Morning Meanderings… Current events in the world and in life

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)21 Comments

And we are back to rain.  😦 

I mean, Good Morning.  😀

But yeah.. I am at the kitchen table this morning with COFFEE CUP looking out the window hoping I do not develop frown lines.

Seriously.

I have been watching the weather all week feeling pretty good about my bike ride I have in the cities this Saturday…. it looked to be about 62 and partly cloudy…. I can deal with that.  Yet now, I look at that same forecast and now it shows that Saturday will be 62 and showers.  GAH.  Double GAH.  That’s right.  GAH  GAH.

In light of the recent news of Bin Ladin’s death, I pulled a book off my shelf that I found at a book sale a couple of years back.  I read part of it back then, found it interesting,but for whatever reason I shelved it.  The book is Inside The Kingdom (My Life In Saudi Arabia) by Carmen Bin Ladin.  She is Bin Ladin’s sister-in-law.  I think I will look through it at some point here.


Are you reading any books that has have triggered by this recent event?  Why do we (or I in this case) do that?  Is it to feel a connection?

In other closer to home news…. while the bike and the roller blades are safe and dry… I have happily had two Group Power sessions at the YMCA this week and two kick boxing sessions.  If feels so great to be back after missing two weeks.  Last night in kick boxing we did what they call stations where ever two minutes you go to a different person and practice a different move.  When I wore the mits (not the gloves) I was the 1 x 4 station.  Every girl who came to me had to punch the mits once with each hand, then twice, three times then four, then they had their choice to do three knees (where I push down on their knee as they punch it up like they are going to knee me in the stomach, or they could do kicks – where I lift the mits high, one behind the other to my side and they kick three times.  My point of sharing all of this in great detail is that they joked that being at this station I would be pretty sore today as well everyone was punching and kicking at me…

the whole point of sharing this is…

I feel great…. not sore at all.

Oh so good to be back 😛

In reading… I feel like I have been reading the same book and listening to the same audio forever.  I am finishing up the long long overdue Wordshaker read :  The Last Time I Saw You by Elizabeth Berg and really enjoyed the read.  I have The Hobbit going in the car which is close to done and The Painted Veil in the IPOD which I am so surprised how wonderful this is and can not wait to share this with you.  I have a feeling several reviews are going to burst onto the scene shortly as all of these come to a happy and fulfilling end.  😀

Morning Meanderings…. Friends Of The Library and a Magazine Article

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)39 Comments


Good morning.  I am up a little earlier than usual as my two dogs (who apparently OWN me) decided it was time to get up and go outside at 5:45 a.m. as opposed to their usual 6:30 a.m.  I shuffled to the back deck to let them out…. and immediately through slitted eyes searched for the coffee pot. 

On Monday evening I went to my first Friends Of The Library meeting.  This has been a “long time coming” process.  Every year at the annual book sales I see their flyers looking for people to join them.  They are the group that organizes events at the library, Book In A Bag (that is a 10 copies of a popular book to be checked out for book clubs), author events, speakers, etc….

I always thought if I say I love my library as much as I do…. why am I not a part of this.  Well…really there is only one reason…

I love being a part of the excitement of waiting in line for the Library Sale.  Seriously.  Remember my post last fall about the sale?  I have a blast trying to be first in line…. talking with the people outside, waiting excitedly to go in and load my bags with books…..

but here I am…. now a Friend of The Library.

The first meeting for me was interesting.  It was going over the summer plans for the library, which of us would take turns hosting the author events, how much money was in the friend’s account”, the dates for the fall library sale (THE DATES FOR THE FALL LIBRARY SALE!!!), laws being passed, funding for the library…. 

My hubby text me when I was gone  saying *are you almost done with the meeting?  Waiting to eat dinner with you.” and I text back….. “It’s not over yet and it is so interesting.*

Right now I don’t know my role in the group and that was a bit hard for me.  I like to know my purpose.  I figure maybe I am just over eager to get involved and so I stayed quiet except for a couple of discussions and figure I will see how it goes this summer.  I signed up to help with an author event in July and there are a few I would like to attend as well so I figure if I make myself present….. maybe they will see I am committed.  😀

On another completely random note…. (I do like randomness….) I had a review published in our Her Voice magazine which is kind of exciting.  This one was a specific review they asked me to write for the author, however they have asked if I would do a holiday themed review for their winter edition that would appeal to women (my choice SQQQUUEEE!!!) , copyright due in September.  I am so excited about this and you can believe I will have my eyes open at BEA for just the book…..  (I am also open to suggestions here :D)

My Her Voice article on the book Pain To Peace by Pat Bluth (I am page 46… I could not link to the exact page)

Have an awesome day everyone.  I am working then going to group power, then kickboxing tonight.  I have a pretty full day which bums me out a little as I see the sun is out and it is calling me to get on my bike….. but maybe tomorrow….

