Most Well-Read Cities in America

I found this article on one of the book blogs I read and thought it was really interesting.  The Most Well-Read Cities in America.

America's Roller Coast

Sarah and I went to Cedar Point yesterday.  We lucked out and didn't get any rain, but it was pretty hot.  It was dead in there so the longest we waited for a ride (the water coaster in the front of this picture) was 15 minutes.  

I was starting to lose my voice when I woke up yesterday, but now it's pretty much so gone.  That's what I get for screaming my head off on the magnum. 

A life post

In December of last year I entered a contest through the Henry Ford to win a big giant Meijer gift card. I had no idea that there were any other prizes so I was shocked when I found out that I won a gift package to the Crystal Mountain Resort and Spa.  I won a two night stay and a $100 gift card that I could use on property. It's a ski resort, but we wanted to go off season so it wouldn't be too busy so we made the trip up there last weekend.  Since it was off season, there wasn't a huge amount to do but it was really fun to amble around the property and we even drove a little further up to Traverse City to explore around.

The view from our room of the ski hill.  As you can see, nothing going on

Either rental bungalows or some peoples vacation homes...

I decided to use the $100 gift card on a massage at the spa.
 
I should start this story off by telling you about the massage my mom and I went for around mother’s day. My lovely parents got me a gift card to a salon for my birthday so I decided to hold onto it until mother’s day where I thought my mom and I would go and get massages together. I called the salon and asked if we could both get massages at the same time, and they said yes as they had two technicians. They didn’t really ask me what kind of massage we wanted so I figured when we got there, we would get to pick. I guess I imagined us both going into the same room and getting our massages together. I’ve never had a massage before, but when I was looking at honeymoon things, I would always see these pictures of people all draped in towels getting their massage on. Granted, my mom and I weren’t on our honeymoon, but that’s still what I had in mind. As it turns out we had separate technicians in different rooms. My mom got a deep tissue massage, and I got a wat pho massage. If you’ve never heard of wat pho, don’t worry, I hadn’t either. It was a combination of yoga, some pressure on certain parts of my body, and being sponged down with this weird satchel thing. It actually was a very relaxing massage (except for the yoga stuff; that was kind of random) but it wasn’t what I pictured in my mind when I thought about a massage, which brings me back to last weekend.

They told me to get to the spa early so I could change into a robe and slippers and use the sauna, the steam bath or the outdoor hot tub if I wanted to. I was there by myself so I just changed into my robe and read a magazine in the meditation room. I did have to wander around and check out everything first though. It was SO NICE in there.

They don't let you take pictures because who wants to see people in robes, but here is one from their website.

I ended up getting a full body deep tissue massage, which cost every penny of my gift certificate and then some, but it was SO worth it. Not only did she work out all of the tension in my neck, back and shoulders, but she massaged each individual toe and finger. She even massaged my face! It’s been almost a full week and I’m still feeling great. Afterwards there was someone waiting to give me cucumber and mint water and a heated towel. It was great being spoiled for the day! Needless to say if we ever make it back out there, I’m getting another massage!

Will Rhymes.  He was my favorite Tiger, now he's my favorite Mud Hen.  sigh

In other news, we bought a Saturday ticket package for the minor leagues down in Toledo, the Mud Hens. The games have been really fun, but it’s been a pain in the butt making plans around them and trying to get the days off from work. The season started in April, but we bought the tickets in May so they sent us a few extra tickets that are sporadically through the week over the next few month.

School and work has been consuming the majority of my time.  I've been really bad lately about losing track of days.  I seem to just think of everything in terms of "I work the next two days, and then I'm off for two." or "I have a paper due tomorrow."

Here is how bad it's gotten:  I forgot Ronnie's birthday...

Well to be fair, I knew that Ronnie's birthday was May 5th, but I had no idea that it actually was May 5th.  At around 2 that day I just happened to look at my cell phone and see the date and felt really bad.  We went to a Tigers game a few days before his birthday to celebrate so it turned out okay. 

We got really great seats. We were playing the Yankees that night and we were right behind the dugout. It was kind of weird seeing Jeter up close and personal.  It was even weirder when the guy behind us kept yelling "The Yakees suck and Jeter swallows!"  When Jeter would look in our direction I wanted to point at the dude that was doing it!

