Meanderings – Page 41

Morning Meanderings.. The Making of A Library Book Sale

Published on March 19, 2014 by Sheila (Book Journey)16 Comments

Happy Wednesday! I have not had much blogesphere time this past couple of weeks as life has once again taken a turn to the busy… good busy so I am not complaining…. I just really wish I could do it all. 😀

My work life is busy at this time… a lot of exciting things happening that is keeping me moving (more on that some day soon) and it seems that now we sort of had a taste of warmer weather, my energy level has risen as well and I am doing more home projects as well, oh and yes… the running has started for the year – I had a 7K last weekend and a 5K coming up this Saturday evening, a night run… my first and it should be fun.

The majority of my time this week though, is going to our spring Library sale. I have been working hard on the brochure for Wine and Words this year, the tickets, and a brochure and logo for our Friends Of The Library group as well… all to reveal at the Spring Library sale where all bookish people gather. The sale starts tomorrow (Thursday) morning.

The gathering of the books is a year-long process. People are welcome and encouraged to bring in their gently used books for the sale as well as the library donated books that have been withdrawn from the library. Twice a year, the Friends bring these books upstairs into the large conference room and sell them to raise money for our group which supports the libraries needs that the city budget does not cover. We purchase additional copies of best sellers, provide snacks for two library books clubs, a family one and an adult one, we pay the movie license for the library, new books for the kids area, and recently we helped pay for tall wooden barista style chairs and tall tables to line up along the back window for additional seating.

Just a small sample of what the basement looks like, and this is after about 50% of the books were brought up for the spring sale. The basement becomes wall to wall donated books, all separated by genre. Thank goodness for the amazing co-chairs of this event who work hard all year to keep this organized.

But… back to the sale. The set up started on Monday morning when the books are brought to the room by local volunteers. They have been sorted downstairs by genre, hard cover/soft cover, and premium (hot sellers and/or books that have been released within the last 3 years). Kids books are a quarter, regular soft cover and hard cover are .50, and Premium are usually between $1 – $4.

I went into the library on Monday to help with the set up and worked with the premium books. I separated these books into piles according to year and another lady who is a co-chair of this sale prices them. Occasionally you will get a box of pretty sweet books donated and this year it was a box of gamer books – hard cover rule books for games like Dungeons and Dragons, etc… that were marked with the store labels of selling anywhere from $35 to $104 each. To the right person, these will be a real find.

**This is the beginning of the set up.. The back wall is all children’s books. The center picture is the premium table.**

Today, I took most of the day off of work to go and help with the sale. This is the final set up day and I will stay as long as it takes to be ready. Tomorrow morning, I will be out waiting in the crowds to come in and shop the sale. As part of the set up team I can shop it early, but I don’t want to. I love the community of hanging outside with the rest of the book lovers and talking with them. It is a tradition and they know me by name because of it. 🙂

Does your local library have book sales? I would love to hear about them! How much are the books? How do they set it up….

Morning Meanderings… Off The Grid, Books and Runs

Published on March 16, 2014 by Sheila (Book Journey)10 Comments

Good morning! I did not mean to fall off the grid this past week but I apparently did. Yes I have books to share, and happenings and all that stuff but running out the door in the morning and not back until night has taken its toll… This week I hope will be better. 😀 With the spring book sale this week I will have plenty to talk about.

Yesterday, if I would have been home my Saturday snapshot would have been this:

Yesterday my friend Wendy and I ran a 7k in Minneapolis called the Get Lucky. This was my second time running this one and Wendy’s first. The weather was fair, around the 20’s – much better that last years cold and windy jaunt.

12,000 people were at this run. No kidding! Another 3,000 were in St Paul doing a half marathon at the same time. I love how big these runs and fun events have become. I think last year it was about 7,000.

I was not home last weekend so this book pic is the accumulation of two weeks of literary fun that has come to my home:

I should have posts later today and throughout the week of reviews, the book sale and… another run next Saturday night called the Glow Baby Glow! (Kind of excited about that one!)

Morning Meanderings… What Makes A Book Club Work

Published on March 13, 2014March 13, 2014 by Sheila (Book Journey)17 Comments

Yes, it is about that time of month again when I talk book club. I can’t help it. I love that group of girls so! Tuesday evening while we sat around chatting before the review with plates full of food from the book ‘The Secret Life of Bees” and salted peanuts in coke (more on that later….), one of the girls said something that really touched my heart.