Promise Not To Tell by Jennifer McMahon

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)41 Comments

In the fall of 2002, 41-year-old Kate Cypher, a divorced Seattle school nurse, returns to New Hope, the decaying Vermont hippie commune where she grew up, to visit her elderly mother, Jean, who’s suffering from Alzheimer’s. Kate has avoided New Hope since the grizzly, unsolved murder of her fifth-grade friend, Del Griswold, 31 years earlier. Kate fears she betrayed Del, a free-spirited farm girl. Did her betrayal cause Del’s death? Who killed Del? Another local girl is murdered in a similar manner at the time of Kate’s return. Could the killer be loose again? Meanwhile, Jean appears to be possessed with Del’s spirit and may have the answers to these questions. As Kate investigates, she learns stunning truths about many events and people from her youth.

What’s the worst thing you have ever done?

I was drawn to this book for a few reasons.  One….  The obvious one.  The cover.  Look at that.  Who is she?  What has she done?  Is she survivor or victim?  Two… the synopsis about a girl who was called “Potato Girl”, uggghhh…. name calling that rile me up…. this falls into my category of “words are powerful, they can hurt and knock you down just as well as they can lift you up.  Three… The author Jennifer McMahon, I had heard the buzz about her style and her writing and I wanted to give her a try.

While this a good ghost story and mystery wrapped into one, I found it to be more than that.  This book is about a friendship.  A heartbreaking and tragic friendship that caused me pause to read and be reminded once again how our words do affect others.


The beauty of this book was that I thought I knew who did it and I was wrong.  And then I had a back up idea of who did it and well… that wasnt exactly right either…. however….

OOPS!  😉  That’s all you get. 

I enjoyed my first read with Jennifer McMahon and next week I will have the opportunity to explore her again when I read The Island Of Lost Girls for another tour. 

I received this book for review from TLC Book Tours


Morning Meanderings… Train Wreck…. (but in a good way)

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)37 Comments

Good morning!  😀  I feel good.  Really good.  The sun is out (odd but true!) and I am sitting at my kitchen table with scrambled egg whites and spinach and of course…. COFFEE CUP. 

It’s very…

zen like.

First words out of my mouth this morning when I woke up:  “train wreck”. 

That is the way my body felt getting up…. my arms ache, my legs ache, my back is tight (not hurt!) just tight, I can feel my calves stretch and pull and it feels WONDERFUL. 

Yesterday I took the morning Group Power class and yesterday late afternoon I took the kick boxing class.  Both for the first time in two weeks since I hurt my back and recovered.  It just feels so good to feel my muscles saying “WHA????????  I thought we were done with that!”

After work today I am either on biking or blading…. the weather looks good and I can not miss out on a good day when it looks like it will turn back to rain the following two days…. *sigh*  and of course hoping so much for a nice Saturday for the MS bike ride.  I can not easily say no to this one as this is a team ride.

What are you doing as spring has inched its way around the world….  are you a garden person (I wish I was more of one!), a flower child?  A runner, a biker, a relax on the deck with a stack of books and a LARGE ice tea person (oooh I like that one!), a spring cleaner, a bird watcher….

I am curious what you do when the weather turns nice.  😛

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)83 Comments

It’s Monday!  What Are You Reading is where we share what we read this past week, what we hope to read this week…. and anything in between!  D  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.

Last weeks winner:

Puss Reboots from A Book Review A Day

Congratulations!  Please choose an item out of the Reading Cafe Grab Shelves  and email me your choice with your mailing address as well!   journeythroughbooks@gmail.com

**Updates have been made to the Reading Cafe Grab shelves!

What a week…. I feel 1,000 percent better with my back and back to my old ways of reading, roller blading, biking, and kick boxing (actually I go back to kick boxing tomorrow).  I did get in some good reading time – not as much as I would have liked but I have had such a nice reading run as of late that I just thirst for more booktime 😉

Here is what  last week looked like:


The Lost Girls by Jennifer Baggett, Holly Corbett, Amanda Pressner, and Sheila DeChantal ok….. not me … but a girl can wish 😀

The Lincoln Lawyer by Matthew Connelly – yes to the book – yes to the movie 😛

Where She Went by Gayle Forman – sequel to If I Stay

Harry Potter – My History and a new movie trailer too!