In the last piece of life news, I dyed my hair again.  I was on a mission to grow it out, but then I got a new badge for work.  I hate the picture.  I can't even describe how much I hate it and it's all because of my hair so I did what any good over-reactor would do and bought some dye to change it back to blonde.  I bought the John Freida foaming stuff.  Using the foam was nice and simple and the color came out pretty even despite how long my roots were, but the color isn't as nice as the Feria dye I used to use.  I'm such a sucker for marketing. 

5 Words - The Passage by Justin Cronin

5 words I would use to describe this book: post-apocalyptic, vampires, experimenting with medicine, epic, survivors

I finally finished this book.  I feel like I've been reading it for a year now.  It was highly recommended on a few blogs I read, but I have to say it wasn't one of my favorites.  The first half of the book kept me on the edge of my seat and I LOVED it, but the second, post-apocalyptic half really dragged for me.   I guess I didn't find the characters in the last half of the book as interesting.  There was some great character development in the first half of the book but I kind of felt like it didn't really go anywhere.  For example, I really liked reading about Carter in the first part of the book but his mentions in the second half of the book made me wonder why he was so built up in the first place. 

I still think I would give this book 3 and a half or 4 stars because I loved the first half of the book so much.

A mother is the most wonderful person in the world.

via: the disney princess

 I guess my internet decided not to post this post yesterday, because I just noticed that it was stuck in my posts area.  :(

Anyway... Happy Mother's Day Mom!  No matter what happens, I know you will always be my biggest fan.  I love you!

Also happy mothers day to my mother-in-law, my mimi, my sister-in-law and all of my aunties who might be reading this!  I love you guys too!

Knitting for little Matthew

Pattern:  The blanket is just an extra large version of Grandmothers Favorite Dishcloth and the little Monster is Maddox the Mischievous Monster by Rebecca Danger
Yarn: The blankey was made from Lion's Brand Baby First in Pixie Dust, and Maddox was made from Patons SWS
Needle Size:10 1/2 for the blanket, 6 for the monster
Dates:  May 1st through May 4th for the blanket and Maddox was finished in one day on May 3rd.

 

My Project Name: I didn't name these anything special.  My brain is fried from all the math I've been doing lately.

Modifications:  None for Maddox.  The only thing special I did for the blanket was to knit it really big.  I bought 4 skeins of the Baby's First.  I increased until I ran out of the second skein and then started decreasing with the 3rd.  I think maybe one of the skeins was short because I ended up having to the store to buy a 5th! 

New techniques learned: None.

Notes: I really wanted to crochet the Tirimisu baby blanket.  I did give it a try, but my crochet isn't that great yet.  The sides of the blanket looked like they were a set of stairs.  :)  I still wanted to make something that had the look of the Tirimisu, so I figured this would be a good compromise.

More Pictures:

 

Montly Reading Roundup - April 2011

Something Borrowed by Emily Giffin - Finished April 5th

3 out of 5 stars

Sing You Home by Jodi Picoult - Finished April 9th

4 out of 5 stars

Horns by Joe Hill - Finished April 12th

5 out of 5 stars added to favorites shelf

Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins - Finished April 13th

4 out of 5 stars

Cloaked by Alex Flinn - Finished April 17th

2 out of 5 stars

Something Blue by Emily Giffin - Finished April 19th

3 out of 5 stars

Heart Shaped Box by Joe Hill - Finished April 22nd

4 out of 5 stars

Books Finished: 7

2011 book total: 31

Favorite This Month:  Horns!  Some sections of the book were a little disturbing, but overall it was an excellent book!  I'm really glad that I read it before Heart Shaped Box, because while I liked Heart Shaped Box, I thought Horns was a lot better.


Least Favorite This Month:  I really didn't get into Cloaked.  I felt like it took me forever to finish, and I almost stopped reading it a few times. 


Other:  I found Something Borrowed on an airplane at work and I tore through it in a day.  I picked up Something Blue to find out what would happen with Darcy and read it almost as fast.  Even though I read them in about 2 days,  the main characters drove me absolutely crazy and it was pretty obvious how the books were going to end (although Something Borrowed did throw a little curve).

Sing You Home was pretty good, although I expected a twist ending.