Christmas in April & Top 2 Tuesday

Any day I get a book in the mail, is just as good as Christmas. :-) I received one yesterday and was excited enough, but to add to it, today, this one came in the mail.

I'm still reading Dear John right now, and I have a couple of other books that are in line before this one, but I get so excited when I get a new book. Does that make me a nerd?

In other news, it's Top 2 Tuesday. I don't normally participate, but this week my list of blogging topics was blank, so here you go:

Today's topic is: Top 2 Magazines. I'm not a big magazine girl, and my favorite was Cosmo, before I got married. Nowadays, the topics just seem to bore me.

1. Wahine & Surf Life for Women. It's a tie. Both of these magazines have been discontinued. So I figured that together, they can count as one.

I was so priveleged to be able to grow up with both of these great magazines, and the women who had a major part in them. My sister had a tight-knit group of friends when she was my age and I was just breaking into puberty as a wannabe and I thought that her and her friends were soooo cool. They really were. One of my sister's friends was the editor-in-chief for Wahine and it took her cross-country. It started as a small-town East Coast magazine and became a national read. She also had a large part to play in Surf Life for Women once Wahine stopped publication.

The best part of reading these magazines was reading the articles about people that I knew or I had met through surf events with my sister. I would cut out pictures and articles and put them all over my notebooks and my locker. Those memories with my sister are childhood memories that I treasure. I had so many great experiences.

2. The Nest

I know, it's not really a magazine, per se, because you get it for free every quarter, but I love it. I can re-read the same issue over and over before I get tired of it. It has great recipes and decorating ideas. Plus, one of my favorite features is when they show the size/shape/age of homes across the country that were bought at certain prices. For instance, a 4000 sq ft. 5BR/4BA Colonial in the suburbs of Tennessee can cost the same as our 1000 sq ft. 2BR/1BA in our neighborhood. It makes me feel a little better about the fact that we don't have a huge sprawling house, but we could if we would move away from civilization, as I like to say. So, if you don't get the Nest, you should check it out.