Fence and Driveway in Progress!!!

To add to my excitement over my new fence, the people who are paving my driveway decided to come this week too! I woke up this morning at 7am to see the fencers already in my backyard dumping cement down the post holes so all the pipes stood straight and tall. Really, it's a beautiful sight, all those posts so straight, waiting for fencing so my puppies can run free! I'd tear up, but I'm suffering from some severe dry eye secondary to my Zyrtec and Claritin combo today! Anyhow, the fence people left and a mere half hour later there was a backhoe, a bitty steamroller, and a huge dump truck in my driveway excavating! How awesome is that? I'd put up some pictures of my yard-in-progress, but I'm kind of tired and have dishes to do. So more in a few days, when I'm hoping the projects will be complete. I can't wait to start all my landscaping!

Fugly is the New AWESOME!!!

I think I have a problem naming favorites. When asked my favorite movie, I have about 10 that come to mind. To name a favorite book, I require a genre, as I can't name just one. I guess the problem is that I have many things that I really like a whole bunch. Like blogs. I can't pick just one as my favorite, I have several that I read on a daily basis. My latest discovery combines two subjects I am exceedingly fond of - fashion and celebrities. Go Fug Yourself is one of the most entertaining blogs I've come across. If you love looking at celeb mags and voting on who wore it better, Go Fug Yourself might be the blog for you...it dissects the often strange fashion choices of the rich and famous, sometimes trying to get inside their heads to ascertain what precisely they were thinking while in their closets trying on shoes and pairing them with shirts but forgetting pants and sometimes even panties. Gotta love it!

Book Review: Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict

According to the cover of Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict, by Laurie Viera Rigler, it is "A rich, saucy lark of a book." I have to agree with that statement, even as I found the book to be a bit fluffy even for my own chick-lit loving tastes and somewhat predictable. I, however, have never turned my nose up at a predictable book, as I hate to be shocked by an unhappy ending more than most. So keeping that in mind, I did enjoy Confessions quite a bit, and struggled not to read it while I was at work for 12 hours on Monday.

Courtney Stone is a modern girl living in LA, that has just broken up with her fiance. One morning, after a vodka and Austen-filled comfort session, she wakes up to find that she inhabits the body of a woman during the Regency period in England. At first she thinks she's dreaming, but as she wakes up day after day as another person, she comes to realize that she might be stuck there.

At first, this seemed like something I would like to experience, although I've always been partial to the post-civil war era in Wyoming, or other places out West. But the more you think about it, the less exciting it seems. I mean, you have to go to the bathroom in an outhouse, give birth without benefit of painkillers, and suffer through the summer in hot woolen dresses with long sleeves, because it's considered ill-mannered to show one's elbows or wrists. So I wondered how this book would handle such things - would it just breeze over the more unpleasant aspects of this era, like so many romance novels do, or delve into the nitty-gritty? It turns out that the author didn't shy away from such things. We see a doctor "bleeding" a patient, what it's like for a woman back then to have her period, and something that has always concerned me - bathing in a public bathhouse. Quite refreshing, and just for giving us the good and the bad of Regency times, this book is worth a read!

On a final note, before I was even halfway through, one of my techs requested I loan it to her. So we'll have to see what her opinion is after she's done.

Our Fence is Coming!

I am so excited! I've been waiting all summer for my new fence to be put up in the backyard so Izzy and Emma can run free, and I can finally have a (sort of) secret garden type thing! Yesterday the fence company finally called and said they would be arriving Tuesday morning. Serendipitously, my partner at work had asked if I would work Thursday and take Tuesday off instead, so I was able to have them come today!

No, the pool is not part of my yard, so don't even ask.

Now I know my yard looked pretty beforehand, and it's going to look a little ghetto afterward, but I'm confident that with some landscaping I can charm it right up. I'm already planning to put up an arched trellis over the gate and plant some clematis, and my lilacs are coming in September! It'll be a sweet little oasis in the city. (Feel free to gag now!)

Who knew dirt came out shaped like a rectangle?

As you can see, my backyard is apparently filled with bricks instead of dirt. Strange, since there wasn't ever a garage on the property. Maybe someone had a secret lair in my backyard at one time. How cool would that be?

Soon to be my new 4-ft gate, complete with arched arbor!

Anyhow, the day ended with a bit of work left to be done. Which is why I was a little dismayed that the company that is putting in my new driveway decided they wanted to come tomorrow as well. I'm not seeing that happening, and I'm kind of sad. I really want to get started on some of the landscaping.

Movie Night: Becoming Jane

My latest Netflix feature was Becoming Jane, which my mother and I settled in to watch tonight. I figured it would be a cute little love story, all the while forgetting that Jane's life didn't turn out so happily. You would think I would have known this, having written a term paper about her in 11th grade, but I'm always hoping for a happy ending! The movie turned out to be similar to Shakespeare in Love. You have star crossed lovers and the enjoyment of picking out bits of the movie that were pulled from the author's stories. Anne Hathaway was adorable as Jane, and James McAvoy was cute, but too short for the role. I suppose that shouldn't matter, but all the other men in the movie were taller than him! All in all, I enjoyed it thoroughly but will probably never watch it again, as it made me cry several times, and I do hate tearing up when I don't have a tissue and don't want to miss a scene! And I have a sudden urge to read all of Jane Austen's novels again. Thank goodness I'm on vacation in a few days!