March Bookshelf

Ever since I've moved out of the city city of Atlanta, I've become a little bit of a hermit. The upside of my newfound solitude? so much more time to read. I knocked a chunk out of my goodreads challenge for 2017. I don't remember why I picked 20 books to read, but that's the goal. ANYWAYS. Here's what I read this month.

Into The Wilderness// I think technically I finished this one at the end of February, but I haven't blogged about it yet. So it counts. Obviously, I read this one because Diana Gabaldon was on the cover saying it was great. I liked this one, although it was a little slow. It fit into my long historical fiction narrative, so I would absolutely recommend it, but only if you're ready for about 850 pages of tight print. It is the first of a series, so it ends in a bit of a cliff hanger. I did't love it so much as to start the next one in the series though... 

Big Little Lies// Before you ask, I've only seen the first episode of the HBO show. I loved this book. It was different than what I have been reading and I absolutely devoured it. It's told in a choppy manner from three different narrators. I definitely didn't see the ending coming and I didn't feel like the twist was teased constantly (an issue I've had with books that I should read because I loved Gone Girl) Eventually I will watch the rest of the HBO show, but I have so many things on my DVR I feel like I'll never get to them. 

Dead Letters// This one was my very first Book of The Month book. It started a little slow but, once I got into it, I couldn't put it down. Honestly one day I was going to read a couple of chapters with my morning coffee and the next thing I know, I'd finished the entire book. I'm really excited about the whole Book of The Month thing too, because it's a built in suggestion every month! If you're interested in trying the BoTM, you can use my referral link here and get your first book for $1! 

All The Missing Girls// This is cheating, I have't finished this one yet, but I read 75% of it in the month of March and I'll probably finish it tonight (yeah, wild Friday night indeed!) This one made me a little dizzy at first, because it's not told in linear time, which took me a couple of chapters to get used to, but once I was used to it, I loved it. It's another one where I try to just read a couple of chapters and next thing I know it's been three hours. 

So, that's what I've been reading lately! Hopefully I will get better at my book reviews as we go forward with this... What have you been reading lately? Any suggestions? Do you use goodreads? Send me some suggestions! 

Spring Fever

HAPPY FIRST DAY OF SPRING! It's going to be a lovely day here, so I'll be in the office all day dreaming about what fun could be had in the sun. I'm so excited though, because spring means that summer is just around the corner! Longer days, more sunshine, and patio weather! I'm a firm believer that food and drinks are just better outside. It's got to be science. 

The pollen is something I'm not ready for. If you've never been to the Atlanta area around April, I don't recommend it. The oh-so-lovely pine trees drop gazillions of little pollen bombs. Literally everything turns yellow. We didn't ever really get cold enough for everything to die off, so allergy season never really ended. Poor little Albus had to get a shot and these ear drops he absolutely hates to get through it. 

Obviously, since the sun was out on Saturday, I was working in the yard again. I'm sure I'll stop complaining about the ivy one day, I imagine that day will be about a year after it's all gone forever. I pulled more ivy, planted more roses, and overall made a bigger mess than I started with. I think that's the most frustrating part. I'm not the most patient person, I feel like four Saturdays in the yard should look like the cover of a Southern Living magazine! Clearly, I have a solid grasp on reality. 

So this week will be another week of little yard projects and I'll probably be done by Labor Day. How are you celebrating the first day of spring?

Albus 9 Month Pupdate

So, yesterday, Albus got his BarkBox for March (I typed January and February before settling on March, in case you were wondering). He was SO EXCITED. I used to think he could tell that it was for him, but recently I've discovered he thinks any and all mail is for him. ANYWAYS. So he tears through it, chews on a bone for a while, takes the toy that was in it and buried it in the backyard, and ends up playing with the box. Yep. The box. Sometimes I think he's part cat.
NINE MONTHS. This little monster is going to be NINE MONTHS OLD ON THURSDAY. I will be busy being a terrible mom and seeing Beauty and the Beast at the release. NINE MONTHS OLD THOUGH. So nine months, we've accomplished some milestones! 

