Category: Meanderings

Good morning!  I am still wiping the sleep from my eyes as I write this.  Today is not only a busy life day (work, work out, pick up my IHN guests and get them to place they are staying, BOOKIES book Club, and my hubby’s birthday), it is also a busy blog day (morning meandering, Immanuel’s Veins tour stop date, and my BBAW Interview Swap).

I feel like I should be popping Fred Flintstone vitamins and Red Bull.  😛

So it is early – but I need to get this party started.  I love BBAW!  This week holds within it everything I love about this book blogging hobby.

• Recognizing other book bloggers
• giveaways and celebrating
• Wonderful bookish topics
• Community! Community!  Community!

What I wanted to do this week was to ask a question each morning of BBAW along with my morning chat and Coffee Cup.  AND I am going to make the giveaways something that I really enjoy.

Today’s giveaway is for one of my guilty pleasures – really good chocolate and a great cup of tea.  Both are wonderful accomplices to a good book on a cool Fall evening.

To enter – please let me know in a comment what that one book is that you recommend time and again and you feel is a must read.  This giveaway is open for today only and the winner will be announced at tomorrow mornings meanderings.  USA or Canada addresses please.

Have fun – oh, and don’t forget to check out my week-long BBAW Giveaway too, your comment here also gives you an entry there.  😀

Morning.  I had no idea it was possible to wake up this tired.  Coffee Cup is trying to be supportive but you know…. it’s a cup.  How much can it do?

Yesterday was a whirlwind of events from the feed The Children event for Haiti which was a big success – our goal was 80,000 meals to be shipped and we reached that and went beyond it.  It was fun to see friends, family, and the community get together and make this happen.  My hubby Al, boxed up meals all day long.  So proud of him.  ♥

We started set up for the Homeless who will arrive this afternoon and then went to church to hear and see the girls that were here from Honduras.  They were also at the food bagging event which was so emotional to see these kids who once lived on the streets of Honduras, now bagging food for kids in Haiti.   I tear up as I type this.

I arrived back home around 8:30 at night.  I read – nothing.  I went through a few of the Blogfest blogs which was fun, and then talked to my college son on the phone for about an hour.  That was it – bed.

Today I am off to finish setting up for the Homeless and then a tailgate party at noon, then groceries and home for a couple of hours I hope before I have to get moving again.  By 6:30 tonight my duties should be all done and I can just come on home and relax….

until Monday morning….. but that…. is another meandering.  😉

Its early and quiet around here.  And dark.  Another sign of Fall.  I am typing at the kitchen table Coffee Cup by my side and looking out the window I see a cloudy gloomy gray sky and very little light.  Good day to be inside that is for sure.

Yesterday was the last day at work for my Administrative Assistant Sandi.  She and I both knew it would be a tough day, we get along so well and have a lot of fun.  Right away when we were talking in the morning I teared up, she said stop that, and she teared up – and I laughed and said I would stay on my side of the office to avoid tears.  😛

We had a surprise going away party for her at 1:30 yesterday – that I could not mention here as she reads my blog.  😀  It went off pretty well and we did surprise her.  She will be missed in the office and it has been awesome getting to know her for the past two years.  We agreed to get together for lunch occasionally to catch up.

Today, in about an hour Chance, Al, and I are heading out to help with the Feed The Children event for Haiti.  I mentioned this in yesterday mornings crazy weekend post.  We will be helping people get to bagging stations and showing them how to put together the mix of soy, seasoning, dried veggies and rice.  We will then weigh, seal, and box the bags to go to Haiti.  Its kind of exciting to be part of this.  We have done it three times before for Honduras.

And speaking of Honduras I get to see some of the kids from Honduras this afternoon.  Three of them are in the states and in my home town.  Crazy – but true!

Hopefully some reading time later tonight.  A little at least.  I tried last night and I lasted about 10 minutes.  Have a super day everyone!  😀

Confession:  I do not like a lot of structure.  That may not surprise some of you who have been reading me for a while.  I like the freedom of doing something … or not.  An over committed schedule makes my skin crawl.   I am what my friends refer to as an introverted extrovert.  I LOVE hanging out with people and experiencing life, but it exhausts me – zaps my energy and the way I restore “my power” is to be alone, unwind….

I know…. I should be on medication…..LOL  😛

This weekend is such an epic sized overcommitment time that I have to actually think about in pieces, like one step at a time to not get over-anxious but all I must accomplish before I hit the finish line of late Sunday.  Here is what I mean:

• Today – I work until 2 pm.  I normally do not work Fridays but it is my assistants last day and I want to work with her as she has been so wonderful and will truly be missed.  Today will be a hard day.  Also – in our own company my husband owns, our longest employee (of 9 years!) is also having his last day.  Al and I are both having sad days.

• This late afternoon I am doing Group Power because it is good for me – and it will help me relax.

• AT 6:30 tonight I need to be at the Armory in town to help set up the tables for the Feed The Children Event tomorrow we are bagging a rice mix to be sent to Haiti.

