It's purple, it's gorgeous

Ryan and I bought a comforter with our wedding money that has blues, purples and grays in it. So Ryan and I decided to paint our bedroom purple. And I have to say ... a) this picture doesn't do the color justice b) at first I was like "wow - this is exactly what I wanted when I was 16," but this color has totally grown on my 30-year-old self and 3) this color is kind of soothing in its own weird way.

Ryan will probably be finished painting tomorrow. Next we're onto the guest bedroom where I've picked out a buttery yellow shade.

Makes you want to come over to see our changes, doesn't it?

The latest installment of "Where's The Cat?"

OK, so to set things straight - our cat does have a name. His name is Digger and he was named that for his penchant of digging into things. But when the husband and I are referring to him in polite (and sometimes not so polite) conversation, we just refer to him as The Cat. We're not being impersonal, it's just that The Cat's personality warrants such a moniker.

Lately, we've had times where we simply can't find The Cat. You all remember the laundry basket fiasco. Well, the other morning I was wondering where The Cat was and just as I was about to ask Ryan where he thought Cat might be, here he was:

Yup - that's my underwear drawer. And how could he get in there? Well, because I leave it open, of course. You never know when you're going to need to snag a pair of Christmas jingle bell socks (those are the red and green ones - ahem).

And then, The Cat's other favorite pasttime is to squeeze himself into spots where he shouldn't possibly fit.


Ignore the mess - he decided to hunker in that basket while I was trying to clean my office.

Don't get me wrong - we love The Cat. Most times we just don't quite understand him.

Best game ever!

We had company on and off this weekend and past week, so Ryan had brought up our extra chairs from down in the basement. While Ryan was moving them back to their basement homes, he decided that the best game ever was to ride on the chair while Daddy carted him down the stairs.

BTW - you guys are tagged

OK - anyone who wants to try their crack at 15 books in under 15 minutes - consider yourself tagged. You can either leave a loooooong comment or post it in your own blogs and send me the links so I can find my summer reading.

And Jodi - I am SOOOO thinking of you! :)

15 books - don't think about it, just write!

OK - I saw this on Facebook and ignored it, but then I saw it on Alberty's blog and I was inspired to put fingers to keyboard and procrastinate a bit more of my day away.

BTW - Alberty - dissing "The Waste Land?" C'mon ... that's freakin' drunken ART. I LOVE that poem. Then again, my husband used to call me on the phone and read "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" to me doing his Eliot voice, so ... love might cloud my judgment. But man I love TS Eliot.

Oh ... and these are the 15 books that will stick with you for the rest of your life. 15 in under 15 minutes.

Stephen King's "The Stand" - No, I don't really have a good reason why except that the unabridged version is about 1,000 pages long and I read it religiously at the beginning of every summer from 1996 up until a couple of years ago. It didn't hurt that Gary Sinise played Stu Redman in the very bloated TV mini-series that was crafted from said book. Molly Ringwald sucked as Frannie though and that hurt my feelings excruciatingly.

Which brings me to ... "Anne of Green Gables" by L.M. Montgomery. I don't know if it is because I have red hair or if it's because I was adopted, but I always thought that Anne was the best heroine in literature. I weep like a little bitch every time I get to the part where Matthew dies and I'm getting kind of sniffy just thinking about the rest of it. The first time I read these books I was probably 10 years old, in the backseat of my dad's Monte Carlo, heading to South Dakota for two weeks worth of family vacation. My mom bought me a three-volume set that included "Green Gables," "Anne of Avonlea" and "Anne's House of Dreams." (It skipped "Anne of the Island and "Anne of Windy Poplars.")

Laura Ingalls Wilder - "Little House on the Prairie" series. The entire series. Not just the first one, not just the last one. All of these books make me think of sitting in my favorite chair at mom and dad's house, the furnace running on a cold winter's day and getting lost in her amazing stories.

Stephen King "Bag of Bones." This one helps me believe that I will be a writer someday. And this one usurped "The Stand" as my favorite summer read.

