Giovanni’s Italian Restaurant

Last Friday after work I headed to Atlanta to see my best friend, Perry! When I got there we were both hungry so we headed straight to dinner at Giovanni’s. Giovanni himself was there and came over and talked to us. He was really nice. I always like when the owner of a restaurant comes around.

We had a sweet red wine.

I ordered the Baked Ziti. It was very good! I was surprised at how much I liked this place. I am not a huge Italian fan but everything was really good. The best part was the garlic bread. It was so good I didn’t even take a picture ;).

After dinner we went back to her house and looked at engagement pictures and chatted for a bit until time for the movies. We went and saw The Five-Year Engagement.

I thought it was funny but not what I was expecting at all. I was expecting a lot more funnier. I thought the end was cute when they finally did get married.

I can’t wait to share the rest of the weekend’s events with you!

{books} Mockingjay

I finished reading Mockingjay a few weeks ago but have not had the time to sit down and write a review on it until now.

I was a little worried about reading it because I had heard several people say that they didn’t like it even though they liked the first two. I thought Mockingjay was up to par with The Hunger Games and Catching Fire. I read the whole book anticipating something to happen in it to make me not like it since I had heard bad things. In the end, when I thought I’d figured out why some had said they didn’t like the book Katniss through me for a loop. So I am still unsure why people did not like the book if they liked the first two.

I like the whole series and would suggest reading them if you haven’t already.

I went to see The Hunger Games movie the Friday it came out. Not at 12am but that night at 9:30pm. As I have expressed before, I am not a late night/early morning person so you won’t catch me at a midnight showing for any movie. The last movie I went to at midnight I slept through…

The Hunger Games movie was really good in my opinion.

Some of the characters did not appear as I had imagined but I think they were still really good depictions from the book. 

Only a few parts were different from the book. I think if they had done everything exactly like the book it would have been another hour long. So I am okay with the changes they made. However, I do like the book a whole lot more than the movie but isn’t this always the case?

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Let’s chat!

• Have you read Mockingjay? If so, what did you like/dislike about the book?
• If you have seen The Hunger Games movie, did you like it? How do you feel about the differences between the movie and book?

{books} Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

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I read the book 4 or 5 years ago. It was slow to start out with but I liked the concept of the book. It is about a nine year old boy, Oskar, whose father died in the World Trade Center on September 11th. It takes you through his journey of coping with his death. Before his father died, he had been sending him on a scavenger hunt throughout the Boroughs of New York in search of the Sixth Borough. After his dad dies, Oskar, finds an envelope with a key inside. On the envelope the word “Black” is written on it. Oskar searches and tries to talk to all of the people in New York City with the last name Black hoping someone will know his father and know what lock the key fits into. Throughout Oskar’s journey he meets people going through rough times and trials of their own.

I went to see the movie this past Saturday night. It was good and I thought (from what I remember from the book) the movie did a good job at portraying the book. I did think it was a little long (2 hours and 9 minutes!) and like the book started out slow. This movie is sad so be sure to take some tissues.

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During the movie my head began to hurt and gradually got worse. After the movie was over we came back to my apartment I couldn’t turn any lights on or look at my phone. My head was killing me, I was nauseous and when I closed my eyes I could see blue flashing lights. It hurt so bad tears were pouring out. I took some Advil and went to bed with a heat pad on my head. After hours of laying in the dark I fell asleep and didn’t wake up until 11:00 a.m. on Sunday. I hope I never get a migraine again!

Questions:

• Do you have migraines? If so, what do you do to get rid of them?
• Have you read and/or seen Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close? What did you think?

Game Day

This morning we ran 2 miles starting from Trey’s house. Here are my stats. Trey was nice enough to slow way down and run with me.



After running we got ready to go to Brandon’s house to watch the game and cook out. They were taking care of all the main food so we went to Fresh Market and picked up our own drinks and some salsa, guac and chips to share. Here were my beverages of choice.



I ended up getting all non-alcoholic drinks. I drank the coffee on the way to Brandon’s from Fresh Market. I liked it a lot! The Shipwreck Soda tasted like a Sprite but with more of a lime flavor. Virgil’s Root Beer was my favorite out of the drinks besides the latte one. I love root beer. I did not like the hint fizz. It is a sparkling water. I had never tried a sparkling water until today. I will not be buying one again.



They had a tv set up on their back porch. The weather was perfect to sit outside. It got a little hot but then it cooled back down. I am not going to lie after half time we moved inside to the couch and someone may or may not have snoozed. I am not talking about me.



This was before everything was set out. There was some serious snackage going on. I did not take pictures of the main course but it was delicious. We had grilled chicken, baked beans and potato salad. They all did a great job on the food and I probably ate too much. Alabama had another win! Roll Tide!

After the game Trey and I headed to the movies. We saw Contagion. It was a good movie. They could have left out one detail. I don’t want to spoil it for anyone its not a big part of the movie but I just didn’t like the part and felt like it was not needed. Definitely worth going to see. It is kind of scary to think about. A disease epidemic is something that could potentially take place. It made me think of how our government and world would handle an event like this.

We came back to Trey’s after the movie and made a grilled cheese and tomato soup to split.

Now since it is 1 in the morning I am off to sleep. I hope everyone had a great Saturday!

Mobile for the weekend

Today after work I ran home and packed my bags and headed to Mobile for the weekend.When I arrived I had this waiting on me for dinner.



A ginger salad and….



a Roll Tide Roll and …



a War Eagle roll… (okay those words are blasphemy but the sushi roll is so good!) Trey had ordered Wasabi sushi for dinner. He definitely knows the way to my heart. Load me up with sushi and ginger salad. I am totally kidding… or am I?

After dinner we watched Hanna. It was better than I had anticipated. I would say watch it if you like suspense type movies. There was no falling asleep for me during the movie and that is saying a lot. I worked 8 hours today then drove 3.5 I am about to pass out. So good night all!