Before I got my smartphone, I never took photos with my phone. Since I couldn’t figure out how to get them from my phone to my computer (I lost the cord long ago), what was the point? Now, though, I’ve got Instagram – and I’m sad to say that much of my camera-phone-picture-taking is as pitiful as my Words with Friends scores.

I’m working on it, though – and today’s post will feature a few of my recent Instagram pics. I figure integrating the photos I take with my phone in my monthly What I’m Into post might motivate me to take better shots!

Anyway. So May is over. Thank goodness. It was a bad month at our house, and not one I want to relive or remember too clearly, if I’m honest. Instead I’ll just talk about the fun parts of the month here.

What I’m Reading: The beginning of summer means the beginning of our library’s summer reading program. We trade out a stack of books every couple weeks anyway, so all we have to add to our routine is recording them in the library’s website. After Annalyn listens to 24 books, she receives a free one to keep. Assuming I remember to record them. (Which may or may not be the reason she only got two free books last summer . . .)

I’ve started reading the Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare. The author borrows heavily from other series I’m familiar with, but I’ve enjoyed the series so far. If you like YA paranormal (yeah, I’m still hooked), you’d probably like these books. (If you haven’t already read them. Turns out they’re a few years old and I just had missed them somehow.)

Two of my friends released ebooks last week, and I am super excited about both of them! Dana from A Slob Comes Clean is offering a FREE ebook called Teach Your Kids to Clean. Who doesn’t need that?! And Leigh from Funky Faith Girl wrote Frayed: Holding Onto God’s Grace in a Marriage About to Snap. It’s just $4.99 at Amazon, and if you don’t have a Kindle, remember you can download the Kindle app for your laptop or phone for free!

What I’m Watching: Of course May was full of season finales. (If you haven’t weighed in on your favorite finales, please hop over to share your thoughts on the season!) A few summer shows have already begun, though, so I’ve been enjoying So You Think You Can Dance and my not-so-secret guilty pleasure, Melissa & Joey. (I know, okay? I KNOW.) I’ve also started watching Fairly Legal on USA. I didn’t like it at all last year, but now, the more I watch it, the more the characters are growing on me. Do you watch this one?

For our anniversary last weekend, Mark took me to a nice Italian restaurant (where they printed our names on the menu and the hostess wished us a happy anniversary about 14 times!) and then to see The Avengers. I don’t read comic books but I love superhero movies – and though I thought Captain America was a snore-fest, Iron Man is one of my favorite superhero movies. Thankfully, I thought The Avengers was nearly as entertaining as Iron Man on his own (despite the still-boring Captain America).

That’s more than I can say for One for the Money, which I rented one night when nothing was on TV. *sigh* I love the Janet Evanovich series of books that this movie was based on. Maybe that’s why I was so disappointed by the movie. To me, someone who has read all 18 books in the series, I didn’t think it stayed true to the books at all. I’m not saying Katherine Heigl is completely to blame. [She is. She totally is.] But she is no Stephanie Plum.

Oh – I also finally saw Bridesmaids. And completely laughed my head off, which was sorely needed in the month of May.

What I’m Eating: Nothing good, I can tell you that. I completely fell off the eating-well wagon last month. And on top of that? I tried so very hard to make cookies last week and FAILED. It was a sad, sad day. My friend was having a garage sale and bake sale to raise money for an adoption. I volunteered to make cookies because a) I wanted to help, b) I wanted to eat the leftovers and c) how hard could it be?

Right. One batch involved me foolishly combining two recipes, using too much flour and ending up with hard-as-a-rock cookies. And the second one involved batter that was so runny it was impossible to bake into anything resembling cookies. Crispy, stuck-to-the-pan chocolate goop? Yes, that I could do.

I’m attempting two new recipes tomorrow, one of them for cookies. Fingers crossed the Curse of the Cookies has passed . . .

What I’m Hearing & Seeing: For several weeks now, the view from our house has been construction, dirt, orange cones and bulldozers. Unfortunately for Mark (who sleeps during the day, thanks to working nights), that has included a soundtrack of beeping, scraping and jackhammering. On the plus side, we got the bottom 20 percent of our driveway replaced.

Finally, a video that cracked me up, courtesy of my brother. (Well, he didn’t make the video. But he did bring it to my attention, which I do so appreciate.)

What were you into in May?

This post was inspired by Sorta Crunchy’s monthly post. And it contains affiliate links.