• Saturday I need to be back at the Armory at 6:30 am to unload the truck that brings the bulk food, and then I help greet people and take them to stations to work until 2 pm.

• AT 2 pm I dash from the Armory with my hubby and we cruise about 10 miles out-of-town to a potluck where some of the kids I know from Honduras will be at and get time to hang out with them a bit.

• At 6:30 we are going to the Saturday Church service as one of the Honduras girls will be sharing her story.  I know this girl well and can not miss this incredible event.  After going to Honduras for the past 6 years to see her – she is in my home town currently.  That blows me away.

• Sunday morning  at 8:30 am I meet the trailer to set up the cots for the Homeless Program.  It is my groups turn to serve for the week.  I need to set up bedrooms for the 3 families that are currently in the program and then go purchase food for the breakfasts and lunches for the week.  I have volunteers that provide the dinners and stay overnight with them each night from Sunday until the following Saturday.

• I race to the church parking lot by 11:00 am as it is out annual tailgate party and my vehicle is one of the tailgate.  Note to self – I need to have a tailgate food item to share…. hmmmm…. I think meatballs are quick and easy.  Leave there by 2 pm
  

• At 4:30 pick up the guests that are in the Homeless Program and take them to where they will be staying the next week and give them their orientation.  Make sure my volunteers are feeling good and then by 6:30 pm go home and probably pass out.  😛

On the bright side – this weekend is filled with wonderful happenings and it is a bummer they are hitting all at once but they will make incredible memories.  I will have pics in my morning meanderings, and actually breaking this down into bite size pieces like I just did makes it feel like a “to do” list that I can conquer one step at a time.  😀

Hope your weekend provides some fun and down time!!!

Morning all!   Yesterday I was going to post the books I discovered while checking out the Monday meme.  However with the Holiday weekend and scraping back  into town mid day on Monday, it did not happen.  Today, this morning, with Coffee Cup at the ready, I am reading to chat books with you.

Jill at Fizzy Thoughts was chatting about this book and I realized I have never read anything by Ray Bradbury.  Nada.  Nothing.   I think I would like to try this in audio and have already reserved it at the library.  I found some wonderful articles online about Ray Bradbury readings at coffee houses….  they had me at coffee.

Everything Distils Into Reading posted a review on this book recently.  I have heard so many good things about this book and I want to read it!  They are talking movie rights on this one and it looks like it is going to happen!

Cem’s Book Hideout has this little gem reviewed.  Now this one I actually have but have not read yet.  Yet.  And I heard the book has coffee quotes! 😀

This book that I discovered over at Amy Reads is probably the hit of the week.  I mean – look at this cover.  AND then after you are done cover admiring, go over and read the review.  I am looking for this one right away!

I received this award from Cheryl over at CMash Loves To Read and I am really terrible at doing awards and passing them on but the question that goes with this one was a bit too good to pass on so here goes.

If you had the chance to go back and change one thing in your life, would you and what would it be?

It’s funny as I was recently just thinking about this.  I would love to go back and spend more time with my kids when they were in their younger years.  We had our kids so young and we were both working full-time trying to get .  I wish I could go back and use daycare less and spend more times with my kids.  They are grown now and I feel I missed a lot of opportunities with them when they were younger.

Anyone who reads this is welcome to the Cherry On Top Award.  I could not possibly choose  just as so many of you have such wonderful book blogs that I enjoy reading.

Final thought, Wordshakers is up and running with its online book club read  for Sept – October 6.  Click here for details on the book and the fun we have lined up with the author including an author chat and a great giveaway!  😀

Have a super day!  I have a busy one – full day at work and then Group Power this late afternoon.  I am also prepping my volunteer list as our serving week with the homeless begins this Sunday.

Off and running!  😛

Good morning.  A cloudy gloomy day here in central Minnesota.  Perfect reading weather that is for sure!  We are leaving this afternoon for the cabin for the weekend with friends.  It will be a nice break after this week and before the hectic week I will coming back to with work and training and my assistants last day.

Yup.  This calls for a cabin getaway.

I am hopeful the weather is a little more promising up north for the weekend.  The friends we are going with have two daughters ages 12 and 9 so they will want to get out and explore.  I don’t really care how much activity I am involved in – but I will be taking The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo with me as that is our September book club read.

I had mentioned that when I read Mockingjay I was following it up with to Kill A Mockingbird.  Mission accomplished.   So later today will be the review of To Kill A Mockingbird, and I am hoping to stop at the video store today and see if they have the movie To Kill A  Mockingbird as I have never seen it and now is the time.

I hope you will all have a wonderful weekend.  Posts will come up throughout the weekend as well as on Sunday the Monday, What Are You Reading post will go up as always.  Meanwhile,  I will leave you with this little mockingbird experience.  😀

Morning.

Coffee Cup and I have been up for about an hour.  Between letting the dogs out for their morning jaunt in the back yard and catching up on my emails before I go to work… I have come to admit something I fight every year.  Summer has gone again.

