I am home from a crafting weekend with girlfriends up North… yes, farther North than I live. It was a wonderful time! We left Thursday afternoon, ate out Thursday night, then planted ourselves at the cabin and had wonderful food, watched movies, and worked with the Cricut.
While I did not make as many things as I did the last time we did this, I did have fun experimenting with etching cream. You use the outline of the vinyl pieces, put it on glass… put the cream over it and it etched the glass… kind of cool. I made these 4 glasses:
We celebrated Thanksgiving together as friends – so the wine was a perfect companion to our dinner.
I also made this:
We really had a great time. 😀
Now that I am home… I have a lot to catch up on! I have reviews to write and hope to get caught up today. I need to finish our year in review for book club on Tuesday. AND last week I promised a week of giveaways and missed several days!SO more giveaways coming up… AND winners to announce!
My winner of this book goes to #53: Cindi! Congrats Cindi – I am sending you an email this morning to get your address to mail this book to you. 😀
My winner of this book goes to #7 Shannon of Extreme Reading And Writing! Shannon, I have emailed you for your address. Congrats! Thanks everyone for entering and expect more giveaways this week – including one I think that will go up today with my review. 😀
I am sitting here this morning surrounded by “to do’s”. I took Bailey in already this morning to get a hair cut. I pick him up about noon.
I have some groceries to get, a stop at the local craft store, phone calls to make, dinner to prep, movies to pick out, packing to do….
Why?
Girl’s weekend at our cabin!
We leave this afternoon… me +4 more. We had such a great time in October with our Cricut weekend that we planned another one and now here it is. Yes, I probably could have got some of this done earlier this week…. no, I did not really prep at all until this moment. 😛
And that’s all ok… it will come together fast… I don’t mess around when I am shopping. It is not something I really enjoy so I am more of this in and out girl.
Asus (laptop) will not be joining me.
We have no internet there, and the girls tend to frown on me when I bring it…. so….. here it will stay. I am however bringing along The Future Of Us by Jay Asher, and possibly Snookie (Nook) and for sure Milton Podricker (IPOD). A girl cant leave everything behind…. 😀
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I worked out twice yesterday, once with my friend Wendy for Group Power (weight lifting) and later with my friend Heidi (elliptical). I had double work outs the last two days – but now I will not have any until Sunday.
Wolfe Boone, known as “Boo”, is why Skary Indiana is even on the map. A horror novelist who keeps pumping out the best sellers and drawing in the tourists. The town, adores him and does everything they can to draw in the additional revenue of the tourists by playing up to the “scary” theme…. the local restaurant is called the Haunted Mansion Restaurant, famous for it’s bloody fingers (fires splattered with ketchup) and bookstore is Spooky’s Books (where employees dress like the walking dead).
There is one person in Skary however that does not adore the famous Wolfe Boone. Ainsley Parker, daughter of the local Sheriff, is not a fan. Ainsley works at the Haunted Mansion Restaurant and has to put up with the gory menu and the vampire teeth when she works. Ainsley feels her town is ridiculous, all catering to one man’s awful novels.
But, when Wolfe suddenly finds faith and decided to quit writing horror novels, Ainsley finds a side to the man she never knew before. Genuinely funny, and honest, she may even be falling for them.
Yet the residents of Skary can have none of that! If Wolfe stops writing the horror novels, what will happen to the tourism? Their town? Soon, a scheme is plotted to put the fright back into Skary–and get their most famous resident out of love and back into the thrill business.
Ok.. ok… this book (audio) was a bit funny. But last year when Hannah at Wordlily ran a feature on the author, Rene Gutteridge. I proceeded to read Snitch and Listen last March, and really enjoyed it and meant to get back to the author before this – but as you know… life happens… books happen…
Last week in my library as I browsed the audio section, I came across the Boo series. Remembering my experience with Rene Gutteridge in the past, I quickly grabbed this first audio.
Listening to Boo, was a great choice. A funny story, great narration, and all around a great break from heavier, deeper reads.
Ok… and a confession. When I would picture the Ainsley dating discussions with her over protective father the sheriff… I could not help but picture Bella and Charlie from the Twilight series over there discussion about Edward… errr, in this case…. Wolfe.
