As a character he didn't really intrigue me or keep me on my toes. 
Yes, I like Peeta more than I like Gale. But that doesn't make me a t-shirt-wearing, poster-board-waving member of Team Peeta.  Because I also like Peeta more than Haymitch and Finnick and Effie...and Jay Gatsby and Harry Potter and Atticus Finch, for that matter. 

The reason I'm not Team Peeta is that these books are about so much more than a girl picking out a boyfriend. They're about survival, growth, and  being true to who you are.  I'm not Team Peeta and I'm not Team Gale because I'm Team Katniss.  I root for her because if there's anyone who deserves to survive, it's her.  It's the girl who has done nothing but take care of others all her life.  And ultimately, Gale is right, she ends up with the guy who she can't live without.  She doesn't need someone with whom she can be angry at the world.  She needs hope.  She needs the first dandelion of spring.  She needs a loaf of bread when her family is slowly starving to death. She needs Peeta.  She never truly had a choice because, in my humble opinion, she always knew she needed Peeta. She doesn't need him to physically survive because we all know she's got that covered, but she needs him to make life worth living.

Perhaps I'm most angry about this whole Team Peeta vs. Team Gale nonsense because Team Boy vs. Team Other Boy was born with Twilight, a book about how important it is to have a boyfriend.  There was no Team Harry vs. Team Ron because the Harry Potter books were about a lot more than that, as are the Hunger Games books.  So let's just quit it, please?  Pretty please?  For the sake of the integrity of the books, cut it the eff out.

Current Obsessions

The New Girl

I have a new favorite TV show and, surprise, surprise, it's not a reality show!  I love "The New Girl."  Read these quotes from  the latest episode where Nick spends some time in a "fancy man's" office. 

• Jess:  "It makes me want to sit by the fire and talk about how annoying Ghandi is." 
• Nick:  "Do you smell that?  It smells like leather, Teddy Roosevelt, and Wistfulness."
• Nick to a wooden duck:  "I want to kill you because I respect you."

           Nick to Jess:  "I think I understand hunting!"

• Nick:  "I just came in here and it smell like Shakespeare...if Shakespeare were  damn cowboy. And hawksnests, and boat fuel, and cigars, and bourbon, and man stuff."
• Nick:  "He smells like strong coffee and going to see a man about a horse!"

The Hunger Games

I've been obsessed with the books since I read all three in five days right after Christmas and last night I saw the movie at the midnight release.  I've read some reviews critiquing it for various things, including that the character's relationships weren't developed enough because it was too fast paced and that Jennifer Lawrence didn't have any on-screen chemistry with the rest of the cast.  To those people I say that the movie was fast-paced because the book is fast paced and Jennifer doesn't have on screen chemistry with the cast because Katniss doesn't know how to relate to people.  She played the part just right, as did everyone else, and it's quite honestly the best book-to-movie adaptation I've seen in a long time, possibly ever. 

Rice

Yep, rice.  I've been really into the idea of rice lately--chinese food, japanese food, mexican food, you name it.  I haven't been terribly pleased with my own rice dish execution, but any takeout involving rice is my friend.

My New Watch/Rose Gold

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I don't know if my obsession is with my watch or with rose gold, either way I love this watch and I love that I got a really good deal on it.