I felt it the last few days as I stand on the deck in the morning and the mornings are cool.  You can actually smell it in the air.  If you can smell crispness, this is the scent.  Then I sit down at my laptop and see an email from Barnes and Noble titled “A Sad Farewell to Beach Reads”.

*sigh* it must be true.

I did enjoy a nice run with summery light reads, beachy topics and quite a few YA reads, especially after I returned from New York and BEA in May. This time of year, and I have mentioned it before in recent posts, takes on a different read for me.  A heartier read.  I am drawn to larger books that will draw me into characters that I do not so easily want to let go of.

This was the picture that went with the B & N email:

The only one of these I have read at this time is The Passage and I have to say I would agree with them here that I know this book will make my 2010 Best Books of the year list.   I would like to read Matterhorn and The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks has been on TBR since Kim from Sophisticated Dorkiness told me about it over breakfast one morning in New York.

So how about you – are any of these on your wish list or you read them.  Do you agree that these are must reads?

On a separate note I had mentioned yesterday on having a tough day on Tuesday.  My Grandfather passed away that morning.  He had a long, good life, living to the age of 94.  He had his health and lived on his own all the way to a couple of weeks ago when he broke his hip and things just went rapidly down hill from there.  Thank you for those on Twitter and here who shared their condolences, many of you sending kind thoughts and payers my way without even knowing why I took a little pause in my Morning Meanderings yesterday and then moved on.

I look at the wonderful bloggers and book lovers I have had the privilege to meet either in real life or through chatting on this little blog and I have to smile.

Good morning.  Yesterday was a long hard tough day.  I don’t really want to go into details and don’t want to be sad so I am taking a deep breath and moving on and hope that you will all move on with me to this happier space…

Right here.

Monday was the weekly What Are You Reading Post and as of the last couple weeks I  have had a lot of fun sharing with you the lovely bookish finds I come across while visiting the participating blogs as well as a few rabbit trails off to visit other blogs as well.

I have come to refer to this sharing of my finds as:

Over at The Books I Read Blog I found this gorgeous looking (and sounding book). You Don’t Look Like Anyone I know is a memoir that gives new meaning to insight, hindsight, and forgiveness.  Pop over there and read the review!

At The Perpetual Page Turner I found another memoir (what is with me and memoirs lately?).  This one is about an Iraqi girl and is written in blog posts during the Iraq war. I am interested in knowing more about this.

And while I didn’t add a lot to my TBR this week, I did find Alita over at alita.reads struggling over choices of what to read next.  One of her choices was The Guernsey Literary Potato Peel Pie Society which I encouraged her to read that one as I had it on my shelf as well unread.  In fact – I told her we should both pinky swear to read this book in September.

She said I was on and that discussion led to this:

That is me and Alita in our own corners of the world – pinky swearing to read this book!  😀

That was a lot of fun and thanks Alita for going along with this!

Here is a link to Alita’s post – so funny!

😀  Anyone else need to pinky swear to read  TGLAPPPS read in September?

Any fun finds for you while you have skipped and hopped around the blogosphere this week?

Hello and good morning!  COFFEE is on!!!  SO what is so SSSQQQUUUUEEEE worthy that I am dancing around my home at such an early hour – in some cases rousing you out of your email boxes?  WELL… I thought you would never ask!

Last week Wordshakers went live with its first 2010 Online group review of Summer At Tiffany.  Around the blogosphere and even throughout some homes, 26 people signed up to read and review this book.  While most were bloggers who posted reviews on their blogs, a handful were book lovers – blog free, who just sent me emails of how much they enjoyed the book.

The fun of this review went beyond the review.  Marjorie Hart, the wonderful author of Summer At Tiffany has been in communication with me over the last month chatting about her book and the memories and that all went into the author chat we had last week as well as her gift of a signed copy of her book to one of my Book Journey readers.

All of this has left me with warm fuzzies of what Wordshakers can be…. and so I allowed myself to dream…

I wanted Wordshakers online book discussions to be not only a group of us booklovers all gathering our noses around the same book, but I really wanted our book choices to involve author interaction as well.  I wanted to move us to the next level and I felt all I could do was try.

SO….  (I know I am rambling a bit – blame the coffee) I asked last months participants for ideas for our next read and some lovely ideas came out of that.  Then I took two of the books mentioned that I thought would make for wonderful discussions and I contacted the publishers about the idea behind Wordshakers hoping one would be able to respond with a yes, this will work.

Both publishers and book authors responded favorably, not only wishing to be a part of making this a successful reading experience, but offered the author chat as well as a giveaway post.

Thus the SSSQQQQUUUEEEEE!!!

I will announce later today the Wordshaker book for now – October 6.  I think it will generate excitement.  I know it has for me.  After this book is reviewed by whoever wishes to participate, I will then announce the next book that will go from the second week of October to the third week of November (before Thanksgiving).

Anyhoo – I am beyond excited.  😀

Stay tune for the book and the plan …..