This could just as easily be a picture of Wolfe, Sheriff Parker, and Ainlsley instead of Edward, Charlie, and Bella.
If you are looking for a light hearted fun audio, I recommend Rene Gutteridge’s Boo series… great characters and a narration that will have you smiling… all through the audio.
Day three of my vacation is here and it feels like it is going so FAST! I guess it is, considering tomorrow afternoon I leave for the cabin with 4 of my friends for a Cricut weekend and will be back Saturday evening and then Sunday Navy son will be home for a couple weeks!
Each week as I travel the blogesphere I am bound to stumble across some books and reviews that really speak to me and put a book on my radar.This week has certainly been no exception.
Have you seen this book around? I have a couple of times and it draws me in and then I lose track of it, but Shan from Curled Up With A Good Book and Cup Of Tea wrote a review that made me pop this one on to the wish list!
Lauren Oliver is an incredible writer and this is another book I hear low and positive murmurs about – yet this week I read a review of Liesl and Po at April Good Books and Wine and knew I had to get my hands on a copy!
I can always count on Nise at Under The Boardwalk to give out good audio recommendations. She does that here with Iron House. This is a book I have considered for a while now but never really committed one way or the other. Nise’s description of the narration of Scott Sowers becoming a favorite of hers sealed this deal! 😀
Yesterday I had a wonderful day of writing, a great work out (see below) and ended my day finishing up our book club book for next week, Henry’s Sisters by Cathy Lamb. This is going to be an incredible review!
Work out update… Monday I had went into the YMCA and used the treadmill and elliptical for 661 calories. Yesterday I went in again and as I was finishing up, a friend came in and I stayed while she worked out too..another 1,500 calories. 2161 now for the week/year!
Also – Mari, at Bookwork with a View challenged me to a push up challenge… 100 a day. I agreed and managed 40 yesterday. LOL… I meant to finish them, but honestly forgot… 😛 Stop over to the new Team Kickin It blog to see todays post… Wednesdays are going to be healthy recipe days and I have a yummy one for you! 😀
Cate Cooper has had quite the year. She had built up quite a life with her husband of twenty-six years, Addison Cooper. And what a whirlwind it had been, an insane love for each other in the beginning… and then it all began to unravel.
As Cate stood over Addison’s casket, she had to wonder where it all went wrong…
Life can be funny that way, as Cate soon finds out that Addison’s death is only the beginning of surprises for her. Quickly (really minutes) after the funeral Cate discovers that Addison was not at all who she thought he was. Within 48 hours… she is out of the home she had grown to love, and finds herself heading back to Folly Beach, the place of her childhood, looking for scraps she can accumulate into a new life.
But Folly Beach is not only the place where Cate grew up… it is also the memories of another woman from another life time… memories of a marriage that was like a symphony, the Heyward’s spirit lives on within the breezes of Folly Beach.
Can Cate go home again and start anew?
Folly Beach, South Carolina
Take it from someone who did return to her childhood home, yes, you can go home again. Folly Beach took me a bit by surprise. I was expecting it to be a good story, I wasn’t expecting some of the great humor!
“Everything was a sheet of ice, the temperature around 20. It was only by God’s holy grace that we had all managed to make it to the cemetery without flying off the highway and into a ditch. I was pretty sure the ditches were filled with mangled bodies.”
And that’s just in the early pages, as Cate’s story unfolds it is not only one of a backdrop of historical (?) fiction, a little romance in the mix and a lot of family drama too… it is also one of finding your own fit in this world. I enjoyed going along with Cate as she did just that.
The reason I question the historical fiction above is that while the scenes in the book referring to the Heywards may be fiction, the Heyward’s were not. Dorothy Kuhns Heyward and her husband Dubose Heyward were real people and real playrights. Dorothy was also a novelist and assisted her husband in turning his novel Porgy, based on Negro life on the waterfront of Charleston, South Carolina, into a play.
Truly fascinating to see them woven into this book.
As I write this review I sit at the antique round kitchen table that was my mother’s. If you lean on it, you will find it to be not quite level, but as far as I am concerned, no other table will grace my home. It connects me to her.
Also – I happen to have an extra copy of this book and would love to give it to one of my readers! Please leave a comment here letting me know where you would like to escape for a time of relaxation and renewal?
