This & That

First did you see what Mimi gave me for my birthday? And I would like to add that I put those photos up all by myself & just by eyeing it.

Last Friday I went to Kiersten White's book signing at Changing Hands. Her debut novel Paranormalcy came out August 31st and it debuted on the New York Times Best Selling list! Now I probably would not have read this book since I have been very disappointed with the last paranormal teen books I have read. But while complaining my friend Stephanie Perkins told me that Paranormalcy was different, for example although it is a series they don't end on cliff hangers. I trust Stephanie so I gave Paranormalcy a try and she was right it was very different from other Paranormal books I have read. It was funny & flirty kind of Buffy The Vampire Slayer meets Meg Cabot, maybe? I can recommend it to everyone with out any disclaimers, it is clean with out being obnoxiously so.

Kiersten did a great job at the signing she was funny and completely at ease. I had let my friend Espe borrow Anna & The French Kiss just the week before (she finished in one sitting) and she brought it back to me at the signing. So I had to get a picture for Stephanie with both my books & Kiersten. Then we had to gush about Anna Kiersten explaining that it was her favorite & Stephanie was her best friend & I told everyone that I had the first signed copy!

I loved what Kiersten wrote in my book because obviously she has excellent taste & is awesome!

Also for those who have read Paranomalcy on page 217 Reth is describe as "some sort of beautiful Victorian dandy. He even had a walking stick....if he weren't so breathtaking, he would have looked ridiculous."

When I read that I immediately pictured these picture of Henry Cavill even though Reth is blonde, what can I say I always change guys hair color from blonde to dark.

Also I am thinking about cutting fringe (bangs) again and have been asking people what they think, so what do you think?

Speaking of fringe did you know that there is a word for me?
An Anglophile is a person who is fond of English culture

Cheers - Connie

Where I have been

Like I mentioned in the previous post I finally decided to read Harry Potter. I started listening to the audio books in July and finished on August 23rd. I felt a lot of pressure reading since so many of my friends are HUGE Harry Potter fans (especially Mimi). I was afraid that I wouldn't like them enough or maybe too much. Does anyone else worry that you might steal a friends thing? I enjoyed the first few I loved Harry but a motherly kind of love. I teared up when he had his first Christmas at Hogwarts and got his sweater from Mrs. Weasley. I have a very soft spot in my heart for Mrs. Weasley since she reminds me of my mom. But my mom is way better, my mom would never have had a crush on stupid Lockhart. But she is the mother of six sons, two redheaded children and has always welcomed friends into our home and family. But it wasn't until the last three that I actually started to get really hooked.

I did accomplish operation Trifecta on my birthday along with reading Mockingjay. I went to Joe's Farm Grill for breakfast, some of my sister in laws along with some nieces & nephews, my brother & sister Debbie were able to come. We had fun and I had a delicious waffle with strawberries & blueberries.


While there I also got these amazing pillows from Debbie & my sister in law Ashley, they made them! I love them a lot, they remind me of pillows my grandma had & they have Debbie's vintage touch to them.

In case you don't speak French this say yes (think we).

I love the French & British pillows since they fit in nicely with my London & Paris theme I have going.
After breakfast Debbie came over and we both sprawled out on my couches and began reading Mockingjay. Soon we had to break to grab some lunch at Liberty Market
where Debbie and I split a picnic salad & a favorite the best chicken sandwich (I think that is what it is called). We were joined by our friends Jenny & Mimi both of whom we knew had finished Mockingjay so we were free to speak about what we had read so far.
After we went back to Debbie's to read and had a hard time pulling away from reading to go to dinner. Here is a picture of me reading & Gracie watching Peter Pan. We went to Joe's Real BBQ with my parents. Mark, Ashley & Sam, Russ, Debbie, William & Gracie. It was really nice and my parents brought me a present from Mary MONSTER COOKIES!!! It not only made me really happy but everyone else it was a great treat. Thank you to Joe's for the free breakfast, lunch & dinner I was full for days.

In between reading I have been trying to listen to the new Arcade Fire



and She and Him




I also discovered that Stars & Metric sound a lot a like when my ipod played these back to back

You say HBM I say UK all the way!

It has been way to long since I have posted and it is not like fun things haven't been happening, I went camping with some of my family (see Debbie's blog) which was really fun. I have been listening to Harry Potter. Wait what, YOU HAVE NEVER READ HARRY POTTER!?! You have no clue how many times I have heard this and I don't have much of an excuse other than the first few movies didn't really hold my attention so I didn't think the books would. But for some reason after seeing the trailer for this next movie I decided I wanted to read but ended up listening instead. And I am loving it, hello Jim Dale who I loved already from Pushing Daisies. I love the Weasley's they remind me a lot of my large family with six boys and a couple of red heads and a mother who welcomes friends as their own.

But I am not up late at night blogging for any of those reasons, no I am blogging because you know that book I have been raving about Anna and the French Kiss (see post below), well Stephanie Perkins the author is giving away a copy on her blog. And she is giving everyone chances to sign up more than once and one of those ways is to leave a link to a picture of a Hot British Male in her comments. Some might say but Connie you already got a book why are you posting about HBM's. Obviously I am not doing it to get another copy, I love my copy way to much, because hello it is signed and now lovingly used. I am doing this because I LOVE HBM's and have for a long time. It is one of the reasons I knew Stephanie and I would be friends she called it HBM's I called it UK all The Way! And I just have a ton of pictures just sitting on my computer waiting to be shared. So with out any further ado here are some HBM's...