Review of Cloaked by Alex Finn and a giveaway too!  (You have this week yet to sign up for the free book!)

What Good Is God by Philip Yancey (our Faith N Fiction group review – LOVE YANCEY!)


What Is With Me And All The Berg Books….  ( the answer to why so frequently I have Berg on tap :razz:)

I have a couple of audio ending here shortly and I am looking forward to pressing on from there… here is what looks like will happen this week:

Clara’s relationship with Christian is intense from the start, and like nothing she’s ever experienced before. But what starts as devotion quickly becomes obsession, and it’s almost too late before Clara realizes how far gone Christian is–and what he’s willing to do to make her stay.

Now Clara has left the city—and Christian—behind. No one back home has any idea where she is, but she still struggles to shake off her fear. She knows Christian won’t let her go that easily, and that no matter how far she runs, it may not be far enough….

Ok like…. everyone is reading this!  Seriously…a round the blogs this is popping up so I had to see what is happening here with Deb Caletti!

It’s really going to happen. They said it would, but this is quicker than anyone thought. Everyone has to die. We all know it. With only a few months of life left, sixteen-year-old Tessa knows it better than most. She’s made a list, though ten things she wants to do before she dies. Number one is sex. Starting tonight. But getting what you want isn’t easy. And getting what you want doesn’t always give you what you need. And sometimes the most unexpected things become important.

I found this on my weekend adventures to the library.  I know nothing about this author or the book other than the synopsis.  Sounds like a perfect way to get into a read.

In many ways, Jack is a typical 5-year-old. He likes to read books, watch TV, and play games with his Ma. But Jack is different in a big way–he has lived his entire life in a single room, sharing the tiny space with only his mother and an unnerving nighttime visitor known as Old Nick. For Jack, Room is the only world he knows, but for Ma, it is a prison in which she has tried to craft a normal life for her son. When their insular world suddenly expands beyond the confines of their four walls, the consequences are piercing and extraordinary.

I read and reviewed ROOM last year.  It is on my list for this week because my book club will be reading it for our May 10 meeting and I need a little refresher course.  If you have not experienced ROOM…. you need to and hopefully my book club review will light a fire to make that happen….  paperback edition comes out on May 18.

It took only one look for Genna Hastings to make up her mind about her new next-door neighbor, J. J. Hennessy. She knew his type all too well: Jared Jay Hennessy was tall and handsome, a man who thought he was God’s gift to women. From the pink flamingos dotting his front yard to the all-night boozy barbecues, he threatened to disrupt Genna’s peaceful summer off from teaching. But beneath his carefree smile and teasing nature, J.J. was a man as serious about the future as he was about Genna. He’d come to this quiet Connecticut town to change his life, and he challenged Genna to help him become Mr. Right. It was a challenge she knew she’d be smart to refuse . . . and one J.J. knew she couldn’t resist.

Not my normal type of read but I found this at the library and I am interest in this book by Tami Hoag as 1) she is a Minnesota author and 2) she usually writes good mysteries…. nothing like this…. so we will see 😛

In the fall of 2002, 41-year-old Kate Cypher, a divorced Seattle school nurse, returns to New Hope, the decaying Vermont hippie commune where she grew up, to visit her elderly mother, Jean, who’s suffering from Alzheimer’s. Kate has avoided New Hope since the grizzly, unsolved murder of her fifth-grade friend, Del Griswold, 31 years earlier. Kate fears she betrayed Del, a free-spirited farm girl. Did her betrayal cause Del’s death? Who killed Del? Another local girl is murdered in a similar manner at the time of Kate’s return. Could the killer be loose again? Meanwhile, Jean appears to be possessed with Del’s spirit and may have the answers to these questions. As Kate investigates, she learns stunning truths about many events and people from her youth.

Oh yeah….. this one I have been waiting for!  This is for a blog tour this Tuesday. 

So that’s my week… I am a little heavy on the audio as I will get in a bonus 6 hours when I drive to the bike ride in the cities next Saturday morning. 

I am excited to see what you are reading this week!  I hope to get around to all of you so be sure to link up below where it says “click here”  have a super reading week!


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What Is With Me And All The Berg Books?

