September Coffee Date!

Happy football season y'all! I'm going to Athens this weekend for the UGA/Notre Dame game, so please send your thoughts and prayers because I'm not as young as I'm going to act this weekend.. All I've felt like writing lately has been "Can I Bring Albus?" posts, but I'm trying to space those out. So let's chat! 

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IF WE WERE HAVING COFFEE I'd tell you that it looks so weird in the editor when I type that in bold and all caps, but I really like how it looks on the theme I have going on so I keep doing it, hopefully it's not something I have to go back over if I ever decide to move to wordpress or switch the layout here. ALSO SPEAKING OF. I've been having problems with sharing posts to twitter & facebook -- they're just showing as a link and no image or preview, I have no idea what I've done. Elle tried to help me, we discovered that for some reason my domain isn't showing as "secure" so I paid the domain company I use for an SSL license, that I have no idea how to add. It's fine, I'm fine, everything is fine.

IF WE WERE HAVING COFFEE I would ask for suggestions on relatively affordable jewelry that won't turn my skin green or make my ears feel like they're on fire. I'm apparently allergic to copper or nickel or whatever makes yellow gold yellow? So I can't wear the fun $3 earrings without my ears getting all gross and itchy. I ALSO can't wear the cute little necklaces from target or etsy because somehow they turn my neck green. I am trying to talk myself into "investing" in a few nice pieces that I can wear every day, but having a hard time telling myself it's worth $100 for a new necklace. I have a pair of 1/4 carat diamond studs that I got for my 25th birthday (get it? .25 carat?) that I have literally taken out maybe twice since then, lately those are the only earrings that I don't end up taking out and shoving in my purse halfway through the day. Am I the only one with this problem? Plz help.

IF WE WERE HAVING COFFEE I would tell you I PASSED my GA Real Estate Licensing exam! I'm meeting with a brokerage this week and will hopefully have my official license all handled by the end of the week. *fingers crossed* So now it's just time for someone to need me to sell their house.. It feels a little surreal now, to have to think "okay, the class is done, now I have to find clients." I'm excited though, I've already met some really cool people that I look forward to working with.

IF WE WERE HAVING COFFEE I would tell you about this bracelet for my keys. I was influenced by Becca & Christine because I am literally a walking infomercial for a product like this. I always try to make JUST ONE trip from the car to the house, and I will put my keys in the same hand that I use to carry all of my crap from the car (ps, can we combine coffee mugs and water bottles into one thing that has my coffee hot and my water cold at the same time? thanks in advance) and then I get to the door to realize that my keys are in the wrong hand, I have to set everything down, and unlock the door. Just found myself shouting "there has to be a better way!" Enter this rubber bracelet that my keys clip on to. Derek makes fun of it, saying I have a child's teething ring on my keys, but whatever, it works.

I'm up to my teeth in library books, which is not bad at all. It's too damn hot outside to do anything else. We're melting down here guys. Anyways, what's new with you?

What I Read In August

Happy September, friends! August was a crazy month for me, but I still managed to get some books read. Partially because I am part-hermit so I'm totally fine sitting on the couch reading instead of going out and about. I've got the tiniest bit of summer fatigue. Like, I don't want pool season to end, but we had TWO WHOLE DAYS of nice, cooler weather and man does it make me want to wear jeans and maybe a sweater without sweating out all of my body's water supply. ANYWAYS, let's get to the real reason I'm here today - books! As always, linking up with Steph & Jana for Show Us Your Books. If you missed what I read in July, you can find that here!

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The Tattooist of Auschwitz: All of my holds tend to come off at once. I think that's because I place them all at once too? Like, oh, this book isn't available, so maybe this one is, oh no another hold. So then I'm in a little bit of a time crunch to finish them. I really enjoyed this one, had a hard time putting it down. It's nice to know that when everything is terrible awful no good that there can be a love story. That there can be light in the dark. It's also really cool that it's based on a true story. That warms your heart too.

Lord Edgeware Dies: I snagged another Poirot novel to be a bit of a buffer between Auschwitz and Columbine, but of course while I was reading that TWO MORE books I wanted to read came off of holds (The Huntress and I Was Anastasia) If I've said it once, I've said it a million times, but I love all of the Poirot books. I'm apparently an Agatha Christie Stan at this point. I love trying to guess who dunnit, to almost always be fooled. I think I figured this one out right as Poirot did though, and it wa a very fun one! As always, I recommend all of the Poirot novels.

The Huntress: I loved The Alice Network so I was super excited for this one to come off of holds. I think I placed the hold way back in April when I first got my library card. This was also book 30 of 30 of my goodreads goal! HOLY COW YOU GUYS. This was so good. I tore through it. It does this thing in the middle, that not everyone will like but I did, where it kind of lulls you into just a nice day to day life of all the characters. Because that's what happened to the characters, you're also experiencing it, but as the reader you know a little bit that they don't, and then when it clicks with the characters it takes OFF and oh my god it was so good. You should absolutely read it. And thank you to everyone in Show Us Your Books who read it before me. WOW. ALL the stars guys. All of them.

