Things I like - October

1. The Age of Miracles

I read a lot.   79 books last year, my goal for this year is 85 (67 done).  Sometimes I find good ones, sometimes not.  The last book I finished was The Age of Miracles and I read it in about 24 hours.  That's the fastest I've read something in quite awhile.  It's about the Earth's rotation gradually slowing down, the days and nights are getting longer, told through the perspective of an 11 year old girl.  There are big world problems with this like tides, the heat and cold that come from the extended days and nights, crops start to fail, animals die, etc.  There are small problems, the kind you have when you are 11.  It was a good read. 

2. Goodreads

And to keep track of all that reading...I use the Goodreads app.  Started using it on Facebook and now have an app on my phone too.  It's super handy to keep track of what I've read and what I want to read.  Plus keeps tracks of start and finish dates and how many books I read in a year (which is how I know I've read 67 books this year).

3. The Avengers

We saw it twice at the drive-in this summer and enjoyed it both times.  Bought the blu-ray and watched it this weekend.  Still a really entertaining movie.  Probably one of, if not the best, action/adventure type of movie I've seen.

Side note: watching this reminded me of how the shared movie watching experience of a theater (or the drive-in) can enhance a movie.  Rewatching this I remembered the crowd laughing together to many parts and it really does make for a difference experience than watching at home, no matter how nice your set-up.  We rarely go to the theater but our love of the drive-in is well documented.  We went to a midnight showing of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 2 which was awesome, seriously a highlight of that summer.  And we already have babysitting offers for our post-baby drive-in trips. =)

4.  Community

This is our joint favorite tv show.  Matt started watching from the beginning and he got me into it in season 2.   If you can embrace the quirky, it's hilarious.  We've been rewatching season 1 and it started out as a pretty normal sitcom, now season 3 had a lot of out there (but still hilarious) episodes.  NBC is stupid for postponing it (again).  I've told Matt (multiple times) that he goes to a community college and needs to find his own Spanish study group. 

5. New York City

Times Square, NYC

A couple reasons for this. =)  It's almost exactly 2 years ago that we went and we had a really great trip.  One of the most perfect vacations we've ever had (as in, everything went really smooth).  I had wanted to go to NYC since at least 4th grade and it lived up.  Very much looking forward to going back. =)  (And going back to #2, I have a list on Goodreads of books I've read that take place in NYC, there have been a lot.)  Just been in a New York state of mind lately. =)