Category: Meanderings

Good morning! 

Here it is Thursday already.  I leave for the cities tomorrow afternoon to catch my plane Saturday morning for Tegucigalpa Honduras…. and while I felt prepared all week…

suddenly I feel behind.

I am looking around my home thinking I really should straighten that up, or I should make time to clean this or that…. and now my head is going you need to return library books, you need to go to the bank, you need to….

GAH.

I think I am having a little pre trip anxiety.  I think I have hit that wall where suddenly my “have to’s” such as work today, feels like it is interfering with my time to plan the trip.  This of course is not true… it will take me about 30 minutes to pack… I do have a few things to pick up at Wal-Mart but can certainly do that tonight or tomorrow with plenty of time to spare.  🙂 

Anyways… none of this is really interesting in the least and other than reporting that I am still (STILL) reading Monsters Of Men… nothing happening here on the book front. 

Have an awesome day!

Good morning.  😀

I have a little confession… occasionally I write the morning post the night before.  It’s true.  I usually have a pretty good idea about whats on my mind and can write the post, draft it… and tweak it in the morning to any additions. 

Let me say that thank goodness I do as there are times that if not for my writing the night before… there would be no morning post as I just do not have time. 

Lets take yesterday mornings post for instance.  I knew what I wanted to say and wrote it and drafted it on Monday night.  And thankfully… I did because I work at 8 am.  On Tuesday morning I woke up at …

8:05 am.

Yup.  Seriously… by the time I opened my eyes and looked at the clock, I was already late.  😯 

I don’t know what happened.  I went to bed on Monday night around 11:00 pm.  Al and I had done nothing but watch sitcoms and eat the trick or treat candy…. I was not even overly tired.  Yet there I was, having no choice but to call the office and explain what I had done as there was no way I was going to make it in before 8:30 am… as it was, I arrived at 8:40.  Sugar crash perhaps?  😳

That never happens!  I don’t set an alarm as I always wake up by 6:30 or 7 am.  Well… I can tell you, I set an alarm last night just to be safe. 

In other random craziness I leave for Honduras on Saturday morning.  Friday afternoon I will head to the cities and stay overnight to catch the 5:30 am flight (you can believe that I will have an alarm that night!)  I will be gone until the following Friday November 11th.  I am taking Asus (laptop) with me as in most areas we will have internet (I think) so I will be able to occasionally check in and do a morning post.  I have lovely fellow book bloggers who will be covering some fun topics here throughout the week so I hope you will stop in and pay them some love! 

I know I have hardly even spoke of this mainly because life has been crazy and it has snuck up on me too.  🙂

Stop back a little later today, my review is going up for Snow Flower and The Secret Fan movie… along with a pretty awesome giveaway!

Good morning.  I have been up since 5:30 when sleep… left me.

It has now been two and a half days and I swear I am going through the stages of grief. 

1.  Denial – I keep making deals in my mind that I want him back…. after all there is no way what just happened…. happened.

2.  Anger – I have blamed me for not choosing to keep him with us longer…. I blame the vet (poor Steve….. he really is a fantastic guy) for assisting us in making the decision, I blame my husband for not feeling the level of pain that I do.

3.  Bargaining – I have decided that if I wake up in the morning and Elmo is back I will not question that… (knowing full well as I type this that is just crazy….) I do want to take it back.  I do.

4.  Depression – no doubt about it.  I am quiet.  I am having trouble eating and my heart is mourning. 

5.  Acceptance…. I feel is around the corner.  I know we did the right thing.  Deep down, I do know this.  However, acceptance does not seem to make it hurt any less.

I apologize for being such a downer these days… believe me – this is not where I want to be either.  Somehow though, putting it out here… helps.  All I can say now it that this too… will (MUST) pass… and please bear with me as I process my way through.

I am going to the cabin late this afternoon with my cousin’s wife Rhonda, and three other girls I have become friends with through the MS bike rides.  This trip was planned out weeks ago and while I struggle with going… I think it will be a good thing to just take a couple of days to breathe in and out like a normal person.  🙂

My reading has suffered this week… I have not been able to concentrate on words on pages and as much as I long to pick up one of the many books waiting patiently for me… my concentration is not there.  Thank goodness audio has filled some of that emptiness in my car and throughout my time at home. 

ASUS, (laptop) will not be making this trip with me… if I get organized today, I am hoping to set a couple of reviews up for the next couple days.  Other than that, please know I will be back in full force and I am excited to actuality have time to visit those of you with blogs and see what is happening in your worlds.  🙂

Good morning.

As you probably can imagine from yesterdays post that I am beyond heartbroken over the loss of our pet (friend, companion) Elmo.  I get that this is going to be a slow process, I knew someday I would be writing the post that I did, but I did not anticipate this level of pain.

Yesterday was a busy day which was probably a good thing.  I am going to Honduras on November 5 – November 11 and two of the guys on the team are from the Ukraine.  Dima is 28 and a Pastor in the Ukraine and he is here for the first time in the United States staying with our Pastor through Thanksgiving who met him many years ago when he was in Ukraine on a mission trip.  Dima speaks little english.  Boris is 25 and Dima’s interpreter. Yesterday I took both of them in to get their shots for the Honduras trip.  It was kind of fun (and a great distraction from life) to go and assist them with the paperwork.  They say our hospital is nothing like the hospitals in Ukraine.

They are both extremely nice and I am excited to see them on this Honduras trip with us. 

Today I work (also good) and tonight I have dinner with friends for a long overdue baby shower get together.  (also good).

I have reviews to post and books to read and while life is difficult right now to say the least, I know that I need to move ahead.  Thank you all who sent kind words… while its hard for me to talk about, I really do appreciate every comment and it means the world to me to have all your kind support.

Good morning.

