Hello June!

So May was a pretty crazy month for me. I'm happy to see June, not only for the warmer weather but also for a little bit of a break! To catch you up on things, here's what I've been up to for the past 4 weeks (complete with pictures!).

1. Attending my bro's graduation at UT (Tennessee, not Texas). Not the best shot, but it's the only one I got.



2. Visiting my grandparents in Mississippi. Trip with the whole fam. Fun stuff! We ventured over to New Orleans for a day too.





3. Shooting my friends John and Knicki's wedding at Virginia Beach. Rainy wedding, but it all worked out okay!







4. Moving to Annapolis and starting a new job. No pictures yet, but here's one from a previous Annapolis visit.



5. Visiting Seattle with Paul. SO awesome! I've never really spent any time on the west coast, and I loved it. The weather was perfect and I just never imagined how beautiful Seattle could be.

Something I've been thinking about recently... I'm very thankful for the people in my life who don't live up to my expectations. I realize that sounds ridiculous, but instead of being frustrated, I'm choosing to be thankful. There are people who I love and I will always love, no matter how many stupid decisions they make (repeatedly) because I love them for who they are, and that won't ever change. While it is certainly frustrating to have people disappoint me, I am seeing it for the first time in a new light. It's a reminder to me. If I, imperfect and limited as I am, can still love people who screw up all the time, how much more does God love me? Wow.

So I watched maybe the last 10 minutes of Grey's Anatomy this evening (which I pretty much never do.) And they played this song "Break Me Out" by the Rescues (my #10 song on my best songs of 2008 list). I always feel a mixture of excitement and sadness when this happens. Kind of a bittersweet thing... when a band I really like and have listened to for a while finally makes it to t.v. or a commercial. Some part of me thinks, "They're mine, what's everyone else doing listening to them?"

Anyway, no real point to this post. Just trying to get back in the habit of writing a little something, here and there.

2009 Books I've Read

So I guess it's time to begin my 2009 list of books I've read. I read a total of 43 in 2008. Not a bad number, but I'd like to try and read even more. I think reading makes me smarter. Or at least it makes me feel smarter. Which is almost as good.

21. New Moon - Stephanie Meyer 7/10

20. Twilight - Stephanie Meyer 6/10

19. A Cup Of Tea - Amy Ephron 7.5/10

18. Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding 8/10

17. The Memory Keeper's Daugher - Kim Edwards 8.5/10

16. The Mermaid Chair - Sue Monk Kidd 7.5/10

15. The Jane Austen Book Club - Karen Joy Fowler 7/10

14. Lying Awake - Mark Salzman 9/10

13. The Light of Day - Graham Swift 6.5/10

12. Peace Like A River - Leif Enger 9/10

11. Freakonomics - Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner 9/10

10. Towelhead - Alicia Erian 8.5/10

9. Candy Girl: A Year in the Life of an Unlikely Stripper - Diablo Cody 8/10

8. Trunk Music - Michael Connelly 7.5/10

7. No Country for Old Men - Cormac McCarthy 9/10

6. Until I Find You - John Irving 7.5/10

5. Cause Celeb - Helen Fielding 7/10

4. The Long Night of Winchell Dear - Robert Waller 7/10

3. Merde Actually - Stephen Clarke 5/10

2. The Things They Carried - Tim O'Brien 9/10

1. Under the Banner of Heaven - Jon Krakauer 7/10

My Top 15 Favorite Songs of 2008

Now, just because I write Top 15 Songs of 2008 does not mean these songs came out in 2008. These are just the songs I've listened to pretty much nonstop this year.

1. "The Reasons" - The Weakerthans
2. "Falling Slowly" - Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova
3. "Alabaster" - Ricky Votolato
4. "Bleeding Heart Show" - The New Pornographers
5. "Fourth of July" - Shooter Jennings
6. "Motorcycle Drive By" - Third Eye Blind
7. "I Will Follow You Into The Dark" - Death Cab for Cutie
8. "Neon Bible" - Arcade Fire
9. "Stick Around" - Reckless Kelly
10. "Break Me Out" - The Rescues
11. "She Is My Everything" - John Prine
12. "Banditos" - The Refreshments
13. "Hear You Me" - Jimmy Eat World
14. "Tell Me A Lie" - Griffin House
15. "Love and Some Verses" - Iron & Wine

It's kind of funny... my brother has this long-standing theory: Bands that start their name with "The" are automatically awful. His four exceptions to the rule are The Beatles, The Who, The Eagles, and The Rolling Stones. An iffy fifth - The Black Crowes. Clearly we have different tastes in music. Four of the bands on my list start with "The". Any other opinions on this matter?

Forgetting a Friend (rough draft)

I've mostly forgotten your favorite author Tom Robbins
and the winning word in our Scrabble game.
You said you were different
but you left me the same.

The lines of you soften from blue into gray
blurring your face in my fading memory.
I cared but it wasn't enough
and you only noted my apathy.

I'll forget your middle name first and your first name last
and the things you told me names meant.
We were friends only in name
that much is apparent.

Check it out!

This is amazing! I think I just wasted like an hour messing around with this. Just type in something you want to see pictures of, and it grabs the most popular photos from Flickr and puts them on a spinny globe. Okay, it's a little cooler than my description of it right now. I typed in "goat" and actually saw my famous goat photo on the globe.