Rain and snow showers likely. Snow accumulation of 1 to 2 inches. Highs 42 to 47. North winds 10 to 15 mph. Chance of precipitation 70 percent.
Tonight
Cloudy. A chance of rain and snow showers in the evening…then a slight chance of rain and snow showers after midnight. Lows 33 to 38. North winds 10 to 15 mph. Chance of precipitation 40 percent.
*sigh* The first bike ride of the season is this coming Sunday…. I am so hoping the weather is NICE.
Are you a fan of fairy tales? I had my favs as a kid that’s for sure but really haven’t given them much thought as an adult…. that is until this little beauty was created by Book Rat and Basically Amazing Books.
If you click on the above picture it will take you to the schedule of happenings…. book reviews of fairy tales both old and new…. giveaways, and fun posts….
My review of CLOAKED by Alex Finn (author of Beastly) will go live on both sites on Friday. One site will feature my review… the other will feature a giveaway I am offering along with it. I will talk more about this on Friday. 😀
I am off to work… I have a heavy schedule today and I think Dawn (awesome co-worker and Office Manager) and I are going out to lunch today to celebrate administration week. Tonight… I am seriously contemplating kick boxing but that depends on a meeting I have later tonight and I may need to wait one more day to put on the gloves again.
The big 30 is right around the corner and friends Jennifer, Holly, and Amanda are starting to question if they are truly doing what they wanted to be doing with their lives. In 2006, the girls make a pact, quit their media jobs in Manhattan and take a leap of adventure, committing to a year-long trip around the world in search of inspiration and direction. In the dust of their departure they leave a trail of boyfriends and apartments.
Through thick and thin (and sometimes…. it does wear very thin!) the girls learn to rely on each other… sometimes funny, sometimes scary, and everything in between.
Amanda, Holly, and Jennifer (The NOT SO Lost Girls)
I recently read this joke that said, when a man takes off to find himself it is called a journey. When a woman does it, she is lost. Reading The Lost Girls made me laugh at the thought of this… these girls are not lost at all… they are adventurers; they have a heart for more and they speak my language. 😀
Have you ever just wanted to get lost? I used to have this fantasy of going off in the woods like Grizzly Adams (or…. err.. the female version of Adams) and just get away from it all…. the commitments, phones, the noise of life… and live off the land. Ok, ok you scoff because those who know me know about four days of that and I would be packing it up for the “big city” of Brainerd Minnesota, constantly checking for cell phone reception….. my point however is – that I did have this dream of myself just getting up and going, and so did these three girls.
I adored this book of the adventures of these three amazing women who threw caution to the wind and explored our world as most of us have only dreamed of. (Honestly – I wish they would have called me -I would have gladly been a fourth lost girl!)
There is so much to this book that I enjoyed I do not even know where to begin! The part of their trip that took them to Kenya where they worked in an orphanage with girls touched me deeply. Touring the killing fields in Cambodia would have taken my breath away. They traveled to the places that may not be the easiest, and I appreciated that this was not a book of “cruise ship” port stops.
I also love love ♥LOVE ♥that these women did not walk away from boring slouchy jobs… oh no, their jobs sound to me like…. well…. BLISS. Jennifer was a marketing manager at VH1, Holly was an Editor at Self Magazine and Amanda was an editor at Shape Magazine. The move to motivation was not the fact that they did not like these jobs, but more that they wondered if this was what they really wanted out of life…. the working too much… and living too little.
In the end the women found that the problems that they once found to be all-consuming in their pre-lost girls moment, were nothing compared to the troubles those in other countries face. Jennifer, Holly, and Amanda learned that things are never as bad as they seem and their lives no matter how cluttered and frustrating at times, are still pretty great lives.
For anyone who has ever dreamed of exploring the world and just letting go and seeing what happens, this book can take you there.
Good Morning! The day is looking a little dreary here in Minnesota but yesterday was not. A GORGEOUS day and I threw caution (and the chiropractor) to the wind.
