Books & a Movie: A Near Perfect Evening

One of my BFFs (Going Jane) came to visit me this week, which is a rare but awesome occurrence. After cooking for her the night before (check out my last blog post), we went out to dinner with Brat (aka Frugalista Farm Life) at Rock Bottom and made a meal from their $5 appetizers - I highly recommend their pretzels and spicy cheesy spinach dip!

Then we hit the used bookstore! If you LOVE to read - like my friends and I do - then you MUST seek out the used bookstore(s) in your area.

I'm lucky to be close to not one, but two, Half Price Books locations (HPB) and I visit them frequently. It's much more fun to go with friends who share my love of reading and such was the case this week.

As you can see, I hit the jackpot! First, I found a copy of The Pioneer Woman Cooks. Going Jane was quite jealous because she just bought her copy at full-price! I love, love, love The Pioneer Woman's blog and had been wanting to get her book for a while now.

I'm headed on vacation in a couple of weeks so I needed some good "by the pool" reads. My co-worker, LH, loaned me a copy of The Help and I'm excited to read it after two fellow bloggers (3 kids and lots of pigs and Alarm Clock Wars) said they had read and enjoyed it.

I also picked up The Prince of Nantucket because I lived just off Cape Cod for a year working for cranberry growers (I'll talk more about that another time) and usually enjoy novels set in that area, as well as The Letters because I enjoy Luanne Rice novels.  

As you can see I also grabbed a copy of Bed of Roses by Nora Roberts. I'm a HUGE Nora Roberts fan and actually already have bought, read and loaned out the first three books in her Bride Quartet (and I desperately want to pre-order the final installment). This copy is for my BFF Bathtub Mama who is looking for her own set after reading my copies! I have found her the first two at HPB. If you like Nora Roberts' earlier romance novels - then you'll love this series. They are an entertaining, easy, enjoyable read.

I also picked up some of romance novels from authors I enjoy reading - including Sandra Brown, Sara Orwig and Maureen Child. These are what I like to read when I just want to turn off my brain and relax. No deep storylines here, but I enjoy them!

The best part of the trip to HPB...notification of their upcoming Memorial Day sale! Nothing better than 20 percent off books already at half-price or less!

As if the shopping trip wasn't enough, we also stopped by the Red Box (don't you love them?) and rented a couple of movies even though it was a work night! We settled on watching Crazy Heart starring Jeff Bridges.

Usually I'm leery about movies that critics like and that win awards - I'm not always impressed, but both Going Jane and I are country music fans (she more than I) so it was a good choice. It didn't hurt that Robert Duvall and Colin Farrell (oh, he's so bad that he's so good) were in it too.

The movie was good, the company even better, so it was a great end to a great evening.