She said that she loved our book club and had to tell us why. She had been in a book club before that just did not work. She said that the group would have a book they would read but some would read it, most would not. The group would gather and have wine and talk and rarely get to the book. There was no one who brought questions to the group about the book or kept a discussion on track.

It’s no secret I love my book club. We have such an amazing group of ladies who each bring something to add to the group. They are willing to dig in and discuss the hard topics, and laugh about the fun stuff.

It’s not always easy pulling off a book club night, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything. I love planning the food around the book and it has stretched me to make new things and try different cultures. Each book, even before I open that first page has me thinking, “what will I learn? How can I implement that into the meeting? What foods will me encounter? What music?” Where can I get a skeleton?” (Ok just kidding on that last one… at least so far 😉 )

I love doing the extras for book club. I love to fully experience the book. Bookies has come a long way in our almost 13 years. I wouldn’t trade a moment.

Next book up…. A Constellation Of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra….

Oh the possibilities.

Morning Meanderings… Book Club and Office Shenanigans

Published on March 11, 2014 by Sheila (Book Journey)8 Comments

Good morning happy Tuesday and all that it will bring! Tonight is Bookies book club so I am *SUPER* excited about that! We are reviewing The Secret Life Of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd. Yes, surprisingly most of us had never read it, including myself. I listened to it on audio and am excited to report that it was a wonderful narration! My review of the book will go up later today and tomorrow I will share the Bookies thoughts and the book club goodies we added to the review. 😀

That takes me to my office….

When I went into the office on Monday this was by one of my co-workers desks:

We are in a building where there are many businesses. This actually belongs to the yarn lady downstairs from us. I am guessing that maybe she left her items in the hallway over the weekend and someone picked them up and brought them up to us so no one stole them or knocked them over. When I sent this picture to my co-worker (who does not work until Wednesday) with a “?” he responded that he left a ransom note for the yarn lady to come and get them.

Well….

by Tuesday this is what happened:

“Miss Mabel” as I have come to call the mannequin bust, has been moved onto the said co workers chair now and has taken over his desk. Surprisingly… I had nothing to do with this one, although I am a little annoyed that I did not think of it (stupid head cold!).

Final thoughts this morning, well… err…. I mean for this post. Hopefully not final thoughts for the morning as I am on my way into work and that would leave me much like Miss Mabel… just sitting there…. 😉 Anyhoo…. final POST thoughts, we had a 53 degree day yesterday here in Minnesota. Seriously – a heat wave. Doors and windows were open and spirits lifted. It is supposed to remain in the 30’s all week.

Hazah!

Summer-Cation Event with Giveaways!

Published on March 7, 2014March 7, 2014 by Sheila (Book Journey)31 Comments

Happy Summer-Cation! As I mentioned last weekend on the blog, I just need to do something SUNNY! I decided to host a last minute “let’s talk about something shiny” (THE SUN!) event where others were and are invited to join me to post something about a summery event, a giveaway, summer plans, WHATEVER as long as no snow or cold is involved.

I repeat….

No Snow and NO Cold can be mentioned in your posts. 😀

(What I just said there doesn’t count as I really have not started my post yet….. )

Ok… so thank you to the few of you who jumped on board and said Yes! I will chat sunshine with you!

Here is one of my FAVORITE summer pics from last year. This is from the Lakes Jam and there is so much to like about this pic.

I am with my good friend Amy
LOOK how tan we are!
No jackets or sweaters 😉
Crabby photo bomber in the back

Thinking of the warm weather things to come makes me happy… bike rides and runs, reading on the deck, New York the end of May…. all good stuff. 🙂

For my post today, I wanted to do a giveaway of one of my all time favorite reads and book club discussions, The Summer House by Jude Deveroux. It also makes me happy the word “summer” is in the title.

This giveaway will stay up through the weekend and I will announce the winner when I post Tuesday’s Morning Meanderings. To enter, leave a comment telling me something that you are looking forward to this summer.

As I was not the best planner and executor of this event, I am going to set up a linky for others to add their summer posts and giveaways for this Summer-Cation event (if I already had you on my radar and you have posted already this morning I will add your link for you)

Powered by Linky Tools

Click here to enter your link and view this Linky Tools list…

I am going to Detroit Lakes this afternoon for the weekend. My friend has a time share and I am looking forward to hanging out with friends, maybe watching a movie and playing some board games. It’s not summer there… but it is a start of doing something! 🙂

My Cup Of The Grammys 2014

Published on March 5, 2014 by Sheila (Book Journey)7 Comments

Good morning! No idea how I fell off the face of the blog yesterday… but it happens…

and it happened to me. 🙂

(Probably because I was still out of coffee in the house and not thinking clearly….)