I went rollerblading with my friend Wendy. 😛
I know I was just laid up in a chair for 4 days during my back pain and craziness but yesterday I felt GOOD. I could move and I wanted to move…. and yes, I can still move today. 😀
We bladed 8 miles which was a nice start to our trail riding for 2011. Wendy and I biked and bladed A LOT in 2010 on the Paul Bunyan trail, it really was a staple in building our friendship – and we really put the miles on both bikes and blades.
Today as I look outside, I am a little disheartened to see that as the weather was predicted to, it does look like it will rain. *sigh* That’s ok… I work until 3 and then I will get a couple of things done in town and around the house.
Bookish news…
See this little gem here to the right? This showed up in the Shelf Awareness this morning. How good does this book look? (Mmmm hmm…. I said book look…. I am practically Dr. Suess :razz:)
In her twenties, Emily Wilson was on top of the world: she had a bestselling novel, a husband plucked from the pages of GQ, and a one-way ticket to happily ever after.
Ten years later, the tide has turned on Emily’s good fortune. So when her great-aunt Bee invites her to spend the month of March on Bainbridge Island in Washington State, Emily accepts, longing to be healed by the sea. Researching her next book, Emily discovers a red velvet diary, dated 1943, whose contents reveal startling connections to her own life.
I like the cover, and I like what it says about the book itself.
I would say the majority is found be reading blogs or watching authors I enjoy. I did not make it through all the Monday What Are You reading posts yesterday but hope to keep working on them through the week…. I do find a lot of bookish treasures that way. 😀
I am curious, where do you find many of your books that you read? Recommendations? Book Blog? Best sellers lists?
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.
Due to a crazy pinched nerve in my back that slowly took me out of the game this week… I managed a LOT of reading time. I made it through books over the past four days that I have been wanting to get to for awhile. And those I have not posted yet I do have the reviews written so really…. I feel GOOD!
Here is the week in review: (dim the lights please)
Book Bloggers Beware!!! (my trips to the chiropractor this week led me to a discovery and this could happen to you too!)
I also read and reviewed CLOAKED by Alex Flinn and I will link to that when it shows up on the Fairy Tale Fortnight site.
I have more book reviews written just not posted yet. Going into this next week there should be a pretty steady flow. 😀 Here is my plan for the week:
After a thrilling trip to South America, Jen, Holly, and Amanda, three Manhattanites in their mid-twenties, decide to climb off the career ladder for a year to travel the world. Inspired by The Flame Trees of Thika, Jen has always longed to see Kenya, while Holly wants to study yoga in an ashram in India. Amanda has dreams of pursuing a career as a freelance travel writer, but when she takes time out from their adventures to work on articles, it grates on the nerves of Jen, who is hoping to truly immerse herself in their surroundings. Though the three encounter snafus on the way—Holly initially finds the rigors of the ashram disheartening, the girls find themselves trapped in a car with a frightening taxi driver in Vietnam—there are many rewards on the journey, most notably when the three friends organize a group of Kenyan girls to perform a play about an influential Kenyan woman. For those with similar wanderlust, Jen, Holly and Amanda’s lively accounts make for the ideal armchair journey.
Blog tour this Tuesday….. grab your hat – we are going on an adventure! 😀
For everyone who has received an invitation to their high-school reunion and broken out in a cold, clammy sweat, Berg nails the experience: the dread that morphs into downright fear; the bouts of self-doubt that coalesce into prolonged periods of self-loathing; the internal inventory that comes up short in the bragging-rights column. Of course, there’s just as much potential for life-affirming and life-altering revelations. Glory days can be relived, damaged reputations repaired, lapsed friendships restored, lost loves rekindled. As Dorothy, Pete, Mary Alice, Candy, and Lester consider returning to Clear Springs for their fortieth high-school reunion, each contemplates the chance for redemption and revenge, renewal and retribution. Ultimately, they are then surprised to discover how much they have yet to learn about human nature and their own capacity for joy and forgiveness.
This is the WORDSHAKER on line book group read and I am so late on this it is embarrassing to even post it (I am the host of this on line group and really should be hung up by my toe nails and force fed orange peels….)
