Category: Meanderings

G’ morning.  I stayed up way too late and now, 6 hours after I went to bed… I am up with Coffee Cup prepping for my day.  I have looked better…. 😯 and yes, 6 hours means I lost my Game On sleep points.

I took my bike out for a short jaunt yesterday late afternoon and just circled about 8 miles in the vicinity of my house.  I haven’t had time to bike ride for a while and with the big 150 mile ride coming this weekend, I thought maybe – just maybe, I should ride a bit prior.

I am excited for this ride, I took part in it last year for the first time with my cousin Jarrod and it was an amazing ride.  This particular ride is to raise money for a camp that helps kids with Aids.  This is the first time the ride starts and stops in my home town so the nice thing is I do not have to travel the night before to the starting line.  It’s actually about 7 miles from my house.

In Game On Diet news I have been doing pretty well and actually took my first two point hits yesterday by missing a meal (Doh!!!) and then not getting in my 7 hours of sleep (10 points lost I think…).  However, I did feel confident enough to step on the scale this morning and from Sundays first weigh in I am now 4.8 (almost 5!) pounds down.  No kidding.  I am shocked as well.

And finally in bookish news, the cover of Loren Oliver’s new book, Delirium has been revealed:

This book will not be out until February of 2011 but I am excited all the same… I really did enjoy her debut book, Before I Fall.

That’s it for this morning, I have work and then Group Power tonight, then I need to get home and write a couple of guest posts for my friend Trisha from Eclectic Eccentric while she vacations next week.  It will be fun and I will tell you more about these posts later….

I feel good.  This is the start to day 3 of the Game On Diet that I am participating in with 12 other bloggers and I am doing pretty well so far.  I am keeping an ongoing journal for the month here, but you can check it any time by clicking on the widget on the right sidebar.  No big ranting yet… but I am sure it is coming.  😀

Last night I made dinner for Al and I out of the Game On Diet book.  Shhh…. don’t tell Al, he has no idea what he ate was actually good for him! I made the mango chicken and it was super yummy!  The mango salsa really was amazing and I think when this is all over and we have company I am so making that salsa!

Here’s a couple of pics (because – I am a picture-taking fool!)

So good and covered all the vegie, fruit, and protein I needed out of the meal.  SO yay!  😀

Ok – other than food, I wanted to mention that while I traveled the blogosphere looking at the Monday memes and what everyone is reading – I picked up a couple I had to connect with at my local library. When blog surfing (which I have learned does not count as my twenty minutes of exercise for the Game On Diet) I like to keep my online library reserve link open so I can plug-in titles as I see them.

Ok coffee cup and I need to get a move on it.  I may bike into work this morning if I think I can do it without hitting and road work.  GAH.  I know… I said it.  ROAD WORK.

Review coming up today that is not only SQUUUEEEE worthy (and it is) it is also thought worthy.  Hope you can all stop by!  (yes, that was a bit Southern of me and I do not know why…. perhaps it is the Mango chicken….)

Good morning.  I am meandering this morning in Finland Minnesota.  Elmo, my trusty sidekick and loyal shih-tzu and I traveled to the cabin yesterday.  Between the traffic and the road work, the usual 3 hour trip took close to over 4 hours.  There was a time in Two Harbors where we just sat in single lane traffic in park for about 25 minutes.

Have I mentioned lately how much I appreciate audio?  😀

The cabin area itself is still internet free.  This morning I decided I would prep the meandering from the cabin and then drive into town and find a nice little coffee shop where I will complete this post as well as my afternoon post – my review of The Color Purple by Alice Walker.  Up to this reading, I have never read or seen the movie The Color Purple – now I can see if I can find the movie.

My goal for my short stint to the cabin was to get some cleaning done and some reading.  Last night I completes washing the sheets and towels, and cleaning the two guest rooms.  I also completed two books and I am thrilled that I have made such progress.