Hey Jude...you are so pretty sometimes I forget that you are jerk.
James your Scottish charm makes me swoon just thinking about it.
Oh Henry, I have kept an eye on you since I first saw you in Count of Monte Cristo. I knew you could not be so beautiful for nothing.

Christian some think you are crazy but I think we can all have bad days and let's not forget what is written in my high school yearbook "We Hail Christian Bale"

Matthew you are new to my boyfriend list but what a lovely addition you make.

Jim this picture makes me think of a certain boy I read about in a book with lovely messy hair, beautiful brown eyes and he also liked to bite his pinkie nail.

Colin, Mr. Darcy enough said.

Alex you are to young and yet I found myself watching Wild Child on ABC Family last week just so I could say "Hello Freddie".

Rob what can I say you are a mess but sometimes you can be a Beautiful mess, with a fantastic jaw line.

Napolean Say's to read this book...

I have been VERY excited about Stephanie Perkins book since I first found out about it back in April 2009. I mean I love her blog it always brightens my day, and lets not forget her tweets. She is a girl after my own heart all the way. But I was determined to be patient and enjoy the ride of seeing all the fun things happening as her book gets closer & closer to its release date. So you can imagine my surprise when she first mentioned her desire to give me an ARC (Advanced Readers Copy) a few months ago & then to be told that one of the ARC's she received a few weeks ago was going to be mine!

Needless to say there was a lot of happiness happening. After I got the book I called Mimi to tell her the happy news and told her I was a little nervous and she asked why since it has to be funny because hello Stephanie's blog is so funny. But i told her I knew I would love it but I wanted to love it so much that I could gush & gush over it. Because I am not the kind of person who can gush over a book when I only liked it, I am honest to a fault.

On the first page I read something that I wanted to remember so I went and got my sticky notes & a pen and started making notes of things that made me laugh or made me really happy.

There ended up being over 20 sticky notes all of which I have now documented into an email to Stephanie and which I shared with Mimi when she finishing reading it as well. But I should add that I got tired about midnight and stopped putting post its and have already thought of things that I missed.

I hate spoilers so it is kind of difficult to explain why I love this book but I am going to try. First I loved Anna, we definitely would be friends. She is funny, smart, a little shy but confident in who she is, I actually wrote a sticky note on the third page that said "already love her".

I already loved Etienne before i even knew his name because of two simple facts one a British accent & two he speaks French. If you don't understand how that can make a girl swoon just look on youtube I added some links for a few hot British males speaking French; Jude Law, Robert Pattinson, Christian Bale and this one is for Stephanie Chris Martin.

So yeah I was very excited to meet Etienne and he is definitely swoon worthy but even more than that he is interesting, you know one of those guys who you want to hear what he is saying but kiss him at the same time.

Oh and let's not forget about Paris, oh it made me miss Paris. It even almost made me cry I missed it so much. In fact I think it is safe to say that it made Mimi miss it so much that she started editing some of her Paris pictures and here are a few or a lot.

Look at my crazy Paris hair. I can't get it to curl real well here in Arizona & always wondered why everyone else in my family has curly hair. Well in Paris it turns into ringlets.

Did you know when I was a baby I spoke with a French accent? It is no lie my aunt would always tell me that she use to ask my mom where she got her French baby.

Mimi her sister Britt & mom have all finished and loved the book as well. And since Debbie is still on vacation I am going to get the book & read it again. Why because reading it make me happy.

I Dream of Houses

I was thinking about some of my favorite houses from the movies and was going to do a post telling you what some of my all time favorite houses are. But as I started doing research I found someone had already done the work it is a blog called Hooked on Houses and she had almost all of my movie houses.
One of the first houses I remember falling in love with (that wasn't a cartoon) was Gone With The Wind. And not Tara but Twelve Oaks and the amazing double stair case

It probably didn't hurt that Rhett Butler was at the bottom of those stairs
Oh and the library don't forget the library
As I got older I realized that two stair cases might be a little much.

When I was in Junior High I really liked the movie The Parent Trap (1961 version) and my parents even bought it for me for Christmas. While researching the ranch house I found out that the outside house is real but the interior was all a set & that Disney still get request asking for blue prints of the house. Yeah if I had money I would be one of those people, because I LOVE THIS HOUSE.

Looking at the outside & the inside now seems silly to think they were the same house.

The main attraction to the house, is the courtyard.

And look can you imagine if that is how you got to your bedroom?My parents were married in 1962 or was it 1963? The point is the early 60's has always been a heavy influence on me.
And the huge open kitchen, love it!

Can you see the tile around the bathtub? It is so pretty.

In high school I fell in LOVE with the house from Practical Magic. Seriously! Check out that garden and it is on an island too.




Yeah this is their pantry.
Personally I would want to live in the attic.

Again AMAZING kitchen.

Now as a grown up I would have to say my favorite house is from The Holiday sure maybe it has to do with the fact that it is in England, but it is just so perfect.
Notice the red & blue my favorite color combo.

There are fireplaces all over the houseAnd her bedroom I Love her bedroom!


And THE BEST PART is the bookshelves!

Now I know this isn't her house but if we could add a theater room to the cottage I would be good to go!
I really do need to thank Hooked on Houses I stole all the pictures but you need to go check out the site because there are more pictures & actual real information. And so many more houses I want to explore! If I thought myself cool enough to give awards I would give that blog the Thanks for Saving Me Tons of Time Award & You Are Made of Awesome.