Their Eyes Were Watching God, is an enduring Southern love story sparkling with wit, beauty, and heartfelt wisdom. Told in the captivating voice of a woman who refuses to live in sorrow, bitterness, fear, or foolish romantic dreams, it is the story of fair-skinned, fiercely independent Janie Crawford, and her evolving selfhood through three marriages and a life marked by poverty, trials, and purpose. A true literary wonder, Hurston’s masterwork remains as relevant and affecting today as when it was first published — perhaps the most widely read and highly regarded novel in the entire canon of African American literature.
This one is new to me…. I am drawn to it… I dont know why.
AND… another audio but it is a mystery to me… I have several requested at the Library, just depends on what comes in first 😀
So there it is … the plan 😀 I am super excited to see what your plan for this week is 😀 Please add your Monday What Are You Reading post to the Linky below and I as well as others will come and check out what you are reading 🙂 I love this part of my week! 😀
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A couple of weeks ago I shared with you my thoughts with you on “What I Learned at BEA“. This was a recap of my adventures last year as a first timer to the Book Expo in New York and what advice I would give those of you who are new to BEA. (I am paying it forward here as last year there were many posts about BEA and what to bring and not to bring and I devoured all their advice.
My roomy again will be the lovely Reagan of Miss Remmers Reviews and she also has created a couple good posts I encourage you to check out…. she is braver than me – she even did a VLOG. 😀
** If you have written a BEA post let me know and I will link you up here
If you have any BEA “utiful” questions – please post them here on the comments – if I do not know the answer myself I will do my best to find out for you. Oh – keep the questions BEA related…. I know nothing about the earths hemisphere or the volume pitch a killer whale can produce. 😛
It is Berlin 1942. When 9-year-old Bruno comes home from school one day he finds that the house maid is in his room packing up his belongings. In short notice he finds out that his father has received a promotion and the family will moving to a new home far away. Bruno is devastated as his best friends in the world are here and he loves his neighborhood and loves to explore, however there is no changing the plan that has been set in motion.
Along with his mother, and 12-year-old sister Gretel, they make the move. Their new home is large and creepy. There are no neighborhood kids to play with and nothing to do. Out of boredom Bruno decides to go on an adventure and discover what lies beyond the property where his father has forbidden him to go…. and here is where he finds Shmuel, a skinny, dirty, little Jewish boy.
Shmuel is also 9, in fact he was born on the same day as Bruno! Bruno is excited and is already planning adventures in his mind of what he and Shmuel can do together. Yet this seems to be a problem as Shmuel is on the other side of a large sharp wired fence and for some reason is always wearing striped pajamas, much like all the other men and boys behind this fence.
As Shmuel tells his story of being taken from their home and made to live in a one room area with another family making 11 people living in the room, Bruno feels Shmuel must be lying, surely that many people in such a small space is impossible!
Bruno continues to sneak out to see Shmaul and brings him food which he devours, and they talk and talk and become fast friends. While Bruno does not understand his fathers job, he does know that his father would not approve of this friendship so he keeps his adventures with Shmaul a secret.
Until one day Bruno and Shmaul have an idea… an idea that brings this book to a conclusion that pretty much stopped my heart and put a whole new twist on Holocaust literature.
This movie was one that will stick with me for a long long time.
I seen the movie, The Boy In The Striped Pajamas before I read this book. That is usually a taboo thing for me to do, but I had never read the story and one day thought it would be good to see the movie on Netflix. The movie shocked me. How can I think I know what a book is about but I really know nothing?
In short time I had secured the book from my local library as I always appreciate the book more than the movie (well – almost always). Yes time went by and I renewed the book twice and still had not read it. In fact this week it was in the car to go back to the library unread…. and then when I was going to the chiropractor this week I needed something to read in the waiting room and guess what the only book was I had in the car? Yup…. this one.
So – between the three appointments I had this week, I devoured this book to the point of no return…. and I mean that literally…. when I went to the library and turned in an audio I had completed, this book remained in the car. No return not then anyway…. 😀
The Boy In The Striped Pajamas is a devastating read. Lets just put that out there now. I am amazed how we as human beings can treat each other so poorly – be so mislead in what we think is right… it breaks my heart. Time and time again you can read fictional stories like this (that may as well have been real) as well as true stories that you wish were fiction.
