What I'm Reading

I’ve read some pretty good books lately. For anyone who doesn’t know already I am a huge chit lit book fan. I like to mix it up every so often but usually it’s strictly girly books. So here are some good books that I would recommend.

Always the Baker, Never the Bride – Since I’ve become engaged I’ve taken it as my job to read all the totally cheesy wedding fiction books. It’s basically research. This is a really cute book and the pastry recipes in between the chapters are a plus. It’s about a girl who becomes the wedding cake baker at a wedding venue. I absolutely adore reading about wedding planning for the event planners point of view. (P.S. If you do too, read the Bride Quartet series by Nora Roberts because that’s exactly what they are about. Don’t get deterred by the fact it’s an author your mother likes.)

Shoe Addicts Anonymous – It was kind of a combination between the Shopaholic books and the Nanny Diaries but grown up a little bit. We follow the lives of four women who have nothing in common other than their love of shoes. Their club ends up helping everyone in many different ways.

Stop Dressing Your Six Year like a Skank – I love Celia Rivenbark and all of her books are hilarious. For anyone not from the south you can get a very real idea of how many southerns actually look at the world. And for ladies from the south it’s just a reminder what a great, and entertaining, region we live in.

Hitched: The Go-Girls Guide to the First Year of Marriage – This is the first ‘how to be married’ book that I read and to tell you the truth I was a little nervous. I had heard from a couple friends that many of the books out there talk about how the wife needs to wait on her husband hand and foot, don’t bother him with questions or ask him to do things around the house, and basically in my opinion to revert back to the 1950s. Now don’t get me wrong there is a part of me that wants to take care of Ace but I want a marriage that is a partnership, not me becoming his maid. But I digress. This book if for the modern woman who wants to know what the first year of marriage is actually like. (Well, I’m guessing since I’ve haven’t been married yet.) The author goes through everything from planning the ceremony, to figuring how to change your name, to combining finances, to umm… how things may change in the boudoir after marriage. This book brought up a bunch of questions that I would have never thought to talk over with my fiancé, which is crazy because I figured we had covered it all already. I highly recommend this book even if you have been married for a while already.

Lots of New Life Changes

A lot has changed since I last wrote in September and I’ve got a lot of ideas of what I want to do with this blog. I have a couple new interests and thoughts that I want to keep all in one place. I’m entering into a new phase of my life, lots of changes are happening and I want all of you to enjoy the journey with me. So I’m updating the blog layout, or at least trying to with my totally non-tech savvy self, so hopefully it’ll come together soon. Please feel free to add suggestions, comments, ideas along the way because frankly I’m just throwing stuff out there to see what sticks.

First big change, I turned 25. This has been the first age in a long time that I can say I feel a little different after hitting this milestone. When you are under 25 years old you can still be considered a kid, young adult, naïve. But 25 is an adult with no questions. I don’t feel old enough to be an adult so am just going to call myself a nondescript 20-something.

The next big thing is the best man in the world asked me to marry him and I said YES! He is beyond anything I could have ever asked for and he my number one. (Just thought up a fun nickname for the fiancé from that sentence, Ace!) I’m so excited and now I’ve started down the long, and intense, path of wedding planning. I plan events for a living; however planning the biggest event/party in your life so far is a little daunting. I’ve discovered an obsession with wedding blogs, which I think is totally normal, with a special love for all photography. I can look at different photographers all day long. (Just a side note: I have found my wedding photographer and I’m slightly embarrassed to say that I stalk his site daily.)Last big piece of news, Ace has moved to Charlotte! Wahoo! Finally we are at least both in the Carolinas. We had a lot of fun finding his current condo and for the first time ever I get to decorate a home anyway I want! I’m not sure if I have a decorating gene or not but I guess we will find out.

Here is to all the exciting new changes and to the hope that I’ll actually remember to update my blog more often!

Have a Great Weekend and a Barrel of Laughs

Happy Friday People!
What a crazy week this has been and the weekend is only going to get crazier. We kicked off our event season at work last night with the Reba McEntire and George Strait concert. I realized that I got totally out of shape over the summer because my whole body hurts today from running around and carry stuff all over the place. Hopefully by Christmas I’ll be a little more toned. I’m having lunch with Mom at the fabulous Greek Festival which is something I discovered in the last couple of years and it’s really growing here in Columbia. There is always amazing food and I can’t wait to stock up on spanakopeta, tzatziki sauce, and baklava! I finish up the day with a few good friends and a few good drinks! Yay for strawberry basil margaritas! Saturday I pick up Andy from the Charlotte airport for an in prompt to visit and then we head to the USC vs. Furman football game. Andy wasn’t sure how much USC football he would get to see this year so we are both pumped that he gets to go to the game! Then Sunday we are travelling to Greenwood to visit friends. Wow we will see if I’m even standing by Monday.

