Happy Birthday America

Oh, what a weekend. It was great to be home and visit with friends, especially those that live far away that you don't get to see often. But maybe the best thing about this past Independence Day was not only our right to freedom, but my individual freedom from work, responsibility, and "to do" lists. It was an impossible task, but I tried my best not to think about any of those things this weekend. My sole focus was to enjoy the times spent with others and alone in resting, reading...and maybe some tv/movie watching.

This morning I started one of the books I wanted to read this summer, A Farewell to Arms by Hemingway. I'm only about 45 pages in, but I am already enjoying the character development. In my opinion, Hemingway had a gift in creating these unbelievably exciting female characters. Both Brett Ashley (The Sun Also Rises) and Catherine Barkley (A Farewell to Arms) are brilliant and I recommend discovering both of them if you are into literature. I mean, you don't know anything about them really, but you cannot help but love them right from the start.

The World Cup semifinals start tomorrow, but I won't be able to watch the games because of work. I wish we were like other countries and stopped everything we did for situations such as these. For the first time in my life, I think I wouldn't mind living in France. Because despite whether or not work permitted, I would just go on strike for the day...supposedly it's an accepted practice. Since the US of A is out, I'm pulling for my second favorite country in the world, Spain!

Cool fact of the day, the title of Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises, is linked to the verse Ecclesiastes 1:5.

-The sun rises, and the sun goes down, and hastens to the place where it rises.

If you've read the novel, the whole first chapter of Ecclesiastes seems to tie in someway...