He's convinced me that he doesn't need to be in the crate while I'm at work. Yes, you read that right. The tiny tornado is loose in the house. Sometimes, when I get home, he's still in his crate waiting for me. It's adorable really. He's only chewed up one pair of my shoes in the whole process. A floor covered in his toys (we're still working on putting them away)

We switched to a no-pull harness, which is helping a little bit. Somehow, at SEVENTY POUNDS, he's an in-between size. He's too big for a small, too small for a medium. Juuuusut barely. So he gets to pull a little bit in his harness. Our teacher thinks that I should make sure to have treats all the time on or walks, so that will be something I add to our walks, once the frigid weather goes away. 
He's been acting very much like a teenager. I'll say "Albus, sit!" and he will BARK BACK AT ME. He's talking back! Little punk. He's being very defiant lately, looking me in the eye when he refuses to do what he's told. His 5K time is getting better, by that I mean my 5K time is getting better, he'd love to go faster. 

Last, but not least, he's becoming an instagram superstar. He was even featured by one of those little pup instagram accounts with his 8 month chalkboard! You'll have to follow along with his adventures, he even has his own hashtag! Do you have any puppy stories for me? I love puppy stories!

Friday Five!

Good gravy this was another long week. I am so pumped to spring forward this weekend. I don't think I've ever been so excited to lose an hour in my entire life. It's just that when it's dark, or just about dark, when I get home from work ALL I WANT TO DO is go to bed. Like, we're talking pep talks to stay up past 8:30 every night. It's bad man. 
NEW LOOK! Guys, I wanted to mix it up a little, so I installed a new theme here. What do you think? At first, I was a little worried, because I loved it so but the example was very grayscale. We all know grayscale really isn't my jam (well I did paint all of the walls in my house gray. but that's different.) What do you think? I'm in love.

Books books books I did it. I joined the Book of the Month club. If you want to use my referral link, you get three books for $9.99. Let's be real, three hardcover books for $30 is a STEAL. I received my first book in the mail on Wednesday & I can't wait to dive in. I plan on finishing Big Little Lies this weekend (because it's supposed to rain!) and starting Dead Letters after that! Are you part of the Book of the Month Club? It makes me feel fancy, if we're being for real for real. 

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST I am so excited for next Thursday I could just about die. When I bought my ticket, I got a free download of the song. I love it. I feel like I'm betraying Angela Landsbury a little by loving it, but que sera sera. Also, check out this Belle inspired cocktail! Also, are we all in agreement that LaFou has always been gay? I always thought he was in love with Gaston, so I don't understand why anyone is up in arms about it. 

Albus & storms We had a pretty loud storm last night, around 3:45AM. Albus isn't usually afraid of the thunder, so I am assuming when he jumped up in the bed and laid on top of me, he was worried about me right? Just making sure you're okay and not scared momma!

Instagram themes If you've noticed, I didn't gram all week, until yesterday. I've been overthinking what my "theme" should be after Helene's post on Monday about how it's key to a successful campaign. So I've been really worried about what mine should be and how I should start planning. I have decided on one, so we'll see if you can figure it out once I get into it!

That's all I have right now, how was your week? Anything to share that I missed?

Best Laid Plans

I was planing to review Big Little Lies because surely I would have finished it this weekend... but then it was Harry Potter Weekend on FreeForm so there you go. I didn't finish the book, I didn't get the house cleaned, I did go to bed at 10 pm on Saturday night though. 

On Saturday, Albus & I ran a 5K that ended with beer (praise hands!) at Red Hare Brewing. They have this really cool wall, pictured above. ALL I WANTED was a good picture of Albus, my cousin, and me in front of this damn wall. We asked three different people and this is the best that we got. I felt so irritated that we couldn't get someone to tell us to move one way or the other, and then I felt even worse for insisting that we take it a third time because I just wanted something nice to Instagram. I don't usually have the perfectionist thing going on, but honestly how hard was it to get this picture right?
A post shared by Kasey Decker (@kdsmoove) on

Albus loves running 5Ks, it was his 4th one and we finished in 46 minutes! I don't run very fast, if we're being honest. He could probably do a 7 minute mile. I love pup friendly 5Ks because that means there are other dogs for him to interact with. Sometimes I worry that he's going to be that obnoxious only child, so I have to make sure to socialize him. Read, I make sure to socialize myself because some weekends I don't even leave the house or interact with any humans. Plus he made a new lady friend!
If you follow me on snapchat or instagram, you also got a sneak peek of us trying to get the little monster to swim. For some reason he is afraid of the water! He can definitely swim, but straight refuses to get in the water. We even tried throwing balls in the water for him to chase! I'm guessing we'll have to wait until it's warm outside so that I can get in the water with him. Sometimes he can be super clingy. Either way, it was a big weekend for both of us.
So somehow this turned into a weekend update! What did y'all get into this weekend? How ready for spring weather to stick around are we? It was 30-something degrees when we started that 5K on Saturday. BRR.