Good morning! Day two of vacation! I drank nothing but tea for the past few days…no idea why – but the coffee is back on today. 😀
Yesterday I spent much of my time writing and prepping my notes. It was a productive day. When I took a break in the afternoon I spent my time on a little project I have been tossing around in my head….
Because I want to work out more intentionally going into (and throughout) 2012 and BECAUSE there are a group of you who feel the same way I present…
(Insert SQQQUUUEEEEEE here) I am actually a little excited about the above adventure so please allow me a little gushing here. 😛 Team Kickin It will be a blog for the work out side of those who care to venture in. I hope to create a space where we can share tips, ideas, healthy recipes, goals, etc… your input and ideas are welcome.
No matter what is going on in my life I want to create a healthy balance between that and taking care of me. Feel free to join me by going to Team Kickin It and clicking on the follow by email button. This will ensure you receive an email every time the site is updated.
Oh and currently… there are no comments as this is the big unveiling, so I hope a few of you can pop in over there and help me welcome in new habits to 2012!!! 😀
In bookish news… I have a review coming later of Folly Beach by Dorothea Benton Frank. I am working in a bakery within the pages on Henry’s Sisters…. I am enjoying an awkward invite to Thanksgiving dinner in Boo, arguing with Patch in Crescendo, and searching the train compartment by compartment in the delightful audio of Murder On The Orient Express.
I hope your day starts off wonderfully and continues to gain momentum from there 😀
In this later world society (what was once known as Chicago), when one turns sixteen years of age there is an annual Choosing Day where each teen will choose one of five factions in which they will devote their lives. These factions are:
DAUNTLESS:(the brave) fearless, undaunted. Undaunted: courageously resolute, especially in the face of danger or difficulty; not discouraged.
ABNEGATION: (the selfless) 1. to refuse or deny oneself (some rights, conveniences, etc.); reject; renounce. 2. to relinquish; give up
ERUDITE: (the intelligent) characterized by great knowledge; learned or scholarly. The word “erudite” focuses on knowledge rather than intelligence– intelligence being something you’re born with, and can’t necessarily control, and knowledge being something that you acquire.
CANDOR: (the honest) 1. the state or quality of being frank, open, and sincere in speech or expression; candidness.
2. freedom from bias; fairness; impartiality.
AMITY: (the peaceful) 1. friendship; peaceful harmony. 2. mutual understanding and a peaceful relationship, especially between nations; peace; accord. 3. cordiality
and the one that no one is supposed to talk about (like “He who shall not be named in the Harry Potter Series…)
DIVERGENT: 1. diverging; differing; deviating. 2. pertaining to or causing divergence. 3. (of a mathematical expression) having no finite limits Diverge: 1. to move, lie, or extend in different directions from a common point; branch off. 2. to differ in opinion, character, form, etc.; deviate. 3. Mathematics . (of a sequence, series, etc.) to have no unique limit; to have infinity as a limit. 4. to turn aside or deviate, as from a path, practice, or plan.
A teen may choose to stay in the faction they were born into… or after a series of tests may find that they are better suited for a different faction. The point of the factions is form a “perfectly balanced” society… all working in their areas for the greater good.
Hopefully you are still with me…
When Beatrice Prior goes to her Choosing Day, she has every intention of staying in her families faction and continuing on with the life she has always known… but when it comes time to make the choice…
she chooses differently.
Beatrice (Tris) now finds herself in a world she really does not know, instead of the one of peace and meekness that she is used to, suddenly he is being trained to be a fighter, learning to fend for herself and doing surprisingly well with it. Of course, she makes a few friends as well as a few enemies along the way. And inside holds a secret that not only gives her an edge, but could also destroy everything.
The 2nd book, Insurgent is due out May 1, 2012
Every year I like to pick a book I really have been wanting to read for a while for my first book of the year. It’s a quirky tradition but one I enjoy! This year, I had it narrowed down to three books, and I made my final decision on New Years Eve…
Divergent.
I chose well. 😀
Divergent was everything I love in a great read… a fast start to the book, amazing characters, a captivating story line, fresh and new topics, and a satisfying ending.