I’m finding the more questions I answer for the 30 day blog journal the more indecisive I feel. Every question I come to I realize that I have multiple answers for it. So I apologize for not getting to the point and just answering the darn questions but I’ll work on that. So here goes….

Day 5 – Your Favorite Quote

Again I will tell you that I used to be collector of quotes, I know I’m a nerd, so it’s a little hard to pick just one. But if I had to pick a favorite at this moment in time it would be:

"The most wasted of all days is one without laughter." ~ E.E. Cummings

Photo By: The Fabulous Ms. Celia Goetowski

The Olsgaard family is a big believer in laughing a lot. This is also one of my favorite parts about Andy and I’s relationship, we laugh all the time! Life is too short to be unhappy so I try to laugh at least once every day and I try to surround myself with people who believe the same thing. There have actually been studies to prove that laughing is healthy for you. I will leave you with this article to encourage you to laugh today. http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn7103--laughing-helps-arteries-and-boosts-blood-flow.html

Day Three and Four...Oops

I know I’ve already fallen behind on my 30 day blog journal but I had a lot of work to do because we have the George Strait concert today and the prep for it was intense. So you get a two for one today and I’ll answer both yesterday’s question and today’s. Day 3: Your Favorite Television Program
Well you can now see that I definitely didn’t look ahead at the questions because I basically answered this question with my last post. Glee has been my most recent TV obsession. It’s probably the only show that I insist on watching when it plays live. I love it! However I can’t forget the shows that I can watch reruns of all day long which include: Friends, Gilmore Girls, Project Runway, Top Chef and pretty much anything on either Bravo or the Food Network.

Day 4: Your Favorite Book
LOL If you know anything about me you should know that over the past year or so I’ve become a reading fanatic. I mean look at the scrolling book list at the top of my blog. I don’t have a favorite. I will say that I lean mostly toward chick lit books. I read for entertainment usually so I like the light and easy reads. I’ve also really started to love historical fiction books from authors like Philippa Gregory and Carolly Erickson. I read real books too, so if you ever need a book suggestion just let me know.

It's movie time!

Yay I made it to day two! Before I answer my awesome question of the day I want to tell everyone how excited I am that the second volume of the first season of GLEE is coming out today and I have already made plans to go buy it as soon as I get off work! If you haven’t seen Glee yet I don’t know what you are waiting for. It’s awesome and it’s both girl and guy friendly. (I’ve been able to get a bunch of people hooked on it.) Anyway the second helping of Glee’s first season is the perfect way to get me pumped for the season premiere next week!
Day 2 – Your Favorite Movie
Again this is a nearly impossible question to answer because I love movies. I am one of those people who are happy watching movies over and over again. I have so many favorites! So I figured I would make it easier on myself and break it down by categories.

Comedy: This is my very favorite category and I will always pick a funny movie over anything else. I love anything directed by Mel Brooks, has Will Ferrall, Bradley Cooper, or the Wilson brothers, and the ever popular romantic comedy.

Coming to Age: Shag – A story of four girls from Spartenburg, SC who take a senior trip to Myrtle Beach to have one last adventure before going their separate ways. It has fabulous quotes!

Documentary: The September Issue – Behind the scenes of Vogue magazine while they compile their famous September issue. They follow the lady that the book The Devil Wears Prada is bases off of.

Family: I used to watch all the Disney movies constantly but I haven’t seen them in years. I might need to dig out our old VHS tapes and VCR and have a nice trip down memory lane.

Horror: I don’t watch scary movies because I get scared.

Oldie: The Philadelphia Story – Katherine Hepburn, Jimmy Stewart, and Cary Grant fighting over each other in a high society wedding. It’s fantastic!

Romance: I love them all, ya I’m one of those girls. ;)

Sports: Remember the Titans – it’s a classic and has an awesome soundtrack. Plus who does love Denzel Washington?!?!

That pretty much sums it up. Day 2 of 30 down
SO

30 Day Blog Journal

I’m going to start this blog entry in a different way than I have the last couple even though it has yet again been over a month since my last post. I’ve been meaning to write but I’ve gotten out of the habit and I just don’t think about it anymore. I read somewhere that you have to do something for at least three weeks straight for your brain to add it as a daily routine and then it becomes natural. I keep trying to do this with exercise but I haven’t found something that I can stand for three weeks so we’ll come back to that. Anyway, to give you an idea of how long it has been since I last blogged, when I logged on today I noticed that the background that I’ve had for over a year has now expired and I need to find a new one. Moral of the story: If you don’t show your blog a little TLC it will start looking a little raggedy.

After I went through and picked out a new cute background I have decided that I need to try and make writing in my blog a routine. After some serious blog-stalking I found something called the 30 Day Blog Journal and I am going to try to do it every day. It’s a little cheesy in the sense that it gives you a question to answer every day, however I’m hoping it will get me used to writing on by blog again. So bare with me people and hopefully I can be somewhat entertaining. (Again I will warn you that my grammar, spelling, and overall sentence structure will probably be horrible. I was a Sport and Entertainment major people; they didn’t teach us how to write good. ;)

And here we go!

Day 1 – Your Favorite Song
This is a really hard one because I have favorite songs depending on my mood. I honestly will listen to just about anything so I’m IPOD is a little all over the place. The closest I can come to picking a favorite is really anything by Hootie and the Blowfish. If you aren’t for South Carolina you won’t understand the obsession factor that goes with this band. They started right here on USC’s campus and they really are one of the only huge musically name to ever come out of SC. I could listen to their music, and now Darius Rucker’s stuff, all the time. They make me happy, what can I say.

Hopefully I’ll see you tomorrow!
SO

Currently I’m reading: The Fixer Upper by: Mary Kay Andrews, who is one of my very favorite authors. Dempsey Killebrew’s father inherits the old family plantation house and sends his unemployed daughter to the middle of nowhere Georgia to fix it up and sell it. Unfortunately it’s just not that easy. I definitely recommend it!

Here is my summer post

So again it’s been forever since I’ve written in my blog. Everyone else’s life always seems way more blog worthy than mine but here goings some of the stuff in my little world.

- Andy is still in Maryland doing his internship so I’ve gone up a couple times to visit him. We’ve had a lot of fun visiting family, finally touring the Utz potato chip factory, having crab feasts, and just laying around together which is what I miss most.

- The Olsgaard clan has switched their previous plans for travelling to Greece this summer to travelling to England, Scotland, and Wales. Between the Greek economy and the prospect of sightseeing in the terribly hot August weather we decided to put that off until another time and visit the United Kingdom instead. We leave next Friday and we are all crazy excited!

-I’m getting a chance to catch up with a bunch of my old friends lately and it’s been really great. You get to be so close with lots of people in college and then you just get caught up in work, errands, and grown up life that you can sometimes forget to keep those connections going. I’m going up to Greenville, SC this weekend to see a bunch of the ESA ladies, some of which I haven’t seen in years.

- The one thing that I’ve been pretty good with keeping up with is reading this summer. I’m sad that I haven’t been updating my What I’m Currently Reading section so I figured I’d make a real quick list of what I’ve read so far since my last post.

• The Devil in the Junior League – A hilarious book about keeping up appearances and deciding what’s important in your life: marriage, money, friends, or just getting into the Junior League?
• I am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced – I found this book on a book club blog a long time ago and was intrigued by the true story of a 10 year old girl in the Middle East who was married off to a terrible man three times her age. Unlike most women in her position she fought, alone, for her freedom and won. If you want to read a little bit more about the true life story here is the New York Time article about Nujood. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/04/opinion/04kristof.html
• Shopaholic Ties the Knot – This is my second of the Shopaholic books and while they are entertaining I find the main character a little hard to feel sorry for since she rarely does anything to help herself in situations. I know some people swear by these books but I think they are just okay. (Please don’t hate me for saying so.)
• Match Me If You Can – This was a cute chick lit novel. Take a sweet, inexperienced, match maker and put her with a sports agent who is looking for the trophy wife and what do you get? Well you have to read it to find out. ;)
• The Gatecrasher – Shallow woman crashes funerals to find really wealth widowers. It sounds weird but it’s good. It’s by Madeleine Wickman who is the same author of the Shopaholic series however I like her Wickham stuff better.
• Swapping Lives – Doesn’t the grass always look greener on the other side? Women are usually the one that have to choose between the single, career driven life or the stay at home, mother life. These two characters try an experiment to see which life is really greener.
• Deep Dish – I can’t tell you how much I love this author. She is sweet, sassy, and southern to the born. It’s a complete chick lit novel but they are delicious and they always leave you wanting more.
• Eat, Pray, Love – I’ve been meaning to read this for a long time. Again there are people who swear by this book but I wasn’t that impressed. I found the Italy and Indonesia travel tips exciting and the main conception of finding what makes you happy good however it was a lot more depressing that I was expecting and it dragged on in parts. I’m actually looking forward to seeing how the movie turns out. (Again I’m sorry if you loved the book.)
• The Last Wife of Henry VIII – To ready myself for the family trip to England I thought it was fitting to brush up on the history of the Tudor family. Henry VIII was the crazy man who married six wives, and executed most of them, and broke away from the Catholic faith in order to do it. I’m sure there are many artist liberties taken with this novel however I love a chick lit book with a little smattering of history thrown in.

Well those are my thoughts for the moment. Hope everything is well out in blogger land.
Currently I’m reading: Icing on the Cupcake: Jennifer Ross. I saw this book while running through Target one day and thought it sounded too cute to pass up. There is no real substance as of yet but it’s easy to read and the best part is there is a different yummy cupcake recipe between each chapter. I’m excited to try one out.