My May Adventures

If you stopped by looking for my Neverwhere Read Along discussion, I'll be posting that tomorrow.

It's June! June! Three more weeks of school and then summer! This is such a busy time of year around here. I'm sure it's the same for all of you as well.

I posted earlier this month about my youngest daughter's dance recital--such fun! She's also been busy with girl scouts as her Cadette troop is working towards their Silver Award. I am starting to feel tapped out as a leader, so I'll be glad to have a bit of a break from it over the summer.

My oldest has been busy, too. Mostly with schoolwork and a very busy social life. Last week we attended a small Academic Awards ceremony at the high school at which she received an award from Brandeis University for outstanding academic achievement and civic service. She also recently completed a wonderful project for her high school orchestra for which she filmed, photographed and edited a video about the impact of water on our community that accompanied the orchestra's performance of a beautiful piece by Philip Glass. The video was projected on a large screen behind the orchestra. It was quite moving.. especially given the devastating effects Hurricane Irene had on our community last August.

Lots of proud moments in May! While I couldn't possibly top the accomplishments of my kids, I may as well tell you what I've been up to last month. ; )

In fitness: 
I easily met my 100 fitness mile goal for May with a total of 120 miles. Interestingly, I took quite a few rest days this month, but apparently I made up for it on the days that I did workout, especially in cycling. Most of my rides these days are 30-40 miles which is at least 2 hours on the bike. On Memorial Day, my cycling partner and I clocked just under 4 hours to bike 59.4 miles---my new longest distance in a single ride.

I mentioned last month [in April] that I wanted to increase strength training and aside from my Monday powercuts class and maybe 15 minutes of abs, light weights at the end of kickbox class and a bonus TRX class, I haven't been doing any other strength training. I need to work on increasing that. Here's a look at what I did in May:

Run 23.07 miles :     ~241 minutes
Bike 170.54 miles :   ~705 minutes
Kickbox & Abs : 300 minutes
Spin & Abs :       150 minutes
Strength training:        240 minutes
TOTAL:   1636 minutes     or     27 hours 16 minutes

What did you do to keep moving last month?

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In books: 
I read eight books in May and from quite a few different genres, too. I'm pretty happy about that.

Non-fiction ...... 1
     [Health & fitness]

Romance .............. 2
     [Historical]
Crime fiction ....... 1
Young Adult ....;;.. 1
Fiction .................. 1
Fantasy ................ 2

1. Creation in Death by J.D. Robb
2. The Governess Affair by Courtney Milan
3. Saving Grace by Julie Garwood
4. If I Die by Rachel Vincent
5. Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
6. Food Rules by Michael Pollan
7. Cold Magic by Kate Elliot
8. Attachments by Rainbow Rowell

I have to say that I loved all of these books and would recommend each and every one. If I HAD to pick favorites? Hmm... The Governess Affair by Courtney Milan is a wonderful novella and the first in a new series. I have a review partially written that I hope to finish, but know that I did love it. It's Kindle lendable, too, so let me know if you're interested in borrowing it. I think I can lend it out at least twice.

Saving Grace by Julie Garwood. A timeless medieval romance and a favorite among so many romance readers. You can read my review HERE.

Attachments by Rainbow Rowell is a really solid, engaging read, too. A lot of readers classify it as romance, but it's not exactly. It's more general fiction with romantic elements. Not quite chick-lit either because most of the book is really about the male protagonist, so it's really more dude-lit which is a brand new sub-genre coined by Brie from Romance Around the Corner. You heard it first from her, folks. Remember that when dude-lit goes rampant. ;o)

Gigi likes Cold Magic by Kate Elliot!

Honorable mention goes to Cold Magic by Kate Elliot. I originally shelved this book in young adult, but it really straddles into adult fantasy fiction. The protagonists are not minors at nineteen years old and older and in fact at the marriageable age. The setting is Victorian-England-esque alternate history with a steampunk component. A lot of fascinating people--powerful mages, princes, spiritwalkers and others-- cultures, histories and politics between peoples and three main characters whose fates get personally entangled with each other and those of power. There is a lot of information to digest in this book, but the story premise, setting and characters were so interesting that it was so worth reading. I'm looking forward to reading the second book in this trilogy, Cold Fire. The concluding book in the trilogy, Cold Steel comes out in 2013.

What interesting books did you read in May?

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A bouquet of African Roses

In photography:
My Project 366 is now a Project 362. Yes, I missed another TWO days in May. Ugh. Oh well. I decided to have a little bit of fun this month by participating in the photo a day challenge hosted by blogger fatmumslim who blogs at Fat Mum Slim. There's a daily prompt every day for the month and users post their photos on instagram, twitter, facebook, a blog, flickr or pinterest using the hash tag #photoadayJune. Fun!

As always, you can follow my photography challenges on http://web.stagram.com/n/thehappilyeverafter.

Are you on instagram? Friend me!

In the garden: 
The deer are in my yard almost every night munching on anything and everything green. I know what they're all saying..

"Hey, have you been to that organic salad bar down the street yet? It's amazing! They've got a wide variety of plants to choose from, loaded with tender shoots, plump flower buds, and lush leaves. Not only is it 100% organic but it's all you can eat AND open 24/7!" 

Nice. I woke up one day last week to discover they ate most of the tops off my budding purple coneflower plants last week. This means my coneflowers will be blooming late and won't be so lush this year. Again. I know they have to eat, too, but sheesh, I sure wish they knew how to show a bit of restraint so I could enjoy a few flowers. I have an inkling that the day lilies are on this week's menu. I haven't seen a day lily flower bloom in my yard for a couple of years now. But really, what are you going to do? They're only doing what they're supposed to do, right?

I started converting that section of my perennial flower bed into a new vegetable garden, but I haven't yet finished. In fact, that's on my to-do list for this week. A friend of mine gave me several pots of tomato seedlings that sprouted up in her garden from the seeds of last year's dropped fruit and I've got to get them in the ground soon. I'm already a couple of weeks late. A few of them even have flowers already. Oh how I love the promise of homegrown tomatoes! I'm not sure what else I want to try to grow this year. At this point, I'll be happy just to have a nice harvest of herbs and tomatoes.

Are you growing an edibles in your yard?


Thanks for reading about my month! Wishing you a joyous June! xo