Water for Elephants - Sara Gruen

Water for Elephants (audiobook)
By Sara Gruen


This is my first review after my way too long of a hiatus and I had every intention of reviewing the books I read/listened to in order but after finishing Water for Elephants I just couldn’t wait. Let me say this very clearly…I LOVED THIS AUDIOBOOK! I also just finished it so all the gloriousness is still fresh on my mind.

Allow me to summarize, Jacob Jankowski joins the circus shortly after finishing veterinary school (sort of), the circus is crazy (not in a freak kind of way but in a “some of these people are literally crazy sort of way”), there is a girl, an elephant, a toothless lion and a ton of illegal alcohol…come on how could this not turn out to be a glorious disaster!

The story bounces back and forth from Jacob’s 22 year old perspective and his memories at 90…or 93. He was the crazy, hilarious old man that I want as my grandfather but also the determined young man that you rooted for throughout the entire book. Gruen created a character that you couldn’t help but adore. Then there was Walter, who turned out to be my favorite character…along with Rosie the elephant. There is so much to love that you should just experience it for yourself.

If you are interested (and you should be) I HIGHLY recommend the audiobook. The readers were incredible, I have a new appreciation for audiobooks and that is saying a lot since I loved them before this. This is a heartbreaking story filled with love and uncertainty and I was completely unsure of the ending about 10 minutes before it ended but then it turned out to be perfect.

**Source: I bought this audiobook with my own sweet loot!

Paint Samples

The clouds welcomed us back to CA.

I am slowly going to unveil my bookshelves (only because I don't have all of them up yet and my books...along with everything else...still have not arrived from NC) but here are the paint samples that we looked at for our 2 bedrooms...

This is the paint that we were looking at for the master bedroom. We had just finished painting 2 other rooms with very neutral colors and I was determined to bring some green in somewhere. I would have gone with a blue as well but my husband said green or pink...PINK?! wtf Mike I'm not a pink ruffles in the bedroom kind of girl! Plus green is my favorite color so how could we go wrong? We eventually decided on the bottom one (it looks less muddy IRL), so 2 walls are that green (at this point I gave up remembering color names and it became "the bottom green") and the rest of the room is a really nice cream color.






Now, allow me to show you the samples for the spare bedroom aka: THE LIBRARY! This was a much more important decision and while I like the other room colors we picked out, I am obsessed with the color of my library. Again, I originally looked at green and purple (what? I like them) which is the reason the top row exists. Mike painted them and called me at work..."Jess, these colors are NOT good, you won't like them for your library, go to Home Depot after work and pick out 3 more." So I went and I picked. I saw this awesome picture in one of the Behr books, a gray sort of color (bottom right) and then I picked out 2 others just in case. Well the gray won out...it reminds me of a professor's jacket or something. It has a purple tone to it but with the entire room painted I LOVE IT. I was almost sad when I started putting up the bookshelves and covering the walls (are you crazy Jess? stop thinking and put up those shelves, there is plenty of time for paint). So we covered the hideous yellow that you can see in the background and now we have beautiful walls....

Yes, those boxes contain my bookshelves!

Oh you just wait...

Oh Little Blog How I Have Missed You!!

Looking through my windshield in Mississippi in the middle of the day during a storm.
The truck in front of me was my husband.

Wow folks!!!! I have missed you all!

When I posted last about moving back to CA, I knew my blogging was going to be off for a while but did I think that it would be a month before I got back on here?!? Heck no! Yet here I am, just over a month after my previous post and I have to admit I am scared to open Google Reader.

So much has happened that it is going to take me weeks to update you on all of it. Ok so there have been a couple BIG things that have spurred a bunch of smaller things. For starters...

WE GOT OUR CONDO....I AM A HOMEOWNER!!

That has brought on painting, painting and more painting. We have also put in hardwood floors in the living/dining area. I am going to post pictures but that is not even the really exciting part. It is a 2 bedroom condo and it is just my husband and I so with the spare bedroom we are going to have a....wait for it....wait for it...

LIBRARY!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes, my husband loves me. We went to Ikea 2 weeks ago and bought 7 bookshelves! I can't even express my excitement but the thing I love about all of you is that I don't have to because you can understand how I feel. We still aren't living in the condo because all of our belongings are in the hands of the Army delivery people. The ETA is anywhere from June 20 to July 2! Luckily, I have an awesome mom with some spare room for us to occupy until it arrives. The good thing that came from that is we were able to do all the painting/fixing up of the condo while it was completely empty. The bad news is my mom lives in the boonies (yes I have brought this up before) and she doesn't have internet. So you can see why my posting has been off. I have been so busy that this is the first chance I have had to visit my favorite coffee shop with free wifi. Things are finally starting to settle into a pattern so I will hopefully be more on track for blog stuff. Slowly but surely I will be caught up....