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)40 Comments

If you have hung around here any amount of time you have more than likely seen the Elizabeth Berg books popping into my “To Be Read” pile.  I read my first Elizabeth Berg book in January of this year, We Are All Welcome Here.  The book touched and impressed me and I made a commitment that I have never done before – to read all of this authors works in 2011.

Here we are in May – and here is a list of Elizabeth Berg’s books and the ones I have read have reviews attached:

Durable Good

Talk Before Sleep

Range of Motion

The Pull of The Moon

Joy School

What We Keep

Until The Real Thing Comes Along

The Art Of Writing True

Open House

Never Change

Ordinary Life

True To Form

Say When

The Art Of Mending

The Year Of Pleasures

We Are All Welcome Here

The Handmaid and The Carpenter

Dream When You Are Feeling Blue

The Day I Ate Anything I Wanted (returned to library – ran out of time, need to check out again)

Home Safe

The Last Time I Saw You (Currently reading)

Once Upon A Time There Was You

Elizabeth Berg is a Minnesota author.  She was born in 1948, and that would make her the same age as my mom.  🙂 She submitted her first poem to American Girl Magazine when she was 9 and when it was rejected, it took her 25 years before she ever submitted anything again.

FuN To KnOw

Berg hasn’t managed to get her way when it comes to titling her books, usually getting overruled by her agent and editor. She wanted to call Durable Goods The King of Wands, after a tarot card; Range of Motion would have been Telling Songs; and Open House would have been The Hotel Meatloaf. Perhaps Berg should be thankful for her handlers?

Have you ever read everything be an author?  If so who?  If not, which author would you like to read everything by?

Morning Meanderings… Hey Hey Hey – Hello May!!!!

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)35 Comments

Good morning!  I got up too late yesterday morning to do a morning meandering post before I had my class.  This morning I am trying to be pro active and get this one done early 😀

I was supposed to be on the first Minnesota bike ride of the year today in Lakeville Minnesota but funky weather made me cancel out.  I know… I just honestly did not want to ride in the rain.  If the weather does turn out to be nice today I am going to ride the Brainerd trail instead. 

I have another one next Saturday – hopefully the weather is better.

And now… here we are in May.  MAY.  Can you believe it?

I think it was a fairly good month for reading… lets recap…


Stealing Heaven by Elizabeth Scott

The Priest’s Graveyard by Ted Dekker

Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris

Heart Of Deception by M L Malcolm

The Sandalwood Tree by Elle Newmark

Sunday At Tiffany’s by James Patterson

Open House by Elizabeth Berg

Little Princes by Conor Grennan

Hate List by Jennifer Brown

Massacre At Mountain Meadows

Dreamland by Sarah Dessen

The Boy In The Striped Pajamas by John Boyne

The Lincoln Lawyer by Michael Connelly

The Lost Girls by Jennifer, Holly, and Amanda

Where She Went By Gayle Forman

What Good Is God by Philip Yancey

My 2011 Where Are You Reading map is advancing right along and I am having so much fun with it!

I will cover more May stuff tomorrow…. and April comment winners as well 😀

Rollerblading miles:  18

 Biking miles:  15

What Good Is God? by Philip Yancey

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)3 Comments

When tragedy strikes as we see all over our world it is a question that plagues all walks of faith.  How does belief matter in those who suffer?  Phillip Yancey takes us within these pages to the aftermath of the Virginia Tech school shooting to impoverish communities to a convention for former prostitutes – who prefer to be called former sex workers.

His travels open up opportunities to see God in ordinary people, sometimes bruised and battered, but time and again there is a spirit of faith and hope that is humbling.

This book was read as part of our Faith N Fiction group.  I come into this read a little bias as I have enjoyed Yancey’s writing in the past and even taught a class for two years based off his book What’s So Amazing About Grace? Yancey likes to take a topic, and break it down into bite size pieces for us, many times in story form of real people in real situations and that is what he did here.


Any one of us can recall something during our life time either personal, or globally astronomical that would make the strongest of faith question, “How can God be in the midst of this?”   I found it interesting the title of the book was part of our pre-review discussion as a group as the question came up, was this a good title for this book and does the question get answered.

Great question.