All is well today though – coffee is in my cup and the world is all shiny again.

On Sunday evening I watched the Oscars. I NEVER watch the Oscars. Oscars to me is something I recap the next day to see if there are any movies I should add to my “want to see” list. This year though some of the movies up for awards had caught my attention, Twelve Years A Slave, Gravity, and new to me but now on my radar as one I want to see, The Dallas Buyers Club. I also really appreciate Ellen and was curious how she would do up against the harshness of the Grammy press and movies that dealt with hard topics.

Fill up your coffee cup…. what I am about to write is my “One Cup Of Coffee” recap of the Oscars….. and go!

Ellen was wonderful, right from the start she was funny, mentioning the oldest person in the room (84)up for a Grammy and then repeating it loudly for her “I AM LETTING THEM KNOW YOU ARE UP FOR A GRAMMY”
AND Ellen was down to earth and that is really what I loved. She walked through the aisles instead of staying on stage. She announced actors while sitting in their seats. She was, well, Ellen.

This next person needs no introduction. However, if I do not introduce him, he will not know when to come out on stage. Please welcome, Brad Pitt.

And the speeches! There were some wonderful speeches. Jaret Ledo was the reason I googled Dallas Buyers Club and am not sure I had never heard of this movie, or probably more to the point, never heard what it was about.

And we can not forget Lupita Nyongo, who won for 12 Years A Slave and her speech brought tears to my eyes.

When Ellen had pizza delivered that was pretty sweet.
BUT I think the best moment was the Selfie pic, the pic that I am sure you heard by now…. broke Twitter. Tweeted and re-tweeted over 2 million times Ellen’s brilliant tweet broke the Twitter record (and caused Twitter to has technical errors)

Yes, the Oscars went long and there is some grumbling about that. I personally think Ellen made the whole event instead of a stuffy politely clap at the appropriate moments event, more of a fun party with friends celebrating each other.

The Grammy’s had 28.5 million viewers. It is said that it was a bigger turn out than the Friends finale. WHOA.

If you watched it count yourself in the numbers of seeing something pretty spectacular. If you missed it (you know watching Walking Dead, Amazing Race, or perhaps reading a good book…), try to catch some highlights on line. 😀

My cup is empty, time for a refill. Have an awesome day!

Morning Meanderings…. Caffeine Apocalypse #needmycoffeenow

Published on March 2, 2014 by Sheila (Book Journey)5 Comments

Good morning!

Sunday already! I spent the most part of yesterday working on the Camp Benedict website. What I thought would be a few tweaks, led to more links, etc…. and then when I thought I could work on it more today, found out that it was being shown at a camp benefit show last night and needed to look sharp. *gulp* Back to it, all through dinner, but it is done. 😀

As per my goal, I did not leave the house yesterday which led to my late morning crisis of going to make a second pot of coffee and seeing I did not have enough.

😯

NO coffee…and of course now here I am (since I did not leave the house yesterday) sipping on a cup of green tea and trying to pretend it is the same thing. For the record… it’s not the same thing.

Books last week – had some fun ones come in….

Yes, three audio books! You have no idea how excited that makes me 🙂 I am in need of some great audio! The books also look great, I have some reading to do this afternoon after I get home.

And finally… because I am out of coffee and I think hash tags can be funny (#gettingmycaffeineon, #coffeeless, #showmethegrounds, #jonesingforthebrew, #cupacupa, #headingtostarbucks, #musthavecoffee) I thought I would leave you this funny clip with Jimmy Fallon and Hashtags. 😀

Morning Meanderings… Saturday My Favorite Day Of The Week!

Published on March 1, 2014 by Sheila (Book Journey)20 Comments

If you read me I think you know I LOVE Saturdays. Quite often they are the day that I have no commitments and I really need a day like that, preferably at least once a week or I get a little boggled. 😀

Today… is a no commitment day.

I have really had no super excitement as of late, the run I was supposed to do last Sunday I did not do because of my injured foot (the ol’ dropping of the treadmill) and our roads here in Central Minnesota were BAD last weekend after yet another snow storm. There was an opportunity to do a Polar Plunge today about 30 miles from here but with the temperatures still dipping below zero, and the people I knew that thought they were going to do it really never decided…. I will wait another year to do that again. 😀

I thought today or Saturday Snapshot, since outside is cold and dreary I would just post a few past fun things that will make me; and maybe you… smile.