Today I will clean out the cupboards, wash all the dishes (don’t panic – there is not that many!),  dust, wipe down counters, sweep, mop, and vac.  I should have drought my cd player so I could listen to audio while I did most of this but that will be a note to do this in the future.

I am heading back home early afternoon to have dinner with my hubby, maybe a movie, and then tomorrow we move my son to Mankato in prep for college.  Life…. is never dull.

(turns out – I am posting this from a cafe in Silver Bay Minnesota – Northwoods cafe. )

I am heading back to the cabin this early afternoon. This time – I am going alone, well, except for my dog Elmo. Elmo LOVES to ride in cars and we just do not travel to enough places that he can go along, unlike when the kids were growing up we were on the go all the time with the dogs and the kids…. (oh the memories!)

This time I am just going for today and will be back Saturday afternoon.  My goal is to do some cleaning and a lot of reading.  Just a little break from it all.  I would stay until Sunday but we move Justin back to Mankato  on Sunday so I need to be ready to roll in that direction.

I am taking Lap Top with me as I think I can find a little coffee shop to hopefully hang out in and do a little catching up blog wise as well.  Should be a good adventure I hope – oh and audio all the way of course!  😀

That leads me to the books I am taking with, I have the books I am reading this week to work on and of course I said today I would choose my random winner from the “Choose The Next Book I Read” post.  That winner – and the book is:

Jennifer (at Jennifer Justice reads)

and her pick:

Please Stop Laughing At Me by Jodee Blanco

Adult/High School-From fifth grade through high school, Blanco was teased, shunned, and, at times, physically assaulted by her classmates because she was different. She befriended handicapped students, “ratted” on the activities of fellow 12-year-olds at her first boy/girl party, and could not bring herself to dissect a fetal pig. Her experiences with school bullies occurred in a variety of settings, including religious and private schools. At various points in this visceral memoir, Blanco fumes at the injustice of being subjected to psychiatric diagnosis and medication while her tormentors remained unbothered and oblivious, and states that “sticking up for people” and/or being different is a “social death warrant.” While her loving parents were sympathetic and supportive, their well-meant admonitions to ignore her harassers and “rise above it all” sprang from adult logic; adolescents simply interpreted her indifference as weakness. The author’s emotional torment was partly due to a breast deformity; corrective surgery performed prior to her senior year allowed her, finally, to begin viewing her future optimistically.

That’s the book traveling with me…. and others.  Hope you have a wonderful weekend – I will have a review or two up int he next couple of days here.

Here is a video of my hubby asking Elmo if he wants to go for a ride….. love the head tilt (Elmo’s not Al’s)  😉

This is the list that arrived in my mailbox this morning from Amazon.  These are the books that are saying are the best books of 2010 so far:

The Best Books of 2010… So Far
	The Passage by Justin Cronin Read more The Irresistible Henry House by Lisa Grunwald Read more Country Driving by Peter Hessler Read more The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest by Stieg Larsson Read more The Big Short by Michael Lewis Read more Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes Read more The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman Read more The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot Read more Just Kids by Patti Smith Read more The Lonely Polygamist by Brady Udall Read more

I am currently listening to #1 – The Passage.  As I only listen to it in the morning as I get ready for my day, it is slow going.  I probably get in about 15 – 25 minutes a day on it and it is a 35 hour audio.  I can’t really say how I feel about it yet.  It is different and the initial story line hooked me in and I am waiting for that to come full circle.  It also has really made me think about the future of the world – not to this end, but as to how much we fully rely on electricity etc…. but , that is quite literally… another book.

I had a goal this summer to read the books of the series of #4.  I have heard so many good things and I do have the first book, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, I just need to start it.  Sometime.  Hopefully soon.  😀

#8, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks fascinates me and I really REALLY want to read that one.

The rest 2,3,5,6,9, and 10 I know little about but at this time have no interest in reading any of them.

How about you?   Are any of these Amazon “Best Of 2010” on your “to be read” list – or do you have any others you would add as the best of the best so far this year?

