The Way To My Heart Is Through Books

And more specifically, through Elena Ferrante novels. I came home from babysitting on Monday to a package from Amazon. At first I got nervous that I was going crazy and shopping online without remembering buying anything! But as I tore through the package, I realized I was in fact not going crazy. Instead, I realized just how very lucky I am.

Inside the package were two of Elena Ferrante's novels that I don't have yet, Troubling Love and The Days of Abandonment, along with a sweet, little note from AJ. He knows I love surprises and he knows I love books and it was such a nice gesture and a wonderful treat to come home to! I'm a lucky, lucky girl and you better believe I've already jumped into these two books! I had a good four or five books I was already reading but I've set those aside to enjoy these.

Plus, AJ hinted that he has already pre ordered me the last book in Ferrante's Neapolitan trilogy which comes out in September!

Some Thoughts for Tuesday

August is already going by just as quickly as June and July did! To make matters crazier, AJ and I only have 3 weeks left in CT before moving on up to Boston. Time flies, right?

Some early bridal shower presents are starting to pop up at the front door. I keep telling myself to wait for AJ to open them but that only lasts a few minutes. Luckily, he doesn't mind because he knows how I am with surprises and presents.

Speaking of the groom, we got to try on our wedding bands last night! My future in laws offered to get us wedding bands from Peru and AJ's grandmother brought them with her when she arrived last week. They are both beautiful, yellow gold bands that are engraved. Mine has AJ's first and middle names along with our wedding date. His has my first and middle names and date, too. The gold in Peru is different, it's 18K rather than 14, so the color is different and so pretty! I like that my band is the same color and from the same place as AJ's mother, aunts, and grandmothers. I'll be like all the other Mrs. Cabreras before me!

My sister came home from NYC this weekend, she had been in Egypt forever. It was so nice seeing her and spending time with her. Next weekend I'm going to stay with her in the city.

We celebrated my grandfather's 85th birthday with pizza and trifle made by my grandmother. I've never tasted her trifle even though she makes if often—the combo of weird ingredients and textures always turned me off but I tried it this time and it was pretty good!

My amazing godmother, Net-net, spent the majority of the weekend at our dining room table, addressing our wedding invitations in her perfect script. She was loving it and is so meticulous about every letter, number, and punctuation. I'm so lucky to be having so much help from family members with all the wedding plans, it makes everything a bit more meaningful!

Babysitting got messy today. We constructed and painted a doll house for the girls' Barbies and now my arms are dotted with white and blue paint.

A Successful Day Off

Wednesdays are my day off from babysitting. I like to take advantage of them and fit in as many fun things and activities possible.

Yesterday I started the day early, drinking coffee with my mom on the porch. At 9:30, I met my cousin Maria for a Zumba class which completely exhausted both of us and made us feel sadly out of shape.

From there, we drove to Orange to a store called Plato's closet. They buy and sell clothes and I had a suitcase full of clothes I've been wanting to try to sell for months. We dropped off the clothes and headed to the nearest Whole Foods for an early lunch which happened to be one of the yummiest lunches I've had in a while.

I take the girls I babysit to Whole Foods once a week, usually, and I tend to stick to the salad bar because there are so many options, I get overwhelmed and fall back on the familiar. This Whole Foods, though, was a bit more spread out and it was pretty empty so I didn't feel rushed to pick something. We took our time walking around, looking at the options before deciding what to get. Also, this has got be the cleanest and most well kept Whole Foods I've been to. Usually, the hot food bar and salad bar get messy and aren't correctly labeled and such but this store had so many more options than I've seen before and each section was filled and looked fresh.

I gravitated towards the hot food bar and filled my container with a little spring greens salad with walnuts and goat cheese, then I added a piece of herbed chicken along with steamed broccoli, summer squash, and zucchini. On the side, I had to add the grilled pineapple and grilled peaches (something else I've never seen at the Whole Foods closer to me) and it was all delicious! It was a bit pricey for lunch but it kept me very full for a long time and it all tasted great.

We went back to Plato's Closet and the store only took 4 out of my many, many items but they gave me $18. Not much, but better than nothing!

From there, we drove to New Canaan to visit my mom at her volunteer job at the thrift store and we ended up shopping more than we meant to! I got a cute Lilly Pulitzer dress for around $30 among other things. They have such great steals! The sale special for that day was one bag of clothes for $25!

I ended the night at the beach in Norwalk with my mom and some family, looking out at the water and listening to the ABBA tribute band that was performing. The weather was beautiful all day and night, it was perfect for an evening at the beach.

Today, I'm back to babysitting and the Westport Library and Farmers' Market are on our schedule for the day!