I picked this one up in the early morning hours of January 1 and finished around 11 pm that night. I did little more than read all day. It was BLISS.
Divergent falls into the dystopia genre that I have really come to enjoy. I have no idea the attraction other than I think I really enjoy reading about survival more. In all of these books, survival is the goal… food usually a luxury, housing is not what we have today, and the evil of this new world seems to be every where….
In Divergent’s case the evil is within the division of the people in the first place. The segregation is very real…. once a teen has chosen their faction, if it is other than their home one, they will leave their family immediately and start a new way of living. Communications between factions is frowned upon, each looking at the other as weak, or the enemy – seriously it is mind boggling.
I think what amazes me most about a read like this is that it is all fiction. Author Veronica Roth has taken a world and divided it, making up rules, and people, and diseases, and manipulation…. and I love that it is all new, not done before.
It’s hard to put Divergent into words other than to say it blew me away. I will be anxiously awaiting the opportunity to purchase the second in the series, Insurgent, which is due out May 1.
First off – Happy New Year! I hope all of you have had a wonderful time this last holiday week of Christmas to New Years…. and now today, here we all are in 2012. I am glad to have you here celebrating with me 🙂
Welcome to It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? This is a great way to plan out your reading week and see what others are currently reading as well… you never know where that next “must read” book will come from!
I love being a part of this and I hope you do too! As part of this weekly meme I love to encourage you all to go and visit the others participating in this meme. I offer a weekly contest for those who visit 10 or more of the Monday Meme participants and leave a comment telling me how many you visited. **You do not have to have a blog to participate! You receive one entry for every 10 comments, just come back here and tell me how many in the comment area.
**Please note one change for 2012… if you are in Canada or out of the US and win the comment contest here, I will send you the $5 Amazon gift card to use on any Amazon purchase. It has just become too pricey to mail the books out of the states. If you are out of the US and have a US address I can send the book to for you, that would work. 😀
Again, Happy New Year! I have spent pretty much all of today reading my first book of the year, Divergent and loving it. I was hoping to have the review up today but I am still about 60 pages from finishing so it will go up Monday late afternoon instead. I actually have several great reads lined up for the week and I have the week off so I am looking forward to some wonderful writing time and reading too! 😀
The 2011 WHERE Are You Reading Counts are in and I posted my map and a link for others who participated as well.
This World We Live In by Susan Beth Pfeffer (yet to be reviewed)
Winter Bone by Daniel Woodrell (yet to be reviewed)
I am planning on doing a giveaway a day here this week and todays was posted this morning, you can still enter by going to the post and letting me know what your first book of the year is going to be.
I am actually really excited about the books and audio I have going on this week to kick off the new year, and a new crisp and clean 2012 Reading map! Here is what is happening:
One choice can transform you. Pass initiation. Do not fail! Thrilling urban dystopian fiction debut from exciting young author. In sixteen-year-old Beatrice Prior’s world, society is divided into five factions — Abnegation (the selfless), Candor (the honest), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent) — each dedicated to the cultivation of a particular virtue, in the attempt to form a “perfect society.” At the age of sixteen, teens must choose the faction to which they will devote their lives. On her Choosing Day, Beatrice renames herself Tris, rejects her family’s group, and chooses another faction. After surviving a brutal initiation, Tris finds romance with a super-hot boy, but also discovers unrest and growing conflict in their seemingly “perfect society.” To survive and save those they love, they must use their strengths to uncover the truths about their identities, their families, and the order of their society itself.
Currently reading and should finish tonight… I have pretty much read this non stop all day (errr… except for the two hour nap I had… 😳 )
With its glistening beaches, laidback Southern charm, and enticing Gullah tradition, Folly Beach has long been one of South Carolina’s most historic and romantic spots. It is the land of Cate Cooper’s childhood, the place where all the ghosts of her past roam freely. Cate never thought she’d return to the beach house named for this lovely strip of coast. But circumstances have changed, thanks to her newly dead husband, whose financial—and emotional—perfidy has left Cate homeless and broke.
Yet Folly Beach holds more than just memories. Once upon a time another woman found unexpected comfort within its welcoming arms. An artist, writer, and sometime colleague of the revered George Gershwin, Dorothy Heyward enjoyed the greatest moments of her life at Folly with her beloved husband, DuBose. And though the Heywards are long gone, their passion and spirit linger in every sunset and ocean breeze.