A little heavy hearted this morning as I write this. 

Our dog (companion, friend…) of 15 year has been struggling lately with his breathing off and on.  I think he has tumors in his throat, I feel little marble size lumps.  Yesterday afternoon when it was dinner time he would not eat which forced me to do the thing I have been dreading… call our vet.

We have an appointment for this afternoon at 4:40 and I am trying to be optimistic…. knowing very well the odds are against me.  I have pretty much turned into a teary eyed weepy version of myself.  I have never had to do this before, we live near a busy highway and all of our dogs from me growing up here to moving here with my husband, have met their demise on that highway….

Not Elmo.  Although he too has been on that road, all 8 pounds of him survived.  He is our miracle dog.

SO … that is current.  Moving on to something lighter, I worked out at Group Power yesterday morning and feel really good.  I can not wait to get back into a routine- NEED to get back into a routine. 

Today I have a busy day at work, we are cleaning a large storage area so I will be busy and keeping my mind off later today and that will be a good thing.  Bookish wise… I have not made a dent…. but audio has been flowing as I am almost done with my two current audio, Snow Flower and The Secret Fan and We The Animals.

I hope everyone has a great day 🙂

Good Morning!

I seem to have put myself into a habit of sleeping a little later and then bustling around getting ready for work….  GAH.  I don’t like that.  The craziness of life, scheduling, etc has come to a point where I feel I am in overdrive for 15+ hours a day…. crash and do it again.

What is suffering?

sleep patterns

work out priorities

probably me 😛

I am working on this… and this morning felt a little more to the norm than it has in a while.  I actually got up with time to spare.  It went like this:

1. Up, let dogs out, get ready while listening to The Night Strangers by Chris Bohjalian on my IPOD. 
2. COFFEE is ready and I sit at my Laptop (Asus) and pop up my emails.  FAVORITE morning email has clearly become the Shelf Awareness newsletter that pops into my email box each weekday morning at 7 am.  Seriously, if you are a book lover and are not subscribed to this newsletter; do so now (there is a link to it on my right side bar).  Not only does it has info on hot books, but also authors (not all hot but authors just the same…. ha ha), giveaways, bookstores, and more.  I love reading it!
3. Second cup of COFFEE (hello caffeine my constant friend!) while listening to the audio in my CD player in the kitchen.  Just started We The Animals by Justin Torres this morning.
4. Now – out the door with COFFEE Cup (also my traveling friend), a can of soup for lunch, and now in my jeep listening to Snow Flower And The Secret Fan by Lisa See. 

Work today, which I am normally off on Fridays but our office manager is on vacation this week and I offered to cover her Friday shift since I took a bonus day off last week for the girls weekend.  😀  Should be a quiet day in the office and then…. after three….

the weekend…

is mine.  😛

Good morning.:D
Sorry about the lack of “me” yesterday.  I just did not have any time whatsoever.  Tuesday night I wound up going to a Women’s charity event that I had forgotten I had agreed to go to months ago… while I went grumbling all the way and felt it went on later than I had hoped… I really did have a good time. 

Between that event and the fact that our 15-year-old shih-tsu has been having some heart wrenching breathing troubles at night… my sleep has been odd and sporadic.  I woke up yesterday morning after a pretty much sleepless night worrying about our dog, on ly to discover it was 7:30 am and I work at 8:00 am…

Uhhh yeah… no morning post.  When I came home in the after noon from work and had a book review post to write I instead fell asleep in the recliner.  GAH.

A couple of weeks ago I was selected to be a judge in the Inspy Awards under the mystery/thriller genre.  I am so excited to be a part of this!  The five books I need to read and review are:

Back on Murder by J. Mark Bertrand, Bethany House, July, 2010

Darkness Follows by Mike Dellosso, Realms, May, 2011

Digitalis by Ronie Kendig, Barbour, January, 2011

Over the Edge by Brandilyn Collins, B&H Publishing, May, 2011

The Bishop by Steven James, Revell, August, 2010

I am pretty excited (oops I said that already!) and hope that if you enjoy faith driven reads you will check out the entire list of books up for nomination at the Inspy site.  You can also see the other judges there .

In one more crazy thought for the day… remember when I lost Monsters Of Men?  Then I blogged about where I found Monsters Of Men?  Well…. when I blogged about it, I put the book back where I had found it so I could take the picture for the post.  THEN… I spent yesterday looking for the book AGAIN.  Guess where it was?  Yes – back on the shelf where I put it for the picture. 

Seriously…. who does this?  😛

Good morning COFFEE people!  😛  Ok, ok, none coffee people too but really I figured only coffee people are up at the crack of dawn like we are all hopped up on caffeine….

(maybe…. that’s just me…)

On Thursday morning of this past week I was tearing through my home looking for my copy of Patrick Ness’ Monsters Of Men book to take to the cabin with me.  This search was to no avail and left me imaging all sorts of fates for the lost book:

1.  I had it on the table during our recent book club book sale and someone snatched it up for $1.00

2.  I used it for a prop to put my camera on during banned book week

3.  I had it is my car and somehow it fell out

4.  Last week Joey from the magazine article was over for a picture of the library and when I was straightening up, I placed the book in with the others (in this case…. forever lost…. ha ha)

5. Clearly someone broke into my home and stole it

So yesterday afternoon when I came home from work I wanted to read a bit but did not want to start the book club book… no I wanted my Monsters Of Men.  I did another search and then in the library I looked up where I keep all of my have read and am keeping book sets and there it was!

AHHHHHH!!!! 

Crazy that I found it where it really should have been all along.  😛

This is not the first book I have lost…. last year I lost ROOM in mid-read which was awful.  Does this ever happen to you?  (I am secretly hoping it does so I am not alone in my bookish insanity….)  😀