I for one think yes, while Yancey does not come right out and give the answer, I feel it is demonstrated throughout the stories in which he shares.  Time and again he travels to be with the hurt and the broken and their stories come through.  It reminds me of people I know such as Patty Wetterling (in 1989, while I was pregnant with our second son, hers was abducted while riding his bike not 70 miles from my own home and never found).  Wetterling went on to found the Jacob Wetterling Foundation, and continues to this day to be a well known advocate for child safety.  My friend Connie Stanz, the amazing lady who I am writing about, contacted AIDS in 1981 from a blood transfusion.  This year she has lived 30 years with AIDS and runs a camp locally for children and adults with AIDS.  Year round she speaks on stigma, taking care of yourself, etc….

Where is God when it hurts? Where God’s people are. Where misery is, there is the Messiah, and now on earth the Messiah takes form in the shape of the church. That’s what the body of Christ means.  Page 34

Ok – maybe I digress but what I seen in this book was people in all situations maybe not on the track that they thought they would be on due to life “opportunities”, I see God using us the ordinary and making us extraordinary.  This is faith in tragedy’s wake.  Early on in the book Philip Yancey talks about a near death experience when he rolls his SUV he is driving.  While waiting for help three questions came to mind:

1.Who will I miss?  2.How have I spent my life?  3.Am I ready for what happens next?

Those are questions that give me pause as well and as he wrote them I had to ask them to myself. 

The book has some interesting chapters and one that stuck with most of the Faith N Fiction group was the one about the former sex workers.  I enjoyed parts of this book and the stories that went with it.  I liked the thought of Philip going into these different parts of our world and seeing that God does work within the brokenness of our circumstances.  

So what Good is God?  I believe He builds us up through the ashes of broken lives and dreams.  Look in the book… look at the things that people have faced and how they came through.  I seen this read as showing that God does show up – not always in the ways we had hoped, but always as He had planned.  Advocates, strong people of faith are built in many cases through hardship.

Romans 8 reminds us that all these things can be used for good.  All of them are redeemable.

The book is not perfect, I liked it but as I said earlier, I have liked some of his other writing better.  My takeaway comes a lot from who I am and where my passions lie and how God works within these passions in me.

(I apologize if this review seems scattered, I booked myself pretty tight with commitments this weekend and had a class last night and today again from 8 – noon.  I had a small window to come home and write this before I have to go and pick up Chance…. the proactive side of me should have written this days ago and it is totally on me that I waited until the last minutes to organize my thoughts here.  :))

There are some wonderful thoughts around the blogesphere today on this book… please stop and check them out!

The Faith and Fiction Round Table :

Amy at My Friend Amy
Heather at Book Addiction
Julie at Book Hooked Blog
Carrie at Books and Movies
Jennifer at Crazy for Books
Ronnica at Ignorant Historian                                                                                                                                                                                                               Hannah at Word Lily
Nicole at Linus’s Blanket
Thomas at My Random Thoughts
Liz at Roving Reads
Sherry at Semicolon
Florinda at The 3 R’s Blog
Tina at Tina’s Book Reviews
Brooks at Victorious Cafe

Fairy Tale Fortnight: Review and Giveaway of Cloaked by Alex Finn

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)23 Comments

 When I seen this bookish adventure coming up hosted by Misty at The Book Rat and Ashley from Basically Amazing Books, lets just say my “spidey senses”…. were activated…

I had not read any of the “New” fairy tales but have many fond memories of fairy tales as a child…

… and I remember my Great Grandmother reading these stories to me, large hard cover books with gorgeously detailed pages read so often that I knew the words before I could read them…. and who knew then that those stories would stick with me a lifetime? 

So… the question was when I was asked to create a quest post about a fairy tale book of my choice… could I bring the magic of those books back?

Fairy tale is a type of short narrative that typically features such folkloric characters, such as fairies, goblins, elves, trolls, dwarves, giants or gnomes, and usually magic or enchantments.

I personally find this interesting as in todays stories of wolves, vampires, fairies and feys – they are considered paranormal and not fairy tales at all. 

And my quest began…. did I want to read and review a classic fairy tale… or did my literary mind long for  a new fairy tale and see what they were like… not knowing of course, old or new – if I would be able to capture that fairy dust again that makes a fairy tale come to life…

“flip flip flip” I went through the pages of fairy tales I found on-line and “click click click” as I went through the books on Amazon until…. finally

FINALLY….

I settled on Cloaked.

Why?

I liked that is seemed to be a mix and match of old fairy tales put in a blender to make a new one… it was both old and new…. both classic and new release….  that appealed to me.  I also liked that this was the author of Beastly which I have not read, but know of and know that it is also being made into a movie…. that too appealed to me. 