And for Cate, Folly holds the promise of unexpected fulfillment . . . of the woman she’s always wanted—and is finally ready—to become.
I am on tour for this one, coming up on Wednesday! 🙂
Ever since the Bommarito sisters were little girls, their mother, River, has written them a letter on pink paper when she has something especially important to impart. And this time, the message is urgent and impossible to ignore River requires open-heart surgery, and Isabelle and her sisters are needed at home to run the family bakery and take care of their brother and ailing grandmother.
Isabelle has worked hard to leave Trillium River, Oregon, behind as she travels the globe taking award-winning photographs. It’s not that Isabelle hates her family. On the contrary, she and her sisters Cecilia, an outspoken kindergarten teacher, and Janie, a bestselling author, share a deep, loving bond. And all of them adore their brother, Henry, whose disabilities haven’t stopped him from helping out at the bakery and bringing good cheer to everyone in town.
But going home again has a way of forcing open the secrets and hurts that the Bommaritos would rather keep tightly closed Isabelle’s fleeting and too-frequent relationships, Janie’s obsessive compulsive disorder, and Cecilia’s self-destructive streak and grief over her husband’s death. Working together to look after Henry and save their flagging bakery, Isabelle and her sisters begin to find answers to questions they never knew existed, unexpected ways to salve the wounds of their childhoods, and the courage to grasp surprising new chances at happiness.
Let me just say I have been reading this for the last couple of days and it is a WINNER! This is our January book club read and w-o-w!!!
After graduating from Emory University in Atlanta in 1992, top student and athlete Christopher McCandless abandoned his possessions, gave his entire $24,000 savings account to charity and hitchhiked to Alaska, where he went to live in the wilderness. Four months later, he turned up dead. His diary, letters and two notes found at a remote campsite tell of his desperate effort to survive, apparently stranded by an injury and slowly starving. They also reflect the posturing of a confused young man, raised in affluent Annandale, Va., who self-consciously adopted a Tolstoyan renunciation of wealth and return to nature. Krakauer, a contributing editor to Outside and Men’s Journal, retraces McCandless’s ill-fated antagonism toward his father, Walt, an eminent aerospace engineer. Krakauer also draws parallels to his own reckless youthful exploit in 1977 when he climbed Devils Thumb, a mountain on the Alaska-British Columbia border, partly as a symbolic act of rebellion against his autocratic father.
I have never read this although I have always wanted to – now this week I will be listening to it on audio.
As medical director of the famed Preventive Medicine Research Institute, Lee Lipsenthal helped thousands of patients struggling with disease to overcome their fears of pain and death and to embrace a more joyful way of living. In his own life, happily married and the proud father of two remarkable children, Lee was similarly committed to living his life fully and gratefully each day.
The power of those beliefs was tested in July 2009, when Lee was diagnosed with esophageal cancer. As Lee and his wife, Kathy, navigated his diagnosis, illness, and treatment, he discovered that he did not fear death, and that even as he was facing his own mortality, he felt more fully alive than ever before. In the bestselling tradition of Tuesdays with Morrie, told with humor and heart, and deeply inspiring, Enjoy Every Sandwich distills everything Lee learned about how we find meaning, purpose, and peace in our lives.
I have seen this on a few blogs and admit… it has me curious…
It’s 1996, and Josh and Emma have been neighbors their whole lives. They’ve been best friends almost as long – at least, up until last November, when Josh did something that changed everything. Things have been weird between them ever since, but when Josh’s family gets a free AOL CD in the mail,his mom makes him bring it over so that Emma can install it on her new computer. When they sign on, they’re automatically logged onto their Facebook pages. But Facebook hasn’t been invented yet. And they’re looking at themselves fifteen years in the future.
By refreshing their pages, they learn that making different decisions now will affect the outcome of their lives later. And as they grapple with the ups and downs of what their futures hold, they’re forced to confront what they’re doing right – and wrong – in the present.
If there is time, I hope by the weekend to be reading this one! A gift from my son for Christmas.
