91. Read and Review 100 Books (19/100) The Girl Who Played With Fire - Stieg Larsson

'Part blistering espionage thriller, part riveting police procedural, and part piercing expose on social injustice, The Girl Who Played with Fire is a masterful, endlessly satisfying novel.


Mikael Blomkvist, crusading publisher of the magazine Millennium, has decided to run a story that will expose an extensive sex trafficking operation. On the eve of its publication, two people are brutally murdered, and the fingerprints found on the murder weapon belong to his friend, the troubled genius hacker Lisbeth Salander. Blomkvist, convinced of Salander's innocence, plunges into an investigation. Meanwhile, Salander herself is drawn into a murderous game of cat and mouse, which forces her to face her dark past.'


What a great sequel! The novel picks up pretty much straight after the events of the first novel, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and immediately throws you on a roller-coaster ride. It provides a good deal of insight into why Lisbeth Salander is the way she is, and helps to explain her past while she's dealing with the accusations of being a murderer... I couldn't put this book down!!

86. Send a birthday card snail mail to every member of my immediate family for a year (7/11)

I spied this card a number of months ago at Hallmark and immediately thought of my crazy, wacky and zany sister-in-law Belinda... you see Bel is anything but boring or usual... she's a little loopy (in a good way) and has an awesome sense of humour... oh and she absolutely adores puppies... therefore this seemed like the most perfectly fantastic card for her birthday... did I mention the old duck is also turning 30 this years!!! When oh when did we get so old (thank goodness I have 18 months until the big 3-0 calls my name) ?!?! Happy Birthday Smelly Belly Welly... hope you have a fantastic birthday, a milestone, and your first as a mommy... I hope the hubby spoils you rotten on your big day and ensures you don't have to change a dirty diaper the whole entire day!!! 

43. Learn how to cook 5 authentic Thai dishes (1/5) Pat Thai

Ever since my first ever trip to Thailand at 18, I've wanted to learn how to cook the deliciously tasty cuisine of the land of smiles at home in my own kitchen - but now that I live in Houston, it seems unlikely that I'll be able to plan a week long cooking class tour of Bangkok and so I've resorted to the next best thing - one of the most authentic cookbooks on the market, David Thompson's Thai Food. So off we trudged to the local Asian Grocer in Houston to find the ingredients needed to turn our kitchen into a little street vendor on Sukhumvit Road.

Ingredients

A good handful of dried thin rice noodles

1 tablespoon palm sugar

1 tablespoon white sugar

1 tablespoon tamarind water

2 tablespoons fish sauce

1 small bunch Chinese chives

1 teaspoon oil

2 red shallots, coarsely chopped

1 egg

50g firm bean curd, chopped and deep fried

6 prawns

1 teaspoon salted white radish

pinch roasted chilli powder

handful bean sprouts

1 tablespoon crushed roasted peanuts

1 lime wedge

Directions

Soak noodles in water for at least 2 hours, until soft. Drain. Simmer palm sugar and white sugar with tamarind water and fish sauce for 1-2 minutes, until dissolved. Chop most of the Chinese chives into 2cm lengths, reserving a few - chopped into 5 cm lengths - for garnish.

Heat oil in a wok over a medium heat and fry shallots until fragrant and beginning to colour. Crack in one egg, turn down the heat and stir. Mix in bean curd, prawns and white radish, the add noodles. Turn up the heat and stir fry for about a minute, allowing the noodles to colour a little. Add the prepared sauce and the pinch of chilli powder, then simmer for another minute, adding a little more oil if necessary.

Finally add most of the bean sprouts and Chinese chives, cook for another 30 seconds, until wilted. Check seasoning: the noodles should taste sweet, sour and salty.

Pile on a plate and top with the reserved bean sprouts and Chinese chives. Serve with crushed roasted peanuts, a lime wedge and roasted chilli powder on the side of the plate.

It was pretty darn delicious, and the closest I've ever come to cooking authentic Thai at home.. but I must admit nothing beats the real deal on the humid and hot streets of Bangkok.. but until I'm lucky enough to find myself back there again, this'll do!! 

91. Read and Review 100 Books (18/100) The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson

'Harriet Vanger, a scion of one of Sweden's wealthiest families disappeared over forty years ago. All these years later, her aged uncle continues to seek the truth. he hires Mikael Blomkvisk, a crusading journalist recently trapped by a libel conviction, to investigate. He is aided by the pierced and tattooed punk prodigy Lisbeth Salander. Together they tap into a vein of iniquity and corruption.'