The review and giveaway are not posted here as I did this review for this event at Book Rat and Basically Amazing books.  Pop over to see the review here and the giveaway here. 

As for here….. what are your thoughts on Fairy Tales?  Yay back in the day but Nay now?  Or yay and yay?  Do you like the new and creative touches to the old classic tales or do you prefer them left untouched as they were?

Harry Potter – My History (and a new trailer too)

Published on by Sheila (Book Journey)33 Comments

What a bitter-sweet year this is with the final movie release of the final book of the Harry Potter Series.  I have watched my kids grow up around the Harry Potter books.  I have watched documentaries on J K Rowling which only increased my respect for her as a single mom writing out that first book on napkins and scratch paper in a coffee shop.  She truly is a rags to riches story and has long been one of the authors I really respect.

Harry Potter has been a part of my life since 1997.  As I look back over my collection I have to think what a win for Scholastic, winning the bid for the books in the US.  I remember that first copy coming into our home.  I remember my boys had it – I did not read (and would not read it until after I heard a  movie was coming out and wanted to see what they hype was all about – this was in 2000)

My two sons love this... I did too after I read it in 2001

And really, after that first reading for me… I was a Potter head.  I had catching up to do as of this time the fourth book in the series was coming out and they were getting BIGGER and BETTER.  The first book started over 200 pages and by the fourth they are between 500 – 700 pages. 

Brilliant.  By this time, each book that came out we had to purchase it triplicate (YAY J K!) as two teenage boys and myself…. we could not share.  We would all be in our designated corners – sworn to not tip the others off if anyone was ahead.  Of course I did mention I had two boys…. so that rule didn’t exactly stick…. groans would be heard as they tried to ruin a scene for the other, sometimes it was true… sometimes it was a fake out “Oh no!  I can not believe he died on page 527!”

Many other Potterish things are happening now as well.  We go to the midnight showings of the movies.  We have waited in lines at 12:01 on book release day to be sure we have our copies and can start reading right away.  Release dates (books and movies) are actually put on the calendar so we are sure to keep that day free and not make other commitments. 

The 1st year
Harry,Ron, Hermoine - Now

Somewhere I have pictures of the boys running around the house with blankets tied around their necks and pointing sticks at each other as they cast spells for a couple of hours one evening. 

By the time book 7 came out my oldest boy was out of the house and it was just Justin and I reading the books at home.  I had pre ordered the seventh book as we had planned to be camping release day (I know what timing right?).  I had never pre ordered one of these books before and was nervous about delivery.  When our plans changed and we stayed home that weekend I was a wreck release day… wondering if I should have hit the stores at midnight and picked up a copy, wondering if release day did not necessarily mean delivery day and knowing the whole world was already deep into their books while I in Brainerd Minnesota was waiting on my back deck for the UPS man. 

Finally by late morning as I was wondering if anyone in town had any copies left I discovered that my copy of the book was tucked into the screen door off the front door to our home.  Never mind how long it had been there…. I will never know.  😛 


This time, Justin who was working on release day (again…. who’s kid is this who would work on book release day?  Really….) was behind me on reading.  Yup.  So by the time he got home I was 300+ pages in and while I prepped supper (I know I know… I should have ordered in!) he started reading with my ever watchful eye waiting for his reactions….. finally he banished me from watching him read – which is cruel. 

SO….. being the great mom that I am…. the next day while he was working…. I went through his copy of the book and put post it notes on the page AFTER anything big happened.  So – when someone died, or when Mrs. Wheasley swears for the first time in any of the books, on the next page would be a post it note from me saying something like “Whoa!!!  Can you believe that just happened?”  He laughed when he found the first one…. after the second one he asked if I had done that through his entire book.  I chose not to answer.

Every time I pick up one of these books I find something more that impresses me …. things in first books come up again in later books, hints I did not pick up on the first time catch me the second time around. 

There is so much to this season that is Harry Potter.  The merchandising, the websites, Harry Potter world now in Orlando, and Reagan and I are going to the Harry Potter Exhibit while we are in New York at the end of May. SSQQUUUEEEE!!!!

What an opportunity I have had to be along from the start of this ride…. I chalk these up as future classics…. and I for one feel privileged to be among the ones who were there from Hogwarts to Hallows.

I leave you with this – the new trailer for the last of the Harry Potter movies – Deathly Hallows part II – July 15th: