Monday, February 4, 2013

What I'm Into January 2013

The DDH had all of January off for FMLA and it was wonderful. It's so much fun watching him with T-Rex and seeing him bond with the little guy.

This month, T-Rex's behavior has stabilized a bit, and we're starting to get into a good rhythm (or we will, now that we're back to normal life sans Daddy). Hopefully this means I'll be able to get work done (my employer agreed to let me pick up hours working at home instead of coming back into the office, yay!) as well as hang out with him.

Ok, onward to the meme!

Read and Reading

I've made the goal for the year to read at least one non-fiction and one fiction book each month, because it's too easy to just get sucked in to blog-hopping on my smartphone and never actually read anything of substance (not that blogs can't be substantive, but the brain reacts differently to words on a page versus a screen). Anyway, I did well on that goal this month!

For non-fiction, I read The Scientist in the Crib: What Early Learning Tells Us About the Mind. Highly readable cognitive science for babies. I loved it and am looking for something similar published more recently (this was 1999). I also enjoyed Bringing Up Bebe: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting. Also fascinating, though mostly what I got out of it is that apparently Druckerman's American mother friends just don't have a lot of common sense.

For fiction, I read A River in the Sky, a decent, relatively new Amelia Peabody mystery by Elizabeth Peters. I've also been blowing through the Nikki Heat books by "Richard Castle" that ABC publishes as a tie-in to the show Castle. They are surprisingly (and increasingly, as the series progresses) not awful.

TV

Once Upon a Time, of course, continues to enthrall (did you see I did Megan's weekly post on the series a couple weeks ago?).

Bones, Castle, Being Human, the usual. Oh! We started watching Go On because of the ads for it during the Olympics, and guess what? It's actually really good.

We've also been working our way through Weeds on Netflix, and it's...I don't know. I'm tiring of the shocking suburban criminal trope, I guess. My mom has recommended the BBC Sherlock and also Netflix's House of Cards (starring the Princess Bride!). Anyone else care to weigh in?

Movies

The MIL watched T-Rex for us one afternoon so we could see The Hobbit. Love. Though the DDH didn't realize it was only Part I and he was mad when it ended halfway through the story. Oops.

Clearly it's harder to go see movies in the theater now, and if we rented any this month I don't remember them. Oh wait, I think we rented Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter and it was as expected, that is, campy and awesome both.

Music

I'm not a music person and never will be. Meaning, I love music, but I don't have Taste and I don't follow artists or find them. Oh well.

...

Given that I'm still trying to settle into a new normal life, I think that's all for now, folks.

Linking up with the lovely HopefulLeigh!

 
What I'm Into at HopefulLeigh

What are you into these days?

4 comments:

  1. Sorry I'm a little late responding, but you asked and I can't help weighing in: YES to Sherlock. It is difficult to get me to shut up about Sherlock. I don't watch a lot of TV, so this might not mean much coming from me, but I found it to be one of the best shows I've EVER SEEN. Smart, interesting, and fun, with fantastic acting. And a KILLER cliffhanger ending that has you begging for season three LEST YOU DIE of anticipation.

    Just my two cents . . . :)

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    Replies
    1. OH. EM. GEE. We went ahead and watched the first episode tonight and--squee! It was very, very good. Martin Freeman is so adorable.

      But wait. Does that mean there isn't a Season 3 yet??? That's not good. I've only watched one episode and I already NEED there to be a Season 3.

      On a sidenote, I think people who don't watch much tv are the best to get recommendations from, as they tend to be the most discerning. Alternatively, if they don't watch much tv because they only watch Dr. Phil and The Bachelorette, you can probably skip their recs. It's harder to know if your tastes coincide with those of someone who watches more widely.

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