… seriously, how is it Tuesday already?

I had a jam-packed weekend full of family time. Just how I like it! I’ve also made some progress on my reading goals (28 books by my 29th birthday). I just finished up Mindy Kahing’s (from The Office) “Is Everyone Hanging Out With Out Me? (and other concerns). It was hilarious! I didn’t know a lot about her career before The Office, so it was fun to see how she got started out.

On Saturday, or mission was simple. GTL. No, not Gym-Tan-Laundry (for all you Jersey Shore fans. Don’t lie, you watch it!). But rather, Groceries-Thrifting-Library. We made it to the thrift store before Harper had a mini-meltdown and we walked out without anything. Oh the joys of having a toddler! No nap + lots of things to touch and break? Not a good call.

A few hours later, after a nap was had by everyone, we dinged-in for Round Two.

Don’t you love Adam’s face? He hates getting his picture taken. Sorry, handsome hubby, it has to be done! I also had to document Harper’s bows. She is notorious for this: begging for bows, running around screaming “I’m so pretty!”, and then ripping them out the second we get into the car. Note the third picture, walking to the library, sans bows. Ha!

I love downtown Iowa City. We try to make it down there as much as possible, especially now that the sudents have gone home for the summer. For those of you that don’t know, Iowa City is the home of The University of Iowa, which is pretty famous for being a get-your-drink-on party college, and therefore Iowa City is usually a get-your-drink-on party town. It also should be noted that the U of I is a pretty amazing school and we have some of the country’s best programs for writing and doctoral studies. Gotta keep things fair and balanced.

At any rate, it’s nice to be able to stroll down the cobbled walkways with out weaving in and out of giant crowds. On Saturday it felt like just the three of us, the sunshine, and the library.

We LOVE the library!

So much fun! We picked up a dozen or so books and played in the childeren’s area for awhile. Harper loves reading the over-sized books and playing with Clifford. It took a lot of distraction to pull her away from that one!

As we were leaving the library, we stopped by the piano that sits right outside so Harper could play a few tunes. I started to notice something weird about the benches … they were all painted! Not just a fresh coat of paint, no, but with murals!

The moment we got home I had to google “Why are the benches painted in Iowa City?” and came across this article from the Iowa City Press Citizen. Apparently, IA City is reaching out to local artists to paint all of the down town benches. ALL 125+ of them! This is what I love most about living in a liberal/arts town. Creativity bursts from everywhere! I can’t wait to head back and snap some more pics of the finished benches.

After loading up on groceries, we headed home for some relaxation. I enjoyed a beer (hard cider, all the way!) and browsed around Shelfari. Even Harper got in on the reading action.

What’s Shelfari? Why, I’ll tell you! My good friend Katie (holla!) introduced me to the site last week, when we were chatting about my reading goals. I’ll go more into the features in a separate post, but here’s the basic gist: it’s a combo of your personal reading list/goals/book shelf, rating books, social groups, and Wikipedia. I LOVE IT! I tried a similar site, Good Reads for a while, but I found the interface too busy for me. My eyes are turned off my sites that are serif-font heavy with lots of text boxes. (Blame it on my Visual Rhetoric class in college!) Shelfari is really a really clean design and very intuitive to use!

So that was pretty much our weekend. Sunday was spent blowing bubbles and drawing with sidwalk chalk. Lots and lots of chalk.

You think the post is overloaded with pictures of Harper, you should see my iPhoto library. What can I say? She’s pretty rad.

I hope you all had a fabulous weekend and start to your week! I’ll be back tomorrow with my next part of the Life of a Binge Eater series, which will now be posted in the mornings. I got some feedback that people like that better.

 **edited to add: I’m a big fat liar and won’t be posting “tomorrow” … as in today. I’m kind of the Queen of “over promise, under deliver.” Gah. I’m working on it!! ***

 

– Emily
Be Strong. Be Fearless. Be You.