Magazines.

Since the age of ten I have loved magazines. Do you, reader, enjoy them as much as I do? 
I started my career with the American Girl magazine {which I loved} and the lesser known literary magazine for tweens called Cricket. It had no ads. It was kind of granola-y. I'd stay up late and read the whole thing the day it came in. Yeah, somehow, as a young child, I got hooked on a youth reading magazine. That about sums me up still.
Anyway, I ventured into Seventeen and Teen People for a bit. Oddly I only read Seventeen before reaching the title age. I may or may not have been able to sneak in a Cosmopolitan once or twice but {as it does still} that publication scared me.
I've been a loyal reader of Glamour for about ten years. 

There's no better feeling than having the promise of a whole issue ahead of me. 

Pages and pages of fun!

I usually save new ones for when I'm kind of ahead on my grading and don't have much to do.

That way I don't feel too guilty. 
Magazine reading appeals so much to me because of the quantity of material that is condensed into one place all at the ready for me to discover and enjoy. I'm also a huge fan of Real Simple which is way more home care fun than the clothing/love-life/miscellaneous that Glamour offers. 
I'm not going to lie. US Weekly makes an appearance every once and a while too.
You'll notice a lack of intellectual material here and of that I'm not too bothered. I like being able to escape for a bit into those thin pages and not worry about serious matters. I will delve into Mikey's New Yorkers but to be completely honest I sometimes don't have the patience {am I a victim of today's instant gratification culture? Probably.} to read through those really long articles...as interesting and informative as they may be. There. I said it. Please judge not.
I also like actual paper tomes. My green tendencies fight against this, I guess, but at least I recycle them. The appeal of non electronic versions is that there are zero links to distract me. When reading an online article there is always a suggested reading or bit of information to google which goes along with the main piece. Don't pull me in so many directions! Let me enjoy and focus on the topic at hand! Please!
What's your favorite magazine? Do you think it still counts as reading if it's not a book?
And do you LOATHE those inserts as much as I do?

Happy Day to you Reader!
xoxo, natty ♥

A book and a snack.

This is what I did tonight after Guinness and I had our constitutional around the block:

Annie's cheddar snack mix = ♥

An ooooold favorite, checked out from San Jose Library way too many times.

It was great.
Goodnight!
xoxo, natty ♥

I forgot something!

On Sunday night I said that the weekend was a good start to my summer, but I forgot to mention one very important thing lacking from this weekend that would have made it perfect. I missed out on an event, a weekend-long event with friends. Mikey and I both went to Macalester College, a small liberal arts school in St. Paul, Minnesota (I know, a Californian and an Arizonan meet in the frozen tundra, go figure). The college celebrates reunion every summer and this was our fifth. I feel as though most people focus on the tenth or twentieth, and I'm looking forward to those for sure (although for the sake of my youthful appearance I hope that they don't approach too quickly), but I don't get to see my friends too often and it would have been so nice to hang out with a couple of lovely ladies (you know who you are!) in our old stomping grounds. I have been back since we graduated, but even that was a few years ago and we didn't check out campus too much and I would love to just wander around. It would have been fabulous to go, but with grading and graduation I just couldn't swing it so tenth anniversary here we come!

Other than that, I'm pretty tired tonight and don't think I have much to post. I cleaned and organized and cleaned some more at work today and got home after 7. We had an end of year lunch at work and there was a taco truck; it was delicious! Mike and I had been thinking of having one for the wedding and now I'm kind of sold =) I'll need to go in to work at least one more time to take care of some technology to-dos, but I'm a free woman until Costa Rica. Free, except for the wedding planning, but that's a labor of love ♥. Apart from the nuptial-nesting (do you like my alliteration?) this freedom means running, reading books that I've already read three or four times (I've talked about this habit of mine I think...), watching movies that I've seen several times, maybe reading new books, maybe some of that scrap-booking I mentioned yesterday...the possibilities are kind of limitless! I have not quite realized it yet, though. It takes some time for summer to sink in, for my jaw to unclench (that's where I hold my tension, where do you hold yours?) and school year to fade away. I'll drink to that =)

Anyway, I have no pictures from the day, but imagine yummy tacos and lots of dust from cleaning out shelves in my classroom!


xoxo, natty ♥