Loose Leafing: All Good Things

Hola, everyone!  I have bad news, and I have good news.  The bad news, my wrists have been hurting me something fierce and making it hard to both work and blog.  Since my blog doesn't pay the bills, I've unfortunately forced to give most of my wrist endurance to my job, hence my missing the BBAW festivities of yesterweek and other assorted blogging.  The good news is, my poor, afflicted wrists seem to be getting their groove back, and I have returned to my oft neglected blog again.  (Hi, blog!)  The other bad news is I have to work more hours than normal this week, which doesn't leave an awful lot of time for my triumphant return to blogging, but I'm working with the time I've got, and I'm happy to say I've been making lemonade of my lemons lately and mostly enjoying life despite the working and the wrist problems.

For example, I've been reading and really enjoying it.  I liked The Stand, but I've gotta say, reading it all summer really started to feel like work.  It's been nice to actually start and finish a few books.  First, I read Glass Boys by Nicole Lundrigan for a blog tour.  I was a little nervous about it at first, but I'm pretty sure that for the moment, it's my favorite book of the year!  (P.S. There's still a little time to enter my giveaway for the book if you haven't yet.  Have I mentioned how great it is?).  Then I read The Midwife of Hope River by Patricia Harman and really enjoyed that one, too.  Review to come.  For my current read, I randomly chose a book from my shelves (my shelves!  I remember them, there are various and sundry great books there that are even more neglected than my blog!  Horrors!) and ended up with Her Last Death by Susanna Sonnenberg which is the type of memoir Augusten Burroughs made famous.  A train wreck memoir, if you will, wherein you are frankly disturbed by the things you're reading, but it's well-written and you can't seem to look away.  After that, I think I'll be ready to tackle Broken Harbor by Tana French which has been patiently waiting for me. 

In between all the reading, I have been enjoying an annual trip to Hersheypark with my younger cousin.  We are the only children of our respective families, and he's kind of like my fake little brother that I don't spend quite enough time with for him to be annoying to me like a real little brother, so I've been pleased to make our Hershey trip an annual tradition so neither of us have to be the "single riders" that have to load in the middle of the roller coaster trains.  ;-)  Yesterday we even (accidentally) dressed alike in bright yellow/green shirts, shorts/pants with many pockets, and grey shoes.  We rode almost all the roller coasters, him being much more daring than I was at his age (thankfully), and purchased an outlandish amount of chocolate, and I plan to be irritated for only a little while longer that I had to pay $12 simply to park my car.  Twelve dollars!  That new roller coaster must have cost them a fortune (which was totally worth it - we rode it twice!) for them to be going in for this kind of highway robbery.  Ah, but don't they know that if they charge me like four fewer dollars to park, I will then buy that much more chocolate and they still get all my money anyway, without my having to tell everyone I know how I've been so wronged.  Less parking, more chocolate!  Do you think I could get people to picket with me?  Make Kisses, not dollars!  (Um, I'll keep my day job.)

While not reading/riding roller coasters/complaining about things I have no control over, I've been pleased to watch the Bloomsburg fairgrounds being populated with all sorts of rides and food stands and awesomeness.  The last week of the month our little town plays host to the biggest fair (I'm told) in Pennsylvania.  Last year, our town played host to the biggest flood of the Susquehanna River in a century, causing the cancellation of the fair, so I am looking forward to it twice as much which is a really really really lot.  I am super-stoked that next week at this time I could very well be stuffing my face with the many delicious deep-fried things (if I am not already full of delicious deep-fried things and sitting at home contemplating my clogging arteries), ogling the largest pumpkin in the tri-county area, and hopefully winning the candy game or a gold fish or a big stuffed animal or something.  People around here live for the fair, and so do I! 

So, how's life in your neck of the woods?  Have I been missing anything exciting (excepting the obvious) during my temporary vacation from the blogosphere?

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