Catch up....

I'm not talking about the new comcast feature, although I do appreciate that since I missed the Bachelorette on Monday due to Memorial Day festivities....ahh here would be a great place for a picture except I didn't take any, doh!

Life seems to be busy all the time now!  I'm not even working, so what the heck?!?

Many of you (ahem...by many I mean the 5 of you who are devoted to reading about this life, bless you!) are wondering if I met any sort of reading goal in May....yeah....the answer is no;)  May was an all time low for the Tine-ster!  As far as reading goes at least.  As far as life goes, it was SO awesome!  Alas, I only FINISHED 3 books.  3 whole books?  Oh it's so so sad!!!  I started the 4th (Water for Elephants) a few days ago, and as of today I'm only on page 41. 

"What happened to you, Tina??!!??" You may want to ask?!  Well, of course I still love reading.  May was a busy month.  More busy than April, I'm afraid.  By the time I was home, fed, PJ'd and relaxed, I didnt care to pick up a book.  **GASP**.  Sorry, but it's true!  I loved the three books I did manage to read which were Bella Tuscany, the 3rd Mysterious Benedict, and the Honeymoon.  All good books:)

Lets take a walk into the past and talk about what happened to me in May!  The first week of May was a huge professional milestone for me, I planned & coordinated & executed my very first Career Day as a school counselor.  It was awesome.  The end of the 2nd week of May was my brothers wedding, which took up a lot of my time for the first two weeks since I was a bridesmaid, and the daughter of the mother of the groom who was hosting a lot of get togethers + the rehearsal dinner which = I had to help out with a LOT of stuff.  All fun things of course, and I got to spend a lot of time with family and my sis-in-law Krystal whom I adore:)  The 3rd week of May was my last week at the school that I was subbing as a counselor, so prepping the girl I took over for took up my time then.  The weekend after the wedding/last week, Dave whisked me away to Atlantic City for some much needed fun and sun and relaxation.  I took a book, but didnt read it;)  The very last week in May was my first week off, which was filled with cleaning, gardening for the first time, and helping my parents with the everlasting remodel of their house.  Plus the news that I was offered a FULL TIME PERMANENT school counselor position in Harford County next year, which meant lots of fun and celebrations that my 21K Master's degree from Johns Hopkins has FINALLY paid off:)  Then it was Memorial Day Weekend, which graduation parties and cookouts and time with friends and family and the sun and the pool.  That's the jist of my May, loaded into this super long paragraph and lots of run on sentences!

So there are my excuses for not reading in May.  Dave jokes with me because he can't even read ONE book in a year...let alone 3 books in a month - but for me I feel it's pretty sad!  Oh well!  I won't beat myself up about it (as I have said a bizillion times!) because my May was fun and awesome and exhausting but worth every moment.  I definitely reached my Happiness Project goal of enjoying family.  I spend a lot of time with them!!  June is "Write a Book" month and I will post on that tomorrow, I am reallly excited to write a book!  YAY!

I have been working on things!  I promise!!  Here are some pictures to prove it:

 We have been super busy working in our garden!  Here is a pic of the front so far, this part is weeded, planted, mulched and done with daisies, petunias, coleus & some other flowers that are pretty but I don't really know what they are;)

 Same garden, non-inst.agrammed;)

 Our good and lovely friends, Chuck & Blythe, gave us this big lilac bush (center) and two azalea bushes (either side of lilac) and hosta (to the right of lilac and azalea) for free!  We had a huge whole in our garden here because we dug up two of those obnoxious spikey prickely plants that do nothing for me!  Look how nice and full it is now?  We have to plant these, we just got them!

 These are some of my herbs, in a pot hanging on our deck in a semi-shady spot.  Last year my herbs were scorched by the relentless, humid, hot Maryland sun....this is cilantro, rosemary & parsley - oh how I LOVE having fresh herbs to cook with!!

 Our hydrangea that came back full force from last year, that big pot was a wedding gift:)

 The rest of my herbs/veggies from left to right: Thyme, eggplant, basil & mint.  oh la la!  I have a tomato plant too, for some reason I didnt take a pic of him, poor guy - but he isnt much to look at now - just greens....but, with a few farmers market tomatoes, some mozzarella and my fresh basil:

 ...look at the yumminess that is that pic!  Sprinkled with some balsamic vinegar, it was summer in a bite!  Yum!!  We had this as an appetizer to steak and corn the other night.  It was DE-wait for it-LIGHTFUL!  And in other cooking news....

I made Cake Bons!!  These are my cake pops without the stick.  I ran out of sticks actually so I had to improvise!  This lovelies are devils food cake, dipped in chocolate with either Oreos crushed on top, or a marshmallow and graham crackers for a Smore's effect.  So so delectable:)

So those are a few things that have kept me busy.  I am still trying to catch up with the cleaning and the millions of projects I want to get done.  I am going to make a Master List of everything I want to accomplish in my 3 months off (I start work August 22!!!) and I'll post that here.

I also have my 10 books lined up for June, plus the 7 I didnt read in May.  Yeah, I am really going to try to catch up with the reading that has fallen behind...we will see how that goes!  I figured I'd get them all read with all this time off, but my time keeps filling up with other things so fast like helping mom, cleaning, writing, gardening, helping friends, entertaining Ashley, spending time with Dave - all things that are essential to my life and put reading on the back burner!  Oh well, such is life!  I still love reading and will try to slip it in as much as possible - trying to keep that goal up of 120 books this year!

What has everyone else been reading, or have been doing instead of reading?!?  I love the summer weather and will be doing so much of my reading outside over the next few months - there are not a lot of things that compare to breezy summer days with some coffee or iced tea and a book out on our deck!