Slightly disturbing, extremely enthralling, I really did not want to put this book down.. its a bloodthirsty page turner that makes you think and keeps you on the edge until the very last chapter.. twisting this way and that. This book had me so hooked that I seriously found myself on Amazon purchasing the next in the trilogy, The Girl Who Played With Fire, before I'd even gotten half hay through this instalment. I'm not sure what took me so long to finally pick this book up off my bookshelf and give it a go but I'm very glad I did.. looking forward to the next twisted tale. 

94. Buy a deliciously expensive piece of jewlery - Tiffany's celebration ring anyone???

Well I'm not quite closing this particular task out with a pretty little piece of bling on my finger... BUT I am closing it out with a spectacular piece of jewelry from every girls favourite premiere jeweler.. there really is something special about that little blue box wrapped in the cream ribbon that seems to set every girls heart aflutter... Yesterday my amazing and fantastic hubby treated me to my first piece from Tiffany & Co! 

I've been eying off the Platinum and diamond Tiffany Garden Bee Pendant since its release earlier in the year however I was bitterly disappointed when weeks after its initial release it was pulled from the Tiffany website and replaced with a two tone (white/yellow gold) version that, I personally, was not as impressed with.. my heart kinda broke a little.. the potentially perfect pendant had slipped through my fingers... Well yesterday morning I was browsing the Tiffany website when what do I spy... the original pendant back in stock.. I ran upstairs woke up sleeping beauty and convinced him to head to Galleria with me just to see if this was indeed something I wanted to continue to lust over... 

We arrived at Tiffany, after stopping for a little pre-shopping fuel.. and was soon trying on my lust worthy piece, lust worthy indeed, it was perfect! So sweet, so feminine, so dainty, the perfect little sparkly bee on a teeny tiny little platinum chain... Just as I was asking the sales associate how long Tiffany usually keeps designs in stock, the hubby turns to me and says 'Do you want it? Let's do it'. Talk about shocking me!! Tears literally sprang to my eyes.. apparently it looked so absolutely perfect on me that he just couldn't walk away from it... awwww... what did I do to deserve such an amazingly generous man?!?!?

So the sales associate wrapped my little bee up in the beautiful Tiffany box, swiped the credit card and we were walking out the door with a deliciously fantastic diamond pendant... just because! 

91. Read and Review 100 Books (17/100) The Story of Edgar Sawtelle - David Wroblewski

'Born mute, speaking only in sign, Edgar Sawtelle leads an idyllic life with his parents on their farm in remote northern Wisconsin. For generations, the Sawtelles have raised and trained a fictional breed of dog whose remarkable gift for companionship in epitomized by Almondine, Edgar's life long friend and ally. Edgar seems poised to carry on his families traditions, but when catastrophe strikes, he finds his once-peaceful home engulfed in turmoil. 


Forced to flee into the vast wilderness lying beyond the Sawtelle farm. Edgar comes of age in the wild, fighting for his survival and that of the three yealing dogs who accompany him, until the day he is forced to choose between leaving forever or returning home to confront the mysteries he has left unsolved. 


Filled with breathtaking scenes - the elemental north woods, the sweep of seasons, an iconic American barn, a fateful vision rendered in the falling rain - The Story of Edgar Sawtelle is a meditation on the limits of language and what lies beyond, a brilliantly inventive retelling of an ancient story, and courage in the American heartland.' 


Loved this book.. the characters are loveable and tragic.. there were times where I almost threw the book down and swore I wouldn't read a word more as I was so invested in the characters and I though something bad was on the horizon... A truly iconic American novel - you'll laugh, you'll cry.. you'll be totally enthralled with Edgar and his bad of intuitive pups.

49. My two words of the month

Since we seem to be having so many darn incidents at work lately, and I feel as if my job is nothing more than investigation and recommendation writing, it made sense that my words this month where so related...

as·sid·u·ous

   [uh-sij-oo-uhs]

–adjective

1.

constant; unremitting: assiduous reading.

2.

constant in application or effort; working diligently at a task;persevering; industrious; attentive: an assiduous student.

AND

ca·lam·i·ty

   [kuh-lam-i-tee] 

–noun, plural -ties.

1.

a great misfortune or disaster, as a flood or serious injury.

2.

grievous affliction; adversity; misery: the calamity of wa