Currently: March

Literally two days ago I was writing about how I wanted to be more proactive and schedule posts ahead of time because I’m done procrastinating, and here I am writing a post in my down time, four hours after I meant to have it live. Whatever. In my defense, I went to file for my homestead exemptions, which took the least amount of time. Now I have to figure out how to file my taxes, it was so much easier when I just filled in my W-2s and pretended I would get any money back for paying student loans back. (LOL, cute little innocent Kasey) Anyways, let’s talk currently!

Reading: Big Little Lies. I’m tearing through it. I forgot how light reading could be when it wasn’t tiny, tight print for 850 pages. I’m absolutely going to finish it before the weekend is over. Maybe I’ll try my hand at writing book reviews, I don’t know if I could do them without spoiling things… Also I joined the Book of the Month club, we'll see how that goes....

Writing: This post, duh. But also, I’m working on improvingmy handwriting in the bullet journal and coming up with some projects around the house to write about. I did this really cool construction project in the back yard, but I keep waiting for the flowers in the planter to perk up before I take the pictures of it. What would y’all like to see here?

Singing: Colour Me In: Damien Rice. I’ve been pretty hooked on Emily’s February 2017 playlist, and I have always loved Damien Rice. The weather has been nice, so it’s been a windows down, radio blasting, singing-at-the-top-of-your-lungs kind of week.

Grudging: Okay so speaking of the windows down, a piece of plastic broke on my car’s sunroof thing, so it wouldn’t close. I took it to the dealership to have them fix it and great news! It was only going to be the cost of labor to fix it! But also you have $300 of other things that need to be fixed too so go ahead and get that taken care of. So whatever, it’s cheaper to keep her, but I pick my car up & immediately open the sunroof, I need the vitamin D. I get home and climb up to see how it was fixed? THEY TOOK THE ENTIRE BROKEN PART OUT AND DIDN’T REPLACE IT. It wasn’t even a necessary part. Damn y’all, I have a drill, I could have done that. They also called and told me if I give them all 10s on the review the Jeep people send out, I will get a free car wash. I’m pretty sure that’s not how those things work….

HAPPY FRIDAY Y’ALL. I will be running a 5k for beer tomorrow at 8:30 tomorrow morning. That means beer around 9. You can’t drink all day if you don’t start in the morning J Do you have anything fun planned this weekend?

February Through The Lens & March Goals

I would say I'm surprised that we've made it to March, but that would just be a lie. February felt like such  a long month considering it was only 28 days. Let's see what February looked like through the lens of my camera! It's been a minute since I've done one of these! 
Obviously, Albus, the most photogenic pup in the world takes the cake on most of them. He tuned EIGHT MONTHS old, he let me dress him up for the Super Bowl, he ran his 4th 5K (we have number 5 coming up this weekend!) and he had a friend stay over for a whole week! He also managed to officially transition out of the crate life, although he still sleeps in there on his own accord. Then, it was National Margarita Day, and a month of yard work man

I would do a recap of my February goals, but aside from keeping the house clean, I failed miserably. I'm going to keep blog three times a week on my to-do list. Here are a few more I want to accomplish:

1. The Yard. I gotta keep up the exhausting work so that this summer my house looks like the cover of a Southern Living magazine.  Every little bit counts or something, I have to find a mantra that keeps me from getting frustrated. 

2. Work on the blog. I want to get back to scheduling posts because I'm still working on becoming a morning person, so it's a lot easier to get stuff scheduled the night before than to try to hammer something out while watching the Today Show in the morning.. I also want to get back into the whole swing of the community aspect of it. I missed y'all!

3. Read at least three books. I only read one book in February, I mean it was 900 pages, but it was still just one book. I want to read at least three. Last night I started Big Little Lies and I also have All The Missing Girls so I need one more to knock off the list in March. Any suggestions?

What did February look like through your camera? What are you reading this month?