**This is the Polar Plunge we did I think three years ago. Notice how I am being drug into the water… EEP!**

**This was a sign at the Color Run Justin and I did on 2013. I thought it was so funny I told him we had to pose by it.**

**About 45 minutes from Brainerd there is an apple orchard and this display is what sits out on the road by their entrance… some photo ops are too good to pass up 🙂**

This (above) pic was taken in August 2011, our ten-year anniversary of our book club. Angie and I are two out three of the original Bookies and we are sitting in the same booth we sat in when we had our very first Bookies meeting in August 2001. Now.. there are too many Bookies to fit into this booth, although it would have been fun to try 😀 Oh and if you are wondering what that first book was that was read by the Bookies it was Dance Upon The Air by Nora Roberts. Awesome book.

This is the full Bookies book club (missing one in this picture – Susan) as of last February. It’s not often that we all make it so this was a great time to take a photo-op and show off the goodies that Author Sandra Brannan had sent us in a “Care Package” for our review of In The Belly Of Jonah.

There is my Saturday Snapshot for this week. 😀 Hope you all have a wonderful Saturday, I have some reading to do and house stuff and unless Al and I hit a movie later today I think I may just stay in. 😀

Morning Meanderings…. Ladies Night Out Recap

Published on February 28, 2014 by Sheila (Book Journey)3 Comments

Good morning! Happy HAPPY Friday!

My ladies night excursion last night was fun! Myself and three of my friends went around to local business and had our cards punched and did everything from shooting hoops, to trying a room key at a hotel to see if we won a suite for a weekend, to hula hooping. 😛 At the stops we received samples, coupons, and tasty treats.

GNO (Girls Night Out) is a fun event that happens twice a year in Brainerd, once in February and once in October… you may remember the October one… they encourage us to dress up:

This event is actually a brilliant way to get women to go out and learn about the businesses in our community. We are given a list of places to go to get the punch on our card. AT these businesses we may need to answer questions about the business to enter to win something (they always make it easy to find the answers), or you may play a game like mini golf… at one of the stops last night they were giving massages…. NICE! Not only do we learn about the businesses in our community, we have a great time with our friends!

Each stamp on our card earns up a ticket at the end of the night. The tickets go into a big drawing box and then winners are announced on the radio at 8:15 am the following morning. If they announce your ticket # you have two minutes to call in or they draw another #. This morning they gave away a spa package, a pair of diamond earrings, a $500 cash prize, and a $10000 cash prize. They said about 240 women participated last night which is down from over 450 in the fall, but we are still battling cold awful weather here. The $1000 winner did not call within two minutes this morning so they drew another #. It’s exciting and fun!

None of the girls in my group won but you can be sure we will try again in the fall. 😀

Today I have a meeting about the camp applications for this years Camp Benedict, a camp that I am on the Board of. I also need to work out, write a review, work on Wine and Words brochures, work on Friends Of the Library brochures, run a few errands in town, purchase my BEA plane ticket, finish laundry, plan dinner… it’s going to be a great day 😀

Morning Meanderings… New Window at The Library

Published on February 27, 2014 by Sheila (Book Journey)16 Comments

Good morning! Here I am at the end of my work week after today and feeling pretty good. 😀 Yes, this is another morning meandering about the library. Really…. there has been quite the library theme this week.

You may have seen this fun picture floating around Facebook:

We decided to mimic this (sort of) for our March window. So yesterday I worked on this:

We went with green because of ST Patrick’s Day and of course because maybe someday hopefully we will see Spring. It was a lot of fun to pick out the books off my shelf that are green. 😀

Tonight is the Spring (ha ha – but true) Girls Night Out. Our City does a little cool Stars Hollowish (yes yes Gilmore Girls reference) thing where starting at 3 pm today women are given a list of businesses to visit around the area. At each stop you received a ticket, as well as drawings, appetizers, occasionally beverages. At the end of the night, by 8 pm we all have to meet at a specific store and turn all of tickets into a BIG box that will be shook up and in the morning on the radio they will draw for the big prizes… sometimes a spa package, or diamond earrings….

It has been so cold and windy that I would rather stay home… however, I also think that if I can just stick it out, maybe the competition will not be as steep this time. 😛

Is that wrong? 😯

Anyhoo… that’s my day.