There it is! A very bookish week but I am loving it! 😀
I am looking forward to what you are starting your year out with! Please add your link below to where it says “click here” – I should be able to get around and see you all! 😀
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And for those of you who read a lot of YA, Middle Grade, and Childrens reads, pop in and link here as well:
I hope everyone had a happy eve. Hubby and I went out to dinner and then hung out with some friends for awhile. We were home way before the clock struck midnight. Next year maybe I will plan something here at our house, board games and movies…. 😀
I have so been looking forward to this day…. I dont remember being this excited for a new year in a long time, but I am ready to start 2012 goals, 2012 books….. 2012. 😀
I have some blog changes I plan to make in the next few weeks here, I am bringing back the commenter contest now through May (maybe longer – we will see) that was for the top commenter of each month received a $20 Amazon gift card – and two random commenters receive books.
The big announcement for today is what book is going to be the one I am reading first for 2012…. well, my review will hopefully be up today as per tradition….
the book is:
I seen this book on many best of the best lists for 2011 so here it is. I am currently reading and enjoying it. I am on page 81 this morning so I have a LOT of reading to do 😀 YAY for New Years Day! Nothing in the plan today except reading and relaxing 🙂
To celebrate this first week of 2012 I am going to be reading several books I have been waiting to read… wishing to read. I will also be having a giveaway a day to celebrate because I am in that kind of mood :)Stop in each morning to see what it will be…. 😀 You will have all week to sign up for each giveaway – On Sunday the 7th I will announce all seven days of winners. 😀
This morning the giveaway is for a copy of:
When Nina Revskaya puts her remarkable jewelry collection up for auction, the former Bolshoi Ballet star finds herself overwhelmed by memories of her homeland, and of the events, both glorious and heartbreaking, that changed her life half a century earlier. It was in Russia that she discovered the magic of dance and fell in love, and where, faced with Stalinist aggression, a terrible discovery incited a deadly act of betrayal—and an ingenious escape to the West.
Nina has kept her secrets for half a lifetime. But now Drew Brooks, an inquisitive associate at a Boston auction house, and Grigori Solodin, a professor who believes Nina’s jewels hold the key to unlocking his past, begin to unravel her story—setting in motion a series of revelations that will have life-altering consequences for them all.
For a chance to win this book – leave a comment here letting me know what your first book of 2012 is going to be. 😀
Here it is! The final counts of where I read for 2011. I had a lot of fun with this. I did not read intentionally… just wherever, but it was interesting to see where it all landed on the map. Some states, apparently make great settings for books. 😀
To see my map – it is here. To see the layout – see below:
Alabama Alaska 1 Arizona Arkansas California 9 Colorado Connecticut 2 Delaware Florida 2 Georgia 2 Hawaii 1 Idaho Illinois 9 Indiana Iowa 1 Kansas Kentucky Louisiana 1 Maine 5 Maryland Massachusetts 9 Michigan 2 Minnesota 5 Mississippi 3 Missouri 1 Montana Nebraska 1 Nevada 2 New Hampshire 2 New Jersey 2 New Mexico New York 15 North Carolina 2 North Dakota 1 Ohio 2 Oklahoma 1 Oregon 2 Pennsylvania 5 Rhode Island 1 South Carolina South Dakota 2 Tennessee 1 Texas 4 Utah 2 Vermont 2 Virginia 2 Washington 4 West Virginia 1 Wisconsin 1 Wyoming 1
Australia 1
China 2
England 3
Ethiopia 1
Israel 1
Kenya 1
Montenegro 1
London 5
Monte
Nepal 1
Poland 3
Romania 1
Saudia Arabia 1
Singapore 1
Spain 1
Southwest Pacific Waters 1
Switzerland 1
United Kingdom 3
Books that were “out of this world” or dystopia types that gave no clue where they were from are not on the map… or are any books that mention no where they are located such as Small Town Sinners, The Black Shard, and Cut.
I missed 13 states but look forward to seeing how 2012 will turn out! Its fun to get excited about the setting of a book and my book club laughs when we are talking books and I ask what state it is in 😛
If you participated in this challenge in 2011, and have not already done so, please link your wrap up post below.
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If you want to participate in 2012 and have not signed up yet, you can do so here.
Book Journey 