Hannah at Word Lily has been posting a blurb out of a book called True Grit, every day for lent. Talk about your frightening statistics and some of them are just what I am talking about here… the things we as people do to other people – some due to race, background, gender, faith, where they live, the list goes on and on…
and so… back to the book. I give John Boyne so much credit for writing this. It is a hard story. It is a maddening story. I was just as impressed with the book as I was with the movie. The innocence of Bruno is perfect as he meets daily with his friend and not understanding that Shmaul is in a concentration camp – or even what that would mean.
What this book shows is a friendship that no fences can separate. It is a heartbreaking innocent story that could not have been told as well if the main character had been an adult. It had to be a child… the innocence of childhood that makes this work…. and work well.
The movie shocked me…. the book broke me.
A POWERFUL read of historical fiction that will knock personal prejudices down to rubble.
Well… what’s a girl to do who has been layed up since Friday with a bag of ice on her back and shoulder-blade between chiropractor appointments? I am under Doctors orders to not lift, strain, work out…
Well of course I am going to READ.
I did make a dent in the reading over the weekend which was actually…. nice. With the weather still cool and rainy it was not a big sacrifice to hang out in the house. We have no big Easter plans, other than College Son is coming home this morning – WOO HOO!!!!! And we get the day to hang out and he goes back to Mankato tomorrow.
We used to have the Easter Basket hunt when the boys were real young. As they got older… it became a neighborhood scavenger hunt. All the neighbors have been here since I was growing up including my aunt who lives two doors down. The boys would be given a clue at the house and they would have to do whatever it said to get the next one… such as:
“Go over to John and Peggy’s and hop on one foot while asking if you can borrow an egg.”
Of course all the neighbors were in on it and they would give them the next clue until they came tot he final clue which would give them hints to the “basket” whereabouts. Of course the “basket” itself was always improvised as I did not like the traditional baskets….
One year the candy and goodies were in baseball caps, one year football helmets, once plastic totes filled with their favorite trading cards and tickets to a Weird Al concert (which was their first concert!) and then one year – they were new 10 speed bikes hiding in my aunts garage.
As I type this up… I am filled with fond memories of having the kids here. At this moment they would have been all over me waiting for their first clue. 😀
I miss that.
Do you have any fun Easter traditions?
I am still hurting, but not as bad. I have another appointment tomorrow but am really hoping to get to the gym tomorrow – even if it is only the treadmill. The first big bike ride of the year is next Sunday – the Ironman…..and I am excited about it, praying for good weather… and of course none of this back/arm stuff. I really want to do the ride. 😀
It was just a list. Just a list that Valerie started in a notebook of those people in school…. in life who bugged her. And when Valerie and Nick became a couple… she shared the list with him and it became a “thing” they liked to add to…. the bullies, the tormentors, just a way to vent and release the pressures of home life for both her and Nick.
or so Valerie thought.
Until one day at the end of their Jr year in High School, Nick pulls a gun in the commons, looking to take out those on “the list.” When the shooting is done, 6 students and one teacher are dead, Valerie has a bullet in her leg from trying to stop Nick, who shoots her before he takes his own life. The list is discovered as evidence and it looks to her fellow students as well as Valerie’s parents, that she was an accomplish in the shooting.
And even Valerie has to wonder…. was she to blame?
When she bravely returns to school for her SR year she finds that everything has changed. Her once friends have nothing to do with her. With the help of her therapist and a determination to see things as they really are, Valerie begins to see things in a new light and finds friendship comes in many different forms.
