Monday, October 22, 2012

You Know You're in the Country When.... MONDAY!

FALL COUNTRYSIDEContent Warning: Graphic Violence hinted at.


You know you're in the country when... the mobile slaughterhouse pulls up to your neighbors field... in full view of your front window. And you hear gunshots. And you just close the curtains... or run errands for a couple hours.

I've tried complaining to the police, but I get these sympathetic smiles and questions about whether I eat beef. Seriously?!?!  Not anymore, I don't!!!!!

You know you're in the country when... you can buy range-happy chicken eggs from your neighbors. (Key word: "happy". Not that chickens have brains big enough to express a lot of happiness, but I can imagine they're happy. They look pretty happy.)

You know you're in the country when... you can smell the first "burn day" of the new season.

I grew up in a small town... one of those classic types of small towns perfect for movies with train tracks dividing it in half and a "snob hill". There may have only been 5,000 residents, but I'm still a city girl. I don't know hardly anything about farm/country living. The town I live in now is "small", but it used to be farmland before Portland sprawled to engulf it. Only 10 minutes from the mall, my neighbors are (mostly delightful) country-folk. I made them all Christmas cookies when we first moved here and nearly killed my neighbor's dog with chocolate. I had to pause writing this post so I didn't burn my second attempt at applesauce. (My first attempt wasn't a hit, but I'm not giving up. Even when my husband pointed out that no one in our family eats applesauce. Humph. Well... I will. Now.)


Do you ever get crushes on fictional characters? Name one (or a few), and tell what you liked...

Fun question this week from Should be Reading. You know what you don't hear so often?  Do you ever get mad at fictional characters? 'Cause I found myself rather furious at a few fictional people this past weekend.

Last Sacrifice (Vampire Academy, #6)I'm reading Last Sacrifice and I'm only 70 pages from the end of this 594 pg volume. I want to remember this moment.


Rose is infuriating. She knew her heart and yet she led Adrian on, anyway. "Because he is fun." Um.... yea... (thick sarcasm here) and having fun is obviously a priority in her life.

Adrian is a tad irritating. (I'm not picking a fight here, listen before swinging!) What's up with this pickin' up the vices again when Rose is out of sight? He's got the willpower of a... of a.... um... what? What fluffy thing has no willpower? A rabbit? A cute, soft, fluffy rabbit? They're known for being productive. Lol. That'll work.


Dimitri is... well, I could strangle him, if I could get close enough (although he's a good answer to this question, too, if I tolerated crushes. Which I don't). What's up with his nebulously growing sense of "right"?! I mean... it's one thing to have a standard of Right & Wrong, it's a whole 'nother thing to be changing the rules all the time without warning.

Victor Dashkov was also infuriating. So sinister, so dangerous. "Was" is the key word there, I suppose. He's harmless on pg 520.  I think. I hope!


The other reason I'm writing instead of reading is I wanted to apologize for disappearing over the weekend. (Without warning - ha!) The Friday headache thing went away, but then I was running some sort of fantastic marathon of birthday parties and sports events with some in-laws sprinkled generously everywhere. (Picture Halloween candy sprinkles in orange and black 'cause sprinkles are nice.)

If You Give a Cat a CupcakeWhich reminds me of Trinity's favorite book of the week: If You Give a Cat a Cupcake. This book is awesome. I love the roundabout logic and the easy-to-read words. I've read it to her twice, is all, and she's read it to me at least four times (out of the 20 she wanted to. Compromise!)


I totally guessed Dash's book wrong, too... I'll have to get back to you on that, though. Like a distracted Mom, I have forgotten again what that fast-paced book is actually called. (Good grief.)

Speaking of being distracted... have you ever washed a water bottle in the washing machine?!  I recognized the sound of the plastic, disposable water bottle while transferring clothes from the washer to dryer and I had to laugh. It was just one of those weekends, I guess. At least I didn't throw all the dishes in the washing machine. It could have been worse!

Thx to Sheila @ Book Journey for hosting It's Monday, What are you Reading?


From whom I heard this awesome bit of news! Remember that thought about reading The Hobbit together? There's a Readalong going on RIGHT NOW!!  I'm so joining that. I tell ya... all us great minds think an awful lot alike. They're still near the beginning-ish, if you wanna jump on board with me. It'll be fun!!