The Aviator's Wife: After I decided to quit I Was Anastasia, I found this title and then two days later, two more books came off of my library holds. I really wish they gave me the option to be like "let the person behind me take this turn, and I'll get it after they do!" Anyways. This one is about Charles Lindbergh's wife. As you know, I've already read about Ernest Hemmingway's first wife, and Einstein's wife.. So there's a trend here where I'm interested in the stories of these incredible women who kind of faded behind the scenes. I honestly had no idea about Anne Lindbergh until I picked this one up. I learned a lot of things I didn't know, like that Charles Lindbergh was a Nazi sympathizer. There are some other things that I don't know if they'll spoil the book, or if they were common knowledge I didn't know. I really enjoyed this, even though I kind of didn't care for either Charles or Anne for a little bit. I thought it was super interesting though, I definitely recommend picking it up if you're a sucker for the strong wives who somehow get overshadowed by their husbands.

CURRENTLY READING:
Radium Girls: I'm not sure that I'll get out of WWII any time soon. Somehow I'm all the way down the rabbit hole and maybe having some trouble distinguishing what's current and what happened 80 years ago... This one came off of holds the day before Beloved did so I had the Libby app very kindly letting me know that there were people waiting for both of the books I had checked out. This is the first non-fiction book I've read since Alexander Hamilton and I was shocked at the level of gaslighting they did to these women. I'm not sure why that ever surprises me, but it was intense you guys. I thought I would be done with this one before today, but I'm only about 60% of the way there. It's incredible and hard to read and it makes me so angry and knowing it's all real makes it hurt my heart so much more. So, for being 60% of the way done, I still recommend this one.

I've also had Beloved & The Lost Girls Of Paris come off of library holds so I'll be working on those for September. I really need there to be a way to pause my holds, so I can get caught up on the books I have and maybe the person behind me can go ahead and read one of the books before me. I think I have a couple more that are about to drop, so I'll be hiding from the heat in with my nose in a book for a while.

DID NOT FINISH
I Was Anastasia: This one also came off of a 12 week hold the day after The Huntress, I was a little scared I wouldn't finish The Huntress in time to get to this one. Libby tells you how many people are waiting for your particular copy. This one was a little harder for me to get into because the style of narration changes every chapter or so. Goes back and forth from third person to first person which made me a little dizzy? I honestly made it through the first 120 pages before I admitted defeat. It was not for me. 

That's all I have for August! Did y'all read anything good? I find so many good books from this Show Us Your Books link up, I look forward to it every month! 

Can I Bring Albus: East Palisades Indian Trail (Dog Beach!!)

Welcome back to another edition of Can I Bring Albus? Today we're talking about the dog beach on the Chattahoochee and that dog dad we made very mad the first time we went! If you're new to Can I Bring Albus? I made a designated page where I'll update our adventures by location. We're also always looking for new places to take him, so please send us any and all recommendations! So! Back to the dog beach! 

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So, we've been to the dog beach twice now! It took that many trips for me to realize that there are two different "trails" you can take to get there. Both times we've gone, and probably all of the times we'll go in the future, we've taken the East Palisades Indian Trail. It's just under a mile hike down to the river, so Albus and I both get a workout in. It isn't that hard of a hike in, because it's downhill, but on the way back up it's a little tougher. So almost like a reverse hike.

You basically drive through a neighborhood to get to the trail head, make sure when you get to the park you drive all the way to the end to the actual parking lot. There are lots of little gravel places that look like parking spots, but you will get a ticket from the park ranger. Parking is $5 and you have to put either cash or a check in an envelope. There is no one to take any form of plastic though, so don't forget your paper money! 

You'll hear the dog beach before you see it, Albus always gets excited at the first sight of the river, but that's never where we're stopping. Dogs are allowed to be off-leash here! Which is great! Make sure you're comfortable with that, that you'r dog is comfortable around other dogs, and that you don't bring your good ball to the dog beach. Albus, like many other dogs I've met in off leash situations, doesn't care who that ball belongs to, if one is being thrown, he's chasing it. However, he's not the best retriever, so if someone else throws a ball, he's going to drop the one he has and go after the other one. OR he's going to try to get two, three balls in his mouth. Three is his record so far. 

Our first time at the dog beach, he snagged someone's good Chuckit ball. The dog the ball was thrown for could not have cared less to chase it, but Albus obviously did. We have those balls at home so how is he supposed to know? I rescued the ball from the river three times for this man, who kept throwing the ball but got more mad every time Albus would chase it. I apologized the first time, but bro, if your dog isn't chasing it and you want to keep it, maybe stop throwing it. The more mad this man got, the less I was motivated to get up to my shorts in the water trying to get it back from Albus. I'm more of a "take a ratty old tennis ball in the diaper bag" girl, so if we lose it, it's really okay. This man was SO mad at us. So I guess we weren't at the dog beach to make friends that day. 

The hike back to the parking lot is a little more of a challenge, you get spoiled coming down the hill and then you play in the river, and THEN you have to go back up the hill. I wear my Teva sandals on this hike, so I can get down in the river with Albus and not worry about my shoes getting wet. This trail is also how I learned I am not a Chaco girl. I highly recommend this dog beach, and if you're going, let me know and we'll meet you there! I have a few more Can I Bring Albus? posts coming up, but we're always looking for suggestions! Where should we go next? Have you been to a dog beach?