Another cover, but I prefer the one I have which is the one at the top of this review
Ok… you may be saying, “really Sheila? Another book on school shootings?” And in a way you could be right. I have no idea why tragedy draws me in to books – fiction and non, but it does. Take my reviews of Think No Evil by Jonas Beiler (true Amish school shooting), Columbine by Dave Cullen ( true story about the Columbine shootings), Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Piccoult (fictional story of a boy teased to the point of doing the unthinkable), We Need To Talk About Kevin (fictional take on a troubled boy…) read pre-blogging for book club, She Said Yes (pre blogging read about a girl who survived the Columbine shooting… ok, you get the gist… I do read about tragedy and overcoming…
BUT (and it is a big BUT) this book is not about a school shooting. Ok – it is, as in it starts with a school shooting… but really, this book is about Valerie and what Valerie does to overcome what has happened. Even the author says this in the back of the book under authors note, “Hate List was never a story about a school shooting. From day one, this story was always Valerie’s story.”
I really like that because Valerie’s story can be so many others story…. others who have survived similar tragedies and must go on… because really, not only the dead are victims in any crime. So many live, or try to live with the aftermath and Hate List is really about that. What do you do when you feel you should have known what was going to happen? When others blame you and you are not so sure they are wrong?
Author, Jennifer Brown says when the idea was forming in her mind for this book there was a song stuck in her head… it was Nickelback’s If Everyone Cared”, and so to put you right “there for the rest of this review…. let’s get a little Nickelback going, shall we?
Hmmmm….. Valerie’s song? I think so. (I have to say this is an easy sell for me – I really like Nickelback).
I really liked the way Jennifer Brown wrote this book. I mentioned books above that I have read with a similar topic but this is the first book I have read that focused on a survivor and how she moved forward. And really I have to say this story speaks to anyone who has survived any tragedy…. you become someone new and as you try to understand this “new you” and you battle your old self as well.
Ok I digress…
Valerie is a well written character and Jennifer Brown does an excellent job of flushing out who she really is as she struggles to find her place in this new world, after the shooting. What I also liked is that throughout the entire book we know that Valerie loved Nick and…. I can even understand that. Nick is also written well so you can see him as a vulnerable victim as well. I think the beauty of this particular book is that it takes some unlikely friends to change the mind of an entire school – to look at things differently and see things and people as they really are.
“Just concentrate on being in the moment”, he said. “Don’t read into things. See what’s really there ok?”
~ Dr. Hieler page 17 – Hate List
Hate List was an amazing read. In the end – I was left with that gentle hum inside of reading a great book. I still keep flipping through those final pages, mainly because it makes so much sense. Its like I am trying to hold that to memory, that we are who we make ourselves to be… and sometimes… sometimes, it takes a completely different perspective to open our eyes to what is real.
Good morning! 😀 Lovely post title right? Just gives you warm fuzzies I am sure…..
If you have been following my “pain” saga (here and here) the past few days you will know I have been having back pain and seeing a chiropractor. Note: This is something I don’t do…. haven’t done…. and am going because as of Thursday morning I could hardly turn my neck… what I thought was a pinched nerve went from between my shoulder blades, up my back into my neck and right arm. Yesterday morning after having my first treatment on Thursday, I could not turn my back, sit in a chair, or stand. My back felt like it was on FIRE and I called the chiropractor again in tears saying I was not sure if I needed them or a doctor but something was seriously wrong (and yeah…. scary too).
After this second time in they took x rays of my neck and spine. My spine was perfectly straight (hey I have to take the little wins right?) however my neck was looking straight too which I though “yay me”, but was told…. nah ahh.
Apparently our necks are supposed to have a nice backward “C” shaped curve to them. Mine does not. What was shown to me is that people who do a lot of computer work, laptop work, and even reading, can cause their neck to pull straight from looking down so much…. putting pressure into my arm and back.
Guilty. On all three accounts. 😯
So what do I do?
I need to keep my laptop on a table at a level that I am not leaning over it (instead of my usual on my lap in the recliner). When I read the book needs to come up more so I am not looking down to read it but more straight forward…. and I am supposed to exercise my neck by rolling it back as far as I can….
Even though I work out, the doctor said while that is good and strengthens muscles, it is apparently not enough to counteract the time I spend at a computer. This is true… between work and writing, I easily spend 4 – 10 hours on the computer a day.