John Irving "A Prayer for Owen Meany" - I spent 6 months in Malta when I was a junior in college. All of us seemed to bring a couple of books with us and we would rotate them around the 13 people in the group. I read "Owen Meany" on one day when the rest of my cohorts went to the island of Gozo (confession: I was supposed to be studying for Chaucer, but I got a six pack of some island beer and read "Meany" instead.) I will never forget when I got to the part where John Wheelright's grandma would run to the door to greet the delivery man and whip off her wig. I laughed so hard I nearly wet myself. I will also never forget how I cried at the end of the story. I won't ruin it for you if you never read it - trust me - this is one of the best books in modern literature.

Holy shit - I'm only 5 in ...

Shakespeare's "Much Ado About Nothing." I liked Shakespeare at an early age which made me something of an oddity at school. And as much as I loved the banter between Beatrice and Benedict, what ended up making me a Shakespeare addict forever was Kenneth Branagh's version of this.

John Steinbeck "Of Mice and Men." And no, this has nothing to do with Gary Sinise ... this was my first foray into Steinbeck and his stark prose ended up sucking me in.

Elizabeth Kostova "The Historian." I can't give enough shoutouts to this book. Love it. Read it religiously. Amuse my husband every time he sees me open it.

Joyce Carol Oates "We Were the Mulvaneys." If you dare open this book, prepare to have you heart broken over and over and over again. She patches it up a bit in the end, but there's nothing more enthralling to read the trainwreck that are the Mulvaneys. A prideful family who is torn apart when their golden girl daughter is viciously assaulted on prom night. I can't even explain what makes this book so good. Is it her characters? Is it her writing style? I don't know.

Speaking of Ms. Oates - I had to read her short story "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been" (1966) for a class in college. Again, her ability to capture so much detail and emotion in a short amount of pages is astounding.

OK - 5 more ... I'll keep it short because I have to be honest - I've read 100s of books over the years, but to pick 15 ... this is tough.

"The Hiding Place" - Corrie ten Boom Forget Anne Frank ... the first book that I ever read about the Holocaust was from Corrie ten Boom. Her faith is stunning.

"The Lovely Bones" - Alice Sebold Yes, this was a popular one, but for good reason.

"The Lord of the Rings: Return of The King" - JRR Tolkein I read the books before I watched the movies and was stunned when I started crying when I got to the Appendices section of "Return of the King" and read how the rest of the Fellowship eventually joined Frodo in the Undying Lands. This was the notes section folks, not even in the main narrative.

"Yesterday I Saw The Sun" - Ally Sheedy Yes, Ally Sheedy ... this is her 1991 book of poetry that she wrote and that I found in a clearance bin at the local grocery store. It's a very good book of poetry that got me through some dark times of my own.

I'm going to leave the last one blank ... who knows what will inspire me next? :)

Happy Birthday Katie!

It is my friend Katie's birthday today - she is five years old! I remember when Katie was born, I was working in Manitowoc, Wisconsin and I was waiting for the day that I would get the phone call from my friend Deb telling me that she had her baby.

Well, it didn't quite work that way. On the afternoon that Katie was born, I missed a phone call from Deb and the message she left? Oh Jesus - I thought something had gone wrong. [Imagine extremely tired voice] "Shelley, this is Deb. I'll call you later."

I must have called Deb about a dozen times after that with no luck. PANIC. So I decided to call her office and find out if they knew anything. And being the journalist that I was - I didn't expect any information. I mean - I could have been any Tom, Dick or Harry stalker off the street, but no - whoever it was I talked to gave up the information without any pressing whatsoever.

And that's how I found out about Deb and John's baby daughter who would later do me the honor of being one of our flower girls.

Happy birthday Katie!

Rock your gut

My friend Alberty posted this musing recently on "Bikini preparedness" and I had to share it because it cracked me up like you wouldn't believe. Because it's so true.

I was going to ramble on about other things - a random dig that I received when I posted a wedding pic on my debt reduction blog, how I started going to the gym (that was yesterday and I have my gym bag in my trunk to go to the gym again today over lunch. Habits take 30 days to set), how hiking in the woods left me breathless but how it got better once I kept going and how I really don't want to give a rip what I look like, but I just don't want to be breathless when I'm trying to become one with nature.

I don't know. My quest for fitness isn't one to elongate my life. It's just to enjoy myself in the moment. And to be able to eat bad stuff every once in awhile and not pack on the pounds.

Isn't that kind of terrible? Screw longevity, screw bikini readiness. I just like bread and beer and I realize that if I keep eating those and not exercising, I will stop fitting into my work pants.