Good morning!   Coffee Cup and I are lying low, I am working on growing a mustache and going by the name of “Vinnie”.  I have really gone and done it this time…..

I have over due library books.

I received the letter last Friday and I have never received a letter before.  Usually it is an email.  In fact the book they mentioned I had forgotten I had checked out and had to do a search and rescue off the shelf to return.  SO – I did actually go to the library (the scene of the crime) before I left town on Friday – and I had good intentions to return the several (GULP!) late items I had – but….. here’s my story.

1.  I am in my car on my way to the library and there is a train.  SO while I wait, I pull open one of the books sitting beside me.  I chose Not Without Hope by Nick Schuyler.  I had started this one but did not get it finished.  A true story that actually happened in early 2009, when 4 friends went out on a fishing trip and only one came back.   I started flipping through the pages while I waited for the train.  I hooked myself into the book and knew I could not return it yet.  While I went into the Library, Not Without Hope stayed in the car with me.

2.  Also over due are the CD audio for Happy Potter and The Deathly Hollows.  This one  I have been listening to all along, but it is 17 CD’s.  I haven’t had a large road trip as of late to get this one in and have listened to it as I puttered around town but that has got me to CD #14 by the time of the overdue notice.  CD #14 out of 17.  I can’t stop now….. I have to finish……. so that one has not been returned either.

Today however – both will be going back.  I finished up Not Without Hope over the weekend and that review will be up today.   I am on CD 17 of The Deathly Hollows and I will finish it even if I have to sit in my car to do it.

I had a wonderful weekend with my friends on the North Shore.  I posted a picture yesterday with the Monday What Are You Reading post.  We visited the shops around Silver and Beaver Bay, spent Saturday afternoon at Lutsen riding the sleds down the Alpine Slide, enjoying yummy salads and that evening we attended a street dance.

It is good to be home and it looks like I am going to go back this next weekend just Friday and part of Saturday to do some cleaning that I just couldn’t get to with company.  I have to be back Saturday because Sunday morning we are driving my son and his belongings back to Mankato to his new apartment.

Tonight said son and I are going to the movie Inception.  He says I have to see it!  Busy week!  How about you anything happening this week – bookish or otherwise?

I noticed yesterday that my upper left sidebar Twitter button is gone.  Stolen from my blog?  I do not know so I took my case to Twitter and found out that many bloggers are missing their Twitter buttons.   It’s like a bad Twilight episode….  anyone have the answer of what is going on?  I could not seem to fix it either.  Uhhhhhh…. A w k w a r d.

In other bookish news….. I was very excited to hear that Swaptree which is known for swapping books is going to start allowing audio books to be Swapped in August.  Seriously that calls for a big SQQQQQQUUUUUUUUEEEEEEEE!  😀  I love audio and have been tossing around ideas of how to do a swap so I could get my hands on some of the great audio books I have been hearing about.  Maybe this will be the answer.

And finally, I seen this You Tube video posted at Maw Books and it made me smile.  If you remember a while back I posted about the Old Spice commercial that just cracked me up.  Well this is kind of a spoof of that and made my day when I seen it!

I am off to a day at work and hopefully some biking or blading in the afternoon.   I will be posting a review later.  Have a super day 😀

Most of you are probably familiar with the Monday, What Are You reading meme that I host each Monday.  I love to see the bloggers and book lovers checking out different blogs and picking up great titles as well as maybe seeing blogs that they would enjoy following.  I really LOVE the community of blogging.

I too like to take time on Mondays to go and see what is happening out in the blogesphere….. what are people reading, what bookish news are they chatting about….. I love it all!

This past Monday I found a couple books that I cant get out of my head.  The first one I seen over at Second Childhood Reviews:

I think this looks so interesting – what a cover!

Then…. Julie at My Book Retreat has this book review up:

This one is about Conjoined Twins and Julie’s review is so good!

Today I will be posting my review of Seven Year Switch and also my author chat with Claire Cook.  I am so excited to share these both with you!  😀

How about you, see any good books around the blogesphere?