So there is this mornings post. I figure many of you must spend pretty close to the same amount of time reading, and computer work as I do, so maybe a little heads up will prevent you from the pain I am currently in.I have been so tired! 😀
This morning I have another appointment. They have been doing an ultra sound on my shoulder and working out the ache and pain there and I am taking 800 milligrams of ibuprofen every 5 hours.
On the upside – hanging out at the house with an ice pack has caused me to really catch up on some reading. I have finished two books in the last two days and started a third. Nuts I know… but I am always looking for the bright side and hopefully will be back to working out on Monday.
Do any of you experience any of this pain? What do you do to prevent it?
Caitlin has always seemed to sit in her older sister Cass’s shadow. Even now that Cass has left their home, running away to live with her boyfriend…. leaving… on Caitlin’s sixteenth birthday.
Caitlin tries to move forward in her life while her parents watch her every move wondering if she too will take flight. Caitlin’s mom starts trying to mold Caitlin who had always been the invisible sister into her everything. When Caitlin makes the cheer leading squad (ugh…. cheer leading) her mom takes charge with schedules and uniforms and showing up at practices – much as she used to do with Cass. Could it be that Cass left because she felt smothered by this parental over achieving?
And as Caitlin deals with this new life she finds herself caught up in a whirl of new friends, friends that did not know here as Cass’s sister… friends she can hide herself in and Caitlin begins to become smaller and smaller, flying under the radar as she experiments with drugs and alcohol under the overly watchful eye of her new boyfriend Rogerson.
Strange, sleepy Rogerson, with his long brown dreads and brilliant green eyes, had seemed to Caitlin to be an open door. With him she could be anybody, not just the second-rate shadow of her older sister, Cass. But now she is drowning in the vacuum Cass left behind when she turned her back on her family’s expectations by running off with a boyfriend. Caitlin wanders in a dream land of drugs and a nightmare of Rogerson’s sudden fists, lost in her search for herself.
And this begins my adventures in reading with Sarah Dessen. I thoroughly enjoyed this book in audio format. Narrated by Liz Morton, she brought the perfect “bored and uninterested” voice to Caitlin and her friends as well as she brought the concern into her parents. I found this book to be an important read just like SPEAK is.
Caitlin’s attempt to lose herself after she loses her sister is one that I believe speaks volumes to our society. As Cass was the one who always took the spotlight, Caitlin had no idea what to do when Cass left and the spotlight was all too glaring on her. In times of great tragedy or loss in our lives it is tempting to try to reinvent yourself to cover up the pain. Cass nearly succeeds but by doing so puts herself in grave danger with an abusive boyfriend and drug loving friends.
SO just for a moment without going “spoilerly”… I can’t stand Rogerson. He is a horrible teen who is obviously carrying on what he has learned in his own home. Sad…. very sad. So saying that – I can also say that I am reading this from a parental perspective and Rogerson is a bug that must be squashed…. from a teen girls perspective he is dreamy. Mysterious. Brooding. Handsome. Dangerous. All the things that many young girls are attracted to and really this is where the heart of Dreamland lies within the relationship between Rogerson and Caitlin.
This book as I mentioned above is an important read. Abuse is never something to be accepted.You can feel bad for the one causing the abuse, you can understand why they may be doing it – but it is wrong and they need help.
Teen dating violence often is hidden because teenagers typically:
are inexperienced with dating relationships.
are pressured by peers to act violently.
want independence from parents.
have “romantic” views of love.
Teen dating violence is influenced by how teenagers look at themselves and others.
Young men may believe:
they have the right to “control” their female partners in any way necessary.
“masculinity” is physical aggressiveness
they “possess” their partner.
they should demand intimacy.
they may lose respect if they are attentive and supportive toward their girlfriends.
Young women may believe:
they are responsible for solving problems in their relationships
their boyfriend’s jealousy, possessiveness and even physical abuse, is “romantic.”
abuse is “normal” because their friends are also being abused.
there is no one to ask for help.
Sarah Dessens characters are memorable and even beyond the abuse in the book the story line is strong, and witty. There is more to this book than your typical YA although it will appeal to those who are just looking for a good read as well.
Book Journey 